Ramble With Me.

The truth is I get excited about Halloween because it’s the only time of year I can get the monster cereals. When I was a kid Count Chocula, Frankenberry, and Boo Berry were available year-round, and for a while there was even Yummy Mummy. For my own particular reasons I’d also welcome the return of Fruit Brute, but that’s another story.

Even though they were available I couldn’t have monster cereals when I was a kid. This was mainly because my mother had read Why Your Child Is Hyperactive by Benjamin Feingold and concluded that sugar was making me not only hyperactive but also frequently moody. And to her credit I did seem to feel a lot better when I was switched to shredded wheat—although for some reason she didn’t buy the regular shredded wheat cereal that came in little tiny squares but a mutant shredded wheat that came in huge biscuits and had the same texture and taste as steel wool. Two were enough to fill a bowl and I could rarely finish one, so maybe things changed because I didn’t have the energy to be hyperactive.

Hey, they’re actually healthy!

It’s also probably a good thing I never had monster cereals when I was a kid because one of the commercials—I swear this is true—gave me nightmares. Or at least a nightmare. At the end of a commercial Boo Berry, who’s switched off the lights, says, “I’m in the dark!” Frankenberry says, “Me too!” An unseen three-eyed monster adds, “Me three!” The other two run off in terror.

Shortly afterward I had a nightmare that a man came into my room and hypnotized me so I could be eaten by a giant three-eyed monster.

Shredded wheat did nothing to diminish my hyperactive imagination.

I didn’t really miss the monster cereals having never had them, but at times it did feel like they were taunting me. For a brief time General Mills had some kind of commercial agreement with the now-defunct theme park Opryland and you could occasionally see Frankenberry or Count Chocula strolling among the rides. I never did see Boo Berry but I guess he was floating around somewhere. Boo Berry was the one I always wanted to try, partly because it was blue and therefore the most clearly unnatural of the monster cereals, but also because he sounded like Peter Lorre. As a short overweight kid with a funny voice I always felt a kinship with Lorre.

Now that I’m an adult I can enjoy the monster cereals and if I get hyperactive or moody I can go for a run or do something to clear my head. Admittedly even at this time of year the cereals still aren’t exactly easy to find. My regular grocery store doesn’t carry them. The only place I found that does is a big box store that shall remain nameless because I’ve given out enough free advertising as it is. Last year the monster cereals were in with the Halloween costumes because they’re basically made from the same material. This year they weren’t so I tried looking—strange as it may seem—in the food section. No luck. Finally a helpful employee directed me to a temporary stand in the middle of the baby clothes—again, basically the same material.

Eating the monster cereals has even been an educational experience. Here are some things I’ve learned:

2014’s well-drawn Boo Berry.

2015’s mutant mouth Boo Berry.

-Last year Boo Berry looked a lot cooler because he was drawn by DC Comics artist Jim Lee. Frankenberry and Count Chocula were also reinterpreted by other DC Comics artists. This year they’ve reverted to the version of Boo Berry with a weird internal mouth flap which had some people scratching their heads back in 2010.

-In milk Count Chocula will quickly go from dark brown to light brown and tastes a lot like shredded wheat. The other two don’t taste like any berry I’ve ever tried, but are pretty sweet. And fortunately Frankenberry’s head has been redrawn so it looks less like an ass.

From the back of the box: a series of pictures showing how his ass-head has evolved.

-One of the advantages of being a grownup is I can eat a bowl of each one right after the other.

-One of the disadvantages of being a grownup is if I eat a bowl of each one right after the other I get sick.

-All three use the same design. I guess really they’re all ghosts.

Also the marshmallows have been replaced by 100% recyclable packing material.

The most annoying thing is the cereals only come in mutant “family size” boxes. Who am I going to get to help me eat all this cereal?

Yeah, I admit it, I’ll eat it all myself. And then I’ll be hyperactive and moody and need shredded wheat or maybe just eat some steel wool to detox.

Here’s a collection of monster cereal commercials. The one that gave me a nightmare starts at around the 9 minute mark.

As we move into fall the mornings have started to get foggy. Mostly it’s only the low-lying areas, but I’m sure in another week or two I’ll step outside and instead of looking through the trees for Venus in the southeast I’ll see mist. Every time I see fog it brings back a strange childhood memory. My friend Troy and I were standing on my driveway. This was at the house where I lived from when I was four until I finished college. The house is just at the edge of a ridge. Troy’s house was at the bottom so I could look down on it. In the distance ridges of hills seemed to go all the way around so sometimes I’d sit in my room and feel like I was on the inside edge of a giant bowl.

It was cloudy and I think there might have even been a light rain. Troy and I were looking toward the Brentwood area, off to the northwest, to the hills just this side of I-65 where new apartment and business complexes were being built. That must have been why there were cranes that we could barely see through the thick mist. It was miles away but I swear I could hear gears grinding.

