Author: Dick

If I ever worked somewhere for almost 50 years I don’t think I would be a sane man. Ditto for working somewhere seven years, which is my all-time record. Of course, some doubt my sanity anyway. And I am sure there are those who doubt the sanity, or at least the lucidity, of U.S. Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va.

Over lunch I caught Byrd on C-Span II, holding forth on the Senate floor about the current supplemental appropriations bill. Byrd is one of the few politicians I get a kick out of hearing speak during legislative proceedings. He is quite comical. He was making some point about a law having “real teeth in it.” Then pointing to himself, he said: “These are real teeth. They may be 88 years old, but they’re real teeth.” He later mentioned something about North Dakota, adding with wit: “That’s north of South Dakota.”

He also manages to consistently bring the pork home to West Virginia. And while pork is a dirty word to some, I would imagine jobs, roads and economic benefits for his state’s residents are words that are not so obscene. Byrd truly seems to enjoy his job. I would have told everyone to shove it years ago.

Being locked out of one’s home is not the best way to get a Monday morning kicked off. This morning I took an abbreviated walk and discovered upon arriving home that I had no keys.

Now for the 11 months I have lived in this apartment, I have been quite paranoid about locking myself out. So much have I been concerned that I make sure my keys are in my hand or my pocket when I leave. The reason for my concern is exactly why my morning bit a big one. My landlord lives about 15 miles away and does not come running just because I am locked out. I called him about 9 a.m. and he said it would be about 11 a.m. before he could get by. I decided to call a locksmith.

That would have been relatively simple if a phone book or the Internet was handy. But, as you might recall, I was locked out of my damned apartment! I walked up the block and stopped at this insurance office. The guy was really nice and waited until I made my call before trying to sell me insurance. I thought I would ask him about purchasing some dumb-ass insurance but I thought the better of it.

One locksmith I called had his voice mail engaged and I did not want to have to wait to talk to someone about unlocking my place. Of course, I did. The locksmith that I called took forever and ever, almost an hour to call me back. By that time I had employed another locksmith who was pretty good at his word that he would be here in 20-30 minutes. This guy left his car running, zipped up the stairs, did a little magic and ta-da, it was open.

After paying the locksmith $45 for about two minutes work, I sought out my keys. And I sought and I sought and I sought some more. I couldn’t find my keys anywhere. I realized after sticking my hand in the pocket of my shorts that it had a hole. The hole didn’t really seem big enough that my keys could fall through. It’s also a bit puzzling that I didn’t feel, at least some air from motion, around the falling keys. But all I can figure is that my keys (and a pack of Rolaids) fell out of my pocket. I first drove the route I took on my walk. I didn’t see my keys. Then I retraced my steps. Well, I walked the same streets and sides of the street that I had walked earlier in the morning. Retracing steps sounds a bit like you’re walking on plaster casts of your footsteps. Whatever. The point is I didn’t see my keys.

The only spare I don’t have is for my mailbox and my landlord will bring me a copy eventually. Meanwhile, if you unearth a set of keys in the Old Town neighborhood of Beaumont, Texas, they might just be mine.

Wait. Wait. Wait some more. Then wait again. That about sums up my day at the Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Affairs Hospital in Houston. I rode a VA van there to and from Beaumont this morning, a 90-minute trip one way. Then I waited 90 minutes for my first appointment and 2 hours for my second one. There is a really funny story about my first appointment, but unfortunately, I am not quite brave enough to tell it yet. Maybe I will disclose it in “eight feet deep the book.”

I made my initial visit to the pain management clinic this afternoon. A couple of months ago, I was diagnosed with two bulging discs in the C-spine/T-1-spine. A subsequent visit to a specialist revealed that the doctors did not want to operate unless I developed some serious complications from the disc and stenosis. This is because I had two previous C-spine surgeries, the last being a fusion with a piece of my hip bone and metal plate screwed onto my spine. “There just wasn’t much to work with,” was how the specialist put it, referring to my condition being relatively inoperable.

So I was referred to a pain management specialist. What they propose doing is a procedure in which I will be given a nerve root block in my C-spine. They inject the nerves with cortisone after giving me some, hopefully, good drugs. The pain specialist said when the epidural steroid injections work, they usually last about three months. I guess I will do it. It doesn’t look like I have a whole lot of choices about it. Maybe I can get them to take pictures during the procedure and I will share it with you. There, you might see me with a death grip on some nurse’s arm when they shoot me in the neck with a syringe. You know, party photos.

