The Invisible ...

The Invisible ... It has happened again. Caught me by surprise this time. No sooner am I sure that I have this face and body pinned down, screwed on tight, rustproofed and lacquered against the worst of our Canadian weather with the finest varnish you can buy, when ... ~poof~ ... I'm invisible again. I simply stepped out of the shower this morning, looked at the bathroom mirror, and there I was ... no where to be found. Oh sure, there were some faint pencil marks left over from the last sketch, but those quickly faded away with the steam as it seeped out the crack in the window and into the cool light of morning. Then, nothing. Empty. Void. Invisible. Look as hard as I might, all I could see was the opposite wall, where row on row of perfect off-white tiles line up in absolute symmetry, except for that tile just there, the one with the miniature moon crater in it. I'm afraid that little design flaw was the result of a bathtub rocket experiment that went south in a hurry when someone (not mentioning any names) sparked up the chemicals too soon and sent a miniature space shuttle roaring by my left eye, circling once around the towel bar, and then insanely trying to burrow its way through the tiled wall and into the next room. That little event marked the end of my aeronautical career, but that's a whole other story. I'm not sure how I started becoming invisible, but I have been blinking in and out for years now, and it's getting worse and worse Maybe it's an age thing. I think I first took a fade sometime around my 30th birthday. To be honest, I don't remember the specifics, but likely as not, I was probably paying for an item in a grocery store when I realised that the cashier didn't return my flirtatious smile or acknowledge the goofy nod of my head. Cashiers are famous for making people invisible. Maybe it's part of the job description. At any rate, I'm sure it was a quick dissolve that lasted only as long as it took me to say something like, "Sucks to be her today," and I promptly stepped back into visibility. Such is the vigour and saving grace of being young and self-confident. By the time I hit my 40's, however, my experiences with invisibility became more frequent. Fewer and fewer people were seeing me, noticing me, listening to me, or bothering to understand me. Before long, I had to resort to wearing flamboyant Hawaiian shirts draped over hideous plaid Bermuda shorts just to be noticed in common everyday situations. I drove a souped up Ford LTD, and made cassette tapes of Depeche Mode and the Thompson Twins that blared out of quad speakers as I drove past the Dairy Queen on Saturday nights. I even considered getting one of those barbed wire tattoos to run around the length of my arm. I know. It sounds like a mid-life crisis to me too, but what is a mid-life crisis if it's not just someone's attempt to say, "Hey, I'm still here. I am NOT invisible!" Oh, I can hear some of you asking, "What's your problem? Isn't what you're writing about just a part of growing old gracefully?" What's the problem? What's the problem? Are you kidding me? The problem is that, although I may be invisible, I'm never incorporeal. My body remains a solid entity. People just don't see me. So, when I'm shopping in the mall, people walk right into me, their tiny heads slamming into my bad shoulder and throwing out my trick knee, while their flailing, talking arms smack me in the groin or the mouth. Worse still, when I'm crossing at a pedestrian crosswalk, cars nearly run me down, swerve by me at the very last second to avoid killing me, while honking their horns and, for some reason, giving me the one-finger salute like it's my fault for crossing the road. The problem is that I still need to be acknowledged. When I'm standing in line for my skinny vanilla latte at Starbucks these days, those young business types, dressed in the new black, just cut right in front of me without giving me a second glance, until, finally and fortunately, another invisible person shows up and hesitantly croaks out, "I think you were next ..." The problem is that I still need to be heard. Too often, I find myself talking with a group of people, and I suddenly discover that no one is listening to anything I say anymore, because, these days, people like to listen only to themselves and hear only what they already believe to be true. So I often wonder if I should just stop talking altogether, stop forming opinions, stop thinking. The problem is that, when I worked, I only mattered when I was young and wore suits everyday. When I began to mistake every day for casual Friday, I began to disappear more and more, especially when decisions needed to be made that affected my job. Sure, sometimes my "bosses" would ask for my input, but whenever I offered any kind of alternative to their plans, my ideas quickly became as invisible as me, the invisible person who submitted them. After a while, I spent most of my working days dreaming of retirement, making me a truly invisible employee, out of sight and out of mind, once and for all. The problem is that there are always those traditional family get-togethers, like Thanksgiving and Christmas. Splendid occasions, I admit, but I almost always suffer a bout of invisibility whenever these events show up on the calendar. I have no extended family to speak of, apart from a sister who lives a million miles away in Vancouver, a daughter who lives a million miles away in her head, and a son, who is a wonderful young man with a beautiful daughter, but who suffers from the same affliction as I do and becomes invisible in his own right. It's a tough gig to be outnumbered in the midst of a swarming throng of look-alike and like-minded folks from the other side of the "family." These are my son's in-laws, of course, a cast of thousands who never really look at me eye-to-eye, because quite frankly, I'm not there. Well, I guess I'm there for a second or two, like a soap bubble that explodes into a silly drip of water, hits the floor, evaporates in a twinkling, and disappears completely. Most of the time, everyone is happy to shuffle me into a folding chair at the kids' table where they stick a plateful of mashed potatoes, some jellied salad, and a turkey wing in front of me and fill my plastic wine glass with fizzy orange soda. If I were there, I might say something, protest, or at the very least, be embarrassed. Fortunately, for all concerned, I'm invisible. Maybe that's just the way life is supposed to progress. Maybe, as we get older, we are supposed to learn to blend into our surroundings, like a chameleon happy to snap at passing flies, instead of making a ruckus about wanting a little attention. And maybe, just maybe, I should accept that I'm no longer the star of this drama called life, accept that I've finally become just an extra, simply someone to help fill in a crowd scene in this epic movie we all live through. Yes, maybe I should just be grateful to still be here, even if I have lost my voice and become irrelevant as I drift toward death with a generation of leftover still-alives who show up at an Eagles' concert and know all the words to all the songs. Maybe, after all is said and done, I shouldn't complain. After all, some people have it worse than I ever did. Some people manage to be almost entirely invisible in a lifelong marriage. Some people have reckless teenage kids who are convinced that a parent is, by definition, invisible. Some people cherish an invisible love. Some people bump and grind through invisible sex. And, maybe worst of all, some people are dying from an invisible disease. But I am complaining, because, well, there's an old saying: "What you see is what you get," and maybe that's true. The problem is that, too often, some people just don't see anymore, and so don't know what magic there is left to get.