“A cloud fell,” Troy said. “They’re trying to put it back up.”

This is one of those memories that’s completely isolated from anything else, like a loose bead that used to be part of a necklace. I can’t remember why we were there or what I said after Troy said that. He may have even been kidding, but from his face he was completely serious. And it made me wonder about clouds. If they could be put back up were they solid? I imagined that people must live in the clouds—and this was years before I read James And The Giant Peach, but when I did I felt a strange sense of recognition. Dahl’s “Cloud-Men” are frightening and take sadistic pleasure in sending down hail and other bad weather, but they’re also seen painting a rainbow and getting ready to lower it to Earth. They’re not all good and they’re not all bad. They’re like everybody else. Maybe that’s why it doesn’t bother me, when I see fog, to think that maybe it’s brought some of the cloud people down with it. And I wonder if they need help getting back up.

On my way to Centennial Park the other day I passed by a hotel that stands on the site of what used to be Tower Records, then became f.y.e., then closed its doors permanently. The original building was built in 1929 and served as a car dealership for decades.

I documented its decline and fall in this video. Note: please be sure to pump up the volume when you watch this.

Here’s the same place now. I know CDs are going the way of 8-tracks and dinosaurs, but it still bugs me that not only is the music store now gone but the space is currently empty too.

Every year the Nashville Shakespeare Festival puts on a production in Centennial Park. If you look at their production history you can see they’ve mostly done comedies, but sometimes you have to have a little tragedy with your comedy, and, let’s face it, there’s only so many times they can do A Midsummer Night’s Dream before people get tired of it. This year they’re doing Henry V. They’re giving it a U.S. Civil War theme, which seems timely given recent events and the fact that this year marks the 150th anniversary of the war’s end.

That also reminds me of a British production of MacBeth I once saw where the costume designer and director obviously hadn’t done their history homework and didn’t realize the guys in the gray uniforms and the guys in the blue uniforms were on opposite sides, but that’s another story.

The plays are always great, but what I really love is going to the set during my lunch break and looking at the set. I love getting behind the scenes and imagining how it will all look when the sun goes down and the lights come up.

Must…resist…Twitter…

A detail most of the audience might miss: they’ve covered the stage with mulch.

Noblesse oblige.

Here are a couple of pictures from previous productions.

Midsummer Night’s Dream, 2013:

Much Ado About Nothing, 2012:

Romeo & Juliet, 2011:

Last weekend for the first time in over a year I took part in a volunteer day at Radnor Lake.

Radnor Lake is an artificial lake created in 1914 to provide water for the railroads. The surrounding woods were preserved and used as a recreational area by the railroad owners and their families. In 1973, facing the prospect of being developed for condominiums, a group of citizens worked with the state to purchase the land and preserve it. The area now gets over a million visitors a year.

There are still remnants of a pipe that ran downhill over seven miles from the lake itself to Union Station in downtown Nashville. A small part of that pipe is now on display alongside the Historic Valve House Trail. I helped move that piece and helped build the trail. I’ve also worked on other trails and other projects, including the new aviary. The part I’ve played is extremely small, but it’s still a part. With a lot of others I’ve helped make Radnor Lake a better place.

What makes Radnor Lake unique is that it’s a completely protected wilderness area in the middle of a major urban city. This makes it easy to get to, but it’s large enough that there are places within it where the forest seems infinite. It’s a place where a complete stranger might come up alongside you on the trail to point out a great blue heron standing just a few feet away, and where deer have become so accustomed to people they’ll come right up to you. I can go there when I want to be completely alone, and I can really enjoy taking friends there, or meeting strangers. It makes me happy to see other people enjoying Radnor Lake, which, I think, is why the volunteer days mean so much to me.

A little over a year ago I didn’t know when I’d be able to go back to another volunteer day. At times I wondered if I’d ever be able to go back. And then this weekend I was there spreading mulch on a trail. People walked by and paused to say, “Thank you.” I thanked them.

Are you lucky enough to have a place like that?

I really was working and not just standing around like a schmuck. Source: Friends of Radnor Lake

When friends ask me, “I’m going to England, what should I do?” my standard answer is “Go to pubs.” Most of the time they already know their itinerary and a guidebook will list the touristy sights to be seen better than I can. Going to a pub will enhance their experience because, in my experience anyway, it was the best place to meet interesting people.

One night I was in a pub and had just ordered a pint when I heard a voice next to me ask, “Are you American?” Some people advise responding to this question by pretending to be Canadian, but I found that most of the time anyone who asked was interested to meet an American and didn’t want to berate me about my country’s political and military policies, although sometimes when they learned I was from Nashville they’d have so much to say about Elvis I’d wish I’d said I was from Toronto, but that’s another story.

On this particular occasion I said “yes” and looked over at the guy who’d asked. He had a blonde mullet, going bald from the front, and was wearing the kind of tracksuit I associated with 1980’s-era Al Sharpton. In Britain they’re called “shell suits.”

