The Bucket List

The other night we were sitting at Rookies, one of our favorite sports bars, perusing the specials menu when The Blond Bombshell said, "Look, they have lobster!" A moment later she said, "Oh, never mind. They're whole lobsters. I don't want to be responsible for killing one."

"So, like, what?" I asked. "You only want to cripple one?"

I dunno, I thought it was funny.

Later, over a dinner of burgers and sweet potato fries she asked me how my bucket list was coming. I took a sip of Guinness and said that maybe I ought to add making a bucket list to my bucket list. Then I asked her why she thought I needed one.

"Well, I thought since you just went skydiving you'd be thinking of other things you would like to do..."

"What... before I die?"

"Uh... that is sort of the point of a bucket list, isn't it?"

"I guess." I replied. "It just seems... kind of morbid."

"It doesn't have to be. You could make it fun. You know, like an adventure."

"Fun huh? Well, I guess I could do that." I thought for a second and said, "How about I divorce my estranged wife of 36 years to see if her mother really is unavailable?"

"Very funny." She said. Her frown belied her words. "I had in mind something more like teaching yourself Greek."

"I did that 25 years ago."

"Oh."

"I could ask Ann to teach me how to scoff in German." I suggested.

"You could learn how to swing dance."

"Swing?" I said, my voice brightening. "Maybe I could try to figure out why 3-ways are O.K. for light bulbs but not for other stuff."

"Could you even try to be serious?" she asked, her hazel eyes flashing.

"Let me see..." I answered, seeming to look deep inside myself. "Nope. I don't think so."

She leaned over and kissed my cheek. "I didn't think so, either. You know there are a lot of things that could be fun to try, though."

I waggled my eyebrows and pretended to flick an imaginary cigar ash, saying in my best Groucho voice, "What did you have in mind, little girl?"

After a brief silence she said, "You could learn how to fly an airplane."

"I doubt it." I answered. "But I could petition Johnson & Johnson to bring out a more gender neutral version of Ben-Gay."

"You could learn how to play the guitar." she said, ignoring me.

"Or I could let them call me back for one more covert mission."

"What are you talking about?" she asked, brushing her long blond hair from her bare shoulders while nibbling delicately at her burger.

"Uh, never mind. I really shouldn't have said anything."

She stared at me for a moment and finally said, "I never know when to take you seriously."

"Exactly."

"What?"

"Never."

"Oh... " For a moment it was like she had lost her place. "Well, uh, how about going over a waterfall in a barrel?"

"What're you - crazy?" I asked as I daubed some chipotle sauce with a sweet potato fry. "If I wanted to do something dangerous I could just whistle Flight of the Bumble Bee in a crowded elevator."

"Or you could pick a foreign country that you've never been to." she ventured.

"O.K. Now what?" I asked innocently.

"What?"

"I've picked one. Brazil. Now what?"

"You can go to..."

"Careful." I said. "Your Irish is showing."

While she was thinking about that, I said, "You know, I could try to read an entire page, silently, without moving my lips."

"You've never been quiet for that long." she shot back.

"Touche." I replied. "Nicely played."

Finally, while she was dabbing her lips with a napkin, she asked me, "Isn't there something that you really, really want to do before you die?"

"Well... yeah, I guess." I said, staring at my empty plate. "I'd really, really like to find a cure for whatever it was that was killing me."



You know, I have never understood why people look at me that way.

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Soon to be Famous...

We would like to submit another in our series of Soon To Be Famous Quotes by our beloved founder, philosopher and occasional boy toy:



We are not all victims but are, each of us, the chief perpetrators of our own lives.

..............................................................................................................................John Bonus



Yes, we realize it is no "Carpe Diem" but he has been saying it a lot, lately, and we here at Escape Velocity's Corporate Headquarters are up for our annual review - so please read it again.

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The Jump

I kept getting mixed signals on the day I went skydiving.

They have a pretty cool web page with video of people skydiving, testimonials about how much fun it is and payment options, etc. My first indicator that this might not be safe was in the payment options. Listed among Cash, Visa, Mastercard, and American Express was the statement that they do not take personal checks on the day of the jump. Which makes sense. Mangled corpses are notorious deadbeats.

When we got there we had to sit through an instructional video. Now keep in mind, we were about to jump out of a perfectly good airplane and were a little nervous at the prospect. So we were literally hanging on every word of instruction. Sort of like our lives depended upon it. The instructional part of the video lasted about 45 seconds.

