Kitty Litter Extras

2006-07-28T22:25:00.000-04:00

HOW THE FIRST JEWISH KIMBERLY GOT HER LIFE STUCK IN A GROOVE

2006-05-14T12:39:00.000-04:00

744 wds.

by Kitty Myers

Everyone thought I was a Jewish princess. “My wife, the first Jewish Kimberly,” my first husband would begin, “doesn’t want San Pellegrino, she wants Fonte Travina.” Or: “My wife, the first Jewish Kimberly, prefers to sleep in.” I was pretty damn tired of hearing, “My wife, the first Jewish Kimberly.”

Like a schmuck, I thought he was just fucking with my mind. The truth is that the pervert has been a full-time bisexual who likes to get dressed up in women’s clothing. I wanted to kill him. Every time he got on a plane, I would imagine the plane crash, and the funeral, and what I would wear to the funeral and flirting at the funeral, and how soon I could start dating after the funeral. When you divorce a first husband like that, you never want to get married again.

My second husband had taken a lover, Jeffrey, spelled Geoffrey, a ballet dancer. I was hardly in a position to date. I was fat, ugly, ass size of neighboring state. I knew my body was not fawnlike. Fat sex would be no good. Is this how I would go down in history, like a character in a trashy novel?

Decide to get honest and straight with self – to find new way to reduce ass and to recreate once-beautiful life.

Fast-forward a year and a half. Lost 8 pounds.

When he first asked me out, Arthur Siegel said, “You picked the one person on earth you could have problems with.” But I had a good feeling about this, so I accepted this date. We went into the kitchen and sat down with some of Arthur’s fetishistically brewed coffee.

The good news is he was born a very wealthy American Jew. The bad news is he was thirty, unmarried, and still living with his mother.

Two months passed. I was ready to do “it.”

It was a Friday night, the beginning of another fun-filled New York weekend. I tipped the cabbie and got out at 42 Jane. I pushed the door open to our love nest. There were several chairs pulled up around a table with a brightly checkered red and white tablecloth. He was lying on the floor, dressed in a skimpy French maid’s uniform -- just a coincidence, or am I just noticing patterns? -- with a cute little hole right about where his third eye should be. A neat, rather artistic little bull’s-eye. “That son of a bitch,” I whisper.

Just then I heard knock, knock, knocking.

The cops from the Sixth Precinct flashed their wallets at me. The cop apparently in charge of the case, Detective Sergeant Buddy Fox, was tall, lean and mean. Detective Sergeant Mort Cooperman has a face like a hastily sculptured hamburger. I don’t think I have ever seen such a huge man. He was breathing heavily. I wondered if he’d been out walking his pet stomach.

“What do you know about this?” Fox asked.

“By a wild stroke of incredible luck, I discovered a body lying on the floor.”

“Hear the shot?” he asked.

I shook my head. I haven’t begun to think of what to say about a 45 in my pocket. The part of downtown I’m in does not qualify as beautiful or modern. It’s dirty, run-down and littered with skid row’s spookiest occupants.

“Then what are you doing here?”

“I was afraid you were going to ask that.”

Detective Sergeant Fox became slightly agitato. “I didn’t do anything wrong!” I say defensively.

They looked at me like, yeah, so, we knew you were lying. My heart started to pound, I began to sweat, and that’s when I started ranting and raving.

“I have been used, abused, lied about and cheated on. I’m tired of being stupid and naïve. I’m tired of loving queers. Let’s just say that if I had a 45 in my pocket, I would have used it at that moment.” Shut up, shut up!

“It says here a Beretta twenty-five caliber automatic was the murder weapon. Anything else you’d like to tell me?”

I immediately wondered whether he was single, and if so, whether he was a college graduate and straight. I wondered if he was uncircumcised.

I clear my throat and sighed deeply. “I just want to have a partner in life, a family.”

Like a well-timed kick in the pants, he says, “With all due respect, you picked the one person on earth you could have problems with.”