“All you Americans are a bunch of wankers,” he said. As he tilted his pint glass back to drain the last golden drops from it I was tempted to say something like, “No, just the guys,” but he was glassy-eyed and had slurred a little.

“You Americans are all wankers,” he said again, then he turned to me and moved a little closer. I got a little bit of a buzz when he exhaled. “But you listen to me. I was in America the other day.” The other day? Did he just pop over there for a day trip? He’d leaned toward me menacingly and I thought I’d better hold my tongue. “Everybody was trying to sell me ice cream.” It was really hard not to laugh, but he was so serious I kept still. “But they took care of me. You know that? The Americans took care of me, and I want you to know I’ll take care of you. Anybody gives you trouble I’ll fix ‘em.”

“Steve, your cab’s here,” someone called from the door. Steve—that was who I’d been talking to—stood up. He was six feet tall but looked like he weighed about eighty pounds. I appreciated having a potential bodyguard who could be knocked over by a stiff breeze. As I turned back to finish my own pint I noticed the bartender was red-faced from laughing.

I’ve always been fascinated by Marx’s statement that history repeats itself, first as tragedy then as farce. There wasn’t anything tragic about meeting Steve, apart from the fact that the pub was in a remote town I’d been passing through and that I’d never go back to, but events in life sometimes have echoes. A few nights later I turned on Spitting Image. The episode ended with a song about the county of Essex, and there was Steve! Or at least bulkier versions of Steve wearing shell suits just like his. I laughed until I hurt.

One of the wonderful things about the internet is for years I’ve been able to tell the first part of the story but there was no way to convey the second part without actually having the Spitting Image video on hand. And here it is.

A few months ago I wrote about the haunted hole in our backyard. To recap: last summer after filling the hole with dirt only to later find the dirt all washed out and the hole filled with water again I filled it with tiny rocks which were then mysteriously removed.

I don’t want the hole to fill up with water because then it becomes a breeding pond for mosquitoes.

This summer I tried dirt again and it didn’t work, so I added more dirt and placed a large rock in the hole thinking, hey, just like the small rocks this rock will be removed within a few days and then I’ll write something funny about it. As Robert Burns said the best laid rocks gang aft agley. And then the rock sat there. And sat there. And sat there. I accepted two things: first the holey ghost had a sense of humor and by writing about it I’d taken all the fun out of the joke, and, second, I’d finally solved the mosquito problem.

And there was a third thing I had to accept: the term “spunk-water” I quoted from The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer didn’t result in unusual search results bringing anyone here. Neither did the fact that the hole, formed by two trees that have grown together, does sort of resemble a certain part of female anatomy as pointed out by Jamie of The Pinknoam.

Anyway here’s the hole a few days ago:

No joke. The ghost was back. At first I thought it only moved the rock aside slightly because psychokinesis requires a great deal of energy regardless of what you see in the movies, but then I realized it was mocking me.

The dirt at least is still there, but sooner or later it’s going to rain. This just might turn into a trilogy.

Details intentionally obscured.

I got an envelope in the mail with “DETAILS INSIDE” printed on it. I could be wrong but I thought that it was in the very nature of envelopes to keep the details of a letter on the inside, usually because it’s too easy for multiple pages to get separated and lost from each other, although also for reasons of privacy. I once asked my grandfather why steam came out of the kettle when it was heated. He said, “So your grandmother can read the neighbors’ mail,” but that’s another story.

I have no problem with warnings on labels that other people seem to consider ridiculously redundant, like “May contain nuts” on jars of nuts. Logically I know that the labels are made by large companies that package a lot of different things and one standard label is cheaper and easier than separating the nuts from the chaff. And an allergy to nuts can be fatal. If I were allergic to nuts and saw “May contain nuts” on a jar of nuts I’d think, “Thank you, large faceless corporation, for going just a little bit further to protect my safety.”

So why did “DETAILS INSIDE” irk me so much? Maybe not so much because it was redundant but it was inaccurate. There were details on the outside too. My name and address, not to mention the sender’s address, which, if nothing else had, gave it away as junk mail, were details. It should have said “MORE DETAILS INSIDE”.

For a while my wife and I inexplicably got the mail of a guy who, as far as we knew, had never lived there. Most of it was junk mail so I think maybe he got our address from somewhere and was giving it out instead of ours to throw off marketers. The mail that came gave me some details about him: he liked to collect swords, enjoyed cigars, and I think he even subscribed to Details magazine.

Pictured: Some magazines I might subscribe to.
Not pictured: Details magazine.

I had a more disturbing mail experience when I met a guy at a local coffee shop. We’d see each other at poetry readings we both attended. I learned he worked at the post office and he learned I wrote poetry. And then he started writing me notes on the outside of my mail. He was right there in the post office. Couldn’t he have just written me a letter? I didn’t want to report him because he knew where I lived. That was a detail I’d never wanted to share with him.