The Family Gun

With so much talk about guns these days, I find myself with a lot of strong opinions (who, me?) about who should and shouldn't have them. Well, speaking of people who shouldn't have them, I thought I'd tell a story about the Brown family gun.
A fairly nondescript .38 revolver was introduced into our home sometime around 1980. I remember getting back from school one day and my mom sitting me and my brother down, in order to show us our new gun. She showed us its six chambers and a box of bullets. Being the pussies that we were and still are, Augie and I were terrified of this new member of the family. I can't remember why we got it, or if my parents were even telling the truth. Thinking back and connecting the dots, it probably had something to do with a briefcase full of cash that my dad was keeping for his incarcerated amigo in Costa Rica, Sandy. We also kindly stashed his Rolls Royce for him, too. There are ostensibly a lot of reasons for owning a handgun in New Orleans and, for whatever reason, we now had one.
So, in the beginning, the gun lived under my parents bed. Made sense - when the burglar showed up, my mom could reach under the bed and simply shoot him.
Augie and I were a bit more careful and nervous when jumping on their bed or having violent pillow fights. Afterwards, we would get on either side of the bed and peer down to make sure it wasn't going to go off on its own. It was kind of like watching a rattlesnake behind glass. We never touched it. Every kid should be such a pussy.
After some time had gone by, the gun moved from its spot under the bed into a super-cool piece of post-modernist furniture that we had in our living room. It's hard to describe this thing, but it was a circular bar with bar stools that swiveled. The cushions on the stools were orange leather - the color and texture of a basketball. The inside of the bar was hollow but had a top piece with compartments which slid open. The gun took up residence in there, next to some jewelery and seashells. I don't quite understand how this made sense, as it was a totally inconvenient place to hide anything that you might need to access quickly. I think we felt more comfortable with it stowed away. There would be no accidental run-ins while trying to locate a lost bedroom slipper, like before. When my friends would come over, we would sit at the bar, remove the piece that covered the entry into the bar's innards, and have a peek . It looked even scarier next to those seashells!
Years later, the gun moved out of our house and onto our sailboat, the S.S. Kiki, without a lot of fanfare. I guess it was getting dusty at the house and not any use at all: we never hunted or went to the shooting range. Like insurance, we made a place for it in our lives, but it really served no purpose. No one knew how to use it with any confidence. And half of the family unit was too scared to even look at it for very long.
This poor gun needed some excitement in its life. I mean, we still had that same box of unused bullets. So, all-aboard and anchors away!
While out at sea in the Gulf of Mexico, the gun made a cameo appearance. Nobody sent me the memo that the gun was now residing aboard our home on the water. As I recall, my mom and a girlfriend of one of the guys who sailed with us were polishing off a bottle of this Hazelnut liqueur called Frangelico. Anyone who knows my mom knows that she likes to tie one on and loves to get there by way of dessert liqueur. I think she's still hooked on one called Cardinal Mendoza, in case you need to get her a gift.
Anywhoo, the drinking buddy that day's name was Buffy. Buffy and my mom, along with the other grown-ups present decided to dust off the old gun and let a few bullets sail through the southern sky. Augie and I were down-below playing Othello when we heard the shots being fired off. Buffy and mom stood at the stern firing away while teetering on the edge of the cockpit and drunkenly swaying in the wind. So that's where the gun went! One was shooting the Brown family .38, and the other had a big assault rifle that belonged to our friend, Don. I can still hear the shells hitting the fiberglass deck.
Therapist after therapist has asked me the same question: "How did that make you feel?"
I was never really shocked by too much of anything that my parents did. The boat was just a particularly twasted venue for them to get their rocks off, especially due to the fact that I couldn't run from them when I was out at sea.
On Kiki, the gun lived in a built-in wooden drawer in the boat's only bedroom. In that drawer was some rose body cream made by a company called Carnation. Don't know why I remember that detail, but I do. The gun took on a bit of a new identity on the boat. It got greasy with fingerprints, it got some scratches, and it even made its way into my mom's purse a few times when we had docked in Mexico.
Over the years, we had a slew of young guys who were possibly employed by my dad to live on the boat, take care of it and sail to different locations. It was obvious that the guys were dealing drugs, but my dad didn't care until they ripped him off, which would inevitably happen.
I imagine the gun became way more useful when we were away and these young coke-heads were running the show
Time went on, and Kiki spent lots of time in Mexico. My parents would take a few month-long trips down there per year. Augie and I stayed behind, in order to go to school.
I'd sometimes inquire about the gun as if it were some slutty cousin of mine. "Where's the gun these days?" Last I heard, pirates stole it off the boat. That very well could be true... Chances are, one of the boat boys took it when they knew my Dad was getting ready to bust them for some ridiculous charge to his AmEx.
Oh, the sweet innocent childhood memories.
So, back to the issue of guns. Our family proved too unstable to make a proper home for a nice little revolver. The combination of 2 pussy kids, one rowdy cognac drinker and one Thor Heyerdahl with a major edge is no place for a sweet little gun.

