Baseball - A good name for it

I know that it's almost Christmas and that almost two months have passed since Joe Carter's home un finally put an end to the national pastime for 1993, but I've got something I've been wanting to say since spring. Everybody seemed to be having such a good time cheering for their teams, berating the others, ridiculing the umpires, that I thought I would wait until now to proclaim that in a time when kids desperately need positive role models more than ever, baseball—the great American icon that inspired someone to compose a song that extolled not only its athletic virtues but the comestibles sold in its grandstands, the near mythical sport that has created such heroes as Ruth, Mantle, Mays, and Aaron—this same omnipotent entity is also comprised of some of the sleaziest, most vulgar, most violent, and, in general, most uncivilized people in the world of entertainment. And that is, of course, what baseball and all the other sports are—entertainment.

Our youth, in many—though certainly not all—cases, are worshipping a bunch of barbaric clods.

I enjoy a lot of sports besides baseball, and although it, along with football, hockey and now even basketball, have an excess of violence that is not intrinsic to their sports—"extracurricular activities," as some doltish broadcasters cutely refer to it—baseball is the only one that routinely offers its fans heft side orders of other expressions of uncivility, namely masticating colossal wads of tobacco, spitting and public groping of one's private parts.

Incredibly, my wife, Barbara, got interested in the NBA about 6 years ago, and now she's, at times, a more ardent fan than I am. But I know I will never spark her interest in baseball because of the grotesquely offensive antics of its practitioners.

It is totally impossible to watch a baseball game on TV for more than a few minutes before some batter readjusts his genitals or dislodges a "wedgie." And, of by some miracle, the batter actually busies his hands with game-related activities, the cameraman, during one of the endless action interruptions (batter steps out of the batter's box or the pitcher steps off the mound) will zoom in on the dugout, where we get to observer the other players doing the same thing or the manager unleashing a black stream of Red Man onto the floor.

Recently, on the David Letterman show, the comedian showed a tape of the entire Philadelphia Phillies bench spewing forth their tarry arcs of venom like stygian fountain statues.

Some of the players, perhaps finally realizing the unsalutary effects of chewing huge clumps of carcinogens for hours on end, have, in a rare display of rationality, opted for sunflower seeds, but alas, they make this into a repulsive spectacle as well, constantly spitting out those tiny white projectiles onto the field, sometimes even conducting contests to see who can achieve the greatest distance.

Other, more enlightened players, have taken up bubblegum, but appear to chew 8 to 10 pieces at once, smacking loudly, with their mouths open to hippopotamine proportions—even during interviews—stopping only to blow enormous face-engulfing bubbles, evincing once again that they still don't quite "get it."

During the World Seris, the Phillies pitcher Mitch "Wild Thing" Williams, christened a new expression of boorish behavior when he paused between pitches to blow his nose, only he didn't employ the method usually practiced by reasonable human beings, he simply held one nostril shut with his index finger, while blowing out the contents of the other onto the mound. He finished his indecorous performance in a foul flourish by wiping his nose in his sleeve, then scratching his crotch before anticlimactically delivering the pitch to a helpless catchers who was probably wishing he had an extra glove for his bare hand.

I apologize for this graphic description, but frankly, I don't think Red Barber could have euphemized his way out of it.

In retrospect, I have gained a new respect for the umpire who is bold enough to examine the baseball contaminated by these louts. Perhaps they should wear rubber gloves to protect themselves from these "foreign substances."

By the same token, I also have great sympathy for the janitors and groundskeepers. One would think the dugout floors might resemble prehistoric tar pits covered with layers of white seeds, and the grass must be made of some specially developed hybrid that is resistant to caustic substances, since I've never noticed any scorched areas.

Now that I've called attention to these blatant foibles, some obvious questions come to mind: Do these people behave this way off the field? Did they behave this way prior to becoming baseball players?

Does Lennie Dykstra, the "Wizard of Wads," the "Sultan of Splat," the "Chairman of Chaw," have a porch with a blackened, sticky floor? Is the paint on his driver's side car door peeling off? Does he have a spittoon in every room in his house? Does he ever forget and take a swig from his spit cup? Can he recall the last time his wife kissed him on the mouth? Or do players only marry women who chew as well?

Does Barry Bonds, just before shaking his minister's hand after church service, pause first to rearrange his reproductive organ, if he feels he's listing to one side or the other? Does the minister withdraw his hand?

And while we're on this very personal subject, why do they constantly have to make these adjustments or corrections anyway? I don't have these kinds of problems and, even if I did, I would attend to them in private. I'm positive it's some kind of macho posturing thing.

Sports reporter: "My Boggs, why is it that you and all the other players are always manipulating yourselves, you know, in your genital region?"

Mr. Boggs (with affected modesty): "Well kid, not to brag, but you know that many of us 'love stallions' are so generously endowed, it's kind of like trying to walk around with a fire hose in your pants Some of those low, inside pitches I punched out for singles—it weren't my bat, heh heh."

Running: Solitary Sanctuary in a Tornado of Tackiness

Although it is true that runners seem to come from multifarious social and economic backgrounds, most of them exhibit universal characteristics: such as good health, perseverance (often mislabeled as obsessiveness), and a propensity for injuries. Perhaps the most significant and praiseworthy—yet overlooked—common quality of runners, however, is their avoidance of that one attribute which defiantly raises its hideous hand in the actions and attitudes of a great majority of Americans—an unbridled affinity for tackiness.

I had noticed some evidence of this at my first race in 1979, when I observed that runners actually used the rearview mirrors in their cars to see behind them and not as a display receptacle for large fuzzy dice or Playboy paraphernalia. At first upon noticing that they were also able to see clearly out of their rear windows without the visual impediments of a head-wobbling German Shepherd or a huge white hand signaling “We’re Number One,” I had mistaken these actions as manifestations of safety consciousness. But on becoming aware that most of their cars were devoid of not only the usual variety of mindless bumperstickers, but also any extolling the benefits of running. i.e., “Marathoners do it longer,” or “Running makes old men hard again,” I began to realize that this behavioral pattern hinted of something of much greater significance.

Finally, it was with the realization that after perusing the few thousand names on one of the Cooper River Bridge Race results and never coming across any female runners with the names Tammy, Heather, Tiffany, Kimberly, Beulah, Benkie, Barfie, or Sissy, or males named Shawn (Sean), Billy Bob, Elmo, Elvis, or Bubba, that my suspicions were at least confirmed. Ever since, I have been consciously (and unconsciously) compiling evidence to document my theory.

Not without a sigh of relief did I record that I had never seen a runner indule in one of America’s grisliest pastimes, the public display of toothpick dexterity, even though opportunities are frequently available to them with after-race snacks. This particular phenomenon so impressed me that I fantasied that if a runner should ever cast ignominy upon his group by committing this atrocity against decorum, he should receive the just punishment of being confined in a room with a single toothpick. There he would be forcefed vast quantities of steamed oysters, spinach, and corn-on-the-cob until he had gouged out enough picking to sculpt a one-foot high bust of the Ayatollah Khomeni.

I’ve also noticed that even though some male runners may wear a single unobtrusive gold chain, I’ve never encountered one who sought to challenge Mr. T.’s glittering adornments. Nor do I ever observe the hirsute helmet effect of excessive hairspray or curler and kerchief headdresses on female runners.
Perhaps the runner’s complete repudiation of the world of tackiness is never more apparent than when he’she is compared to the athletes of other sports. How often do you see runners standing around in public scratching or rearranging their “private parts,” besplattering streets with Red Man, or kicking dirt on race officials? How often do you see a runner spike his/her trophy after winning a race or a group of early finishers (the “Run Bunch”) leaping in the air to form a circular high five? Can you imagine penalty boxes along a race route for runners who engage in fouling or fisticuffs? Can you visualize Alberto Salazar menacingly pointing his fist at Rob DeCastella during a pre-race interview and exhorting, “I’m gonna’ run right up your back, jerk face!”?

Even the so-called gentlemen’s sports of sailing, tennis, and polo are not immune from it. One need only regard all the tacky bumper stickers: “I’d rather be sailing,” “Tennis Bum,” “Boone Hall Plantation Polo.” Tackiness, as with most dreaded diseases, knows no socio-economic boundaries, however, runners, for the most part, have remained healthy.

