The Jihadi Who Turned to Jesus

It takes a lot of courage to deny a potent creed,

One that looks on carnage as a holy blessed deed.

Had I once been jihadi, could I ever come to call

On Jesus as my Saviour and Redeemer from the Fall?

Tradition and upbringing shackle many as proud slaves

And takes them to the Promised Land by way of many graves.

So here’s to one young man at least who found a better way

And is not fearful that his colleagues might want him to slay.

It gives an old man like me, grown so cynical and wry,

The hope that exaltation still can come to those who try!

The Clown Fries an Egg

(continued from The Clown and the Weatherman)

After my TV audition debacle, and with Amy’s tacit support, I began to clown around with my newscasts. This was the heyday of the folksy broadcaster, such as Paul Harvey. So I began ending my news with nonsensical sign-offs such as “And remember, folks, you can’t make a silk purse out of a corn crib” or “Don’t forget, friends, that you can take the farmer out of the country, but you can’t make him drink.”

Oscar Halvorson, the station owner, got a chuckle out of these little jokes. His wife Faye, on the other hand, was driven into a cold fury by them. But now I was feeling my oats, and her cutting remarks to me about my ‘childish on-air tricks’ didn’t draw blood anymore. It was obvious that she had no say in how Oscar ran things, at least as far as I was concerned; so I shrugged off her hectoring with a grin.

I settled into my new career, still missing the camaraderie of clown alley, but resigned to the fact that I would have to carry on the hallowed traditions of lunacy all by myself there in northwestern North Dakota. I was buoyed up considerably by the letters and postcards I continued to receive from my old pals back at Ringling. I rejoiced when I got Tim Holst’s announcement of a baby girl born to him and his wife Linda. Chico sent me several long letters detailing the trials and tribulations of being the new boss clown -- he wrote that his ultimate goal was to displace Bill Ballantine as Dean of the Ringling Clown College. Apparently Uncle Bill was losing popularity with Irvin Feld and upper circus management due to the poor material he was sending as First of Mays. (And it wasn’t long before Chico and his wife Sandy did become the heads of Clown College; Uncle Bill was given a lukewarm send-off by the show and returned the favor by writing his autobiography, Clown Alley, in which he alternately showered affection on the circus and broiled it with acidulous comments on certain inept personalities.)

The month of May that year was a typical meteorological Jekyll and Hyde story for North Dakota. The month started with raging snirt storms -- a combination of blowing snow and dirt that froze cattle where they stood and covered everything with a gray slush. Then the temperature rocketed into heat wave mode in a matter of days. My journal shows that on May 25th it reached one-hundred degrees by two in the afternoon. There was only one thing a newsman with my background could do under those circumstances -- I would broadcast an attempt to fry an egg on the sidewalk in front of Service Drug on Main Street.

At noon I took my trusty mike out into the blazing heat, with egg in hand, and cracked it over a cement slab in front of the drug store. The crowd of perspiring citizens that gathered to watch this carnival stunt freely offered their opinions as to whether or not the egg would cook. The majority were sure that it would. I gave the egg a full two minutes to fry -- with breathless commentary. But the egg did not cook at all -- not even a little white around the edges. As the crowd melted away I was left, not with egg on my face, but egg on the sidewalk -- which I had to clean up to the satisfaction of the manager of the drug store. Do you have any idea how hard it is to wipe up egg yolk on a hot sidewalk? It was anticlimactic, to be sure, but it made the local newspaper, and even old Ben Innis, the Voice of KEYZ Radio, our main competitor, mentioned it on his evening newscast. Oscar was pleased as punch with my caper -- he gave me a ten-dollar a month raise.

It looked like I had a future in radio, after all. Channeling my goofy clown ideas into audio nonsense. My success impelled me to the next Great Leap Forward in my life’s trajectory.

I was going to ask Amy to marry me.

(to be continued)

The Short Tempered Chef Makes Lamb Curry

So I was asking around at the Provo Rec Center this morning as the water aerobics instructor vainly pleaded with us to shut up and start exercising, what’s a good dish you can make with lamb? First suggestion was lamb curry -- and by golly, that’s what I’m making today. I’ve never made it before, but I reckon if I throw the right stuff together it’ll turn out okey dokey. Isn’t that how most great cooking is done?

