Category Archives: Unpacking The Writer

Unpacking The Writer ► Packing Up the Newsroom

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Welcome to another exciting episode of Unpacking the Writer, the monthly column in which I pull back the curtain — Wizard of Oz-like — and expose some of the inner-workings of a low-budget innertube news room and its hardworking staff.

First up, and most importantly, we had another recent health scare with Pops. While out having dinner with the boys, he choked on a piece of treif (breaded shrimp) and had to be Heimliched by a EMT who just happened to be at the restaurant. None of Pops’ friends picked up on the warning signs that he was choking. Had it not been for the EMT, Pops would have choked to death. He was rushed to the hospital as a precaution, wanting to make sure he didn’t aspirate any food. They kept him a few nights, until all tests proved him good to go. Now he’s back home and back into his regular groove.

A scare like that makes me realize I’ve not really developed a back up plan. My original plan when I moved to Florida never came to fruition. When I arrived I figured it would be easy to find a job as a professional writer, something I had actually been for many decades in Canada. However, I was going from the small pond of Canada into the mighty ‘Merkin ocean. I couldn’t even get the sharks to look at this minnow, to torture the metaphor further. I found it impossible to get editors in Florida to even look at my previous writing, let alone consider a conversation with someone from — sniff — Canada. They all got off the phone with me as quickly as possible.

Meanwhile, I wrote for Newshounds (“We watch Fox so you don’t have to”) for a couple of years under the nom de plume of Aunty Em; and also free-lanced for Stones Detroit; Curbed Miami (one day I hope to get paid the miniscule amount promised for that feature article); PolitucusUSA; and had a disastrous experience at WebVee Guide that started out looking quite lucrative, but ended in farce in just one week. That was easily the craziest experience I’ve ever had with an editor in a writing career working with crazy editors.

Long story short: I’ve simply been unable to find a self-sustaining and continuous source of writing income.

I make no bones about it. I started the Not Now Silly Newsroom (in part) with the hope that it would generate some slight income. While the Not Now Silly Newsroom has generated some money, it’s so miniscule that it would barely keep a hamster alive. I eat far more than hamsters.

The biggest problem is that I’ve not been able to attract sufficient eyeballs to light up the scoreboard. Naturally I feel my writing is so golden that I’m confused the world has not beat a path to this mousetrap. I may have misjudged my cheesy appeal. NAH! Who am I kidding? I’m great! Like finely aged brie.

I’ve managed to convince myself it’s merely because not enough people have shared these articles with their family, friends, children, neighbours, and grocer. (Hint. Hint.)

Another problem in attracting eyeballs — or so I’ve been told many times by many people — is that I am using the Blogger platform, as opposed to a a WordPress template under my own domain name. To that end I’ve hired a big deal Web Designer, with offices on two continents and clients around the World Wide Web. With this company’s guidance the Not Now Silly Newsroom is being rebuilt from the ground up. I’m excited because I’ve seen the mock-ups. I hope you are too.

However, it’s more important than ever before that the Not Now Silly Newsroom generate some income, because there are additional costs associated with this renovation. Only propriety, and the Blogger Terms of Service, prevent me from begging you to click on the adverts on this page. (Hint. Hint.)

Not all headlines are funny. Some are quite tragic.

HEADLINES DU JOUR: I can’t remember if I shared the genesis and creation of Headlines Du Jour, but it can’t hurt to repeat it. Remember: It’s only a rerun if you’ve heard it before.

Headlines Du Jour came to me in a dream. No, really, I dreamed it. 

I don’t usually remember my dreams when I wake up, other than wisps of smoke that I can’t hold onto for more than a minute or two. One morning I woke up after having worked an entire night in the Not Now Silly Newsroom in my dream state. Yannow those dreams when you wake up after you’ve been on the job all night? One of those suckers.

I woke up that morning with the idea of Headlines Du Jour almost fully-formed. I even remembered laughing in the dream over the phrase “today’s Headlines Du Jour.” I took this as an omen and created Headlines Du Jour almost immediately. It only took some minor tinkering for Headlines Du Jour to arrive at its current format.

Sadly I never dreamed how much work it would be to collect, compile, and collate the headlines, not to mention: formatting the post; adding the pics, which luckily are already on my hard drive due to my obsessive pic collecting; and thinking up those snarky little rubrics. It can take anywhere from 1.5 to 2.5 hours from start to finish, depending on the breaks, to post a Headlines Du Jour. Some days, when it’s finally been put to bed (to use an old magazine term for published) I’m already exhausted.

That’s why I’ve chosen to only do it 3 days a week: Tuesday, Thursday, and on the weekends (usually Sunday). I’m trying to reserve the days between for writing smaller posts, so I can get back to posting something almost every day, and/or researching some of my larger posts. Then there’s always Farce Au Pain to work on. Most posts take a few days to write and edit. Posts as long as this can take days, and I allot 5 days for Unpacking the Writer, but this one only took 3.

Not all Fox “News” memes are funny. Some are quite tragic,
‘specially ones noting the intelligence of Fox “News” viewers.

FOX “NEWS” WATCH DU JOUR: Something else unanticipated — more like a nightmare than a dream — was just how many Fox “News” Headlines Du Jour pop up in any given week. [You can take Aunty Em out of the NewsHounds, but you can’t take the NewsHounds out of Aunty Em.] There’s so much tomfoolery and shenanigans on the Fox “News” Channel that sometimes it takes up more than half of the Headlines Du Jour.

A suggestion has been made to spin off the Fox “News” Headlines Du Jour into a stand-alone series, with guaranteed laughs a’plenty. While the Not Now Silly Newsroom is seriously considering this new way of pointing our Fox “News” mendacity, even tho’ it would mean more work for this underpaid scribe, a thought I had while typing this sentence may be a better alternate route. Details to follow.

Meanwhile, you’re now reading a paragraph that really contains nothing more than a blatant plug for The Johnny Dollar Depreciation Society, a cozy little blind pig I operate in an apartment above The Facebookery’s storefront. The dregs and denizens who gather there on a daily basis, because they’ve got nothing better to do, are all dedicated to the mockery of the Fox “News” Meat Puppets, as they continue to plumb the depth of journalistic malpractice.

COCONUT GROVE UPDATE: Sincere apologies to those who come here because of my Coconut Grove posts. There’s nothing to update. I’ve not been down to The Grove for several weeks. To be fair: I never created Now Now Silly to be Grove-centric. That was just a happy accident.

I have been kicking around an article that’s been percolating since I visited Detroit (‘Merka’s first throwaway city) on the 2nd Annual Sunrise to Canton Road Trip for Research and took pictures of the Birwood Wall. Naturally, the article is about walls. It’s about the 8 Mile Wall. It’s about the Coconut Grove Wall. It’s about the walls around Gated Communities. And, the overarching theme (or maybe over-reaching theme), is how these can all be attributed to Racism.

Long story short: Often what’s on each side of these walls is as different as Black and White. Walls do far more to divide us than they do to protect us.

However, in the next post about walls I’ve wanted to include some video. The
last time I was in The Grove I shot several videos, but none of them
came out the way I had hoped. [I now realize it was a stupid idea to try a
long traveling shot at that speed.] I’ve now created a little storyboard and all I need to do is find the time to get back down to Coconut Grove
to shoot the mini-documentary that’ll accompany this important story.

Stay tuned for part three of Where the Sidewalks Ends, Racism Begins.

Total readership, with my high water mark
of December 2103. I need to up my game.

FURTHER HOUSEKEEPING: I’m not so sure what analytics I will have over at the renovated Now Now Silly Newsroom, so this might be the last time to look at these stats as Blogger feeds them to me.

This post is the 639th since I launched the Not Now Silly Newsroom in April of 2012. Nearly a quarter million people (241,455, to be exact, as of right this second) have hung out for some period of time at Not Now Silly. Forty-two percent of my readers use Firefox, with Internet Explorer (26%) and Chrome (15%) rounding out the top three. Sixty-six percent use a Windows OS, with Macintosh number 2 at 21%. About 5% arrive here on various mobile devices, but my web designer says that’s going to pick up considerable. From his mouth to The Flying Spaghetti Monster’s ears.

