What’s really frightening is that 30 years ago I looked pretty much just like this minus several pounds and a lot of wrinkles.

I hope you had a happy Halloween!

THE BIG GRAY ELEPHANT AND THE HOMOGENIZATION OF AMERICA

I actually heard the following car advertisement on the radio here in Tulsa this morning: “Come to Nelson Nissan-Mazda. We have the new retractable hard top Miata. This is a truly unique, one-of-a-kind automobile, and we have hundreds to choose from!”

I laughed so hard my diet Mountain Dew came out of my nose.

I think the copy writer is on to something, though. The more things attempt to be unique the more they seem the same. This is especially true when it comes to major cities across the U.S…they are all identical. 

I know of what I speak. Here is the short list of cities I have visited on business over the last few years:

Oklahoma City, Dallas, Austin, Houston, Little Rock, Memphis, Nashville, Louisville, Birmingham, Atlanta, Indianapolis, Cleveland, Milwaukee, Chicago, New York, Baltimore, Washington D.C., Greenville, Charlotte, Orlando, Miami, Denver, Phoenix, San Diego, San Francisco, Buffalo, Portland, Des Moines, Los Angeles, Albuquerque, Amarillo, St. Louis, Springfield, Philadelphia, Lincoln, Cincinnati, New Orleans, and Salt Lake City….every single one of them is EXACTLY the same.

If you happen to live in one of those cities I can hear you screaming; “MY CITY is unique. MY CITY is different.”  No it’s not…at least it doesn’t appear that way from the drivers seat of my rental car.

The carpet may be a different color in your airport, but when I get off the plane I pick up a copy of Newsweek at the Hudson News Stand, a cup of coffee at the Starbucks, and walk down to talk to the bleary-eyed lady that’s at every Thrifty rental car counter. She rents me the same damn white Dodge Stratus that I swear to God they move from city to city just ahead of me so I get it every time. I pull out of the rental car lot and drive past the big box shopping center with a Super Walmart/Lowes/AMC Theater on my way to check in at the Best Western/Holiday Inn/Red Roof/Radisson/Ramada/Comfort Inn motel. After I check in I go to my meeting and then go out to eat at the nearest Denny’s/Outback/Applebee’s/Chili’s/Red Lobster restaurant. When I get back to the motel, I pull the hideous flowered bedspread off the bed, the little white paper cap off the drinking glass, and the “sanitized for your protection” paper strip off the toilet, before taking a piss and scratching my lily white ass on the way over to turn on the TV with the cigarette burns on the top and plump the flimsy pillows on the too-hard bed in a vain attempt to get comfortable while I watch the coifed-clones on the local news engage in witty banter while they put on their frowny faces to talk about the latest city councilman to be indicted.

Yep…every single one of them…exactly the same.

But I also know that’s not really true. Sure, they all look the same on the surface, but I also know that if I’m in Memphis I can drive down to Beale Street and hear the blues played the way it was meant to be played or go watch the ducks ride the elevator at the Peabody. When I’m in Louisville I know I can wait until it gets dark and drive back over the Ohio River from the Indiana side and have my breath taken away by how gorgeous the downtown lights look reflected on the water. I know that when I’m in Philadelphia I can go take a walk down Museum row and that no matter how many times I go I’ll never see everything there is to see. And I also know that when I visit New Orleans I can go down to the French Quarter, have a beignet at the Café Du Monde, some chicory coffee, and picture the scene from “Runaway Jury” with Dustin Hoffman that was filmed there.

The differences are there, you just have to be able to appreciate them.

So, what’s my point? I’m not really sure since this set-up has taken so long, but I think I was going to say that I’ve been thinking about the partisan divide in America with the mid-term elections upon us, and I think the major problem with the GOP is that they want America to look like it does through the windshield of my rental car. They want America to be a white bread, middle class, Christian nation that practices family values, speaks English, and sees the world completely in black and white. This is because diversity is messy; it’s uncomfortable at times, and it makes you think too much. Homogenization is where it’s at.

But a homogenized America is really boring, and really unrealistic. Of course, the major problem with us Democrats is that we are such a diverse group that we can’t build a coherent platform to save our little commie-pinko asses.

Regardless, I prefer the way America looks when I get OUT of my rental car.

…in the immortal words of Monty Python “and now for something completely different.”

I’m going to take a break today from my role of late as the world’s cheesiest noir writer to talk about a subject near and dear to my heart: Mega-Churches.

Tulsa is not a major metropolis. There are less than 500,000 people living in Tulsa and the surrounding area, and yet, per capita, Tulsa has to be the Mega-Church capital of the world. There are at least a half dozen congregations in Tulsa that average over 5000 in attendance and scores more in the 1000 to 2000 range.

