Dave Barry, eat your heart out

If you're over fifty, your de rigeur baseline colonoscopy is probably on the books. It is also probable that you laughed and winced through Dave Barry's hilarious and highly accurate account of his own experience. This is fair warning that when you read the following response y0u will do at least one of the following

1) laugh so hard you can't breathe and have to punch your "I'm fallen and can't get up" button repeatedly until help arrives,

2) spray your keyboard, monitor, speakers, wall, photos, papyrus with coffee, &/or

3) blush scarlet and faint at the potty-mouth language.

The Good Ex, one of the funniest writers I know, goes ol' Dave one better--da conzz was awake for his.

And lo, my response:

OMG (snap snap)!!! This is like so freakingly accurate, it should be printed, bound, and entered into the Library of Congress. You'll remember (maybe) that I've had this procedure, and it is exactly as Davey Boy explains it, with one major exception...there's no description here of the Volkswagon that is driven up your ass hole.... Oh, wait. Now I know why...it's because I WAS FREAKING AWAKE THROUGH THE WHOLE DAMN THING!!! Now, knowing that I could have been saved from a lifetime of recall, I'm seriously considering a malpractice suit.

So, after the VW (farfignutten) went in, the nurse basically poured, no... pushed, one of those 32 gallon liters of something milky-looking into me.

Ever feel so full you're sure you're going to throw up if you bend over and get your head below your belt line? Now imagine that feeling going in both directions! But behind that Volkswagon is a fire hose that's at least 18 inches in diameter... and yet... yes, and yet... I had to clench as hard as I've ever clenched anything in my body in my entire life so that I didn't become a horizontal, fifth grader's school volcano project. The term "seepage" is appropriate here, I think. I suspect I wasn't alone in this effort or fear, since I was lying on a steel tray with a full 3 inch wall around the four sides: barely enough volume in this baking pan to hold the "liter" of milk my body consumed... backwards.

You think this is nearly over, don't you. Well not so fast my frisky little used car salesman. Next, the doctor comes in while I'm gritting my teeth and turning beet red in the face...remember the clenching? Now, Doctor Sade proceeds to roll me back and forth...presumably to make a milkshake inside of me (gawd, I'll just bet if Dave Barry knew what he missed while asleep, he'd ask to do it all over again!). I full well expected him to put me on a trampoline next, but instead he put me on TV! There I was, internally exposed, for all to see. Nurse Ratchet, Dr. Sade, and the 2 really cute little interns watching all of this...yeah, I know. I neglected to mention them. I figured the rest was sufficient to describe my eternal embarrassment and degradation...why overdo it? Eh?

But yes, the Pettycoat Junction was there. Actually, now that I remember, I don't think we (author's note: Bonnie and I) were dating yet because their perception of me actually mattered!

So, here I am now, no longer being rolled from side to side, lying flat now, on my right side next, now on my left side, then back to my back... still clenching like I'm holding the fate of the entire world in my... butt.... beautifully projected on a video screen, avoiding eye contact with everybody in the room, and praying... like I've never prayed before or since that I don't go from seepage... to full on colon blow!

Finally, and I don't want to stress the extreme moments when I thought this next moment would never come, the good doctor said "I'm through," and I could go use the rest room. What a freaking euphemism... never gave that one much thought before that day.

The next event is the backing up of the VW Bus... out the sphincter that is now a garage door waiting... no hoping... to slam shut immediately as the vehicle departs. I wait while the "beep, beep, beep" of the backup alarm goes off, and Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum look at each other and giggle under their candy stripes, then POW! Damn... now I'm a wet grenade with the pin pulled, and I've got to get up off this steel trough, do a half gainer over that 18 inch wall, skip delicately toward that "Rest Room" door where relief awaits.

Now I want you to imagine this veeewy, veeewy cawfuwwy... there is approximately 7,236 foot/pounds of internal pressure on my internal digestive track... and the inside of that garage door is doing it's very, very best to stay shut; I can barely crunch or otherwise bring my knees up to my chest, or otherwise get into any position that will allow me to high jump that 42 inch steel wall on my new steel bed; I'm cross-eyed with the pain of trying to stay... clenched; and seepage is beginning to seem like a heaven-sent notion to consider. Nurse Ratchet finally shows some humanity and helps me by taking one hand and pulling me toward her (doesn't she know I'm now a weapon of mass destruction?). I consider, briefly... no, I probably shouldn't go into that. Let's just say I say "thank you," and with an excruciating cocktail of pain and embarrassment, manage my way over that 5 foot wall around that stainless steel horror chamber, and run with nothing in my consciousness except that door... that beautiful, hard wood, oak veneered, magical, "release chamber" door!

That so-called gown they give you to clothe yourself while undergoing procedures, which we all hate more than the concept of a wool thong, has at least one, exceptionally convenient, event-based feature... easy access to the garage door! With one Olympic-class leap, I closed and locked the door, turned and landed butt down on that heavenly ring of brilliant, comforting relief.