Also behind the scenes: There are 21 drafts of articles I’ve yet to publish. Some will probably never be finished, while others will be published in the fullness of time. They either require further research or I haven’t found the right way to tell the story yet. [See above.]

The stats I always find interesting is how readers arrived at these shores. While I can see the various sites people have come from, far more interesting to me is what search terms landed people here in the first place. In descending order they are [all sic]:

Brian Jones, Josephine Baker, 3 Stooges, Detroit, Beatles Let It Be, Alan Turing, James Rosen, Bonzo Dog Band, Three Stooges, Fats Waller, Austin Cunningham wiki, Detroit 60’s, leggy newsbabes, Roger Ruskin Spear,  the color line in coconut grove, 9/11 news articles, anyone from Detroit’s black bottom, examples of newspaper headlines, Josephine Baker children, skin in the game pun, stoping cyber bullying, brian jones beatles, controversies of sarnoff, fox news spin cycle, fox news spin cycle female host, headly westerfield, in the 50’s the chicken roost in hamilton, on served chicken on a bun what is the receipe?

Who knew there were so many Chicken Roost lovers?

The most fascinating stat is what countries my readers live in. It’s no surprise that ‘Merka and Canada come in at #1 and #2 respectively. However, I’m surprised I have so many readers in Russia, Malaysia, Ukraine, and China. However, I’ll take my readers where I can find them, even in Commie Countries. Futhermore, I’m not planning to outsource Not Now Silly production to China like some other Bain Capitalists.

The Top Ten is always changing slightly. You can see the current Top Ten in the column to the upper-right. However, the Top Ten at THIS MOMENT IN TIME looks like this:

1). The Detroit Riots ► Unpacking My Detroit ► Part Five
2). Brian Jones ► A Musical Appreciation
3). The Johnny Dollar Wars ► Chapter and Verse
4). Day In History ► Josephine Baker Born
5). Aries Development Continues To Rape Charles Avenue
6). Chow Mein and Bolling 5 ► Bully Boy Lies (Again)
7). Did Roger Ailes Dupe James Rosen, Or Did Rosen Dupe ‘Merka?
8). The First Three Stooges ► Nostalgia Ain’t What It Used To Be
9). Is Marc D. Sarnoff Corrupt Or The Most Corrupt Miami Politician
10). Does Fox “News” Support Johnny Dollar? ► The Mark Koldys-Johnny Dollar Comment of the Day

Proof of concept of new logo. The final
will probably look nothing like this.

Hopefully by the time I publish Unpacking the Writer for the month of October, the BRAND NEW & IMPROVED Not Now Silly Newsroom will be up and running, fortified with Niacin and your daily adult requirement of news, history, and snark. It’s a slow process. However, I’m in no hurry to get it on the net. I would rather it be right than fast.

Ever onward and upward, dear readers.

A Tribute to Don Knotts ► Morgantown’s Favourite Son

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DATELINE: Morgantown, West Virginia – As part of the 2nd Annual Sunrise to Canton Road Trip for Research, the Not Now Silly Newsroom sent ace investigative reporter Headly Westerfield to Morgantown, West Virginia, for a privately conducted Don Knotts Memorial Nostalgia Tour. Here is his uncensored report: *

I drove into Morgantown after midnight, although I had been expected hours earlier. Because I was running so late, my correspondent had already gone to bed. To make matters worse, due to a faulty GPS and an incredibly dark section of road on the outskirts of town, I passed the driveway of the condo complex several times before I finally gave up and phoned. A teenager I had never spoken to before answered. Even with his help I managed to pass the entrance another two times. Finally he came out to the main road, while still on the phone, and waved a flashlight. To my chagrin, I was in the parking lot right next door. I hoped this would not be an omen for the Don Knotts Memorial Nostalgia Tour.

Morgantown is city tucked into a valley, in the crook between Cheat Lake and the Monongahela River. Downtown Morgantown has the appearance of a small town. What is known as Greater Morgantown, these days, is really comprised of several distinct neighbourhoods. Some of these had been separate towns that were annexed into the city proper. The surrounding area is so hilly, and with suburban sprawl occurring wherever they could make the land flat, each neighbourhood is almost a town onto itself, connected by highways and roads which wind up one side of a mountain and down the other.

A quick dip into the WickyWhackyWoo also tells me that Morgantown was named after one of the first homesteaders, Zackquill Morgan. Morgans Town was incorporated as Morgantown by the Virginia General Assembly in 1838. It is best known — for better or worse — as being the birthplace of Don Knotts.

Before my editor arranged for the privately conducted Don Knotts Memorial Nostalgia Tour, I didn’t know a whole lot about Don Knotts, other than many of his roles. I remember as a kid seeing him on the Steve Allen Show, often playing a nervous man-in-the street. Then, of course, there was Deputy Barney Fife, the role that made him famous. Another of his tee vee roles was that of swinging-single-man-about-town, Ralph Furley. Knotts jumped into the already successful Three’s Company after ABC ill-advisedly spun off The Ropers, which barely lasted a season and a half before it was cancelled. And, of course, I knew all those whacky movies from the ’60s: The Incredible Mr. Limpet, The Ghost and Mr. Chicken, The Reluctant Astronaut, and The Shakiest Gun in the West, among others. I grew up on Don Knotts comedy. He made me laugh.

Don Knotts with Danny “Hootch” Matador (right)

But, I have to admit I didn’t know anything about Don Knotts, the person. Imagine my surprise to learn he led an early life of heartbreak and confusion. Again, the WikiWhackyWoo saved me from abject ignorance:

Knotts’ paternal ancestors had emigrated from England to America in the 17th century, originally settling in Queen Anne’s County, Maryland. Knotts’ father was a farmer. William Knotts had a nervous breakdown due to the stress of the fourth child, Don, being born so late (Don’s mother was 40). Afflicted with schizophrenia and alcoholism, he sometimes terrorized his young son with a knife, causing the boy to turn inward at an early age. Knotts’ father died of pneumonia when Don, the youngest son, was 13 years old. Don and his three brothers were then raised by their mother, who ran a boarding house in Morgantown.

Like so many that have experienced early tragedy, Don Knotts became a comedian. During his teen years Knotts had a successful ventriloquist act, entertaining his Morgantown High School classmates at parties and other paid performances, including appearing occasionally at The Metropolitan Theatre, the big deal theater in town that opened the same year Knotts was born.

The Metropolitan Theatre in beautiful downtown Morgantown

After a failed trip to New York City to see if he could make it in the Big Time, Knotts returned home, enrolling in West Virgina University. However, WWII intervened and, like most of his peers, Knotts signed up for duty. Knotts didn’t see much combat. He was assigned to the Special Services Branch, where he and his dummy Danny “Hootch” Matador entertained the troops for the duration.

When the war was over, Knotts decided to try New York City all over again.This time he used the connections he made during his tour of duty to get a toe-hold in the business called Show. Aside from appearing at some comedy clubs, Knotts started to get a bit of radio work. Tee vee was still in its infancy when, in 1953, Knotts took on the regular role of Wilbur Peterson on Search For Tomorrow, his only dramatic part in a long comedic career. However, it was on Steve Allen’s show where he gained his first brush with real fame. While he was appearing on that show, Knotts his Broadway debut in No Time For Sergeants. 

No Time For Sergeants has an interesting history, especially since it’s the vehicle that brought Don Knotts and Andy Griffith together as an enduring comedy team. It started as a 1954 novel by Mac Hyman, about the antics of an unsophisticated country boy drafted into the Army Air Force during WW2. It was adapted a year later by Ira Levin as a 1-hour segment of The United States Steel Hour, which starred Andy Griffith (and some folks that few people remember). Andy Griffith had become an over-night sensation when his rural comedy monologue, What It Was, Was Football, was released as a single in ’53. It was a no-brainer to look at Andy Griffth when a country bumpkin was needed for the No Time role.

The Don Knotts Childhood Home

After Levin adapted No Time For Sergeants for Broadway, Griffith reprised his tee vee role with an up-and-coming Don Knotts playing several parts, the first pairing of this comedy team.

