Review- of Donna Lethal’s book ” Milk Of Amnesia”

I forgot where I put Donna Lethal’s book.  It’s somewhere in this mess of an apartment. (I just moved my Office into my apartment, and my Office is filled with books to sell on Amazon) and who knows where my luggage is from that trip a month ago…. I may not know where my luggage is, or Donna’s book but it is time to write about “Milk Of Amnesia.” 

I read it on a bumpy plane ride from L.A. to New York… Some people were screaming by the time we landed in New York fearing we would crash, and I was laughing “with” Donna’s tragic rollercoaster childhood memoir.

We are all  allowed to laugh “with” Donna’s book, no matter how sad things got. It is big part of the book: Laugh at the absurdities and tragedies  of your life and you have a chance of becoming a happy person.That is a big part of her theme.

Let me put it another way: The shit that happens to you in your childhood, can help prepare you for the tragedies that are going to happen throughout life and if you can be smart enough, witty enough, mature enough, and stupid enough, you can have fun with just about anything that happens to you.

 

Donna is talking to you in person in her book. It is as if she is in the room, telling you stories of her life. Our lives are made up of the things that happen to us, and despite the “amnesia” in the title, Donna recounts nuggets of family stories which shaped her life.

 

Basic Foundation of D0nna Lethal’s life is enough for you to pick up the book and start reading: Her mom was a former Nun, and her Dad was a character,(everybody know what I mean by a “character?”):

To me a character is someone who picks up the newspaper, reads the headlines and personally knows everybody who was picked up and arrested in the daily blotter, and he has something funny  to say about everyone and everything as well. That is Donna’s Dad.Sometimes, he might have been reading about himself as well.

 

Is that not enough for you? Her mom was a former Nun? What makes a Nun hook up with a “character?” You’ll have to read the book.

 

How does she survive being a Punk in the seventies  who likes to hang out in cemeteries in Lowell , Massachusetts  with other “outsiders?” 

You’ll have to read the book.

 

Why is the book called milk of Amnesia? She doesn’t say exactly, but I have a theory. As a youngster she took drugs which gave her an ulcer. I’m sure milk of magnesia became part of her diet. She was probably trying to forget certain harsh realities of her life,  and that’s where the amnesia comes in.

 

Well the good news is “Milk Of Magnesia,  is filled with memories of her difficult past and is willing to tell us all about it now. .

 

.As I read the book on the plane, and listened to passengers scream periodically because they feared dying, I occassionally screamed out to, remembering some painful memory that happened in my life  that now I could laugh about because Donna made me remember it and made it o.k. to look at (identification).  I really just screamed  just to add to the fun of my   fellow passengers  misery  and for my own cathartic experience of reading the book . (They could all go home and tell how the big fuzzy man screamed like a little girl.)

 

I am here today for selfish reasons. I want you to buy the book, read the book and encourage Donna to continue writing about her life. I can’t wait to be on a plane that might crash again with a new book by her. If the plane does crash, I’ll only be sad that I wasn’t able to write a review about it…

 

AS A FINAL NOTE:

 

As the plane came to less than a  perfect landing, people started applauding the Pilot.  I stood up and applauded Donna Lethal’s new book “Milk of Magnesia. ” I will ride her bumpy stories always and you should too.

 

 

 

You Can’t Lose Weight Every Day – Playing With A Loaded Diet

I’m a month into Weight Watchers. I’ve actually lost nine pounds.

So, when I found myself  in Jackson Heights, I knew I was going to eat out, but I had a game plan.

 

I pretended that I was in a Foreign Country and that food was not the most important thing about this vacation. Like for instance, what if you found yourself in Vienna and pastry was not on top of your list of things to accomplish. Well, that was my attitude. I was a sight seer first and an eater second.

 

 I walked around Jackson Heights and came across an incredible dense population of Indian and Pakistani’s… I kept walking and came into what seemed like a Brazilian and Argentinian community of steak houses. I knew I wasn’t eating steak tonight, if I wanted to lose any weight this week, so I headed back towards the South East section of Jackson Heights.

 

I made sure to walk around an hour before choosing a place to eat. There were plenty of fruit stands that had unusual fruit and vegetable stands. I got an apple, cause that is what I do before I go and eat in a restaurant.  I knew that before I hopped back on the train,  I was going to pick up some weird vegetables and try figuring out how to prepare them for a meal when it was time to go home. Weight Watchers had suggested picking up weird fruit and vegetables that you never had before to add some excitement in your life. Well, I looked at vegetables that I would never have even thought they were vegetables except that they were in the vegetable market.