Copyright © Kennedy James, 2007. All rights reserved. This post is the intellectual property of the author and his heirs and is not to be copied or reproduced in any form without the author's written consent. Please email for further information.

Are You Eggperienced?

Are You Eggperienced? I can't eat eggs. Allergic. I'm 92% sure of the fact. Some people, who pretend to know better, say that I can't be allergic to eggs because of my penchant for eating cake. "Cake has eggs in it," they say. "How can you eat a cake and not have a reaction if you're allergic to eggs? That impossible." I beg to differ. In the process of making a cake, something magical happens. The eggs become transformed into something that is so not eggs. I mean, cut into a moist chocolate cake, and pardon me, but you won't see anything that is remotely like an egg in there. Not a boiled egg, nor a fried egg, not even an egg-in-the-hole. I know my eggs. Trust me. I ate eggs for years and years, and then one day, the medical community decided to test out a new flu vaccine that was cultured in some sort of egg base. In the early trials, they must not have got the whole vaccine gig right, because I was one of the first to try this little prick in the arm, and ever since then, I can't eat eggs. If I do, I get flu-like symptoms. Slip me an egg today, and tomorrow, I'll be crawling to the couch to either sleep or watch Judge Judy on the TV all day ... same thing, really. I must admit that I do miss eggs. I miss mushing toast in the yolk and gobbling down long dripping hunks of yellow snot-like liquid. Oh, that's not a very pleasant image, I know, and I hope you're not eating your breakfast while you read this. Really, though, the consistency of eggs must seem familiar to you. I guess that's why some people like their eggs well cooked, "over hard" or whatever the phrase is. I suppose I could try Egg Beaters, since that nifty little product claims to eliminate the yolk from the whole egg. You just get the whites and a bunch of emulsifiers like Xantham gum and guar gum. I have no idea what Xantham or guar gum are, but I'm certain I'm allergic to those as well. Anyway, what's an egg without the yolk? I can eat Eggo toaster waffles, but I don't think those are anywhere near the same food group. I doubt very much that they have any egg in them at all. I'm afraid to read the list of ingredients. I suspect that they may contain a frightening amount of chemicals, pesticides, dyes and who knows what else. Google at your own risk. No, I'm afraid I have to live my life eggless in America. Sure, it's a tough road to follow, and many people share my plight. There's not much you can do, short of ordering a tumbler of Benadryl with your omelette, but there are support groups, such as Folks Against Yolks, for people who crave egg salad sandwiches and the like. These groups have the usual twelve step program to get you off shell cracking for good, and for most people, the program is quite successful. I tried the to do the twelve steps, but I only made it to the the ninth. I couldn't bring myself to making amends with the chickens of the world. Going to an egg farm and apologising to those flightless feathered fowls was just too much for me. You see, although I am allergic to eggs, I am not allergic or in any way adverse to watching those oversized cockerels turning slowly over a hot grill and landing on my plate for dinner. While admitting that, I must also say that I love the dark meat and the white meat with an equal passion, political posturing be damned. So I live and I suffer my sacrifice quietly, scrambling for excuses when a big fat guy hands me a glass of eggnog on Christmas day, poaching around the salad bar at the Hometown Buffet and looking for the potato salad that doesn't have flecks of yellow in it, coddling those intent on testing my resolve, boiling with self-loathing should I give in to the serpentine temptation of a devilled egg at a summer picnic. In fact, I am truly like a monk cloistered away from the oviparous world of egg eaters. Yes, like a saint almost. Who knows? Maybe someday they'll canonize me. Give me a cool title, like Saint Eggs-Benedict. Whoops. I shouldn't make religious jokes. I'm not sure so sure about God's sense of humour anymore, not since he thought flooding the world might be amusing. So, yes, I apologise, but you see, some bacon-fried beast from Hell just keeps egging me on.

