Jae

Jae Woo Yoo (known to his American friends as "Jae") came to New York from Korea in 1980 to stay with his brother Jae Hyun, who was then a Ph.D. student at Columbia University. It soon became apparent to Jae, his family and everyone else that had ever met him that Jae was made for America and especially for the excitement that was life in New York. Although Jae never lost any love for his family or his native land, with his vivacious and artistic personality and his profound knowledge of American movies, music and media, Jae found so much happiness in the US that he decided to make New York his permanent home.

George met Jae in 1982 while they were both volunteering for an Asian men's organization, and they formed a strong bond that would last for the next 23 years. A talented visual artist with a boundless sense of humor and an extraordinary zest for living, Jae was immediately drawn to George because of his own humor, artistic talent and strong personality. Although nearly five years older than George, Jae placed him on a pedestal and found in him a role model for living as a strong Asian-American man. Together they bounded through New York life, sharing their respective joys, sorrows, triumphs, defeats, romances and heartaches. They were true soulmates in every sense of the word.

I first met Jae in January, 1998, shortly after George and I had begun dating. The moment we walked in the door to his apartment, Jae said "You play piano, right? Here, play this for me!" and handed me the sheet music to Madonna's "You'll See," a sad love ballad. I sat down to sightread the music, and Jae immediately plopped down next to me on the piano bench, belting out "YOU THINK THAT I CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT YOUR LOVE, YOU'LL SEE!!!!" - almost so loudly that I couldn't hear what I was playing. I looked across the room and saw George sitting with this big grin on his face.

About halfway through the song, Jae jumped up from the piano bench and said "George, you have to see this new Chinese movie that I just got!" and ran over to his VCR and started fumbling around with his tapes. Since we were obviously through with the Madonna song for the moment, I went over and sat next to George on the couch to watch the movie that Jae had started playing. He'd say "George, watch this scene, this is really great!" and then he talked all the way through the scene. "Oh, you have to see this Korean movie I have..." It became apparent within the space of about 10 minutes that he had a serious case of ADD. But he was so sweet & charming that it didn't bother me.


Jae & George 

A kitchen designer by trade, Jae would sometimes hire random workers to help him deliver new kitchen cabinets to his customers. When I first moved to New York I wasn't working, so Jae enlisted my services as a driver to make deliveries. I spent about eight weeks working with Jae, and nearly lost my life several times in the process. I loved Jae, but he was a MAJOR spaz. I'd be driving along the interstate when all of a sudden he would SCREAM at the top of his lungs "OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!" causing me to swerve or slam on the breaks. "What's the matter?" I would ask. His reply was usually something like "we missed the exit!"

I didn't fare much better during the physical delivery of the cabinets. I tried to help him carry cabinets into buildings, being careful not to scratch and mar doorways or damage the merchandise. I soon learned that carrying a heavy, bulky item with Jae was not a good idea. Several times I almost had my arm ripped off as Jae violently maneuvered us through tight doorways and elevators. Invariably Jae would start hoisting entire cabinets onto his back and running with them. One time he tried to run through a garage door with a low clearance. The top of the cabinet crashed into the doorway, knocking Jae over so that the heavy cabinet fell right on top of him. I was horrified, sure that he had broken several limbs or his neck. He laid on the ground for about 10 seconds, groaning in pain, after which he jumped back up to repeat the entire process.

The merchandise got broken often. "Jae, the cabinet is cracked!" I'd say, and he'd stop to look at it and say "oh, it's only the back side, it won't matter." Occasionally he would damage the cabinets so badly that he'd have to replace them, but I guess he figured he was at least breaking even considering the high volume of work he was able to deliver at (almost literally) break-neck speed.

Although Jae was frightening as a worker, I actually appreciated his rough antics the day he came to our house to deliver new cabinets when we remodeled our kitchen. When George's mother, who is often stubborn and difficult for no apparent reason, saw him hosting the cabinets up the steps, she came out to try to stop him. "No, no new cabinet!!!" she screamed. He literally shoved right past her the entire time, even when she physically tried to block him. When he was through, Jae said to me "God, I always think George is so mean talking about his mother, but now I understand. She's just so, so bitchy!"

Jae played as hard as he worked. He enjoyed a 20-year love affair with Fire Island, and often rented houses for the entire summer with various friends, including George & me. He barely slept whenever we spent time with him because he never wanted to miss any of the action. He also enjoyed the company of many, many friends during these summer adventures.

Jae loved living so much that he usually ignored any pain he was feeling. He was incredibly accident prone, and had a body full of scars to prove it. "I don't need tattoos, I have scars" he would often proclaim proudly. While we can never be sure why his liver cancer was not diagnosed until it was much too late to help him, we can only guess that his incredible tolerance for pain may be part of the reason.

A few weeks ago Jae went to the emergency room because he was having pain in his chest & abdomen. The doctors diagnosed him with pleurisy, an inflammation of the lung lining that can cause a lot of discomfort. They discharged him, sending him home with painkillers.

A week later, Jae called George and asked him to come over because his pain had returned with a vengeance. Knowing I was nearby, George called me on my cell phone and asked me to go help Jae immediately. By the time I got to his apartment, the paramedics that George had called had already arrived. I rode with Jae to Belleview hospital, holding his hand the entire way. Three hours later, the doctors told me that Jae had an enormous tumor on his liver that had ruptured, and that I needed to get his family there immediately.

