Facebook Follies (Updated!)

I joined Facebook this week. I’m not really the last holdout, but I'll bet I’m close. I actually did join a few years ago,  and to show you how serious I was about it, this was my profile photo*:

I signed on and immediately was swarmed, like a hive of angry murder hornets, with people who were clamoring to be my friend. I panicked, signed off and deleted my account. I batted away all entreaties to rejoin from friends until this week. I have an ulterior motive, of course. I'm writing a book, Tougher Than the Rest, a fictionalized version of my life, centered around the time leading up to my double lung transplant**

I wanted to promote the book, so I figured Facebook was the way to go. I signed on and quickly made a bunch of new friends and reacquainted myself with some old ones. Cool. 

I did post the first five pages of Tougher... and received some nice comments. On the advice of a friend, I tagged about nine friends to alert them to the post. Facebook quickly flagged that egregious behavior with "Your comment goes against our Community Standards so only you can see it."

Facebook asked ne if I disagreed with the decision and I said no, although I wished I could have said "Fuck no."

An hour or so later, my stepsister sent me a message saying she enjoyed the post, and ended with "Love you." I sent her a message that said, "Love you too," which was flagged with (see above).I disagreed with that, too.

My friend Carl saw a post recently that said, "I can't wait for Joe Biden to die,"  which did not violate community standards. Maybe I'll send a post that says, "I love Joe Biden," just to see what happens. 

I don't think I'm long for Facebook. 

Addendum: This racist, misogynist, incendiary, hateful, and overall dickish comment was flagged by Facebook. It was the answer to a nice message from a friend about my writing: 

* For you kids out there, that's the famous mugshot of JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, not really me.

** If you regular readers of The Ego Has Landed are sick of hearing about the book, try to imagine how sick of talking about it I am.

Song of the Day: Roger Clyne was a member of the Refreshments, who were responsible for the theme to King of the Hill, the greatest TV theme of all time. This is from their album, Fizzy Fuzzy Big & Buzzy.

 

Bonus song! (How could I resist?)

Here's Part 9:

1979: Ziggy

 

                Summer of 1979 and Danny was once again without wheels. There was hope on the horizon, though. His dad bought a new (used) car and told Danny he could buy the old one, a ’69 Plymouth Belvedere, for a dollar. The Belvedere had seen better days. It had more rust than body and was really ten years old going on thirty, but it ran. Frank told Danny, “It will start every morning without fail, even in the coldest weather. It’s probably worth a dollar,”  he added dryly. Danny just had to get the Belvedere inspected (his dad assured him it would pass), line up insurance and put plates on it.  Piece of cake.

Dean Bowman, Danny’s buddy since the trailer park, was getting married in a couple of weeks to Christine, his girlfriend of a couple years, and he wanted Danny to be an usher. He actually wanted Danny as best man but promised the gig to his older brother, Ronald. That was fine with Danny-- pretty great, actually. He much preferred the role of usher. No bachelor party to plan, no standing at the altar anxiously fishing around in his pocket for the ring. Dean looked crushed as he told him about the demotion. “So sorry, man. He’s my brother,” Dean said, downcast.

                Danny mirrored Dean’s sad face. “Oh, man, that sucks. I was so looking forward to it, you know?” he lied. “But I’m just glad I can be in the wedding party with you, buddy. I’ll just ush the hell out of those guests and make you proud.” Danny was in five weddings the last five years, none his own. He was five-for-five in garter catches and hoped to continue his streak.

                Danny hadn’t any of met Chris’ bridesmaids yet, but he hoped he got paired up with someone single. Single and hot. Well, single and attractive would be fine.  If she was too good-looking Danny would be totally outclassed. Regardless, he knew he had to be his charming and witty self to close the attractiveness gap and maybe even have a chance to…dare he think it? score.

                Danny was still a virgin at the hoary old age of twenty-three. He hadn’t come particularly close to not being one, either. Either he was too young and scared to put on the necessary moves or just afraid of getting a girl pregnant. His mom had, impressively, drilled into him what a huge mistake that would be. He’d seen how disruptive that was to June’s life. His one steady post-adolescent girlfriend, Claire, was “saving herself for marriage.” Danny, channeling Meatloaf in “Paradise By the Dashboard Light,” all but proposed while in the throes of many overheated back seat romps,  Not that it would have done any good. Claire and Danny broke up while still, uh, intact.

                Maybe the closest Danny came was when he was at dinner one evening with coworker Frank and “Marvelous Marvin.” The Marvelous one was an electronics manufacturers’ representative who serviced Upstate New York, and Motronics was a big wholesale client. Marvin was larger-than-life in more ways than one; literally (he weighed somewhere around three hundred pounds); and figuratively. Marv always made a loud and grand entrance, always brought doughnuts, pastries, and coffee; and also brought his trademark ebullience. Everyone was always happy to see him. Unlike many other reps that barely paid notice to front-line guys like Danny and Frank, Marv went out of his way to make them feel special, and often took them to dinner when he was in town.

                One evening when Marv was in town, Frank and Danny met MM at Scotch and Sirloin, a tony steakhouse in Dewitt.  Marvin was like an uncle to the boys, and they were still just boys, really. He seemed genuinely interested in their lives and their plans for the future. “Frank, are you married yet?” Marvin asked Danny’s coworker.

Frank practically spit out his scotch and soda. “Oh, not yet. I’m way too immature for that right now,” Frank said.

Marvin laughed, and said, “Well, I’ll give you points for honesty, Frank.” Marvin turned to Danny. “Where do you see yourself in ten years, Danny? Still at Motronics?” he said.

Danny blurted out his answer: “Honestly? Dead, Marvin.” He said it with a laugh because, why not? Nothing was gonna change his CF diagnosis. Danny was pretty fatalistic, realistic about it. Marv was taken aback but then Danny filled him in. Until that point, Marvin was unaware Danny had cystic fibrosis. He asked Danny a few questions about it. Marv, like most people, knew very little about CF.

 The steaks arrived shortly afterward, the drinks flowed, and before long, both Danny and Frank were pretty lit. They were having a great time. Entrees were polished off and a few rounds of drinks were, too. Marvin said, “You guys having a good time?” and they both nodded enthusiastically. “Well, maybe I can make your great time a lot greater,” and then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a business card. “I’ve got an offer for you two, but there’s a catch.”

Danny and Frank looked blearily but warily at each other. Uh oh, where is this headed? they thought simultaneously.

                 Then Marvin said, “This card has got the name of a couple of call girls I happen to know,” and here he smiled, “I will pay for you two to use their services, won’t cost you a dime—”

                Frank practically leaped out of his chair. Danny stayed seated. “—but only if you both take me up on my offer.”

                Frank looked at Danny’s eyes for affirmation, but Danny just looked away. “Danny?! We can get laid! For free, no strings attached! Right? You’re in, right? Right?” Frank, his tongue thick with liquor, pleaded with his coworker.

                But Danny wasn’t in. A call girl scared the hell out of him, and he didn’t want to lose his virginity that way--though he didn’t admit, would never admit, to Frank that he’d never been with a girl. Danny wanted his first time to be romantic, and loving, with someone he cared about, at least someone he liked, not with some woman who was on the clock--so to speak. So Danny said no. And Frank said, “No!!”

                Marvin sat back and watched the interplay. In hindsight, Danny wondered if Marvin was just curious, wondering who might win the battle of wills. Maybe Marvin had sized the two up, counted on them giving different answers, and now wanted to see who wore the other down. Marvin was a great guy, thought Danny, but this was some sick game.

                Frank begged Danny. He practically got down on his knees to Danny, who didn’t budge. He felt bad for Frank, who desperately wanted this. Danny even suggested to Marvin that Frank could have both call girls, and Frank’s eyes grew wide with delight and anticipation. Marvin shut that down quickly. “Sorry, guys, I told you the deal, it’s either both, or nobody.”

                The boys were at a permanent impasse. Marvin paid the check, and they all left the restaurant about nine-thirty. Danny thanked Marvin for dinner and drinks, and even said “I appreciated the offer, Marv.” That produced one final glare from a very sullen Frank, who wanted to leave Danny stranded in the parking lot. I ought to tell him to check to see if my headlight is out and then run him over, Frank thought. Danny somehow made it home alive, but the mood on the Motronics counter was very strained the next few days.

               

                Dean and Christine’s wedding was fast approaching and Friday the fifteenth was the rehearsal and then the rehearsal dinner. Danny rode with fellow usher Rich to the church, Sacred Heart in Cicero. They met up with Dean and Dean’s cousin, Brandon, who was the other usher. The four of them huddled in the back of the parking lot and smoked a surreptitious bowl. Danny was barely inside the very bright church when he was sorry he smoked that bowl. Danny was again secretly thankful he wasn’t best man.

Inside the church, Danny and Rich were introduced to Ronald and the bridesmaids. “This is Elaine, my married sister, so hands off, guys,” Christine said with a warning. Elaine was a knockout and as smart and funny as she was attractive. “She’s my matron of honor and of course will be matched up with Ronald. Diana is my beautiful younger sister, Rich, and she will walk with you,” she said, “And Karen, my future sister-in-law, is matched with Brandon.”

