Handpuppet's Dilemna

Here is a terrible story told to me years ago by my foreman when I was apprenticing in a machine shop. He was trying to illustrate the fact that machine shops are bad places for joking around cause they’re often filled by rough tough guys.
Walt ( my foreman) was working in an aircraft plant. He was knocking out pieces of aluminum that would be used in the assembly of air force planes. It was a gigantic shop the size of a football field.
In the center of this huge manufacturing floor was a welding station where the machinists would bring their completed pieces to be a assembled by a team of welders. The welding station was screened off from the rest of the floor by thick canvas curtains designed to shield the other employees from the blinding light emitted by the torches. The was a joker in the shop, a joker who couldn’t stop getting the laughs. He decided to play a “funny” trick on the welders. He took to throwing a piece of aluminum up over the top of the curtains so it would clatter to the floor in the welding station, startling the welders at their labor and ruining the bead of molten metal that they must apply precisely. The welders kept throwing it back over ,but the prankster couldn’t stop himself from repeating this trick over and over. He threw the aluminum piece up over the curtains once again. This time the welders took their torches and heated the aluminum white hot. Aluminum does not chage color when heated. They took their tongs and tossed the plate back over the curtain. Of course the trickster had to pick it up to do his trick again. You can imagine the outcome.
I cannot forget this story.
It is illustrative on a point. As Mark Twain said ” A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way”

Velvet Underground and Nico was possibly the first concert I ever went to. Andy Warhol’s Exploding Plastic Inevitable was in Provincetown playing at the museum in conjunction with a pop art exhibit. My parents asked if kids could go and got a yes. I was 12 maybe 11. All I remember was 3 films going at once in the background while they sang “Heroin” and the dancers formed a circle and the one in middle mimed taking a shot. All while strobe lights bounced off a mirror ball overhead. I think that one experience helped warp me for life. All I know is when I got home I went about trying to recreate that as well as I could.

Can’t think of a better way to get to work than on my bike. Thru the sweet air of McCarren Park, past the smell of garlic frying in olive oil. Just like life there’s a doody diaper in the road. Then the bridge where I give thanks for the use of my legs, not like my sister in her electric wheelchair or my brother limping with a cane bravely over the span.

Perfume is like love. It continues to give pleasure long after the first application

The clubhouse was actually an old garage had been sealed on the door side. It had a loft and old comfortable furniture. It was more of a place for men to sit together, have a smoke , listen to old scratchy records and reminisce about the past, and contemplate the future. We liked to come out there, to get away from the kids, and joke about what it would be like if we actually turned it into an office. We bought an old limo, put in an phone, took out an ad, and there you had it. Mitch and Brian’s car service. Think of us as contemporary version of Amos and Andy, and Kingfisher thrown in for good effect. We would sit out in the driveway smoking malodorous cheap Italian cigars, in plastic strap lawn chairs and make remarks to the women who passed by. We wore bowler hats , and cheap waistcoats and our shirts were often sweat stained with dirty collars. I kept my grandfathers pocket watch on a gold chain just for effect. We took small wagers on the side, and often a spirited game of dice would ensue. Local husbands would wander by, attracted by the smoke and the gambling they would venture up to the clubhouse to try their luck. Tis never turned out well for them, our skills being quite sharp. The wives soon Grew sick of us, and one who was the sister in law of the chief gendarme dropped a dime The local gendarmerie made it their business to roll by on regular basis. they started making our lives and business intolerable. They did not like our conduct or the fraternal mingling that had begun to centre upon the clubhouse. One day we received a visit from the local Major, who made it clear our antics would no longer be condoned. We retreated back inside the clubhouse and continue to meet there most nights, to smoke and listen to scratchy records, and reminisce.