Letters to Paul

12/16/11

Dear Paul, I hope everything is going well for you. Your birthday is in four days, and you would’ve been 57.

I can’t begin to tell you everything that’s happened since I last wrote you. I last wrote you in May, and during the first week of June I wound up in the hospital for five days on suicide watch. I didn’t make the attempt, but I was about a week away from doing it. I had my method, location, note, and list of who to notify all planned out. Fortunately I talked with my psychologist and he convinced me to voluntarily admit myself to the hospital. They made an adjustment to my meds in the hospital to stabilize me. Two weeks after I got out of the hospital I saw a guy commit suicide by throwing himself under a MAX train. That really freaked me out because I know exactly how the guy felt when he did it.

I’ve continued having my ups and downs and the constant changing of the meds and dosages have caused me all kinds of problems. I’ve continued the battle, and I’ve come close to going back to the hospital, but things are slowly getting better.

I met a really nice lady named Jessica. She completely understands my condition and she’s cool with it as long as I stay on my meds and keep my doctor appointments. She even has a medical marijuana card. We’ve really hit it off and she has lifted my spirits higher than I could ever imagine. I hope we can maintain our relationship, and I fully believe that she does too. We’ve been spending time together every chance we get, so I’m starting to think she might be a keeper. I guess only time will tell. And yes, I’ve even gotten laid a few times.

I’ve been revamping old episodes of RFU and sending them a couple of old high school buddies. They both remember well my writing style, and they love the RFU. They can also see the influence and inspiration you gave me during the old days. I even sent them the Take My Abuse, Please show which features our legendary Dead Heroin Addict routine. Ah, those were the days.

I still have a life to live, so I’m going to get back to living it. Take care and know that you are still missed, and always will be as long as I have a say in it.

Tracy

Letters To Paul

Dear Paul,

Today is May 27th, and you’ve been dead for two years now. I’ve made a lot of progress since I last wrote, but things are still very difficult for me, not because of you being gone, but because of other internal conflicts going on inside of me.

You won’t believe this but I’ve actually quit drinking. Today is my 50th consecutive day without alcohol. Perhaps if I’d done this sooner we could’ve both quit drinking at the same time and then you might still be alive.

I bought a car back in January, and I’ve driven to the beach three times already. And yes, I’m taking good care of this car. I still haven’t gotten in touch with Marilyn since she dropped off the Dick Dale portrait. I should give her a call and maybe drive up to see her. I think she’s living with Chris now.

I’ve signed up for the summer 9-ball season in my pool league. I’ve been practicing 9-ball for four months now, and I feel ready to compete at it. I won a medal for being the most improved player in the league for last year’s 8-ball season.

I’ve been trying very hard to get my life back together to where I can have healthy positive relationships with women again, but I’m just not having any luck and it’s tearing me apart inside. My doctor keeps upping my dosage on the antidepressants, and I keep talking to the psychologist, but the loneliness and total lack of intimacy in my life is making life unbearable for me. I keep trying to believe everything will get better, but it doesn’t and I have a hard time believing that it ever will. I had another blind lunch date yesterday, but she canceled on me. I can’t even get a fucking blind date to show up. I might as well just hang myself; it would be a lot less painful.

I hope things are going better for you, and I promise to keep trying to overcome this sense of being loathsome and undesirable, but I don’t know how much longer I can keep it up.

Take care,

Tracy

Letters To Paul

Dear Paul,

Owsley Stanley died. I don't know what else to add to that.

Tracy

Letters to Paul

Dear Paul,

Happy Birthday. I can’t begin to tell you how sad I feel this week. Despite my having moved on with my life there’s something about December and your birthday that still brings tears to my eyes.

That thing with Abbi didn’t work out the way I was hoping, but we still work together and we’re still very good friends. She has actually done a very good job filling in for you as a best friend.

Leslie Nielsen died. Bob Feller died. Blake Edwards died. Captain Beefheart died.

It’s now been over 14 months since the last time I smoked a cigarette. I know you would’ve been impressed.

I haven’t spoken to Marilyn for awhile. I should call her and see how she’s doing.

Somebody hacked into your e-mail accounts and started sending everyone spam e-mails. Fortunately, you never were very good at thinking up original passwords, so I was able to counter-hack your e-mail accounts and change the passwords.

Byron paid me a visit, but I was forced to kick him to the curb for doing very bad things. I remember I used to defend him whenever you were having a tantrum about him, but I’ve seen now for myself what you were talking about. I hope he gets his act together some day. On a positive note, Uncle Sid will be staying with me for a very long time.