Finally, Chris said with a big smile, “This is my very best friend, Marilyn, and she is paired up with you, Danny.”

Marilyn was about Danny’s age and was really cute, petite, and girly. “Nice to meet you, Marilyn. Too bad Chris’ wedding party turned into a Beauty and the Beast thing,” Danny said in typical self-deprecation. He was surprised when his joke made her laugh, for two reasons. One, the lame joke; and two, Marilyn’s laugh. When she laughed it was like a machine gun tuned to a higher pitch, a living thing that reverberated across the room and demanded attention. Yikes, Danny thought, that is some hellacious laugh. Maybe I should tone it down a bit. Then he decided, screw it, I have to be funny! Damn the torpedoes!

Danny and Marilyn quickly hit it off, chatting like old friends almost immediately. More than once he caught her staring at him and, a little intimidated, had to look away. At the rehearsal dinner that evening Marilyn repeatedly grabbed his hand, touched his arm, and leaned into him when she spoke. He was certainly no expert at body language but felt a connection. The evening flew by. Danny was more attracted to her than any other girl since Claire. He felt a little sad when they had to say goodnight after dinner, even though he knew he’d spend most of the next day with her.

The day of the wedding couldn’t have been more splendid--sunny with temperatures in the seventies and just a few wispy clouds. The wedding was understated but elegant, with about a hundred visitors, evenly divided between bride and groom. The bridesmaids wore baby blue dresses that were practical enough to wear after the wedding, unlike some of the monstrosities Danny had seen.  Dean wore tails, Danny and the other groomsmen wore classic black tuxes, and everyone was wowed by the simple beauty of Chris’ gown. She looked so happy, and Dean looked even happier, if possible. Danny was thrilled for them both, but especially Dean, who was more like a brother than a friend.

During the ceremony, Danny kept peeking past the bride and groom at Marilyn, and she did the same. Her slight Mona Lisa smile made his heart beat just a little faster. He couldn’t wait for the ceremony to be over so they could spend more time together. As they walked down the aisle after the ceremony, Marilyn slyly took his hand, a touch that electrified Danny. The bride, groom, and the wedding party posed for pictures. Danny, Rich and especially Dean, who was relieved it was over, kept up non-stop commentary that cracked everyone up, and of course Marilyn’s staccato laugh drowned out most of the others.

After the photographer’s marathon session ended everyone took off in different directions for a break until the reception. “Where’s your car?” she asked, and he just shook his head.

“I rode with my roommate, Rich. You?” he asked Marilyn.

“Elaine picked me up. I don’t have a car, either” Marilyn said. “Follow me,” and of course he did. The doors of Elaine’s ’72 Maverick were unlocked, and they climbed in. “Want to get high?” she asked conspiratorially. She smokes pot, too? Girl of my dreams.

“How can I say no?” he said, and took a deep toke off a pretty expertly rolled joint. After a few minutes they were both lost in their own thoughts, sufficiently buzzed. They looked at each other for a long minute and then Danny asked her “Whatcha thinking about?”

“I’m thinking about kissing you. Or you kissing me,” she said with a smile. After a beat, she said, “Well?”

Danny, emboldened, leaned in. They smooched for a few glorious minutes. Marilyn said, “You’re a good kisser.”

“It’s my first time ever,” Danny said with a smile, and she laughed her machine-gun laugh. “You’re a pretty good kisser, too,” he told her, and then she said, “It’s just one of my many talents,” and she smiled a wicked smile.

Oh man, thought Danny. He tried to play it cool but failed, and he knew it. And she knew it too.

The reception was held at the beautiful and popular wedding venue Wysocki’s, near the shore of Oneida Lake. Local favorites Sleepy Hollow played the hits and kept the dance floor full. Danny danced just about every dance, mostly with Marilyn but one with Dean’s mom, Wanda, and another with Christine. He got winded but didn’t care. He took a brief breather then got back out there. Finally, the band slowed it down with a fine rendition of Earth Wind and Fire’s “Reasons.” Danny made eye contact with Marilyn and then, Fonz-like, jerked his head towards the dance floor. Danny immediately worried that he overplayed his hand, but Marilyn walked slowly towards him and melted into his arms. They slowly spun around the floor, her head against his chest, the smell of her perfume driving him wild. Danny wished that “Reasons” was two hours long, and so did Marilyn.

The newlyweds were having so much fun they outlasted most of the guests, but they finally drove off into the night about ten-thirty. By then, the band had finished and packed up. The bridal party were stragglers but when they got the evil eye from the Wysocki’s clean-up crew they also called it a night. Rich said to Danny, “Hey Rooms, you ready to go?” Rich and Danny had lifted the nickname “Rooms,” shorthand for “roommate,” from a book they liberally quoted from, the Jim Bouton tell-all baseball diary, Ball Four.

“Give me two minutes, Rooms, willya?” Danny said. Rich knew what was at stake, and nodded. Danny caught up with Marilyn, who was waiting for him, anyway. “I’d like to see you again. I have to see you again,” Danny said, heart plainly visible on his sleeve.

“Yes, me too, Danny. How about if you come over on Monday?” Marilyn said. Elaine was waiting somewhat impatiently for her. Monday? That was years away! What if I don’t live that long, Danny thought, but he played it cool. Well, cool for Danny.

“Sure, Monday works for me,” he said, trying not to show too much excitement. He failed miserably. Marilyn took his left hand, and very slowly and sensually, wrote her phone number on his palm.

“Be careful not to wash that hand too soon when you get home or you may never hear from me again,” she said with a smile.

“Fat chance,” said Danny. He already had it memorized.

“Good, ‘cause I’m looking forward to really getting to know you,” said Marilyn, and her smile and sly wink said the rest.

Danny woke up Monday morning on a mission. He had to get the Belvedere on the road, today. As soon as he got to work he cornered Mark Longley and asked to borrow his car. Danny told him why, in some (but not all) detail. “How can I say no to a request like that?” Mark said, laughing. “Sure, all yours.”

Danny left about noon, his normal lunchtime. He brought a ham sandwich to eat while he drove. The mission was more complicated than it would have been if he had planned better, which was the story of his life. Instead of “Measure twice, cut once,” Danny was “Cut once, measure, cut again, swear, throw the board away, swear some more.”  First, he needed to go to Burnett Process, where his dad worked, in some industrial park he had never been to before. His dad had the registration for the Belvedere. Then, Danny had to travel diagonally across the county to the trailer park where his dad and stepmom lived, because Lulu had the car’s title. Then, he had to take both pieces of paper and proof of insurance to the DMV. Only then could he claim title to the Plymouth and fulfill his date with destiny that evening.

 

Plastic Plea

I’ve been kicking it old school* with my transplant-related diabetes for going on nineteen years. I’m type 1, which means I’m insulin-dependent. That has required me to check my glucose levels by pricking my various fingers about twenty-seven-thousand times** over the years. Yes, ouch. High glucose readings (generally, above 180) usually mean I need to compensate for my pancreatic insufficiency by injecting insulin. Despite how onerous it all sounded back in 2004, I got the hang of it fairly quickly. My A1C, a measurement of average blood sugar over a three month span, has mostly remained under 7%, the generally accepted baseline for diabetes.  I consider myself both lucky and proud.

I saw my endocrinologist today and he gently suggested, for the fourth or fifth straight visit, that I join the 21^st century (my words) and graduate from all that finger stickin’ to a Dexcom G7 Continuous Glucose Monitor. A GCM, a sensor that is a disc about the size of a quarter, attaches to my belly with a plastic applicator and, through apparently some sort of witchcraft, sends continuous glucose readings to my phone.  Each sensor lasts for ten days, and then you just pop it off and attach another. How can you beat that, right?

Well, mostly. The problem isn’t with the GCM, which works very well. The problem is with the delivery system. Each new sensor comes packaged inside the applicator and after the sensor is applied, Dexcom says on their website, “throw out the sensor and applicator following local guidelines biohazard waste.” That big hunk of plastic, the size of a urine sample cup?*** I was so disappointed to find that to be the case, that there isn’t a program to return those for sterilization and reuse. This world is drowning in plastic, and more than ten million Americans tossing out those cups every ten days, well…

I tried emailing Dexcom to discuss this subject. If they answer I’ll tell you what they said. 

* The first and last time I will ever use that expression.

** I did the math.

*** See?

                 

Song of the Day: Mike Campbell, from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, and his new band, the Dirty Knobs. They already have a second album, but this is the title track from their first. Kinda like Tom Petty meets the Stones.: 

Part Eight! 

“No, Danny, I don’t have to admit it. But yeah, it would be funny if it happened to, say, you. Now that would be funny,” Rich replied, jabbing his finger at Danny. “Listen, I was talking to Josie in the appliance section yesterday and she told me Dr. Gladstone (Motronics’ owner) has some apartments in Baldwinsville. She thought he would rent one to me if I wanted it. I can’t swing it by myself, but the two of us can. Plus, we’d have a great time!”