So I got a pound of cubed lamb, a white onion, some celery stalks, a carrot (more for the color than anything else) and I’ll swish it all together in the wok with some sesame seed oil, then add a can of Thai green curry paste and a can of coconut milk, and serve the whole shebang over angel hair pasta. Me and rice noodles just don’t get along that well.

The big question is the cubed lamb is labeled ‘lamb for stew,’ so does that mean I have to simmer it a while or can I just wok it up over high heat and it’ll be ready to eat? My feet are killing me this morning (I’m wearing a pair of Nike sneakers that are 3 years old -- the soles look like black shredded seaweed -- there’s absolutely no support left, but hey, you can still see the brand name!) I think I’ll just quick cook it and take my chances on rubbery lamb . . . .

Dammit, I just realized I didn’t buy any Major Grey’s Chutney! I doubt that Market Place has any, and besides, my feet are still killing me. Right now I wouldn’t walk a block to see the Pope ride a bicycle.

The lamb was not tough, but the next time I buy that kind at Smith’s I’ll take a minute to cut each cube in half -- they were enormous. This was a very good meal -- a little underspiced, but that was easily fixed with some hot sauce and soy sauce. Now the sad part . . . since I have no one to share it with, I’ll just pack the rest in a freezer bag and hope I remember to use it some day down the road. Ever notice how even the best tasting food isn’t really all that good when you don’t have anyone to share it with? However, since most of my homecooked stuff comes out wretched I don’t get that lonely abandoned feeling too often. Thank goodness.

We Are Cyber Insects

Round the cyber bonfire we insects blindly fly

Posting inane comments that would make a numskull cry.

Somewhere deep inside we know the time we waste online

Does not improve our intellect or make our virtues shine.

But when we try to disengage, to pull the plug, we find

We’ve nothing left that we can call our own exclusive mind.

The Short Tempered Chef: Comfort Food the Easy Way

Mother Nature is being tetchy today. Clouds cover the mountains like damp cotton wool and a sullen rain has been dropping since before sunrise. The temperature will never reach fifty today. Well, I say to Mother Nature -- “Fine, be that way. I’m going to make comfort food while I hole up in my apartment and watch Netflix . . . nyah!”

My idea of good comfort food is a can of Bush’s Baked Beans with a piece of ham steak cut up in it. Not sausage or hotdogs or ground pork -- plain expensive ham steak. A big slice, with plenty of ham fat on it.Then I add a generous dollop of maple syrup and let it simmer on the stove for at least fifteen minutes. The beauty part is that if you get caught up in something you can let it simmer forever -- but you should give it at least fifteen to let the flavors get acquainted with each other. And I’m drinking a big bottle of Shasta Orange with it -- nothin’ fancy-schmancy today. It ain’t that kind of day. I’ll probably let my pot o’ beans simmer a long time, since a friend has sent me an interesting email in which he challenges me to read one of Charles M. Blow’s opinion pieces in the New York Limes without having to look up the meaning of any of the words. I’m taking him up on that challenge right now . . .

Pfui! There wasn’t a ten-dollar word in the whole melange. It was a piece of gateau.

I plan on eating my comfort meal while watching Samurai Gourmet -- a quirky little number about a newly retired salaryman who doesn’t know what to do with himself, until he discovers all the different hole in the wall restaurants around his neighborhood; places he never had the time or inclination to visit while he was working. The camera dotes on woks full of frying fish and bowls of steaming noodles and all sorts of Japanese culinary bric-a-brac. It’s a visual appetizer. It’s so stimulating that I have to watch myself, lest I begin chewing up my own plate and utensils after the food is finished.

Well, my little apartment is redolent with the soothing odor of ham and beans -- so let’s see how it all turned out . . .

I had it with a croissant, which turned out to be just the kind of light, airy, scoop I needed to enjoy this meal to the max. Yes, as sure as my name is Long John Bilgewater, this was a totally successful comfort meal. I’m full; I’m satisfied; and I’m no longer in thrall to the rainy weather outside. I’ve got Netflix, my recliner, and an hour of belching and farting ahead of me. What more could a man ask for?  

Thank You, Randy Weldon!

There are no writers without readers. And any reader who makes an intelligent comment about a writer’s efforts is doing the work of angels. To all those readers who liked my mini-memoir “The Clown and the Bully” I say May You Be Given The Biggest Street Parade Heaven Has Ever Seen!