 

As I walked back towards the subway on 74th Avenue, I knew  my time to pick a place was at hand.

 

I came across the Himalayan Hut. At first glance it looked like a regular Chinese  take out Restaurant. 

I knew there was something different about this place. Why? The window had a sign which said,”Calcutta style Chinese Food,”

 

There were two menu’s inside; one had traditional Chinese food and the other had a fusion menu of Indian and Chinese cuisine.  I was ready to eat. I only looked at the Fusion menu.

Now, the word “Fusion” has in the past turned me off. It has signified a cuisine of over indulgence of spices in overpriced restaurants catering to a Yuppie understanding  of food by Chef’s too indulgent to add whatever to a simple dish. I never got the point of these restaurants. I just have never been happy in this kind of Fusion place.

However, Himalayan Hut came to their fusion in a natural way. The owner, Michael is from Cantanese descent who was born and raised  in Calcutta. So, I was optimistic

 I had the Manchow Soup, which was the best tasting Hot and Sour Soup I have ever eaten. I have really tried to find good Hot and Sour soup and have mostly given up. I felt brave here to try it and I was very pleased that I did. I might have found the holy grail for hot and sour soup.

 

Then I had Vegetable dumplings called Momo. My idea was to eat half the food I ordered and have leftovers for tomorrow. I did alright with the soup but the dumplings were so good and light, that I had six of the eight of them. They were steamed and not boiled. They were dry and light and delicious with a homemade chili chutney.

Now the food was spicy and I drank lots of water. I drank four glasses of water with my meal which was exceptional for me. This works in well with my dieting plans, I’m supposed to drink 8 glasses of water and well, I usually don’t. So,drinking 4 glasses in one sitting is a testament to spice. Now, not overspiced mind you, but it had heat.

 Next, I heard my main dish coming out of the kitchen. I got a dish called Himalayan Sizzling dish which was not on the menu but my waiter suggested it. It’s one of those dishes that come out cooking as it greets you. I got shrimp and Tapia, and you know what, the dish was swimming not in sauce but with crisp  broccoli, stringbeans and green peppers. Weight watchers heaven.

 

What a score this place was. I got to hang with the owner who was in rock bands in Calcutta . His band’s name was Pyromania. I plan on going back with a CD of Calcutta rock tunes to surprise him.

You know, tonight was a happening. I didn’t just have a meal. I had “Desi” food which means in Bengalese “Our Culture Food”. All the food was Halal, fresh and mecca.

I love my city so much. I was able to go away on vacation right in Queens. I got to eat a new kind of food, found a Holy grail in Hot and Sour Soup  and met a really great guy with a vision of supplying a neighborhood with Chinese Food they haven’t had since leaving Calcutta. Wow! Now, I just need a Vienna pastry. (Just kidding, sort of.)

On the train I realized that I forgot to pick up any unusual fruits or vegetables to explore cooking with. Damn! I guess I’ll have to go back next week and get those weird huge pod like bumpy green things… Oh and I can stop in and say hi to Michael… and maybe get some soup, and some momo’s and perhaps some shrimp swimming with broccoli alive and kicking and doing the backstroke.

I Can’t Wait To Meet My Monsters -Sleep Apnea

When I was seven years old, I shared my room in The Bronx with my Uncle who was in transition from a hard life. He constantly read, but he bought more books than he could read in a day…

My room was littered with lurid covers of books from when paperbacks had lurid covers of sexy women for staid topics.  I would look at all these books and I started to file them onto my shelves. I was the seven year old librarian.

The books I filed on a special shelf were all the Horror classics. I loved looking at the covers from Frankenstein, Dracula, and Phantom Of The Opera. I told myself that one day I would write a Horror book that would have some sexy woman on the cover screaming with some greenish blood creature lurking above her.

I don’t usually write Horror stories.  I have played around with my Horror ideas in “My Monstrological  Society” stories. I love writing this series. It is about a father of three who tells his young boys a made up on the spur of the moment Horror story, in order to keep them quiet in a household that has a new baby girl in it. I probably started writing these stories about five years ago.

Maybe I have already written about “My Monster” – a story that will make me proud to put on that top  shelf with those famous Horror icons I already mentioned. One day I will re-read my stories, and see if there is any one monster I’ve created who I feel deserves a cover with a sexy girl screaming at him, but for the moment, I wanted to tell you about why I am so confident that my monster stories are going to just get better and better right now.