As for the reason why runners have been able to elude the talons of tackiness, I feel that it is more than likely something inherent in running itself that purges one of his/her tacky tendencies, and which I feel is probably learned rather than inherited. I’ve known individuals who shed their tackiness after taking up running and some who regained it after stopping. For instance, a friend of mine who prior to becoming involved in running had always pestered me about coming over to see his Franklin Mint Commemorative coin collection. He never mentioned it to me again after he started running, but then almost immediately upon stopping, invited me over to listen to his video tapes of local car dealership commercials.

Perhaps it has something to do with the increased amount of oxygen circulating through the brains of runners for prolonged periods which improved the runners’ cognitive powers and also allows him/her to discern tackiness more easily.

Cynics notwithstanding, I feel certain that the revelation will increase the health of the general public significantly by attracting more of them to running. And perhaps even more important, it will no doubt, lead indirectly to the extinction of “That’s Incredible,” plastic lawn ornaments, and one-size-fits-all clothing.

(Originally published March 1984)

Burning Desire

Children throughout the generations have been admonished by their parents not to play with matches. I was certainly no exception; only in my case, the warnings were totally ignored, and, if not for a particular event, God knows what havoc I would have wreaked.

Judging from the volumes of photographs my mother collected, and if modesty can be suspended for the sake of verisimilitude, I was a cute looking little kid, with big brown, innocent eyes. My mother dressed me in cute little duds—neat sailor suits with a whistle in the pocket, a houndstooth coat with brown cap, and knickers (yes knickers—we're talking mid 40s). I was also very quiet, and being an only child, was adept at creating my own amusements. My mother, grandmother, aunt, and cousin, Jimmy, all knew of my predilection for things aflame, but they pretty much treated it as a petty annoyance. All the other assorted distant family members, adults and neighbors thought "Bobby" was just a good little boy who "kept to himself." (Does that sound scarily familiar, Mr. Hinckley?)

I was fascinated by fire, and I must have tried to burn every form of matter available to a six-year-old in Charleston in 1946, from paper to grass to leaves to cloth to metal. I was disappointed by metal, which seemed to remain unaltered—except for copper, which gave off blue-green flames, at least. Wherever there was a fire, you would find me there staring hypnotically at it: a stove, a fireplace, the coals at a cookout, trash burning. In fact, my observation of a nine-year-old friend burning a pile of trash in his backyard precluded my ever experimenting with glass because of the unfortunate effect of his attempt to burn a bottle: it exploded with a loud pop, spraying glass everywhere, one piece hitting him just above the left eye.

I remember that he bled differently than I did. There was something like a small blog of grape jam on his eyebrow. It was not pouring down his face like the time I plunged headfirst into the sofa. This was very puzzling to me. Why did Al's blood have the same Cross and Blackwell consistency when I reached his age, or did it have something to do with eating too many sweets? It sounded like one of my mother's warnings come to fruition: "If you don't eating all those sweet things, your blood will turn to jam, you'll only be able to move with great difficulty, and if you cut yourself the ants will crawl inside you and eat you to death."

My favorite conflagratory pastimes were melting plastic soldiers and playing "streetcar." Streetcar was an adult-supervised activity (burning plastic soldiers wasn't) in which you took an old shoebox, but windows in the sides and an opening in the top, and then placed a candle (in its own melted wax) in the middle under the opening. You then tied a string to the front of the box and pulled it around the yard at night. Of course, I always managed to pull mine over rough terrain and fast enough so that the candle would tip over and the whole thing would go up in flames. "Bobby, don't pull it so roughly! See, I told you it would turn over. Hurry and re-light the candle. Boy, are you slow! Never mind, you're too late again. Stay away—it's burning up. What are you smiling at?"

Sometimes I would cut up the tissue paper from the shoebox and paste it on the windows like panes. This would cause it to flame up in no time. I finally went too far, loading up the streetcar with soldiers, which resulted in a molten mound of roaring plastic, and this activity, which I have retrospectively named "A Streetcar Named DeFire," was eventually terminated because "he seems to be enjoying it for the wrong reasons."

Undeterred, I simply found more civilized outlets for my obsession. Inspired by a storybook picture of a young pajama-clad boy carrying a candlestick to help him find his way around the house in the dark, I re-enacted the scene that night, shuffling in my slippers and Roy Rogers pajamas from my bedroom to the bathroom. This was really neat, I thought. I pretended I was Sherlock Holmes searching for clues in a haunted house. (This required a precocious imagination, given my Roy Rogers pajamas. I mean, even Roy wouldn't wear pajamas with little pictures of himself and Trigger all over them.) In the bathroom, I placed the candlestick on the windowsill.

Now comes the extremely stupid part of the story: Upon leaving the bathroom, I notice the shade starting to burn. I tried throwing some water on it but it didn't work. So I took the candlestick back to my bedroom, blew it out, and hid it and the matches under my bed. I then got under the covers and decided the best thing to do was to simply go to sleep. No, it doesn't sounds like a particularly sensible thing to me either, whenever I recount this story. I guess I preferred being burned alive rather than admitting that I'd been playing with matches again. That might be a fitting denouement for a fledgling pyromaniac.

I was saved by my cousin, Jimmy, who smelled the smoke and doused the flames with buckets of water. Of course, a great part of the bathroom was ruined. My mother really got mad about this one. She told me that this was the last straw, that she had called the police, and that I was to go back in my room and wait for them. For the first time, I was really scared as hell. I actually thought the police were coming. I envisioned a motorcycle coming; figured they wouldn't waste a whole squad car on a small entity like myself. I could hear the newsboy screaming the headlines: "Extra! Extra! Read all about it. Cops Nab Child Fire Fiend After Mother Squeals!"

After several bullet-sweating hours of imagining what terrible fate would befall me in Alcatraz Junior State Prison for the Criminally Spoiled, my mother admitted that she had not called the police, but that I would have to stay in my room (after it was thoroughly searched for matches) all of the next day. And this I did, while my mother trudged up and down the stairs for 24 hours bringing me food, ice cream, comic books, toys and other mixed messages. I would live to strike again.

My fire dabbling exploits resumed in about a week and continued uneventfully until one day, while playing by myself under a friend's house, I serendipitously came upon a book of matches. The ground beneath the house and most of the yard was covered with dead, dry grass. Discovering that I could not extinguish the initial flames, and recalling the unfortunate ramifications of my bathroom fire decision, I suddenly realized that besides admitting my guilt or just ignoring the dilemma, there was a third option: There was a family next door with three children. I could blame it on them. Even better, they looked like the kind of kids would get into mischief; they all had reddish hair and reckless and just had that sort of "I dare you to knock that chip off my shoulder" demeanor. My reputation among my mother's friends was, of course, pristine—she had never told them of my pyromaniacal leanings. I briefly cursed myself for not blaming the first fire on Al, or my cousin, Jimmy. Now I had the perfect plan.

And it was. I ran up the steps and, with an expression of feigned horror, informed the adults that the Gerbilhead kids had set the yard on fire. The fire department was summoned immediately, the fire was put out, the Gerbilhead children were accused, found guilty by their father, who was a strict disciplinarian, and I feel sure a terrible punishment was meted out. My mother asked me if I had done it and I, of course, denied it emphatically, underscoring that I had definitely learned my lesson in the charred bathroom escapade and that I was cured—hadn't touched a match since then. I always wondered if she really believed me.

The Gerbilhead kids never knew who I was or what I looked like. They only knew some weasely little low-life had framed them. Even so, I made an effort to avoid them. Actually this incident did finally cure me of my fascination with flames, because I didn't want to ever draw attention to myself again. In fact, since that time I have eschewed fire-related activities at all costs: 1) I turn down all invitations to cookouts; 2) I avoid smokers and did long before it was "in" to do so; 3) I do not enter rooms with fireplaces in use; 4) I have had unlit candles on my cake since my seventh birthday.

I also live in constant fear that the Gerbilheads will one day find me and release 43 years of pent-up rage upon my belatedly repentant soul. I will be in the check-out line in the Piggly Wiggly one day when one of the brothers will recognize me: "It's him, by God, it's him." I imagine he'll throw me up against the cash register (these Gerbilheads are huge people). "Sis, you call Billy and tell him he's caught; tell him to bring the rope. We've waited 43 years for this."

I mean, I have experienced a catharsis since then. But, no matter what they do, it would be no more than I deserve.

