Dad, Don't be Jealous of my Miracle Mantle!

My Dad and I weren’t close when I was little, he wasn’t built to handle kids. He lived for Mom, and we were her charge.

An intellectual, Dad was a polite, reserved man, more interested in a New York Times crossword puzzle than any kind of kid stuff. We held common ground though, in that pleasing Mom was the key for both for us to be able to have a happy life. But he was no pussy. Although I never once heard him raise his voice, I knew that I didn’t want to

We did share a love for the TV faith healers and preachers though. We found them to be very entertaining, both of us in awe that people actually believed, that the con wasn’t obvious to all. Kathryn Kuhlman was one of the early ones, wrapped up in very sheer fabrics, flowing around her like wispy clouds, she looked like the bride of Frankenstein to me, but I guess for her, she was the bride of Jesus. Totally bat-shit crazy, Kathryn was one of the first born-again Christian, healing TV evangelists that Dad and I just howled over. She would spout gibberish wave her arm by way of introduction: “And now…Dino on the Piano!” Dino looked like he had been up all night tickling the ivories in some third rate Howard Johnson's Motel, doomed to a bad ending, out on the main drag. Something of a queen, he may have been the main drag himself.

There have been so many special ones, Robert Schuler and his Crystal Cathedral, Dad called him “Ole Smiley”. Jerry Lee Lewis’s cousin, Jimmy Swaggart, was the best at playing the piano and sobbing, even better after he got caught in a motel room, masturbating while a hooker stripped for him. Of course Jim and Tammy were among the greats, her with pounds of dark Clarabelle eye shadow dripping down her cheeks, wet from the inevitable waterworks she was so good at turning on and off, to nail down the sincerity factor. Apparently God encourages that, lots of crying…certainly it's a major part of the scam, anyway. These days, post Tammy, Jim sells “Real Estate in heaven” buy your mansion now, he’ll arrange it. I’m serious.

Dad missed out on Benny Hinn. Dapper and cutting edge Nehru jackets along with the uncanny ability to make large tumors disappear, as long as they were internal.\, he was good. A pimple on the nose? Not so much.

I know that Dad would have loved to hear Robert Tilton speak in tongues. “mahte row baka, koda basnda andanda de bosoto ke sodoebo”, but I doubt that he would have sent the requested “seed” money.

That’s what they all want, for their poor followers to “plant a seed” with the promise that God will reward the faithful. Your rent is due and you only have that $600. to your name? Send it to Prophet Peter Popoff, he’ll be sure to get it to God, and God will send you a financial windfall,But only if you have enough faith. Didn’t work? Guess you must have fallen short in the faith department. No worries, just try again.

These days, the ministries of Joyce Myers and Joel Osteen are huge. More mainstream and palatable, they preach a message of self-help, you know, “if it’s to be, it’s up to me”. Kind of like Anthony Robbins on Jesus. Osteen is estimated to be worth $40 million and lives in a 17,000 sq. ft. house. Joyce is at $25 million or so, but sexism exists in the church, as well as mainstream society. Equal pay for the same job is still in the future. I have to look at them and wonder about the big bumper sticker question though, WWJD?

Ultimately I believe that religion is crowd control and church is business. I know Dad did too but he never spoke with me about it directly. Mom may not have liked that. The church set itself up to to be the great arbitrator of guilt and forgiveness in order to better separate the masses from their money.
Few do it better than my personal hero, Prophet Peter Popoff. “a German-born American televangelist, fraudulent faith healer, and self-proclaimed prophet” Dad would have loved this guy.

“He initially rose to prominence in the 1980s, conducting revival meetings and hosting a nationally-televised program, during which he performed seemingly miraculous cures on audience members. After an electronics expert demonstrated in 1986 that his "divine" revelations were being fed to him by his wife via a wireless radio transmitter, Popoff declared bankruptcy the following year. He has since resumed his faith healing sessions "in a manner identical to his method prior to his exposure as a fraud", despite being exposed once again in 2007”

Other TV profiteers pull a Trump and divert attention by pointing to Popoff and saying "He's fundamentally evil, because he knows he's a con man." Of course, they’re not.

