LOOKING AT THE WORLD THROUGH A CRACK IN MY HEAD

This is what got this whole thing started. I had been confined to my apartment in a hospital bed for what turned out to be THREE years while the medical “profession” attempted to determine the cause of my problem. It was during this time that my good friend of some 45 years, Mike Shannon, bugged the hell out of me to write this book. It is the auto-biographical account of a guy who never invented anything, never cured anything, and never amassed huge sums of money. His only claim to fame was that he was a stone-cold, card carrying lunatic. In other words, he was a character! Characters, like birds of a feather, tend to flock together and that makes for a book FULL of some of the most incredible stories you will ever hear. The reason I know this is, I am the character, along with a stellar cast of my character friends, upon whom this book is based.

Everyone knows a character and, if you don’t, the media is chock full of them, both past and present. Charlie Sheen, Robin Williams, W. C. Fields, Jack Nicholson. There are very few people who wouldn’t give their eye-teeth just to sit down and talk to them for a while or, better yet, go have a beer with them. In fact, deep down inside, most people would love to BE a character! The problem is, what would their neighbors, friends, family, employers (especially employers) think of them? You see, being a character is not a choice one makes; it’s the way you were born. We don’t have a filter; if it comes in our heads, it’s coming out our mouths. I have had times when it didn’t even bother to come in my head, it just came out my mouth. We don’t particularly care what others think of us and most rules and regulations might as well be Greek, as far as we’re concerned. We fly by the seat of our pants, which is extremely thrilling, with the exception of the occasional bumpy landing or outright crash.

I suppose I should start off by telling you a little about myself and, after that, I will include a sample of my book. I wouldn’t want you to buy a “pig in a poke.” If you’re not familiar with that term, just drive out to the country and ask the first redneck you see and he will be glad to explain it to you. Just think of it as an informative day trip.

The first thing I want to do is to quell the nasty rumor that the picture of the individual on the front cover of the book is a portrait of the author. I am debating putting an actual photo of me on the inside cover of the book, but I may be better off leaving well enough alone. I’ll get back to you on that.

The rather unusual title of the book came from something my beloved Aunt Louise used to say. If she was staring off into space, I would ask her what she was doing and the title would be her reply. I am thankful to her for so many reasons, above and beyond the catchy title. She was the first character I ever knew and she took the character that I was at birth and molded and formed the character that I am today.

In the course of my life, I have been a child preacher (not for profit!), a child actor, an adult actor (including professional summer stock), a singer, a comedian, a salesman, an entrepeneur, a photographer, an (alleged) member of the mob, and now, an author. I will not mislead you by making you think I was really great at all of these endeavors, since most of these careers came about through unemployment from more conventional occupations. I will say, because of the diversity of ALL my employment history, the huge wellspring of the material for this book was derived.