National Nirvana: The End of Politics

November 1998
National Nirvana: The End of Politics
By Bob Coskrey

I think Bill Clinton is getting what he deserves. He’s lied to his family, his friends, his advisors, his cabinet members, the Congress, his lawyers (although maybe he should get points for that), as well as to all of the citizens of this country. And as his lack of moral character becomes more and more obvious, as there is more disgust displayed by the general public, the legislators of both parties are joining in expressing their moral outrage. They are appalled at this ethical deviate’s behavior: philandering, lying, possibly illegal real estate deals, and fund-raising, abuse of power, obstruction of justice, and on and on. This man cannot be trusted by anyone. He’s plainly not fit to serve burgers and friends, much less this nation.

If hypocrisy emitted the odor of five day old decaying fish, we could all be, en masse, barfing into our TV trays. These people, these moralizing morons we call legislators, are all posturing, duplicitous, sleazebags.

Politics, unfortunately, attracts certain kinds of people with distinctive personality traits, just as other vocations do, only politics seems to attract the absolutely worst kinds, specifically, the megalomaniacal, narcissistic, power-hungry, shallow, tauras-defecating, mendacious, but often charming types, who in their worst manifestations are sociopaths like Clinton, who not only misuse their positions and the people they represent, but do so with an air of clinical indifference, even cheerfulness, at times, in our President’s case, because they are bereft of a conscience.

Now please don’t start yelling that you know or are related to this or that person who’s a politician of impeccable motives and goals. I can think of a few people like that myself. It’s easy to—I could list them in 10 seconds. In essence, there are not enough of these nice guys to make a difference.

Some optimistic people say these insidious incumbents are just formerly honest citizens who are corrupted after they dive into the cesspool of politics. This is the al, not the reel, world. Jimmy Stewart is dead and there won’t be any more of Mr. Smith going to Washington—or Columbia, for that matter.

I think these people have a personality disorder, whose symptoms I have already described and the mental health professionals need to make room for it in their manual of diagnoses: Politicopathic Personality Disorder. You usually start noticing these people in high school. They are the one who run for Student Council and Class Officers.

They want total power and control, as well as all the attention. They do anything to achieve power, and even more to maintain it, behavior that expands to more extraordinary, sometimes illegal levels in their adult lives. In fact, there will come a post-scholastic time when these “movers and shakers” will stand at a vast precipice and decide whether to leap into the immediately gratifying world of crime for the long term rewarding vocation of politics, the world of legitimate crime. Some of the more gifted choose both.

And why people can’t see through some of these people totally baffles me. I hate to say it, but some of us must not be too bright—and I’m indulging in self-criticism by saying this, because I’ve voted for some of them myself on occasion.

Just look at the political commercials. They must really think we’re stumbling around with drool-baskets hanging around our necks. They are extremely insulting—even to those of us with drool-buckets.

A Yuppy looking guy in a rolled-up long sleeve white Oxford cloth shirt, with the tie pulled loose, walking down a dock with his son being carried on his shoulders, and holding his daughter’s hand, while his fashionably coiffed wife walks closely beside him, gazing adoringly up at him, and their faithful Black Labrador Retriever, with a red bandana tied around its neck, gallops loyally alongside.

Of course, in these parts, you will hear a God-like voice-over intoning the victory-clenching buzzwords of “Conservative,” “family values,” “Christian,” and “no taxes,” while in other sections of the country the words will differ depending on the majority of the voters’ political inclinations (see “polling” later in this article).

I don’t want to gloss over the importance of the shirt in the commercial being white and being long sleeved and rolled up, since the former denotes purity and the later along with the tie being askew, gives us the undeniable message that this man is at work for his fortunate constituents twenty-four hours a day. But he, just the same, finds time to rush home to be with his beloved family for brief moments. He has no time to change clothes, because like a courageous “Minuteman,” he must be ready to dash back to his undersized office to protect his innocent constituents from the onslaught of all that is evil.

PUH-LEEZE! Why should we believe that these disreputable dirtballs treat their families any differently than they do anyone else? Pure, unadulterated mythology. I will, however, concede that some good may actually result—accidentally—from these ads, since they do, after all, force these politicopaths to spend at least the time it took to pose for the shot, with their families (maybe even an hour at time, if there were multiple takes), before they rushed off to some self-serving, power aggrandizing event, or cigar catalyzed liaison.

Then, of course, there’s the “negative campaigning,” multi-media mudslinging. The conservative’s a “racist,” the liberal played golf with Clinton (they’re more likely to play with O.J. now).

I assume they’re all creeps anyway, so from my perspective, this is wasted air time.

Ideally, we’d like to hear meaningful platforms of plans and ideas, noteworthy accomplishments, but then all this rough-hewn forthrightness is stained with the patina of fakery, so unless we’re addicted to pointless rhetoric, we’re just wasting our time, as well as the airwaves.

Although these Shock-Jerk charlatans of the media love to pontificate electronically, they still, incredibly enough, enjoy going out and “working the crowds,” “pressing the flesh” (Clinton, of course, has evolved beyond most in this latter practice), grasping ever hand in site, while beaming beatifically. They stand outside plants and inside malls shaking hands with total strangers (and destined to remain so post election day), and mouthing insincere compliments and platitudes: “What a beautiful child,” “I will cut your taxes,” “I am for family values,” “I will reduce welfare,” I am pro-choice. Catholic are you? I mean, I’m pro-life, my mistake,” “I’m for the working man,” “I want to put God back into our schools. Oh, you believe in a separation of church and state? Well, so do I. I was speaking figuratively, you know, like putting the fear of God back into the schools, but not religion itself—no sire, strict separation, that’s where I stand. See ya at the polls.”

Again, this is a big waste of time for us voters, not to mention the fact that I’m a little squeamish about actually touching these people’s hands, considering where they’ve been. What they need is just a blanket one-size-fits-all platform. “I am for whatever will get me elected, and once in office I will be for whatever keeps me there. This may or may not benefit you, but I can assure you my opponent feels exactly the same way, so you might as well vote for me since at least, for this ‘brief shining moment,’ I was honest with you.”

God Bless America!

One other thing that these special people do truly astounds me: Kissing babies. But even more amazing is the fact that the babies’ parents let this grisly practice happen. Knowing that most of these libido-lubricated lotharios, like our lecherous leader, are humping and groping anything with a pulse rate, with the only criterion being “to stay within the species,” why would anyone allow their lips to touch those of innocent, healthy children.

It appears that we voters, in cooperating, admiring, even apotheosizing these demented demigods, may actually be enablers who are almost as sick as they are.

With the ascendance of the importance of polling in the political system, the politicopaths simply have one more weapon to add to their arsenal of treachery. Now all anyone will need to assure him or herself victory is access to an accurate polling organization. You simply poll everybody in your voting district, find out what their opinions are about all the issues and then that becomes your can’t-lose platform. Every few months or so, and again at election time, you take your polls again. You’re married to your incumbency, till term limitation do you part.

What’s so fascinating, and at the same time infuriating, about these politicopaths is that, although some of them are clever enough to be convincing and believable, most of them are so very transparently disingenuous and smarmy as for example, our President with his tears-on-command and well rehearsed lip-biting. Closer to home is our Havolinish governor, whom we could very easily picture drawling with a well-oiled smile, “What do I need to do to have your drive this car off the lot today?”

The really bad news is if I’m correct in my theory that these guys do have politicopathic personality disorders, there’s not much that can be changed behaviorally, since personality disorders don’t respond well to treatment.

Therefore, I am making the following recommendation:

Anyone wanting to run for office must have a psychological evaluation. Also, all currently elected office holders will have one. If my theory is correct—and I’m very confident that it is—the following could be done:

A. Appoint independent counsels to investigate all of them (city, county, state, and federal, for the purpose of disclosing everything these people have done that’s immoral or illegal since their 21st birthday). As a result, I predict the following consequences: 1) Mass resignations, withdrawals from races, and no filings for races; 2) All tax lawyers will become multimillionaires and have more business than they can possibly handle; 3) There will be a national blackout caused by dry cleaners working overtime to remove stains from clothing.

B. Get rid of any incumbents who are attorneys and make that profession a disqualification for running for elected office.

(A and B will result in virtually no one left in office.)