I rediscovered my passion for the game of pool and I’ve joined a league. My current record is 12 wins and 63 losses. I know you’d probably get a huge laugh out of that. I’ve also started taking Tai Chi classes to help me with my balance and concentration, which in turn should make my pool game better. It should also help me to continue to stay in shape. I’ve lost 26 lbs. now. If you were still alive we’d be arguing about which one of us was still the fattest.

We finally reached 1,000 hits on our blog, which is pretty funny because the first 800 or so was me and you checking to see if anyone was actually checking the blog out.

I’m sorry I haven’t been able to continue with writing Paulie Family adventures, but my job is keeping me busy and I don’t have a computer at home. Marilyn said she might give me her computer; I’ll have to ask her about that when I give her a call. She did give me the picture she painted for you of Dick Dale. I have it in my living room sitting on top of your guitar amp.

I’m sorry I don’t have anything more interesting to say, but let’s face it; the world just isn’t as interesting without you in it. I finally went to the doctor and I’m officially on antidepressants now. I’m hoping next year will be a better one.

Take care.

Tracy

Tracy's New Story

The Names Have Been Changed To Protect The Innocent Copyright 6/10 by TM & Co.


In a little over three months from now I will reach the age of 50. During these first 50 years of my life there have been two questions that I’ve been asked the most. The first question is “Why are you so weird?” The second question is “Why don’t you get yourself a girlfriend?”

And so today I’ve decided to explain why I’m so weird by telling you the story about my most recent attempt to get a girlfriend. This is called The Names Have Been Changed To Protect The Innocent.

Her name was Angie, and she hated the Rolling Stones for a song with the same name. We both worked at the big building with the statue of naked people out front. We worked in the same department and our cubicles were only 15 feet apart. We even shared the same job title, and so it goes without saying that any attempt at any sort of romantic relationship was a bad idea - but… that never stops me!

I first became attracted to her when she announced that she was about to become a grandmother. I remember thinking to myself “Holy crap on a cracker, Batman! She’s way too good looking to be a grandmother!”

I knew I was right because all of my grandmothers were old and ugly, and they were all… well… dead, and yet here was Angie; drop dead gorgeous and six years younger than me to boot. This made me realize just how long I’d been out of the dating scene, and it made me realize it was time to get back into the dating scene. And then one day she walked into my cubicle and saw my sticky note about the upcoming Moody Blues concert, and she announced “Oh my God The Moody Blues! I want to see them so bad but the tickets are so friggin’ expensive!”

Angie had a way with words.

It had been almost two months since my friend, Paul, had died; and I still had his ticket for the Moody Blues. I had promised myself to keep Paul’s seat empty in his honor, but as the date of the concert grew nearer I began to dread sitting next to that empty seat. I sold Paul’s ticket to Angie for half price. I knew Paul would understand.

On the night of the concert Angie showed up wearing a smokin’ hot skirt that really showed off her long legs, which stretched all the way from her butt clear down to her feet… Hmmm… Now there’s something I’ve never said before.

The Moody Blues were great, and we eventually wound up going out on paydays after work and having drinks and shooting pool. We went and saw Gallagher, and a Blazers game. We started working out together after work 2-3 times a week in the downstairs gym. We saw Cheech & Chong, and George Thorogood.

I gave her a Valentine’s Day card and wrote some really nice words in it that made her go “Awwww!” And she kissed me on the cheek and told me I was sweet. We even visited each other’s homes and got stoned together.

And then in June… Dweezil Zappa was going to be in town. The show was four days after Angie’s birthday, and she had been sick all week with a cold. I wanted to celebrate her birthday with her, but she had a girl’s night out instead. I called her that night and sang Happy Birthday to her in the style of Elvis singing Loving You, complete with the Wooo wooo wooo wooo wooo waaaaaaaaaaaahhhh at the end. I did this because on my birthday last year she called me and sang Happy Birthday to me in the style of what can best be described as a cross between Yoko Ono and Bjork.

On the advice of one of my old high school friends I decided to give Angie a Zappa ticket for her birthday. I stuck the ticket inside of a birthday card and added some more really nice words, and even though she was still sick I took the card to her at home on the day after her birthday, and when she opened the card and saw the ticket and read the words I got the impression that she was as pleasantly pleased as a plump pot-bellied pig prostrate in plush pile of putrid poo.