These churches are high-tech, high-profile, high-visibility, and tend to have larger than life personalities behind the pulpit. They are competitive; spending scads of money on advertising, and which one you belong too is as much a matter of loyalty as whether you are a University of Oklahoma, or Oklahoma State sports fan.

And then there’s the little church I go too…

We are congregation of around 200 very unassuming people. We don’t broadcast on TV, our pastor doesn’t have big hair or wear Armani suits, and we don’t tow the religious-right/Republican-doctrine line that is completely woven into the fabric of everyday life in Tulsa. In fact, we don’t tow anyone’s line because we believe firmly in the idea of separation of church and state. We dont even sing patriotic hymns on the 4^th of July.

But I am proud of something we do.

About four months ago a family in our church had a neighbor that had lost their job and was having trouble putting food in front of their children. This couple decided to fix a simple dinner in the church kitchen on a Monday night for their neighbor and open it up to anyone else who might need a free meal. They also put together some clothes for their neighbor’s kids. They decided to call it “Bread and Jam” and put a sign up on the marquee and waited to see if anyone would show up. On the first night, four people came.

That was four months ago…

Last night we fed over 200 people, mostly families with small children. These are families from every conceivable background and ethnic origin.  We had piles of clothes filling the foyer and children were happily pulling t-shirts and sweaters over their heads. We don’t require that they listen to a sermon while they are there. We don’t pass out literature, and proselytizing is strictly off limits. The people show up, get a free meal and free clothes, and that’s it.

I know that there are thousands of churches all over America doing the same thing and what we are doing is nothing special. But when I see a $250,000.00 air conditioned coach from one of the mega-churches drive by with their pastor’s face painted on the side, I smile and I am proud of this small thing we do.

MY AFTERNOON – PART DUEX

She stood to walk away and tossed a wink over her shoulder like she was throwing pennies in a fountain for luck. I was pretty sure, though, that it was my luck that was about to change.

I was so anxious to finish my set that I launched into the Minute Waltz and played it in only 45 seconds. If I had played it any faster, the tempo police would have shown up and given me a speeding ticket.

“I have be cool about this,” I thought, so I forced myself to bide some time by sketching the little skunk on the “are you an art school candidate?” advertisement printed on the inside of a discarded matchbook cover. My skunk stunk but I held onto it because I thought that if I was a good boy I might get to hang something on her refrigerator.

“That sexual euphemism was even worse than my drawing” I thought, as I headed for the elevator. I tapped lightly on her door jamb and said “room service” in a voice that I hoped conveyed what kind of service I was really thinking about. “I didn’t think you’d come” she said as she opened the door. “I don’t think that’s going to be an issue” I said, as I walked into the room.

I turned and began to slowly undress her with my eyes. I started at the top of her head and intended to work my way down to the floor, but my journey came to an abrupt halt when, in the bright light of the room, I encountered a prominent Adam’s apple only a few inches into the trip.

“Is there a problem?” she said, in a voice that suddenly seemed much huskier than it had in the bar.  “No problem at all” I said; my voice cracking like a 14 year old boy sucking helium. “But I just remembered that I have an appointment to get my teeth cleaned and I want to be early because I like the cleaning to be thorough… I, uh, really like things to be thorough,” I added redundantly. “Then I won’t be a disappointment” she said coyly.

I heard myself scream.

Somehow I found myself back in the bar behind my protective shield made of felt hammers, wound wire, and brass fittings.  As I began to play, I let the music wrap around me like a security blanket fresh from the dryer. If I could have played and sucked my thumb at the same time, I would have.

I was playing on instinct; paying no attention to what song was pouring out of my fingers. But when my head began to clear, I suddenly recognized the theme from “La Cage Aux Folles.”

I heard myself scream again.

MY AFTERNOON…

I was tickling the ivories in the back of the smoky lounge; riffing on Coltrane. My cigarette glowed in the darkness like a red-eyed Cyclops and finally burned itself out, leaving an ashen tail as it sat precariously on the edge of my single malt scotch.

I made eye contact with her as she sat at the bar. She stood and walked toward me, her image splitting into a thousand fragments as it was reflected in the chrome and the glass. Her perfume cut through the heavy smell of desperation that hung in the air and she smiled as she slid onto the bench next to me.

She leaned her head back, exposing a perfect neck as she shook out her long red hair. “Do you know any Brubeck?” she asked, in a voice that any 900 number service would kill for. I segued effortlessly into “The Duke” without saying a word.

She closed her eyes and swayed gently as I picked up the theme to “In Your Own Sweet Way.”  “I like your style” she said as she wrapped her hotel room key in a wrinkled five and tossed it into my tip jar.

Luckily, I was almost finished with my set.

Ok..Ok.. what really happened is that I was sitting at the piano in a church auditorium playing the theme from the Peanuts cartoons when an 80 year old woman walked in and asked if I knew “Harbor Lights.”

She did slip me her hotel room key though…