Since Jae had given me a key to his apartment years before, I ran back to his apartment and rifled through his files until I found an address and phone number for his brother, Jae Hyun. With the assistance of one of Jae's Korean-American friends, we called Korea to notify the family, and Jae Hyun was with us in New York several days later.

Jae's very short battle with cancer came to an end yesterday morning at 6:15 am, with several of his best friends at his side.

We all miss you, dear Jae Woo Yoo, and will be forever grateful for the fun, laughter and love you shared with us over all these years. May we all take a lesson from you and live every minute of our lives as though it were our last. May God bless and keep Jae in His loving care for all eternity, and send comfort and peace to Jae's family and other loved ones as they mourn the passing of this truly remarkable person. He will be missed more than I can put into words.


Jae Woo Yoo September 20, 1954 - May 29, 2005 

The family is asleep

The family is asleep 

TV Expert

There's this quirky movie from 1990 called "Metropolitan" about these horribly pretentious Manhattanite college students. One of them talks about literature a lot, but admits that he never actually reads novels; he only reads literary criticism. At least he did better than our former vice-president Dan Quayle, who saw himself fit enough to criticize Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses in public without ever having read the book. (Click here for that story and more entertaining Quaylisms.)

I've decided to take the Metropolitan/Quayle idea a step further. I'm going to become a renowned expert in TV shows I've never seen by watching only the E! True Hollywood Story behind-the-scenes documentaries about said shows.

I'll admit I sort of backed into this project by accident. One day I was channel surfing when I came across The E! True Hollywood Story of the sitcom Growing Pains. I started watching, even though I had never even heard of this show that ran from 1985-1992. After only a few minutes I was hooked on the tale of how this show was cast, the love-affair-that-almost-was between Alan Thicke and Joanna Kerns, and the love & respect the players had for each other until teen heartthrob Kirk Cameron's foray into fundamentalist Christianity and oh-so-cute Tracey Gold's anorexia almost tore the cast apart. Throw in a former Playboy Playmate getting kicked off the show because it offended Kirk's new Christian sensibility, and you have a real behind-the-scenes HIT with me. I had more fun watching this drivel than I ever would have seeing the show itself. The way I see it, why waste your time with the real show at all if you can get the recap AND the scandals in one shot from the E! True Hollywood Story?

It's like CliffsNotes for TV. It's brilliant. From now on when somebody asks me if I've been following such-and-such show, I can just tell them "oh I don't watch shows on TV - I just wait for the E! abbreviated version to come out." Imagine how much time I'll have for other projects.

And it doesn't have to stop with sitcoms either. Thanks to VH1's Bands Reunited, I am now intimately familiar with the careers and surrounding scandals of the members of the bands Vixen and Klymaxx, two bands I had never even heard of before this brilliant VH1 series brought them to my attention. Years down the road when I'm sitting around with my friends reminiscing about the past, I'll be able to talk about how I used to rock down to Vixen & Klymaxx. (I'll conveniently forget to mention that I rocked down to them for a period of one hour apiece during these VH1 specials.) I'll seem that much more culturally literate. It can only help.

The Wizard and I

For months I've been going over to the Gershwin Theater at random intervals to stand in line for the $25 lottery to try to get tickets to the Broadway musical "Wicked." It's a great deal. You can show up two hours before any show and put your name in a raffle for the right to purchase up to two front-row tickets for only $25 each. Several theaters do this as a way to enable regular-income folk like us to see Broadway theater at affordable prices.

George and I agreed on a once-a-week trip (for him) into the city to meet me after work to try to get tickets, and then go out for a consolation dinner when we don't make it.

I've REALLY been wanting to see this musical. I read the book "Wicked" by Gregory Maguire last summer and really fell in love with the story. For those of you who haven't read it, it's a behind-the-scenes look at the life of the "Wicked" Witch of the West, starting with the story of the relationship of her parents before her birth.

Although it's a fun fantasy-type story to many, I found the book to be much more than that. It's really a social and political commentary that rings true to so much that is happening in the world right now. It's about people and nations creating "enemies" that they can unite against, because having these enemies makes it easier for said people and nations to achieve their own covert and dishonorable objectives. Sound familiar?

And to those who stand up to the masses to say "this is wrong, this shouldn't be happening" - what becomes of them?

Aside from the political overtones, the story also speaks to the universal theme of not belonging, and the feelings of isolation and vilification that accompany. The search for love and acceptance, of finding your safe zone in the world, only to have it yanked out from under you unexpectedly. The heartbreak that comes with the realization that the generally accepted ideas of "good" and "true" in the world are specious, based on lies and deceit.

Most interestingly, the story speaks to the problem of negotiating the fine line between "good" and "evil." Everyone makes their deal with the devil at some point in their life. How do we navigate and manage the inevitable changes in our personalities that come from years of hard living?

The book goes into a lot of complexities about these ideas, much more than the Broadway musical adaptation is able to. But the show does a great job of at least skimming the surface of all of the above. I highly recommend it. The music adds a lot to the emotions behind these questions, and there are some really great showstopping numbers to boot. I think my favorite one is "The Wizard and I," a song the witch belts out early in the show, as she describes her feelings of hope and elation after she is told she'll be able to meet the Wonderful Wizard of Oz in person. Although the song itself is upbeat, the idea behind it is just so heartbreaking that I sobbed all the way through it.