It had been nearly 11 months since the Moody Blues show, and I had developed very deep feelings for Angie, but there were still three things keeping me from telling her how I felt:

1. She was a very busy lady. She worked full-time and attended college classes because she was working on getting her degree, and she frequently babysat her grandchildren which by then she now had two of, and she also did a lot of volunteer work, and that’s only the stuff that I actually knew about. She had told me before that she had no time for a social life.
2. Because we worked so closely together I didn’t want to destroy our ability to work together because let’s face it… After work I wanted her, but at work I needed her.
3. I had to take into consideration that she might not have felt the same way I did.

After months of confiding in my mother and a couple of old high school friends, who all kept telling me to TELL HER HOW YOU FEEL, YOU IDIOT!!!; I finally made the decision to tell Angie how I felt. I decided I would tell her right after the Dweezil Zappa show as I was walking her to her bus stop. My mind was made up and nothing was going to stop me.

On the night of the Dweezil Zappa show I stopped at Angie’s place so we could get stoned before the show. This turned out to be a really bad idea because pot makes both of us babble… A LOT!!! After only two pipe hits, Angie decided to tell me her boyfriend was going to prison for a year for a hit and run conviction.

This made my brain go “WHAAAAAAAAAATTTT!!!” It’s important to note here that I actually do pay attention when an attractive woman is talking to me, so that’s how I knew perfectly well that this was the first time she’d mentioned anything to me about having a boyfriend. And now here she was telling me how she really, really liked the guy. And as every guy knows, when a woman tells you how much she really, really likes another guy; it means that she DOESN’T REALLY, REALLY LIKE YOU!!!

This is where my being so weird came in handy. You see, I actually prepared myself for the worst. In fact, given my record for disastrous relationships in the past, it’s really quite comforting for me to expect the worst because I’m usually right. However, I had been shot down without even getting the chance to reveal my feelings; and in doing so, Angie had managed to hit the off switch on my feelings. In other words, my feelings were now incapable of being hurt because I no longer had those feelings. And as we walked to the bus stop to catch the bus to the concert she called her boyfriend to let HIM know she was leaving for the concert, and how much she’s going to miss HIM while HE’S in prison.

The Zappa show was spectacular and we both had a great time. And afterwards when I walked her to her bus stop I kept thinking about those wonderful words I had rehearsed for two months to tell her how I felt about her, and there I stood now with no feelings left inside of me. I kept thinking about her boyfriend going to prison, and I was having a really hard time keeping from laughing about it. Yes, I was the idiot that sang Happy Birthday and spent $90.00 on a concert ticket for a woman that didn’t feel obligated to inform me that she already had a boyfriend. Yeah, I know, I’m not tall, dark, and handsome; I’m not rich and I don’t even own a car… but at least I’m NOT GOING TO PRISON!!!

When I returned to work I found that I had received an e-mail from a woman I’ve been corresponding with on one of the seven online dating web sites that I’m registered with. You see, when you’re as weird as I am you need to keep all of your options open. The woman was a teacher, but you couldn’t tell by her typing. Apparently, she was actually a preschool teacher, and knowledge of proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation are not required to teach preschool. Fortunately, she was a teacher for the Portland School District, and so naturally they closed her school and put her out of work.

Anyway, she told me she got a new puppy, and she named it Angie.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I’m so weird; and that’s why I don’t have a girlfriend.



THE END

Letters To Paul

Dear Paul,

You’ve been dead for a whole year now, and a few things have changed. I quit smoking cigarettes; I know you would’ve been proud of me for that. John the Tailor has disappeared and I now buy all my garments from Gordy, who gave me a ride to the barbecue last year. Speaking of the barbecue; Babbs, Eli, Simon, Eileen, and Ian all expressed their condolences.

Marilyn is doing fine, except for tripping over a cat toy and breaking her neck a few weeks ago. Don’t worry, she’s not paralyzed or anything but she’s even less mobile now than before. I’ve become friends with your brother, Tony. He really likes my movie collection, though he doesn’t seem to go for the all night movie marathons like we used to do.

Marilyn and your brother, Chris, took me out to dinner back before Marilyn broke her neck. Chris really wanted to thank me for helping Marilyn out with her grocery shopping, moving things around the house for her, and just keeping her company and giving her a good laugh from time to time. I know you didn’t get along with Chris, and the reasons for that are between you and him, but Chris really does seem to regret that you and he drifted apart and were never able to resolve your differences.