Then Levin adapted the teleplay and Broadway hit into a full-length motion picture, called, not surprsingly, No Time For Sergeants. Both Knotts and Griffith reprised their roles in that 1958 hit movie directed by Mervyn Leroy. This flick is considered the springboard that launched the national careers of Don Knotts and Andy Griffith.

Two years later when Andy was looking for a second banana for The Andy Griffth Show he didn’t have to look much farther than Don Knotts. The rest is tee vee history.

The Morgantown High School auditorium

The Don Knotts Memorial Nostalgia Tour began soon after the crack of noon, because that’s when teenagers wake up.

The first stop was, fittingly, the Don Knotts Childhood Home, which sadly is unmarked or commemorated in any way. The house presents a very small façade from the street, but because it was built on one of Morgantown’s many hills, the land drops away sharply in the back revealing a deep 3-storey structure that could have easily been used as a boarding house. It’s a humble beginning for the 5-time Emmy Award winner.

Not very far away, after navigating a few more of Morgantown’s hills and one way streets, we come to Morgantown High School, where Don Knotts began his long career as an entertainer. Outside the school’s auditorium there is an appropriately moving tribute to those alumni who gave their lives fighting in various wars. However, there was nothing that this reporter could see that commemorated Morgantown High’s most famous graduate, Don Knotts, ranked by TV Guide as #27 on its list of 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time.

Bigger disappointment was still to come.

This reporter heard through the grapevine that there was one place in Morgantown where Don Knotts was commemorated as he so rightly deserved. According to the requisite several confidential sources, I should head over to the Metropolitan Theatre immediately. There, according to urban legend, I would find a large brass plaque embedded in the sidewalk which honours the location where Don Knotts got his start in Legit Show Biz.

Jumping back into the car, we raced the several blocks to the location, fighting the heavy downtown Morgantown traffic all the way. We were forced to pay for parking at an available meter more than a block away. Walking up to the building, this is what greeted us:

The scene of the crime against humanity! Where is the brass plaque honoring Don Knotts that was embedded in the sidewalk?
And, I made sure I wiped my dirty shoes on their nice rug, too!

I was heartbroken!!!

Now, keep in mind that I had already
traveled some 2,000 miles on the Sunrise to Canton Road Trip for Research to get this far (not counting several touristy
side trips). Why wasn’t Don Knotts getting the kudos he deserved, other than a small section of University Avenue renamed Don Knotts Boulevard during a Don Knotts Day held while the comedian was still alive?

There was no way I was going to put up with this bullshit.

I stormed inside and marched right up to the ticket windows. The two women inside the booth cowered as I demanded to know where the Don Knotts Memorial sidewalk plaque was. I made sure they learned some new expletives. I impressed upon them how many thousands of miles I had already traveled. Raising my voice to the highest dudgeon, I informed him that, as an employee of the Not Now Silly Newsroom, I refused to leave unless they gave me satisfactory answers to my questions. As they shuddered under the power of the press and the weight of The First Amendment, I threatened to expose them, the Metropolitan Theatre, and their entire bullshit town, which merely pretends to honour its greatest citizen of all time, but in actuality thumbs its nose at all the rubes who come to Morgantown for the full Don Knotts Experience.

In reality: I walked up to the ticket booth in the lobby and politely asked the two very sweet women if they knew what had happened to the plaque. All they knew for sure is that it had just recently been removed for repairs and they didn’t know when would be returned. Just then the manager of the theater came along and suggested I inquire up the street at the Morgantown Visitors Center, where they might know when the plaque would be returning.

Morgantown Visitors Center

Back into the car, fighting the awful downtown traffic all over again, we finally pitched up at the Morgantown Visitors Center, a mere two blocks away. And, it’s there that the entire Don Knotts Memorial Nostalgia Tour was redeemed because, there, just inside the front window, was an entire display all about Morgantown’s favourite son, Don Knotts.

Taking a picture through the window wouldn’t work because of the glare. I was so excited to finally hit pay dirt that I rushed inside and started taking pictures. It’s my normal practice to ask permission before taking pictures because it’s the polite thing to do. However, I simply forgot my manners and knew I had screwed up mightily when a woman started screaming at me, “STOP! Don’t touch it! What are you doing? STOP!” Only my mother has ever yelled at me like that.

As if I was answering my mother, it all came out in a torrent: “I’m so sorry, I would never touch a display, but had traveled thousands of miles for the Don Knotts Memorial Nostalgia Tour, and this was the first acknowledgement of Don Knotts I’ve found, and just down the street was supposed to be a huge brass plaque embedded in the sidewalk, but it’s missing, and they sent me down here because you might know about it, and, I’m so sorry, I should have asked, but all I want is get some close up pictures. Honest, lady. Don’t hurt me.”

That’s when she relaxed. To help me get better pictures, she even turned the entire display around, so I could get a better angle. If you look closely at the pic above, you can see why the woman was so protective of the maquette. Just above the knee is a crack that runs right through the leg. It seems that just the week before my arrival someone grabbed the leg and broke it. Now the woman makes sure that Don Knotts doesn’t get damaged any further.

Guarding Don Knotts

This maquette is to become a larger-than-life statue of Don Knotts to be erected on the waterfront. Morgantown is hoping to create a whole day of it, whenever it is, with a dedication and unveiling. An entire weekend of Don Knotts Days might include parades, picnics, band concerts, beauty pageants, culminating in a massive fireworks display. I sure hope I’m invited to the event I just created in my head.

I am always looking for the hidden Easter eggs real life has to offer. Finally, there are two weird pieces of synchronicity on which we’ll end the Don Knotts Memorial Nostalgia Tour.

SYNCHRONICITY #1: Almost 300 miles south of Morgantown I was reminded of the enuring legacy of Don Knotts on ‘Merkin culture.

After leaving Morgantown, with more than a thousand miles still to go before I get home, the Sunrise to Canton Road Trip for Research was just marking off the miles with no more side trips. The farther south I traveled, the less hilly the terrain. The road began to level out in southern Virginia. Crossing the state line into North Carolina, I was in great need of rest stop. The first one I happened across was not far into the state, just outside of Mount Airy, North Carolina.

I didn’t realize it until I walked inside, but Mount Airy was the birthplace of Andy Griffith. Inside the rest stop, in a display cabinet given pride of prominence is a tribute to Mount Airy’s favourite son. Of course no tribute to Mayberry is complete without a nod to Dan Knotts, second banana extraordinaire.

SYNCHRONICITY #2: As I was editing this into a coherent arrangement of words, sentences, and paragraphs, the tee vee was playing in the background. A noisy commercial distracted me and I looked up to see what it was about. There, on my tee vee tube, was Don Knotts!!! As it turns out, MeTV is bringing The Andy Griffith Show to its comedy calvacade, replacing the ever-dreadful Gilligan’s Island, starting September 1st, and every weeknight at 8PM Eastern, 7 Central.

* As the Not Now Silly Newsroom Fact-Checkers were preparing this article for print it was discovered that not all events took place as described. We were going to just scrap this travelogue as not worthy of publication, but Headly has already cashed the cheque.

Unpacking The Writer ► Master of My Own Domain

Nothing up my sleeve!

Welcome to another exciting edition of Unpacking The Writer, the monthly series in which I pull back the curtain and reveal the inner-workings of the Not Now Silly Newsroom. This month I’m revealing far more than usual.

The suicide of Robin Williams kicked me where it really hurts: in my raw, naked emotions. I’ve still yet to shake it off.

It did so for a number of reasons. For one: There was a time in my life I freelanced as a Joke Plugger. The job entailed sitting all by myself and thinking of funny things that a comedian could say. Then I would write down, in my best block letters, the funny things on a 3 x 5 index card. If the funny thing didn’t fit on a 3 x 5 index card, I would continue to rewrite it until it did fit. Jokes are all about brevity.

Once I had gathered a number of these index cards with funny things on them, the harder part began. I would take them to comedy clubs. Then I would buttonhole comedians before or after their set and show them my index cards. When comics are riffing, it’s all fun and games. They all want to top each other. However, when comedians are discussing comedy, it’s serious business.