Raw Food and Pie for Breakfast

Just getting back after 4 days in San Francisco and the surrounding area.
It was a first for many things: my first trip alone with Zev, his first trip aboard a plane, my first time in Santa Cruz. But, San Francisco is a pretty familiar place for me, thanks to Blake.


We have been visiting him there for the past 12 years, and I am always amazed at the things that you can learn when you happen to travel just 400 miles north. It's a different world up there, especially when you're tooling around in a biodiesel-powered Jetta with a chef with new dreadlocks and a herniated disc.
We drove to Capitola, CA on Monday after we had lunch with Blake's mom in Palo Alto. Capitola is a completely pleasant beach town 4 miles south of Santa Cruz. It is the new home to my friends Mimi and Matthew who were formerly residents of the Green Gulch Zen Buddhist monastery/farming community. They spent the last 10 years in and out of monasteries and community houses. Now they've made the bold move into the world of single family dwellings and dual cellphones. They're keeping it real by only allowing technology into their home that is at least 10+ years old. We listened to loads of cassettes. We waited a good 20 minutes to look something up online on their huge, vintage PC. Blake commented on how he liked that they kept the TV screen and computer monitor covered in scarves. I think they only uncover the television/VCR combo if they have a particularly good video to watch. Over dinner, Matthew wondered if we had heard of a certain playboy bunny who recently died in the Bahamas leaving behind a baby worth hundreds of millions. I think he read about it in some news journal. This is what you can attain after dozens of month-long silent retreats. When you re-enter the world of You-Tube and Entertainment Tonight, it takes a Zen warrior to be so distantly plugged in. As always, we had a good time.
Zev loves those two, and I could really get used to having 3 extra friends with me at all times.
Tuesday morning, Matthew and Mimi took off from work, so we could chill and head up to Santa Cruz. We wound up at a bakery for breakfast. Blake and I started our day off with pie - Olallaberry pie, in fact. I used that as a benchmark to describe the rest of our day. Santa Cruz was far more upscale than I had hoped it would be. It seems that very few places along the California coast haven't gone upscale.
We met up with a vegetarian friend later when we got back to S.F. at one of our favorite places that we hate to love - a particularly self-righteous restaurant in the Mission called Cafe Gratitude. It left veganism in the dust years ago. Those vegans might as well be working for Halliburton. These raw foodies run around in a way not too different from those on Crystal Meth. They feel obligated to display their raw abundant energy at every opportunity, shouting out the affirmations on the menu and hugging their favorite hirsute waitress. I find that meat and caffeine gives me all I need, but hats off to them.
Gratitude serves up 100% vegan food which is never heated above 145 degrees. A lot of dehydration is the key, and I'm picking up a dehydrator that I found on CraigsList tomorrow morning in Burbank. The dishes all have names that will make you wince. Blake and I ordered up the "I am Accepting (stir un-fry)" which consists of a rice-like material fashioned from dehydrated parsnips, celery root and pine nuts. We also split a pizza that Gratitude calls "I am Sensational"- delicious, especially if you like Brazil nut parmesan cheese and cashew ricotta. My iced tea had some kind of essential oils in it. I almost got kicked out when I asked for a straw. I can understand people who loathe this place and all it stands for (Blake's girlfriend, for one), but the food is goddamn delicious. Going raw is going to be cooler than going Brazilian. That's my prediction anyway.
And, so it goes.
We talked about books we'd read but more about books we haven't read. We drank excessive amounts of coffee and very little water. We tried to assemble a playpen without reading the directions and realized that Jews can't wing it when it comes to assembling furniture of any kind. We both wore clothing stained with infant vomit, thanks to Zev. We somehow made it through the entire trip with one shower a piece. Showering, much like cooked food is merely an option.