I have sleep apnea… It means I snore and while I sleep I stop breathing. Now, when I found out I stop breathing, I wasn’t so concerned, but what I was concerned about was that I stop dreaming. The Apnea wakes me up during REM. For a long time, I have not been having my dreams, which means that I haven’t been having my nightmares.

For a man who wants to write a classic Horror fictional character, this was dramatic news. I knew that in order to write a Horror icon, I would have to start having my nightmares again. I went to a sleep study which confirmed my darkest fears: my sleep apnea was not allowing me to have my nightmares I counted on in order to get ideas about a Horror character.

Pure living nightmare for me. I needed to get to sleep and have bad things happen in my dreams. I knew they were there and that it was just a matter of not stopping breathing while I slept. The best way that I can describe not dreaming because of Apnea is that it is similar to drowning. Remember that time you were a kid and you sucked in the swimming pool water cause some other kid held you down for too long; all you could think about was getting back up above the water line so that you could gasp and breath in some fresh air? Well, that is where I find myself now and my dreaming. Finally, with my CPAP machine, I can breath in air and dream my dreams.

Unfortunately, a lot of my dreams are pleasant. Still, the dark ones are surfacing, and I am sure eventually I will dream my classic Horror vision. What will my tale be about?

I think my monster will be hungry. I think he will want to eat out of his problems. I’ve always liked Cannibals, but of course we already have Hannibal, so I probably will skip this monster.

I’ve only had the machine for a week now, so I don’t know exactly what to expect from my nightmaring. Still, I do expect greatness… I think I just came up with a Monstrological Society story title,” May All Your Nightmares Seem Long and Relentless.” It is about a gypsy who curses a boyfriend of a woman. The woman believes in the Tarot, the boyfriend does not. He starts having such terrible nightmares that he decides he will never go back to sleep.

I’m tired, I think I’ll go take an napnea.

Whose Life Is This Anyway? How To Unsuccessfully Meet Women In Bars

Lenny walks into a thrift store going out of business

Walks up to Kendall and friend who are dancing behind counter

Lenny

Sorry to hear you are closing

Kendall

It happens

Lenny

I just found this book on your shelf… Do you have more of them?

kendall

Yes, but they are promised to someone else

Lenny

I know cassius. He sent me here to pick them up for him… How many do you still have.

Kendall

We still have a few cases of them left. I can sell them to him for the usual price

Lenny

Sure, sure, that would be fine… I’ll take all the ones you have left.

Kendall

Wanna dance?

Lenny

Sure. Cassius says thanks

(they dance and Lenny dances out of store with cases of the book)

Whose Life Is This Anyway? “How To Unsuccessfully Meet Women In Bars

                                                       Lenny

Ever notice how we never figured out how to meet women

Ken

Many a night I’ve noticed

Lenny

Why is that?

Ken

We’re difficult people

Lenny

Everybody is difficult

Ken

We’re extremely difficult… Us  comic book nerds are totally misunderstood by the opposite sex

Lenny

I’m not a comic book nerd

Ken

You are so

Lenny

Ken, I haven’t bought a comic since we were 15 years old

Ken

You’re always reading comics when we hang out at my place

Lenny

I really just kind of scour through them

Ken

Oh my God! I thought I knew you… You’re nothing but a Closet Nerd

Lenny

Come on give me a break

Ken

I’ve sacrificed my whole life of telling people what I really am interested in. I love Dungeons and Dragons

I really want to know what Spiderman is up to… and to find out that my best friend can’t even admit that

he likes comic books and reads them is disheartening.

Lenny

I’d like the outside chance of getting laid

Ken

I am so disappointed… My best friend hiding behind his cock

Lenny

That sounds wrong… Look, let’s go try to meet some women today

Ken

Oh yeah, what do you have in mind?

Lenny

Let’s go up to the flea market in Williamsburg and see if we can meet some girls there… There are some

vendors who have comics…

AT FLEA MARKET

Lenny

We should get this book

ken

How to successfully Meet Women In Bars”  This is ridiculous

Lenny

No, we buy this book and then we go to a bar and we read it to girls who are there… these williamsburg hipster girls

love irony

Ken

Not from balding, hobbling middle aged men with no jobs

Lenny

I got a job now

Ken

How is becoming a drug dealer working for you

Lenny

I’m a bike messenger. I don’t know what is in the packages

Ken

You’re a fool

Lenny

Well this fool is going to buy this book… (to vendor) How much for this classic?

cassius

Five bucks… It’s the last one. Was my biggest seller.