I just realized I never told you how we got in to the show! Yesterday afternoon I called George to tell him to come into the city to meet me for the weekly lottery. What I didn't realize was that Tuesday shows start at 7:00, not 8:00, so I got to the theater an hour too late to join the lottery. So instead I decided to stand in the cancellation line, and in less than an hour was rewarded with two orchestra level tickets, just about the best seats in the house. I paid a pretty penny to get them, but the joy seeing the show brought me made it all worth it. As for George, he says he's never enjoyed a Broadway production more in his entire life.

Read "Wicked." Buy the soundtrack. Come see me in New York and go to the musical with me. You'll like it.

I'm still here

Sorry for my lack of blog updates. I am still here, but have been suffering from a lack of free time as well as a lack of interesting things to blog about. ("Well that never stopped you before," many of you are thinking to yourselves.)

Some of you know about our domestic disaster. I'm not blogging about it in detail due to potential legal ramifications, but suffice to say that a utility company destroyed our apartment and we have been left without a permanent place to live for nearly three months. It is starting to get old. We just want our stuff back and a place to call our own. Meanwhile, everything in life feels up in the air and unsettled. I'm starting to have fleeing fantasies - wanting to flee this side of the country as quickly and as soon as possible. I can just hear the Monty Python knights in my head shrieking "run away! run away!"

Mindy June thinks I should move to England to get away from the stresses of my current life as well as from all the bad people who support the Iraq war and the idea of an American totalitarian theocracy. Although it's kind of like the cat telling you "you should really come have all your meals on the floor, next to me!", she does have a point. I told her I should probably stay in the US because someone needs to keep voting against the bad people. She said "oh you should definitely still vote, but it doesn't mean you have to live there with them."

Sigh.

30-Second Bunnies Theater

No post tonight except to draw your attention to my new links for a few of my favorite 30-Second Bunnies Theater. Enjoy!

The Joys of New York

The other day I was walking down 44th street when I came across this guy handing out flyers inviting gentlemen to visit a local strip club. He was shoving these flyers in the faces of practically everyone, male & female, who passed him. I was actually curious to see what the flyer said specifically, but when I got up to him he completely ignored me. Didn't offer me a flyer, wouldn't even look at me. I guess I'm not the type of riffraff they want hanging out in their club.

Then the other night George & I were offered free tickets to a dress rehearsal for "Purlie," a remake of a musical from the 1970s. We were walking toward the stage door where our friend, a musician in the pit orchestra, told us to meet him so we could pick up our tickets. As we approached we heard a man shouting obscenities about 5 feet from where our friend was standing waiting for us. He was really unleashing a stream of words I hadn't heard since I burned a hole in my mom's new carpeting when I was a kid. I made a comment to our friend about it and he said "oh yeah, he's here every night, he's really funny" and then changed the subject and started talking about an upcoming audition. Then three busses pulled up and dozens of preteenage kids started to disembark - apparently they were attending the show that night. The foul mouthed man continued belting out "why you pack of mother-f***ing rats, get the h*** out of my space you a** wiping worthless no good sh*theads....." Everyone just completely ignored him and carried on their conversations.

Will I ever get used to living here?

What's with all the big heads?

Parts of this entry are kind of gross so if you're squeamish, consider yourself warned.

I had a dream many years ago that still haunts me. In the dream I was walking in a woods when I came to a clearing and a wide river. There was a car stuck in the middle of the river. Trying to escape from the car was this family of people with normal bodies but incredibly huge heads, like cartoon character size. The father of the family was standing in the river while trying to pry open the doors of the car to free his family. His huge bulbous head kept bobbing all over the place as he tried to jimmy the car door, while at the same time diarrhea was spilling out of his pants.

This dream disturbed me to such an extent that even today I still get alarmed when I see a drawing or other likeness of a human with an enormous head. Which brings me to the question that is the subject of today's post: what's with all the big heads?

A few years ago I stopped dead in my tracks, slackjawed, after I came across an NYC bus stop shelter displaying the then-new Steve Madden ad campaign that featured cartoonish people with enormous heads. See this link: Disturbing.

Or when I was in law school I was reading a case about the creators of HR Pufnstuf suing McDonald's for allegedly stealing their idea for make-believe characters with gigantic heads, like this one: This bothered me as well.

But today I saw something even more alarming along these lines. I was passing by Saks Fifth Avenue when I noticed that in their display windows they had mannequins, both male and female, dressed to the nines in their new spring line. But instead of having human heads, or no heads at all, these mannequins were adorned with humongous heads of chickens and bunnies where the human heads should have been. I wish I had a picture to share with you.

Please make it stop.

Luck 'o the Irish + Prader-Willi

Last week was St. Patrick's Day, which is quite an event for the people of New York (except for the gay Irish who aren't allowed to play with the other parade people). My office is on 5th Avenue, so this year I had the pleasure of the parade taking place right outside my door. At one point I went around the corner to the drug store, and it took 25 minutes there and back. There was a big pool of spilled beer right in front of the door to my building, with a bunch of drunk frat boys doing stuff like jumping up in the air and bumping their torsos together. People told me that the police had really started cracking down on public drinking on St. Patrick's day, but the shenanigans I just described were happening right in front of a group of cops, so who knows.

The day before I had been at a department store downtown across from the WTC site. In front of me in line there was a group of drunk Irish people. They were involved in some sort of gentle row with the sales clerk over the use of a coupon. Apparently they weren't able to use $5 worth of the coupon right then. They left after far too long, and I asked the clerk what was going on. She said "they're Irish and they're already drunk. I swear, these people can't wait until March 17 to start drinking." I was nodding my silent understanding when one of the drunk Irish people walked up to me and handed me the $5 coupon that she wasn't able to use. So I saved $5 off my purchase. Then I felt bad for agreeing with the clerk that they were drunk & obnoxious. That's what I call the Luck o' the Irish!

