CockaMaME

There’s something corny, yet queerly appealing about polka music. Wasn’t raised with it. Can’t polka myself. But I have bought several used polka CDs and on rare occasions am actually in the mood to hear one of them. It’s been at least a couple of years since the urge to listen to oompa-pa has gripped me. (Gripped really is too strong a word.)

A few days ago I sat down and queued up all kinds of stuff on TiVo. (My husband hates that, says it diminishes the amount of discretionary “suggestions” he can select from. Wah wah wah). I look at the lists of upcoming programs alphabetically and select things at random for TiVo to record.

And so it was that late Sunday night I chose the Big Joe Polka Show to conclude my evening entertainment. I’d exhausted the backlog of Judge Judys and wanted something offbeat. The harmless charm of polka fit the bill. And the folks polka-ing seem to think it’s dang fun, hence their motto “Happy Music for Happy People.”

Big Joe is one of their heroes. He showcases talent coast-to-coast, which may explain why you’ve probably never heard of him. He emcees his show, seated with a microphone. He introduces the bands and announces the song to be played, be it a shuffling Polish waltz or a snappy German number.

Reminds me of Ed McMahon without Johnny but with a decidedly different fashion sense. His shirt had sheer gauzy (voile) sleeves with lots of little ruffles down the front. He wore a bright pink vest over it that was a patchwork of satin, velvet, brocade, gold trim. You know, West Hollywood on parade day. There’s nothing otherwise effeminate about him. I guess it’s a polka thing.

He’ll say stuff like “OK now we’re going to hear ’schnitzelweisel shcinturfurten,’ that old favorite, otherwise known as ‘The Old Gray Mare’…Take it away Serenaders!” The band capably plays schnitzelweisel shcinturfurten, obviously not in English, and the dancers dance with their partners going counterclockwise around the big barn, or dance hall or whatever.

God what a sight. I gazed at my TV screen stupefied by the hokiness of it all. I could not not look, if you know what I mean. They were all white, white, white and mostly old, older and oldest. Otherwise, lots o variety.

Gangly tall women and petite gentlemen. Round women with polyester pants like sausage casings. Frail-looking ones with earnest faces trying to keep the rhythm and mostly succeeding, but seeming somehow anxious about it nonetheless. Men who love Oktoberfest and have waists to prove it. The natty pairs with colorful matching his ‘n’ her suits, proudly emblazoned on back with the hometown: “Polka, Pottsville, PA.” They are down for their town, know what I’m sayin’?

They chat while dancing, or not, and appear carefree and nimble. Of course, one old guy wore lederhosen and his silver-haired lady friend wore a Swiss Miss dress with pigtails that had long ribbons streaming down them. (Whatever happened to Baby Jane? Oh, she moved to Liechtenstein and polkas whenever she gets a chance.)

Sunday’s lineup included the Jim Busta Band, ably assisted by a hottie named Mollie D. Sounds faintly rap-ish don’t it? Mollie looked too young and too cute to be in a polka band, but what do I know. She’s a multi-tasker though, I know that for sure, because I saw her play keyboards and a trombone at the same time (but she didn’t use the slide). Later she played trumpet while keyboarding. Talk about coordination…whew!

At certain places in the song she and Jim would, in unison, jump up and down real quick three times and say yip yip yip. I’m guessing that’s suppose to add a little more verve to the song, which it inarguably did. Plus, that’s probably just how things are done in polkaland when you’re in the middle of a smokin’ jam. Another nice touch is when the guy playing the fiddle belts out ahhhaa!, like an Austrian Bob Wills.

If you’ve ever hankered to hear a good concertina player, tune in. The one Sunday wore a jaunty Alpine hat with the feather on the side. Now there’s a polka star.

The Big Joe Polka Show is televised on the RFD-TV network http://rfdtv.com/ , which is geared toward farm people and the “rural lifestyle.” Don’t sniff. The network reaches 28 million cable TV viewers nationwide. Big Joe announced he wants to know of the best polka bands in your area, anywhere in America. Says for you to send him their names and contact info so he can come and put on a Bavarian bonanza “in your backyard.”

If you know of a talented polka band, or you’re IN a talented polka band, here’s your opportunity. Don’t hide your light under a bushel. Let it shine in the barn on the RFD network’s Big Joe Polka Show.