I’m sure they could feel my interior flop sweat as they shuffled through my 3×5 index cards with funny things on them, yet they’d never crack a smile. They might deadpan, “This is funny” or “I like this one,” or even “That’s been done by so-and-so,” but never once during that entire time did I elicit a laugh from a comedian, despite having sold many of them jokes at $25 a piece.

However, it was incandescent comedians like Robin Williams [and Richard Pryor and Andy Kaufman], who exploded the entire comedic paradigm of JOKE-SET UP-PUNCHLINE, that convinced me I would never achieve fame in the writing-funny-things-down world.

Robin Williams was the John Lennon of comedy. I make the comparison for a number of reasons. In the world of comedy there was no one who could touch him. So many people grew up to his comedy stylings that more than one generation revered him. And, his death was as incomprehensible and tragic as Lennon’s.

I hadn’t heard Robin Williams speak of his depression before he hanged himself, but I have since. It reminds me that everybody’s depression is entirely unique and that all depression is exactly alike.

Hello. My name is Headly and I suffer from depression.

I’ve suffered from depression as long as I can remember. It’s a roller coaster. Sometimes I’m down and some times I’m further down. And, some times I am so far down that I feel I’m in the Mariana Trench. Sometimes I just think of myself as broken. While some days are better than others, rarely do I feel “happy” — whatever the hell that means — for more than a fleeting moment or two. When things are passing for what I feel is normal — whatever the hell that means — I think of it as anhedonia. It’s only when it dips lower do I acknowledge it’s really depression.

In all the years I’ve suffered from depression, I’ve told very few people. Some that I have told have probably forgotten by now. Some of you are learning for the first time, even tho’ we’ve been face-to-facefriends for decades. However, for most of my readers, it’s really none of your damned business. However, I feel that this reveal is important.

It’s not about you. It’s about me.

Not that I think I will ever conquer my depression. It’s just something I need to learn to live with, and “live” is the operative word. As dark as things have ever looked, I’ve never contemplated suicide. Yet I’ve often had the thought that the people around me might be a whole lot better off if I weren’t around. That’s one of the warning signs that I am more depressed than usual because it has a name. It’s called passive suicidal ideation.

I presume only my most loyal readers and cyber-stalkers will have read this far.

SPEAKING OF MY CRAZY CYBER-BULLYING ENEMIES: After more than 3 years
of relentless — almost daily — attacks, it would appear The Flying Monkey Squad has tired
of the feud they started when they exposed my alternative lifestyle over a difference of opinion. In fact, Grayhammy — aka Ashley Graham — has not been spotted since July 4th, which I guess you could call my Independence
Day. “Some people say” that my full-length book, The Johnny Dollar Wars,
had its intended effect. To be fair, there are others (like me, f’rinstance) just
waiting for the next shoe to drop; knowing full-well they are working on a new project to smear me. Only time will tell.

However, for the time being, I’ve stopped promoting The Johnny Dollar Wars with timed tweets. It has peaked at 1,910 views (as of this writing), making it the 3rd most popular post at Not Now Silly. Meanwhile, The Johnny Dollar Depreciation Society will
continue to supply your daily adult requirement of Fox “News” Snark.

Today on Fox “News”

WE GET MAIL I: I’ve been asked why I go after Fox “News” so relentlessly. You mean aside from the fact that it deserves every bit of it and a whole lot more besides?

While those in the know already know, my newer readers may be unaware I wrote for NewsHounds, the motto of which is “We watch Fox so you don’t have to.” To maintain anonymity I wrote under the nom de plume of Aunty Em Ericann. I started as their Glenn Beck expert, but moved on to provide truth about other Foxy personalities over the course of my time there. [That’s also when I picked up my crazy cyber-stalking bullies. They actually feel as if they are defending Fox “News” with all their lies and smears against me. Crazy is s crazy does.]

WE GET MAIL II: I’ve been asked more than once, what makes
for a good Headlines Du Jour headline? Each day, as I am driving along
the information highway, I collect some of the more interesting
headlines that I share on my Twitter or Facebookery feeds. I use my own
interests as a guide for what to include. I reason that if I find it
interesting, there’s going to be a others who also find it interesting.
Then there are the subjects I tend to gravitate towards because I have a
greater interest in certain topics than others. These include, but are
not limited to, LGBT Rights, Racism, Bullying, Religion, Income
Inequality, Hemp, Gun Control, Bizarre Conspiracy Theories, Outer Space,
and, of course, the Fox “News” Channel Follies Du Jour.

LAST BUT CERTAINLY NOT LEAST: Huzzah! Huzzah!! Huzzah!!!

Big changes are coming, dear reader, which will only enhance your daily field trips to the Not Now Silly Newsroom. There is a great deal of excitement in the
Not Now Silly Newsroom these days as we begin to renovate the entire
space from the subbasement right on up to the microwave communication
dishes on the roof.

This isn’t going to be anything like our
last redesign which — let’s be honest — was merely cosmetic. A year
ago last April the name changed from “Headly Westerfield’s Aunty Em
Ericann Blog” [an unwieldy moniker to say the least] to Not Now Silly. I
slapped a new logo on the top, splashed a little paint here, pasted up
some wallpaper there, and then I called it a relaunch. But, it was all
smoke and mirrors. So what if the Not Now Silly News Director added a
microwave to the lunch room? That hardly appeased those who toiled in
the subbasement collecting each day’s Headlines Du Jour.

Nope! This time we’re renovating the entire Not Now Silly Newsroom.

COMING
SOON!!! A brand new look on a new platform, with a renewed determination
and a new domain name: NotNowSilly.com. It’s time to take the Not Now
Silly Newsroom to the next level. Who is with me?

Unpacking the Sunrise to Canton Road Trip for Research

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Panorama of the 8 Mile Wall, behind the houses on Birwood in Dcetroit, Michigan

The 2nd Annual Sunrise to Canton Road Trip for Research was full of surprises. Surprises are the delight of a loosely planned 3,000 mile drive. All told I figure I drove some 65 hours, with a week in the Canton Township, Michigan, area in the middle. Sunrise to Canton Township alone is about 24 hours of straight driving. Most of my various hosts gave me a driving tour of their town, with me driving, adding another 12 hours to the overall trip.

What I learned on this trip, but really should have learned last year: There is no adequate and reliable way to update Not Now Silly from my Windows Phone. Next year I’m going to make sure I have a laptop, making updates much easier. As it is I only managed to post a three “A Note From The Road” posts. Either I had trouble with connectivity or I was surrounded by people, which wasn’t conducive to spending time posting. Here are the very few I managed to post:

A Note From The Road #1
A Note From The Road #2
A Note From The Road #3

A former nightclub in Steubenville, Ohio, once owned by The Mob.
Dean Martin had no choice but to perform here early in his career.

Aside from all my research in Canton Township, Michigan, I have enough other material to power several future Not Now Silly posts. These include, but are not limited to, the 8 Mile Wall; Morgantown‘s favourite son, Don Knotts; Ruin Porn, Gilchrist Street, and Coffee Jr. High School; Medical Marijuana in Michigan; highway driving in ‘Merka; and other sundry writings as I get to them.

Driving 3,000+ miles in ‘Merka is always an interesting and eye-opening experience. One thing I learned last year, but which was reinforced this year, is that every family has family drama. I heard of several this year, all unprompted, just like last year.

I took more than 1,200 pictures on the 2nd Annual Sunrise to Canton Road Trip for Research and not all of them in Canton Township, Michigan. I have already posted several photo albums on my facebookery:

The saddest part of the 2nd Annual Sunrise to Canton Road Trip for Research was to see my old neighbourhood. Every year when I visit I notice the Detroit blight has grown since the previous year. In recent years it has crept into my old neighbourhood, nibbling around the edges. Now it has infected dozens and dozens of houses in just the square mile bounded by 7 Mile, 8 Mile and Greenfield and Southfield on the east and west. This includes Coffey Jr. High School, where I went along with all my sibs. Coffey has been closed and the scrappers have already trashed the building.

