beaned burrito

Duane,

Because of rattled brain cells, I must protect the few reasonably stable ones that miraculously dodged Wild Bo Campbell’s fastball, circa 1970. A squeaky clean Boy Scout at the time, Wild Bo’s erratic attempt to brush me off the dish resulted in a dramatic personality change. Two days after Doc Gregory pried the baseball from my forehead I was smoking L&Ms with neighborhood delinquents and brazenly challenging Daddy’s authority.

Liberating a big brass pot leaf belt buckle from Webb City’s original head shop exacerbated the budding oedipal drama, leading to years of musty basement exile. Isolated from family interaction, I escaped into a fantasy world where Pink Floyd provided the soundtrack and Penthouse intense pleasure every thirty minutes. Thanks to my sister’s kindness, the damp cell’s drippy ambience was eventually enhanced with hot plate, lava lamp and cast iron washtub. The protracted oedipal drama reached its climax in ‘73 when Daddy bought me a teddy. Convinced this would shame me into sitting still for Cousin Lenny’s flattop clippers, he was traumatized when I arrived late for Faith Lutheran’s Der Ring des Nibelungen -- what Episcopalians call Easter Sunday -- working the comfortable lingerie. Herbal planning went into accentuating his gift with cute Cleopatra sandals and roach clip earrings. The lack of panties was an unintentional fashion faux pas. I found out years later that Frau Waldbesser blamed me for her husband’s subsequent battle with acid reflux.

But I digress. Here at Chow Acre Burlingame occupies the same crawl space with Caldwell -- the dullard he thinks is “General Patton.” Lord ‘a mighty. Lacking your ‘generosite d’esprit’, I’ve reached a dead end with Joplin’s Ted Baxter. Although I have conversed with inanimate objects in the past (thanks to the Zip Wyatt Treatment Center abusing aromatic hydrocarbons is now a swirling blur), I fear a relapse if tempted to refute bunkum from someone whose grip on English is similar to the average 13th century Hungarian double amputee. It’s tough to stay engaged when his comments read like Steven Wright: “I bought some batteries, but they weren’t included.”

Maybe there is a little liberal buried deep inside Burlingame that’s dying to get out. Visions of the movie “Alien” come to mind.

And now I’m going to retire for the evening and dream about Billy Long jerking off the stigma of one party rule.