PS: Now I'm watching a Discovery channel program about people with Prader-Willi syndrome, a rare disorder that makes people eat uncontrollably. They have to live their entire lives under constant supervision or else they will literally eat until they die. And when you don't let them eat, they fly into these hideous rages.

I think I might have Prader-Willi syndrome. And now my relationship with George is taking on a whole new meaning.

Grief

Now that we're all back home and the funeral services are over, we resume our daily lives. My clients call me in the office demanding things; friends leave casual chatty voice mail messages on my cell phone; I give the cat her daily medicine.

But I don't know how to go on after all this. I either feel empty or hopeless. My sister in law Ruby invited me to go to the movies tonight. I don't want to go. I don't want to do anything that is supposed to be fun. I don't feel like trying to have fun. I don't feel like doing yoga or mixing drinks.

When Jacob graduated from high school he announced that he wasn't going to college. He thought maybe he'd do a technical program at one of those schools that advertise on late night television.

His parents weren't happy. My sister called and said she wanted to send Jake out to stay with me for a while so that I could convince him to go to college. I said "fine." He came out, we had a blast, we talked about college every now & again. When he got home he told his parents that he was taking a year off, but that he would go to college after that. He did. He graduated with straight A's.

A few years ago my sister called to tell me Jake wanted to join the Army. She asked me to call him and talk him out of it. "He'll listen to you," she said. I never called. I figured he was an adult and able to make up his own mind. I also believed the lines they fed him and his parents about not sending only children into combat.

I wish I had called him. I could have called and said "Jake, I know you hate your job. I'm sending you a ticket to New York. Come stay with us for a while, take a break, do whatever you want. Let's talk about this Army idea." It would have been so easy. A phone call, a plane ticket. I didn't do it.

Then when we found out he was going to Iraq, my sister asked me to come for Christmas because he'd be home. I didn't go. I was having stresses on my new job, and I just wanted some time to myself. I could have seen him again. I could have given him a hug before he left for Iraq. Instead, I called him from a bar in Manhattan on Christmas Eve. I said to him "it will be ok. They'll just have you in an office over there." That was the last thing I said to him.

Jacob Christopher Palmatier

My sister Margaret had only dated David Palmatier for a short while before they were married on May 3, 1974. My mom had panicked when they announced they were going to have their wedding outdoors in the Deer Grove Forest Preserve in Palatine, Illinois, because she envisioned a hippy wedding with a bunch of unwashed kids in bare feet and cutoff jeans. She didn't need to worry, though, because it was a very nice affair. My sister wore a white prairie dress with a matching shawl and a big floppy white hat and this fabulous Mia Farrow haircut. It was very period.

The thing I remember most about this wedding, however, was that after it was over, and all the food was eaten and guests were starting to leave, I was overcome with an overwhelming feeling of sadness. And so I started to cry. Of course then people came over to console me because they thought I had been hurt or that I was feeling neglected or something. I was only 8 years old, and I didn't have the language at the time to describe what was going on, but what was happening was that I was suddenly realizing that my sister was married now, that she wouldn't live with me anymore, and that things would never be the same again. And it made me sad.

I still remember that day in early 1975 when I came home from school and my dad said "Thomas, get on the phone - David wants to talk to you." So I picked up the phone and David said "Hi Thomas. I wanted to tell you that you're going to be an uncle."

Wow. I didn't even know what to do with this information. It seemed so strange that I was going to be an uncle. Uncles were supposed to be old people who drove cars and wore mustaches. They certainly weren't 9 year old boys. But nonetheless, I became very excited, and it was pretty much all I could talk about for the next nine months.

I spent a lot of time with Marg & Dave during those days. I worked with them to prepare one of their bedrooms to become a nursery, painting the walls, pasting Winnie-the-Pooh decals, selecting toys, and I even helped them refurbish an old crib that had belonged to David when he was a baby.

And I remember their choosing names for their baby. It was a rather arduous process, as is normally the case, but eventually they came to their decisions and announced that if they had a girl, her name would be Kristin Kelly. And if it was a boy, they would call him Jacob Christopher.

On the morning of November 7, 1975, I got up for school and went out into the family room where my brother was sitting. When he saw me he said "guess what?!!! Marg had a baby boy early this morning and his name is Jacob!!! David called in the middle of the night with the news!!"

I was SOOOO EXCITED!!! I immediately threw on my clothes and ran downstairs. My parents weren't even home because they had gone to see my sister at the hospital, so I just grabbed my school books and ran outside across the yard to my friend Jenny's house (Jenny & I usually walked to school together.) I was about a half hour early, so I rang the doorbell and Jenny's older sister Beth answered. She normally couldn't stand me. But as soon as she opened the door, I just shouted "My sister had a baby boy and his name is Jacob and I'm an uncle!!!" Beth came outside and gave me a big hug saying "I can't believe you're an uncle!!!" And I knew this really was an event because BETH was hugging me!!!

And thus began my childhood with Jacob.

Jacob was part nephew to me but also very much part younger, pesky brother. We were just shy of 10 years apart, and we lived near enough that we saw each other every week. Jake was a child of boundless energy and unbridled enthusiasm. And I know this will come as a suprise (NOT!) to those of you who knew him, but Jake was also EXTREMELY stubborn. We did not always have an easy time, but there were plenty of laughs involved in our sometimes tumultuous relationship.