I joined the rank of scrappers when I stole a number of architectural glass blocks and distributed them among my sisters as mementos of their youth. My experiences in my old neighbourhood will be a Not Now Silly Newsroom Investigative Report. Coming soon.

BONUS: I left Sunrise with 2 books: the one I was reading and the one I would read next. I returned with 13 more than I left with because so many people gave me books on my travels. My friends really have me pegged and know what I like.

Finally, I would like to thank all my hosts.The joy of these road trips is being able to meet friends and readers along the road. Without these stops, it would be a long and boring drive. Without these stops I wouldn’t see towns and cities I normally would drive right past. Without these stops I wouldn’t get personally guided tours. A huge thanks to each and every one of you. I hope to see you on the 3rd Annual Sunrise to Canton Road Trip for Research, already in the planning stages.

Here’s the latest look at the little house I used to live in:

Here’s the latest listen to The Little House I Used To Live In:

A Note From The Road

I’m now on the return trip, stopping the night in Elyria, Ohio. This sign is at a rest stop on the information highway, aka I-75.

I didn’t update Not Now Silly as often as I had hoped, but things were just too busy.

However, there’s so much to talk about that it’s a shame it will have to wait until I get home because I’m running out of batteries.

A Note From The Road

Spent yesterday at the Ann Arbor Art Fair. That’s where I encountered this Foxite. It was tempting to jump into the shot, but then I remembered guarding David Onley on the sidewalk in front of Citytv while he was doing weather reports. I resisted, but it took every ounce of willpower.

A Note From The Road

Apologies for not keeping Not Now Silly updated on this pilgrim’s progress as promised. The only app that allows me to post has intermittent connectivity troubles.

While trying to solve this, enjoy this Ruin Porn.

Packing for the Road Trip ► Unpacking The Writer

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I’m writing and posting this month’s Unpacking The Writer a little early to get it posted before I leave on Monday for the 2nd Annual Sunrise to Canton Road Trip for Research. For the uninitiated, Unpacking The Writer is the monthly series in which I give my readers a look inside the mind of a writer, such as it is. And, in case you haven’t clued in yet, I am that writer. HI THERE!

NO CLICKING: I also used to use this monthly essay to beg my readers to click on the adverts here. However, I have been told I can’t do that anymore, even though it only returns a fraction of a penny per click. So I won’t. But, if you’re one of my smarter readers, you are already way ahead of me and clicking on the adverts anyway. You know there is absolutely nothing I can do to stop you.

SO SORRY: I owe my faithful readers an apology. More than one reader (two!) has noticed that I’ve not posted much new material at Not Now Silly lately, other than the regular Headlines Du Jour. I’m truly sorry, folks. While I have been researching a number of topics, nothing has gelled enough yet to be written up. I have also started a number of blog posts, some of which I still need to finish and others which (are crap and) will never see the light of day.

When I first began this blog I was given advice to post something every
day. Do you know how hard that is? Especially if you want a blog post to
have some weight? Especially if that added weight requires hours upon hours of research? Especially if it’s not your full-time job?

Despite that, I have published 583 posts in the last 27 months, not including this one. That averages 21.5 posts a month, a record I’m proud of. I’m also quite proud of many of the posts because I think I am mining important topics. As of this writing the Not Now Silly Top Ten is as follows:

  1. The Detroit Riots ► Unpacking My Detroit ► Part Five
  2. Brian Jones ► A Musical Appreciation
  3. Day In History ► Josephine Baker
  4. The Johnny Dollar Wars ► Chapter and Verse
  5. Aries Development Continues To Rape Charles Avenue
  6. Chow Mein and Bolling 5 ► Bully Boy Lies (Again)
  7. Did Roger Ailes Dupe James Rosen, Or Did Rosen Dupe ‘Merka?
  8. The First Three Stooges ► Nostalgia Ain’t What It Used To Be
  9. Is Marc D. Sarnoff Corrupt Or The Most Corrupt Miami Politician?
  10. Does Fox “News” Support Johnny Dollar? ► The Mark Koldys-Johnny Dollar Comment of the Day

[The Top Ten posts, always updated, always current, is in the column to the right of this one. It may have changed since this was published.]

In the early days of Not Now Silly I used to do a lot of one-off Day in History-type dealies. Maybe I should get back to doing some more of that after the 2nd Annual Sunrise to Canton Road Trip For Research. We’ll see.

Those one-offs were popular. They can also be pulled out of the archives on the appropriate dates in subsequent years. Conversely, Headlines Du Jour is pretty much stale the minute you read it. Yet Headlines Du Jour gets great numbers. Despite the simplicity, Headline Du Jour is time-consuming to post. It takes me 1.5 hours to 2.5 hours to format, even though the headlines themselves are compiled as they come in over the Not Now Silly Newsroom transom. Headlines Du Jour is the first thing I do when I wake up at 5:30 AM. As the first pot of coffee is brewing I sort the headlines collected since the last time. I decide which are keepers and which I should toss. Then they’re put into a running order that makes sense only to me. Some days, by the time it’s published, I feel totally wrung out and the pot of coffee is finished. However, I’ll try to add to the number of new posts (and pots of coffee?) on a regular basis while I also keep Headlines Du Jour going. My readers have that promise.

TO MY COCONUT GROVE READERS: While I never meant for Not Now Silly to be a blog solely about Coconut Grove, there have been times when it feels like that’s what it’s become. I’m thrilled that so many people in the West Grove have shared their personal stories with me. Oral histories are so important.

I’m still researching The Colour Line and will have new chapters in that series soon. While in Michigan, I will also be visiting the 8 Mile Wall for a blog post on The Colour Line in Detroit, ‘Merka’s first throwaway city. Meanwhile, there has been some news in the Grove, but nothing that seemed to deserve a blog post all on its own. In no particular order some of that is as follows:

Part of the Coconut Grove Playhouse parking lot will become a drive-in movie dealie on July 14th. The web site for the Blue Starlite Mini Urban Drive In promises “Car hop service by TAURUS,” so we now know how Aries Development and Gino Falsetto plan to profit off this new arrangement. To remind readers: Aries is the company that secured a 50-year lease on the historic 120-year old E.W.F. Stirrup House 9 years ago and has allowed it to undergo Demolition by Neglect ever since.

A reminder why the E.W.F. Stirrup House is culturally
important to Coconut Grove can be found in the Not Now Silly
post Happy Birthday Coconut Grove!!! Now Honour Your Past

I had hoped to go to opening night of the Blue Starlite Mini Urban Drive In, but the June opening was delayed a month. Now it won’t open until the day after I leave for the 2nd Annual Sunrise to Canton Road Trip For Research. This is actually one of those posts mentioned above, partially written in advance. I started it last month, just before the delay was announced. It would have become a full-blown blog post in the fullness of time. I had even considered delaying my Road Trip 2 days to go, take notes, take pictures, and finish writing that blog post, but, yannow what? I’ve seen The Cocoanuts, the first Marx Brothers movie, so many times I can recite entire scenes by heart. [Same with the 2nd movie in the opening night double feature, The Blob.] So, there’s another draft post consigned to the dustbin of history.

IRONY ALERT I: The Cocoanuts take place in Cocoanut Grove (the original spelling of Coconut Grove before it was illegally annexed by Miami in 1925).

IRONY ALERT II: The Cocoanuts satirizes the utter collapse of the Cocoanut Grove real estate market of the 1920s. Selling Florida swamp land had became such a a national joke that one of the top playwrights of the day, George S. Kaufman, and one of the country’s most famous composers, Irving Berlin, would write a musical about it. The Marx Brothers would first take it to Broadway, where it was a smash hit, and then make it their first movie extravaganza, launching a long career on film.

IRONY ALERT III: Miami has had several booms and busts since then. “Some people say” the current Miami building boom is just the beginning edge of the next bubble to bust.

IRONY ALERT IV: Bringing movies back to the Coconut Grove Playhouse, albeit outside, would be funny, if it weren’t so sad. When the currently-boarded up Coconut Grove Playhouse was originally built, it was to bring movies and culture to Coconut Grove. The land had been owned by E.W.F. Stirrup and sold to developers to build the Coconut Grove Theater, as it was called when it opened in 1927. It was renovated in the 1950s to become a legitimate theater, with the 1956 premier of “Waiting For Godot” as its first offering.

