Sometimes, it’s the little things that go unnoticed, like a bullet

I've been to some great parties in my day; hosted a few, even. One luau in particular was epic, and there are probably still a few folks sleeping in the bushes behind the house I moved out of last summer.

But none of my wing-dings compare with the one attended by Tracy Durham, of Peoria, Illinois late last week. During the course of that party, at some point, Durham was shot. And didn’t notice it.

In fact, Durham didn’t figure out he’d been shot until the following day, when a neighbor asked him why he was limping.

Now, one has to wonder exactly how one gets shot and fails to notice it. The key, I think, may be found in a line from the Associated Press story reporting the incident.

“The Peoria man (Durham)…heard a pop as he took a drink from a bottle of whiskey,” reads the article.

Aha. Now we’re getting somewhere. If you’re sucking back Jack Daniels straight from the jug, chances are you’re past the “social drinking” phase of the evening and well on your way to hollering “Yahoo!!” from the back of a pickup truck bumping down a country road.

Apparently, the shot was fired by one of Durham’s buddies after Durham commented on the fact that the aforementioned buddy’s girlfriend was somewhat less than alluring. “Ugly” is the word Durham used.

Due to the nature of the incident, some might guess Durham to be a relatively young guy, but nope, he’s 48. So there’s no “wild and crazy” kid element happening here.

By the time a man reaches his late forties, he should able to notice when he’s been shot, even if he lives in Peoria, over two hours from Chicago where people get shot all the time and are more or less used to it.

At any rate, once Durham figured out he had a bullet in his leg, he visited a local hospital to have it removed. Doctors there notified police, who questioned Durham at length.

Durham “declined to identify” the buddy that shot him. That’s loyalty. Or stupidity. One of the two, I can’t decide.

Point is, Durham took the bullet like a man; a very, very drunk man, and didn’t tattle about it later.

I can’t help but wonder why. Is he afraid he won’t get invited to any more parties where shootings are going on? Does he genuinely feel remorseful over calling his buddy’s girlfriend ugly? Or was he still feeling the effects of the previous night’s whiskey at the time of the police interview?

Seems if the cops really wanted to catch the shooter, all they’d have to do is round up the folks that attended the party and see which one has the ugliest girlfriend. Of course, with beauty being in the eye of the beholder and all that, this investigative technique might be inadmissible in court.

Personally, I figure if Durham is willing to let bygones be bygones, the county prosecutor shouldn’t waste tax dollars pursuing the issue. There are too many people who really mind getting shot. The cops should go after their shooters instead.

More Reality Check online at http://mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com or www.mlive.com. Email Mike Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com.

If I could turn back time, I wouldn’t share with Cher

I fulfilled a childhood dream last weekend; I met Cher. Well, a Cher impersonator. A really good Cher impersonator. During the moments she was “in character” it was easy to believe she was the real thing. (That's her photo to the left there; really does look like her, right?)

I ran sound and lights for her appearance at the American Legion Post in Rockford. Usually, I’d be playing in my own little weekend band, but the band business has been slow lately and I’ve had to branch out.

I arrived at the Post a few hours early to lug in the lighting and sound equipment, the “grunt work.”

My system, though nice, is a bit old and finicky. If you’d been knocked around in the back of trailer as long as it has, you’d be old and finicky too. Usually when I set it up in a new club there are a few “gremlins” to track down before everything works properly. Not this time; for once, all the pistons fired right out of the box (I can mix racing metaphors if I want to).

Likewise, the light show was up and running flawlessly in record time.

Now, being Catholic, I’m distrustful of any situation in which things seem to be going my way (with the exception of that Bing Crosby movie of the same name; Google it, kids). When everything goes right, I start waiting for the other shoe to drop. Can’t help myself.

But as showtime rushed closer, all my hardware continued to function without issue. Cher showed up and ran through her sound check. The Niel Diamond impersonator—her warm-up act—ran through his sound check; still, no gremlins.