Lenny

Really… sure…

Ken

We can give you three bucks for the book. It’s terrible

cassius

It might be terrible but I wish I had ten thousand of them… So, you know what, you can’t have the book

Lenny

My friend was only kidding

cassius

No, I’m not selling it anymore… Maybe I’ll write my own book about how to pick up women in bars

Ken

Do you know how to do that?

cassius

Yeah, I buy women drinks and I reveal nothing about how fucked up I am

Lenny

Is that all there is

Cassius

Of course it is, now give me the book and get out of here

Lenny

Can I just look at it for a minute

Cassius

No!

How To Cook Everything,” Including the Cookbook

I just spent an hour going through my cookbooks. I don’t just collect them, I use them… I actually abuse them. My Bittman, “How to Cook
Everything” was left on the stove and caught fire. That’s how the title of this little article came about. “How to Cook Everything,” including the Book…

The best cookbooks I have look like shit. Ingredients of the last 15 years all over them. I’m getting rid of them. Why? Do I know all the recipes by heart? Fuck no, but I do have doubles. I’ll start messing up my new copies of “The New Basics,” Jane Brody’s Good Food Book,” which I use mainly for some soups… She can be plain Jane, and a little too healthy for my eating pleasure… But the Turkey soup is to die for. I always anticipate the turkey carcass over the turkey.

I’m a soup and stew guy. I go for gumbos and meats that take a couple of days to make. I got nothing but time. I mean I really don’t have any time, but if I’m already cooking, well, I’ll cook something that takes seven hours, so that I can listen to some good music and meditate about things.

I could never work in a real kitchen restaurant. I am too slow.

I did however work one  summer as a teenage boy as  the Vegetable man in the Vegetarian Hotel in the Catskills. I’m not really sure how healthy the health food back then was. I remember a lot of obese people eating hundreds of potatoes that I peeled in a day. I spent 16 hours a day cutting and peeling vegetables. When I got my paycheck and was ripped off in about six ways; he charged me for sleeping on a bed that might have been a sack of potatoes, he charged me for eating that lousy noodle keugel. He paid me about 3 dollars for every two hours I worked. I threatened to peel his face. They guy got good work out of me, why do people have to take such advantage over well intentioned workers?

My weakness has always been the fear of baking. The precision involved freaks me out. When I screw up with a stew, or a soup, it is easy to correct. With baked goods, you have to throw it all away and begin again. Still, that is on my agenda. I love my cake bible by Berenbaum, and I plan to trash that book this year, by making a bunch of different cakes. Cakes are my feminine side.

I excel in barbecuing as long as I’m not rushed. I screw up when I have less than twenty four hours to barbecue. I marinate, I slow cook, I take my time. If you want me to make you ribs, there are at least a couple of meals that will happen before the ribs are done.

I like making Jewish food but it also freaks me out. Gefilte fish, with all the chopping of white fish and pike and carp… oy vey… and even blintzes I haven’t tried, and forget about kishka… I must overcome these fears, in the same way, I now master brisket or chopped liver, kasha varnishkas  or matzoh balls. The potato knish will be mastered. I promise you that. I am looking into  five old yentas cookbooks right now, looking for the one that has my dear Baubies recipe.

There are secrets of love in some of these recipes, and by love I mean they all use schmaltz as their secret weapon of success.

Wish me luck with the gefilte fish. I’m grinding the fish by myself. That is the secret.

“Whose Life Is This Anyway?” – Meeting Rodney D.J.

Lenny walks into D.J.’s room and kicks the bed.

Lenny

Wake up. We’re gonna be late for home room…

DJ

D.J. grovels and puts his pillow over his head
Go away Lenny. What gives you the right to walk in my place before 5 o.clock?

Lenny

It’s 4:30 in the afternoon!

D.J.

Sits up and starts to piss in a bottle.

Ah!

Lenny

The bathroom is 30 feet away, you have to piss in a bottle. What if you have an accident?

D.J.

That hardly ever happens. Why you acting like your mother. How’s that going , living back home living with mom

Lenny

I want to kill myself. I can’t believe this is my life.

D.J.

I told you thirty years ago that your too ambitious. You would be happy doing nothing like I do.

Lenny

I don’t understand how you get by.

D.J.

I D.J. that’s why my name is D.J. and I look at the internet all day and they pay me.

Lenny

Who pays you?

D.J.

I’m not really sure who pays me. They just want me looking at what I’m looking at.