Copyright © Kennedy James, 2007. All rights reserved. This post is the intellectual property of the author and his heirs and is not to be copied or reproduced in any form without the author's written consent. Please email for further information.

A Turn of the Screw

A Turn of the Screw I stumbled upon the Cosmic Bingo Emporium by sheer accident. Several weeks ago, I was at a local strip mall, where I was searching for a particular kind of screw to fix a cupboard shelf in my pantry. I had been to all the big outlets, like Rona, Lowe's, and Home Depot, and found only the usual screws — long, short, square end, round end, slotted, crossed, hooded — but none of these suited my needs. No matter how detailed a description I offered the sales staff, no one was able to solve my dilemma. I was near desperation until a small advertisement in the Yellow Pages of the phone directory tipped me off to Robertson's Special Screw Mart. The ad assured me in bold italics that it was, The Right Place for the Right Screw. Still, I decided you can never be too sure about these things, so just before venturing out into rush-hour traffic, I angled my cell phone deep into the cupboard and tried my best to take a photograph of the kind of screw that I needed. Armed with this somewhat hazy visual, I was certain that, at Robertson's, I would find the right screw. The moment I entered the Screw Mart, I knew I was on the right track. Aisle after aisle of plastic bins contained every shape and length of screw one could imagine. Twisted right, twisted left, inside out, outside in, screws on an angle, screws with an angle, headless screws, bulbous screws, they were all there for the asking. My excitement was so intense that my blood seemed to rush up into my head and made me almost giddy. I reeled my way along the first aisle, and I quickly realised that I was drowning in screws. Too many, too fast, kind of like sitting in the hot Arizona sun doing shots of tequila, something one should never do alone. I needed help, and fortunately, I was quickly approached by a young woman in a wonderfully coordinated, screwdriver-grey blouse over deep black slacks with red and yellow pinstripes. "Are you looking for a screw?" she asked in a steely voice. "Yes," I said, slightly taken aback by the redundancy of her query. After all, what else would one be looking for at a Screw Mart? We stood face to face, hips squared, looking each other up and down like two gunfighters on a dusty street in a Western movie. She cocked her head to the left. I cocked mine to the right. Her eyes narrowed. I squinted. She zoomed in on the sticky plastic strip that I had forgotten to remove from the front of my T-shirt. I focused on a round, red nameplate, propped on the shelf of her ample left breast, clearly the larger of the set. For a moment, she seemed distracted, and as I read her name, I truly was distracted. Or bemused. Maybe dumbfounded. The right adjective escapes me because she apparently had the same name as the Queen of England. All this happened in seconds, of course, and I quickly recovered my wits and confirmed in my deepest FM voice, "Yes, I am looking for a screw, Ms Elizabeth II." Then, with a wink, I asked, "May I call you, uh, Liz?" "No," she rebuked me with a dark grimace. "In Robertson's, we like to remain as formal as possible." My blood now rushed down from my head and plunged back to wherever blood goes when one feels the shame of overstepping a boundary. "I'm sorry, Ms II. I wasn't aware ..." "No need to apologize," she said quickly. "It happens all the time. Day in and day out, people come here to find a special screw. For some customers, Robertson's seems to create some kind of idiotic reaction. Normal people suddenly become circus clowns. So we try to keep things as sane as possible. Civility is everything, you see. Please don't feel insulted." "I understand completely," I said in a whisper, as if we were sharing a corporate secret. Then, without thinking, I chuckled and said, "No screwing around, then." "See? There you go. Making a joke." Her face took on a painful expression, as if, just now, a wave of nausea surfed through her digestive tract. "It all becomes so tedious," she continued. "We like to avoid such triviality. Here at Robertson's, we take screws seriously." "My apologies, again. I'm really not one of those flippant people." I quickly stuck my index finger to the side of my head. "No screw loose here, I assure you." "And yet again, you throw out a silly pun. Like I haven't heard that one a thousand times before." "Sorry? Did I say something screwy?" "You