I put on the background music and accompanied my lovely and talented assistant, Annie, to grab the free dinner we’d been promised. I ate quickly, still moderately distrustful of my antiquated equipment.

The room was filling up quickly with Cher fans anxious to see a close approximation of their heroine belt out “Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves.”

Unlike Cher (her real name is Lisa), who does this for a living, “Neil Diamond,” though undeniably talented, is a karaoke singer; he needed his karaoke machine, complete with lyrics on a monitor, to do his set. He plugged it into my system, set the levels and we went from there.

Neil’s set went flawlessly. The crowd went wild. He exited the stage and unplugged his karaoke player from my system. And still no gremlins.

The MC introduced Cher, who—according to our prearranged game plan—would enter from the opposite side of the room with a wireless microphone when I started her music.

I cued it up and hit “play.” The Cher version of “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” pounded from the speakers. Cher floated into the room to thunderous applause, the follow-spot catching every glint and glimmer of her glittering costume (which looked like something that might be the end result of stuffing six peacocks into a blender and hitting the “puree” button). She began to sing, and…nothing. Not a note of her voice came through the PA.

She crossed the room, spotlight following, as the applause slowly died away, to be followed by the sound of 300 voices wondering why they couldn’t hear the vocals, a moment that was, for the sound man (me), very uncomfortable. I’m guessing Cher wasn’t feeling her best, either.

Turns out Neil Diamond had pulled the plug on her wireless mic while unplugging his karaoke system. It took three excruciatingly long minutes to figure this out.

Then the show, as the saying goes, went on. The fog machine, which I employed liberally to accentuate the lights, caused Cher to lose her voice for about 20 minutes. Cher’s CD cut out in the middle of the third song (not my fault, honest!). My laptop, upon which Cher’s CD was being cued, froze up. There were miscues during Cher’s costume changes; tunes started too soon, too late, not at all.

The gremlins had arrived.

Still, Cher (aka Lisa) is a pro; she put on a great show despite the numerous snafus.

I, on the other hand, have officially retired from the soundman biz. I’m thinking of taking up something less stressful. Bullfighting, maybe.

More Reality Check online at http://mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com or www.mlive.com. Email Mike Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com.

It’s true; I was once among the ‘Children of the Corn’

A while back I wrote a column detailing the nefarious criminal activities of my youth; namely, the theft from Cook’s Five and Dime of a penlight and two Spiderman comics. I was in fourth grade.

Apprehended by store security, I was turned over to the tender mercies of my old man. He didn’t ask me why I did it, didn’t make an appointment for me to see a counselor, didn’t ask a pediatrician to prescribe Ritalin. He did not wail and gnash his teeth, wondering where he and my mother had gone wrong.

He dragged me home and walloped the portions of my body usually associated with sitting until I no longer could. I did not steal again.

Except once.

It was the August following my foiled “flashlight caper.” I was as old as a kid is in fifth grade—a kid who flunked fourth grade the first time around, I mean.

My family, the whole troupe, was visiting my Grandma Seeley’s house, what we at the time called “the farmhouse,” despite the lack of an attached farm. Grandma’s house was sort of out in the country—what we city kids thought of as the country, anyway.

The visit followed the usual Sunday afternoon custom: mom and grandma in the kitchen putting up a big picnic lunch; dad, grandpa and Uncle Ray sitting around the back yard drinking tea, beer or whiskey; sisters and cousins pulling weeds from grandmother’s garden while my brothers foraged for nubbly toads beneath the rhubarb plants crowding thick along the side of the house.

I spent the afternoon as I often did, tramping through the nearby woods, carrying an old pillowcase in which to stash interesting pine cones, sparrow skulls or caterpillars. I was only ten minutes into my hike when the woods petered out and something I had never before imagined unfolded like a green and gold curtain before my eyes: an entire field full of corn, just growing wild!