C. All elected officials are replaced by computers which can be programmed periodically with local, state and nation polling results and governmental decisions can simply be made based on how the majority of the people feel about the issues. No more costly, boring elections. The entire job of seeing that governments operate can be accomplished by a bunch of computer nerds, who despite being geeky and, socially maladjusted, are for the most part, totally committed (to computers) un-controlling and non-abusing people (I have done research; I saw “Revenge of the Nerds” I, II, and III). Maybe we could appoint someone like Bill Gates as the Chief Computercrat with Al Gore as the Vice Programmer, since he has always bragged about knowing so much about technology, not to mention that he actually behaves like a computer anyway. Never mind. I forgot he’s an attorney.

Gates can do it all himself. Hail to the Geek!

Mt. Pleasant Town Council Meeting: An Awakening Experience

October 1997

Mt. Pleasant Town Council Meeting: An Awakening Experience
By Bob Coskrey

My first Mt. Pleasant Town Council meeting was more edifying than entertaining. And that is the way it is supposed to be, I guess. Having seen City of North Charleston Council meetings on television, however, I had, perhaps, set the amusement bar a bit too high. There were no shootings, fisticuffs, threats, or arrests. Everyone—council and public—was well dressed, well groomed, and civil. No polyester suits, tank tops, Hawaiian war helmet coifs, or vile invective. No toothless 300 pound marquises of manufactured housing railed against lawn flamingo limits, nor did Mayer Cheryl Woods-Flowers charge anyone with murdering her Vietnamese pot-bellied pig. Of course, this mayor down’ own such an animal, but even if she did, the community of Mt. Pleasant is so, uh, pleasant, that the little porker could stroll through Melvin Bessinger’s Barbecue Restaurant with impunity.

There appeared to be about 50 citizens in attendance and about 20 of those came from a Boy Scout troop and its adult leaders. Some of the audience left when the Mayor announced that there would no longer be a time period set aside for public comments, because this format often did not leave the council with sufficient time to complete its agenda.

Had this period of spontaneous interaction between constituents and council been allowed to continue, I feel the environment probably would have been somewhat livelier, perhaps even action-packed, though never on so colorful a level as North Charleston’s.

Suddenly, I found myself standing and speaking in a strong but decorous tone (I am a Mt. Pleasant resident after all):

“Madam Mayor and honorable members of the council, I would like to announce that I will soon be applying for a permit to open an adult book and video store in the Village of Mt. Pleasant.” (The mayor and her council members all started at me, mouths agape, several people around me got up quietly and moved, and the officer at the doorway dropped his hand down toward his holster.) “Now I know your reactions may possibly be negative, but please, hear me out first.”

Mayor Woods-Flowers (after a brief aside with the town attorney): “Please continue, Mr…?”

Me: “Coskrey, Bob Coskrey. I’m a writer.”

Mayor: “A writer. Well that explains a lot.” (All council members make sideways glances and chuckle to themselves.)

Me: (Continuing) “For too long, your honor, when it comes to pornography—adult, of course—upscale people have been getting the short end of the stick, so to speak. Adult bookstores are always zoned for rundown areas, since it is wrongly assumed that the upper classes are appalled and offended by such vile stuff. This is stereotypical thinking at its worst. The gentry have their baser needs just like the Great Unwashed.

So it’s my intention to give these misunderstood, frustrated, and sexually deprived citizens their opportunity to smash the myth of upscale uptightism and (voice rising) join us in our freestyle race through the lake of lechery.”

Mayor Woods-Flowers (with a stony stare): “You, sir, are a prime example, though given an exaggerated one, of why we canceled the public comment forum. As for your proposal to put a sex shop in our town’s most historic and beautiful area, you must be totally demented.

Your permit request is denied. However, there is one way you can help our community and I am going to give you this opportunity to do it.
The Village, although it has natural beauty, wholesome citizens and every other amenity a community could need or want, lacks one thing that every village should have, and ‘m very happy that you have reminded me of it. Our village doesn’t and an Idiot, Mr. Coskrey.

Therefore, I am sentencing you to 30 days of community service which you will fulfill by dressing up in an appropriately idiotic costume and wandering through the village. You will be allowed only to say, “Hello, my name is Bob Coskrey. I’m the Village Idiot.

Good luck. Officer, arrest him!”

As the officer and several giggling boy scouts dragged my screaming out of my seat, I woke up the janitor tapping me on the shoulder:

“Mister, the meeting ended 30 minutes ago. I have to lock up.”

They really need to reinstate those public comment forums. However, in the meantime, I have slept though all the annexations, rezoning and impact assessment revisions, and now have nothing to report. I am an idiot—think I’ll go take a walk in the village.

Palermo Festival U.S.A.

May 1999
Palermo Festival U.S.A.
(Or Menotti Was Great But He’s No Joe Pesci)
By Bob Coskrey

Although the Spoleto Festival USA is probably the greatest thing to happen to Charleston since the creation of the she-crab soup, with the possible exception of the legalization of beer purchasing on Sundays, every year there seems to be torturous financial struggle to prevent it from sinking into the Red Sea of insolvency.

Last week, as my wife and I were watching one of her favorite movies, “Godfather II,” on video, the answer to Spoleto’s chronic economic crisis exploded in my brain like a hollow-nosed bullet: A Mafia sponsored Spoleto. Financial security ad vinitum—or at least as long as La Cosa Nostra is around.

We may need to rename it to Sicily Festival, or since we must be associated with a sister city, it might take on the appellation of the Palermo Festival, after the island’s largest city. But what do we care what it’s called, as long as we can keep the thing going?

Once the “Family” got involved in soliciting contributions, believe me, the festival’s coffers would always be full, plus with “family values” being the buzz word of the 90s, who would risk the stigma of refusing to give to “family”?

But even if this psychology failed the festival could still rely on the Mafia’s signature assertiveness—face to face, fist to face, and foot to groin techniques that have withstood the test of time, not to mention the FBI. But even if this proves insufficient, a new, more culture-oriented fund-raising method, “Persuasive Art,” could be employed:

1. Living Sculpture: In a tribute to motion pictures, contributors will have their hands imprinted in cement, while non-contributors will have their feet encased in cement and become participants in living (briefly) statue displays at the bottom of the Cooper River.
2. Site Horrific Art: Non-contributors’ machine gun riddled vehicles will be on display at Brittle Bank Park, sometimes with similarly air-conditioned cadavers at the wheel.
3. Splatter Platter Art: Potential contributors seated at a banquet table will make bids while a baseball bat artist stands behind them d swings away at the lowest bidder.
4. Life Imitating Art: In an involuntary art identification contest, non-contributors who are unable to pick out the real Van Gogh painting from a group of imitators have one of their ears lopped off.
5. Abstract Expressive Merchandise Redecoration: Selected non-contributing business will have their products rearranged, reshaped, recolorized or possibly undergo heat-induced molecular transformation by gangs of uninhibited mesomorphic artisans.

The Piccolo Palermo Festival for children will feature non-contributors as lingually deprived (recipients of tonguectomies) mimes and Mafia trained accountants juggling books. For those precocious little future Mafiosi, there will be coin-operated, play money-laundering machines.

With a guaranteed economic success now equal to its artistic achievements, the festival and the entire community will undoubtedly prosper, in particular, the funeral and medical segments, especially those physicians specializing in facial reconstruction and kneecap repair.

Just as Gian Menotti was the father of the Spoleto Festival, there will need to be a Godfather of the Palermo Festival, but since the La Cosa Nostra leadership are inclined to perform their deeds anonymously, I feel the most sensible approach would be to simply name an honorary Godfather each year.

My recommendation for the initial Godfather would be Joe (You think I’m funny or somethin’?”) Pesci, who I predict will lead off the family lineup with a home run. If you’re foolish enough to be a non-contributor, I strongly suggest that you stay out of the strike zone, with incidentally is the height and width of an average human head.

Top 15 Most Frequently Overheard Tourist Comments About Charleston

1. Unless you've got a couple of hours to spare, don't mention "Hugo" to any of these people.

2. We want to tour the Citadel campus. Should we arm ourselves?

3. The first thing I want to see is that finishing school for transsexuals, Gordon Langley Hall.

4. Most Polite City in America, my ass! Some 80-year-old Scarlett O'Horror just told me I'd soon be needing some emergency proctological surgery if I took one more picture of her cupola.

5. Sure I've heard of the Spoleto Festival. When do they start blooming? And how many does it take to make an average float?

6. I hear if you give a Charlestonian a word association test, the term "booze-hound" 90% of the time elicits the response: "Episcopalian."