***

Books plagiarized:

1) How To Lose Your Ass And Regain Your Life, by Kirstie Alley
2) Heartburn, by Nora Ephron
3) Chore Whore, by Heather H. Howard
4) Christopher Walken and the Tuna Fish Sandwich, by Rodger Jacobs
5) How To Talk Dirty And Influence People, by Lenny Bruce
6) Greenwich Killing Time, by Kinky Friedman
7) What a Coincidence!, by Susan M. Watkins
8) Jewish Humor, by Rabbi Joseph Telushkin
9) Lady Sings The Blues, by Billie Holliday w/William Dufty

***

OCTOBER 2005

2005-10-31T12:33:00.000-05:00

OCTOBER

2005-10-14T21:20:00.000-04:00

CLICK PICTURES TO ENLARGE.

AUTUMN, PAST & PRESENT

2005-10-12T09:17:00.000-04:00

Click pictures to enlarge.

Pictures of and around Corning/Painted Post, NY.

*

THE MONSTER IN THE BACKYARD

2005-07-21T12:13:00.000-04:00

Actually, it's a trumpet vine which thrives in the backyard. It doesn't hurt that the septic is right next to it. DogMan hates the vine and occasionally whacks away at it as though he's a Samurai warrior.
Don't do it, I warn him. It will only grow back with a vengeance. But, of course, DogMan didn't listen, so behold the monster.

"C" IS FOR ... Y'KNOW

2005-07-12T12:40:00.000-04:00

I wrote this piece in March 1995.

Last night my mother said the word condom. My mother! The word rolled off this refined septuagenarian's tongue like water off a duck's back. She had been telling me about the plugged plumbing under the chemistry lab floors at the high school, where she had once reigned as its librarian, when the "c" word just popped up in the list of debris she thought was possibly clogging the drains.

She didn't pause before she said it or gradually ease into saying it, nor did I detect a hint of revulsion in her voice, either. And I'm too young for my mother to be entering senility, so I can't blame it on her age. Mind you, this is a word which normally would have gotten my mouth washed out with Ivory soap had I said it when I was growing up. But say it she did as naturally as she says the word church.

Then she asked, "Don't you think it's amazing that in thirty years they never cleaned out those drains?"

"Gee, Mom, I'm even more amazed that you actually said the word condom!"

To place my sainted mother's unprecedented vocabulary in its proper context, this is the same woman who, after years of politely requesting disruptive students to "Please be quiet," invited a coronary when she raised her voice in a fit of exasperation and bellowed, "Shut up!" She obsessed over her outburst for weeks. So the day my mother actually articulates the "c" word in normal conversation is truly a red-letter day, indeed.

Even more shocking is the fact that she had assumed that condoms were among the items clogging the drains.

"They found pencils and papers and probably a condom or two."

What ever happened to the time when we kids snickered over the word rubbers? When we didn't know what prophylactic meant but we snickered anyway just because it sounded dirty? When mothers blanched at the very thought that their children even knew such language? What happened? AIDS happened.

Yet, by the mid-80s, when the AIDS panic was gathering a head of steam, the general public still maintained its distaste of the word. Although we were saturated with discussions of sex, we just couldn't bring ourselves to say the "c" word, not without cringing. And you had to say it, because condoms used to be relegated to the forbidden behind-the-counter territory in drug stores, forcing customers to ask for them.

In 1987 one condom company came up with a novel approach to help the public overcome its apprehension. Carter-Wallace, Inc., which makes Trojan Brand condoms, offered free plastic cards to their tongue-tied customers. The gold and black cards resembled credit cards and were imprinted with the request "MAY I PLEASE HAVE A BOX OF TROJAN BRAND CONDOMS" on the front. On the back, Carter-Wallace thoughtfully listed all the varieties.

I thought the cards were a hoot, so I requested six and passed them out to my friends. I doubt they were ever used because about that same time condoms went public; they were moved from behind the counter into the easily accessible help-yourself aisles. Ribbons of festively colored condoms were suddenly found everywhere. People no longer had to wince while whispering to the clerk what they wanted, which meant that the condom cards were already collector's items. The irony is that once people no longer had to say word, they no longer had a problem saying it.

