The Average Obese Adult American Male

The average obese American female gets only one hour of vigorous exercise (an exercise that burns fat like jogging or jumping rope) a year. The average obese male does a little better with almost four hours a year. I’m getting old and for me, walking is a vigorous exercise. Or maybe it’s because I’m fat. I can’t do  anything about getting old. And the doctor told me to lose some weight. The news item said that sex was not considered a vigerous exercie for the purpose of this study. It’s just as well as I don’t get much of that either. I’m having a hard time visualizing two fat people having sex. Oh baby, work it, work it. It would not have been a pretty sight. I’m trying to visualize a fat woman jumping a rope. I can’t visualize that either. It’s just as well, as she doesn’t do much of that either.

Big bosomed dolly

Thick boned lass

Starving her flesh

            Singing her blues

Hot mama

Hard blowing harp man

Chicago blues is loud

Bartender says

He’s his ol’ man up there

The man on the bandstand

            He’s a little man (his ol’ man)

Nick nack, patty wack

Chicago is crying

            This winter wind

            Brings tears to your eyes

Any place as cold as this

            Can be rendereded in just

            A few blue notes anytime

And A bunch ot of abstract

            Blue blobs

            Chicago is shrill

Like the wind from the lake

Let me take a moment and introduce

            The Mystery Band to you

Would that be all right?

            Give it up for...

To my left, my good friend...

These are some of the finest blues players in Chicago

Which means they are some to the finest

            Blues players in the world

And my name is Mr. G

Big-handed Wisconsin maid               

Don’t just turn and walk away
            Blond ponytail swishing

Freckles frowning

Just one more time Miss Dairyland

She smelt of mint and new moan

            Hay

Silver bangles glistening

She breezes by in

            An infusion of cornflowers

Young girls turn into women

Their hips broaden

They starve their flesh

            And shave their crotches

And head into the big city

Another Smithwick for me

I was going to be moving on

Three is my limit

And this is my third

I planned more stops tonight

But now it is too late

The blues is great

And there is plenty of space

So I shall stay in this place

            And try to make with the barmaid

Tonight

You can keep the damn cat, baby

This is Chicago style blues

Thank you. Thank you. That was an original song

I’m broke and I am hungry baby

            (and he passes the kitty around)

Baby takes a lot of blame

It is a man’s world after all

Baby gets no respect

Stand behind your woman

And support her in every way

My parents do not share a bedroom. Mother picked out her room. This will be my bedroom, she said. It faces south and looks out onto the garden and the closets are so spacious. I shall have it painted in a pale blue – a pale robin’s egg blue. I will have a white carpet put down with thick pile. It was large and had a bathroom. It’s what they call a master bedroom. They made an offer and agreed on a price and a month later we moved in. That’s when dad decided to occupy that large room my mother had chosen for herself. My mother is not to be pushed around. She likes to feel that she’s a victim  and she gets her revenge. Afer all, he said, it is called the master’s bedroom. This will cause endless difficulty. Is the old man stupid or what?

The previous owner had left a lot of furniture. My brother and I are going through an old desk. But first I want to explain about new a form of moving that I’ve discovered. No lot like moving in or moving furniture or that kind of stuff. This is about a new form of locomotion that involves generating a vibrational energy. I can do it on one foot. I set up a vibration in the sole of my foot and just glide along like a snake. It’s amazing. It’s sort of like moon walking on one foot, but forward rather than in reverse, although it can be done in both directions. Though I never seen a snake move backwards, come to think of it. It was the Little People who gave me this trick. It’s a trick rather than a skill cause not even I know how it’s done. You can’t teach it to anyone. It has somethingd to do with mind control, they told me. We discovered the Little People in the closet in what was supposed to have been my mother’s bedroom, what dad is calling The Master’s Bedroom. There was a little hole in the back of the big closet, in the dark, barely noticeable. We were playing toy soldiers in there when they came marching out in formation through what looked like a mouse hole. They were banging on drums and whistling into fifes and doing their moon-walk. There must have been a gazillon of them. We only play in here when dad’s at work. He would beat the shit out of us with his belt if he caught us in here.

Later as I gained more control of the vibrations, I managed to channel it though my hands. First I tried moon-walking on my hands but I had difficulty with my balance. I kept falling over. Then I discovered I could use it to move small objects – sort of like telekinesis. I try to teach it to my brother. But it won’t work for him. What’s that strange thing that that boy is doing, my father asked? He is not very observant. He doesn’t pay much attention to us, most of the time. Have a word with that boy, he told mom. I don’t want him growing up weird. He comes home from work and goes to his room. He sleeps a lot. He is a policeman. My mother pretended she hadn’t heard him. She is pretending a lot. I didn’t want to get into the middle of it. I quit performing in front of adults, espically the old man.

What about the desk? Oh yes, that. I almost forgot. We pulled out a drawer and removed it from its guides. We were looking for a plastic German soldier that my brother had dropped down a slot behind the desk. It was a kneeling infantryman aiming a rifle. My brother had bitten on the end of the gun.  Behind the drawer we found a shelf on which there were some coins and some paper money in clear plastic envelopes. I have a book about coins. I look them up in my book. They are very rare and worth a long of money. We decide to tell the Little People about them. They advise us to be quiet about what we found. They said that if we gave the stuff that we had found to them they would keep it for us and not tell anyone. That thing you showed me about vibrating your feet, I said. Well I’ve used it to move objects about. And I showed them. Don’t let anyone see you do that, they said. They’ll put you in cage in a laboratory and study you. It happened to one of us. Thanks, I said and gave them all the money that we had found.

Well one day we (my brother and I) were in a truck. We were in back. There was no one up front. The truck started moving and was headed downhill towards our house. I used my telekinesis to stop it, but not before it ran into the house. Straight into the big bedroom were my father was sleeping. He is in the hospital. We when to visit him. Mother and father are talking again but neither of them will talk to us. Dad would but he’s not allowed to shout. It could have been a lot worse, I try to explain, if I hadn’t used my powers to stop the truck when I did. Dad could have he been dead. For that we got a thrashing. What was that for, I asked. For telling lies, my mother said. I told the Little People about it. They laughed. It’s just like the big people, they said.

My uncle  Bill helped my to write this. He is in the army. He said he knew all about the Little People. He wanted me to show him that moon-walk thing. I tried to but found that I could no longer do it. Just like the Little People he said. The end.

Tramping off to work

Tramping

            Tramping

                         Tramping

Tramping off the train

            And into the rain

Tramping in from the ‘burbs

Tramping off to work

Tramping
             Tramping

                        Tramping

Tramping off to work

See them with their dog tags

            Around their necks

Put on your happy face

See them with coffee in their hands yawning

See them

            See them

                        See them off to work

Off to sit behind their desks

See them

            See them

                        See them off to work

With backpacks and handbags and jogging shoes

            Some wear shorts and change at work

See them

            See them

                        See them off their labors

Watch them arrive

Imagine what they do

Which ones are the clerks

And which ones are the bankers

Who works with his hands

And who works with her brains

They are all walking,

            Walking

                        Walking by

Train load by train load they arrive

Working stiffs – men and women

            From the hinterland

They put on their walking shoes

Walking

            Walking

                        Walking

 To uptown elevators

             up into the atmosphere

                        Up sky high

                       

Babies from poor families where are given full-time day care during their first five-years of live grow up to be both more intelligent and more healthy than similar babies not given such care. The results are in from a 42 year study of 100 infants in North Carolina. It was expected that they would be smarter but that they were healthier as adults was totally unexpected. An infant in the group given special care was five times as likely to go on to college as was an infant in the control group.

- from McLeansboro, Illinois