7. This is a city completely devoid of rats. I understand the roaches chased them away.

8. Tourist #1: Some sections of it remind me of Sweden.
Tourist #2: A liberal attitude toward sex?
Tourist #3: No, Volvos everywhere.

9. I heard that inbreeding was once so bad among some of the old Charleston families that when a kid was teasingly called "four-eyes" by his peers, he many not necessarily have been wearing glasses.

10. Did you know that some of these old building are pre-Strom Thurmond?

11. I heard they had to postpone the repair work on the old Cooper River Bridge for a week, when shipment of Crazy Glue was lost.

12. A mixed marriage here is when a Charlestonian marries someone from North Charleston.

13. We're just staying one day. My parking meter expense loan was denied.

14. I don't care how great they say it is, I'm not eating any of that she-crab soup.

15. I know it sounds crazy, but every once in a while, I get an urge to just sort of wander down the middle of the street like I was in Disney World or something.

I’m Pop Top the Sailor Man

June 1999
I’m Pop Top the Sailor Man
By Bob Coskrey

During the period between 1958 and 1976, I did a good bit of sailing, and I mean a good bit of sailing compared only to what I’ve done since then—one totally forgettable outing about five years ago. And I am using the world “sailing” in the most speciously crafted of Clintonese. To actually put it in a nauticoid’s language, you would say that I “crewed,” or maybe even more accurately, “crewed up.”

Well, let’s stop jibing around the buoy. I have never owned a boat of any kind, much less a sailboat, in my entire life, I used to sail with a good friend of mine in his small (11’) Frostbite Dinghy, and my major job, the sole function and focus of my ephemeral maritime existence, was to open beer cans for my friend while he did the sailing, and considering his unquenchable appetite for that beverage, this was no titular job. I was not allowed the luxury of sitting there like some beer-sucking barnacle, while he maneuvered and negotiated the boat; I had to make sure no more than a few seconds had lapsed from the time he flipped his empty beer can into the bilge till I placed another cold one in his thirty, trembling hand (I exaggerated a bit with the “trembling”).

This friend whose identity I will protect with the initials, C.C. (“Captain Courageous”), was descended from a long and briny bloodline of super sailors, and he would set out to sea regardless of the weather. I opted to crew with him only when I felt there was a reasonable likelihood we would be returning, which, in retrospect, considering the vast quantities of beer we consumed, was probably never.

There was in addition to us another crew member who faithfully accompanied us on all of our excursions, a huge Igloo brand cooler, filled to the brim with sudsy sustenance. This was one of those cylindrical shaped industrial type metal coolers, that you normally saw on construction sites in those days, and we lugged it not only into the b, but to practically any social event that we attended that would allow is unprepossessing presence. Completely stocked, it must have weighed 60-70 pounds and may possibly have been the cause of the ruptured disc that I now carry in my back. The difference in C.C.’s height (four feet, eleven inches) and mine (five feet, eleven inches) resulted in a lopsided distribution of weight in my direction. My only regret is that I had but one back to give for my Country (Club Malt Liquor).

Every once in a while, when C.C. had guzzled down sufficient courage, he would let me handle the mainsheet, which is the rope used to trim the mainsail (by Neptune’s beard, I remembered) or the helm. I guess he felt it was a good idea to have me trained just in case during the precarious times when we turned around (“came about” or “jibed”) or when nature beckoned him to stand at the bow like some obscene bowsprit becoming one with the sea, I could handle the boat and maybe even save him if he were thrown into the churning depths.

Little did he know, had catastrophe ever tested my feckless skills, he would be sleeping in Davy Jones’ this very day. We actually sailed in a few regattas, though obviously no one, including ourselves, ever took us very seriously. However, had there been someone creative enough to have come up with a specific race designed to gauge a combination of sailing and drinking prowess, perhaps tilting our division the Swillboat class, we most certainly would have garnered a mantel piece jammed with trophies. But we achieved no (favorable) recognition for our efforts, only the personal gratification of varying levels of male bonding and mead-manufactured treatment.

Even when C.C. and I returned to begin our nocturnal landlubbing exploits, glassy-eyed and premelanomically tanned, our good times continued, as we “sailed” blithely through bars and parties, at rare times, even graced with female accompaniment, if the planets were agreeably aligned.

This formula pretty much always worked for us: a day at sea with the well-stocked Igloo and the Frostbite dinghy followed by a rip-roaring good time on terra not always so firma.

Except for this one time, when just for variety’s sake, after 10 or 12 summers of “smooth sailing,” we thought we could just this once, change one of the ingredients. Why not? What could it possibly hurt? This time, instead of beer, P.J.; instead of the trusty Igloo, a small boxed shaped Styrofoam cooler just for this case.

P.J., in case you don’t know, stands for Purple Jesus. And I don’t want to hear any complaints from the Christian Coalition. I didn’t name the thing, but if I ventured a guess, I would say an Episcopalian probably did. Anyway, P.J. is a very powerful potable made with grain alcohol (190 proof or 95% alcohol), grape juice, and/or lemons and oranges. The brand of grain we always purchased was Everclear, which we always referred to as “Neverclear” because of its brain-scrambling side effects. The P.J. drinker was always branded ignominiously with a purple tongue, a condition which naturally always evoked derision from onlookers.

P.J. was always—in those days—mixed in a gallon Coke syrup bottle, and if measured correctly, tasted just like grape juice. By the time C.C. and I were halfway through our bottle, we began to realize that our reflexes, cognitive skills and speech had regressed much beyond the half case of beer stage, and very shortly after this, the wind and the outboard motor, perhaps affected by the P.J.’s devastating fumes, came to a sputtering halt, as well. Fortune briefly squeezed its welcome between our gloomy clouds in the form of a large yacht, whose owner towed us back to the marina despite his crew’s audible misgivings:

“My God, Jack, look at their tongues and lips. They’re P.J. people!”

To disguise our abysmal chagrin at being towed by a crass powerboat (there is a certain snobbery among sailing purists—I was a mere pretender—about powerboats) we accelerated our drinking pace. This was, to C.C., at least, like Vikings being towed into harbor by a guy on jet-skis wearing one of those big feathered Richard Petty cowboy hats.

Unluckily, this was one of those unique occasions when I actually had a date and, in fact, C.C. and I both had been invited to her graduation exercises at Ashley Hall that afternoon. Not wanting to lose our buzz (one very much akin to that of a B-52 bomber by that time), we ill advisedly continued to sip away at the P.J., only stopping long enough to shower, change clothes, and try, in vain, to remove the tell-tale purple from our faces.

At the very solemn graduation ceremony, we made complete asses of ourselves, laughing inappropriately during prayers, speeches, and the school anthem, not to mention doltish comments to my date and her family.

At the nadir of my revolting performance, I finally succumbed to my nearly total body P.J. transfusion, and, feeling queasy, loped erratically off to find a cloistered corner to release the entire contents of my stomach. I managed to sneak into a one and a half foot wide area between a building and a wall, where no one could witness God’s rightful retribution. After discharging seemingly all that I had digested for the past week in a purple hued, semi-solidified bouillabaisse of abasement, I felt a sudden urge to lie down and woke up about 2 hours later in that same spot to darkness and a caravan of ants marching across my face. Brushing myself off, I walked—much straighter than earlier—to a nearby phone booth, called C.C. at the Charleston Yacht Club, and learned that my date had found a more wholesome, reliable, and non-P.J.-afflicted escort, and that my most logical destination, at that point, was home, which was conveniently only a few blocks away. I did just that, making my first rational decision of the day.

The next day, C.C. and I vowed to never again violate our time-honored regimen of the Frostbite dinghy, the Igloo, and the beer. In fact, we cleaned and polished the Igloo and honored it with a case of Michelob the following weekend. And I can recall, even now, the sound of the first beer that I dutifully opened for my perpetually parch-throated Captain, and I smiled through faintly purplish lips, as I thought of the great times we would have that day and the final few lines of a happy little sea ditty splashed through my head: “…though my skills are diminished, I’ll pop till we’re finished, I’m Pop Top the Sailor Man. Pop! Pop!”