Then last night my own mother said condom. I had hoped to have spared her from ever using the "c" word in my presence. 'Tis a sad commentary on society when seventy-something mothers blithely use such language with their daughters. I'm just glad her mother is no longer alive to hear it.

© 1995, Kitty Myers
All Rights Reserved

2005-05-16T17:40:00.000-04:00

THE POLITICS OF PERCEPTIONS

2005-02-15T12:05:00.000-05:00

This piece was written in 1993.

He may have garnered only 43% of the votes, nevertheless, the expectations for President Clinton were high last November. He promised everyone everything: "It's the economy-jobs-environment-homosexuals-healthcare-deficit-crime-education-abortion-blacks-women-AIDS-drugs-Haitians-reform-infrastructure-ect. stupid!"

His litany of promises are now legendary. Yet even as the faint clinkings of breaking promises could be heard within minutes after the election, most people were still in a generous mood. Give the guy a chance already!

Sometime around "nannygate" -- remember Zoe Baird? -- Bill's free fall began. Or did he first blunder with his gays-in-the-military issue? It seems as though the president who wanted to please everyone was ticking them off instead, and President Clinton, who positively revels in the reach out and touch y'all technology, was suddenly being phone-blitzed by an angry public.

As though caught in a pinball machine, Clinton frenetically careened from one disaster to another -- gays, Zoe Baird, Haitians, Kimba Wood, Waco, Hollywood, Janet Reno, Bosnia, jogging track, abortion, haircuts, taxes, taxes, taxes -- while ringing up negative ratings along the way. It was the honeymoon that wasn't.

The once-generous public became disillusioned and hostile, which was translated into Clinton's record-setting low approval ratings. They grew tired of his lies, his blunders, his arrogance, and his lack of leadership. With his refusal to accept responsibility for his actions, you had to wonder what we didn't know, and it wasn't long before the dreaded "C" word had once again reared its ugly head: CHARACTER.

Clinton, on the other hand, believed his low approvals were merely a problem of poor public relations. After all, within the beltway perception is reality; hence, the politics of perception. So, enter Mr. David Gergen on day 129 of Bill's floundering administration, and back to the bench with George Stephanopoulos.

David Gergen, the official presidential polisher, was brought in as Bill's imagemeister. Rather like bringing in Martin Scorsese to coach Madonna on how to convincingly play the part of Mother Teresa. Under Gergen's paternal directive, Clinton held an impromptu press conference so he could make nice with ABC's Britt Hume after his temper tantrum the day before.

Maybe it's the redundant recitation of Clinton's lies, or maybe it is Gergen. Whatever the reason, the first-generous then-hostile public is beginning to respond. Listen to the call-in shows on radio and t.v. and you'll hear the occasional "stop picking on the president" plea. Did the public's expectations for President Clinton sink so low that something as puny as a kiss-and-make-up press conference suddenly looks good?

Gergen or no Gergen, the law of averages alone would have favored Clinton. Sooner or later, for whatever reason, his approval ratings would have eventually risen. However, with Gergen at the helm Clinton's approvals may not dip as low again.

As the White House begins celebrating the return of the Comeback Kid, remember those first 128 days of the Clinton administration. We were afforded a rare opportunity to view the emperor without his clothes, the real Bill Clinton in action. Gergen may be able to fashion Clinton a new suit, but will Clinton be able to fill it?

© 2005 Kitty Myers; All Rights Reserved

BY THE BOOK

2005-01-15T19:00:00.000-05:00

Sometimes in life we have to go By The Book.

SPUD SHELANSKI LIVES ON AT THE ALABASTER BAR & GRILL

2004-11-26T13:56:00.000-05:00

Even I could hear Myrna Plumley screaming frantically as she hustled down the three flights of stairs inside the Alabaster from where I worked in the shoe store across the street. She burst onto Main Street wearing nothing but a threadbare nightie of indeterminate color, disrupting a perfectly humdrum summer’s day. Her yellowed frizzy hair was even more disheveled than normal, which, along with her spindly legs and decrepit body, was not a vision you wanted seared into your memory. In all fairness, the old dear was most likely preoccupied having just awakened to find her liver-spotted lothario next to her in bed dead. I’m no pathologist, but I think it’s safe to say that substantial amounts of beer, cigarettes and fatty foods might have contributed to his untimely demise, yet it would be poor Myrna’s fate to be forever identified as the old woman whose ardent appetite did in ol’ Spud Shelanski.

