The Editorial Board -- I Fire Frank!

Well, just like that, the brand new editorial board for my blog has been whittled down to five, including myself. I wasn't expecting it to happen, but it did. Frank turned out to be a bad seed, couldn't be trusted, so now he's out.

It's only been a little over a week since I named the board. And, frankly (no pun intended), I had high hopes for Frank, since he was, as I said in introducing the board, a serious person. I had hoped we would have a long, happy relationship, giving me the chance to bounce serious ideas off him. Now that he's gone, I'll have to hope that either Trade or Mark are serious characters willing to help. Dale has a funny side, and Delilah being a woman, well, say no more...

But play with fire, Frank, and you'll get burned!

As it turned out, Frank became critical of the blog's direction, apparently being upset overall with my recent posts on "The Imaginary Stud." In particular, he seriously objected to the post on "Your Biological Clock Is Ticking," and what it might mean for premarital sex and pregnancies, although he didn't bring his concerns to me. He took it to the rest of the board in a secret meeting, with what looks like the intention of forcing me out and taking over.

It happened like this: I was watching TV, then I went to the kitchen to get a snack. I happened to glance out the window and saw the lights on in the garage. That's strange, I thought. So I went out and heard voices. I peeked in the window and there they were, holding their little secret meeting! I opened the door and made my presence known, resulting in a lot of guilty faces. Delilah quickly covered the minutes book with her hands.

I had an intuitive sense of what was going on. I demanded the minutes book and glanced over the page, seeing that Frank had called the meeting to order, etc., and saw a summary of his complaints. I declared, "This is not an official meeting because I wasn't notified. You were brought on board to help me fulfill my hopes and dreams for my blog, not to immediately usurp my place and take it over for yourselves through blind ambition!"

I let the others slide and trained my fury on Frank alone, telling him how painful it was to find a shiny knife with his initials thrust squarely in my back. I shouted, "If there's anyone going to be cut, it's you, Frankie boy!" He turned white as a ghost, white as a sheet, extremely white, white as the driven snow. Of course he knew he was ... busted. And there could be no reconciliation. We went on like that, with blustered rejoinders and hasty, non-scripted parries.

Then I accused him right to his face. I accused him of making passes at Delilah. He insisted on his innocence and said that was "The furthest thing from my mind."

I countered, "The furthest thing from your mind? Is it really? You're thinking of it right now! Even now you're forming a rather nasty picture in your mind of you and Delilah making mad, passionate love on my kitchen table! Try to deny it!"

He looked guilty as hell but had a convenient comeback. "Yes, of course I'm thinking of it now, because you said it, making it impossible for me to not, fleetingly at least, have some mental conception of such an act!"

I was spitting mad and declared, "You've convicted yourself with your own words!" Frank immediately shrunk in my sight like the maggot he was, and I had to count to 10 to restrain myself from squashing him underfoot like any other vermin. To think he'd do that to Delilah, and on my kitchen table, when I had made such a point of warning them away from her. Disgusting!

As for the rest of the board, after Frank vanished into the night in disgrace, I gave them a stern talking to, making it clear that I knew what was best for the blog. Still, to be conciliatory, I said if they had any ideas about it to please feel free to come to me personally. I assured them I'm a reasonable man, which I believe to be true.

The Pink Professor -- The Importance Of Shaking Hands

Things at the Roadhog Roadhouse have been going as usual. Guys show up, guys drink, guys get in fights. It can be so bad, I hate to think of it, what ruffians do.

I just hear of it, since I don't go out there much, and I shake my head and inwardly wonder: Why is the heart of man so against his fellow man, especially when he's got a belly full of beer?

But I have to smile, since I know I have a man on the scene to handle these matters, the eruptions of one man against another. Of course that's the Pink Professor, who can't be there all the time, but when he is, things get straightened out real fast. He doesn't take any crap from any of them.

Gotta love him! And of course I do! Our relationship, you will recall, goes back now more than a year! And what a year! We met a year ago in September. And now September has come and gone again, October, too, and we're already into November. We've quit celebrating monthly anniversaries, which is usually the way it goes. Of course we weren't an item right away, but still once we became one we started looking back on those months as counting. Certainly they counted for the one year anniversary, because it wouldn't make a bit of sense to postdate something other than our first get-together of any kind.

Anyway, the P.P. is still on the job at the Roadhouse, bringing a softening influence to the otherwise coarse atmosphere of the place. Coarse is really the word I'd use, which is why most bikers' bars in recent years have taken the positive step of bringing a Pink Professor figure on board. Sometimes they're paid, sometimes they're just goodhearted volunteers, like my guy is. He likes to make a difference, that's one thing. And another, it makes his life more interesting than just teaching classes and grading essays all night.

He was telling me of the most recent craziness out there. Remember the 14-piece pool cue the one guy had? Well, now everyone has one. Which has an interesting benefit on the side: If someone gets in a fight before getting the damned thing assembled, it delays things enough so no real damage is done. Cross your fingers!

That happened the other night. Two guys got into it over something, something to do with one of the waitresses winking at them. They were at loggerheads, staring at each other with evil looks as they hastily assembled their cues. Then one hit on a brainchild, to take a whack at the other guy with his only half assembled, seven easy pieces. He took a swat, knocking a glass of beer across the room, and the other guy backed up.

They both saw the futility of fighting with just half a cue, so back they went, feverishly assembling them, but having a harder time, because the narrowest part of the cue is the trickiest to assemble, with the smaller threads. Now the other guy got ¾ the way done and came up swinging. The other guy dodged, because one of the pieces, not screwed in fully, flew across the room and broke a mirror, meaning seven years bad luck for someone.

He went running for it, slipped on the beer that had spilled, and fell on his butt. To make a long story short, he feigned injury while unscrewing a chair leg. He came up like a pack of bears spilling out of their den, with the biggest gaping maw anyone remembered seeing, chair leg in hand, right when the Pink Professor entered the room. Then both men stood there ... silent ... ashamed ... immediately convicted of the error of their ways.

This is the power of one great man! The guy with the chair leg tried to hand it to the Pink Professor, who just shook his head. "I don't need to take it from you. You know where it goes," was all he had to say, and the guy picked up the chair and reattached it. The other guy had stopped in mid-assembly of his cue. The Pink Professor, instead of disarming him, went over and helped him get it together. "You have to baby the last few pieces," he said cheerfully. He knew they guy wouldn't fight now. And that's what happened.

He brought the two combatants together and had them shake hands, which is always an important gesture in putting past grievances behind us. Once you've shaken hands with a man, you can't bear a grudge. It's a physical and mental impossibility. You're immediately one in heart and mind. Their hands joined, the P.P. put both his hands on top, as if to bless their sacred union, then withdrew. Each man looked eye to eye at the other, their big grins confessing they should've been friends all along. Then with gentleness they broke their grip, and went on to grip, each one, another beer, each treating the other and splitting the cost of the Pink Professor's next drink.

To me, that's beautiful. That they would treat each other to a beer and split the cost of the Pink Professor's next drink.