Marv Albert Alibis

1. He was trying out a new “One on One” sports segment. YESSS!
2. He didn’t hear the 24-second bit buzzer. YESSS!
3. He was taping one of those “Sports Blooper and Blunders” episodes. YESSS!
4. He simply “wigged out.” YESSS!
5. “Giff” did it. YESSS!
6. The woman said she was a sports doctor who specialized in groin pulls. YESSS!
7. There is a sodomy empowerment clause in his NBC contract. YESSS!
8. It was “hump day.” YESSS!
9. “Assault? More like overly aggressive hand-checking. Sodomy? I’ve seen worse things in the Knicks’ locker room.” YESSS!
10. Letterman told him to spice up his act. YESSS!
11. Genetic predisposition: he found out he is related to the Kennedys. YESSS!
12. He made her a proposition and she specifically replied, “Bite me.” YESSS!
13. They were there in the hotel room, he asked if she would like room service, and she responded, “yes.” YESSS!
14. His new false teeth and penile extension are possessed by demonic powers. YESSS!
15. He’s an honorary member of the NBA (National Biters Association). YESSS!

Family Trees

Although, admittedly, I take some enjoyment in satirizing some of the more absurd behavior of the American Shintoists, I must also confess that we do share an area of common interest—family trees.

I guess the most significant one for me was a huge mulberry in my backyard when I was a child. It's trunk had the girth of three, maybe four, John Candys (who has unknowingly, but deservedly, replaced Orson Welles as the international symbol of immenseness), and its three main branches formed a comfortable pocket in the middle of the tree, where an eight-year-old boy could sit unperturbed, far away from all the monotonous insanity of the adult world. It was white-washed up to about four feet, because my grandmother said it would keep the ants away. It did work; however, there were always little worms all over the ripened mulberries that I had to thump off before I ate a berry. Sometimes, I'd bring some mulberries home and put them in with my corn-flakes and milk. Sometimes I'd forget and leave them in my shirt pocket. Perhaps I was the unwitting inspiration for tie-dying. But most of the time, the mulberry tree served as a sort of natural hideout when I played cowboys, soldiers or pirates. It once even became a real-life sanctuary, after I, in Calvinistic fashion (the evil cartoon character kid, not the religious philosopher) blasted by friends' annoying cousin with my dirt shotgun. This weapon was a BB gun with the inner barrel removed, filled with dry, dusty dirt. I can remember how cool ("cool maybe be historically inaccurate, since it was 1948, and unless I was a jazz enthusiast , which, of course, I wasn't, I probably said something more like "nifty" or "keen") I thought it looked when I pulled the trigger and the dust could billowed out of the barrel just like in the movies. I also remember how scared I was when I realized I had actually shot someone, albeit a mere granular stinging on the legs. She, of course, complained to the parental authorities. (Yes, I shot a female, and no, I did not become a serial killer, a wife beater or a professional wrestler.) Eventually, I had to come down from the tree (I was starving and a man can't live on mulberries alone). I confess to my transgression, but I cannot even remember my punishment. My mother's discipline strategies were so mild and ineffective, that until I experienced the pain and degradation of my first year at The Citadel, I thought I was a sociopath since I had absolutely no fear of the consequences of my actions. Still, I never shot anyone else after that and have only an intractable writing style as the most salient legacy of a permissive upbringing. I enjoyed many more afternoons in the mulberry tree and even now cannot think of the house without also envisioning the tree. I sometimes feel an urge to crawl up in it in stressful times, and, in fact, checked it out a few years ago—out of nostalgic curiosity of course—only to find asphalt and cars where it had been.

My father's side of the family also had an important tree. It was an enormous chinaberry in my grandmother's back yard in the rural town of Summerton, South Carolina. It didn't have a natural sitting area in the middle of it and I wasn't able to climb very high in it. I did sample one of its berries once and found out right away why no one ever bakes chinaberry pies or puts up chinaberry preserves. Roseanne Barr coming off a five-day fast wouldn't eat one.

Unlike the mulberry, things happened under the chinaberry tree instead of in it, and they were usually of the painful growing experience variety. Two have always remained wedged tightly in my memory bank, and they both involve my grandmother's black cook, Ethel, a wonderful, ebullient person, who, because of yellowish skin, almond-shaped eyes and bowed legs, I always thought looked more Asian than African. I was about four years old and was playing with some of my toy soldiers under the tree when I noticed Ethel coming out of the chicken yard holding a chicken by the neck and a large machete-type knife in the other hand. The chicken was squawking loudly (and perhaps nervously in hindsight), when Ethel suddenly stopped and started swinging the bird about over her head like some sort of a living noise-maker. The poor creature eventually became silent, thought it did not seem dead, as Ethel placed it on a tree stump and then, without hesitation, whacked off the bird's head. I'm sure it's one of those cases of recalling a child's imagined perception of an event rather than the facts, but I can re-envision the chicken's headless body fluttering about the yard, spewing blood and feathers everywhere.

In my later years of memory delving I have recreated the Ethel under the chinaberry tree, with her Asian features, as a Samurai warrior, in full battle armor, emitting some sort of Kung Fu Theatre scream as her gleaming sword chops into the stump and the poor chicken begins its death dance. (Sometimes during late November reveries, the chicken becomes a Gamecock.)

I ate fried chicken that night at my grandmother's house, my guilt and remorse for the chicken quickly succumbing to Ethel's superlative culinary skills (more fodder for my sociopathic personality diagnosis). Ethel ate heartily, too. Perhaps we were both sociopaths.

The second impressionable event that occurred beneath the chinaberry tree, as I mentioned, also involved Ethel. Emerging from the kitchen door one day (the tree was right outside the kitchen), I noticed a grey galvanized tub (the kind people used to wash clothes in prior to washing machines. We used them mostly to put crabs in when we went crabbing) on the ground. Upon closer investigation, I discovered the tub was filled with water and swimming around in its one foot depth were three or four frightening looking fish. They had long whisker-like appendages and they, too, had a sort of oriental Fu Man Chu (Fish Man Chu?) appearance. Anyway, Ethel told me they were catfish and to stay away from them because they might hurt me. A warning from the imperial chicken executioner should have been sufficient for any five-year-old, but still I wanted to get a real close look at these things. Retribution for my disobedience was quick and semi-voluntary, as in bending over the tub too far, I lost my balance and fell face first into the vat of lethal fish. I instinctively closed my eyes and waited for the lash of poison-barbed whiskers and the tearing of flesh from my face. Instead, I only felt the powerful hands of the Samurai cook (No, I don't know if that's where John Belushi got the idea) as she yanked me, gasping, from the water. Fortunately, my mother waived her most draconian punishment—the reduction of my dessert from cake and ice cream to cake or ice cream only (I was given the choice)—conceding that the accident was punishment enough and the only untoward side effect of this happening was my new sobriquet of "Fishface."

Briefly, I pondered why Summertonians don't have glass aquariums with goldfish—like people in Charleston—but my excogitation was interrupted by Ethel once more as she deftly grabbed each wiggling fish out of the water, flopped him on a picnic table and whacked off his neckless head. Just as with the luckless chicken, their crispy remains appeared on our plates that night. Ethel and I again ate every morsel—remorselessly. The chinaberry tree is still there. Ethel isn't, but I still cannot think of one without imagining the other. I don't really understand the significance of my family trees and the interconnected human phenomenon—I'll leave that to my analyst, or even more properly, my psychogeneologist, but then I'd have to be completely deranged to go to a psychogeneologist—Does anyone know a good one? I can only assert that they are important landmarks in my life.

But now that I have revealed this erstwhile latent fixation with my ancestral arbors, Middletons, Rutledges, Pringles and others of their illustrious ilk can be assured (or as Hans and Franz would say, "Hear me now and believe me later") that I will never cast rebuke upon theirs.

The Days of Pabst and Hoses (Part 2)

“As we walk from Big John’s south on Market toward State Street, this is the route that the previously mentioned A.O.H. was pulled home by his friends in a child’s red Radio Flyer wagon because he was too besotted to walk or even crawl, for that matter, and all of his friends were equally incapable of operating their vehicles, motor or otherwise. Here are the corner of State and Linguard Alley on July 18, 1964, was where the wagon overturned when the pullers became overzealous pushers in order to allow the falsely confident A.O.H. to steer himself. There were no injuries, of course, since, as we all know by now, God, with his Almighty sense of ironic humor, always enables people in chemically mind altered states to escape personal harm even in the most disastrous of situations.”