Anyway, I think of Dad when I interact with the Prophet. Early last year, I contacted his “ministry” online. Within a week, the letters started, graduated in their appeal for “seed money” to let God cure my ills, he and his marketing team were relentless. I admire the shit out of the structure. Along with the regular solicitations for seed money, I got holy water packaged in a fast food condiment sized clear plastic container. I wondered at the time if I put it on tender places, as I did with coke in the old daze, if it would have the same effect. (It didn’t.)

The man is a prince, and he’s never failed to be there for me, even after I ignored him for months. Always faithful (that’s the point, right?) he sent letters.

Here’s my latest. Peter (may I call you Peter now that we’ve been close for a few years?)

I got an uplifting letter, WITH BLUE INK, FROM PETER HIMSELF, HIGHLIGHTING AND CIRCLING IMPORTANT PASSAGES. I got a “Miracle Restoration Footprint” where Peter wants me to print the “seven things you want God to restore” I love that, he makes it so user friendly!

Best of all? I got a “Miracle Mantle” along with the admonition: “Do nothing with this MIRACLE MANTLE until you read my entire letter! Follow the divine instructions for a DOUBLE PORTION HEALTH & WEALTH ANOINTING” 

By now, Dad and I would be in full-swing retort mode, laughing our asses off. My mantle warns: “Failure to obey God could cause difficulties, failures, and a lack of GOD’S BLESSINGS in your life!”

Now THAT got my attention! I don't want to fuck with that stuff. Who knows, right? Maybe Peter has something to seriously think about in that last line on his napkin, er I mean, "Miracle Mantle".

Dad, I wanted to send you a picture of my Miracle Mantle and see what you think. OK, stop laughing and tell me. You ask: “Exactly what is the Miracle Mantle? Well, it’s a napkin. A napkin printed with a lot of Peter Popoff Cool Aid for the thinking challenged… Dad, you would love this shit…

This picture is for you, Daddio. BTW, got any seed money you could loan me right now?

Wolf Spiders!

Lying in the dark with my ears on full alert, I could hear them scurrying across the garish orange nylon of the parachute that hung from the ceiling above us. That bedroom could have doubled as a wedding chapel for skydivers.  By day, it conjured images of a bright sky, stiff winds providing buoyancy, hair blowing into squinting eyes. But in the humid night, as black as the caves we used to explore in Limestone County, those damn wolf spiders ran all over the canopy like they owned it. They had ruled over that remote, rustic cabin, had it all to themselves before we moved in the week prior.  I could hear their feet as they scurried around in seemingly random directions , alien hordes, erratic and empowered by the damp night, bent on some kind of hellish crusade. But to be fair, we were never bitten, crawled on, yes, just after sleep made us still and unguarded, but never bitten.

Here’s an exercise in control for you. I walked the dirt path to our well with two five-gallon plastic buckets liberated from some construction site. We had no indoor plumbing so I had to hand pump the ten gallons of Sulphur water to bring back inside and heat in a large pot on the propane stove. After I wrestled a huge galvanized tub in from outside, Carla’s wash tub was in the kitchen, which was also the living room of that rectangular cabin. It was worth the trouble, I liked to watch her bathe, it all felt so natural.

  

The parachute bedroom was upstairs on the tiny second floor. I think the wolf spiders liked the damp breeze that swept stale attic air from one eve window through the other, as much as we did. They would run and pause, listening to and salivating over the banquet of Cicadas and tree frogs singing frenzied love songs just outside. A crush of Times Square revelers, immersed in their own summertime Rumspringa, and exuding a New Year’s Eve desperation, a delirious abandon, programmed to somehow know that tonight is the night, because for them, everything changes tomorrow.