The other 23 minutes of it were legal disclaimers and a guide to filling out the paperwork. We had to agree not to sue anyone, ever, for any reason, ever, nor could our heirs (survivors), ever, even if they (the skydiving company) completely screwed up and packed an anvil instead of a parachute, ever, or if they ran out of gas, ever, or if the jump master forgot to hook onto you, or for anything else. Ever.

My sense was that they were more afraid of lawsuits than we were of jumping out of an airplane, at 10,000 feet, for the very first time.

Next, we were told that we would be getting a discount on the videography. It seems that their regular guy who jumps with us and wears the camera on his helmet to record our jump and rapid descent could not make it that day. He was in the hospital. Geeze! I hope he watched the video.

Now here is something that should have been in the video. Most of us were wearing jeans. Then we were put in a pair of zip up coveralls. Then we were strapped into a jump harness. Which, by my count (including my under shorts), is four layers of very tight material and straps surrounding, compressing and pinching my private parts. Only after we are all strapped and cinched tight does the jump master tell us that we should make sure that we are comfortable down there because when the 'chute opens we could get hurt. So there I am trying to rearrange my junk through all of the tight materials that have been strapped into place, while there are women standing around watching and snickering, and I'm trying to be cool about it.

Fortunately, I am very cool.

Eventually, I got into a very small airplane with the pilot, the jump master, and the guy who owns the skydiving business. He has made over 38,000 jumps and is in the Guinness Book of World Records for the most skydives. (I'll bet he arranges his junk before they cinch his straps.) And we were off.

About 4,000 feet into our ascent, the old guy opened the door and leaned out and was whipped away by the 120 mile an hour wind. It happened so fast it was like a special effect on Heroes. That was my reality check. Up until this point I had been remarkably calm. It hadn't really hit me what I was about to do. But suddenly, I'm sitting cross-legged on the floor of a flying canoe, three feet from the open door and the guy who opened the door was whipped away in the blink of an eye and I'm not strapped down or connected to ANYTHING. And the jump master yells over the noise, "So, what do you think?"

What do I think? WHAT DO I THINK? "Holy shit!" I yelled back. "Close the frickin' door!"

Eventually the pilot reached over and pulled the door down. The next thought I had was "that is going to be me in a couple of minutes" and I wondered how many people have thrown up at 120 miles an hour and what kind of mess that'll make.

Then I thought, "At least my junk is comfortable."

When the moment came the jump master told me to get on my knees and scoot around so that I was between the pilot seat and the door. All of this is in an unsteady, vibrating, rocking, flying Volkswagen. I have less than 2 inches leeway on either side, I'm swaying with the jarring movements, I am not strapped to anything and I am not wearing a parachute and the jump master cautions me not to touch the door. YOU THINK? I wasn't about to touch that door! I wouldn't touch that door if my... well, actually, it did.

Then he tells me to sit on my heels and lean back into him. And, finally, he hooks onto to me. Two at the shoulders and two at the hips. This the the first time since the old guy was whipped away that I think I actually breathed. When he reached over and around to re-tighten the cinches I did not care how tightly I was pressed into his junk. I thought if it's another place to hold on to I hope it's a big one!

This is when the pilot reached over and opened the door. It snapped up and my whole world became a 120 mile an hour wind storm. The jump master yelled into my ear, "Swing your knees out of the plane, look up and arch your back." I think the last part was so that he could rearrange his junk.

The next thing I know is that he leaned forward and we are in a rushing river of air. I can see the entire world laid out before me but the torrent of air is buffeting me so badly that I can hardly catch my breath. I am peripherally aware that he is strapped to my back. All my senses are alive. I am totally aware of everything around me. He yells in my ear to look up and to the left and give a thumbs up at the camera strapped to his wrist. A moment later he yells, "Your other left."

Hey, I had a lot going on! O.K.?

That was the longest and shortest 45 seconds of my life. And then the 'chute deployed. My shoulders were snapped back. I grabbed my shoulder harness, the wind virtually disappeared, and we were floating.

The next five minutes were magical. I got to see the world as few others do. I saw the mountains become nothing more than rolling disturbances in the landscape. I saw the highways as mere lines connecting areas of population. I saw the fall colors as an even brownish-orange and I actually saw the curvature of the Earth.

Eventually I was able to process familiar places and got my bearings above the familiar roads and malls and housing developments. We drifted lazily across the landscape, catching the thermals, steering in and out of the now gentle winds. It was cold that day but I really did not notice it until later. I was flying, man. Flying.

After a while I saw the airport, then the landing area, then the people, and we were down. A perfect landing exactly where the jump master had intended.