                Danny had just turned twenty-one and he was itching to get out of the too-small apartment he shared with the mercurial Helen, his sisters, and two year old Faith. He loved them all but was ready for his own place, so he said, “Yeah, man, let’s do it. Talk to Gladstone and line it up. I’m in. We’ll have a great time!” Danny said, completely unaware of how the definition of “great” was about to change. They signed the lease the following week, lined up a truck, enlisted Rich’s brother Lynn and Danny’s pal trailer park pal, Dean, and loaded up Rich’s meager belongings and Danny’s few possessions. When it came time to say goodbye to his mom, Danny, ever the sentimentalist, choked up a little but tried to hide it. He hugged his mom and said, as brightly as he could, “Mom, I’ll see you guys all the time. It’s not as if I’m moving to California.”

                “My little boy is moving away from me,” Helen said, her heart on her sleeve.

                “It’ll be good for me, mom. I need to find my way in the world,” Danny said, and his voice broke a little. He was still hugging her and now rocking her back and forth. “It’s time.” He disengaged from her, grabbed his keys off the table, and was gone, albeit with a few tears in his eyes.

                The apartment provided Danny with all sorts of new experiences. Save for that homeless stretch they went through in ’74, he never lived on his own. He was never responsible for his own meals, laundry, and housekeeping, much less budgeting his money; he was better at the first three than the last, which wasn’t saying much. Living with a roommate was just one of many new experiences for Danny, and his roommate introduced him to another mind-opening experience—pot.

Somehow Danny had never even tried marijuana. Almost everyone he knew smoked it, and that certainly included Rich, who smoked pot since high school. Rich smoked it with abandon in the apartment, and the sweet smell intrigued his innocent roommate. One night, Danny watched Rich expertly roll a joint and lick the ends shut, then looked on with curiosity as Rich took a big hit. “What is that like, Rich? How does it feel?” Danny asked his roommate.

                Rich took another hit off the joint, held it in for a few seconds, then slowly blew it out. “Wanna try it?” Rich asked Danny. Rich had never offered before. He knew about Danny’s lung problems. If Danny asked, however…

                Danny hesitated. He knew that because of his cystic fibrosis smoking anything was a bad idea. But Danny had cheated death at least twice in his life, and almost certainly wasn’t going to be around too long, anyway. Live it up, thought Danny. “Yeah, sure. What do I do?”

                Rich, midway through a toke, lost it after he heard Danny’s adorably naïve question, and burst into a full-throated laugh. Danny’s question was exponentially funnier since Rich was stoned. He handed the joint to Danny. “Smoke it, Danny. Take a deep drag and hold it in for a few seconds,” Rich counseled. Danny took a hit and immediately blew back outward, hacking and coughing. He laughed and Rich roared. “You’re never getting high that way, Danny,” Rich said, still laughing. “Give it another shot, but maybe not so deep this time, and really try to hold it in,” he continued.

Danny gamely took another hit, fought the urge to cough, and held it in for three, four, five seconds before once again hacking. Then he roared with laughter. “How’s (hack hack) that, Rich? (cough)”

Rich took one more hit and said, “Hey, man, maybe you should stop for now and see how you feel.”

                “How should I feel, Rich? I have no frame of reference,” Danny asked his mentor.

 Rich just said, “Remember that quote from the Supreme Court guy who said, ‘I can’t define porn, but I know it when I see it?’” Danny nodded, mystified, and then laughed at the phrase “Supreme Court guy”. “Well, you’ll know you’re high when you are,” Rich said, laughing.

They did a lot of laughing that evening.

                The first thing the boys set up when they moved in, even before the beds, was Danny’ stereo. Priorities. Danny still wasn’t sick of The Wild, the Innocent, and the E-Street Shuffle, and luckily Ray only demolished the tape, not the LP. Danny put it on the turntable. “Kitty’s Back” started playing, and Rich grooved along and then looked at Danny, who seemed very far away. Danny was, in a sense. He was one with the music. “Kitty’s Back” enveloped him and played back in almost a third dimension. It washed around him and through Danny. The instruments sounded more present than ever, not just in the room but part of him. Even though Danny knew every note of the song, had heard it dozens and dozens (thousands?) of times, he picked up new and exciting parts for the first time. “Kitty’s Back” had turned from a great song to a thrilling experience. Danny thought, I’m high! I’m fucking high!

                Danny and Rich, both fucking high, decided they were fucking hungry. Rich said, “Hey, do you want to go get Chinese food? There’s a place in Fulton that’s the best I have ever had.” Danny had never eaten Chinese food before. He was dubious. He wasn’t sure he wanted to get off the couch, much less travel all that way to eat strange, untested food.

                Rich was insistent. “Danny, you will not believe how great this place is and how delicious Chinese food is!” Rich said, evangelizing. “I’ll drive, and I’ll order the food. All you have to do is eat it.”

                Danny just wanted to hear “Kitty’s Back” again but he reluctantly agreed. He was way too stoned to argue. Rich got behind the wheel and Danny, liquefied by this point, flowed into the front seat. He was grinning like an idiot which made Rich laugh again. Rich headed to Fulton while Danny looked in vain for “Kitty’s Back” on the radio. Twenty minutes later, they pulled into The Secret Garden. “Are you ready, buddy?” Rich said, excitedly. Danny was ready to nap, but he was voraciously hungry, and just grinned and nodded. They went inside and Danny marveled at the colors on the walls, the tablecloths, even Rich’s shirt. Was that a new shirt? That’s a nice shirt! thought Danny.

                Rich ordered a Pu-Pu platter for starters. “Pu-Pu” platter made Danny laugh, but he probably would have laughed even if he wasn’t stoned. Soon, a lazy Susan full of strange, otherworldly delectables was placed in front of them. To Danny, it looked like the edible equivalent of the Star Wars cantina. There were egg rolls, spareribs, beef teriyaki, skewered beef, fried wontons, and fried shrimp.  Rich grabbed an egg roll. “Dig in, Martini!” Rich said, his mouth full.

                “Where do I start?” said Danny. What have I gotten himself into?

                “Start anywhere! It’s all fantastic!” said Rich, who had inhaled the egg roll and now happily chomped down on a fried wonton.

                Danny hesitantly reached for a fried wonton and took a bite. Oh my God, he thought and then said It out loud, “This is the best food I have ever tasted!”

                Rich laughed. “See? What are you worried about? Dig in before I eat it all.”

                Danny dug in with great fervor. He ate everything on the platter that Rich hadn’t already polished off. He asked Rich, in all seriousness, “Why don’t we get another one?”

                Rich guffawed. “Fifteen minutes ago, you didn’t want anything to do with it and now you want a second one? Relax—our entrees are on the way.”

                Dishes of sweet and sour pork and pepper steak arrived with a side of pork-fried rice, and Danny and Rich devoured them as if the Pu-Pu platter never existed. Every bite Danny took, of everything, was the best food he had ever tasted. Nearly fifty years later, Danny still considered that meal at the Secret Garden the best one he had ever had, straight or stoned.

                That little apartment became a hopping den of iniquity. Rich’s steady supplier meant they were seldom “dry,” (the term for “out of marijuana”). Danny and Rich’s friends came around almost every night—Dean, and Motronics coworker and friend, Gary Cavaliere. Mondays were reserved for the Adventures of the Monday Night Geniuses. Danny, Rich, and Gary, and huddled around Danny’s bargain-basement recording studio (two cassette tape decks with microphones) got high and created “humorous” tapes of masterful and incandescent quality. “Masterful and incandescent” in this case really meant a moderately amusing, inside-joke packed product of stoned twenty somethings. Playing those tapes years later proved, unsurprisingly, as cringeworthy as, say, finding a teenage diary or notebook full of poetry.

                Danny knew he shouldn’t smoke pot. But it was so much fun, the most fun he’d had since even before he and Claire had split. Besides, how bad was it? Danny chatted with Dr. Schwartz at one appointment and Schwartz asked if he used any “street drugs.” Danny admitted he smoked pot.  Schwartz not only wasn’t alarmed; he didn’t try to dissuade Danny. That was surprising, especially in hindsight.

                Like everyone, he smoked a lot of pot at concerts. Danny’s first live concert was in 1974, a hard-to-believe triple bill of Lynyrd Skynyrd (who opened!), Bad Company with Paul Rogers and the Edgar Winter Group, for the princely sum of four bucks. His enjoyment was tempered by the thick fog of marijuana smoke in the arena which was Danny’s first-ever contact with pot. His fear of a “contact” high neurotically kept him from enjoying the show.

