A pickup line from a religious movie

"Do you know how many licks it takes to get the the center of a Tootsie Pop?"

She was taken back. Her eye's widened, her jaw dropped. How could some stranger walk off the street, buy some second rate DVD that she had never heard of, and manage to ask her the only question this week for which she had not been able to find a satisfactory answer? O sure, she had consulted Wikipedia as she did on every occasion, but even it was full of convoluted opinions and scientific guess work. She stuttered, "Not -t-t-t r-r-r-really," as she put the DVD in the bag and handed it across the counter. There was something in her face, maybe the crumbs of powdered doughnuts at the corners of her mouth, but he thought he saw something else. Something hidden, deeper, wanting him to not look away, or walk out the door without trying to follow through on what he had stumbled upon.

"Would you like to find out?”, he muttered. Where in the hell had that come from? He was shocked at the boldness, the brashness, yea, the giant set of Cojonies he had just grown. He couldn't remember the last time he had even thrown a line at a girl. Oh, wait.. yes he could. 1991. He has heard it in some awful movie mocking his religion, but he remembered the line anyway and used it. "Excuse me, " he had said to the J-Lo look alike except she had red hair, and a Bon Jovi tattoo that was starting to sag across her cankles. "You have the ass of a great artist."

Walking out of the Applebee's with Riblets adorning his T-shirt, he reminded himself to never use pick-up lines from religious movies.

Bringing his attention once again to the stunned retail clerk, he wondered if he wasn't about to have to throw away another one of his favorite T-Shirts.

A chance encounter at Blockbuster

A gig…panic attack…the shakes…where’s the Prozac bottle…

Lets see, I can get by without the F sharp or the G flat. After all, its jazz. Its like Chinese food. Its all F blues anyway, and there aint no F sharp in F blues.

But there it was in red sharpie: “Needed…a true jazz band. Music for listening, critical attention, and applause. We don’t want to dance. We don’t want you to fade into the background like a potted plant. You don’t need to turn down the volume. You need not wear a tux. We are seeking a true jazz band to play original improvised music. Autographs will be sought after the show. There will be women in the front row—tastefully clad in very little…”

Someone could be playing a joke on him. A very bad joke. He needed inspiration…the feel of the wind through his hair…an adventure…a road trip down to the local QFC strip mall. He scooped and shoveled the Little Debbie wrappers and Rock Star cans into the back, squeezed in behind the wheel, and turned the key…

Minutes later, Seemore swung into the empty Blockbuster video store to find a copy of the Blues Brothers. He remembered Jake calling Ellwood…”we’re getting the band back together”.

Seemore was the only customer. Perhaps the only person left in America willing to pay five bucks cash for a video. He had no choice. None of his credit cards worked any more.

What the hell kind of parents named a kid Paul Jim Long??

He handed the sticky DVD case to the girl behind the counter. She smiled at him. All peroxide and shredded denim, braces, and ponytails. Legally Blonde VI—indifferent, imperturbable, and cute. Yes, there was a god. A gig and now a girl…could it get any better?

Seemore leaned slightly toward her, sucked in his gut, and asked the one question that had been on his mind since Sunday…

A reunion is contemplated

Had it not been for the Best Buy Extended Warranty he bought on his 56 inch plasma, his television would have been que'd in some fluorescent lit repair shop waiting on some one named Hausean to discover that over 856 hours of Guitar Hero had melted the DC power inverter to the Eludium Q 39 XP modulator. As it was, all he had to do was take his TV back to the store where they charge him a 15% restocking fee, a 5% service fee to pull the Demo model off the shelve because the model had been discontinued, and 3% clean up fee. He returned the rental U-Haul after unload the TV in his home.

But no matter. He had his TV back.

Reaching into his pocket for his Steve Lukether pick he managed to snag at a TOTO concert from the the third row, he felt the wadded piece of paper that was the ticket the cop had given him just a short while ago. $150 fine. He could buy three bluetooth ear pieces for that price. But what the hell. His phone didn't really work anyway. It was made by Fisher-Price and he bought it at a yard sale for $.50 to try and fit it. But nothing he did these days seemed to help him feel like he fit in any where.

He tossed the puke yellow piece of paper on the coffee table and slumped back into his couch. Looking at the stack of empty Little Debbie wrappers and crushed Rock Star cans, he noticed something written in red on the back of the ticket. A red, fine point sharpie, he thought to himself. Some one was having pen envy. He smoothed out the paper and read the chilling note: I know who you are. 7 PM, July 12th, Policeman's Ball. We need a jazz band. Are you up to it Big Boy?

