No Respect

I can't get no respect. No respect. These are not my words, but they're my sentiment. The late Rodney Dangerfield and I seem to have something going, something in common. I spend my days loosening up the pretend tie that hangs around my neck like a noose. And while I don't have a funny routine to turn out my particular hell, I can tell you assuredly that I get no respect. No response, no return on investment, no nothing. Some friends say don't take it personally - this is a mad mad world we live in, it's not you. Others say change how you act, change what you believe in, change how you look, change what you find funny, and what you don't. My eyes are popping out of my head in disbelief, like Rodney's. How do you weather this type of disappointment for so long? What is the God damn glitch? My wiring is still there though. I can still get myself to have hope, to believe someone when they tell me that something is going. I believe and I believe and I believe until those same people fade into this horrible Gremlin mass of oblivion, never to resurface again, at least not in the meanwhile. How can I not take it personally? When this keeps happening over and over again, like some bad fine-line crack in an LP's lining. I'm taking in the same shoddy sounds of the needle chafing its snag. I get no respect. No respect.

Okay, I got a little respect yesterday. But only the superficial kind. The kind that comes and goes when you're wearing a nice dress, and you look good in it. People were nice at the stores, on the streets. But still, I know that the dress has to come off at some point, and then I'm just left with my skin, and a phantom phone ring. I get no respect, no real respect. It hasn't been the story of my life, but the crux of the story these last two years. What the f---? How's it going to be tomorrow?

Amazon is selling Rodney Dangerfield's "The Ultimate No Respect Collection" for under thirty dollars. Rodney, are you rolling around in your grave? People are respecting that you get no respect with their dollars and their time. I have to admit that I never cared much for your routine, but yesterday I realized your genius. Yes, I had no respect, no respect, and now I do. Rodney, tell me something, when will I get the respect? Not the fleeting, good-looking dress kind, but the kind that lasts, for my work, and my time, and my mind? I'm loosening up my fake tie as I write this.

Miracle Whip

I've had a lot of ideas about what to write. A lot. Too many. But nothing stuck until yesterday when I was on the bus. If you can call it that. It had the regular proportions of a bus, but it really was an infernal vessel containing all manner of human misery; a habitation of fallen angels. I'm not being the least bit dramatic. This was for real. All the passengers were crammed up against each other, sweating, most of them morbidly obese, some sitting taking up two or three seats with their amazing girth, snoring or burping. While the bus was full-up, the driver kept admitting more and more sad, big people, almost as if he thought the vessel would burst on impact, and cease to be. I must have inherited the sweat, blood, and tears of a hundred different DNAs - all co-existing, transporting, intermixing, by sheer close proximity. I'm not claustrophobic, but I was feeling a bit closed in, I have to admit. There was no where to breathe, no where to go, this is where the human design is ending up? Fat and immobile, sleepless and restless, stagnant and unhappy. I had to get out of there. My life depended on it.

My experience there on this and in this sub-human realm recalled a scene from Woody Allen's "Stardust Memories." Allen plays Sandy Bates, a successful comedic film director who wants to delve into serious subject matter. He's on a train that is clearly overrun with misery and depravity. He peers out the window, and there across the way, is a train with beautiful, happy, healthy people. It's a wonderful party, and he wasn't invited. A beautiful woman from the heavenly train blows a kiss at Sandy, and then her train departs. Two trains passing in the night and all that. Sandy wonders to himself why he's not on the "good" train, just as I wondered why I was not on the "good" bus. Why haven't I been at the party? The last two years has been a long, depraved journey of sniveling and sucking up, when all I want is pride and posture. I've worked hard. I have a good education. I'm young. I'm vibrant. I'm sick of being on the bad bus, I've done my time in purgatory; this damnable eternity that I am trying desperately trying to break. And then I saw it. The billboard that displayed a favorite American condiment: "Miracle Whip." I would never eat it, it sounds like mayonnaise's poor cousin, but I thought what a great name, great words standing side-by-side. A miracle that is whipped up, like good froth out of nowhere. That's what I need, some extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention. A miracle that would intervene in my bad bus affairs. I'm willing to work for it though. Just give me a chance. Something out of thin air sounds a bit far off, but nevertheless welcome, especially when you're in the bad bus/train looking at the good one.