must be going for the record." "Not really. I have screwples after all." With that, Ms Elizabeth II turned on a dime and began to walk away from me. "Wait," I called to her. "I really do need your help." She hesitated for a moment, and then, without even turning to face me, she muttered back over her shoulder, "You're done with the silly jokes?" "Yes," I said in something of a pleading tone. "I'm done with the silly jokes. I promise." She turned, her face passive, except for a slight twitch that had developed over her right eye and a red patch on her bristly chin. "How can I help you then?" she asked in an uncertain voice. "I need one of these," I said, and I help up my cell phone to show her the photograph of the kind of screw that I had been unable to locate anywhere else. She took a step toward me and examined the blurry image on my Nokia. Her eyes rolled upwards into her head, and a slight smile formed on her pouty, pink lips. "Well, I see," she droned slowly, and then, with an explosive laugh, she added, "I'm afraid you're screwed." As her chuckles turned into guffaws, I looked at her blankly, helplessly, the way one looks at someone who has just passed gas during communion in church. I didn't know whether to join in her laughter or to cry because I had obviously driven her over the edge. "I beg your pardon?" I threw the question up like a balloon and waited for it to pop her back into reality. "Oh my, oh my," she chortled as tears began to stream down the heavy base of concealer on her cheeks. "You really are a screwball." "Have we switched roles then?" I wondered as I drifted into a feeling of frustration mixed with despair. "No, no, it's just that ..." Her words broke off as a lump of spit caught the back of her throat, and she began to gag involuntarily. I was worried that she was about to pass out right there in front of me. "Perhaps some else can help me?" I asked quietly. She looked up at me with hay fever eyes, and then in a gargle, said, "No, no, please. No one here can help you. That's not a screw, not even remotely like a screw. That, I'm afraid to tell you, is a nail, a bent, common 5 penny nail." I turned my cell phone to look at the photo. "That's a nail?" I asked, completely abashed by my mistake. "Yes. That's a simple nail. Nothing at all like a screw." "A nail?" "Yes, a nail." "Not a screw?" "Most definitely not a screw. You won't find it here in Robertson's." "You don't sell nails?" "No. No nails. Just screws." I looked at the picture on my cell phone again. "I feel so stupid," I offered. Her face confirmed my self-evaluation. A look of complete disdain was riveted there with a stoic resilience. "I'm sorry to have wasted your time," I offered as graciously as possible. The self-loathing, which my parents had generously taught me throughout my childhood, began to intermingle with waves of embarrassment. My blood pressure spiked, and my head was pounding. "You must think I'm a real jackass," I groaned. "No, not at all," she said in a condescending voice. "I just hope you now know the difference between a screw and a nail. Don't beat yourself up about it." Then, just as I was leaving the store, she added with a final cackle, "Go have a drink somewhere. Have a couple of drinks. In fact, get yourself hammered!" Her laughter expanded. "Get it?" she roared. "Get it? Nail? Hammered?" The sound of her unadulterated derision faded as I stepped from Robertson's Special Screw Mart and wandered down the walkway in the mall. For some reason, I was overcome by a sudden sadness, and I felt completely alone in the world, almost to the point of feeling desolate, well, maybe even a little past desolate, maybe all the way to deflated, despondent, depressed, or any one of those other nasty de- prefixed words. The day's light was waning, and as I was trying to remember where I had left my car, a bank of lights suddenly lit up right in front of me. I took it as a sign. Well, it was a sign, a sign that formed the word "BINGO" in a series of flashing, incandescent light bulbs, but I mean I took the sign as a sign for something else. All I know is that I was drawn toward a staircase that lead down into a bingo hall where a number of people were clamouring to get in. And that's how I stumbled upon the Cosmic Bingo Emporium. Ah, but that's another story, perhaps for another day.

Copyright © Kennedy James, 2007. All rights reserved. This post is the intellectual property of the author and his heirs and is not to be copied or reproduced in any form without the author's written consent. Please email for further information.