One hundred yards from the house, next to the well, there was a coffin-like, concrete bunker, poured into the ground next to the hand pump and covered with a wooden roof. Someday it would hold an electric pump. Sitting my empty buckets to one side, I lifted the lid slowly to get a peek and see if it held any standing water, as was often the case when debris seeped in and stopped up the drain. It was about a quarter full. Propping the roof up with a nearby stick like some cheesy animal trap you’ve seen in cartoons, I slowly bent over and slid down into the water, crouching down to sweep the drain clear of rotting muck. At that moment, when I bent over, too close to that seven inches of fetid water, the roof support stick buckled and the top slammed shut. Suddenly plunged into total darkness, something rained down on me from above. Hundreds of somethings, actually. Wolf Spiders.  Apparently they had set up colonies on the dark underside of that subterranean pump-less pump house roof.  I squatted, frozen in place, as they scampered through my hair and over my face, trying their best to go down the collar of my T-shirt, exploring behind my ears and the space between my fingers, all in a frenzy over their abrupt and violent awaking. Like hundreds of electrified mouse skeletons, undead and crazed on spider Methamphetamine, they were searching for the enemy. 

I didn't want them to point an accusing finger at me.

Having studied entomology as a kid, the few things I knew about Wolf Spiders flashed through my mind as I forced myself to freeze. Unlike web builders, Wolf Spiders are hunters, and very fast, able to cover two feet per second over short distances as they chase down their prey. Using their strong pincers to crush their victims, they can easily inflict sharp stinging bites on humans. Although they have a good vision, they cannot discriminate between a finger and an insect, and can grow to a size of up to 1.2 inches. That is the body size only - if the legs are included the total length of a Wolf Spider can be almost four inches. But I remembered that they are rarely found in groups, so as they bolted unpredictably from my eyelids to neck, scampering around my lips and nostrils, pushing to get inside of both, all I could think was that apparently they had never gotten the memo about no gang activity. 

Of course, I wanted out, immediately, but knew it wouldn’t be smart to move quickly. The arachnid hordes would know that I wasn’t just an inert object, that they had found the enemy. They wouldn’t be happy about that, or maybe they would. Moving in almost imperceptible slow motion, I reached over my head and put the fingers of both hands very gently on the underside of the roof above me. As I started to straighten my legs, pushing upward, light and fresh air flooded in and gave me hope that I might live another day. At the half way point, the roof fell backward and slammed up against the pump, bouncing aggravated wolfies into the air and causing them to reach a whole new level of crazy. Fanatic, eight-legged zealots darted around the inverted roof, me, and were now swimming in the water at my feet. They quickly found my legs and started to climb out of the water and up my pants. Knowing that slow movements would no longer serve a purpose, I vaulted out of the pump house, jumping into a violent scarecrow dance as my feet hit the ground. \

I immediately began slapping and smashing my hands against my legs, chest, everywhere that spiders had gotten under my shirt and pant legs. I knew I had to really pulverize them, or they would bite me in their death throes, so I tensed each body part while pinching, crushing and mashing each moving lump under the fabric. Stripping down as quickly as I had jumped out of that spider coffin, I jumped up and down repeatedly on top of my pants and T-shirt, both of them now sprinkled liberally with chewing gum sized pockets of Wolf Spider goo.

Carla thought that I was simply out getting water, so when I walked back in through the door of the cabin, nude, water-less, with red welts and mashed bits of hairy exoskeletons dripping from my chest and legs, she didn’t know what to think. I looked like someone who had just been through, exactly what I had just been through.

After cleaning up with water from our drinking water container and putting on fresh jeans and shirt, we decided to drive into Chauncy and get a steak at Abdella’s Bar. Mainly, I needed a drink, lots of drinks, actually.

That remote cabin was a perfect hideaway for our first year of marriage, but it sure was nice to move back to civilization the following Springtime and have a real bathroom with faucets that spit out hot or cold water on demand. All you have to do is turn a knob or two, and no wolf spiders waited in ambush when the lights went out.

Pretty damn sweet!

Serpentine Candles...

This snake was born in an Indian metal shop more than 100 years ago. Silver on bronze, a candlestick. 