Lenny

How did you get that job again.

D.J.

I don’t even remember. I was the first kid with a computer, back when nobody had one. They wanted to know what kids do and they  monitor me. I think whatever I look at, advertising people push to the rest of the country.

Lenny

The fate of the country is in the hands of a man whose hands shake when he’s pissing into a bottle because he’s too lazy to stumble to the toilet…

You gotta empty the bottle anyway. What’s the point.

D.J.

Who says. (He opens a closet revealing many bottles of piss)

Lenny

You are so sick

D.J.

Sick, but not living with my mother.

Lenny

Don’t remind me.  Come on, Bingo is waiting for us.

D.J.

I’m ready

Lenny

You’re still wearing pajamas

D.J.

I know, I started wearing pajamas everywhere. It’s going to be a new fad

Lenny

Yeah, the fad is called “Lazy piece of Shit”

D.J.

I like that

Whose Life Is This Anyway? – Treatment Notes For New Series

Whose Life Is This Anyway ?” – Is a new internet television show.

It is the story of a middle aged  man who has had a Video store for Thirty years and now has to close down.

“I figured that when I made the move to DVD’s I was ahead of the curve. Who knew people would be able to watch everything for free on the Internet. How can I compete with “Free,”

Lenny Fleshler has to move back in with his aging mother, The show focuses on Lenny who still has some growing up to do, under difficult circumstances.

A lot of his middle aged friends have lost their jobs and have to re-invent themselves. Three of his friends find themselves without jobs and they try to reform their Punk  band “The Sticklers.” These men may seem like losers, but to Lenny these guys are all he really knows.

 

Lenny wanted to go to film school but, ” My mother told me she was dying and that I should wait till she died before I went off to UCLA to go to film school. She told me her Doctor told her  five years to live tops…Here it is thirty years later and she’s still kicking… That woman will outlive everyone!…”

 

Lenny – Jewish,  fat, balding,  but still optimistic and kind of magical… He is an everyman who still thinks he can dream about making movies. He has James  Thurber kind “The Fantasy Of Walter Mitty”… So, there is the reality of what his life is and then the fantasy of what he says his stories are. So, he might be telling a story the way Hitchcock might… So, suddenly, the mundane comes to life and looks vibrant and exciting.

 

Every episode  will have a parody scene that looks like a famous directors: John Waters, Carpenter, Hitchcock, Truffant, Capra, Lang, and of course Ed Wood.

 

Mom- Mom is like a Shelly Winters… She is frail , but still powerful and manipulative. She is typical passive aggressive Jewish Mom who threatens to put her head in the oven,”You want me to join the rest of the family.”  – She is dark, dark, soul with a sense of humor.

 

Kenny- Kenny was the drummer of “The Sticklers” who lost his job as a librarian and now pushes to have the band reformed

 

Willie- Willie is the bass player in the band. He lost his job at OTB. He is bitter and resentful that the City could not make money with gambling

 

Terry- lost his Union job making ball bearings. He likes to tell people “They make all the balls overseas.”

 

Susie- Lenny’s girlfriend is career minded and at an age that she wants a baby… She pushes Lenny into different career paths every episode.

 

 

 

 

Juan Big Juan – For The Gordian Knot

Cotton mouth from the heat

Visions of hell he lived

Tumbleweeds drift

To the back of his mind

 

Juan, Big Juan

Got a notion

Melted God

With all his motion

 

He made it rain

With his dance of pain

And then…

It wouldn’t stop

 

Tears of an angel

Struck him dead

The floodgates

Of emotion

And a love potion

 

 

People misunderstood

What he was

Where’s Juan?

Juan, Big Juan

 

He’s trouble

Not to be trusted

But he saved his people

In their darkest of days

 

He took the train

After he made it rain

And only he knows

Where he is

Track 6 – Across The 11th Dimentia With Robet Johnson

I want to tell you

About all this

And all that

 

 

It’s about power

And what I believe

 

 

I was blowing smoke

On the corner

Of Mardi Gras and Despair

 

 

A bunch of Dead Guys

Blues guys all happy

Carried me away

 

 

“Where we going?

“It’s a party for you.”

 

 

“For me?”

“Yeah, cause you’re dead

 

 

And we want you to

Play in our band

For your march

To Heaven or Hell

 

 

I went to the party

To jam with opportunity

And maybe I was dead

And I really didn’t care

If I was in heaven or hell

 

 

And now I told you

About all this

And all that

 

 

And the power

And what I believe