Monk The Skunk . . .

Monk The Skunk . . . In the jungles of suburbia, it's never a good idea to be wandering around after dark. Here, amidst the bungalows and the back-splits, between the garbage cans and the recycling bins, all kinds of "wild" animals have claimed the night as their own. Since spring arrived to the neighbourhood, I've been visited by one such beast. I call him Monk — Monk the Skunk — who waddles by early in the morning just as I'm wandering around outside and watching the sun rise. Where he goes on his nightly forages, well, God only knows. I imagine that he's having a relationship with a buxomly Sussette Oo-La-La Skunkette, somewhere a couple of blocks over, where it's wooded and more private. If this is a case of love, then I applaud his commitment to his passion, which seems to run with clockwork precision. Every morning, Monk hurries past me at almost the exact, same minute. Every morning, he scurries, oh so casually by, without so much as a sideways glance my way. I don't mind. To me, that seems to be how it should be. Monk the Skunk one way, Kennedy the other way. I don't like the musky scent of his cologne, and he doesn't like the smell of my Ocean Breeze Cocoa Butter Shower Gel. I don't make threatening gestures at him, and he doesn't line me up with his rear-end, super-soaker spray glands. So far, it's been a working relationship. Until this morning. This morning, instead of tumbling along his usual route by the side of the house, Monk the Skunk was standing perfectly still at the end of the driveway. When I saw him, I knew right away that something was different. Instead of wiggling his way up the driveway, he remained motionless down by the street. I could tell that he was waiting and watching for me with his beady black eyes. This sudden change in our daily ritual caught me off guard. I stopped dead in my tracks. I knew trouble was brewing. "Let's move along there, partner," I called to him as casually as I could. "You're running late." Monk's head titled, first one way and then the other. He seemed to be surprised that I had the ability to speak, and he cackled back at me. Although I had never heard Skunkenese before, Monk's tone clearly revealed that he was edgy, maybe a little tired, and definitely unhappy to see me. More cackle followed, interspersed some unsavoury sounding crackle, and if the Webster's Skunk Dictionary (Abridged Ed.) includes swear words, then I'm sure Monk added every one of those very fragrant expletives in his sudden diatribe directed solely at me. "Tough night?" I ventured. "Hey, we all have them." Then, in my most matter-of-fact voice, I added, "Now let's clear the sidewalk before the kids start marching off to school." Monk the Skunk shook his head, and the violence of that tremor rippled, like an earthquake, down the length of his body and out his tail into the morning air. Then, without any warning, he became a cruise missile with a racing stripe down each side as he suddenly charged up the driveway in a straight line towards me. I had nowhere to turn. My only escape from this heat-seeking ball of potpourri-gone-wild was to jump back into the house and slam the door in his face. Apparently, I did so without a second to spare, because just as the door closed, I heard him thump into it with the force of a SWAT team pile driver. I peeked through the side window, and there he was, just outside the front doorway, where he sniffed the air for the scent of Cocoa Butter and spun in erratic circles. I shuddered. "Rabies, the bugger has rabies," I thought, and I tried my best to see if his mouth was dripping with the rich foam of a British beer, but noticed, instead, only the glint of his razor-like yellow teeth. My mind whirled in parabolas. I was being held hostage by a rabid skunk. Worse still, I knew that within minutes the neighbourhood would explode with life. "I need to call 9-1-1," I said to myself, convinced that before the morning ended, Monk the Skunk would bite and infect some innocent passerby — the octogenarian from down the block on her morning stroll, the mailman, the paperboy, a straight-A student momentarily stoned on Ritalin, maybe, even, the whole lot of them. I couldn't allow Monk to become a serial rabist. Then, I saw what had flung Monk into such a frenzy. Out from under the neighbour's rusty-white Toyota Camry bustled a diminutive lady skunk, my imagined Sussette Oo-La-La Skunkette, and three small skunk toddlers. Under the watchful eyes of Monk, they made their way up the drive, past the house, and out to the ravine beyond the back fence. I smiled. I laughed. I went to the front door and pulled it open. I had the insane notion that I might congratulate this fledgling father of three, maybe even share a bottle of bubbly wine and a non-Cuban cigar with him. After all, I was happy for him. I was overcome with the eternal kinship of fatherhood with my little rodent friend. I was transported back to the warm fuzzy memory of witnessing the miracle of birth without so much as once calling for an epidural to calm myself and block out some of the screaming. I was empowered by that ecstatic feeling of immortality that all new fathers experience. Apparently, Monk didn't share my sense of such a strong ethereal connection. As he turned away from my front door, he left me with a much different scentiment.

