December 15, 2001
‘Allo, Cleveland!

"Vision obscured by the bright lights from the front of the stage, he totters out to the microphone, his left hand swinging a quart bottle of Rebel Yell with about two and a half inches of liquor left in it."

The first problem is the Authorial Voice. It’s not right. Changed, somehow. You’re not quite sure, but it isn’t what you’re used to hearing.

Something’s clearly up.

"The crowd is wild tonight. Not exactly lusting for blood, as this clearly isn’t a bullring in Madrid, but it’s clear that the audience is anticipating a disaster on stage. Rumors of last night’s catastrophe in Cincinnati had preceded them."

The second problem is the subject matter. What the heck is going on with the writing in the third person jazz?

"It’s been a long, dragged-out swing through the heartland of America, playing any dump with turnstiles that would have them. Small smelly clubs with an inch of water on the dressing room floor, junior college lunchrooms with their name written on the same message board that normally spelled out this week’s lunch special, and a hockey arena. What the heck was he doing playing in a hockey arena, and more importantly, was this anyway for a grown man to make a living?" Where the hell was he tonight?

All right. Enough is enough.

Where, exactly, is this going?

"His voice booms out across the hall, "’ALLO, CLEVELAND!" He HOPES that this is Cleveland. Not that these American wankers look any different from town to town. "’allo, Cleveland! ‘allo, ‘allo, ‘allo! ARE YOU READY? ARE YOU READY TO BIRTHDAY?! The lights kick in, the guitars let out a thundering wall of feedback-drenched white noise, the thump of the kick drum smacks into your chest like an explosive shock wave AND THE THE CROWD GOES WILD!"

Ah, I get it!

The entire thing was a big deceptive set-up by Ю僱êrvØ¡, who’s slipping in here as guest author of *FootNotes* for a day to announce to Our Beloved Audience that today is SECRA’S BIRTHDAY!

Yes, Dear Friends ... on a chilly December afternoon (she doesn’t really REMEMBER if it was chilly, but I’m taking an authorial liberty here - After all, it was in Seattle in the winter - that OUGHT to be cold. It’s not as if she was born in San Diego, where you could say "on a warm December afternoon.") As I was saying, on a chilly December afternoon on a long-ago Sunday a mere forty-four revolutions of Earth around the Sun ago, little Secra popped out into the world, and after the passage of much time and many convoluted peregrinations (not unlike this sentence in which you find yourself mired, Dear Reader, the sticky parenthetical interjections clinging to you like winter mud clings to your shoes) found her way to Castle Ю僱êrvØ¡, where, we hope, she’s finally found True Happiness after a journey of Courage! Love! Tears! and Compassion!

So out goes a Mighty Ker-Annggg! for Secra’s birthday! Turn the amps up to eleven and say, "Happy Birthday, SecraTerri! You are the love of my life, the light of my eyes, the joy of my world. You’re the cream in my coffee, you put the 'Ace' in space, and I’m glad you’re sharin’ my life.

Scratch that. I’m glad you’re sharin’ OUR life (or lives, as the word may be).

I love you.

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