And if you want a special gift for a certain someone, you can order a CD at http://www.polkacatalog.com/store.asp . Here you’ll find Merry Christmas with Li’l Richard and his All-Stars (no not the guy from Macon in the Geico commercial), the evergreen Czech Christmas Carols and the toe-tapping Dumplings & Sauerkraut for Santa. I think that just about covers it.

I can be a tad obsessive-compulsive about some things. I find I like something and then I like all kinds of it - too much in fact. Soap is one example, that humble bar that lathers when water is applied and makes you clean.

Back before gels and scented soft soap or liquid soap, people bathed with bars of soap. My husband prefers bar soap, having declared the other stuff “foo foo.”

I don’t know when my penchant for (bar) soap began, but I do remember the fragrance and texture of different soaps when I was growing up.

Like the slightly porous, all-purpose, no-nonsense Ivory. 99/100ths percent pure. I think everyone just took their word for the purity ratio, which I think means no added scents or lotion, etc. It smelled unique. Not fragrant in a good way just clean and distinctive.

In the past few years, I did not find it in grocery stores anymore. I’ve haven’t looked for it there lately, but I did come across the triple-packs of Ivory at BigLots! Didn’t buy it though. I like more exotic stuff now, and so much more of it is available http://www.thesoapbar.com/ , seemingly, than when I was a kid.

There was my step-grandma’s Sweetheart soap, which came in a little green and white box and did smell fragrant. It was light and pleasant and I wanted to buy some when I grew up and had a family of my own, but I could never find any. I thought they stopped making it. But then I got a Vermont Country Store catalogue and found that Sweetheart soap was reprised for its customers.

After being inundated by thousands of requests, the New England “purveyors of practical and hard-to-find products” went about getting it manufactured again exclusively for them. Same box, same fragrance, same tiny lacy floral pattern etched into each light pink oval cake. I did buy three bars of it and it brought me back in time to when I’d bathe at (step-) Grandma Peggy’s after running around all day. Now as then, it lingers on the skin ever so slightly, like a delicate but invisible powder.

When I found the old-time Lifebuoy Toilet Soap available through Vermont Country Store, I bought it, too. I recalled the scent as masculine and robust - appealing because my stepdad used it. I remembered the orange rectangular soap sitting in the chrome holder above the rim of the bathtub. So when it arrived several months ago, I opened the package and found the three bars I’d ordered each encased in plastic.

There was good reason for that extra layer of packaging, namely the ghastly, strong carbolic smell of Lifebuoy, which I had romanticized as bracing and clean. Yea, it’s bracing alright. I immediately put the cakes in airtight packaging and stocked them away, knowing I’d never use them but feeling guilty that I’d had them shipped from Vermont at a premium price. They sat there in the dark cabinet and their, let’s be honest, odor, managed to permeate the entire bathroom.

I moved them to the garage and eventually sold them at my yard sale to some other romantic fool who no doubt discovered their lingering aroma could do double duty as a decent bug killer. Lifebuoy’s creators claim to have coined the term “body odor” and said their soap would put an end to it. True, but they forgot to add that it put something far worse in its place. People attempting to smell better should not smell carbolic, a pearl of wisdom that seems so obvious it should not need to be said.

But somehow someone made money on this putrid orange stuff, otherwise how would it have survived all these years and still be sold through the Vermont Country Store catalogue? People bought it. People buy it. I advise you not try it.

Palmolive, on the other hand, does smell as good as I remembered it. After disappearing from shelves for a long time, it briefly reemerged with a “new and improved” fragrance. The attempted improvement failed to catch on and the original was re-introduced. I cannot describe it, but it does not smell like palm tree oil or olives. It smells nice like, well, like Palmolive.

The fragrances of ’60s cleanliness, not just bar soap, will always hold a special place in my olfactory senses: Tide laundry detergent; Jergens lotion (which we now know as a “cherry vanilla” scent); original Ban roll-on; Ivory dish soap (which used to smell like the floating bar soap but now smells pleasant but nondescript); Pledge furniture polish - not the insipid lemon fragrance that seems to be the only one Pledge offers today.

