The Thing That

Is it just me or is everybody dying? I mean, Robert Urich, Thor Heyerdahl, Linda Lovelace, Layne Staley, Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes, and, most shocking of all, Rusty the bailiff from the people’s court. Don’t tell me it’s not a conspiracy. What did they know and when did they know it?

Robert Urich, incidentally, was born in Toronto – no, not the real Toronto but Toronto, Ohio. It seems evident that he was a big deal there. He died in Thousand Oaks, CA, which happens to be the home of Melissa’s parents and her sister Natalie and is the town where I have spent the last 2 Christmases. I wonder if they will erect a monument to him. That would definitely get me back there.

I had an amazing dream last night. Most of it has faded but the key element, the concept, remains. In the dream, I understood very clearly that there is an important correlation between the current problems of the Catholic church and the film Exorcist II: The Heretic. (If you aren’t aware that Exorcist II is one of the greatest films ever made, read Bob’s groundbreaking work on the subject.)

E2H (as it would undoubtedly be called if it were made today) stars Richard Burton as a dissident priest trying to help teenaged Linda Blair overcome the demon that continues to possess her. One of the themes that the film tries to hammer home is that great goodness attracts evil, which is why the devil goes after kind-hearted, tap-dancing Linda.

The dream, which may have taken the form of a conversation between Richard Burton and me (I can’t remember for sure) revealed the truth about Exorcist II. According to my dream, the theory that evil was attracted to great goodness was indeed true, but the truly evil force in the film was not the demon … it was the priest! Yes, the Catholic priest, so flamboyantly portrayed by Burton, was a malevolent figure, attracted to the youthful purity of Linda Blair. This explains why, in the classic “mind-meld” sequence, he insists on attaching himself to the synchronizer to achieve mental telepathy with her – the connectedness between them, in which he is able to exert a great degree of control over her while she is in a semi-conscious state, becomes an act of pedophilia.

Understanding that Burton is portraying a hopeless pedophile also explains his near-crazed performance. Here is a man struggling with terrible hidden urges; is it any wonder that he seems out of his mind?

I stopped taking the pills on Monday night. Nasty, nasty antibiotics that made my tummy hurt during ten godawful days. But they’re done now and so I must be cured of my potentially fatal (RIP Jim Henson) pneumonia. There still lingers a nasty, phlegmy cough, and tomorrow I have to get my lungs X-rayed again to make sure they’re not being shredded by bacteria, but generally I’m much, much better.

As proof of how much better I’m doing, consider that yesterday evening I actually left the house for a social event. Well, maybe “social event” isn’t quite the right term – I went gambling with the other Mike G.

In case you don’t know, the state of Washington is a heavily regulated place. There’s all kinds of things you can’t do. You can, however, gamble – though not within the city limits of Seattle. There are Indian casinos somewhere around here with cards and craps and perhaps roulette (we’ve never bothered to find them) but much closer are the card houses of Shoreline.

Shoreline is, in fact, sort of like Oz – White trash Oz. Instead of following the Yellow Brick Road, you get there by taking an equally fabled route: Aurora Avenue, aka Highway 99. Jump on Aurora, head North, and in a short time you will pass amazing sights: a Home Depot here, a Sam’s Club there, a whole helluva lot of cheap-ass motels and strip malls. If you’re looking for drugs and hookers, head North on Aurora.

Anyway, some 15 miles out of downtown Seattle you will see the sign welcoming you to Shoreline. And then you will see the Hideaway, a card house that looks like a diner. Keep going and a little further is Goldie’s. Ah, but you must keep going because just a little further is the legendary Drift On Inn.

Okay, so perhaps it’s not legendary. But it does have an antique bar of mirrors that was imported from somewhere a long time ago for a lot of money. Or something.

Well, whatever. The Drift On Inn is where Mike and I like to play, and we’ve been there enough that they sort of know us now and don’t give us any guff when we want free meals.

Yesterday was par for the course. We got there around 6:30, played for an hour, then ate our free meal. (“Free” is, of course, a relative term, since sometimes it costs us a hundred bucks or more for our free meal.) Mike had his usual: an appetizer of deep fried cheese sticks and the prime rib dip. I decided to go with healthy so I had fish and chips.

Alas, the meal proved to be the highpoint. I managed to scrape my way back to even, Mike wasn’t so lucky. We left at 9pm, unable to quit our day jobs.

Oh, one more thing: if you want to know where to play blackjack anywhere in the world (and of course you do) click here.

In case you haven't heard (and you should have because I've been crowing about it to everybody) I now have the distinction of being published in the New York Times. Okay, so it was just a letter to the editor and a right silly one at that. But I'm still going to put it on my resume.

The other thing that you all probably know about already (yes, I'm always the last to know -- hell, I have to read The New Yorker just to find out about The Strokes) is this viciously funny online cartoon strip called get your war on. In the motherfucking house! Read it and weep.

I realized last night that I've been playing a flawed blackjack strategy. To wit, if I have an Ace-7, I should be hitting when the dealer has 9 through Ace. Dammit! I've been sticking, convinced that improving my hand isn't likely. Luckily I plan to drift in the next couple of days so will be able to try out my newly revamped strategy. I feel like I'm due to win, like, a thousand dollars. Hell yeah!