***

The Alabaster Bar & Grill is a seedy establishment on Main Street where the drunks spend their waking hours along with their government checks. The regulars refer to it as Al’s-a-bastard because Al, the proprietor, “don’t deal in no credit. Cash only up front.” You can eat there – a burger most days and sometimes a bowl of chili – but it’s not advisable. Al rents out the rooms above the bar to his regulars. Around noon, when he opens the bar, they begin to stumble down the side stairway, out onto the street, then into the bar. When Al closes around midnight, the process reverses. Towards the end of the month as their money runs out, tempers flare and voices rise. When fists begin to fly, Al kicks the offenders out. They traipse back up the stairway, grumbling the whole way. They sit in their windows watching life on the street below and continue to grumble as they wait for the beginning of the month when their checks will arrive and when all will be right with their world once again. Little disrupts the Alabaster’s biosphere for long.

Spud Shelanski was generally an easy-going drinker who caused no problems. However, when he’d set out on foot, with a bottle for company, to visit a certain lady friend on the other side of town, he’d invariably pass out along the way. The cops would find Spud and haul him off to County Hospital to dry out, and the next day Spud would wake up and invariably escape back to the bar. Before long the cops would pull up to the Alabaster and find ol’ Spud, still wearing his skimpy hospital gown, sitting at the bar drinking. They’d wrestle him into the patrol car, exposing the rest of us spectators to his big ol’ butt in the process, and return him to County. Al finally told Spud, “You got t’find your companionship closer t’home.” As though fate had taken pity upon Spud, the newly widowed Myrna Plumley began patronizing the bar about that same time.

The late Mr. Plumley’s pension, together with his Social Security check, supported Myrna’s two-packs-a-day habit, supplied her with beer and kept her clothed in the flamboyant Salvation Army fashions to which she had become accustomed. By Alabaster standards, the widow Plumley was a winner, so it wasn’t long before Spud sidled up to Myrna at the bar and staked his claim. They’d spend their evenings spending the late Mr. Plumley’s money, and when Al closed at midnight, Myrna would guide Spud up the stairs to his place on the fourth floor. For months everyone was happy: Myrna, Spud, Al and the cops.

***

The paramedics were the first to arrive that day and were readying the stretcher when the cops pulled up.

“Where’s the stiff?” a cop asked.

“Fourth floor,” a paramedic replied.

“Forget the stretcher; it won’t fit up the stairwell. Too narrow. We had an OD on the second floor and had to use a backboard.”

“Great. Ours split last month and we’re still waiting for a replacement.”

The only substitute they could think of was a door, and the only door that measured narrow enough to fit up the stairwell was the one on the Alabaster’s bathroom stall. With the metal door pried off its hinges, they wheezed single file up three flights of stairs to retrieve Spud Shelanski.

Spud, a squat man of chunky proportions, was sprawled buck-naked on a grimy mattress in his squalid little room. He most certainly was dead and getting deader by the minute. They rolled Spud up in a grubby bed sheet and then heaved him onto the door. With no straps, no rope and no belts long enough to secure Spud, they improvised the best they could by using a roll of duct tape Al had provided from the bar.

They stood at the top looking down the precipitous stairwell and assessed their predicament. Lugging Spud down would require four able-bodied men and plenty of elbowroom, none of which were available.

“No way.”

“Nope. No way we’re gonna make it down that stairway with him.”

“Whadda y’say we slide ol’ Spud down the stairs?”

“Y’know, that might work. The wood steps is worn smooth. The door is metal. He just might slide down.”

“I dunno, that duct tape could cause a problem.”

“Not with all that weight. Ol’ Spud should slip down those steps nicely,” and with that they launched Spud careening down the stairwell taped to the metal door, glancing off walls, banking off turns as though he were piloting the luge. It was only after Spud began his descent that it occurred to the men that the body might have a problem with the third floor landing. Ol’ Spud reached the landing long before they did and, in a feat only a gymnast could truly appreciate, he bounced, flipped and miraculously continued riding the door down the next flight of stairs. By the time he reached the second floor landing he had gained enough momentum that it posed no problem at all.