I babysat fulltime for Jake during the summer of 1977. One of my projects that summer was to make cassette tape recordings of some of my sister's record collection. These were the days before integrated stereo systems where you had tape decks wired to turntables. My system of making these tapes involved my putting a cassette into a tape recorder and shoving it up against the record player's speakers. Of course, this means that the tape player would pick up all the sounds coming from the room, not just from the record player. And so, up until about 10 years ago, I was the proud owner of a series of cassette recordings with Barry Manilow singing "Looks Like We Made It" and Jacob trying to sing along in the background along with my voice screaming "Jacob!! Be quiet!!!" I wish I still had them.

At one point, when I was a teenager, I got to my wits end with Jacob's antics and I wrote him a little song called "Jacob is Such a Dumb Brat." I used to play it for my friends on the piano and we would all laugh. One day Jake was really getting on my nerves so I decided to torment him a little by playing him the song. After I was through he said "that was great Uncle Thomas! Play it again!" Despite my teenage angst and all my bad behavior, Jacob didn't have a mean, vindictive bone in his body.


Jake & me as kids with Jake's father, David 

A lot of us have been talking recently about how funny Jacob was. He had impeccable comedic timing, which actually started when he was a very small child with a penchant for toilet humor. One of our favorite family stories is the time Marg & Dave took him with to the DMV when they had to renew their drivers licenses. It was a Saturday and they were in one of those horrible government offices with about a thousand people in line and one bathroom to share. Jacob had to go to the bathroom, so David took him inside & sat him on the toilet, and then left the bathroom to wait for him outside. He had just walked about 5 feet away from the bathroom door to help Marg with something, when all of a sudden Jake walks out of the bathroom into this room with a thousand people, pants down around his ankles, and announces to the entire room "Dad, you have to come wipe me!!!!!"

Another time when I was about 14 we were out for dinner and they asked me to take Jake to the bathroom. I took him in and helped him with his business. When he was through I helped zip him up, but unfortunately caught a tiny piece of skin in the zipper. He yelped in pain, understandably. I checked him to make sure there was no real damage, and everything looked fine except that he was still whimpering. I was trying to console him when in walked an elderly gentleman, at which point Jake yelled at the top of his lungs "YOU HURT MY PENIS!!!!" I could have died.

He was funny his entire life. One time when I was living in California Jake came out to spend a week with me. I remember going out to dinner with him at Johnny Rockets on Melrose Avenue. We were sitting in the outdoor cafe section when he started telling me stories about his mother complaining about bad service in restaurants. He started doing this imitation of her in this silly nasally voice and I just lost it - he had me on the floor laughing. "I want that waitress to come back here and apologize!!!" he kept murmuring at intervals whenever I had my mouth full of food so that I would laugh and almost choke myself. He was really hysterical.

Even though he made fun of them, Jake was incredibly devoted to his parents and family. He was clearly one of the smartest people around, but he chose to go to a small local college instead of branching out to a big name school, where he surely would have been accepted and done well. When he graduated from college I begged him to move to Chicago or one of the coasts where he might find better opportunities, but I think I he really didn't want to go far from home at that point. He enjoyed every minute he spent with his parents. Well, almost every minute, with the exception of a few years when he was a teen. But he was a really fun kid, and his parents are really fun people, and he wanted to be with them. And I know he was equally devoted to his wife, Bridget.

Our good family friends Bob & Judy Ward recently wrote a letter to the editor of the Chicago Tribune, which included a lovely tribute to Jacob. One of the things they said in this letter was that while it remains to be seen whether the world will be better off without Saddam Hussein, one thing is for sure: the world is not better off without Jacob. I couldn't agree more.

I can tell you that Jacob's death is the worst thing that has ever happened to our family. And so now, all these years later, I find that I've come full circle from that day in 1974 when I cried at my sister's wedding. Now I'm crying over my sister's son's death because I know that nothing will ever be the same for us after this.

I'll never forget the sound of my sister's voice when I talked to her on the phone the night that Jacob died. She couldn't talk except to say over & over "I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do." I don't know either. We all lost a piece of our hearts when we lost Jacob.

Maybe we can try to fill these holes in our hearts with some of the love, compassion, gentleness, kindness and forgiving spirit that Jacob embodied during his short stay on earth. And maybe we can all try to be just one-tenth the kind of person that Jacob was. It's true: the world is not better off without Jacob. But if we can try to do these things to honor his memory, we will know at least that the world is better off because Jacob was in it.


Jacob Christopher Palmatier 11/7/75 - 2/24/2005 

Jacob was killed by a roadside bomb in Muqdadiya, Iraq, only two weeks after his arrival. He was 29.

The Smithereens

Earlier this week I was reading the Village Voice when I noticed The Smithereens would be playing BB King's on Friday night. I was kind of surprised to see them listed because I had no idea they were still playing together.

The Smithereens were one of the "cool" alternative bands I got into during my college years. As far as I could tell, they never moved too far out of the college-alternative genre and into the mainstream. No one I know except people from my early 20s has ever heard of them. So, I decided to go to this concert, not so much because I was that excited to see them, but more because I was dying to see what kind of crowd would show up for this. I figured it would probably be a lot of late 30s - early 40s crowd, and a lot of guys screaming "fuck yeah, the Smithereens, you guys are AWESOME!!!"

I did go last night, and I was not disappointed on any level. At first when my friend Oddrun & I entered the room, we discovered it was cabaret-style seating, where you sit at a table and order food & drink ($10 min. per person) while you listen to the concert. This seemed to be a strange way to hear rock music. I think the last time I saw the Smithereens was in 1988 at First Avenue in Minneapolis - you know, the kind of real joint where you stand around drinking beer in front of a stage.