Jamaican Proverbs: A Lesson in Patois

Bisq and I spent our honeymoon in Jamaica back in 2002. In fact, we stayed at an all-inclusive resort that was chosen by a gay travel agent named Jamal with cute dreadlocks and a penchant for rolling his eyes while talking on his wireless head-set. Bisq and I could never tell if the eye-rolling was directed at us.
It came down to a decision between an eco-resort/exotic zoo wonderland in Mexico called Ixpuha Palace and Swept Away in Negril.
Jamaica won for the obvious reasons, but the iguanas wandering the premises at Ixpuha and hot tubs in the suites looked mighty appealing, too. Plus, I loved watching Jamal say ik-shpoo-haa.
Anyway, the honeymoon was a blast. Let me sum it up: We arrived with fake tans and minimal body hair; we left 10 shades paler than we had arrived. We ate loads of a fruit called soursop. It tasted like it was 50% banana and 50% pineapple. I drank Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee smoothies spiked with Tia Maria at least twice a day. Biscuit was still a lush back then and was drinking every girly rum drink that would fit inside of a coconut. The bellboys hooked us up with cheeba immediately. I kept losing my room-key, sunglasses and camera, due to the haze I was in. We played several games of ping-pong each day and were always first in line at the buffets. I'll cut it off there, cuz most of you know what honeymoons are like.
A few keepsakes from the honeymoon remain in my possession 5 years later. In the evenings, the maids at Swept Away left us with a "Thought For the Night" card. It has a typical Jamaican proverb on one side and on the other side, it says "PLEASE ASK YOUR ATTENDANT FOR AN EXPLANATION"
I was high, and that's just the kind of invitation I was looking for.
One card reads, Yuh bawn wen yuh mamma gawn ah mawket! I'm taking the spelling directly from the cards. I wouldn't be able to make this stuff up. I think it means something like, when your mama finally started being a whore, she got pregnant with you??
Another reads, Cow nuh know te use a im tail till it chap aff. This one, I get. If you don't use it you lose it...no, maybe, it means you didn't realize how useful something was until you lost it. In the cow's case, his tail. In your case, maybe your sideburns??
The final one is, See mi an cum lib wid ah 2 difrent ting. I get it.... It's a very appropriate thing to say to your spouse or whomever you live with, especially when you stink up the bathroom. Or maybe when you're walking around the house in some underwear that is 8 sizes too big and the waistband comes up to your nipples...not that I'd know anything about these - just some examples
Well, this has prompted me to look up more Jamaican proverbs because I think they're brilliant, and I'd like Patois to be Zev's second language. I know Spanish is so useful, but
it's just so boring.
Here are some I thought you might like to integrate into your daily banter:
1. Every hoe ha dem stick a bush= to each his own, or there is someone out there for everyone
2. Fire de a Mus Mus tail, him tink a cool breeze= set a rat's tail on fire, and he thinks there's a cool breeze. This can be used to describe someone or something (the system, for example) that is clueless. This characterizes the complacency of the upper class.
3. Every mikkle mek a muckle= a penny saved is a penny earned. This could pass for Yiddish, don't you think? You need the proper inflection, of course.
4. Mi cum here fi drink milk, mi noh cum here fi count cow= a reminder to conduct business in a straightforward manner.