I had gotten to know a few of the other jumpers while we were all waiting earlier and as I walked over to the fence line where they were standing, a mile wide grin on my face, Tony asked if that was me he heard screaming like a little girl. Suddenly deadpan I replied, "No it was the jump master. When I pissed my pants it ran up his leg."

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The Last Will

Tomorrow I go skydiving.

I know. I know. You're thinking, "How can that guy get any frickin' cooler?" Either that or, "I get dibs on his liquor cabinet!"

Which probably isn't a bad idea. The dibs part I mean. Because, actually, I kind of pegged the Cool-O-Meter a while back.

So I got to thinking - Last Will and Testament.

I know you are supposed to be of sound mind to write one of these things but if a million monkeys on a million typewriters can, theoretically, eventually write Shakespeare, I figure one homo erectus on an Apple should be able to cobble something together good enough to satisfy the legal arm at Escape Velocity's Corporate Headquarters.

Speaking of lawyers. In the event of my death, I would like to leave all of my former wife's worldly possessions to my divorce lawyer.

In addition, I want to leave my collection of body oils and lubricants to the Baptist Church.

I would like to leave my collections of Playboy, Penthouse, and other erotic art to the Boy Scouts of America; and my partial sets of Melmac dishes to the Waldorf Astoria.

I hereby bequeath all of my winter outerwear to the American Association for Nude Recreation.

And I would like to leave my five-gallon jug of pennies and nickles to Bill Gates.

I would like someone to put the call-to-donate 800 number for The Seven Hundred Club on the National Do Not Call List.

I would like science to work on a better use for the passenger side of my bed.

I would like to donate one gallon of whole milk and one can of air freshener to each of my lactose intolerant friends.

I want to leave my collection of antique beer steins to the local chapter of Alcoholics Anonymous.

I would like to donate my brain to science and my fingers to simple math.

And on a personal note, I would like to thank all of my very dear friends for allowing me the pleasure of knowing them and to congratulate them on the privilege of knowing me.

Now get out of here. I have a plane to catch.


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The Death of the Petite Red Head

I was standing behind the tiki bar when my friend Mike came up the side steps. "What's up, Big Mon?" he asked. He could see that I was upset.

"Oh, hell!" I responded as I slammed a bottle of something onto the bar, shot glasses bounced and a couple rolled to the edge where Mike's cop-reflexes caught them. "Woa! Woa! Take it easy!" He set the glasses upright and reached into the cooler for a cold beer. "Now," he continued. "What's the problem?"

"The Petite Red Head is dead." I stated flatly.

"Really?" he raised one eyebrow. "I thought she was fictional?"

"She mostly was."

"So how can she be dead?"

"Well, as you know, she was a composite character. A little feistiness from one girl, a little stubbornness from another, a little playfulness from another, and the intellect from my dream girl. The red hair was from several other girls I've known and the petite part just seemed to fit into the Johnny B character's arms."

"Yeah, I know that." Mike said. "But that doesn't explain how she can die."

I looked at the gloomy sky, thunderheads roiling in the distance. A slight breeze was picking up and I could smell the honey suckle at the far end of the tiki deck. I chose not to answer his question directly. "Remember when she first showed up in the Help Yourself blog? The one about the "A" and "B" type hosts and guests?"

"Sure."

"She was just a minor bit of window dressing. A bit player. A walk on part. But she just felt right, man. You know what I mean?"

"No, not really. But then, you are the writer." He answered truthfully.

"Then a little later, I had a mis-understanding with a girl I was dating and I brought the petite red head back in I Can Do That! to help me illustrate the humorous contrasts between how men and women think."

"Uh, huh."

"At this point, I was beginning to see the potential of a female character who was slightly smarter than the Johnny B character and I began using her sometimes as a straight man and sometimes to set him up as the fall guy of the piece. I did this in The Trouble with Hairy (Legs) and in Giving Good Foot. But she really came into her own in Breakin' ALL the Rules!. That's the one where she gets me for being so anal. Remember?"

"Yeah, I do." he smiled. "It was actually pretty funny."

"That's when I knew she had to die." I said.

"What!"

"That's when I knew she had to die."

"I didn't mean what did you say. Didn't you see the exclamation mark? I said 'what' in the sense of 'what the hell are you talking about!'." He explained.

"Oh." ...

... "So? Like, what the hell are you talking about?"

"Well... it's just that... well, she was stealing my thunder, man."

Suddenly Mike got very patient and began talking in slower, more measured tones. "Johnny, how can she steal your thunder? You are the one making it up."

"Hey, this stuff isn't easy. And it's even harder to explain. It's sort of like when you date a girl and after about a month or so you realize she has this whole other life going on outside of you. Like... who knew? You know what I mean?"