My Grandfather worked for Standard Oil back then.  Stationed in India, late teens, early 1920’s. Apparently, when the time came, it made the cruse back to the States with him. I was excited to find it, buried in a pile of once useful stuff, relegated to several silverfish ravaged cardboard boxes languishing unloved in a dark corner bay of Grandpa’s garage five stall garage.  Broken into two pieces, it intertwined, snake like, around other things that needed some kind TLC to breathe life back into them again.

You know, the stuff that you can’t use but just can’t bring yourself to throw out. That was around 1975 or so.

After having the candlestick repaired, welded into one piece, it has been with me ever since. Back in the daze, when hallucinogenics were often a dietary staple, it would come alive and slither up the wall and across the ceiling, pausing to spit and posture. Never taking it seriously, I simply lay back and enjoyed the show.

When we first moved to St. Augustine, in the early 1990’s, I was surprised to see his siblings in the local “Ripley’s Believe It or Not” museum here in town. Two of them flank a fireplace mantel made from human bones.

So it's not one of a kind. Maybe one of two of a kind? Probably one of thousands across India. I have no clue.

These days, this guy adorns a wall near my kitchen, guarding the door between the main house and the great room. He hasn’t slithered in a long time and is probably expecting to eventually be buried in a pile of once useful stuff, relegated to several silverfish ravaged cardboard boxes in some dark corner of my garage.

Blame it on Fazio's...

In the early 1990’s, before my Realtor days, I sold “Lifestyle” software to retail stores. That was back when people went to big-box stores to buy software programs for their desk-top computers at home. My company made cooking software, among other things. I even did some voice work for the videos. The job was all by phone, speaking with buyers who we saw in person several times a year when we traveled just to schmooze. Toronto most years and always the big CES shows in Vegas. Treasure Island, baby, now THAT was a party.

Our office was in a huge Victorian house on a historic street in St Augustine, Fl. “The oldest continuously occupied European settlement in the United States.” Sometimes we refer to it as “The oldest city” but I suspect any native American would take issue with that.

It was a good gig, with a laid-back owner whose attitude fit perfectly with this easy going town. A great way for me to decompress after working for too long in downtown Washington D.C.

Four of us sold software in two adjoining rooms, making calls to clients that we would party with twice a year.

Pat didn’t like the fact that his chair was broken. It wouldn’t adjust up and down. Stuck in the down position, it made him look like a seven-year-old sitting at his daddy’s desk. So Pat sat on a fat phone book. That was when cell phones were not so common and everyone still had a land line listed.

Pat topped topped that big yellow book with two pillows.

Aside from software sales, my job was to torment Pat. One day I bought a fresh Mullet from Fazio’s Fish Market, down on the waterfront, and put it between the pillows on Pat's chair. His desk sat by itself in the second room. After day three of sitting on his increasingly stinky throne, Pat started looking everywhere for the source of the stench. He checked his trash can, looked up in the AC vents, searched everything other than under his own ass. By day 6, the stench was getting too much for the rest of us too, even though we were in the next office. We were torn between the entertainment of seeing Pat desperately tearing his office apart, over and over, but never even looking under his butt, and our own inability to bathe in rotting fish any longer.

Finally, the choking stink was just too much to deal with and I had to get rid of the thing.

Jon and I were always doing stuff like that to Pat. Bill didn’t participate, he was a good guy, a Christian who walked the walk, but still, he would cover his mouth and laugh when there was simply no way for him to hold it in. Bill wouldn’t tell on us, but he wouldn’t participate either. It was up to Jon and me to stir up the trouble, and we did.

Like this picture, all of that was twenty some years ago. Now that old house is a B&B. Fazio’s is long gone, sold to a major hotel chain that never went forward with their plans once the recession pulled the financing out from under them. Pat skipped town without saying goodbye to his wife and daughters. Jon moved to Wisconsin to sell vacation packages. Bill died suddenly of a heart attack last year.

I really miss those guys, and the fresh squid that only the local Asians and I were eager to buy at Fazio’s Fish Market, down on the waterfront.