But if you think about it, cabaret style seating for rock concerts is actually entirely appropriate for this kind of crowd. We're busy busting our butts all week selling insurance, working in law firms, slaving away as CPAs and whatnot. You need a place to rest your weary ass while you enjoy some good tunage from your youth. I kind of got into the scene.

We were seated at a table with these guys in their mid forties with graying hair, paunch bellies and accompanied by similarly aged female companions with cheap dye jobs and leather pants. The rest of the room was fairly similar. A lot of people looked like they were eager to have a few hours of fun but-not-for-too-long-because-I have-to-get-home-to-pay-the-sitter kind of thing. A lot of bleary-eyed tired from the work-week faces. Totally understandable, if you ask me.

The opening band sucked ass. Oddrun was just looking at me as if to say "what the hell are we doing here? This sucks ass." I shrugged and reminded her that we were there as part of a sociological study.

The sucky band ended after far too long, and then after about 20 minutes the Smithereens walked out on stage, rather casually, and picked up their instruments. No big hoopla or fanfare of any sort. The first thing I noticed is that their lead singer, Pat Dinizio, has BALLOOOOOOONED. I'm talking an Orson Wellian kind of roundness. The rest of the band looked pretty much the same, but about 20 years older. The bassist still does this really gay two-feet jumping in the air kind of thing when he plays, which I always thought was amusing. Lead guitarist Jimmy Babjak is still kind of a Baldwin - just want to give him a hug whenever you see him.

Then they started playing. Opened with "Spellbound" which is kind of a slow ballad. It sounded great, which kind of surprised me because I thought that if these guys haven't been playing together regularly for 20 odd years, they must be rusty. Not so. They sound like they've never quit playing. I was also pleasantly surprised to notice that this band that I thought was so "cool" in my youth actually consists of four very excellent musicians. I've had that experience where I listen, as an adult, to some group I liked when I was young - and notice, as an adult, that they really kind of suck. I saw the Go-Go's a few times when they reunited and was sad to note that they are terrible performers. While I will be forever devoted to Belinda Carlisle (seeing as how we're psychically linked, which I'll blog about later) the woman can't sing for shit. Off key, terrible.

Not so with Pat Dinizio. His intonation was right on the money throughout every single song. He was always the one member of the band who kind of annoyed me for some reason. It always seemed to me that he thought he was just too cool in a beatnick sort of way. But after his performance last night, I have newfound respect & admiration for the guy. He really loves his music, and it shows. Jimmy's guitar playing was also amazing. In short, these guys WERE awesome.

I remembered the lyrics to every single song they played, which kind of amazed me because I haven't listened to these guys in years. After about 30 minutes I decided to screw the cabaret style seating arrangement and I stood up and started yelling "BLOOD AND ROSES!!! BLOOD AND ROSES!!!" My table companions got very excited and started whooping & hollering right along with me (apparently it was their favorite song too.) By the end of the concert, I had become the very object of my sociological study - the almost-fortysomething with graying hair and paunch belly screaming "Fuck yeah, the Smithereens, you guys are AWESOME!!!!!!!" Oddrun laughed and danced next to her chair.

It was a really great night. While it would be nice if there were some twentysomethings around today who had a chance to know and appreciate the Smithereens, it was kind of fun to rock to them with this fortysomething crowd. I felt a mild sense of connection and bonding as I stood surrounded by all these guys who probably would've tried to beat me up if they'd known me in high school.

And the best part- I was home in bed with my cat by 11:45! Rock on man!!!

Four Words About Dubya

What a fucking retard.

Guest Blogger: E.M. Stover

Since I don't want anyone to accuse me of being all hoggish with Coaster Punchman's World, I'm welcoming the occasional guest blogger to offer his or her finest anecdotes and noteworthy tales for weblification here. I feel it's very important that Coaster Punchman's World be seen as a warm, friendly and welcoming webspace.

With that, I would like to introduce to my loyal readers my good high school friend, Beth Stover, associate professor of English at the State University of New York, Buffalo, as she blogs about her young daughter's first bout with writer's block.

Take it away, Beth!

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There is nothing sadder than an eight year old child with writer's block, and I think it is especially ironic when it is my own. I am, after all, a writing teacher with a whole artillery of strategies meant to head it off before it begins. But there was Rebecca this morning, 15 minutes of tears and at least 15 wadded balls of wet tissue, because she didn't have a dream, or no dream she cared to write six to eight sentences about.

At first she dreamt for no more writing-- a very meta-whatever approach, but this yielded but two sentences, and five minutes of staring at a blank page before total despair set in. "Well," I say, "why don't you write about why you don't like writing?" Tears and tears, and she doesn't know why. More suggestions on my part: "Is it because it's hard to write the letters?"

The other day she asked how I could write so fast, meaning the physical act of forming letters and words. "Maybe it's spelling." She refuses to mis-spell, which can really slow down the process.

So now we have major tears. "I don't know why." I handle this by hugging her, and I wonder if this would be a good approach with my students. "You're having a hard time with this paper? Here, let me give you a hug."

Let's brainstorm!!! So I suggest ending war, feeding hungry children ("Why don't they plant food?"), keeping the world clean. But nothing's happening, just more tears, and we have to leave for school in 15 minutes. "Okay, just write something, write whatever you think."

