the online journal of jordan e.

Robert Ray Roddy 1937 - 2003
The 10:00am slot on CBS will never be the same. Not without the sequined-suit coated man we knew as Bob Barker's side-kick and announcer extraordinaire, Rod Roddy.
That he died is really a sad thing, but the fact that he died of breast cancer sort makes a griever sober up and let an ironic snort out. What's up with that?

posted by Jordan @ 4:51 em

And Bingo Was His Name-o
It was the 1am Redeye Session. There might have been a sign on the door that read, "for diehards only," but it wasn't needed - no novices voluntarily crossed that threshold.
Inside, the woman exchanged my six dollars for a stack of gridded sheets and then hovered her hands over rows of ink stampers. "I've already got a dabber," I said, "color: purple." "Enjoy," she said. "I will," I said, trying to decide if I should snap my fingers for effect.
We walked past the competition - rows of men and women who had been relishing in their senior citizen discounts for some time now. Their Perkins ham and cheese omelet was that much cheaper and their desire to win - to beat us - that much more. They, with their vintage dabber collections, watched us strut by as steady streams of Marlboro exhaust rose from the corners of their wrinkled Polygripped mouths.
Compelled to move onward by the harsh and threatening flicks of Virginia Slims, we entered the glass menagerie entitled, "No Smoking" and joined a single, tobacco-less Native American man as well as the ambiance of an unkempt American Legion/nursing home. The announcer greeted us with his typical monotone delivery: "Welcome to the Redeye Session at Big Top Bingo. I am Dan."
In unison, the five of us untwisted our dabber caps. Kara, in preparation, inked up her "green eyed monster" and stamped the three free spaces of her top card. We then situated ourselves mentally and physically for the first game: regular bingo, five in a row. Wrists rolled over numbers and eyes scanned each other's cards, gauging distances to bingo. Tim was two away. Alida four. John seemed to have good odds for a four corners.
But victory seemed to elude us. In the moments of tense concentration and crossed fingers, needing only a G-57 or an I-29 to win, a certain Mabel or Lester would claim bingo from the other room, forcing us to start again from scratch. We were hopeless and only the occasional snack from the Side Show Cafe would lift our spirits.
At last it was the final game of the night: blackout, played on a pink card. I entered the game in a fine position - the two games before had nearly stamped my board full, leaving me with only two squares to fill for a blackout. This situation was all too familiar, though, and everybody knew that unless Dan's golden voice called the right numbers right away, I would probably lose to Grandma or Gramps.
But alas, the Bingo gods smiled upon my salmon colored sheet and I was down to one spot: B-8. Dan grabbed another ball from the machine: N-32. My toes started prancing, Kara started coaching - get ready, you can do it, b-i-n-g-o. And then it came. With his customary robotic sound, Dan grasped the labeled ping-pong ball and proclaimed, "B-8." Like it came from the guttural of a dying goat, I leaned back and yelled, "Bingo!" to which a pause and "Bingo on B-8 in no smoking" followed.
The rest was a whirl-wind of events. A man in a red Big Top Bingo shirt came in, took down my name and put a flag in front of me. Another followed, asked for my initials - a sort of autograph signing procedure - and laid $25.00 down before me. "Congratulations on your win," he said. Almost snapping my fingers once again for effect, I said thanks and found a special spot in my pocket for the twenty and five.
As we filed out, I did not look over at the Doloreses or Esthers. I did not watch them pack up their bingo paraphernalia in defeat. Rather, with my eyes fixed on the exit, I let them instead feel the presence of a bingo champion.

posted by Jordan @ 2:33 em

Nightmare on 8th St.
You know how bad dreams can be so scary to you, but seem so ridiculous to others? For instance, when Jonah was little he dreamt that a creepy man caught him and ate his thumbs. While we found the "thumb eating offender" hilarious, it was terribly traumatic for the little Jonah - he cried a lot about it and struggled with bedtime for a while.
Well, my own sort of "extremity eater" happened the other night, as I had a horrible dream that is still sort of haunting me, but everyone I've told about it thinks it's darn funny. All I can say is: we be kindred spirits now, Jonah; I feel your pain.
This was the situation: I dreamt that my little brother, Jake, and I were at a party. While people from my high school days and college filled the room with billoughs of smoke and empty beer bottles, the two of us stayed hunkered down in the corner, observing the ruckus. As lighters flickered and puffs continued to rise, it was announced that Tony Johnson was coming and was bringing Mr. Soda. I stepped out from my perch and asked somebody (maybe Scott Warren, maybe Andy Atchison) who in the world Mr. Soda was. They informed me that Mr. Soda was the crack baby of Tony's current girlfriend.
Just as I began to register that thought, I heard uneven footsteps coming down the stairs and turned to catch this mutant, skin and bones baby that was stumbling down the steps. It had oatmeal/puke/rice-a-roni all over its face and tattoos covering its body, one of which read, "Sen of Jesus" (not 'Son,' but 'Sen').
Everyone started whooping it up in celebration of Mr. Soda's arrival, but I just held the baby up by its arms (because, I admit, the rice-a-roni mess grossed me out) and started to weep. End of scene.
Now don't tell me you're smirking at this - I have been deeply affected by Mr. Soda & co.. Instead of chuckling, perhaps someone could interpret this nightmare, which I do think is grounds for a potential made for tv movie hit starring Judith Light as yours truly.