Copyright © Kennedy James, 2007. All rights reserved. This post is the intellectual property of the author and his heirs and is not to be copied or reproduced in any form without the author's written consent. Please email for further information.

S-EX ... Sex with the Ex ... Could you? Would you?

S-EX ... Sex with the Ex ... Could you? Would you? Someone asked me the other day if I would, given the opportunity, have sex with my ex. I said that would only happen if we were the last two people on the face of the earth. And even then, I'd have to consider and reconsider before I could even imagine the possibility. It's just not something I would ever want to do. I suspect, however, that s-ex may not be so uncommon. People leave a relationship for a wide variety of reasons -- abuse, money, family issues, cheap birthday gifts -- who knows what can destroy any feelings of love between two people. Maybe sex isn't the most significant factor. In fact, in some cases, separated couples will say, "The sex was great, but everything else in our relationship was absolutely horrible." In those situations, the couple's most vital memory is what the two shared in bed. So, given the right set of circumstances, such as a chance meeting at the all-night grocery store, each may suddenly discover a certain residual attraction. The grapefruit suddenly become more than grapefruit, the bananas seem oddly warm to the touch, and before you know it, each is feeling somewhat flirtatious and aroused, then even more flirtatious and more aroused, until suddenly, both are speeding through the express checkout with ten items or less to hook up somewhere. Are they crazy? It's hard to say. Another reason a couple may seek out s-ex is simply the result of loneliness. After all the drama of a separation, anyone can easily get "cut off" from sex. For some, the "new life" of sexual freedom that he or she anticipated may simply not show up. The first weeks and months of trolling the singles bars or joining an online dating club often lead only to an increased sense of feeling hopelessly alone. Desire and frustration build up and often lead that individual backwards instead of forwards. One telephones the other for some insignificant reason, and without warning, the ex's decide to share more than just the furniture or time of day. They end up sharing a bed together on a regular basis. In fact, I know of one couple who, after splitting up, moved into separate apartments in the same building. The result of such a close proximity was inevitable, and they carried on this way for years. The physical easiness of a s-ex relationship should be obvious. After all, it's familiar territory. You know what pleases one another. There are no unknowns or secrets in the equation. There's no awkwardness or surprises, and so whatever insecurities you may have about sex simply don't come into play. The physical interplay is comfortable and maybe even comforting. It's the emotional relationship that can get a little screwy. For example, one partner may be harbouring a hidden agenda that involves trying to reignite the love the two once shared, while the other partner has no intention of reconciling at all. If the emotional life of the two partners is out of whack, then disaster seems imminent. One of the two, and maybe both, will end up getting hurt . . . again. So . . . what do you think? Could you? Would you???

Copyright © Kennedy James, 2007. All rights reserved. This post is the intellectual property of the author and his heirs and is not to be copied or reproduced in any form without the author's written consent. Please email for further information.

What would happen if Jesus were alive and living in Biloxi . . .