Sandy Weber; Bernard Bresslaw; Mike Weakley; Lainie Kazan; Gabriel Romero Sr.; Estelle Getty; Alberto Ramirez; Jackie Mason; Mike Johnson; Jim Nabors; Chris Twiford; Billy Jim Baker; Keith Murdock; Kevin Richardson; Randy Weldon; Kenneth L Stallings; James D. Howard; Jim Aakhus; Patti Jo Estes Williams; Roy Dietrich; Marion Seidel; Paul Hill; and the euphonious Dave Letterfly.

“Always be a poet, even in prose.”

― Charles Baudelaire

The BAT Tax

The BAT tax ain’t a tax on bats, in case you are confused.

It is a tax on imports that will keep us cash-infused.

It will pay to build the Wall that Mexico so needs

To keep the gringos in their place amongst the Texas weeds.

So if you have our country’s welfare in your heart, my friends,

You’ll pay a handsome forfeit on all foreign odds and ends.

The Clown and the Weatherman

(continued from The Clown and the School Teacher)

Clowns have no business falling in love. But when they do, they fall heavy. At least I did when I met Amy Anderson. And, as in all great love stories, her first order of business was to remove the appellation of ‘clown’ from my curriculum vitae. For no woman actually wants to be associated with a professional buffoon. This sad fact has influenced the history of the world from Adam on down. Adam wanted to throw a pie at the snake in the Garden of Eden, but Eve  persuaded him instead to listen to the serpent’s sales pitch. The results, as we all know, were not immediately happy.  And I, blinded by love, was willing to go along with Amy’s plans for me. For a while.

While I had toiled in the Ringling clown alley, the art of clowning gave me a sense of pride and purpose. The world needed clowns, needed to laugh at their antics. But now that I was cut off from clowning, stuck in a small North Dakota town where my only concern was gathering local news for broadcast, that purpose-driven mindset began to dwindle. I should have replaced it with a desire to become the best professional broadcaster I could be -- but somehow clown alley had poisoned my perspective on any regular career. They all seemed stuffy and pompous. None more so than the work of a radio newscaster. It was all very serious.

Amy, certainly, took my work more seriously than I did. She was ambitious for my success in radio -- and beyond.

So when I casually mentioned to her one evening, during a cozy makeout session, that the local TV station, KUMV, was looking for a weatherman, she flung me from her arms in a frenzy of vicarious ambition.

“You’ve got to audition for that job, Timmy!” she said breathlessly.

“Sure thing, cupcake. Let’s talk about it later and get comfy again, okay?” I replied, amorously determined to regain the recent status quo.

“This is just what you’ve been looking for” she continued, heedless of my lovelorn expression. Cupid had struck out again.

She grilled me remorselessly about the position. I had heard about it during a visit to the Williston cop shop during a lull in Chief Atol’s litany of recent crimes under investigation -- a missing manhole cover on Main Street; the sighting of a moose eating laundry off somebody’s wash line; and the pressing need for a new dog catcher -- or, rather, animal control officer, as Atol phrased it. Clint Bevans, the local TV newscaster at KUMV, had mentioned the opening to me, wondering if I would be interested in trying out for it. My knee jerk reaction had been no thanks, simply because getting to the station, which was several miles out on the highway, would have been a hassle for me, since I didn’t drive.

Amy was aghast at my cavalier attitude towards this potential career boost.

“You call him back and tell him you’ll be there tomorrow for an audition! I’ll take a day off from school to drive you myself” she said fervently. Her eyes danced with a keen determination to push me in the right direction. And suddenly I realized that here was a woman who wanted me to succeed. This was a new and intoxicating idea to me -- a true blue helpmeet. Up until then the women in my life, such as my mother and my sisters and my other girl friends, seemed to barely tolerate my existence -- they were more concerned with their own personal agendas or simply wanted me to shut up and behave myself. But Amy was different. This was a kind of love I had never experienced before. Only a fool would ignore it. And I was not such a fool as that. Not yet, at least.