Tim is still going to school, although now that I think about it I have no idea what he’s studying or trying to become. Ryan has disappeared again and nobody seems to know what happened to him. This is particularly annoying because he had somebody renovating and improving kidtomfoolery.com, but then it got all screwed up and now it’s stuck that way and nobody can get a hold of Ryan to get it fixed. Ain’t that just like “Byron” for you?

Michael Jackson died, but you already knew that. Dickie Peterson also died last year; I was very sad that day. I still remember when we saw Blue Cheer at the Aladdin Theater and you spent the entire show with your fingers in your ears.

I’m back in contact with a couple of old friends from high school. At least now I can exchange amusing e-mails at work again. After you died I was stuck with nobody to talk to or e-mail. I was also stuck with nobody to go to concerts with me, but then one day at work last year, Abbi walked into my cubicle and saw my sticky note about the Moody Blues concert. I had made the decision to not give your ticket to anyone else in your honor, but as the day of the concert grew closer the thought of sitting next to that empty seat was just too much for me to bear, and so I gave your ticket to Abbi. I figured you would understand. She and I have become very good friends since then, and I’ve secretly developed some very deep feelings for her. I haven’t told her about my feelings yet for several reasons, but after the Zappa concert next month I’ll be ready to tell her and hope for the best.

Since I quit smoking cigarettes I’ve started working out and I’ve lost 15 pounds. Abbi and I work out together after work on Mondays, Wednesday, and every other Friday. On the other Fridays we go out and have a drink and shoot pool. Abbi is a terrible pool player, but she’s gotten a lot better during the last few months and she even beat me a couple of times. I’m eating healthier, and I’m drinking less. My only regret is that it took you dying to get me to this point, but on the bright side I’ve gotten used to being alive and I’ve decided to stay that way for a while.

I gotta go now. I hope everything is going well for you wherever you are.

Tracy

Letters to Paul

It occurred to me that, with Paul’s sudden passing, there are people running around on the planet that didn’t get to say either “goodbye” or “piss off” to him. So I figured we all needed some space where we could say all those things to Paul that we never got to say while he was alive. That place will be here.

There are no real rules for Letters to Paul, except for:

You actually have to have known Paul. Any comments by obvious strangers or spammers that don’t know who or what they are talking about will be deleted.
Assuming you meet the criteria for the first rule, you can say anything you want to Paul. After all, he’s dead now and can’t interrupt or declare war anymore.

Okay, those are the only rules. And now, I’ll go first…

Dear Paul,

If you haven’t figured it out yet, the reason everyone is looking at you weird and talking behind your back is because you’ve been dead since last Wednesday. I’m sure this is as much a surprise to you as it was me. If there really is an afterlife I can imagine either of the following scenarios taking place:

You’re stuck somewhere in Limbo, still wearing a hospital gown and saying “Hey, wait a minute… What about my ham sandwich? Can I get that to go?”
After a very brief stop over for Judgment Day, you were banished to Hell where you are now busy making everyone in Hell sorry for even thinking about making a reservation for you, and they’re now frantically trying to rush the paperwork through in order to get rid of you.

Your mom said there won’t be any funeral for you, and that’s okay. You never liked being the center of attention for a bunch of well-dressed gloomy Gusses anyway. I guess after your cremation you’ll probably just sit in an urn next to your dad in the closet until your mom dies, hopefully that will still be a few more years away.

I e-mailed as many people as I could think of that I still have e-mail addresses for. Zane says he’ll miss your laughter. Babbs has put up a really nice memorial for you on skypilotclub.com; and Tim, Jon Sebree, and I have all contributed some words on your behalf. Jon and I have both talked to your mom and let her know that if she needs any help she can call on either or both of us. Even Ryan came out of hiding and called me a couple of times last Saturday. I still haven’t heard from JD, but I’m not sure if I have his current e-mail address or not, and I haven’t heard anything back from Simon or Eli yet.

When your brother Chris used your e-mail to contact me it was a very surreal experience because it was your name that popped up in my inbox at work. I was right in the middle of trying to finish up some important work when I saw your name pop up and I thought “Hey, he’s finally home! I’ll just finish up this work real quick and then I’ll read the message.” Five minutes later I opened up the e-mail and realized it wasn’t you; it was Chris telling me you had died. At first, I thought to myself “Ah, that’s a good one. He’s been in the hospital all this time, and now he’s home, and he’s pretending to be dead as a joke.” But as I read the e-mail again I realized it couldn’t possibly have been typed by you because all the words were spelled correctly, and even the punctuation and capitalization were correct. I knew then that something was wrong.