But, as I mentioned earlier, exotic soap captures my interest now. Although many of the brands I’ve bought have probably been around forever, they’re new to me…

Maja, with its black and blood-red wrapper, the “scent of seduction, Spanish passion.” Made by Myrurgia in Barcelona, it is olive-oil based with a formula and fragrance unchanged since the 1920s.

Each wrapper is graced with a depiction of classic Spanish beauty. A pale, raven-haired temptress with bare arms is shown lifting the hem of her long, full skirt. It is red, trimmed in black lace. She holds an unfurled gold fan in her right hand, a red rose behind her left ear. Her mantilla draped head is tipped back ever so slightly, a single curl accents her forehead and she has a haughty, smoldering stare.

How can you resist it? The Moorish, dark gold lettering of “Maja.” The vixen ready to tango. The rich oriental, sandalwoody fragrance. This is what buying soap is all about. The sensuality, not simply hygiene.

On to Bee & Flower. I am captivated by these small bars from China, so cheap in price, so exotic in packaging. Six bars in cellophane for about $1.50 at, you guessed it, BigLots! Each bar is wrapped in a different colored, posy printed paper, depending on the fragrance - green for Jasmine, gold for Sandalwood, orange for Ginseng, rose for Rose. They have a strip of white paper with Chinese writing wrapped around them vertically, and a black, gold and red ornate band around them horizontally. The ornate band is centered with the Bee & Flower logo in yellow, under which is printed the particular fragrance. On the back, there’s a bee on one end of the band and a flower on the other, with the requisite bar code in the middle.

But wait, there’s more! On the front above the logo band is a small round sticker which says Made in China. There’s a flower in the middle of the sticker and Chinese characters spanning the top. On the bottom of the logo band is affixed a shiny gold sticker with a wavy edge and a bee in the middle of it. It says Bee & Flower around the top and Made in China on the bottom. They really want to emphasize that it’s made in China.

Did I tell you it’s made in China? (You mean something isn’t?)
All that and it smells sweet and the fragrance lingers pleasingly. I daydream that it has been around for hundreds of years, without the bar code of course, and that a lily-footed blossom named Peony used this brand in the baths of an opulent aristocratic household. I imagine her languorously soaking in bathwater dappled with rose petals. She puts on silk pale jade pajamas afterward and sips jasmine tea and nibbles sweetmeats in a shady courtyard by a gurgling fountain.

Bee & Flower is a bargain and daydreams are free.

For the boutique soap lover, may I recommend Alabu. It is “premium Handcrafted Goat Milk Soap.” It hails from the drearily named town of Mechanicville, New York. I like the old-fashioned, hard-to-find fragrance Bay Berry. It lathers good, smells wonderful and my only criticism is Alabu tends to “melt” too quickly. It comes in white tissue paper with a simple round label, nothing fancy but the price, about $3.50 a bar.

Of course, there are many other bars of soap I enjoy. Pears is a good one. It’s a 200-year-old soap that has the imprimatur of the British royal throne. Now made exclusively in India using the tried-and-true English formula, it is “mellowed and aged three months until it reaches a pure transparency.” It is amber-colored, oval-shaped with a mild cedarwood and rosemary scent. The Pears name boldly carved into the recessed middle. Comes unwrapped in a box. The original Neutrogena-like bar but better. Can be hard to find in stores. Sometimes it’s at BigLots! for 80 cents, sorry people but it’s the truth. Can always find it online but can cost $3 a bar.

I have to stop somewhere, I really don’t, but I will anyway. So lastly, I will put forth a good word for Krisbel’s unique Macedonia soap, named after a Greek fruit salad not the country. A 4.4 ounce bar can cost $6.50, and no you’ll never find it at BigLots! Used to could get it at Cost Plus World Market for less but they stopped carrying it. It is colorful, with a transparent glycerin body embedded with opaque chunks of hard-milled soap. Looks like it’s chock full of fat confetti. Say that fast. Strong perfumy scent that oddly does not stay with you.

My next acquisition on purpose will be Magno, black Spanish soap that lathers white and is supposed to be terrific. I’ll let you know.

Think I’ll take a bath now.

November 1st is my dear mother’s 69th birthday. She’s a great person and I love her greatly, but like most of us she doesn’t qualify for sainthood, even on her birthday. We all know about some of the holy people who will be on the Honor Roll. Their names will be checked off after they get through marching in.