"Uhhh... No."

"Anyway, I figured if I let her have her way, she was about a couple of weeks away from having her own blog. Which could have been one way to get rid of her but, logistically, that would have been a nightmare."

"Uh, huh."

"So I decided to phase her out."

"How did you do that?" The skin around his eyes tightened and I could tell he was sorry he asked the question. So he took another sip of his beer.

"Well, that was when I wrote The Stripper and the Toilet Bowl. I was kinda hoping to divert the attention away from the petite red head." I explained. "That was also about the same time I quit dating red heads... I figured maybe I was channeling some of their crazy energy into the petite red head. It's a shame, too. There was this one chick..."

"Ummm, Johnny. Back to the story."

"Oh. Yeah." I said shaking the fog from my head. "Anyway, I still needed her. She was a good foil and my raison d'etre. So she popped up again in The Great Beard Rebellion."

"That's when I began playing around with different female characters. Trying to find one that resonated. I thought I hit pay dirt with the Frankie character in So This is Love, but it turned out that she was too flighty."

"But... never mind."

"This is when I started writing more introspective stuff and the true stories from my life. Things like The Polish Blog and The Gift. I even tried my hand at writing a country/western song. Remember Every Fool has a Heart?"

"Yep. And if I remember correctly, you haven't written about the petite red head since. But isn't that kind of what you wanted? Is the character irreplaceable?"

"No. Oh, Lord, no!" I said. "In fact I'm already working on a new one."

"What's her name?"

"I'm not sure she'll have one. But I'm thinking of calling her the Blond Bombshell. What do you think?"

"Sounds cool."

"I just need to keep this one on a short leash. It is, after all, my picture on the page."

"O.K." Mike said - then he paused before continuing. "So, if you killed the petite red head on purpose and you have a replacement in the wings to serve as your straight man and foil, etc., why are you so upset?"

"Well, I was thinking about throwing a party for the Petite Red Head, sort of like a wake, but I can't remember how to mix her favorite drink."

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Alien Autopsy

I was sitting in my outdoor office (on the bar stool behind the tiki bar), doodling on a yellow tablet. This is how I kick-start a lot of my ideas. I heard a knock on the inside of my sliding door into the living room and, as I looked up, it slid open and my buddy Al walked out onto the deck. His tousled hair and tight physique belied his sixty plus years.

"What're you working on?" he asked as he glanced at my note pad.

"Just an idea." I replied vaguely.

"Yeah," he said, "like Guy Stuff at the Mall was just a story about a sporting goods store."

"Well... it was!"

"O.K. So what's this one about?"

"Remember a while back I wrote a piece poking fun at the male/female thing called Are Women Aliens? I was kinda pokin' fun at that book Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus and came to the conclusion that Women are from Venus and that Men are from Earth. Remember?"

"Sure."

"O.K., so I got to thinking about why a lot of relationships end and being a man, and assuming women do things and make decisions for un-earthly reasons, I thought if I could dissect a past relationship... you know, like what makes a girl tick?, I could call it an Alien Autopsy."

"It's funny... but I don't know..." Al muttered. "You could be shooting yourself in the foot."

"C'mon, everyone knows I'm only kidding around! Besides, if we can't laugh at each other, who can we laugh at?"

"So, what're you thinking?"

"I dunno." I said looking down at my tablet. "It is a lot of contradictory behavior. Stuff like: 'If she's already been divorced five times, how can I be the problem?' Or: 'She drinks wine for three months and, just when I buy a case of the stuff, she switches to rum.' Or: 'She doesn't want to go to the night club any more but still wants to take dance lessons.' "

"What else have you got?" he asked.

"How about: 'She wouldn't tell me until 30 minutes before if she was coming on a date but she had to know two weeks early if I was going to one of her functions.' Or: 'She would blow off three dates in a row and when I would mention it she tells me she can't take the drama.' Or, listen to this one: 'She insists on a "monogamous" relationship but isn't ready for a "committed" one.' "

"Oh, and never, ever, ever use the word 'whatever' even though she wants you to accept what ever she throws at you."

"O.K." Al finally said. "I am beginning to get the alien part. And... I guess it's safe to say that you are dissecting it after it's dead... hence the autopsy."

"See? You are getting it. But you know," I replied, "the alien analogy doesn't end there. Asking someone what they are thinking during an intimate moment is a lot like vivisection. You know - dissecting something while it's still alive? Aliens are supposedly doing that when they abduct humans."

"You don't mean...?"

"Yes..." I answered. "I think I've been probed!"

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