Was some one toying with him? His heart either skipped a beat or the ephedra and caffeine were catching up with him. A gig? Was this fate opening a door that had for so long been closed?

His mind began racing on who he would call. Tony Lips was dead. But there were plenty of trumpet players out of work who could blow. He heard the Randy Brecker was looking for a part time job to supplement his online Bejeweled addiction. Knuckles still had a drums kit. Maybe he could scrape up some loose change to help him by some new sticks. Apparently he used his last pair as kindling in his hibachi to roast a lame duck. Paul Jim Long was an easy call on bass. The man looked for any excuse to get out of the house. Few knew that Paul Jim Long's wife was the gourmet cat recipe blogger featured on the local morning TV news show and had been spending 15 to 18 hours a day on her computer. Even the cyber sex with her was poor.

All that was left was a keyboardist. He wondered if he should even make the call. What would he say? They're last meeting hadn't gone well. How was he suppose to know he was allergic to F#? He would have changed the key. But it wasn't one of those medical conditions you talked about. But today, thanks to Dr Phil, most people are at least aware of the condition known as Inharmonic coananoteidosis. He should at least make the attempt. He had spent that last 7 years re-writing the Real Book to take out all the F#'s. He wondered if the the Gb's would pose a problem, but there wasn't time to worry about accidentals right now. He had to act now or all could be lost.

Where's Seemore?

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Bluetooth

The unfortunate truth...the sad truth really...is that Seemore had
become fat. He knew it. So did the crowd.

As he pulled over to the shoulder of I5 by Mercer Avenue...the red cop
light flashing in his mirror...he realized that the cell phone without
bluetooth ban had gone into effect a fortnight ago.

How symbolic. How apropos of nothing. How fucking perfect it all was.
Seemore...THE Seemore...reduced to an anachronism. A relic. A joke.

Jazz Alley. The home of the greats. McCoy Tyner played here. Elvin
Jones. Corea. Seemore looked at the one night Monday night timeslot,
then he looked at his empty wallet. Flyers littered the ground from the
sold out weekend double billing of Dave Koz and the Smooth Jazz all
stars.

O ye como va.

He hadn't seen an Arctic Circle in...hell...it had been years. Seemore
thought he remembered an article on the net that Arctic circle had been
subsumed by Kentucky Fried Chicken, which in turn had been bought by
Princess Cruise Lines, which everyone knew was principally owned by a
company with a major stake in diamond mines in Zimbabwe.

He could use some of those diamonds right now.

The question remained...where was the MUSIC!!?!!?? I mean its going on
sixty years now since the instrumentation has been guitar, guitar, bass,
drums. Is that going to be forever, or is it all going the way of Lute
playing. It all blended together in his pulsing migraine consciousness
like a mixolydian scale on repeat.

It didn't matter right now, he thought, as he slurped the remnants of
his new Carl's Jr. Cap'n Crunch milkshake. He was going home for a few
blessed hours of relief. With perhaps 50 more reps he was going to pass
the expert level of "Cliffs of Dover" on guitar hero. Throw that in
with some moderately good pot, and the veil becomes exceeding thin...

Coffee cake

When we last left our hero, we found him pounding down the remaining
pieces of a very delectable coffee cake on the outskirts of Seattle.
it wasn't so much the cinnamon that he was craving as the unusual
wheat flour that the dessert was made of.

Across the table, oblivious to the hasty snarfing, traveling minstrels
engaged in stories of days gone by. The room was filled with the aroma of burnt Jo and a floor in desperate need of a mop and a straight ammonia solution.

Gone were the days of The Arctic Circle and the hand spun double thick shakes.
He was now apart of the 'new' breed. The hip cats. The rising 'me'
generation that fostered such evolutionary sociological icons as
donuts with twice as much sugar and twice the price at any Krispy
Kreme with the HOT sign alit, 8 dollar movie tickets, the ever
popular what-do-you-get-someone-who-has-everything Wal-Mart gift
cards and pre-packaged ice.

Yes, this was his life now. Free from the chains of
spontaneity, cheap gas, and even cheaper women. But this wasn't a
time for reminiscing. He had a job to do and he knew that it would
take only one more helping of coffee cake before he was ready to go do
it.

It hadn't been his first choice. But the decision to take the job
meant he didn't have to sleep in the empty China Express Shipping
container by the docks. he was tired of the cold steel against his
back at night. Tired of wondering if he would wake one morning only
to hear "Ahh Soo !! Whoo daaaa hall is Diss"? And he was tired of
the reverberation when he flatulated.

Things were looking up. All he had to do was just get through this
night, deliver the package, and wait for the call. It was all too easy. Or so it seemed...