posted by Jordan @ 11:34 fm

Apparently Blooger is selective when it comes to publishing entries...this is what I had to say last Sunday, but Booger never launched:
There's No Place Like Home...(as of Sunday October 19)
I'm not MIA, I'm at home - right smack dab in the middle of our five-day midsem break, that is. And it has been swell thus far.
A few highlights?
1. Jonah tried ordering a Big Mac at the Taco Bell drive-thru. Needless to say, he did not get two all beef patties smothered in special sauce, but I did do a fine job of backing out of the drive-thru lane to avoid confrontation with the ordering guy and his window.
2. We discovered a cassette tape in which we spent hours taping ourselves blabbing back in the day. While most of it is incoherent screams and slaps, there is a diamond of a stretch about halfway through: Jacob, at age 4/5 singing improv style. At one point he says (without the letter 'r') "...Oh, how I love you brother. There is no way I want you to beat you...There's no way you can't stop loving me, brother..."
3. My parents got a new set of wheels...well, new to us. After Jonah totaled our Saab last month and the van stopped being able to take right turns (and its passenger window refused to go up, calling for a plastic sheet and duct tape) they've been hurting for ample transportation. They've also been hurting for cash. But God led them to a fine 2000 Saab, a $35,000 vehicle in its prime. Thanks to the poor economy and depreciation of value, it only cost them around $10,000. Hurrah for that.
4. At church tonight I was praying with a woman who was speaking in tongues. She was encouraging me to really yield to that gift and let God's language pour out of my mouth, but it wouldn't. Hearing her, though, was amazing. I was wowed by the ancient ties her words had, imagining the dialogues Moses shared with God had those same clicks and intonations. And besides that, my natural tendencies to want to decode languages also perked up. As she spoke, I began hearing familiar words like "Abba" and really realized how what a lot of people might label as holy roller mumbo-jumbo is a real, working language - a real, working language of God.

Now, like any Sunday night, I need to do homework. The difference is that I still have two more days of freedom before it's all due. So with that, I am going to go back and keep reading George Eliot's Middlemarch and snuggle into my good, old bed that has its sags and dips in just the right spots.

posted by Jordan @ 11:06 em

Warum geht das nicht? Ich habe das schon viermal probiert aber es funktioniert nicht. Was ist los?!?!

posted by Jordan @ 10:36 em

Unseasonable Summer Lovin'
This week it's not October. It's Augtober. It's Octust. Yesterday and the day before it nearly hit ninety degrees and people who stood by their calendars rather than their thermometers melted in their brown and burgundy fall apparel.
Classes in the third floor of Bishop Whipple Hall roasted again after a month off, though some sympathetic professors led their students outside where they fanned themselves and batted away falling, orange and yellow leaves. Last week flowers froze, furnaces kicked in and there were five feet of scarf wrapped around my throat. This week I wished I was the owner of a sarong.
I call it meteorological schizophrenia, which is probably really the result of some blessed southwestern airstream that decided to mingle with its northern neighbors. Others, though, see this heat wave as a prime example of our planet's decay. If that's the case, please fish out all aerosol cans of Aquanet you own and release their cfcs like you would a wired cage of morning doves. Keep this weather coming.

posted by Jordan @ 5:10 em

To put in a very tempting two-week notice or to stick it out? That is the question.
Everyone can now officially call him "Guano" or "Mexicani Restaurant Tyrant" or even "Jerkface." The Diablo has me scheduled to work six days this week, a.k.a. 30+ hours, and told me to "cut out the socializing" when I protested the overload in shifts. He frequently adds hours without notice and then calls to chew me out and then hangs up on me because I did not show up for my unknown shift; he almost made me cry when I spilled two beers inside a cooler; and today he knocked on his noggin while singing, "ding, dong" after I asked him what he thought was a dumb question.

On the bright side, Alex, the cook from Tajikistan made me a burrito the size of a lap dog and it was muey delicioso.

posted by Jordan @ 1:39 fm

Black Sheep
Instead of listening to the same eight, burnt songs on my computer, I heard it live last night. I heard Martin Sexton atop the Avalon Ballroom stage singing in mind-boggling, in-tune soprano, working his guitar like it was a natural extension of his left hip in the folksie-jazzish way that he does.
So he does look like Jack Black and he does have the same uncanny sound and he does compensate for his lack of band by singing the part of electric guitar, harmonica and kazoo. But he was good. So good. And I would have paid for a whole other ticket just to hear "Glory Bound" one more time.

posted by Jordan @ 4:58 em