Bust out any of these phrases and you'll definitely impress me. A trip to Jamaica is indeed a cultural experience, and you don't even need to step outside of your gated resort which insures that you'll never meet the people who speak Patois (who aren't scoring your cheeba or cleaning up after you spill jackfruit juice). Just make sure you get the "Thought For the Night" card and find an attendant for an explanation.

QUIZ TIME!
Can you complete these Jamaican proverbs?
The following proverbs are written in a loose combination of standard English and patois in an attempt to reflect the two languages commonly used on the island and out of a dual respect for the fact that this will be read rather than heard and the fact that proverbs themselves are bastions of the oral tradition, having survived orally for over hundreds of years. See if you can fill in the blanks.

1. "One, one coco ____ basket" (Do not expect to achieve success overnight).

2. "Every mikkle ____ a mukkle" (Every little bit counts).

3. "Wat doan ____, will fatten" (Do not waste time worrying over something that does you no real harm. You may even be able to turn it around into something positive).

4. "Chicken merry, _____ dah near" (Be vigilant as danger can be found in unexpected places).

5. "Every dawg has his day and every puss his ___ o'clock" and cock mouth ____ cock. (Do not act as if you are better than others, your day will come).

6. "Wanti, wanti, cyan getti, getti, getti nuh _____" Also "silent rivah run deep" and "No mug no bruk, no coffee nuh dash wey" (Count your blessings and do not take what you have for granted).

7. "Sorry fi mawga dog, mawga dog wi tun round and ____ you" (Sometimes it is those whom we help who are the least grateful).

8. "Duppy know ___ fi frighten" (Bullies know to pick on those least able to defend themselves).

9. "See mi a one thing, come lib with me ________" (To see me is one thing, to live with me, another or as in another popular saying, do not judge a book by its cover).

10. "De olda de clock, de ______ it wine" (The older a person is, the wiser).

11. "When coco ripe, it mus ____" (Actions speak louder than words).

12. "Hog say, 'de first dutty water mi ______, mi wash'." (Seize opportunities as they present themselves).

13. "One eye man king in ______ man country". (No matter how bad it seems things may be, there is always another for whom things are worse).

14. "Fool-fool pickney mek fowl _____ away from him two time" (Never allow yourself to be fooled the same way more than once).

15. "Nuh fatten cockroach fi _____" (Do not waste time doing things for which others will be ungrateful).

16. "Saltfish sit down pon di _______ a wait fi bread and butter" (Lazy people wait for life's blessings to come to them).

17. "Mi old, but mi nuh _____" (Do not underestimate the value of the elderly).

18. "Disobedient pickney _____ rockstone" (Disobedient children will come to a bad end).

19. "Dawg say if him have money him would buy him own ______" (Some people, when they wind up with money, will waste it in unnecessary things).

20. "Talk and ______ your tongue" (Think before you speak).

ANSWERS:
1. full. 2. mek. 3. kill. 4. hawk. 5. four
6. wanti. 7. bite. 8. who. 9. another. 10. faster.
11. bus 12. ketch 13. blind 14. get 15. fowl.
16. counter. 17. cold. 18. nyam. 19. fleas. 20. taste