So the next day I went down to KUMV-TV to audition for weatherman. I dressed in my Sunday best -- white shirt and staid blue tie; black slacks, and spit polished faux Florsheims. At Amy’s insistent urging, I even wore a pair of black socks instead of my ubiquitous white cotton ones. As Clint and Amy watched from the sidelines, I picked up a long wooden pointer to begin improvising about high pressure ridges and the probability of precipitation. This was back in the dear departed days when you didn’t need a shred of meteorological training to do the weather. It was all about ‘personality.’ Things were going smoothly until I tripped over a thick camera cable on the floor. The old clown instincts took over -- instead of quickly regaining my balance to continue the forecast, I dived headfirst through the weather map, made of flimsy paper, and rolled over in my best Buster Keaton style, ending with my feet sticking straight up in the air.

After a moment of bemused silence, Clint thanked me for coming in and said they’d keep in touch. It was an obvious kiss-off.

On the way back into town Amy maintained a frosty silence. I knew I had purposely blown the audition, so for once in my life I kept my big mouth shut. Something told me that it was crucial to my future relationship to let her have the first, and last, word.

Her opening salvo, when we got back to my place, was a loaded question.

“You messed that up on purpose, didn’t you?” she asked, arms akimbo and eyes blazing with righteous indignation. Since there was no right answer, I just gave her the truth.

“Yeah. Once a clown, always a clown.”

“If you really loved me . . . “ she began, and I wilted. This was the end. I’d alienated another woman. Again.

But this is where the real fairy tale romance begins. For instead of finishing that dreadful sentence, she paused, tried to look stern and pouty, and then broke into a beaming smile and began to laugh.

“You big poop head” she said, opening her arms to me.

(to be continued)

Like the roots of a tree

Women are like the roots of a tree. Strong and seeking, nourishing persistently. They reach down deep as taproots. They spread out seeking the best for themselves and for those who they must sustain. A mighty forest cannot exist without them, without their constant anchor and support. The sapling will not survive if they stop their work. The ancient bristlecone depends on them for the few bits of green it still displays. Women uphold life everywhere.

Have you ever tried to uproot a full grown tree? It’s like trying to pick up an anthill, one ant at a time. Take down the trunk and the roots remain. Women must never be ignored or marginalized, for their roots of dignity and determination will remain. She flourishes despite the heat and the cold. She grows despite hatred and misunderstanding and restraints. She burrows into the softest loam, into unyielding hardpan, and down into the driest sand. She is a root that can topple a building, buckle the thickest pavement. Her influence is felt everywhere. She can withstand pruning and pinching. She is quietly powerful. But where she is cut off and dismissed, there is famine and desert and despair.

A woman is a self sacrificing root. Like the carrot or yam she fills herself with goodness and plenty, only to give it all up into the hands of the gardener to sustain others. She brings up the sweetness for apples and grapes, for peaches and mangoes. Roots ripen the butternut and the coconut. Roots bring forth foliage to protect and comfort and feed a multitude of creatures. The very sap of life begins with her questing and absorbing what is needful and useful.

The power of women is a spreading root.

The Short Tempered Chef: Oriental Breakfast Salad.

Fried foods for breakfast -- bleck! I have days when bacon and eggs, with buttered toast, just doesn’t cut the mustard (whatever the hell that means -- I fall into obscure cliches as easy as Trump falls into a Russian bed.)

So this morning I decided that the Short Tempered Chef would tinker with the concept of a hearty salad for breakfast. With an Asian theme. I’m hoping this will turn out well enough so that I can make it when the unpitying heat of a Utah summer returns in a month or two. By ten in the morning my cozy apartment, receiving jagged shards of sunshine coming over the Wasatch range, begins to boil -- even with the air conditioning going full throttle. My appetite wanes as I begin to melt and start to ooze years of lipids stored in my thrifty Norwegian body.

I’m combining bean sprouts, edamame soybeans, hard boiled eggs, candied salmon chunks, scallions, and fried rice noodles. The dressing will be a splash of seasoned rice vinegar, a dash of sesame seed oil, and the squeezin’s of half a lime. And I’ll sip on a cup of Bengal Spice herbal tea. Here goes nothin’!

Well, the individual ingredients were good -- I tasted each one before adding. But the whole was a disappointment. The candied salmon is especially toothsome -- I’ll be using a lot more of THAT in future recipes. The mouthfeel was fine, but it lacked an overall umami -- and there was a residual hint of bitterness. The bean sprouts, I think. It could have really used some sliced ginger and fish sauce. As well as some heat from a chili pepper or two. I won’t be repeating this breakfast experiment again. I think I’ll stick to good old bagel & lox for summer morning meals.