I am not working today and I don’t particularly have anything to do. That isn’t to say there aren’t things I could do. I could do a lot of things, some of which would even count as constructive. But I’m just not up for constructive today. That is why I went on a bender of reading Steely Dan lyrics.

Walter Becker and Donald Fagen as Steely Dan — they once formed a band called “Leather Canary” — have put out a good number of albums over the years. So I did have to limit my lyrical bender to those works up to “Gaucho” in 1980. Still, they produced a plethora of mind-boggling lyrics during that period such as:

“I fear the monkey in your soul.” From “Monkey In Your Soul,” the album “Pretzel Logic,” 1974.

That line strikes terror in my inner mojo. For I fear monkeys in people’s souls as well. Also I fear, when I see a monkey up close, that it is going to fling some sort of bodily material at me.

Here is another SD favorite:

“Have you ever seen a squonk’s tears? Well, look at mine.” From “Any Major Dude,” the album “Pretzel Logic.”

Quite frankly, no I have never seen a squonk’s tears. I didn’t know that squonks cry. Hell, I didn’t even know what a squonk was until I looked it up on the site Steelydandictionary.com. Here is their definition:

“A mythical woodland creature, originating in Pennsylvania. Squonks spend much of their time crying due to their ugliness, and when captured, will dissolve into a puddle of tears. Also the subject of a song on the 1976 Genesis album A Trick of The Tail.”

Well what do you know? They do cry. But a mythical woodland creature from PENNSYLVANIA? Of course, one of my all-time favorite rhetorical questions is posed in this lyric from the title track of the 1980 album “Gaucho:”

“Who is the gaucho amigo
Why is he standing
In your spangled leather poncho
And your elevator shoes”

Just posing the question “who is the gaucho amigo” sounds a bit funny by itself. Perhaps it would not be particularly humorous to some one from Argentina or Uruguay. That is unless someone was making fun of a pseudo-gaucho, what we call a “drug store cowboy” here in Texas. But a gaucho wearing a spangled leather poncho and someone’s elevator shoes? I mean that is quite a freaky image, don’t you think?

Some SD lyrics are not as cryptic as others but still have something in them that leaps up and slaps me. An example:

“I’m a bookkeeper’s son
I don’t want to shoot no one” From “Don’t Take Me Alive,” the album “The Royal Scam,” 1976.

One has to ask: Would he want to shoot someone if he was a doctor’s son? The son of a Wal-Mart cashier? The son of a preacher man?

Finally, this from “Night by Night,” the album “Pretzel Logic,” 1974.

“Yes, I’m cashing in this ten-cent life
For another one”

Is he cashing in a ten-cent life for another ten-cent life? A five-cent life? An eight-cent life? Who knows. Always a great mystery (and great fun) listening to Steely Dan.

Oh by the way, Steely Dan is going on tour with former band member Michael McDonald beginning in July. I don’t know if I’ll get to see them on July 14 at the Cynthia Mitchell Woods Pavilion in Houston. But stranger things have happened. Check Steelydan.com for a listing of the shows they are playing.

Scotty pulls the old hand-buzzer trick with GW.

Presidential Press Secretary Scott McClellan announced his resignation this morning. McClellan delivered the news to the press corps with his boss by his side. Said McClellan:

MR. McClellan: I quit.

Actually, he had a little more to say including a threat to tie up Helen Thomas and drag her behind Marine One.

I have heard a little speculation as to who will be Scotty’s replacement. John Cornyn’s Box Turtle at “In the Pink Texas” suggested the short list included “Baghdad Bob, Joe Isuzu and Robert Black.” By the latter name I suppose he means the flak Robert Black.

Doggone it, I’m going to miss old Scotty with his puppy-dog eyes and his ability to say absolutely nothing of substance. But life goes on. I am wondering if Scotty is going to work on his mother’s independent campaign for Texas governor. That mother would be none other than Carole Keeton McClellan Rylander Strayhorn Foghorn Leghorn. Stay tuned, lest you play offkey.