The Pyramid

When you are in the the healing biz, such as myself, you run into lots of folks who are involved in MLMs. Go ahead, ask: "What are MLMs?" Can you say Multi-Level Marketing? They used to be known as pyramid schemes.
It's so ubiquitous that even Biscuit's obese aunt in Indiana is pushing some pharmy-grade digestive enzymes at church. Let me explain. There are products out there that are so good that they're not available to common folks that still purchase things in stores. No - these things can only be bought and sold by those who insist upon obtaining the purest of pure...be it vitamins, beauty products, weight-loss supplements, magnets or Noni juice. Ever wished you could eat seventy servings of fruits and vegetables in the form of just one pill? Your prayers have been answered: get with Juice Plus, fool! Ever wish you could have magnets in your shoes? Or, better yet, in your mattress? Imagine how well you'd sleep. Wouldn't it be nice to have access to such high end products? Friends, if your want to get your hands in some ionic mittens, I suggest you obtain a membership. Can I turn you onto Nikken?

Your life has likely been touched by one of these products buzzing around your office space. Or, maybe someone you know had an out-of-work sister who decided she wanted the freedom of working for herself. Ever heard of Advo-Care? Usana? Ameri-Sciences? These are all brands that have waltzed into my life over the past 10 years. These brands call themselves "nutri-ceuticlas."
Get it? Such precision and purity goes into these supplements that they're pharmaceutical grade. You need only to leaf through the distributor mags so that you can see the medical experts with names like Dr. Carlos Montesinos who are formulating the 'ceuticals. In fact, NASA depends on these products to keep their astronauts alert. Also, the mags let you meet the distributors who were once miserable like you and now gross $100K and have time for their families and 18 holes of golf each morning. Oh, and no problem if you want to drive a Mercedes. If you sell more than the other distributors, then you're getting one as a gift!
When Bisq surprised me with a three month supply of Usana vitamins back in 1998, Usana was kind enough to keep his credit card on file, so that they could charge the card when each fresh batch is concocted in the laboratories which are typically in Utah or Nevada. Don't you want your vitamins to be fresh? Bisq was turned onto these products by his intuitive reader friend, Doug Hickox, in Santa Fe.
A byproduct of these MLMs are the ordinary people, possessed by the potion, who transform themselves into nutritionists and health experts, who earn their degrees by investing $1000 into the company's inventory. And they can be awfully stealthy, too. One might be your waiter at Houston's who goes out of his way to strike up a conversation with you. He somehow gets on the subject of how Noni juice cleared up his acne and, next thing you know, he wants your business card. He asks if he can stop by your office sometime or if you'd like to go have coffee. Bisq and I get blind-sided and, like the twasted robots that we are, agree to whatever he is suggesting. Sure enough, the phone rings at the office and it's him. "Wanna meet for 20 minutes over coffee?" Now, in that situation, I can lie and be done with him.
But, at least 2 or 3 times, I've been taken into the dreaded "coffee meeting." It ain't pretty.
While in Atlanta, I was part of a very twasted networking group called PowerCore. Google it, cuz I can't explain everything I'm bringing up today. The meetings were at 7:00 AM on Thursdays, and the mediator actually had a gavel. After the meeting would adjourn, we each had to make arrangements to meet (for coffee again!) with a member of the group whom we had not yet met with. The purpose of the coffee meeting is to communicate what you do and how they can send you referrals. If I had a nickel for every coffee break I've had with mortgage lenders, realtors, and cheesy guys from AFLAC... Anyway, there were always a few MLM distributors in the group who wanted to hook you on the nutri-ceuticals and psyche you up to start selling it, too.
I met with this one dude from Lithuania named Seguitas Siputis (pronounced Sig-ee-tus Shi-putis) who was high on a company called Ameri-Sciences. Dudes like him thought I'd be a gold mine, if only they could make me see the light. Imagine if they can get an Acupuncturist to stock her shelves with these products...she'll cure each and every one of those patients with these neutri-ceuticals and then all of her patients will quit whatever job they have and become distributors like us. Pay dirt!! I pity the fool with dollar signs in their eyes trying to give me the hard sell. They'd send me home with oodles of samples that usually contained that Guarana stuff. When I met with him at a Le Madeleine in a strip mall in Buckhead (holla!), he had another couple from Ameri-Sciences with him who might as well have been dripping in diamonds. They wanted to show me that they don't just exist in the catalogs. When they aren't cruising around on the S.S. Ameri-Sciences or tooling around in their Benzes, they're counting the money that their underling distributors are making for them!
Top that life, bitches.