And we all know about some of the people who will be far, far away from the harps and gold streets, etc. They’ll not only have no jewels, they’ll have no crown, nor do they deserve one. You know the type, let’s not give the wicked monsters any more publicity.

But there are others, like myself, at neither end of the axis who muddle through and sometimes fall and sometimes soar. I would like to address those who are falling behind so unnecessarily. Not in the major categories, but in seemingly inconsequential ones: simple courtesy, graciousness, consideration of OTHERS, humility or even decency - when in the company of OTHERS.

Warning: the lack of these characteristics is one of my favorite peeves. I’ll surely write about it again and again in mindnumbing detail.

Ok, I’ll be the first to admit my biggest social faults, both of which are entirely regrettable AND avoidable.

Firstly, I am too lazy or self-centered to send anyone a thank-you card. Oh I have sent out a couple here and there over the years. But eight out of a thousand opportinities is pretty damning. Secondly, I am late all too often. It’s procrastination, a self-defeating-behaviour, that I am determined to stamp out…eventually. These are the behaviours of a clod, I know.

But some people are way naughtier than me and maybe they’re familiar to you as well. I can’t list them all here, but it’s a good start. These are true-life examples.

(Note clods’ distinct proclivity for passive-aggressiveness paired, naturally, with nonchalance. It’s an unpleasant coupling.)

Do your nerves a favor on All Saints’ Day or any other day, and find a path in the opposite direction, hide out, or otherwise minimize your contact with the following capital-C Clods.

1) The clod who stands in line at the Wal-Mart and in a fairly audible voice, lets it be known that he has no debts and is so financially savvy that he would not be caught dead owning a department store credit card with 23-percent interest. No, Clod has handled his affairs so astutely that they are triple A-1 credit-wise.

Aside to Clod: this is in bad taste because a lot of the poor bastards in Wal-Mart might barely be makin’ it. So crowing about your sterling finances is not kind, not necessary, and maybe not even true. Yet somehow you feel good knowing you’ve alerted the serfs to your superiority. Bonus points if your shopping companion seems uneasy, too.

(2) While searching the racks for a suitable outfit at a department store, Clod comes along, yakking on the mobile phone her salary negotiations for Dream Job.

“Well, I just told him I had to have at least $150,000 a year…that’s all there is to it. I mean this was, or should have been, a given from the start, and I said ‘With all my expertise, I’m a bargain’…”

My first thought upon hearing all the details I didn’t want to hear was that she was talking to thin air. The poor woman was so needy and bereft that she was actually making up a fantastic story and telling it aloud so she could shore up her flagging ego. Then I thought, if she was truly telling her business for all to hear in (now defunct) Robinsons-May, she was a thoughtless, you know, Clod (oxymoron!). And not being able to stand it any longer, I rolled my eyes at her and blurted out “Puhleez! Give me a break.” It felt good, too.

(3) The keeper of the scale…The clod who, quite accurately, looks around at the fine dining establishment, or family dinner table, or lunch counter, or wherever, and notes a person or persons who is/are overweight. Not a difficult challenge to be sure.

Clod can’t refrain from making sniping comments at EVERY opportunity. The remarks cover a broad spectrum, pun intended: fat; calories; the size of clothes in Miss Twiggy’s closet and how lovely they all are; portion sizes; diets; dieting success stories; dieting failures; dieting struggles; the beauty of thinness and thin people in general, or specific individuals.

Ad nauseum…

How would YOU like to share a repast with this bore or be seated next to ‘em?! (Geeps, do ya think they could make some people just a little more self-conscious and uncomfortable?) FYI: Such remarks are not appropriate or polite conversation when people are trying to enjoy a meal. Time and place people.

(4) Keeping tabs on everyone’s liquor consumption. Some people drink. Some people do not. Some people drink more than they should. Some people should drink more. Some people should mind their own damn business.

Clod should but is incapable. Clod talks about others’ imbibing to people who have no stake in it…you know gossip. Clod gripes about the habits of tippling relatives to anyone who will listen. Hey, it’s private, OK? It’s dandy that Clod is not in the tippling category, but does Clod have to be so hyper about the subject with everybody within reach?