They knew Spud had reached his destination when Myrna, who was standing outside fully clothed in leopard print Lycra, began screaming hysterically as poor Spud Shelanski’s mummy-wrapped body lunged onto Main Street and flopped face down at her feet.

Al put on a damn fine wake for Spud and even offered one round of cut-rate beers. Myrna, now a legend, moved into Spud’s old room and continued her socializing at the bar. Given her qualifications, she had no problem finding company to pass the long evenings; however, she was never able to coax another man up those stairs again. Seein’ as how ol’ Spud ended up, no one seemed willing to take that risk.

© 2004, Kitty Myers
All Rights Reserved

TO SLEAZE OR NOT TO SLEAZE

2004-11-14T11:28:00.001-05:00

Cartoon: TheHarbinger

By Kitty Myers
This was originally published in the USA Today on 5 October 1992.
Their heading & sub-heading:

Believe it or not, mudslinging can be good for us
Dirty campaigning can -- sometimes unintentionally -- reveal information about the candidates that voters need to know.

`To sleaze or not to sleaze' is once again the question this election year. Each party slings it as well as any major league pitcher, and what one party labels the "truth" the other defines as "dirt." Then there's the media salivating for that first-slung syllable so they can decry "negative campaigning" because it's good for business.
Somewhere in the fray you'll find the voters bewildered by this symbiotic relationship between the politicians and the press, wondering if the candidates should be saying such things and if the media should be reporting it. As a voter "I say let the sleaze be slung!"

Do not assume I revel in sleaze per se because I don't. Yeah, I admit I can howl with glee when my candidate-of-choice rips off a good one about his opponent, and I wince and sputter when his opponent retaliates in "kind." And I admit that some of the sleaze definitely surpasses the parameters of customary hard-hitting politics to being totally unscrupulous and unwarranted. Yet, with all that considered, I still don't want even a whisper of censorship to seep into campaigning, so let the sleaze be slung if the candidates so choose.

However, as with all decisions we make in life, there are consequences to our actions, and our words have a nasty way of creeping back to haunt us. Quite often sleaze-slinging reveals as much about the slinger as it can about the sling-ee and sometimes much more. Some candidates entangle themselves irretrievably in a web of their own words. This was illustrated perfectly by Phil Donahue on his show nearly twenty years ago.

On that particular show censorship was being discussed in regards to political campaigning. Phil showed the audience a political commercial made by a candidate running for a local office in a southern state. It was an amateurish production showing the white male candidate speaking directly into the camera. He was unabashedly a white supremacist who spared nothing in depicting blacks as inferior to whites in every way. He was a fear monger who pandered to the lowest segment of society by spewing the usual garbage which some people prefer to believe.

The audience was aghast at the commercial, and they overwhelmingly agreed that such filth should be banned. Then Donahue cleverly pointed out that had the voters NOT seen that commercial, had it been banned as the audience would have preferred, then it was quite possible the voters might never have realized the candidate's true character and consequently have voted him into office. As it was, that particular commercial was aired, the voters were informed, and the candidate lost.

As tempting as it may be to gag some of the candidates, not hearing what they have to say could be worse. So first let me hear what they have to say, then I will decide for myself if I believe them, what I think of it, and how I will vote.

Candidates are a rugged lot; they can take it. And if they can't weather the campaigning process, would you still want them in office where the rigors are far more severe? Remember that it's better to learn about the candidates before we vote than after. So let the sleaze be slung if the candidates so choose. We may learn something in the process.

(C) 2004, Kitty Myers
All Rights Reserved

Y’MIGHT BE A REDNECK TRUE STORY

2004-11-10T13:45:00.000-05:00

A friend of mine, who lives in Watertown, NY, sent the following first-hand account:

Here is something that will make you laugh, very, very hard as I swear to God this is a true story.