“Here, ladies and gentlemen—okay, let’s finish those beers, some of you are not keeping up—where this gift shop is now located (southwest Market between State and Church) was the infamous Owl Club, where it was so dark, roaches would knock themselves unconscious walking into furniture, and a guy named Willie Cheek (or Willie Cheeks as my friend J.T. referred to him in private) played piano till slivers of slowing invading sunlight sent his single-digit audiences (I’m not talking about their finger count, by the way) scampering into the club’s deeper depths like vodkarized vampires. It was here on October 28, 1962, that this same J.T., after a long day of Falstaff (another popular beer in those days), Penrose sausage, pickled eggs, boiled peanuts and pig’s feet, released a belch of such seismic intensity that the pages of the calendar behind the bar fluttered like time was passing in one of those old movies, a bottle of Rebel Yell toppled off the shelf, and neighborhood dogs began to howl as if to warn us of some impending natural disaster.”

“Here on the other side of Market, is where the ‘real’ Henry’s used to be, an actual restaurant. It was in the muted light of one of the tattered bar booths on December 22, 1961, that M.J. received a B.J. from C.J., with the former all the while munching on celery sticks with cream cheese and, although the entrée, wahoo with grits, was excellent, according to M.J., it was decidedly anticlimactic.”

“Here, ladies and gentlemen—come on, there’s another case under the cooler—where this boutique now stands (north side of South Market) was the Carriage House, a nightclub that featured a singer named Juanita Champion, a dwarf M.C., on legitimate dancer, who should have been a Rockette (F.S.), and, most important in those days (and these too, I guess) a bevy of strippers. Everyone usually ended up there around 1 or 2 a.m. or whenever their alcohol levels had reached the saturation point. It was always the last stop just before the Goodie House (now a Starbucks), where we would gorge ourselves with scrambled eggs, bacon and toast, often losing the entire meal, frequently intact and undigested moments later. In fact, if someone had opened up a pay vomitorium next door, they could have retired early. It was on one such night at the Carriage House (August 11, 1964), that C.R., his surging hormones whipped to a frothy frenzy by the sight of the ecdysiast’s undulating body, lunged puma-like (if you can imagine a drunk puma) from his table and sunk his teeth into her sumptuous bottom. An extremely intolerant Mafioso-looking bouncer, fearing he had only seen the very tip of a very crude and lascivious iceberg, convinced us that we would all be better off if we left the premises right away. And we did.”

Believe me, there were a myriad of others who played significant roles in maintaining and promoting the bon temps spirit of the Market Street area and, if you go on my tour, you will find out about them. Incidentally, there will be an announcement about the start of the tour, as soon as I get permission to use the actual names of these id-driven icons and have the plaques made. I may also be looking for some re-enactors, so if any of you would be willing to do some of the tings mentioned here (although the scene at Henry’s might have to be done in North Charleston) plus a few feats involving bodily functions not referred to, give me a call. Hey, it’s a good deal, since you’ll just be getting paid for some stuff that’s probably no worse than what you normally do when you get loaded. “Jackass” fans are more than welcome.

The Days of Pabst and Hoses (Part 1)

The Market Street Area 2001: A churning enclave of high-end restaurants, bars and clubs, some featuring bands and dance floors, even a couple of comedy rooms, all teeming with hordes of tourists, yuppies and college students swept along by a roiling rover of booze.

The Market Street Area 1961: Dimly lit blocks of typical waterfront bars, strip bars, seedy grills redolent of stale Pabst Blue ribbon and Lucky Strikes, and several borderline rundown but excellent restaurants, enlivened with noisy but sparse clumps of sailors and local hedonists, the latter group composed of college students and Charleston street characters. Not a tourist in sight, except for the aforementioned, involuntary, uninformed kind. The eternal river of booze being the only time-defying constant.

Charleston has come a long way in 40 years. We’re not only nationally but world famous now, with an important art festival, trendy rock bands, and scores of great restaurants, many with chefs trained in New York or Paris. The Market Area is bustling with expensive boutiques and frenetic flea marketers, selling everything from 13 bean soup and Charleston t-shirts to jewelry to money laden tourists making purchase-passes like schools of blood-frenzied sharks. A perpetual flotilla of carriages pulled by sagging horses, wistfully dreaming of a sylvan pasture or even a glue factory as a merciful end to their drudgery, are driven by yammering tour guides, who obviously have daily competitions to see who can carry the most people weighing in at over 300 lbs. (I’ve seen the scales.)

I walk down Market Street, deftly weaving my way like a knifeless OJ through herds of flip-flop-shod strangers, whose apparent rallying cry is: “It’s spring time in Charleston, let the Cellulite and Body Hair Festival officially begin!” As a psychological defense mechanism, my mind flashes back to the good old days of the 60s and, in the midst of my refreshing reverie, I had an epiphany: Had it not been for some of the hardy, hard drinking pioneers of the 60s, myself immodestly included, all these people would not be reveling in this Mecca of Mirth and prosperity. Had we not dedicated our precious nights to the relentless pursuit of pleasure, at times sacrificing our health, even our lives in some cases, for the glory of Bacchus, the Market Street Area, as we know it today, would not exist. Had we not persevered and allowed the spirit of hedonism to be snuffed out, this part of town today would probably be nothing but condos and office complexes, with the only entertainment related edifice being a joggling board factory.

What a shame, I thought, that these brave but bibulous champions and their immeasurable contributions have been forgotten. Then, suddenly, I had an idea: I will start my own personalized tour of the Market Street Area and point out the sites where some of these profligate pacesetters made their marks.

Me, addressing a group of about 15 tourists on the corner of Pinckney and East Bay streets. I’m dressed in my 1960s uniform, which since I dress somewhat traditionally, is the same way I dress now. Currently, it’s called “preppy.” Then it was “Ivy League.” Please refrain from drawing any socio-economic conclusions. They would be wrong.

“I would like to tell you about this tour, ‘Charleston in the 60s – The Days of Pabst and Hoses.’ Pabst refers to the most popular beer at that time, Pabst Blue Ribbon, and hoses refers to the practice of one of the local taverns of bringing out hoses, as a last desperate measure, to force out the final diehard group of unruly inebriates. You will not that I have a large cooler sitting in a small wagon, which I will be pulling along. It’s filled with Pabst, which, for purposes of getting you into the mood of that era, you will be required to drink as we walk along. If a cop comes by, stick the can in your pants, shirt of pocketbook, an act which will also immerse you more into the 60s zeitgeist. Please also be aware that you should try to maintain a two-beers-per-block average.”

“We are starting on this particular corner because of its proximity to the most fabled night spot of that time, Big John’s Tavern, which is coincidentally where all the hosing incidents took place, the most memorable of which happened on May 24, 1961, when A.O.H., R.H., H.A., none of whom weighed over 130 lbs., were sent careening and sliding out onto Pinckney Street, each of whom through some sort of alcohol induced gyroscopic skill, was able to hold onto his beer without even spilling it.”
“You will note that since I have not yet received permission to use individual’s names, I am only giving initials. Once I convince them, their families, or, in some cases, their estates, that the purpose of this tour is to honor, not disparage, plaques will be erected at the various sites.”

“Now, if you will follow me, we’ll step inside John’s for a moment. There at the far left of the bar is where Big John Canady, the establishment’s proprietor, would sit on his stool, flipping his cans, as he finished them, into a large metal garbage can at the opposite end of the bar—a distance of about 25 feet. On August 15, 1963, he nonchalantly tossed in a record 58 without a miss over a 9 hour span.”

“And over here, if you will just step into the men’s room, is the Harold Rhea Memorial Urinal. Harold was one of John’s most popular bartenders. For reasons beyond my comprehension, John always kept an enormous block of ice in the urinal, but the unofficial purpose for the ice eventually became a very many game, to s who could be the first one to empty his beer-distended bladder with such velocity that the block would break in half. And in order to improve one’s chances, you would try to wait till the last, most dangerous minute before you would fire away. Perhaps I should also clarify that the ice could only be broken at the center, where the reigning champion would ceremoniously make his indentation when the ice was set in place. In actuality, of course, the winner was determined by simply being in the right place at the right time and the initial blasts were always inconsequential with secondary effects of splattery and embarrassing trouser stainage. The winner would always emerge with his fist raised, shouting, “Ice break! Ice break!” It was rare that more than two blocks were ever broken in one night, and only once did the same individual do it more than once, that being myself on July 12, 1962, when I accomplished an actual trifecta. Unfortunately, there is an asterisk attached to this feat, since I arrived at John’s around 10 a.m. that day and didn’t leave till 4 p.m. the next. Incidentally, if you’re wondering if anyone was ever tempted to cheat, the answer is yes, once, on January 3, 1961, when W.A. was discovered kicking the block with his foot. He was summarily banished from John’s for life.”