I had always assumed corn was manufactured pretty much like everything else—in a Newark factory or possibly somewhere in Japan. To find it—and in such abundance, just growing out of the ground—well...I immediately set about filling the pillowcase with ear after ear of the free corn.

The scant biceps on my skinny arms stood out as I lugged the pillowcase back to the house.

There, to my surprise and dismay, I was chastised mightily for perpetrating such a heinous transgression and lectured on the dangers inherent in stealing from farmers. (It turns out farmers grow corn on purpose with the intent of selling it.) I was warned about the horrific afterlife awaiting those who break the Seventh Commandment. I was confined to the backyard for the rest of the day, lest I be tempted to appropriate any other “free” stuff I might find lying about.

But my grandmother, ever the pragmatist and not particularly concerned about what the Pope might have to say on the subject, stripped and boiled the corn anyway. The entire family partook of the delectable fruits of my misdemeanor, thereby sending a mixed message and confusing me unto this very day.

I still can’t pass a supermarket bin full of corn without wishing I had a pillowcase.

More Reality Check online at http://mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com or www.mlive.com. Email Mike Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com.

If dogs don’t go to Heaven, I’m not going either

A word of warning right up front: this week’s column is going to seem nothing short of blasphemous to some readers. It’s not intended that way, but I’ve noticed over the years that any time I mention the “R” word (religion), I get letters from at least a couple folks assuring me that I am, in fact, a scion of the devil and will likely roast in hell for all eternity.

I hope they’re wrong.

At any rate, I’m willing to take the chance in order to relate the following information, which does deal, at least inadvertently, with the afterlife. And dogs.

I’ve always felt that—if dogs are not allowed in Heaven—I’d just as soon not go there myself. Most theologians assure us dogs have no soul. They’re among God’s creatures, yes, but according to the sort of folks who make a living studying this sort of thing, Rover won’t be joining you in the great hereafter.

All I can say to that is; baloney. Over my long years, I have had the good fortune to share my home with an assortment of greyhounds, beagles, boxers, terriers, spaniels, retrievers and numerous mutts of indeterminate genus. I’ve liked most of them far more than most of the people I’ve known during those same years.

Let’s face it; for the most part dogs are just more likeable than their human counterparts. Sure, every so often a dog goes bad and bites someone, but you’ll never see a collie setting up a personal injury law practice or running for Congress; dogs know better.

The point is most people who know and love canines think all dogs (should) go to Heaven, despite the protestations of theologians. And at least one minister agrees.

Rev. Tom Eggebeen, pastor of the Covenant Presbyterian Church in Los Angeles, has gone so far as to set up special services at his church, complete with doggie beds, canine prayers and an “offering” of dog treats. Like I said, some folks will no doubt consider this blasphemous, but I’m behind Eggebeen’s efforts 100 percent, even if he is from L.A., where everyone is at least a little bit nuts.

According to an Associated Press article, there are a half-dozen other churches across the nation that also host canine services.

Humans are invited to attend as well, of course, though they’re not allowed to use the doggie beds, no matter how boring the sermon gets.

The services, according to the good Reverend, usually start out with a lot of tail-sniffing, barking and other behavior typical of dogs. This is understandable, I think, considering the exclusionary practices of most churches in the past. I mean, you can’t expect pooches to know how to act in church when they’ve never before been allowed to attend, right? It’s gonna take a while.

But they’ll get it. My last dog, Kipper, didn’t know enough to pee outside when I first got him. By the time he departed this mortal coil, over a decade later, he could practically read and write.

Moreover, he was a teacher as well as a student. He taught me the value of loyalty, the importance of offering comfort to those in need, and how much fun it can be to hang your head out the car window on a sunny July afternoon and simply breath in all the wonderful things life has to offer.

If all that doesn’t merit a free pass into Heaven, I don’t know what does.

More Reality Check online at http://mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com or www.mlive.com. Email Mike Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com.