In 1999, Jeff Foxworthy was doing a show at the Watertown Fairgrounds Arena in the middle of the summer. It was a sweltering night, and the arena's AC was on the blink. Mr. Foxworthy got up and began his routine. The backstage crew set up a series of large fans to cool the building down, and one young man positioned a fan to cool the comedian. Mr. Foxworthy made a comment that he was very hot, and he looked at the young man beside the fan onstage to see if he could get some relief.

My brother-in-law Elwood (yes, this should tell you I live in the North Country) and myself happened to watch the interplay between Jeff and the stagehand as the young man tried to cool him down as best he could. Finally, after a good 10 minutes of frustration, we could not believe what he did next. Apparently he did not think the fan was working, so....
He reached in the fan....
To see if the blades were moving....
Elwood, myself, and Jeff Foxworthy's jaw's all dropped when his fingers hit the fan....
He dropped the fan with a crash and cursed loud enough for the front rows to hear....
Mr. Foxworthy laughed so hard that the show was delayed for 5 minutes or so before he could go on....
I looked at my brother-in-law and said, "Hell, you know he'll make up a routine about us now..."

This is an absolutely true story.......

GOOD BUY, CHARLIE

2004-11-09T18:14:00.000-05:00

Living well, I find, is always the best revenge.

HER ROYAL C; 1993

2004-11-09T10:15:00.000-05:00

I wrote the following in 1993:

Back in the days when young men burned their draft cards as symbols of protest against the war, young women publicly burned their brassieres as symbols of their emancipation from an all-male-dominated society. Personally, I thought burning one's brassiere was a bit much. But symbolism was very important back then, and flaming brassieres definitely drew attention. So young men gawked as females ignited their frilly effigies of male oppression.

But that was then and this is now. That same pyrotechnically-obsessed generation who bucked the establishment twenty-some-odd years ago is now the same generation who is the establishment, and they're firmly established in Washington, D.C.

No longer is it necessary to burn your draft cards, especially since the draft ended in '73. And now that we're a little older and gravity is a lot stronger, torching our Victoria Secrets is not even an option.

Those pioneering feminists blazed trails through all-male bars, onto construction sites, into pro football locker rooms, and all the way to the House and the Senate and the Supreme Court. These aren't just your average token tootsies, these are 90s women; hear them roar! They've come a long ways, baby!

And then came Hillary.

William Jefferson Blythe Clinton may have won the election, but it was Hillary Rodham Clinton who conquered the final frontier by storming the White House last November. The woman who stated "You vote for him, you get me" wasn't kidding.

While Commander Bill was playing the military hokey pokey with Bosnia and eenie-meenie-minie-mo with his attorney general nominees, HRC was stacking up impressive ratings with her public and his, too. True to his Donahue-sensitive nature, though, Bill doesn't seem to mind; he seems content to bask in his wife's limelight. But he may want to rethink that considering the power monster he has wrought.

Just how powerful is Hillary Rodham Clinton?

Forget that she's totally reforming health care or that Congress is positively tripping over its bipartisan tongue so as not to offend the little lady. That's chump change in power currency.

If I were Bill, I would have worried when she sidled her impressive desk right up next to mine. (Symbolism is still very important today.) Then there is her no smoking rule and her no junk food rule.

Still, that pales in comparison to what she recently stated to the media: "I haven't told my husband this ... but we're going to have a living will, which instructs doctors when to withhold treatment aimed solely at delaying an inevitable death." In the immortal words of our president: "Whoa, mamma!"

No wonder Dan "The Postman" Rostenkowski recently gushed to Her Royal C that before long "the president will be known as ... Hillary's husband."

My advice to Hillary's husband is to quit playing games, pitch those Cuban stogies, and bypass those Big Macs. After all, bud, the Almighty Hillary now wields the ultimate power, and she just may get antsy being so close and yet so far from the numero uno desk.

While you may define "inevitable death" in terms of all medical miracles exhausted, she may define it as low poll ratings and yank your political plug.

So the next time you hear Al Gore chant, "It's time for him to go," remember that George Bush doesn't live there anymore.

UPDATE 9 November 2004: George H. W. Bush may no longer live there, but George W. Bush does :)

Check out "IT'S MY PARTY"