Hey, let’s go to Clod’s house for some revelry on New Year’s Eve! No, let’s stay home. I’d rather shave the calluses off my heels.

(5) Mirror, mirror on the wall…Clod enjoys making niggling little digs about pretty much everything involving someone else. What kind of car they drive; how they dress; how they act; what they do; what they don’t do; how they wear their hair; what kind of job they have.

The awful flip side is that Clod often loves to tell you, sans niggling digs, about all his or her choices. Guess what? No one wants to hear it! Go look in the mirror and assess yourself critically, if you dare, and then work on your stuff. If you mind your own business, you won’t be minding somebody elses’.

Enjoy All Saints’ Day. You can if you know whom to avoid.

If my children were little, I’d be wary of Halloween. It’s your job as a parent to keep them safe. The more mean bad people there are, the harder that is to do. But my family would still take part in All Hallows’ Eve.

It has always held special appeal to me.

When I was in elementary school Halloween was a blast off. It was the only time of year young’uns over the age of 6 could roam around the neighborhood, in packs, at night, without their parents. Can you imagine that now?

Some kids’ moms made elaborate costumes for them, mostly to show off their creativity and time-management skills. The majority created their own outfits out of a hodgepodge of materials at home or they went to Woolworth’s and bought a cheap, highly flammable acetate get-up with a plastic mask that had a thin elastic band to hold it in place.The band always got tangled in my hair and the mask never had big enough eye holes. Plus, after breathing in it for an hour, the condensation build up was uncomfortable. Hell, the whole mess was uncomfortable in a wicked good way.

Halloween was not about comfort, it was about sugar-fueled fun. It was about taking a pillowcase and going door-to-door, street after street, with the goal of making your 18-by-26-inch cotton sack bulge with candy. No granola or “healthy treats.” You wanted Atomic Bombs, malted milk balls, Jujubes, or wax bottles filled with sugary liquid or pepsin-flavored chewable plastic teeth. For reals.

It was exciting to see my friends and schoolmates dressed in strange outfits or wearing weird hairdos and makeup. (Guess who?)

You knew when to call it quits and it wasn’t a curfew. It was when you were either too tired to walk or you had sore arms from the weight of your haul, which ever came first.

I enjoyed the houses and lawns dressed up with spooky decor, sometimes with eery music adding to the mystique. But even houses with just a porch light on were intriguing to me. I could peek inside and see how other people lived. Some had austere interiors, other were chaotic and messy. Some people’s houses smelled like fried food and others wafted cigarette smoke. Some people got dressed for the occasion, others opened the door begrudgingly, as if they resented getting out of their recliners to bother with squeeling little ghouls.

I remember one house in particular. A retired couple lived there and every year they made homemade caramel popcorn balls which they wrapped in Saran Wrap and tied with orange and black ribbon. They also gave unique little candies that I’d never seen anywhere else. They were like the kind you find at Cost Plus World Market - foil-covered chocolates shaped like bats from Germany or tiny tins of jawbreakers from Israel.

This couple loved to see everyone’s costume, no matter how dumb it was. They’d ooh and aw and invite you in to pirouette in their kitchen while they remarked on how marvelous you looked or how creepy, etc. Each child got a wax paper bag filled with the caramel popcorn balls and other goodies. Their place was the best and you left feeling so special!

(No child of any age should be so trusting in 2006. Even the well-meaning retirees would risk a lawsuit or someone making false allegations against them. It’s a pity, too.)

There were also a couple of houses along the route that made you uneasy. Maybe it was their unkept appearance, like the house poor Boo Radley lived in. Or maybe the occupants were known to be odd or grouchy.

Or perhaps the resident seemed to take Halloween seriously. Like the guy who lived on a cul-de-sac and kept the curtains closed and no one ever saw him. But on Halloween he’d answer the door, all seemingly 7 feet of him. The inside of his house was dark. He looked like Frankenstein and didn’t smile.

With my heart pounding, I timidly took a piece of candy from the bowl he held out and then backed away, turned and ran for my life. I’m sure he was harmless but he scared the bejeebees out of me and my companion. The true spirit of Halloween!