I frantically tried to call your house and eventually Chris answered and confirmed the bad news. He mentioned how much your family appreciated me for being your friend all these years. He also mentioned how he got into your computer and had been reading all the Paulie Family material that you still had saved. He said it was some of the funniest stuff he’s ever read. I thanked him for it and reminded him that it was usually you that provided me with the ideas; I just took the ideas and ran with them. Ironically, The Paulie Family Blog has been getting a lot of hits lately; and for once it’s not because we both keep looking on there to see if anyone else is reading it.

I remember when you were still in the hospital you were calling me every night because you were bored, feeling lousy, and just needed a laugh. One night we were talking and you mentioned that Antiques Road Show was on, and I immediately changed the channel on my TV at home so we could be in sync. I started doing a parody of the show in which the appraisers thought everything brought in for them to look at was complete crap. Some guy had brought in a table or something and I just started up with “Now this here is a complete piece of crap. These were very popular during the depression back when people couldn’t afford to purchase real furniture. You can see how the legs aren’t even level, which accounts for the severe wobble, and if you look underneath you can see all the old dried up chewing gum and boogers that people have stuck under there over the years.”

On the other end of the phone I could hear you laughing so hard that I though you would surely bust those fresh stitches you had from the operation. You told me that no matter what happened to you to make sure that The Paulie Family would continue and never die. I’m not sure how to do that because I’ve lost you as my central character, and let’s face it, not even I have a bizarre enough imagination to make up a replacement for you. My only other option is to continue The Paulie Family as if you were still alive, but without you to give me those impossible ideas, I’m not sure how to do that either.

And what impossible ideas they were! “I WANT TO BUILD A ROCKET!!!” you once declared, and I gave you my usual objections because the idea was so far out of even my scope that I couldn’t comprehend a way of doing it. But then a few days would pass and I would suddenly think “Well maybe if… “. The next thing I knew I had you building a rocket out of Legos and using dynamite as a means of propulsion. Soon you were pulling into the Arby’s Drive Thru on the moon and just as quickly pulling back out of there when you discovered how much a roast beef sandwich costs on the moon. Ah, those were the days…

I know that those days must return, but it’s going to take me some time to figure out how, and I don’t know how long it’s going to take. I’m sorry you couldn’t make it to The Allman Brothers concert; you would’ve enjoyed it. My boss wound up buying your ticket, but I know she didn’t enjoy the show as much as you would’ve. The last time I spoke to you, you said you’d be up and around for The Moody Blues at the end of July, and now I’m stuck with another extra ticket – really good floor seats too, right on the aisle just like you always want. But this time the ticket is not for sale. I’ll keep that seat open for you, just in case you’re in the neighborhood.

Tracy (Never Had A Nickname) McCall
Head Writer,
Singer, Songwriter,
and Attorney at Log
Paulie Family Productions



Dear Paul,

Hey, you’ll never believe what David Carradine did. Maybe you can ask him about it and get the real scoop. You’ve been dead for over a week now. Babbs did a real nice memorial for you on skypilotclub.com; somebody even managed to find a good picture of you playing your guitar the last time we attended the barbecue.

I put up a memorial for you on both the kidtomfoolery message board and on the Paulie Family blog, and all of a sudden people are checking them out again. Even Ryan came out of the woodwork. And the blog has gotten more hits in the last week than we had all of last year.

Your brother, Chris, seems to really enjoy the Paulie Family adventures. I know you didn’t get along with Chris when you were alive, but I hope the two of you made peace before you died. Chris recently left a message on the blog asking me for my e-mail address. I sent it to him, so hopefully I’ll be hearing from him again soon. It was also nice meeting your brother, Tony. I was sorry he couldn’t go and see The Allman Brothers Band either, since he needed to be available to take care of you when you got home. I was hoping I’d be able to say something to you like “Don’t worry; I won’t let him get robbed or arrested!”

I’m still waiting to hear from your mom on whether or not she needs help taking care of all your stuff. I told her I needed my CDs back, and both Jon and I have offered to go over there and help breakdown your waterbed, or anything else she might need help with. I’m sure that when she’s ready she’ll let us know.

I’ve decided that the Paulie Family must continue with you as the main character, despite the fact that you’re dead. It’s just the kind of impossible concept that you would’ve suggested only to have me declare that it couldn’t be done, and then finally figuring out a way to make it work later. I’m still trying to figure out how to make it work, but one way or another I will make it work.

Tracy (Never Had A Nickname) McCall
Head Writer,
Singer, Songwriter,
and Attorney at Log
Paulie Family Productions