Fairyland

“I never said it was wrong to enter fairyland, I only said it was always dangerous.”  G.K. Chesterton, “The Innocence of Father Brown”

Englishman G.K. Chesterton, above, known as the “prince of parables,” was a lay theologian and mystery writer who was friends with George Bernard Shaw and H.G. Wells and died in 1936 at age 62.

On the way to and from Camelot Lanes I heard several favorite songs on WXRT from 1992, including “Teen Angst” by Cracker, “If I Can’t Change Your Mind” by Sugar, and “Waiting for the Sun” by the Jayhawks.  The Regular Guy passed on famous movie lines, including Jack Nicholson’s “You can’t handle the truth” from “A Few Good Men,” Al Pacino’s “Whoo-ah” from “Scent of a Woman,” and Tom Hanks’ “There’s no crying in baseball” from “A League of Their Own.”  Best movie that year was Clint Eastwood’s “The Unforgiven.”  The Bulls won their second straight NBA title; they made it three straight the following year, defeating the Phoenix Suns led by MVP Charles Barkley.  For the first time a Canadian team, the Toronto Blue Jays, won the World Series over Atlanta.  They, too, would repeat in 1993, beating my Phillies on Joe Carter’s walk-off home run.

James had a good bowling day.  One frame he threw a gutter ball on a spare and looked crestfallen.  Then he knocked down all the pins on his second ball and flashed us a huge smile.  Dave was dragging from three hours sleep.  He chaperoned the E.C. Central student bus trip to the football game in Fort Wayne and then had to wait a half-hour at school for the last parent to arrive, rejecting the other chaperone’s suggestion that the students be dropped off at the jail and parents could retrieve them from there.

Alysia Abbott and dad

At the library I came across “Fairyland: A Memoir of My Father” by Alysia Abbott, whose mother died in a car accident when she was two and then Steve, her gay dad, took her to San Francisco in the early 1970s.  One of her first memories is being at an all-male party where few guests had clothes on and being attracted to the tile at the bottom of a swimming pool.  She went in over her head and, not knowing how to swim, nearly drowned until someone told her dad and he pulled her out.  As a little girl Alysia wanted a penis.  She pissed standing up until she spent a week with her maternal grandparents and was told girls didn’t do that.  Among the last wave of “flower children” to arrive in Haight-Ashbury, Alysia’s dad was a sad, gentle dreamer who hoped to earn a living selling gay-friendly cartoons to underground publications.  Looking for freedom, he became an AIDs casualty.

In season six of “The Sopranos” two guys collecting protection money at a gay club recognize Vito Spatafore dressed like one of the Village People.  Fearing for his life, he takes off to New Hampshire.   Most everyone but Tony wants him tracked down and killed.

Derrick Rose is lost to the Bulls for the entire year, and the Bears, decimated on defense, couldn’t stop the Rams’ running attack.  In the news: Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry reached a tentative agreement with Iran regarding its nuclear program that Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu called a “historic mistake.”  Republicans are sharpening their knives, branding Obama naïve and weak.

Miley Cyrus turned 21 and performed “Wrecking Ball” on the AMA music awards in a sexy outfit accompanied by a lip-synching kitten.  Katy Perry dressed like a geisha for her number, “Unconditionally,” which includes the line, “All your dirty laundry never made me blink one time.”  Lady Gaga pretended a sexy secretary to the president, played by R. Kelly, while singing “Do What U Want.”

Toni and I did a $250 Thanksgiving shopping, enough for three more dishes with Jewel stamps.  It’ll be ham on Thursday and turkey on Friday.  That morning I’m taking Becca, Alissa, and Tori to “Catching Fire.”  Anne Balay Children’s Lit professor, gave it an enthusiastic thumbs up.  Saturday we travel to Fishers, Indiana, to see the Bayers, once again Hoosiers after 20 years in Vermont.  All three Bayer kids will be there.

When mention of Spiro Agnew’s resignation came up in Nicole Anslover’s class, I provided details of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment, mainly the work of Indiana Senator Birch Bayh and adopted in 1967, which provided for replacing the V.P. should that office become vacant.  Had it not been in place, House Speaker Carl Albert would have been next in the line of succession.  Someone asked if Nixon knew in advance of the Watergate break-in.  When he sent the “Plumbers” to work with his re-election committee, he knew they would be engaging in dirty tricks but probably didn’t want to know the details to give himself “plausible deniability.”

Unlike with JFK, the subject of Nixon’s sex life (or lack of one) did not come up.  It’s dubious that he and wife Pat still screwed, and there is no proof that he buggered close friend Charles “Bebe” Rebozo.  Suck-up Henry Kissinger, I’m quite certain, would have given him a “lub job” if asked, but my guess is that the President, a loner to the core, was a masturbator and probably didn’t even enjoy it all that much.  A new Kinsey Report claims that women experience orgasms more frequently in intimate relationships more than in casual ones.  Also while the percentage of men who have gay sex has remained the same, three times as many women are indulging in lesbian sex compared to a decade ago.

Governor Pence’s attempts to marginalize spunky Indiana school superintendent Glenda Ritz may backfire, as there is a groundswell of support for her to oppose him in 2016 should he run for re-election.  I’d work for her.

I won my Fantasy football match with nephew Bob to move into a first place tie thanks to wide receiver Anquan Boldin’s two TD catches.  Even though I was rooting for Washington on Monday, I was not disappointed to see him get the ball.  This coming week I play Phil in a battle for first place.