Sandwich Envy

I experienced pure and unadulterated envy the other day. Sandwich envy. This is not metaphorical. I was sitting in a very pleasant cafe with my mother. She was taking me to lunch. The cafe specialized in fresh soups, salads and sandwiches. The BLT entry with a choice of country or Italian bacon called out to me from the heavens. I started to form spittle on the corners of my mouth, and my eyes glanced upwards like one of those Botticelli women sprawled on the grass or splayed on a giant half-shell. But I couldn't partake. For the love of the pig, and its cow cousin, I've been avoiding their flesh, and for the love of a waist, I've been avoiding bread and pasta. It's a sad state of affairs for me, because I'd rather indulge in a nice hearty piece of bread any day than a scoop of ice-cream or a slice of chocolate cake. But, and according to my father, if you eat dough, you look like a dough. So the summer bathing suit season wins out here. I made a small exception in this small cafe though. I reasoned with myself that if I sacrificed Porky's flesh, I could stand to be temporarily porky with two slices of fresh bread. My mother got the BLT, and I, an unthrilling grilled squash, radicchio, and mozzarella sandwich. I saw it from afar, and I instantly knew, like you do when you smell an overripe melon, that I made a rotten choice. Perhaps it's the workings of my overactive imagination, but the waitress seemed to very gently set down my mother's tantalizing, fresh BLT, that displayed its own overriding joie de vivre, and plopped my flattened grilled vegetable poo-poo platter before me. My mother took a satisfying bite, and smiled. She knew she made the right choice. I took a bite of mine, and it was everything I thought it would be. Nothing. I parted the two pieces of nine-grain bread, and there were barely any innards, one small and shriveled round of squash, and a wilted radicchio leaf. I was sad, and knew that the waist Gods were looking down at me, and pointing their finger and chuckling. This is what I get. I see how it is. And then I looked behind me, and there it was. The sandwich to end all sandwiches. It too was a vegetarian option, but glistening with dew, fresh, delectable, sprouts, avocados, halvarti cheese stacked to form a colossus. It had my name on it, except it didn't. It was some other girl's. And she wasn't admiring it nearly as much as I was. I was shafted; like I've been so many times before this these last two years. I've been shafted because for some strange reason NY hates me, and won't hire me, and I can't even get a nice hoagie. I was enraged. My mom noticed that I was resentful and pained, and offered me a bite of hers. It was delicious. But I wanted the girl's wich. I left my stinky pieces of bread on my plate, and brazenly asked the waitress for another. "I'll have what she's having." "To go," the waitress asked. "No, for here," I said defiantly. I was all of sudden full of joy. I soon will have licked the envy and the pain. I waited and waited. My mom finished the BLT, and then pointed out into the distance. It was coming, my good-luck, all will be well elixir. Except when it came, it was no where near as nice-looking as the one the girl had. In fact hers was still sitting there in pretty delight. I wanted to trade with her, like I used to with the drab Garbage Pail kid cards. She saw me looking and laughed, and muttered something about how the grass is always greener.

Panhandler

A and B go side by side. And never the twain have met more than in my case. Accosting and something short of begging, A and B, have been my two primary preoccupations these last two years. It seems that these two preoccupations were in my eventual make-up, as A, B, and C, for Clover, are a definite alphabetical and familial trio. Maybe I should change my name? Nah. Clover is supposed to be lucky, right? Not so. At least not during this last chunk of time. In fact, my name has been playing me for a fool these last twenty-four months. My mom always told me I could change it if it was too "flower-power" or something. And even though it seems that I have been reduced to a common panhandler lately, clawing and nagging my way towards the holy land of permanent job status, I can't help but think that the sentiment and the strength of the name will take effect again. Sort of like Superman overcoming kryptonite, regaining his special supermanny powers. Perhaps doing my time as a panhandler is a panacea for the rest of my life. Perhaps I needed to suffer a little, a lot for a time. Perhaps I needed to accost and beg for every crumb of human decency, approval, recognition these last two years - perhaps I needed to learn it and do it the Joan Rivers way.

Rivers was on Charlie Rose last night promoting the documentary "Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work." She is a piece of work. Funny, smart, and indestructible. Really. Nothing seems to steam-roll her, and if it does, she scrapes her flattened self from the pavement, dusts off, and moves on. I have always been a fan, but never more than yesterday, when she described all her trials and tribulations. She has always landed on her feet, despite her nine long lives. She has begged and clawed and accosted without shame. She is a panhandler if there ever was one. She yanks and yanks and yanks on the bus's bell cord, until it has no choice than to come to a screeching halt. Rivers runs the show no matter what. Frankly, A,B, C, and J should be in closer proximity.