What would happen if Jesus were alive and living in Biloxi . . . I was driving home from WalMart with a bag full of groceries and a pocket full of cashback this morning, and as I was driving I was also scanning the radio for something decent to listen to. An old-time gospel hour popped out at me from a Buffalo, NY station. The deep voice of a preacher was talking about how the poverty of America had little if anything to do with a lack of money in everyday folks' bank accounts. Instead, he insisted that the real poverty that blighted America was due to a lack of faith, and not a lack of ready currency. In the bank accounts of American spirituality, apparently there is a balance owing. I'm not sure how true all that is, but the repeated insistence of his voice was damn convincing. And if his dulcet baritone accusations weren't enough, there was this steady repetition of some hopped-up-on-the-gospel voice of a woman in the background who kept singing out an "Amen" or a "Thank you, Jesus" at just the right times. Clearly, the words of the good reverend would have bounced across the airwaves in a giant run-on sentence, except for this woman's plaintive refrains that cut everything into neat sentences divided by exclamation marks. And that got me thinking about what would happen if Jesus were alive and living in Biloxi. I mean, what would Jesus be like if He lived among us today? Would he be a liberal or a conservative, a Democrat or a Republican? Would He be pro-choice or pro-life? Would He be OK with same-sex marriages, or would He sink San Francisco into the bay? Would He have a gun cabinet in the back room of his trailer, or would He want to see the second amendment repealed? Would He turn a blind eye to the gang-bangers who control the streets of American cities, or would He tear down all those basketball courts on every corner of every ghetto and find some real solution to the problem? Would He consider a couple of miracles to make life a bit easier for common folk? Would He consider waving a hand in the air a few times to eliminate drug addiction and prostitution -- perhaps by spontaneously setting on fire every street-corner dealer and pimp? Sure, a few guys, the ones wearing baseball hats turned at just-the-right weird angle, would have to burn down into a pile of ashes, but the Book of Revelations doesn't say we're all going to be saved when the promised end comes. We could consider the torching of all the kingpins of the American drug and sex underworld sort of a sneak preview of what's to come on Judgement Day. Would He take back some of the suffering that was stamped on our passports after we got a one-way ticket out of Paradise in that Garden of Eden fiasco? I mean, sure, I understand mortality and that whole "test of our free will" gambit, but for the life of me, I still don't get why a six-year-old child has to die of leukaemia or why every generation of young people suffers yet a new plague of one kind or another. Maybe He'd be willing to make manifest a few extra bags of groceries and even a couple of bottles of wine to fill the pantries of every American home? I mean if President Bush can send back a couple of hundred dollars by way of tax rebates to make peace with every American citizen, then imagine what Jesus could do. Maybe He'd end all the wars around the world with a compassionate tolerance and blessing for every race and religion involved? And I wonder. Would He have long hair and a beard still? Or would He have sort of a GI/Navy Seal clean look? Would He be a white Caucasian, or would He have a somewhat darker, sort of latino/mulatto look to him? Would He be a She this time around? It wouldn't take much to rekindle the faith of most Americans. We're primed for a miracle or two. We're pumped for any kind of messiah. Don't believe me? Well, take a look at what's happening with Barack Obama as he travels across America these days. He may not have perfected that "walk on water" trick yet, but he is opening a few doors of hope for those who haven't had much to believe in for quite some time. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that Mr Obama is anything like the Jesus I learned about in Sunday School. God forbid that I might be making even the remotest analogy between the two. All I know is that times have changed since I was first learning the Lord's Prayer. And, for whatever reason, we are hungry for change, for something new, for someone to come along and inspire faith and a sense of worth in who we are as a people. Change. It's always a bit revolutionary for so many of us. Sometimes, some of us are more comfortable with what we know, even if what we know isn't so great. Hey, I'm a firm believer in the saying, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." But it is broke, and since Jesus probably isn't living in Biloxi, someone else needs to fix it.

Copyright © Kennedy James, 2007. All rights reserved. This post is the intellectual property of the author and his heirs and is not to be copied or reproduced in any form without the author's written consent. Please email for further information.

What's Your Fancy?

What's Your Fancy? It would be great if you got to choose. I mean, imagine if, at different times in your life, someone handed you a menu of futures and said, "What's your fancy?" OK, that person might not say, "What's your fancy?" I mean, I guess not very many people actually say, "What's your fancy?" But I think it's a perfectly good question. It has a nice balance and a nice lilt to it, and more people should definitely be saying it. Try it for yourself. Go ahead. "What's your fancy?" See. It's a very positive question ... heart-warming almost ... like a cup of hot chocolate with marshmallows on top. It's not like saying, "What's your problem?" "What's your problem?" — now that's a whole different ball of wax. Lots of angst sitting in that question. If someone asks you, "What's your problem?", then there's definitely some trouble brewing. Either you really do have a problem, or you're about to find one. Either way, it can't be good. From the time we are very young, we learn to avoid the problem. That school-yard bully and his gang of wannabe bullies? Problem ... take the long way home. Mom and Dad screaming at one another in the kitchen? Problem ... stay in your room. Algebraic functions? Problem ... study English and Sociology. Someone comes into the Convenience Store and starts flailing a gun in the air? Problem ... hide behind the Slurpee Machine. Avoiding the problem becomes our way of solving the problem. And why not? That's what life teaches us to do. Some people actually love a good problem. In fact, if they're not working on one of their own, they'll be more than happy to come over and work on yours. After all, "that's what friends are for." No friends? Well, then you can join a group of like-problemed people — Alcoholics Anonymous, Weight Watchers, The Catholic Church — ah, the range of possibilities is almost endless. Worse case scenario? Hire a professional problem-solver — a psychiatrist or a psychologist — someone with a license to teach you how to avoid problems. The point is that we have enough problem-solvers in the world. What we need are fancy-solvers.  Imagine what it would be like if, when you went to work today, your boss said, "What do you fancy working on today?" instead of "I really need you to get on this or that problem." Imagine what it would be like if, when you got home from work, someone were there with a smile on his or her face who said, "What's your fancy?" instead of grumbling, "What's for dinner?" We need people who open doors and windows, who let some fresh air fill our sails, who create endless possibilities in how we imagine ourselves and the course of our lives in the future. So . . . let me say it for you today, "What's your fancy?" Copyright © Kennedy James, 2007. All rights reserved. This post is the intellectual property of the author and his heirs and is not to be copied or reproduced in any form without the author's written consent. Please email for further information.