When I wasn't getting the requests for coffee meetings from these guys, my own patients were trying to sell it to me! Last I checked, I was trying to sell them things. Ostensibly, that's why I was in business. It didn't matter. These patients were pumped on the potion and thought that fools like me who actually have letters behind their names should wise up and step into the world of extreme health. When would I finally hop on board? It was tough with my own patients. I liked them, and they paid me. A few times I'd throw them a bone and taste some of the Advo-Care fizzy vitamin elixir that they'd leave for me with the receptionist. Upon reading the ingredients, I realized they all contained phenylalanine (nutra-sweet), as well as that Guarana herb. The stuff made me yawn uncontrollably and my eyes wouldn't stop tearing. I'm into a buzz, but that one is so annoying. Does Siguitis Siputis really take all of these pills? What's worse is that these MLM freaks lump my profession in with theirs. They're better off hanging around chiropractors, who are notorious for becoming distributors. They have the cult-like following which supports the MLM industry. Dr. Mike, the most popular dude (and chiropractor!) in our PowerCore group, had everyone on some bogus cleanse and raw food regime. I was the last one in the group who still had a dirty colon.
One caveat here. Before Blake busts me, I'm going to do it for him. I do like a particular water filter and it happens to come from a MLM company. Yes, I'm a distributor - but it's only so I can get the goods for myself at the reduced distributor price. Don't worry, I'll let you readers keep drinking your Giardia-laden, lead, asbestos, chlorine cocktail. If you want a filter, let me know and I'll hook you up with a distributor's number and a sweet commission! See you at the Multi-Pure convention in Salt Lake City next year.