Arena concerts and, especially, club dates, were both affordable and plentiful. Danny and Rich spent much of their disposable income on weed and concerts. They took full advantage of the low prices and the proximity.  They saw some great concerts at the Onondaga War Memorial. Boston; Van Halen (seated helplessly in front of a giant column of speakers which rendered them both nearly deaf for a week); a J Geils/Southside Johnny double bill; and Bob Seger. At the Landmark Theater, a grand old movie palace nearly torn down for a (lyrical) parking lot before it received landmark status, the roommates had front row seats for Ray Charles, and Danny and Rich both thought they died and went to heaven. They had balcony seats for Little Feat at the Landmark, only weeks before founder and lead singer Lowell George died of an overdose. The balcony was shaking so much Danny’s paranoid mind was sure it was ready to collapse.

Blue Oyster Cult was riding high with their huge radio hit, “Don’t Fear the Reaper,” and the boys scored tickets to their War Memorial show. Predictably, the band finished their set and walked off stage without playing the hit. Bic lighters by the thousands lit the arena. Everyone knew what was coming, but only Danny knew how. He had it all figured out. “They’ve got a big theatrical presentation planned,” he told Rich excitedly. “They’re gonna leave the lights off and let the crowd go nuts, and then the band will sneak onstage, and then out of the darkness you’ll hear that great opening riff. Then, the bass drum and band will kick in as the lights will come on and the crowd will go nuts.”  Danny, budding rock choreographer, had nailed it.

Rich nodded excitedly as he listened. “You’re right. That will be so awesome!” he told Danny. They both took another toke and steeled themselves for the exciting encore.

Naturally, the lights came on, the band ambled out and lead singer Buck Dharma said, “This is our new song, ‘Don’t Fear the Reaper’,” with all the enthusiasm of a Greyhound bus dispatcher, and then they anticlimactically played the hit.

Danny had limited himself to weed, nothing stronger, until one memorable evening when he was home alone. Danny had bought some blotter acid, or LSD, from Rich’s dealer a couple weeks earlier, and it was burning a hole in his pocket (so to speak). Rich had assured him that an acid trip was a fun and safe experience but Danny was apprehensive about trying it, until that night. What the hell? he thought. I’m home. I’m safe. Despite Rich’s advice (“Trip with a buddy”) he not-so-wisely decided to take the psychedelic plunge that evening. Alone.

The LSD was soaked into a small scrap of paper—hence, the term “blotter acid”—that featured a picture of a malevolent looking bowling ball about to smash into ten terrified pins. Danny carefully put it in his mouth, chewed slowly for a minute or two, then swallowed. Even though its effects were supposed to take a while, he expected instant gratification. He gave it two minutes and after the walls didn’t start melting, he thought what’s the big deal?  Disappointed, he began playing Heat Treatment, by Graham Parker and the Rumour, an album he bought a couple weeks earlier and, naturally, played non-stop until even Rich asked him to give it a rest.

But Rich wasn’t home. Danny put Heat Treatment on the record player and played it loud. He listened for pounding on the ceiling from the downstairs neighbors, but nothing. Good. He turned it up. As side one of the album ended, with “Hotel Chambermaid,” Danny started to feel…different. Not a marijuana high. Something else, something more. He grinned to himself. As a matter of fact, his face hurt from grinning. He flipped the record over to play the B side and the needle dropped with a thunderous kapow. Danny jumped a bit. Jesus, that was loud!

“Pouring it All Out” began the second side of Heat Treatment. The opening guitar battled with the Hammond B3 organ for dominance, and then Parker’s insistent vocals followed. Danny sat up straight, his breath shallow, alert. Parker got to the chorus and Danny felt a thrill cascade though his body. “This is the greatest song I have ever heard!” Danny said out loud. “This is the greatest record that has ever been!” he shouted to the empty room. Danny picked the needle up and restarted the song. A second listen confirmed it; “This is the most amazing, most remarkable song in the history of music!” he said again, only louder. He wished Rich was home so Danny could tell him, so he could share this moment.

Danny needed to get the word out, to someone, everyone, about “Pouring it All Out.” He did the only thing he could do in 1978. He called people. He called June. He called Ann. He called Gary Cavaliere. None of them, apparently, had dropped acid that evening and were more than a little confused by the Graham Parker raving evangelist on the other end of the phone. “That’s nice, Danny,” Ann said. “I’m glad you like Grant Parker—”

“Graham Parker!” Danny said impatiently, then added, “You just don’t get it!” Which was certainly true, especially then.  Rich, back from his shopping trip, unlocked the door, which startled Danny.

“Hey, Danny—that music is a little loud, isn’t it?” Rich said, a sentence he almost surely never said before, then added, “Graham Parker, again?”

“Graham Park—oh, right” Danny started to correct Rich, then realized his roommate got the name right. “Rich, you’ve got to hear this song!” Danny said, then recued the tonearm and restarted the ne plus ultra--“Pouring it All Out.”

Rich stopped him and picked up the tonearm. “Danny, I’ve heard this song a hundred times. It’s fine—”

“Fine?! Fuck you, it’s fine. It’s the greatest record ever made!” Danny said, rather maniacally.

Rich laughed. He insightfully asked, “Danny, did you drop that acid tonight?”

“Yes, but don’t change the subject, Rich,” Danny said, still battling for hearts and minds on behalf of “Pouring it All Out.”

Rich decided to appease his tripping roommate. “On second thought, it is the greatest song I ever heard. Listen, Dean, Hooper, and Glowacki are on their way over.” Hooper and Glowacki were friends of Dean’s and, by extension, friends of Danny and Rich. “We are gonna take a ride into the city. Glowacki wants to see June.” Glowacki had a little crush on June.

“I don’t think I should be driving, Rich,” Danny said, wisely, the first wise thing he had said all evening.

“Ok, I’ll drive. Come on, it’ll be fun!” Rich said. A few minutes later, Dean, Hooper and Glowacki showed up and off they went in two cars. Rich drove Danny’s car, Dean rode shotgun and Danny sat in back. He watched the streetlights fly by on the highway at about a thousand miles an hour. They were in the left lane, and in the right lane alongside them were Hooper and Glowacki in Hooper’s car. Hooper drove his car and Glowacki rode shotgun. They were also traveling at a thousand miles an hour and Danny kept waiting for the sonic boom. Sonic boom. Sonic boom. Those words sound funny together. He watched in awe as the two cars pulled almost close enough for their side mirrors to touch. This was just like a movie, Danny thought. Maybe it was a movie. If it was a movie “Pouring it All Out” should be the song in the background, he decided.

Danny’s awe turned to frightened awe. He watched Dean pass a joint at a thousand miles an hour across the highway to Hooper. All Danny really saw was the light from the joint, as it passed once, then twice, and then Hooper’s long hair caught on fire. Hooper frantically swatted at his head with his left hand, trying to extinguish the flame, while he steered with his right hand. At a thousand miles an hour. Dean and Rich both laughed uproariously at their friend’s plight. Danny sat in the back seat, his mouth agape, his mouth devoid of moisture. “I don’t like this movie anymore,” he said.

Hopper managed to extinguish his hair and they made it to June’s apartment alive—five of them stoned, one tripping. They all knocked loudly on June’s door like a S.W.A.T team.  After a minute or so, June answered the door. “What are you guys doing here? Why didn’t you call?” Danny’s sister said, plaintively. She had, ahem, company.

Rich spoke for the group, as Danny was, as previously established, tripping and Glowacki was too embarrassed to speak. “Sorry, June, we should have called,” he said. The five of them skulked back to their cars and, in solidarity with the disconsolate Glowacki, solemnly retraced their route back to Baldwinsville. Nobody’s hair caught on fire on the way home. “Anybody want to get high?” Rich asked when they got there. That was normally a rhetorical question, but everyone declined.

“Anybody want to hear a great song?” asked Danny. He didn’t wait for an answer.

 

He Don’t Want to Grow Up

On August 28th, 1990, my friend and coworker Daina told me some new guy was starting work that day. "His name is Carl Cafarelli, and you're gonna love him. He's so funny and he loves music as much as you do," she told me.

Two understatements.

Daina introduced me to Carl, and I said, "Too bad about Stevie Ray, huh?" (Stevie Ray Vaughan was killed in a helicopter crash the previous evening.)

And Carl said, the very first thing he ever said to me, "That's what he gets for flying LaBamba Airlines."

As he likes to say, "You gotta be quick!"

The very swell 443 Social Club on Burnet Avenue in Syracuse last night held, as Carl put it, "the world's loudest book release party in recent memory" to celebrate his very swell new book, Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With the Ramones. His book is available locally and also directly from Rare Bird Records.

The "loudest" part was provided by Perilous, a band featuring members of "regional superstars, The Trend, Pauline and the Perils, Hurtin' Units, and Screaming Meemies” as well as former and current Flashcube Paul Armstrong's Boston-based band 1.4.5. Earplugs were available but were no match for the sonic (and excellent) assault from both bands.  

Carl read a few excerpts from the book and then ended the evening by, no doubt, fulfilling a lifelong dream as he, backed by 1.4.5,  sang "Rockaway Beach.”