Now I'm writing a note to her teacher--about 45 minutes have passed since she sat down to write, after she went through the rituals of procrastination which all good writers are familiar with. I'm having visions of a permanently writing-disabled person; I'm thinking of my students who can barely manage a three-sentence paragraph, not because they're not smart, but because they can't develop; I'm imagining Rebecca in college staring at a blank screen; I'm imagining all the psycho-somatic reasons why she can't just spit out 8 sentences and be done with it: Does she not want to commit to a dream and be held accountable for it? Is she worried it won't be good enough? Is she worried her dream won't be original enough? Is she worried that if she starts with two or three sentences and can't come up with anything else, the whole endeavor will be for naught?

I turn and tell her we have five minutes, and if she doesn't get it done, she doesn't get it done. I begin looking for my sunglasses.

When I come back to the kitchen, she's writing and asking me how to spell "chocolate" and "patients." She dreams that it would rain chocolate and candy so children could eat them all the time even though their dentists and parents might not like it. She spits it all out in under 10 minutes, she's happy because it's not serious(?). It's witty and not your standard Miss-America-I-Have-A-Dream fare; suffers a little in execution, but who cares, it's done, the crisis has passed--for now. But I think to myself, is this what kind of writer she's going to be? How awful for her, a prisoner to writer's block until the last possible moment? And if it's bad now, what will it be like in the future? If she can't spit out a paragraph, how will she write a paper?

I can't help it, but I do want my daughter to be a good writer, or at least take some pleasure in the process. At some point during my pregnancy I was worried about having a girl who wanted to be a cheerleader; I can't help but think this is 100 times worse.

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No Beth, it would definitely be worse to have a cheerleader. And your story reminds me vaguely of Laura Ingalls Wilder and her daughter Rose Wilder Lane. It turns out Rose was the editor responsible for crafting the "Little House" series into the enjoyable reads that they are. She took Laura's rough-and-tumble, stilted sketches of pioneer life and breathed life and language into them. And (unlike you of course) apparently Laura was a real bitch to her the whole time Rose was making her mother famous.

Maybe you and Rebecca will have a similarly meaningful relationship, but in a much more positive way.

One-Line Poem: Jon's Grandma

She rocked in her chair and avoided all communication except to repeat that somebody hurt the baby.

I'm a secret-eating-listener

If you’ve been reading my blog, you already know about my deep love for the CMTVM genre. But here’s way #2 that I’m a freak: I have this weird fetish where I like to listen to people eat. But not just ordinary eating. I like to listen to people eat when they are trying to pretend they are not eating. Like when they are sneaking bites of food while talking on the phone with me. Or when they’re eating somewhere they’re not supposed to be eating, while trying to be quiet about it. In short, I'm a secret-eating-listener.

When I was in college, students used to sneak food into the library all the time. They would squirrel themselves away in their little study carrels, thinking they were going to be able to munch away privately. Not so, as long as I was around. It’s not like I would seek it out, but as soon as someone would set him or herself up with a bag of chips or a sandwich in a neighboring carrel, I was theirs for the duration. Whatever else I was working on would just have to wait until “lunch” was over. I probably wasted an entire month’s worth of study time over the course of my college career with my secret-eating-listening.

I should note that while the word “fetish” has a sexual connotation, my fascination with secret-eating-listening is distinctly non-sexual. I don’t know quite how to define it, but secret eating stimulates some kind of positive energy within me, like the warm fuzzies some of us get when a cat is purring. One time I was on a hour-long business call where the person on the other end of the phone was trying to pretend he wasn’t eating. I was absolutely week-kneed. Had to keep asking him to repeat himself. Another time when I was working phone tech support, this woman I was helping was quietly sucking on cough drop for about 20 minutes, and it made me positively dizzy.

For those of you who know me, I should also note that obvious eating doesn’t do the same trick for me. I told George about this little fascination of mine when we were first dating long-distance, and after that he was always trying to titillate me by eating whenever we were on the phone. It didn’t work, because I could tell he was trying. It has to be bona-fide secret eating to get my fancy.

I wonder if I’ll upset anyone with this news. I once worked in an office where there was this secretary who had a fascination with watching people eat. If you worked there any length of time, you were warned to look out for her in the lunchroom because at some point everyone would catch her sneaking a peek. One time she was sitting next to me, and halfway through lunch I realized she’d been enjoying my three-bean salad right along with me for at least half an hour. Her staring was kind of cute, but I made her stop nonetheless.

So if you are reading this, consider yourself on notice. And if you ever think you’re fooling me while you’re quietly munching on that power bar or swallowing tiny spoonfuls of yogurt while you’re on the phone with me, think again. But if you’re lucky and you convince me that your eating is secret, don’t be surprised if I figure out a way to extend the call an extra 20 minutes or so.

One-Line Poem: Don't Sing Mama

Next time you make me the center of attention, I want to hear about it in advance.

The Beauty of the CMTVM

My friend Regular Tim recently sent Mindy June and me a link to a website that discusses and displays the bodily blemishes of various celebrities, e.g. Leo DeCaprio's facial chicken pox scars and that sort of thing.

While I thought it was a perfectly natural website link to forward to one's friends, Mindy June took it upon herself to ask Tim where he'd come across this jewel. His reply? He'd simply run across it by accident while he was searching for a list of tv actresses that have appeared in the most made-for-tv-movies. Again, a perfectly normal Internet query, if you ask me.