Using My Chicken Noodle . . .

Using My Chicken Noodle . . . There was a sale on soup, you understand. Campbell's soup. Different varieties. Not the real classy ones, like Broccoli with Cheddar Cheese and Bacon Bits. Just the basic ones. Tomato. Chicken Noodle. Vegetable. Cream of Mushroom. I didn't mind. I laid a good bushel of those red and white cans on the bottom of my rusty cart and began to creak my way towards the checkout. As I was heading down the frozen food aisle, my attention was diverted by a large SALE sign on the Breyer's Ice-Cream freezer. I like ice cream even more than I like soup, but I realise it's not really all that nutritional. My sister claims that they put antifreeze in it. I'm not 100% sure that's true. After all, why would they put antifreeze in something that they wanted frozen? Wouldn't that be sort of self-defeating? Well, maybe it's a paradox of some sort. Like I said, my attention was diverted, and that's when I heard a sharp thump, and my cart stopped on a dime. When I looked ahead of me, I saw that I had collided into the front of another shopping cart, one filled to overflowing with a variety of paper items, mostly toilet paper, in those family-size packs of 124 rolls. That's all I saw, and I wondered who the cart belonged to and where the heck that person was. I admit that I didn't care all that much, really. I just wanted to get by. So I proceeded to ram the renegade cart out of the way with my own cart. Imagine my horror when I heard a voice suddenly crone out from somewhere beneath my front wheels. "You can stop running me over now," the breathless voice croaked. I looked down, and there on the floor of the grocery store was the tiniest of elderly ladies that I have ever seen. The original impact had knocked her back on her rear end, and she was spinning her legs in the strangest motions in an effort to raise her 4 foot body back into vertical mode. "Oh my god," I moaned with genuine sincerity, "I didn't see you there." "No," she shot back at me, "you don't look, do you? You'd rather just run me over, you big hulking bastard." Yes, I was surprised too. She seemed so frail and diminutive in stature, but her mouth had the voice of giants. "I'm so sorry," I said in something of a falsetto, and I rushed to help her up. She spit at my hand as I reached down to her. Yes, that's right -- she spit at me and flailed her arms in an effort to shoo me away. "Don't touch me, you moronic goat," she sputtered, "don't touch me, you friggin' lunatic." So I stepped back. One step. Two steps. Back behind the safety of my shopping cart. By then, a small crowd of store clerks and other pay-it-forward shoppers had begun to gather around the scene. One man, in the uniform of a store manager -- a stained white shirt and a greasy black tie under a full-length green apron -- arrived behind me and actually grabbed my right arm. I suppose he thought I was about to peel out of the store with my shopping cart full of soup cans and head for the freeway. I looked at him with my bad eye, and he suddenly let go. I sometimes wonder if I have the face of a serial killer. I'm sure, in such circumstances, I probably do. Time seemed to be clicking by in slow motion, and I could honestly feel an anxiety attack coming on. Then, I finally saw a twist of peppery-white hair rise above the handlebars of the lady's shopping cart, and in the general commotion, you could hear people asking her if she was OK. The wrinkled face of this sad-eyed woman peered up at me, and, with a crooked nicotine-stained finger, she pointed my way. "Him," she squeaked with a mournful voice. "He did it. He ran me down. Call the police. I want him charged." I wondered what I could be charged with. Hit-and-run? Assault with a deadly shopping cart? My mind reeled. I imagined myself locked up in the local police station, trapped in a holding cell with an assortment of drunks, crackheads, and prostitutes for the night. For a moment, I felt as if I was 18 again, but that's another story. Well, the police never were called, but the store manager did write down a bunch of stuff in a black notebook, the names of all involved, including those of about a dozen witnesses who appeared out of nowhere, or at best, from the baked goods aisle. Of course, I had to spell my name for the poor man several times, either because his hands were shaking from nervous excitement or because he really did have difficulty spelling Andy Warhol So . . . anyone up for a bowl of Vegetable Vegetarian???

Copyright © Kennedy James, 2007. All rights reserved. This post is the intellectual property of the author and his heirs and is not to be copied or reproduced in any form without the author's written consent. Please email for further information.