Song of the Day: (This is where Carl's video would go if I weren't sixty-six years old and knew how to imbed it), The original will have to do:

 

And here is part 7 of Tougher Than the Rest, in a larger size font.

Helen taught Danny and his sisters there was no problem too big or complicated that it couldn’t be run away from. Danny was ready to sprint.  He half-heartedly tried chest PT but since it didn’t pay big dividends immediately, and felt silly besides, he soon stopped. Ditto, the pancreatic enzymes. Half the time he simply forgot to bring some or felt self-conscious when he took them in front of his friends. Adolescence is tough enough without gobbling down a bunch of pills in front of your peers. Danny was lucky, in a sense, if you can say that about a 19-year-old kid with cystic fibrosis. His case was so mild his non-compliance didn’t really hurt. He saw plenty of kids his age or younger in the CF Clinic who were obviously much sicker, including a few who carried their own oxygen tank. Oxygen! Danny couldn’t imagine himself on oxygen. He vowed to never lug that tank around. Danny secretly wondered how much longer he would live. “Not very”, the life expectancy numbers he saw seemed to indicate. Danny often matter-of-factly told his friends, “I’ll be dead by the time I’m thirty.”

He still caught the bus every morning on the corner of Spring and Court Streets. One day, while waiting he saw Ray’s distinctive yellow Firebird come down the crest of the hill. Oh, maybe I can catch a ride with him, Danny thought and waved frantically as he tried to catch Ray’s eye. His boss was on autopilot, though, and drove right by. Danny stepped into the road and tossed his brown paper bag lunch at the Firebird. “I heard something hit my rear windshield and saw this marionette behind my car in the road and waving his arms,” Ray said to Danny as they both laughed at the absurdity of the scene. The lunch survived the incident.

He kept catching rides with Ray most mornings and still took the bus when Ray didn’t go his way. Danny hated taking the bus, especially since he had a brand new license he was itching to use. His mom knew how much her son wanted a car and one morning, she looked up from her newspaper and said, “Danny, Merchants Bank is having a loan sale! You should apply. Maybe you can get a car.”  Again, with the paper? That turned out pretty great the last time, he thought.

“Who ever heard of a loan sale!?” Danny snorted. Nineteen-year-old boys are not only supremely intelligent but also endlessly condescending. He decided to humor her again, went to the Park Street branch, applied and was approved for the princely sum of eight hundred bucks. Danny scoured the automobile want-ads and quickly found a 1970 Buick Skylark for sale. Steve drove him to look at the car. Danny practically threw his money at the elderly woman who owned the Buick. Not only didn’t he try to talk her down, it was surprising he didn’t offer her more money.

Danny’s lifelong love affair with driving started the day he put the keys in that Skylark. He drove just for the fun of driving, listening to the radio and singing along. He was a happily unpaid chauffeur for the whole family, none of whom drove. He soon installed an 8-track tape player and soon added a home 8-track recorder to make his own mix tapes for the car. Danny changed formats as the years passed; from 8-track, to cassette, to CD, to Minidisc, to an iPod, and finally to Apple Music through his iPhone. The common denominator? He was determined to hear exactly what he wanted to hear.

1976: Claire

 

Claire Zajac’s sat next to Danny at Arturo’s and the smell of her perfume was intoxicating. Though it was really Claire herself that had him spellbound. Danny, Steve, Claire and Joanie, Steve’s big sister, had met for dinner that July evening of 1975 at the popular family restaurant. Steve was home from college, and Joanie and Claire had the summer off from their classes at St. Agnes’ nursing school in Utica, about a mile east of Syracuse. Even though the evening temperatures were in the high seventies, Danny wore his new leather jacket he bought in New York City a few weeks ago. He wanted to look cool, like Fonzie. Ayyyy. Instead, he was afraid he just looked like a dope who wore a leather jacket in July.

He engaged Claire in conversation, trying to drown out the voice in his head telling him to take the jacket off. “So, nursing school, what’s that like?” he said, wittily.

“It’s challenging! Biology, psychology, pharmacology, math, the works. But I like it. I’ve wanted to be a nurse since I was a little girl,” Claire said excitedly. “What about you? Do you work or go to school?”

“Yeah, I work the parts counter at Motronics,” Danny said, and then tried to make that sound interesting. “There are over thirty-three hundred parts in stock,” he said, as he pulled a number right out of his ass.

“Oh, yeah? That sounds exciting,” Claire said, creating a new definition of “exciting.” She looked intently at Danny as he spoke. Danny noticed she kept touching his hand as she talked.  That’s supposed to be a good sign, right? he asked himself. “That’s a nice jacket, Danny. You look pretty cool,” Claire said, and touched his hand again.

Yeah! he almost shouted, but somehow kept his composure. “Oh, this? I picked it up a couple months ago on a trip to the City,” he said, and immediately regretted saying “The City” instead of “New York City. What a pretentious dope.

“Oh, New York! I’ve always wanted to go. Maybe we can go sometime,” she said, and touched his hand again. We?

“Hey, Danny, aren’t you hot in that jacket? It’s July, you know,” Steve said.

“Yeah Danny, I’m warm and I’m wearing a sleeveless blouse,” Joanie chipped in.

Danny didn’t even listen to them. His full attention was on Claire. She was attractive--very attractive, a willowy brunette with an upbeat, effervescent personality and a smart and refined sense of humor. She was smart, smarter than Danny, that he knew already. Claire and Danny bantered and flirted all during dinner and he gave as good as he got, mostly. Like Steve and Joanie, she was Polish, and she lived in a Polish neighborhood on 7the West Side of Syracuse. She lived in that same house all twenty years of her life. Imagine that, thought Danny, who started counting addresses once and made it to twelve before he quit. The list of places he didn’t live was probably shorter.

Danny fell in love that evening--the “love” a twenty year old man-boy felt, which was more accurately called infatuation. Pop culture always confused love and infatuation, so it was no wonder that hormonal teenagers did, too. Danny always wore his heart on his sleeve.  He might as well have had a big neon red flashing arrow pointing to it. Danny was in love with the idea of being in love. He called it his tragic flaw, though Danny comically called each of his many faults his tragic flaw. This flaw, though, was tragic and it led him down the path of many poor life choices.

Claire was so different from Danny. She had an intact, two parent religious family, and she had a plan, a definite plan what she wanted out of life. Danny? Hell, he didn’t know how long he would even live. Danny’s recent CF diagnosis had walloped him. But tonight was what mattered, and tonight Danny and Claire clicked. At the end of dinner, Danny summoned the courage and asked for Claire’s number. He got it, and Danny floated home that evening. They started going out the next week and had a fun summer. They saw a lot of movies, played a lot of tennis, and Danny even tried polka dancing--tried being the operative word. They did a little back-seat two-step at Burnet Park, strictly PG rated.  Like all summers, it went by like that.  Claire headed back to nursing school in September, but they planned to keep seeing each other. After all, Utica was only about an hour drive away.   

Danny loved his Buick like you love your first crush, but the Skylark proved to be unreliable. Unreliability was something he knew about. She had a mysterious and unsolved electrical system problem that left him stranded a couple of times. That uncertainty, coupled with the typically ferocious upstate New York winter of 75-76, meant many stressful, white-knuckle rides on the lonely New York State Thruway. One Sunday night after he left Claire at the door of her no-boys-allowed dorm, Danny headed home in yet another snowstorm. He presciently skipped the desolation of the Thruway and took state Route 5, a major east-west corridor, in case he needed to pull over. Sure enough, the Buick’s lights begin to dim and that meant electrical trouble. Danny shut the heat off as he tried to preserve whatever power remained in her overworked battery, but the Skylark finally shuddered to a stop.

Right outside of a motel. At least he wouldn’t freeze to death in his car.

Danny had just enough money in his wallet to rent a room for the night. He decided to get some sleep and deal with things in the morning but slept fitfully. Danny woke up early, in a strange room, and his reality came rushing back. He was flat broke, with no credit card, and there were no cell phones in 1976. He felt like he was on a deserted island, with no resources. He gathered his things and walked out to the Buick. With no other options, he hoped for a miracle.

He turned the key and got a miracle.

That big V8, against all odds and logic, fired up. Maybe because it sat all night the battery recharged, but that didn’t make any sense. Danny didn’t press his luck. He left the car running, turned in his motel key and headed for home.  Since It was daytime he didn’t need lights and though he froze, he left the heat off; both measures reduced the strain on the battery. Danny almost made it home, just a couple of miles from his apartment. Danny parked the Buick and walked home a happy man. The next day, he spent the rent money on a new alternator.

Claire and Danny dated for the rest of her time at St. Agnes. By the time she graduated in the spring of ’76, Danny and the Buick broke up for good, and he was back to taking the bus. By then it was apparent he and Claire had no future. She had always kept him at an emotional arm’s length. Claire didn’t love him and was never going to love him. They didn’t really break up; just kept seeing each other over the summer until she just kind of faded away. She started her first job as a registered nurse at Community Hospital, excited to start her chosen career with a bright and unlimited future ahead of her. Danny’s future was not-so-bright, and decidedly limited.