“Just as an interesting sidebar, you might be interested in knowing that because of the energizing effect the ice breaking celebration had on patrons, the common phrase, “Breaking the ice,” was consequently created.”

Merge Urge

March 1999
Merge Urge
By Bob Coskrey

The recent brief debate between Senator Arthur Ravenel and novelist and Citadel Lover/Hater, Pat Conroy, found me on Conroy’s side: The Citadel is a military college and it should keep its identity, for better or worse.

But as I thought about the situation more, I started to slowly change my mind. Actually, both institutions could benefit from this merger of these very disparate entities, as follows:

1. The Citadel: Alternate Fridays tie dye dress parades will improve morale.

C of C: Saturday morning bong and stash inspections will result in fewer bronchial ailments.

2. The Citadel: Attending Poetry Slam at horse and Cart Café will acquaint cadets with poets other than Kipling.

C of C: Spit-shined sandals can only improve college’s image.

3. The Citadel: Graduates will be able to wear “The Ring” in their noses, as well as other nontraditional places.

C of C: Firing the cannon whenever a non-athlete scores will become a much beloved rite of maturity.

4. The Citadel: Summerall Guards can change name to more appropriate Ravenel Rifles.

C of C: Combination of Citadel blue with C of C maroon will put all athletes on “Mr. Blackwell’s Worst Dressed List.”

5. The Citadel: Saluting with the peace sign on John Lennon’s birthday will be groovy.

C of C: Guys giving other guys shirt-tucks will lead to togetherness, and in some cases, perhaps, result in Kerry Springer Show appearances.

6. The Citadel: Hippie dudes on corner of King and Burns Lane will extend “brother” handshakes.

C of C: Shako pom-poms will become popular items in girls’ dormitories.

7. The Citadel: Sentry duty at Music Farm not a bad gig.

C of C: Old Citadel “Save the males” decals can easily be used by gay student union with addition “for us” suffix.

8. The Citadel: Bulldog basketball team will eliminate one sure loss each year.

C of C: Cougar basketball team may be able to add another “loser” to schedule in the form of USC.

9. The Citadel: According to many C of C fraternity regulations, ordering a bra-less t-shirted freshman coed to run in place is not considered hazing.

C of C: You can hide four cans of beer under one of those shakos.

10. The Citadel: Finally, a good chance to get rid of those damned annoying bagpipes.

C of C: Some students will be ecstatic about what exactly made those “hash” marks on the football field.

Unfortunately, the merger idea has already been shot down, since I write this, and the chances of it being resurrected are about as good as Senator Ravenel’s promoting William Tecumseh Sherman’s birthday as a state holiday or Mr. Conroy fitting one leg into his old cadet uniform.

But I’m confident that if one or two of the “right people” read this article—and Bill Macchio insists that they do—then maybe the merger idea will pop up again.

Changes I Would Like to See at the IRS

April 1998
Changes I Would Like to See at the IRS
By Bob Coskrey


1. Every leap year, taxes can be paid with Monopoly Money.
2. You will be able to claim the government—federal, state, and local, as a dependant.
3. Investigation of a new sub-category of these tax-dodgers, who get “paid under the table,” the ones such as Monica Lewinsky, who got “paid under the desk.”
4. Implementation of a gas tax on those who dine in Mexican restaurants more than once a week.
5. A special accommodations tax for elected officials whose egos are so enormous that they require extra office space.
6. Implementation of an oxygen consumption tax for individuals such as Carl Mauldin and Howard Stern, whose noses occupy more than 1/3 of their face space.
7. A gradually increasing “annoyance tax” on those public figures whose “annoyance quotient” continue to expand exponentially (e.g. Robin Leach, Cathy Lee, Jessie Helms, the Carvilles, etc.)
8. A 100% income tax on Elvis impersonators (for obvious reasons).
9. In the male customer friendly category, the inclusion of a centerfold in the 1040 long form instructional booklet, entitled “the Girls of the IRS” a fold-out of 10 bounteous female employees with 40” plus measurements.
10. Just do away with the whole damned system. It’s all extremely taxing.

Bill's letter to Santa

December 1998
Bill’s Letter to Santa
By Bob Coskrey

Dear Santa,

I’m writing you because you’re the only one who won’t go public with this information. Everyone else is just itching to get even with me for telling all those lies and I know I haven’t been a particularly good boy this year, with getting my Yule Log decorated by my own special little helper, Monica, but I only did that a few times, and now I’m ready to try to be good—from now on, although I don’t mind admitting to you it’s going to be very, very hard, if you get my drift.

Believe me (somebody?), I’ve tried everything: Ice packs in my shorts; emergency anti-sex aids, such as photos of Janet Reno and Madelyn Albright at the White House pool party in their thong bikinis, and I’m sorry to say of Hillary in hers that I took with a special ultra-wide-angle lens.

So, I guess you won’t be bringing me anything at all, but that’s really not fair, Santa, cause I’ve really tried to control myself, but like I said, nothing works.

I’ve got this bunch of ministers now who try to counsel me whenever I—you know—get some bad thoughts. The deal works like this: Whenever Slick Willie Junior (that’s how I refer to my you-know-what) asserts himself, I call these “Lust Busters,” and one of them keeps my occupied on the phone while the other rushed over here to exorcise the demon from my undershorts. But after two months of constantly calling these people for help, I feel like it’s a waste of their time as well as mine. Here’s a sample of what goes on:

Me (frantic): Pastor, you’ve got to come quickly. It’s me, Bill again. I was watching this innocuous ETV Special on cantaloupes when, suddenly, out of the blue, this thought crashes through my brain: “Man, get a load of those cantaloupes. I sure do miss Monica.”

Minister (on the phone): Get hold of yourself, Bill—I mean, calm down. Think pure thoughts till the Reverend Jimmy can get there. Go stand in a cold shower or something.”

That’s another thing, Santa, why are they sending Jimmy Swaggart, for God’s sake? That dude just might even be hornier than I am. Well, could be that’s the reason, next to that creep anybody—even me—looks moral! Or maybe they thought he could empathize with me.

But the guy just exacerbates (even that word give me naughty thoughts) matters. He wants me to go out with him to help him, as he puts it, “plunge the staff of moral rectitude into the fornicators of the world.” Hey, I’m already in enough trouble, I don’t need to be associated with this Dick Morris in a pulpit.

And frankly, there’s nothing those clowns can do to get these thoughts out of my head anyway. They keep reading to me out of the Bible and telling me to read it whenever the Devil is taunting me. Unfortunately, that’s not working at all, cause—and I know this is shocking to you, Santa—but whenever I see a Bible, while of course it is a symbol of the word of God, to me the incorrigible sinner that I am, it’s also a symbol of a motel room and that just gets those nasty ideas running through my poor tortured brain again.

For that matter, Santa, practically everything has a sexual connotation for me.

I try to get away from the lures of Satan and play some golf and all the focus in on balls and holes and clubs; I watch a football game and they’re talking about tight ends, and getting into the end zone, and splitting the uprights, and then there’s those bouncing cheerleaders; I watch a basketball game and they’re doing all that dunking and scoring, and talking about having a feel for the game and it seems like somebody’s score is always stuck on 69. And then, they’ve got the cheerleaders, too.

I look for solace in the rose garden and I’m surrounded by “bushes” and “prickly” thorns.

I gaze out over the horizon and there it is, the Washington Monument, our country’s greatest phallic symbol, aside from me, I guess.

I am trapped in a world of dirty double-entendres and can’t escape. Please send something to help me. How can I do the people’s work (unless some of those people are fine looking, sex-crazed babes)? See what I mean!

Anyway, Santa, you can see I’m trying, so if you could just see your way to send me something to resolve this problem, I’d be very appreciative. A psychiatrist can’t help me. Hell, sex is all those people talk about, so don’t tell me to see one.

And whatever you do, please pay no attention to Hillary’s letter. I know she’s asked for one of those Australian sheepherder’s tools. So for God’s sake, don’t send it—it’s not a joke. She’ll use the damn thing—on me.

It’s “in your hands” (well, no, that definitely won’t work). I’m just going to stay here in my office till I hear from you. No TV, no Bibles, and I’m going to get them to cover the Washington Monument with a tarpaulin. Hurry!

Sincorely—
I mean sincerely,
Bill