IRONY ALERT V: Even though the Coconut Grove Theater anchored the east end of Charles Avenue — the oldest neighbourhood in Miami, as well as the oldest Black neighbourhood — those folks had to go north to the smaller Ace Theater on Grand Avenue, which was not segregated. Earlier this month Miami’s Historic and Environmental Preservation Board designated the Ace a historic site.  According to the Miami Herald’s Jackie Salo:

For residents in the West Grove, the ACE Theater is a relic of the years of segregation. The movie theater, which was built circa 1930, was the only one to serve the black community in the Grove in the 1950s.

The building has since lost its luster, and stands as a shell of what it once was. The marquee has not lit up for years, and the pink facade that once distinguished the theater was painted white.

Plans to restore the theater never came to fruition and the rooms that housed sold-out audiences remain abandoned.

But the theater, albeit empty, has not been forgotten.

Having walked past the Ace many times, I’ve always thought it would make a great Indie/Revival movie house. Grand Avenue has been struggling for years. Opening a movie house on that stretch of Grand would go a long way towards revitalizing what was once the thriving Black business strip of Coconut Grove.

TROLLEYGATE: Still waiting for a settlement in the Trolleygate Scandal. The last word from my super-duper secret sources was that an offer was on the table and being considered. Consequently, all parties to the lawsuit asked the judge to give them 60 days to see if they could hammer out an agreement. That expired at the end of June, but I’ve heard nothing further. Basically the broad outline of the potential deal is this: A brand new Coral Gables diesel bus garage will be built right where the current Coral Gables diesel bus garage is. This despite the brand-spanking new [allegedly] illegal diesel bus garage built in West Grove. That’s the garage that’s the subject of multiple lawsuits, which even the Federal Department of Transportation ruled contravened the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The only decision left to be made is whether the brand-spanking new bus garage in West Grove can be used for the next 2-3 years while a newer diesel bus garage is built in Coral Gables.

Here’s how small West Grove really is: The [allegedly] illegal diesel bus garage is, more or less, just around the corner from the Ace Theater. Gibson Plaza, which I have also written about, is just across the street from the Ace Theater. Grand Avenue still has a long way to go before one could call this a revival, but it’s another baby step on the road to recovery for a business strip that’s seen better days.

Known all the world over, The Johnny Dollar Depreciation Society is
YOUR place for snark about Fox “News and crazy Fox “News” defenders

THE JOHNNY DOLLAR WARS: I couldn’t be more thrilled with the progress of The Johnny Dollar Wars up the Not Now Silly Top Ten Hit Parade. It justifies all the time I put into documenting those crazy cyber-stalking MoFos these last few years. Since being published on May 6th, The Johnny Dollar Wars has jumped to become the #4 most popular post at Not Now Silly, with 1,233 hits as we go to press. The only Not Now Silly post that ever rose faster and higher than that has now been relagated to the #5 position. Aries Development Continues To Rape Charles Avenue, about the E.W.F. Stirrup House had a good run, but it’s been leapfrogged in the ratings.

THE JOHNNY DOLLAR DEPRECIATION SOCIETY: I’ve migrated most of my Fox “News” snark from my timeline over to The Johnny Dollar Depreciation Society on the facebookery. I’m open to suggestions on how to make it more interactive. While membership has hit 120 people, only a few interact with the page at all, and only then by clicking LIKE. I’m thinking of holding a contest, but I’ll wait until I get back from Michigan to put that together.

LASTLY: Starting next Monday blog posts at Not Now Silly will be sporadically sporadic. My laptop has bought the farm and I’m not planning to get it fixed before I go away. I may look at a new device when I get back from the road trip, but it’s not in the budget at the moment.

The 2nd Annual Sunrise to Canton Road Trip for Research will be twice as long as last year’s. Last year’s research was productive, but, sadly, I had just a week to drive to Michigan, conduct my research, and drive back to FloriDuh. Despite mining some interesting veins of information, I had to cut the research short because I simply ran out of time. This year I will be meeting with some of the same people who fed me documents last time. I will also have more time to pour over some microfiche that one of my correspondents has uncovered. It may go a long way to provide greater context for the book I am writing.