 

 

1977: Knocking on Heaven’s Door

 

                Danny and Claire started seeing each other on an on-again, off-again basis. One night in early July of 1977, off-again was briefly on-again. Claire and Danny headed to Rochester with a couple of friends to spend the weekend. Danny was giddy with the possibilities. He was always, his whole life, a “glass half full” guy. Danny was always a positive thinker and radiated that positivity to others. “Something fantastic could happen today,” was his mantra and it got him out of bed in the morning. “Something fantastic” was going to happen this weekend. He just knew it.

                The night before the on-again, Danny went to one of his favorite bars to hear his friend Guy Capone, DJ. Danny met his friend Al there and they started pounding beers. 1978 was a very different (read: stupid) time regarding drinking and driving. Nobody was seriously worried about getting a DWI. Driving loaded was almost openly accepted. If you were loaded, your concern wasn’t a DWI, it was making it home alive. One time Danny and Al closed a bar and Danny gave Al a ride home. At two AM. Thirty miles away. Smashed. Danny drove there and back in well below-freezing weather with the windows wide open, singing at the top of his lungs, hoping by concentrating on the lyrics it would keep him from passing out. Looking back on those years, he was ashamed of his behavior, but it was the truth.

By ten o’clock that evening, Al had the good sense to leave. Danny’s good sense had left him. He stayed way too long and got absolutely shitfaced. He stumbled towards the DJ booth imploring Guy to “play Rosalita!” and made a fool of himself, as Guy told him a few weeks later.

Danny woke up with a predictable hangover. He took some aspirin and started to get excited about the on-again-glass-half-full weekend. He made some coffee and had a bowl of raisin bran, with the predictable results-- but with the worst possible color—red. Blood red. Blood, in the toilet. Danny’s heart sank. He knew his ulcer had probably burst again. Then he made an exceedingly bad judgement call, even for Danny. He was so optimistic about the weekend with Claire that he decided to say nothing about, say, he was bleeding to death, and hope the bleeding stopped on its own like it did in ’73.  Claire, her friend Tina, and Tina’s boyfriend Phil picked Danny up at 9 for the trip to Rochester. It was a perfect summer day, and they all went to the beach. Claire and Tina buried Danny up to his neck in the sand. There is an eerie photo of Danny, breaking out of the sand, while he and the girls all laughed, hahaha just some summer fun, but unbeknownst to the girls. Danny had a secret. A stomach full of blood.

After dinner at Phil’s place, Danny visited the bathroom. He was almost too afraid to look but forced himself to. His fears were confirmed, and he had no choice but to fess up. “I’ve got some bad news, guys,” Danny said, shakily.

The girls and Phil looked at each other and then Danny. “What is it?” Claire asked him.

“I think, I’m pretty sure my ulcer has burst again,” he said.

“When?! Just now?!” Claire said.

“Well, truthfully, yesterday,” Danny answered sheepishly.

“Yesterday!?!” Claire exclaimed. “Why the hell did you come on this trip?”

“I don’t have an answer that makes sense, Claire. I just thought it would stop, I guess. I was really looking forward to this trip with you.”

Claire softened then. She was a little flattered even though Danny was the world’s biggest idiot. “Well, we you’re going to the hospital, stat!” she said, sounding like the registered nurse she was. The weekend was abruptly over. They all piled in Phil’s car and headed straight to the Crouse Hospital emergency room in Syracuse.  Claire and Danny sat in the back seat, and she tenderly cradled his head in her lap as Phil raced to Syracuse. The rest of the afternoon and evening went by in a blur. They took Danny in at the E.R. but quickly admitted him in the ICU. Phil and Tina left, but Claire stayed with Danny.

Danny felt fine. His vitals were fine, though ominously, his blood pressure was a little low. He laughed and talked with Claire and thought maybe it stopped, like before. A few moments later, though, it was 1973 redux. Danny lurched once, twice, and then unleashed a crimson stream that drenched his hospital gown and his bedding, and even splattered the floor. Not only was he still bleeding, this time he needed surgery, and fast. He had a badly bleeding duodenal ulcer that threatened his life. Danny’s latest night of excessive drinking was almost certainly the catalyst. The aspirin he took the next morning may have been the last straw.

He was quickly rushed to the O.R and prepped for surgery, where Dr. David Taylor performed a partial gastrectomy, or a partial removal of the stomach.  Danny woke up from surgery a few hours later in tremendous pain.  Dr. Taylor came in to check on him and leaned over his bed to be heard better.  He had a soft voice and kind eyes. “You were a very sick young man, Danny,” Danny listened but felt too miserable to ask any questions. He was far from out of the woods. The first few days he was in agony. Fortuitously, Bob Butler, a Motronics coworker visited him and saw the pain Danny was in.

Bob said, “Danny, are you getting shots for pain?” Danny grimaced and shook his head, no. Bob said, “Don’t turn them down, Danny. They will really help. That’s what they’re there for.” Once he got that first shot of Demerol, not only did it relieve the pain nearly instantly, but provided an “In the cloud” narcotic euphoria. That was it for Danny. He never passed up another shot.

But Danny’s biggest problem was adhesions, scar tissue that sometimes form after operations. Adhesions can cause abdominal tissues to stick together. Usually, they don’t require treatment, but,  being Danny, it wasn’t a typical case. Whenever Danny ate, no matter how small a meal, his system shut down and his stomach distended like a beachball. The pain was not a ten, nor an eleven, like in Spinal Tap. It was a fifty. Or five hundred. It was the worst pain Danny ever felt--even a shot of Demerol provided only a few minutes of relief.

Dr. Taylor was forced to open Danny up again, to cut away the scar tissue, which, naturally, caused more scar tissue.  The second surgery mostly alleviated the distension problem, but Danny still had occasional flare-ups, even years later. They came on with no warning and usually led to from eight to as much as twenty-four hours of agony. When they happened, Danny was helpless. He just thrashed in his bed in agony, moaning and even crying out, unable to eat, rest or sleep.

Ray and Mark came to visit Danny on August 17^th, and it was a memorable day for two reasons. One, it was the day after Elvis Presley died and they were all reeling at the news. But Danny was happily reeling at another piece of news. The guys had taken up a collection at work, not only from coworkers but all the TV dealers and repairmen who frequented Motronics. Ray also brought along a huge get-well card that was not only signed by everyone, but also had numerous and hilarious fake signatures, like Elton John and Bruce “Springstein” (Ray was never much of a speller). The amount they raised, a thousand bucks, was roughly equivalent to about five thousand in 2022. It was incredibly gratifying especially considering how much eighteen year old Danny managed to rub just about everyone the wrong way. He spent about a month in the hospital--unable to eat, because of the adhesions, for most of it. He was there so long he got hooked on the CBS soap opera, The Guiding Light. Danny finally left the hospital after about a month-- all 105 pounds of him.

 

1978: Reefer Men

 

                Late summer, and Danny was still frail and troubled by his adhesions but wanted to go back to work.  Work was good therapy, and so was getting paid. Danny settled back in and in a few weeks, Ray promoted him to RCA parts manager. Danny was grateful they held his job at all, so that promotion felt special. He happily dove back into his work.

                Danny resumed driving his coworkers crazy with his iron grip on the store’s stereo system. Before Danny started working at Motronics, their high-end system was wasted playing the low-quality signal of WOLF-AM top-40 radio. Everyone was complacent hearing “Muskrat Love”, “Knock Three Times”, and other soft rock hits over and over (and over) until Danny commandeered the sound system. He hooked up an 8-track player and started playing the music he wanted to hear. Nobody cared much,  for a while. First, it was Elton John, nothing but Elton, all the time. Then, Danny discovered Bruce Springsteen. Soon, the playlist changed to all-Bruce, non-stop. Sometimes to wretched excess.

                The Wild, the Innocent, and the E-Street Shuffle, Springsteen’s second album, was on its approximately five-millionth run-through when, out of the corner of his eye, Danny saw Ray. His boss walked briskly from his office and opened the door that separated the counter from the sales floor. Ray very purposefully strode over to the 8-track player, pulled the cartridge out of the machine, reached inside of the housing and yanked the tape out, forcefully and repeatedly, until all that remained was the empty cartridge and a tangled, useless fistful of tape that used to be Bruce Springsteen’s album. It was cinematic—very much like a scene in a mobster movie when the Mafia goon grabs the photographer’s camera and jerks out all the film and says, “Da boss says, no pitchurs.”

Ray then dropped the demolished tape to the floor and gave it a good stomp, sending pieces of shattered plastic everywhere. He then retraced his steps and walked back to his office. Ray didn’t say one word during his search-and-destroy mission. Silent but deadly. Even though Danny’s favorite Bruce tape was history, it was worth it because it was the funniest thing he ever saw. Needless to say, Danny was quite a bit more circumspect with his future playlists.