The April Fool

I was thinking about a guy whom Bisq and I refer to as Magu on his birthday which is April Fools Day. We lost touch with Magu back in 2003, just before my brother's wedding. Okay, losing touch is a nice way to put it...Zulie(my mom) kicked him out of the house.
His real name is Marty, and he was Zulie's boyfriend from 1996-2003. We called him Magu because he was a lot like the cartoon character Mr. Magoo: kinda blind, kinda deaf, kinda oblivious. But, in our Magu's case, also kinda stoned....all of the time.
This is one of those stories where you can throw your hands up and say, "Well, they really created a monster!" Perhaps you're right.
Zulie brought Magu home from a date in the summer of 1996. I was living at home for a brief spell and Biscuit was always there, too. I remember meeting Magu and thinking that he could be a cool boyfriend for Zulie. You should've met the one before him. Zulie and Magu both worked on Royal Street in the French Quarter. They both sold antiques. They claimed to have known each other back in the 1960s. The story goes: Magu was in ZBT (a fraternity at Tulane) and Zulie was often at the ZBT house as the little sister...hmmm. Anywhoo, both of them are so loopy and forgetful that they unintentionally fabricate their histories. I'm too lazy to fact-check on that one. Anyway, it wasn't long after that day that Magu moved in. As with most of Zulie's relationships with men, it moved at a cheetah's pace. It started off with him coming over after work each day with his little red cloth overnight bag. Before he was living at our comfortable sprawl, complete with maid service and a stocked kitchen and bar, he resided at a place we referred to as Fort Appache with his 2 cats, Bushki and Dee. His place was basically disgusting, in spite of his decent salary. Turns out, just before he and Zulie hooked up, Magu and his ex, Donna, had been arrested while moving Donna's stuff cross-country in a U-Haul. They got searched when pulling out of a rest-stop in Texas and the cops found Donna's stash...or so the story goes. Again, no way to fact check, but suffice it to say, Magu was in financial dire straits. Definitely the poorest Jew we'd ever run across.
He brought his poor man ways into our home, and we adapted to some of them. He knew how to survive off of Total (the cereal), yogurt and sweet potatoes. We found ourselves eating this trio, especially when we were high. We also admired the way he mastered the art of dressing to chill in the house. When he had his days off, he rarely left the house. He smoked weed in bed and smoked cigarettes in the patio. He introduced us to Dearfoam slippers which we all still swear by. It's the only reason I'll get anywhere near a mall at Christmas time. He lounged around in an old pair of designer sweatpants that had belonged to Zulie before they had lost their elasticity. I don't know how they stayed up.
He had a bad-ass record collection, stacks of vintage playboys and all of the issues of High Times from the 70s and 80s. It seemed that his records all had been handled by his cats, so they were mostly unlistenable. However, Magu hipped us to the genius of Gary Wright, Poco, Al Stewart and Firefall. Bisq and I really enjoyed hanging out with Magu. How many of our friends were cool enough to have a mustache and a stutter?
His ancient blue truck parked alongside our house drew the attention of the neighbors and the neighborhood security guard. It took a while for the guard to realize that this truck actually belonged to an invited guest. Magu also had a really old red Dodge Colt that we called the Lil' Red Tomato that he kept on his property in Waveland, Mississippi. I know what you're thinking, "Magu had oceanfront property?" We checked out his property for July 4th one year and began calling it Spawn Ranch. It was a graveyard for old cars, broken lawnmowers, and boats up on blocks. The obvious thing to do once you've made the journey out there is to have a bonfire. And that's what we did. It was marsh land, which could certainly be mistaken for oceanfront property when it rained a few inches. I imagine Magu was able to fish through the window of the trailer without even having to go outside.
In our minds, life was good for Magu. For the first 3 years, it was really fun. All of us partied, laughed, and enjoyed this twasted dude from Memphis. Zulie gave him her old Mazda, so he wouldn't be stranded in one of his lemons. Okay, she gave him the Mazda so he would remove his embarrassing truck from our property. She made him part of her family, since he didn't have much contact with his own. But, over time he became unappreciative of living off of the fat of the land. In fact, he got a little fat off of the expensive protein that we had introduced into his diet. He stopped talking to me first. When I'd visit while living in New Mexico, he'd enter the house without as much as a hello. Instead, he speed past me and say, "W-W-W-Where's yer mother?" He'd lock himself in the bedroom and turn the TV's volume up to a deafening level. It seemed his deafness increased in direct proportion to his obstinance. Eventually, he began to ignore Zulie. You can get away with a lot with her, but DON'T walk away when she's serenading you on her ukulele and DON'T forget to say thank you. Live by these rules, and she's putty in your hands. He had much to be thankful for. She took him out of poverty and had him living like a fat cat. She fetched him weed when he ran out and kept the pantries stocked with Total. He acted up pretty bad when we all went to China in 1999. When Zulie treated us all to a family vacation in Italy in 2000, Magu was slightly better, but was basically antisocial. After a few more lousy years of him occupying the house, Zulie decided to kick him out.
She executed the plan over Memorial Day weekend in 2003, just in time to not buy him a plane ticket to Augie's wedding in Cape Cod. She told him to leave, and he walked out the door with his little red cloth overnight bag. No big deal. He moved onto some friend's couch in some shanty.
Months later, Zulie spotted him at a nightclub and saw that he had dropped all of the weight he had gained while living with her. And, he was talking up a blue streak with a big crowd. The belle of the ball. She was pissed...mostly about the weight-loss.
So, the moral of the story is this: don't think that you can civilize somebody just because they were living without the things that you would miss. Some guys want to wallow in their mess. Some guys really don't care that they can't hear. Some guys choose not to have health insurance. Some guys choose not to appear in court. Poor Zulie...she's made the same mistake since Magu, but never to such an extent. Regardless, I still think he was the April Fool.