“This isn’t something you kid about, Brittany,” her mom scolded, snatching the kitchen cordless and taking it down the hall to call the Johnsons. A minute later she returned, her face a mask of shock and terror. “Honey, I’m so sorry. We’re too late,” she said tonelessly as Brittany’s knees buckled; 13-year-old Sam had climbed into the bathtub after school and shot herself in the mouth with her own hunting rifle. No one at school had seen her suicide coming.

No one saw the rest of them coming, either.

Seems I’ve failed to embed it. Nor link it for that matter. Nevermind. It isn’t that good. Don’t take up your time.

She was skinny, quick-witted, disarmingly unprofessional, alternating between stand-up patter, bardic intonations, and the hypnotic emotional sway of a chanteuse, and she was sexy in an androgynous way I hadn’t encountered before. The elements cohered convincingly; she seemed both entirely new and somehow long-anticipated. For me at nineteen, the show was an epiphany.

Luc Sante on Patti Smith.

Springtime 1976, I was living in the cinderblock building on the glorified median strip there where they split Highway 13, and one day I went over to this one girl’s apartment, she lived right by the guy who dealt me speed, and she said, “Hey, you know who you remind me of? You remind me of Patti Smith!”

Gave her a possum grin I’m still grinning.

Related to stuff we’re talking about.

At least one of those grown-up women in the movies. Or to have a hit record.

One of the few homilies I remember from the days I went to Mass was about when the priest, Father Rich, was a young boy. He sat in mass one Sunday and watched as a man took cash out of his (Father Rich’s) mother’s purse. Young Rich said nothing.

When the money was discovered missing and Rich was asked about it he told his parents what he’d seen. Incredulous, they asked why he hadn’t said anything sooner. The young boy told his parents that they were in church and that he just assumed that nothing bad could happen in church; he thought it must have been ok. Of course, his parents didn’t believe him. They too couldn’t believe someone would steal from them during mass and young Rich was blamed.

I don’t remember what Father Rich was getting at by telling the story. It probably wasn’t to highlight the danger of sanctity.

As a side note, Father Rich (the same priest that married Alicia and I) later left the church after coming to the realization that he was a homosexual. For some, I’m sure this was an assault on the sanctity of the church.

She looked up at him with a question in her eyes. “Did you get the graham crackers?”

“Yes,” he answered.

She moved toward him in her old slippers. He thought they looked like rabbits.

Miss Peggy Lee. “Fever.” 1958.

(Courtesy of Tom Sale, the Texas artist a/k/a Pinky Diablo.)

For every one person that comes forward with a false accusation, there are probably thousands who will say that none of that sort of activity ever came from Herman Cain.