                Rich Nesmith, a big burly bearded guy with long reddish brown hair and, curiously, enormous boots, started working in the shipping department while Danny was in the hospital. Shortly after Danny returned to work they found they had a lot in common. Well, not everything in common-Rich had a mellow, easy-going disposition, the exact opposite of Danny’s sometimes fiery temper. But they bonded over music, the Yankees, politics, pretty much everything, and quickly became friends.  One day at Ponderosa they were having lunch when Rich surprised Danny with a suggestion. “ Hey, man, whaddya think about looking for a place as roommates? I’m losing my mind where I am now. When I got this job I just looked for a place that was close, but I didn’t know the city very well and turns out, I fucked up,” Rich said with a laugh. “They stole a battery out of my car last week and after I replaced it, they stole that one, too!”

                “Oh, that sucks but you have to admit that’s funny,” Danny said, laughing.

 

 

Excitable Boy

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame announced thirteen new members this week, and I felt very old reading the list (that's because I am old.*) I applauded the choices of Link Wray (why did it take so long?) and the Spinners (ditto) but was mystified by some others because (*see above). 

I am accustomed to the angry and bitter tenor in the weeks that precede the announcement of new members to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Baseball fans are, to use the technical term, lunatics. Often, all that teeth-gnashing leads to exactly zero inductees. The (possibly) best player of all time, Barry Bonds and the (possibly) best pitcher, Roger Clemens, are essentially banned by the writers over suspicion of steroid use (the suspicions are very likely true, but without absolute proof, how do you leave them out?) 

Sorry for the digression. This was supposed to be about the Rock Hall. Anyway, I was saddened that, nearly twenty years after his death, Warren Zevon was once again passed over. He had a long and critically acclaimed career, with the commercial highlight his 1978 album, Excitable Boy. That album featured the FM smash, "Werewolves of London," and other sardonic songs such as "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner," "Lawyers Guns and Money," and the title track, which contains the romantic lyrics:

After ten long years they let him out of the home

Excitable boy, they all said

He dug up her grave and built a cage with her bones.

Well, he's just an excitable boy

How do you leave a guy like that out of the Hall of Fame?

 

Song of the Day:  You probably know Linda Ronstadt's version of this song. Warren's is a lot harder edged. Listen to the last verse. Very different from Linda's.

I take solace in the fact that if Zevon was alive, he wouldn't give a shit about being skipped over.

 

And here's part 6 of Tougher Than the Rest, if you're following along:

After all the tests, Danny and April sat down with Tracy to discuss the results. The three settled in, and there was a silent, pregnant pause as the three of them looked at each other. About the only sound was the rhythmic puff-puff-puff of Danny’s oxygen as he breathed. Then, Tracy spoke, and she was blunt. “You’re still too healthy to go on the list, Danny. I know that isn’t what you want to hear, and I know it sounds crazy, but we need to time transplants just right. If we list you too early, we swap lungs that are still keeping you alive for the unknown of a donated set. Then if those lungs don’t work-- and sometimes they don’t-- there is no going back.”  She paused, then said to April, “I don’t think you were here when Danny and I discussed UNOS.”

April shook her head. “Ok, then,” Tracy said to them both. “UNOS, the United Network for Organ Sharing, will weigh a number of factors, such as Danny’s likely benefit,” she said and then she shifted her focus to Danny, “Proximity to us, blood and tissue type, and then they give you a blind ranking. That prevents celebrities or other powerful people from jumping the line. As your need increases, you’ll move up that list. I wish I could give you an idea of when, but I just can’t.”

Organ donation is an emotional and fraught subject. A healthy donor is almost always someone who died suddenly and unexpectedly. The organ procurement team needs to approach the survivors on, certainly, the absolute worst day of their lives. The team’s number one priority is finding a willing donor, but the other number one priority is helping the devastated family salvage something, anything, out of such a fresh, raw and untimely loss. Some countries such as Austria have an “opt out” policy--organ donation is assumed unless decedent’s family says otherwise-- but most countries, including the U.S., are “opt in.” The need remains far greater than the supply, sadly. Seventeen people on average die each day waiting for a transplant.

Tracy finally said, “It’s a tall mountain and a rough road, and I’m mixing metaphors,” she said with a laugh. “There’s a not-small amount of risk, but the huge reward is a chance at a new life. But it’s not your time yet, Danny. Keep yourself as healthy as possible and we will list you when the time comes. We will see you every three months so we can stay on top of your condition. Sound good?”

“Truthfully, no. I’m emotionally ready now, Tracy,” Danny said glumly.

“You’ll thank me later,” said Tracy Frisch. She only hoped that was true.

 

 

 

 

1975: Faith

 

               

                The Martinis were homeless the day Danny graduated. He went off to Dean Bowman’s for a party but his mom and sisters all scrambled to find a place to sleep. Helen and Ann stayed with family friends and June with her best friend Cleo. Danny bunked with Dean for a couple of weeks and then went to stay with his father, stepmother, and stepsister Katrina and little brother David. Danny was completely directionless and frightened of the myriad choices he faced now. One choice he didn’t have was college. Higher education was not in the cards. Except for mentally, emotionally, physically, and financially, Danny was one hundred percent ready for college.

He knew he had to go to work, and scoured the want-ads daily. Logistics were against him. Danny didn’t have his license yet (not to mention, a car). His dad lived only about twenty minutes from downtown by car but more like an hour away via Danny’s old friend, the bus. After he waited twenty minutes for a bus was MIA, Danny stuck out his thumb, walked backwards while facing the steady traffic on route 57 and tried hitchhiking. That was a bold move for the risk-averse callow eighteen year old, and it paid off. It helped that he was a hundred-thirty-five pounds and looked twenty pounds lighter, so  Danny didn’t exactly exude “threat.” He usually got rides very quickly, often within minutes. It was a different--some would say “nicer,” others “braver”--world in 1974.

                Helen suggested he go to an employment agency downtown. That was some of the best advice she ever gave him, because it led to an interview, his very first one, for a parts and electronics distributor on the west side of Syracuse, Motronics. Danny was nervous and ill-at-ease, but the interviewer, Mark Longley, loosened him up, liked what he saw and hired Danny on the spot. That was the biggest break of his entire life.  He worked at the parts counter on Monday and went home, anxious and overwhelmed, sure he was done, sure he wouldn’t go back for a second day. But Danny knew that’s what his mom always did, never stuck it out. He had to be different, so he fought the anxiety, went back and by the end of the week it had subsided.

                However, he was still an angry, self-righteous, thin-skinned, socially inept eighteen year old wreck. He argued with everyone, even wonderful Josephine who worked in the appliance department. Nobody argued with her. He slammed phones, threw pens, and kicked a lot of boxes in frustration, until he almost broke a toe after he kicked one that must have been full of cinder blocks. Ninety-nine out of one hundred places would have told him to hit the bricks after a couple of weeks, but his two bosses at Motronics saw something in Danny that he didn’t see in himself, God knows what.

                Ray Ronson, Danny’s immediate boss, taught him the value of hard work, and he led by example. When Danny was just hanging out behind the parts counter, Ray was busy doing something because there was always something to do. Danny soon followed Ray’s lead and began to fill time more productively. He was the unquestioned “Syracuse Music Authority” and never lost at “Stump the DJ.” He was an accomplished amateur magician, a fantastic storyteller, and skilled joke teller. He made work fun.

So did Mark. He was uproariously funny and enjoyed bantering with Danny. More importantly, he gently helped Danny polish the rough edges off his abrasive personality. Mark was so smooth with coworkers and customers, with anyone. He always had a kind word or deed. Danny watched Mark show genuine interest in others, and use his self-deprecating humor so skillfully and effectively. He was often the one to calm Danny after one of his anxiety-driven eruptions.

                Eighteen years of dysfunction didn’t magically disappear overnight. Danny remained a work-in-progress, but he paid attention and learned from his two mentors. Slowly, he was molded into a fully functioning grownup, though it took years to shed his abrasiveness and immaturity.  His brash nature was a poor match for the TV repairmen that came to buy parts at Motronics.  Most of them were part of the Greatest Generation, and many were WW II vets who didn’t take any shit—and certainly didn’t want any from a smart-mouthed punk like Danny.

Their names sounded like characters from an early Springsteen album:  the Greaseman, Cheech, the Gork Brothers, the Junkman, the Rodent, and Big Bob. Big Bob brought donuts every morning without fail and hung around for a half hour or so and shot the breeze with the Motronics guys before he opened his TV shop. He flirted with the office ladies who worked next door when they came over for a goodie. Big Bob lived vicariously through Danny and his counter mate Frank, always asking “Did you get any last night?” (The answer was almost always “no” the answer, but it certainly wasn’t for lack of trying.)

                Danny’s next big break came courtesy of Big Bob. One morning, Ray was admonishing the boys  about getting to work on time, and Danny told him, “Well, I take the bus so if I miss it, I’m late.”

Big Bob was surprised to hear that. “Don’t you have a car?” he asked.

Danny laughed and said, “I don’t even have my license, Big Bob. Before I can take my road test, I need a car to practice on.”