Five minutes later, once the Niagara ceased to run, I was able to get up, dress, and exit the building... again without eye contact... with a single human being... for 19 days.

We will never speak of this again! Go forth and prosper.

da conzz

For Fred and Connie--musical legends in their own time

I wrote this for an early blog called The Hob Nob, named for the infamous bohemian cafe across the street from North Texas State University (now the University of North Texas) where all the music and artsy folks hung out. The story was meant to be an introduction for a series of vignettes about what college was like for a group of friends in the early 1960's, but somehow I never got around to the Denton part of the series.

The Hob Nob--A Prequel

Commerce Texas, December 1962. All Senior Honor Band at East Texas State Teachers College--Connie Seidel, Fred Tackett, me, and I was told later, Bill Clinton. The first three would continue on to ETSTC, later ETSU, now TAMU at Commerce, and into the pages of history. Bill... well, he has his own special place. It's a good thing he went into politics--his saxual talents didn't seem to raise a blip in my consciousness. On the other hand, Connie and Fred's musicianship blew...me...away...

On that day, I met a future husband, and two of the very best friends--both fabulous musicians and composers--and truly wonderful people I have ever had the privilege of knowing. We remain close to this day, and I thank whatever wise stars brought us together in that sleepy, backwater, conservative, teacher's college town. A town where, every Saturday morning, they forked hay onto the downtown square for a lazy livestock auction. During our two years at ET, the three of us were inseparable. Literally.

Commerce is the buckle of the Bible Belt and as this was the Pleistocene Era, I was required to live in the dorms. Connie and Fred, however, got to room with two other male music majors off campus. When we weren't in class or rehearsals, I would sneak over to their apartment until curfew, which was 9:00 p.m. school nights, and midnight Friday and Saturday. Grim-faced matrons, charged with protecting the virginity of their young charges against all odds, locked the door at the stroke of 9 or 12, and if you weren't inside, you were invited to the Dean's office the very next morning.

7:30 every morning found us in attendance for the required Music Theory I, II, III and IV classes. We were seated alphabetically, therefore we dominated the back row--Seidel, Snowden, Tackett--the Three Museketeers.

The professor for the ear training part of MT would play long chord progressions, wildly modulating in and out of major, minor, diminished keys, being especially careful to avoid the traditional cycle of fifths. After what seemed like hours, he would come to an abrupt halt, fling his hands up from the keyboard in a grand flourish, and dramatically demand, "WHAT KEY AM I IN?"

By that time, our classmates' eyes would be spinning, holding their heads looking ready to throw up. Connie and Fred would snigger, point to me, and I'd nail it every time. After three semesters of this, the poor prof had begun to cringe when he reached that particular exercise. After we returned from Christmas holidays the spring of '65, he was openly snarling at me, and relocated the three of us as far apart as was possible. Even that couldn't stop us. Somewhere between spring break and finals, he gave up altogether.

We even attended the same non-music Honors classes together--tromping from the Music Building to far-flung reaches of the campus, reconvening at the MB for endless, myriad ensemble rehearsals, jazz jams, lessons, practice room shenanigans, concerts, juries, and mandatory concert attendance to show solidarity for our fellow musicians.

Each fall, from 3:30-5:30 p.m. daily, would find us "guiding right" on the practice field, rain, sleet, triple digit heat, getting that half-time show together. In those days, schools could afford to take the marching band to every game. No flag or rifle corps, no Janet/Justin leave-nothing-to-the-imagination MTV extravaganza, just precision 8-to-5 or 6-5 military marching, heavy on discipline and standard repertoire.

The director would exhort us to snap off our right turns "I want to see white shoes SPARKLE on those yard lines!" We accommodated by muttering "sparkle, sparkle" while pivoting in exact 90 degree boxes. What began as a murmur built to a war chant--"SPARKLE, SPARKLE." We did have one of the best musical organizations in the state, I have to admit.

As much fun as we had, and as excellent as our conservatory-style musical training was, we always felt there was greener grass just over the hill. Over several hills--60 miles to the west, to be exact. Since we were underage, Connie used his prodigious artistic abilities to "rearrange" his driver's license and finagle a marriage license. We walked into the first church we could find in McKinney and convinced the pastor to marry us on the spot, and took that giant 60-mile step to Denton, the North Texas State U Music Department, Library, and the Hob Nob.

From that point on, our lives pretty much exploded...Fred side-stepped to Oklahoma City to finish his degree, work with the monster sax player Joe Laine Davis, and later with practically every musician known to man--Jimmy Webb, Bob Dylan, Bonnie Raitt, et al. Fred currently performs with Little Feat, touring between gigs as a duo with Paul Barrere, Feat's other legendary guitarist. (Check out Fred's son, Miles Om Tackett and his group breakestra--way cool)

Denton, here we come!