Ahey, ta da da ick

Seems like every time I tried to sit down and update this blog, I had to deal with crazy elderly people or arrange a cheap cremation for an indigent friend.

The holidays were swell but I'm glad to see them end. Too many people, even strangers, kept stopping by and I don't want to consume another alcoholic beverage for the next month. It's nice to be popular, but I really am starting to get sick of my friends. They need to stay home for awhile and take down their Christmas decorations, like I've been doing for the past day and a half. My collection of Swedish candle holders and ornaments has now swelled to five plastic crates. Lugging that shit around and packing it up was almost as bad as moving.

So far 2006 is shaping up to be a year of miracles lost, starting with Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year's Eve. It was shocking to see the world's oldest teenager struggling to regain his speech after suffering a debilitating stroke last year, let alone doing it on global television. Like my jingle-bell-areola-dance that I did for my boyfriend and next-door neighbor on Christmas Eve, I could have done without Dick wishing me a "Ahey, ta da da ick" after the ball was dropped in Times Square on New Year's Eve. Do we really need to see this?

I wanted to do a "year in review" with pithy observations of important world events that took place in 2005, like the Michael Jackson child molestation trial, the tsunami, Robert Blake's murder acquittal, Terri Schaivo, Pope John Paul II, Hurricane Katrina and the appearance of Our Lady on the viaduct wall underneath the Kennedy Expressway. But I'm no pundit, and anything that has to be said about these events was said already by people much cleverer than I, like Pat Robertson.

So instead, I'll wrap up some of the ongoing sagas from 2005 PDD entries.

Rob - My ex-neighbor Rob stopped by the morning of New Year's Eve. He stayed two minutes, long enough to tell me how shitty his holidays were. He got so drunk on Christmas Eve, that one of the bartenders from Bob & Trish's New Beginnings had to drive him home and put him to bed at 6 p.m. But Rob is making progress recovering from his broken heart and his brush with a 30-year prison sentence. I told him that I hoped 2006 will be better than 2005, and that time heals all wounds in spite of yourself. He said felt ready to take back his gun collection, that includes a Thompson submachine gun, which is against the law to own. He left after one of his buddies called him on his cell phone and went to pick up his guns that his friend was holding. Rob also bought another gun last week.

Dumbo Drop - Just when I thought my father would make it through the holidays without having a meltdown, I received a call from my little brother on New Year's Eve around 7 p.m., telling me that the nursing home where my mother lives called to say that my father showed up at their New Year's Eve party drunk on vodka. I was already wearing a little hat and had had several drinks, and was in no condition to drive 40 miles to pick him up. One of my brothers who is a recovering alcoholic and devoted 12-step drama queen, who always wants to stage an intervention for one family member or another, went to pick him up. We think my father snuck back after my brother took him home and got his car. Every time we talked to my father, he gave us a whole new story, including one where the cops hid his car. I went out to see him on Jan. 2, his 80th birthday, and had to read him the riot act. We laid out a whole new set of rules, including limiting his daily visits to see my mother. So much for A.A. He told me A.A. was boring and all people did at the meetings was tell depressing stories, which I think is the whole point. He promised he wouldn't drink anymore and I laid out a schedule of activities for him, including volunteering at the local hospital and walking around the Gurnee Mills shopping mall. I told him that if he didn't cut the shit, my brother the 12-step drama queen was going to have him committed to an alcohol rehab center.

Barry Cowsill - The one day when I didn't check the Cowsill website, there was a heartbreaking announcement from one of Barry's brothers saying that Barry's body had been found on a wharf in New Orleans. Barry turned up missing in Hurricane Katrina. Information is still sketchy, but preliminary assessments from the NOLA medical examiner said that poor Barry died of storm-related causes. Reports I have read said the body was found on Dec. 28 and was identified through dental records on Jan. 3. Apparently, Barry had been deceased for quite some time. The body was recovered on a wharf not too far from the New Orleans Convention Center, where Barry was spotted alive and smoking a cigarette on CNN news video in the early days of September, when family members last heard from him from messages left on his sister's cell phone.

Pretty sad stuff. Like the miners who died in the Sago Mine, 2006 has yet to produce any miracles. The Cowsills seem like a nice family, and who among us cannot identify with or love a dysfunctional family? The news accounts I've read seem to indicate that Barry was found on a pier along the banks of the Mississippi River, and not actually in the water. I find it amazing that a body could lay on dry ground without someone noticing it being there until four fucking months later. But then, what happened to the people left behind in New Orleans who had no choice but to ride out the storm and its even more horrifying, dangerous aftermath, should happen to no American.

Whether Barry was binge drinking in NOLA all this time or simply wandered away from the Convention Center looking for a path out of the cesspool, only to be swept away in fetid flood water or clobbered over the head by thugs, we still don't know, but the Cowsills have promised to tell the whole story to their fans after they themselves get some answers. There isn't going to be a memorial, per Barry's wishes. He just wants everyone to party. You gotta love him!

What is a wharf, anyway? I know what a pier is, like Navy Pier in Chicago, and I can't imagine a body laying on Navy Pier for four months without some tourist becoming curious. If someone could tell me what the hell a wharf is, I'd appreciate it.

Now that this story has come to a sensational ending, I hope the Cowsills get some gigs and a documentary on "True Hollywood Story" that they so richly deserve.

Other than that, kids, I'm back on the weed wagon after a holiday weed binge, ready to pee into a cup so I can hopefully become unhappily employed again working some soul-sucking job!