Be good to your neighbours because you never know
when a journalist will come sniffing around for information.
~~~~~Headly Westerfield, The 1st Annual Sunrise
to Canton Road Trip For Research, June 2013

While I may be able to log into certain accounts while I am gone, last year I was unable to log in to facebook from strange computers because I was locked out of everything that wasn’t my home computer or my phone. Hopefully this year I have solved this problem. However, two things to keep in mind: 1). I don’t exactly know where and when I might encounter a computer, not to mention a computer owner who will allow me to take over their computer for a few hours to compose a blog post. Consequently, just like last year, it may just be updates from the Windows Phone. However, I won’t abandon you entirely. Also: Check my Twitter and Facebookery for updates from the road

And, speaking of computers along the way, I have twice as many visits with readers, fans, and friends scheduled for the 2nd Annual Sunrise to Canton Road Trip for Research. The intinerary is now locked. Stops are scheduled for (in order) Ave Maria University, in Ava Maria, Florida; Bonita Springs, Florida, which is just down the road from the University; Tallahassee, Florida‘s capital, after which I leave the state; Miamisburg, Ohio; Columbus, Ohio; Canton, Michigan, where I will stay for almost a week to conduct research and visit old haunts; Elyria, Ohio; Cleveland, Ohio, which looks to be the scene of the crime city chosen to host the 2016 GOP Convention; Dean Martin’s home town of Steubenville, Ohio; and Morgantown, West Virginia, where I will be given a privately-conducted Don Knotts Memorial Tour. Then it’s home by — no later than — the 28th of July.

A couple of people have asked me why I don’t just fly up to Canton, which would give me more time to research my book. There are 2 things that compel me to drive: 1). I love to drive. One of my favourite things to do is to be behind the wheel of a car, heading down the road, with the stereo cranked to 11; 2). It allows me to meet and greet some people that I’ve gotten to know thru’ the innertubes. Getting out, looking people in the eye, and debating the big stories of the day — or bullshitting over a coffee — is just a big bag of fun.

A Series of Tubes ► Unpacking the Writer

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He went that away!!!

Welcome back, dear readers. For the uninitiated, Unpacking the Writer is the monthly series in which I pull back the curtain, just like Toto did in the Wizard of Oz, and reveal some of the inner workings of the mind of a writer on this series of tubes.

FIRST THINGS FIRST: I’ve been told, by someone in the know, that begging my readers to click on the adverts on these pages could vitiate my contract with Google Ads. Therefore, I certainly won’t do that ever again. However, I also realize I have no control over my readers. Some of them may click on the adverts without prompting. They are such mavericks that way.

WHEN I’M 62: Maybe it’s because I had a birthday earlier this month or maybe it’s just a function of getting older, but I’ve been thinking about the past a lot lately. Facebook helps me rediscover the past through many of the Groups and Pages I’ve joined.

I’ve also been thinking about my past a lot lately and this series of tubes has also been helping me catch up with that. Through them, I have connected to people I knew 42 years ago. F’rinstance, I’ve reconnected with Jim Cox, one of my favourite instructors back when I was at Sheridan College. There are several stories I’ve started writing about my times at Sheridan College. Eventually, they’ll all connect up and I’ll publish it as a book, or magnum opus of some kind.

Jim is almost my oldest connection rediscovered on the Facebookery. However, that honour would go Leon Stevenson. I first met Leon back in 1971, or ’72, around the same time I met my 1st wife in what was then known as Cooksville, Ontario. [I don’t know if anybody still calls it Cooksville, but it was the first place I ever lived in Canada. I watched over the years while Cooksville was swallowed by greater Mississauga.] Leon went on to form several bands, one of which became The Extras. I’ve followed Leon’s career and we’ve run into each
other on and off at Music Biz functions over the years. The Extras had a number of hits in Canada, including this terrific Ska tune, which was more of an underground hit due to its subject matter:

However, novelty tunes are not the only thing The Extras are known for. They were also known for great tunes with silly videos, because that’s what people did back then:

Sadly, that’s as far back as I’ve been able to take the Facebook Time Machine. I can’t get past the event horizon that marks the transition between my life in Canada and growing up in Detroit.

When I first moved to Canada I tried to keep up with my Detroit friends. I’d visit my folks on Gilchrist Street some 10-20 times a year and, while I was back, would catch up with some of my Detroit friends. However, as Detroit visits became less frequent, I also noticed that my ‘Merkin friends had not really reciprocated by visiting me in Canada.

“No soup for you!!!”

Mark Levine, my band mate in Cobwebs & Strange, visited once. He rode his bicycle from Southfield, Michigan, to Oakville, Ontario, on his way to register at MIT. That’s the last time I ever saw him.

Kenneth John Wilson and his new bride visited once. In the couple of years since I had seen him Kenny had been Born Again. Most of the visit (or so it seemed at the time and in retrospect) was spent trying to convince me to accept Jesus Christ in my life. They even left me a Good News Bible, which I kept until about 10 years ago, when it became one of the few (cherished) objects left behind (no pun intended) in my last break-up (along with 3 other different versions of The Bible, which I loved showing people the contradictions. But I digress. Again.). I would love to see Kenny again and see whether he is still highly religious.

However, those were the only friends who visited me. Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about and have grown quite nostalgic for the friends that preceded the Cooksville event horizon: Dean Donaldson, who drummed for Cobwebs & Strange; Craig Portman, whose family moved to California before I moved to Canada, and I lost track of him then; Jimmy Coblentz, a few years older, who had a fleet of Studebakers and — inappropriately — moved to Normal Avenue in Los Angeles; Terry Seissor, an occasional girlfriend who wasn’t happy to learn I was moving to Canada and getting married; Jeff Deeks, whose family was so convinced that he was a drug addict (he hadn’t discovered drugs yet) and I was a bad influence on him, that they shipped him down to live with his grandparents in Hernando, Florida; Kenny Wilson; and Mark Levine are all people I’d love to find again. If you have a clue where any of them absconded to, let me know, because I’m just not as good at cyber-sleuthing on this series of tubes as some people.

A moment in time in the Not Now Silly Newsroom

ALMOST QUIET ON THE CRAZY FRONT: Speaking of cyber-sleuths. It has grown relatively quiet since I published The Johnny Dollar Wars and started sharing the hell out of it. As of this writing it’s #6 on the Not Now Silly All Time Top Ten, with a bullet!

I might have forgotten all about the feud by now had it not been for their reflexive attacks on me. Sadly — for Koldys — The Flying Monkey Squad, his sycophantic gang of ass-kissers that used to hound me on this series of tubes, is now reduced to just one: Ashley Graham, aka Grayhammy. While crossfire has diminished considerably, the war has not ended. Whenever a new skirmish breaks out I am reminded to share The Johnny Dollar Wars with more individuals. Then I set up a whole new series of timed click bait tweets, a simple process carried out with the flick of a button. All of this to push more truth about Johnny Dollar through this series of tubes.

The Johnny Dollar Depreciation Society is your place
for all the latest on The Flying Monkey Squad and
your daily adult requirement of Fox “News” snark!

Now, you’d think a smart guy like Mark Koldys — a former-Wayne County Prosecutor, fer fuck’s sake — would have figured out a way to end the war he started. Perhaps I give him too much credit. No matter, because I am content to keep this up as long as he and his Gang of One does. However, after slapping these fools down on this series of tubes for the past 3 years, would I grow nostalgic for The Johnny Dollar Wars if it were to ever end?

TWO MORE REASONS FOR MY MOTOR CITY NOSTALGIA: I’ve started making final preparations for The 2nd Annual Sunrise to Canton Road Trip for Research. This year there are already more stops planned and more subjects for research than last year’s very successful trip. I’ll be gathering more documents, examining more microfiche, and gathering photographs for the 2014 edition of the Road Trip.

The Purple Gang trying to remain anonymous

One of the topics I’ll be researching while up north is the history of Detroit during the 1920s through to the late ’60s for later chapters of Farce Au Pain (the long-lost book I keep promising to serialize in these pages). I’m still writing and researching parts of Farce Au Pain while I edit other parts. One never knows where research will lead. The story of Farce Au Pain is still taking unexpected turns in this series of tubes, but not everything can be found on the Information Highway, hence the The 2nd Annual Sunrise to Canton Road Trip for Research.

More specifically, I’ll be researching newspaper microfiche for articles on The Purple Gang. It surprised me that a person in Farce Au Pain, who will be introduced in Chapter Two, had a strange connection to The Purple Gang? And, who knew, that would lead to further research in Miami, a place I’ve been writing about for the last several years.

This series of tubes is an amazing place, occasionally filled with wonderful synchronicity like this, some of which make me shiver. This one had all my hairs standing on end. Get comfortable while we take a rest stop on the Information Highway:

Recently I was retweeted by the grandson of Meyer Lansky because I shared an article about his grandfather. Makes sense. No big deal, right?

This is where it gets weird. While it was accidental that the Tampa Times published an article about the daughter of the famous mobster just before Father’s Day, it was not accidental that I shared it. I shared it because Meyer Lansky has been on my mind a lot lately because that’s where the Purple connection led and I have been researching him for Farce Au Pain.

That’s why the last book I finished reading was “Mickey Cohen; The Life and Crimes of L.A.’s Notorious Mobster.” Lansky, not surprisingly, comes up 13 times in Cohen book. The next book I started reading was “The Purple Gang; Organized Crime in Detroit 1910-1945.” I’ve read it before and own it. I decided I’d read it again because it, and the Cohen book, are sources for “Farce Au Pain.” [For the record: Lansky only comes up once in the Purple book, but it was a different era.]

Without giving too much away [NO SPOILER ALERTS!] there is someone introduced in Chapter Two of “Farce Au Pain” who grew up in the Jewish ghetto of Detroit, ‘Merka’s first throwaway city. He was just in his early teens when the Purple Gang was a happening thing, but he was a cocky kid who would run errands for Harry Millman. [Incidentally, and almost besides the point, Pops was friends with Morrie (Morris) Millman, Harry’s brother. And, Morrie and Millie Millman are my sister’s Godparents, but I digress.]

