Blind Eye's View

In looking around the last issue of the Prism, I noticed that there was no Blind Eye"s View. Oops. I guess I couldn"t see my way clear to submit something on time. Deadline? What"s a deadline? Wasn"t that the queue to get into a show by Jerry and the boys? Or is it what necrophiliacs use when chatting up potential dates? Anyway, my humblest apologies and strongest advice for psychological counseling go out to you loyal readers. And to you folks who thought you were rid of me, you"ve got another thing coming (and I don"t suggest you open it if it"s ticking).

So, what have I been up to lo these many moons (it wasn"t really that many‹my local senator had me busted the third time I mooned him)? Not much to speak of, but you can mumble about it or use sign language as much as you like. Nah, really, I"ve just been sitting on my sofa with a five-gallon tub of fudge, watching Sally Jesse Raphael and Jerry Springer (Sally has more empathy, but Jerry"s got more fist fights), and ballooning up to 400 pounds. The moped I ordered should arrive any day.

That moped would have come in handy for tooling around our great state fair. Lured by the siren song of the vast abundance of fudge and caramel apples, I couldn"t resist attending this year"s fair. Who can resist a midway full of more barkers than you"ll find at either a dog show or a certain pants-dropping, dog-spaying game-show host"s family reunion? Thanks to my newfound girth I even made one of the guess-your-weight guys weep openly, although they almost didn"t let me out of the freak show. Luckily, being a so-called writer for the Prism, I was allowed to plunk my fudge-laden ass down in the press suite, where I was privy to such fair arcana as this year"s winning Spam recipe (I kid you not, snout and entrails fans). I was also privy to a private privy, proving that being a journalist is for shit. Actually, the livestock on display at the fair displayed that most abundantly, but isn"t that what fairs are for? Not being much of a state fair buff (I tried going to this one in the buff, but I was, er, rebuffed at the gate), I wouldn"t know. Hell, I don"t think there were any state fairs where I grew up, thereby proving once and for all that Pennsylvania is an unfair state. After all, we did yield Frank "Beat Them Up First, Ask Questions Later, and Arrest Them If They"re Still Alive" Rizzo and Arlen "I"ll Ask The Questions, Ms. Hill" Specter.

From Arlen the Weasel we move rapidly to Donna the Buffalo. No, that"s not some woman whose consumptive prowess at the Shoney"s buffet and ability to suck up popcorn shrimp in an even more vile and indulgent manner than Janet Reno (herself no slouch at the Shoney"s buffet) sucks up to Bill "Slick and/or Crooked Willie" Clinton (who has long been banned from the Shoney"s buffet for forgoing the use of plates in favor of taking whole steam trays full of food back to the table) rivals the intake potential of a black hole or even of a fudge-hungry, talk-show-crazed hack writer. Donna the Buffalo is instead a musical group whose grooves make you want to shake your booty with wild abandon (or with domestic free-range abandon, if you prefer). In the last two months, Donna the Buffalo has let the chips fall and roamed around the Triangle twice, and I"ve had the pleasure of catching them both times. Rest assured that although I may have turned a blind eye, I surely didn"t turn a deaf ear (or a clothed cheek‹but I don"t want to get back into my mooning phases) on the tunes.

And speaking of a blind eye and excellent music, I also had the extreme pleasure of seeing Doc Watson when he played in Durham recently. As promised, the man picked and grinned, although I wish he"d gotten his finger out of his nose and played a little guitar. Ah, I should know better than to poke fun at a legend‹he might poke back, and some folks might take offense (and I just finished painting that fence, too).

Seriously, the good doctor is surely more than just good, and you owe it to yourself to see him. You owe me $15 for the advice.

That"s just the way I see it, though. How about you? Drop me a line (NOT a deadline) here at the Prism. I"ll be happy to respond to your mail, unless, of course, it happens to be ticking.