For years there’s been a backlash by Christian conservatives concerning Halloween’s pagan roots. They say it’s a Wiccan thing and it should be done away with. Wiccans get too much credit. Halloween is an ancient hallmark of the harvest season and serves as a day to remember the dead and the role of death in the circle of life, as recognized by many religions, including Christianity.

Today I’m going to carve my big pumpkin. I always buy one with an especially jaunty stem on top. Tomorrow, I will wear the jester hat I bought last year at Long’s. I will greet the wee ones gleefully and give out lots of candy, if I’m lucky enough to have trick-or-treaters.

Someday, I’ll be able to go all out and have a coffin in the lawn and a tombstone. A big black kettle of dry ice smoking with purple fumes will stand in the foyer. I’ll wear the bewitching witch costume I’ve always wanted and I’ll play Bach organ music. My goal: to creep out children and maybe their parents.

Remembering the ghosts of Halloween past helps me appreciate the joys of youth and the spirit of youthfulness today. And it’s dang fun.

It has become apparent to me that I am problematic. I have the potential of causing problems where I least want them, namely in the stores where I shop or the restaurants where I eat. I didn’t intend for it to be this way. Like most consumers, I simply want to give people my money for goods and services of my choosing.

Apparently the people at the other end of my transactions expect worse, hence their ubiquitous usage of the phrase “Not a problem” or its twin “No problem.”

In Webster’s New World Dictionary, a problem is defined as a question proposed for solution or a perplexing and difficult matter, person, etc. I’m sure I fall into the latter category but I have no idea why. I’ve become perplexing and difficult without realizing it.

Here are examples of my “transgressions”…

I’m paying for my groceries and the bag boy asks if I’d like help to my car. I decline. He says “No problem.” (See, he wanted to help me but it would really have been a problem. Thus by declining his offer, I avoided causing a problem.)

My husband and I are dining at an extravagent and sumptuous New York restaurant. I would be ashamed to mention the tab. Our waitress at the end of the meal offers the dessert cart for our perusal. We select one and say we’d like to share it. “Not a problem” she demures before leaving to get it. I jiggled my head in confusion and asked my spouse “Did she say ‘Not a problem’?” He confirmed what I heard.

Excuse me? How would paying upteen dollars for a meal and ordering a dessert to top it off be on the radar of problematic behavior? Making the statement implies the person was anticipating a problem but thanks to his or her grace or largesse, it was vanquished.

This is not a big deal. It’s just annoying. It’s annoying because the phrase is often used incorrectly and mindlessly. May I be so bold as to say that most of the offenders are under 35? Maybe it’s a generational thing.

When is “Not a problem” a perfectly correct and understandable statement?

Say you’re in line at Bed Bath & Beyond and you realize you forgot something. You turn to the person behind you and tell them of your plight and ask if they’d mind if you go grab whatever it is you need. The person says “Not a problem.” Fine. See, you could have irritated that person by holding up the line. That could have created a problem. So the declaration “Not a problem” is a relief. You won’t be considered a thoughtless clod and you remain in good standing with your fellow shopper.

Courtesy is the cornerstone of kindness.

When my actions portend difficulties for others then The Phrase is welcome. When they do not, it makes about as much sense as thanking someone who sprays graffiti on your garden wall.

And if another employee danes to let me spend time or money in their establishment, I’ll just have to go cause trouble someplace else. No problem.

I used to be a newspaperwoman. I had a 20-year love affair with journalism and I produced lots of stories, some good ones, some dumb ones, a few gems. I never worked for a big-league paper but so what.

Over the years I collected more than 500 journalism books. I’m writing a brief synopsis about each one and organizing them in a computer database. It’s slow going because it requires Consistent Effort.

Yes, Brenda Starr’s second cousin twice removed has turned in her press pass at least for now. I could retrieve it, maybe I will. Betty, Martha, Heloise and Erma are my sob sisters, too. And their ilk will inform my inchoate blog concerning the mundane, the arcane and the inane…

I have three cats, two grown sons, a house and a husband (last but not least!). I like to shop at Big Lots! and TJ Maxx and go to Trader Joe’s and Lassen’s Health Food Market here in Bakersfield (where you bake in the field, literally). I enjoy reading and writing, of course, and I am fascinated about a number of antiquated subjects such as the history of perfume, tatting, although I don’t tat, and housekeeping in Victorian times. It beats cleaning house.