Tim's quest reminded me that I need to start blogging more about my fascination with the CMTVM (cheesy-made-for-tv-movie.) My preferred flavor of CMTVM plays on Lifetime Television for Women and features an abused woman who finally snaps & blows her filthy stinking husband's head off or burns him alive. (see "The Burning Bed" or "Extremities" - both starring Farrah Fawcett.)

Another good one has Josie Bisset (of "Melrose Place" fame) unknowingly married to a serial rapist. But I gotta tell ya - the sine qua non of CMTVM's would have to be "A Woman Scorned: The Betty Broderick Story" starring Meredith Baxter. This CMTVM, along with its sequel, "Her Final Fury," was so unabashedly fabulous that it founded a whole new genre of CMTVM in my mind: the CMTVMMB (cheesy-made-for-tv-movie starring Meredith Baxter.)

Meredith Baxter rocks my world. Something about watching Elise Keaton act like a total crazy bitch for two hours before finally blowing away her ex-husband and his boneheaded fiancee in their sleep just made my day. And then the call she made from the phone booth to her friend right after it happened - "I finally did it, I killed the bastard...." I'd never seen anything like it. Outstanding.

I think a close second would have to be that Mary Tyler Moore vehicle "Like Mother Like Son" where she plays this crazy bitch mother who teaches her sons to shoplift as young boys, and then eventually teams up with one of them to kill Edith Bunker in order to take title to her apartment building. Included are several great scenes where Mary displays some revolting incestuous tendencies toward her boy. If you ask me, all Mary has to do is participate in a few more of those gems for me to create a new category in her honor: the CMTVMMTM.

It's always the fomer sitcom adorable-stable-mother-type actresses who make the best CMTVM's. See Elizabeth Montgomery in "Sins of the Mother" where she plays this quasi-sadistic crazy ass bitch mother who turns her son into a serial rapist. I think that one had some incest themes as well.

Not that I approve of any of this. Trust me, I am plenty filthy in my own right, but I do not in any way condone serial rape or incest. But that's what is so great about watching these tv uber-mommies just lose it and go all the way to the dark side. Maybe I should explore this fascination of mine in therapy. Nah, I don't really want to ruin it. It's just too much damn fun.

One of the best things that has ever happened to me was when I was in St. Paul, Minnesota recently. I went out for dinner with my friend Kapooch and her husband, Special Tim. I've been coming out of the closet recently about my CMTVM fetish, and I decided to share this news with Kapooch & Special Tim.

Little did I know that Kapooch, who is married to a real GUY's guy, is also married to her very own CMTVM fetishist. That's right: Special Tim watches Lifetime!

My favorite part of the whole evening was learning that he and Kapooch got so hooked by a certain CMTVM one day that they refused to answer the doorbell when their friends showed up to watch the final game of the World Series. Just couldn't get up out of their chairs because some crazy ass bitch was busy gunning down an entire convenience store while her daughter binged & purged in the backseat of the family SUV or something like that. Just couldn't do it. Had to keep watching. I love my friends.

I should note that while I'm becoming more open about my CMTVM fetish, an openness that is only more strongly encouraged by the deliberate self-outing of Special Tim, I am nevertheless still afraid to get TIVO for fear of what that little machine might say about me. I'd probably watch TV for a week, and then TIVO would start suggesting some Danielle Steele miniseries for me. Can't have that. I don't know if TIVO is sophisticated enough to differentiate between a truly great CMTVM and some schmaltzy love story that could possibly induce self-mutilation on the part of the viewer. Then again, maybe that in itself could be the subject of a new kind of CMTVM.

I want Mindy June to quit her fancy London job, come back to the states and start producing some fine CMTVM's with me. I hear Patty Duke & Shannen Doherty may be looking for work, and I have just the vehicle for them churning in my brain.

I'm wearing a wife beater

My weird friend Daniel said it pisses him off when guys wear t-shirts under their dress shirts where you can see the t-shirt sleeves through the long sleeves of the dress shirt. I don't know why this "pisses him off" - it seems there are a lot worse things to be upset about. Nevertheless, I recently decided to try wearing undershirts because it's winter now and besides, the whole thing about being able to see through a dress shirt got me thinking maybe people have been sneaking peeks at my cute little masculine anatomical things. So I done got myself some wife beaters because that way I figure I won't piss Daniel off since there will be no t-shirt sleeves to see.

Problem is, whenever I wear undershirts they tend to creep up and not stay tucked into my pants. So today I got clever and tucked my wife beater right into the strap of my underpants. End result was that I felt Mormon all day - like I was wearing one of their celestial garments. Like this one:

My wife beater makes me feel fat because it adds a whole new layer that my pants and belt have to wrap around. And I'm sorry, but there just ain't that much room left to spare in that arena. But I have to admit that one of the benefits to my having gotten fat is that at least my upper torso now doesn't look so scrawny. I can actually wear a wife beater now, and as long as your eyes don't go too far south I look halfway decent. F*ck yeah!

I'm stranded in Sunny Eagan Minnesota!

It's Friday night. I was going to play with my friend Chuck E. Cheese tonight, but he done got sick and can't go out. The rest of my work colleagues took our rental cars and went out to play in Uptown where they will eat pizza at Figlio and go roller skating later. I have no idea where the idea for that one came from. I told them to be sure to card any boys they pick up to make sure they're of age.

I want everyone who reads my blog to visit Amy's Diary and tell me what you think. It's one of my favorite things in the world right now.

Now it's time to visit the hotel swimming pool, after having downed three glasses of wine. I drank them while doing my work-related homework, so I guess I'm officially an alcoholic now. Yay!