As he grew up, Harry Millman paid for his education so he wouldn’t fall into a life a crime. He became a lawyer, so you’d have to argue whether Harry was successful, or not. That lawyer, almost 20 years later, connects Adrian (who you may all remember from Chapter One) tangentially to Meyer Lansky, who appears in “Face Au Pain” twice as often as he did in the book on The Purples.

It’s a series of tubes.

A Different Drummer ► Unpacking the Writer

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A funny thing happened at the 32nd Annual King Mango Strut

Back in December, when I covered the 32nd Annual King Mango Strut,
I could have hardly imagined it would be a life changing event. Yet,
almost immediately I realized it was a transformational day.

TO RECAP: I attached myself to the Coconut Grove Drum Circle to cover the King Mango Strut from the inside. The parade, which went
around a small 2-block circuit exactly one time, spent the entire morning
marshaling on Commodore Plaza. I had a lot of time to think. It took 5 times longer to get ready for
the Strut than it did to Strut. That was over almost before it began.

A journalist
straddles a tiny grey area between participant and observer. One tries
to stay out of everybody’s way, without blending too far into the background. Taking notes, taking pictures, taking impressions at once removes the
journalist from the action, while it immerses the writer in the experience at the very same time. It’s an anomaly.

One thing became clear to me during all those hours: I DID NOT want
to be covering the King Mango Strut. I just wanted to be hitting those
drums instead.

I’m no drummer. I barely have any rhythm. I’m not even a musician. The blog post My First Band ► Cobwebs And Strange
recalls my HIGH-LARRY-US teenage attempts at being a lead singer in a Rock and
Roll band. To sublimate my lack of musicianship, I love listening to
all genres of music passionately. It’s not a fair tradeoff, but it’s all I’ve got. [That and 42 linear feet of CDs, more that 25,000 tunes on my hard drive, and enough Spotify playlists to last several lifetimes. Whoever has the most music when they die, wins!]

Djembe drums awaiting use

But…but…but…on
the day of the King Mango Strut, all I wanted to do was to slap those drum skins. Every once in a while one of the drummers would let me have a few
whacks on their oddly shaped drum, which I now know is called a
djembe. But, walking past a drum and giving it a few taps is different
from putting it between your legs and banging away. And, I was desperate to put one of those things between my legs and bang away. The only other time music had such an immediate, visceral effect on me is told in The Day I Met Bob Marley, another popular post at Not Now Silly.

By
the time the Strut was over, I knew I would be joining the
Coconut Drum Circle again, but this time as a participant. I would get my chance soon enough. There’s one held on the
first Saturday of every month, just a few hundred feet from where we
marshaled for the Strut.

So, skip ahead. It’s the first Saturday of the month. At the corner of Commodore Plaza and Grand Avenue I was handed a djembe. I spent the evening pounding away like a mad man, until my hands hurt. Sadly, it was nothing like what I had anticipated and it turned out to
be a very unsatisfying and deflating experience.

To begin with, I should have brought my own camping chair. I don’t mean to be churlish because I was graciously supplied with a drum and a tiny stool. But that little thing hurt my delicate ass after several hours. To make matters worse, I couldn’t hear myself. That’s why I hurt my hands. I was trying to make my drum loud enough so I could hear it over all the other drums. Not
being able to hear meant that I couldn’t tell how hitting the head in different places affected the sound. Only later did I realize I sat next to all the BIG DRUMS that people were hitting with big sticks. No wonder I couldn’t hear myself.

Worse still was the fact that, once again, I had to face up to the limitations of my left hand. Back when I was a teenager my guitar teacher told me I had no absolutely coordination in my left hand. To quote myself:

It turns out that time proved him right. Over the years I have learned
that my left hand is pretty useless for most tasks. When I smoked I
couldn’t even use my left hand to hold the cigarette because I managed
to drop it so many times. Trying to use a remote with my left hand?
Forget it! I’m the EXTREME opposite of ambidextrous. Hell! I’d give my
right arm to be ambidextrous.

It’s probably just as well I couldn’t be heard in the mix at the drum circle. Whenever I tried to find my own beats within the group’s rhythm, my left hand would lurch out spasmodically, finding crazy syncopation never intended for music of any kind, even Jazz. I drove back to Sunrise from my first drum circle dejected. It was not at all what I had hoped. Nor did it feel as if I could ever fit myself within the group’s rhythms.

Yet, there were moments that first night that transcended thoughts, transcended time, transcended my crappy rhythm. I would find myself transported, soaring through millennia of music making. I imagined myself back in Kebo, the name the original Bahamians
gave to this area of Coconut Grove a century ago when they settled here and built Miami. At night there would have been music-making. I could feel the
energy we created merging with rhythms from the past, present and future. Outside was one thing. In my head I could fuse what the circle created with Gospel melodies, horn sections, Rock and Roll, Jazz, New Orleans, and Reggae rhythms. Again, it penetrated me deeply in a way that words just seem so inadequate to describe. This paragraph will have to do instead.

I was pissed. As much as I was drawn to the drumming — as much as I wanted to be a part of it — my lack of left-hand rhythm kept me at a distance, kept returning me to reality. I was running these thoughts through my mind the next day as I listened to music. I soon became aware that, as always, I was tapping my feet and ‘drumming’ the fingers of my right hand on my desk to the tunes. What was going on?

TANGENT: My odd relationship with music didn’t quite make sense to me until I read Musicophilia by Dr. Oliver Sacks. That’s also when I started to over-think my lifetime contract [sic] with music and how I process it. I’ve been reading Sacks, who writes fascinating books about people who have anomalies, diseases, or damage in their brain, for many years. However, this book was the first time I ever thought he was talking directly about me, in part.

I happened across the Sacks book right after reading This is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession by Daniel J. Levitin. Musicophilia is about the [almost mystical] effect of music in (on?) the brains of case studies, both normal and abnormal. This is Your Brain describes the science of measuring the changes in the brain caused by listening to and/or playing music. These two books summed up for me my relationship to music, whether it’s shaking my eardrums or being created inside my head.

Growing up, adults always
told me I was fidgety. It took many years to realize that I wasn’t
nervous. I was keeping a rhythm to music by tapping my feet and/or drumming my
fingers. Even if there’s no music playing. Especially if
there’s no music playing. My mind is
always creating music when there is none: the ticking of a fan, the hum of florescent lighting, or the sound of footsteps can all lead to my brain over-laying a tune on top of it. My toes and fingers are reacting to that. As a child I never had the language to describe it. As a young adult I figured if I told that to people, they might lock me up. Now that I am — ahem — mature, I’m quite comfortable with the music in my brain. TANGENT OVER. MOVE ALONG.

I spent almost a week of analyzing my disappointment to my first drum circle. Friends told me I was over-thinking the whole dealie, but that’s how I process events that rub me wrong. One friend tried to make me understand that all that was needed was for me to feel the music. It wasn’t necessary to think the music. I especially didn’t need to over-think the music. But I did. I knew I did. How did I know? Because I couldn’t get the problem out of my head.

Then the light bulb went on. I realized that what I really wanted to play was what I heard in my head and what I was hearing in my head was not a drum. A drum circle plays
budda-duh-budda-duh-budda-duh-budda-duh-dum-dum-daddah. [repeat] What I was
hearing in my head was tink, tink, tink, tinka-tinkahh, tink, tink,
tink, tinka-tinkahh on top of the rhythm.

It came to while I was ‘drumming’ my fingers on the desk again. Paying better attention to what my fingers were doing — over-thinking it, you naysayers — I realized they weren’t beating out a steady rhythm at all. My fingers were popping off accents within the rhythm. I was hearing the syncopation inside the rhythm.

Mine looked exactly like this
until I knocked the logo off

Over the next week I visited a couple of music stores and tested out a number of percussion instruments. I really liked the sound of the wood blocks, but they were all far too expensive for this weird, new obsession I was chasing. What if I didn’t like it?

I finally settled on a set of claves and a cowbell. I spent the next little while practicing the claves as various genres of music played on my computer jukebox. I knew almost immediately I had found my instrument! My left hand needs to do nothing but hold a stick. How hard is that? My right hand only needs to bang another stick against it. How hard is that?

Since finding my instrument I’ve also learned about several different drum circles in my area. Until recently I had no idea drum circles were even a thing, but they’re all over the place. There are a few nearby on each full moon and several within an hour’s drive at other times during the month. There are drum circle classes and larger, yearly, conglomerations of drummers. These bring together many drum circles and people make a weekend of it and howl in the woods (in my imagination). I’m learning there’s a very primal need being fulfilled with drum circles. The journalist in me says they require further investigation. The neanderthal in me just wants to bang sticks together.

I have now guest starred with a few separate drum circles, insinuating my tink, tink, tink, tinka-tinkahh, tink, tink,
tink, tinka-tinkahh within the budda-duh-budda-duh-budda-duh-budda-duh-dum-dum-daddah. I’ve now sat in enough drum circles to note each have a different personality. I’m not quite sure how anyone else takes what I do, but I’m having a great time finally playing what I hear in my head and meeting new friends along the way.

And that’s the story of how covering something as a writer changed my life.

NOT NOW SILLY NEWS FROM THE NOT NOW SILLY NEWSROOM: There are several new posts already in the works, with the research pretty much finished. Just within the last few days so many things have occurred on Charles Avenue, that I’ve barely had time to keep up. I have a few outstanding phone calls, but that will get its own post coming up in the next few days. I’m also part-way through documenting a second chapter of Where the Sidewalk Ends, Racism Begins. And, as I keep promising, there’s a new chapter of Farce Au Pain coming up. While on the subject of books, don’t miss The Johnny Dollar Wars ► Chapter and Verse, in which I expose my crazy cyber-bullies for the malevolent creeps they are, last thing Mark Koldys wants anyone to know.