FollowLast night my son and i talked about writing style. he thought i should throw in a couple of capital letters. a compromise: the beginning of each paragraph gets one and whatever else is deemed worthy. my son loves the comic(book) world. i did too. superman. archie. lenny bruce. richard pryor. what a gift to be able to make people laugh. a few years ago i thought about doing stand up comedy. wrote a few jokes. gently slapped my own face. i was escaping. dreaming. back in the early seventies i got into lenny bruce after the play on broadway about his life. then the movie with dustin hoffman. i bought all his vinyl albums( i don’t know what to call them anymore) i memorized all the routines. was a star attraction on an air france club med charter to guadeloupe. i was lenny doing his bits. and the L. A. cops knew he had bad stuff and still let him shoot up and die. lenny was almost in my generation. i should’ve seen him perform in new york before all his legal problems sapped his energy. why didn’t i see him? i wasn’t aware(clueless. what if) of the world around me. i was in college. i really wasn’t aware of the world. i didn’t care. i had a selsun shampoo promo display instead of the peace sign hanging in my room. i was in pharmacy school.
A few weeks ago a college senior(a year away from medical school)stopped by the house. i brought up the tragedy at rutgers; a freshman student with all the promise in the world took his own life by jumping off the g.w. bridge. it’s still making national and international headlines. this senior college student had no idea what i was talking about. i finally forgave myself for not knowing about lenny bruce. and i forgave my son for passing on cnn, anderson cooper, david gergen and escaping into the world of comics and video games. i told him so. i guess we escape growing up. i wonder. i can’t remember that absolute last time the kids on the block in newark role played superman after watching george reeve play the character on black and white tv. or the last time i played with plastic toy soldiers from woolworths in newark. or the first time i asked my mom what a congressman does.
Sunday i went into comic con at javits in new york city with the family. the big draw for me was the hour long n.j. transit train ride along the jersey coast. i love autumn in new jersey. i don’t love the smell of napalm in the morning. it was a perfect autumn day. blue sky. sixty degrees. the train was standing room only. i’ve never seen that before on a weekend. i took note of scenery. raritan bay. sail boats anchored in a harbor. a little marina. i escaped for a moment. i was in key largo. bogart and bacall were waving goodbye as i sailed away on a small boat, ‘Santana.’ i love when the train passes little spits of ponds and streams; a few ducks aimlessly floating and i always worry if the water is safe to float and drink. comic con is a sociological wonder. 100,000 people in 3 days escape into worlds of comics and characters. some even come in costume. it was hard to walk. so many people. i asked myself questions. does terrorism, unemployment, tea party, racism, intolerance, global warming and other things swell the attendance of comic con. how are liquor store sales these days? i always thought it a good business. no matter what, you do business. so i walked around comic con with 33,000 people. there were no suits and ties. there was freedom of expression. and a palpable spirit. and wide eyes. my eyes were wide. i didn’t know what to absorb first. DC comics had a huge booth. i asked my son what happens when an eight year old today wants to get into superman. do you go back to the 1930’s and read past issues. if my mom never threw out my comics when we moved just before the riots in 1967 then i’m in bora-bora right now escaping unemployment and rising gas prices. but i don’t want to escape. i want to know everything going on in Darfur today. it’s getting bad again.
We had lunch after comic con at a diner on 34th street. basic food. no escaping to rome or paris or city sidewalk cafes. the city was escape. i’ve never seen the streets so escapingly crowded. i noticed every duck on every body of water on the train back. i noticed an article in the magazine i was reading(escaping to the world of men’s unreality. no one’s stomach on the jersey shore beach i go to looks like the ripples of a pond after a boulder is dropped) the article was on resveratrol(ingredient of red wine). a year ago they said you can live to 150 years if you consume enough red wine daily. enough was 600 bottles a day. silly. as silly as the comic who thinks cigarettes will be proven healthy one day. however, albert einstein college of medicine found resveratrol may help prevent diabetes by improving the way our bodies burn sugar. i take the capsules daily and i should have diabetes but i don’t. washington university school of medicine showed resveratrol inhibited abnormal blood vessel growth in the retina(maybe prevent eyesight loss). i like to escape the conscious flow of my blog sometimes and do my health shtick. back on the train, i escaped to hudson’s bay. i’d really like to escape there one late august week and watch the polar bears before the species escapes earth. the train passed through newark. my hometown. i looked for the hospital where i escaped into this world. i couldn’t see it. i know it’s there. i looked on my left. a person was holding a live black rabbit in their lap and petting it. i saw a large rabbit hole when i closed my eyes because the sun was bright; the train swaying back and forth. i wanted down that rabbit hole. i didn’t care. i was back to escaping again. i guess we never really stop.
oh i’ve finally arrived. i’ve got a youtube video trailer of my novel. check it out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qj2ko9gcC_M
Thanks for good stuff
Comment by livelybrowsers — October 19, 2010 @ 11:15 am