                Big Bob shrugged and said, “I’ll take you driving, and for your road test.”

“Really? Oh, Big Bob, that would be so great!” Danny exclaimed, and from then on, every Monday to Saturday Big Bob parked his 100-foot land yacht (only a slight exaggeration) in front of Danny’s apartment, slid over to the passenger seat, and Danny got behind the wheel.  Unexpectedly, Bob began teaching, also. He reminded Danny, “use your turn signal when you pull out.”  As they drove, Big Bob cautioned “Watch your speed, especially in school zones. The tester looks for things like that.”

 Bob Weinheimer would’ve been impressed.

                Parallel parking the behemoth was a real challenge, but eventually Danny got the hang of it even though the rear of the car was in a different time zone. Finally, the big day came. The DMV tester slid in to the passenger seat and said, without emotion, “Let’s start the test, please.” Danny supplied enough emotion for both of them.  He drove like, well, like he was taking his road test. When it came time to parallel park the beast, Danny thought back to his high school road test fiasco and smiled. He was a much better driver now. Danny pulled alongside another station wagon, properly signaled, deftly used his mirrors, and backed that leviathan into place. The road test was over. Even though he couldn’t think of anything he did wrong, Danny, being Danny, was still sure he flunked.

Three days later, the mail came. Danny nervously destroyed the DMV envelope and among the wreckage found--a brand-new license. He ran screaming through the apartment, “I did it! I did it!” He had reason to exult, even without a set of wheels. That would come soon enough. The world got bigger and life got bigger for Danny that day.

               

After the Martinis spent a few months couch surfing, Helen found a north side apartment in the spring of ’75. “Apartment” was pushing it—just one room with a small kitchen and an unheated bathroom out in the hall, but it was a roof. Helen, Ann, Danny, and a very pregnant June soon reunited and they all slept on the floor on cheap mattresses.  June, who was just sixteen, was seven months pregnant. She decided to carry the baby to term and give it up for adoption. Everyone referred to the unborn baby as “Ned,” a catch-all family nickname based on an old goofy acquaintance, and symbolized everyone’s emotional detachment to the baby in June’s belly.

Money was still tight. Ann was a teletype operator at Western Union and made good money, but went out after work every night and blew through her paycheck. She was only twenty-three, after all. Danny made minimum wage at Motronics and neither Helen nor June worked. Helen had what probably was shoulder bursitis but instead of seeing a doctor, she complained about it day and night. She rotated her arm above her head like she was trying to get the waiter’s attention, crying out “Ma… Ma!” over and over. Helen habitually called for her mother in times of stress. There were two problems with that; one, her mother never came through in a crisis, and two, she had been dead for twenty years.

It was a bleak time. June was getting bigger, and understandably crankier. In those two rooms, everyone got on everyone else’s nerves. They were four scorpions in a bottle, and one of them had bursitis.  The only thing that lightened the mood was music. Danny saved his meager pay until he had enough money to buy a Radio Shack record player, and bought the first two albums in what became a massive record collection; Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, then his earlier masterpiece,  Madman Across the Water. Danny played Madman so many times everyone knew all the songs by heart.

Another dreary night without enough food, enough heat, and maybe not even enough sanity. Danny threw Madman on again. “Tiny Dancer” played, and then “Levon”. After “Levon”, the next song started, and then June slowly waddled out of the kitchen, hands on her hips, sashaying across the tiny room. She had multiple disposable razors taped to her face as she danced to the song “Razor Face.” June broke the tension and gave everyone in that one sad, small room a much-needed laugh.

June awoke in the middle of the night on June 16^th, terrified. “Mom, I think my water broke! What do I do?

Helen came through. She kept her cool, especially considering all the kids were Caesarians, and calmed June. “June, this is all perfectly normal, but let’s get you to the hospital”, Helen said. She called a friend who drove a taxi. He rushed them to Crouse hospital. June was finally having “Ned” and this whole episode would be behind her, for good.  Danny somehow slept through the whole thing. When he woke up in the morning, he got the news. Danny was relieved, for June, for the family, and even for Ned, who turned out not to be a Ned, but a baby girl. June surrendered her to the adoption agency without holding her, but felt curiously ambivalent. She hoped the baby was placed in a loving home, with two eager parents that were ready and able to give her the life she deserved. Yes, that’s what she wanted.

Helen heard the downstairs tenants were moving out and she convinced the landlord to let her have the apartment. It was an entire flat, with multiple rooms, and even a heated bathroom. A real apartment, and a pretty nice one. The Martinis took another step towards normalcy, whatever that was. June wasn’t herself though. She confided in her mom, “I feel empty inside.”  Postpartum depression wouldn’t be officially recognized by the medical community for another twenty years so what June had was dismissed as the “baby blues.”

But was it something more than that? One night, about six weeks later, Danny heard crying from June’s bedroom, and he poked his head in. June was crying, again, and Helen had her in an enveloping hug. “What’s going on? Why are you crying, June?” Danny asked her. Danny was a sensitive kid, like the whole family. Not only was it his nature, but he was also influenced by living with three women. Danny empathized with his baby sister, whatever the reason. He asked again, “What’s wrong?”

“She wants to keep the baby,” Helen said.

June started crying harder. She said, through her tears, “I’m almost out of time to decide. The adoption agency gave me six weeks to decide and then they place Faith for adoption.” Faith. June had already named her baby girl.

Faith.  What a beautiful name, so aspirational. Faith came home that day, and it was like she was always there. Danny helped change her diapers and really took to her. He loved peeking in on her in the morning to see if she was awake. A baby girl to dote upon, a heated bathroom, his own room to escape to—his life, and all their lives, had started moving in the right direction.

Uh, not so fast.

“Daniel,” Helen said to her son one hot July day, as she looked up from the newspaper she was reading, “There’s an article about cystic fibrosis in here, and you have all the symptoms. You should get tested again. I think you have it!” Danny listened to his mom with as much patience as he could muster, which being nineteen, wasn’t much. No one is more certain of their superior judgement and intelligence than a nineteen-year-old boy. Unless it’s an eighteen-year-old boy.

                “Mom, if I had cystic fibrosis, I would’ve been dead years ago,” Danny told her. He probably would have added, “Duh!,” if that was a thing in 1975. Statistically, he was right.  In 1959, a baby with cystic fibrosis lived about six months, on average. By 1975, the CF mean lifespan was under ten years, and that certainly was a mean number. Danny already had demolished the actuarial tables. He just didn’t know it yet.

                Danny was always the good son, always the pleaser, always the overachiever, so he called the CF hotline in the article and made an appointment to be tested, if for no other reason but to make his mom happy. Danny arrived at the clinic and was prepped for what was a painless procedure, a sweat chloride test (now a sweat electrolyte test).  A colorless, odorless chemical was applied to Danny’s forearm. An electrode was then attached, and a small electrical current was sent to the area to stimulate sweating. The test took about five minutes; if it showed a higher amount of sodium chloride in the sweat, that probably meant Danny had CF. A borderline result would’ve indicated the need to repeat the test. Through the years, as DNA testing improved, a gene mutation panel instead confirmed the results.

                Danny’s results were not borderline. Dr. Paul Schwartz, head of the cystic fibrosis clinic at Upstate, sat Danny down in his office and gently but matter-of-factly told him, “Your mom was right. You have cystic fibrosis.”

                Danny sat back, reeling. One day he read an article in the newspaper and then two days later he was on borrowed time. “How can that be?” he said plaintively to Dr. Schwartz. “Why aren’t I dead?”

                “Well, we are learning more and more about CF every year, and one of the biggest revelations is how many young people there are like you. Mild cases like yours have slipped below the radar. We think there are undiagnosed CF patients in their 40s and even 50s, and those ages will increase as treatments get better,” the doctor said. “You are in good health now and if you take care of yourself, who knows?”

Dr. Schwartz told Danny, “You need to start doing chest physical therapy, or chest PT,” and went on to explain the procedure to his still-stunned CF patient. “You clap vigorously on your chest wall with a cupped hand for three to five minutes,” Schwartz said, while lightly cupping Danny’s chest. “Do it harder than that, though,” he added. “That will loosen the thick mucus that built up in the lungs. Then follow that with a vibration motion, using a flat hand,” and again he showed Danny the technique. “That will move the mucus into the larger airways,” he went on, then told Danny, “You need to vigorously cough up those secretions. The chest PT isn’t complete without the coughing,” he concluded.

“Coughing vigorously is the easy part, doc,” Danny said with a laugh, then coughed on cue.

“Ideally, if there if someone who can do chest PT to you, even better,” Schwartz said, “Now, that mucus also clogs your digestive system, Danny, so I am going to prescribe a pancreatic enzyme that replaces the natural enzymes your system doesn’t get,” Schwartz told him. “You’ll needed to take them with every meal or snack.”  Danny, who was fond of saying “I don’t cotton to no patent medicine,” now needed to carry pills with him everywhere he went. He was already sorry he got tested.