"Larry King's Wife" by Mr. Banana Hammock (not Omari)

Oh-mari.

So after the excellent Pink Martini show, I hurried home to catch a show on TLC called “The Boy Who’s Skin Fell Off.” This English guy, thirty-six-year-old Jonny Kennedy was born with a terrible genetic condition called dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa, which meant that his skin literally fell off at the slightest touch, leaving his body covered in agonizing sores and leading to his final fight against terminal skin cancer. It was very depressing. He also had a high voice.

While that show was really sad, what followed this morning was truly bizarre. I got a call this morning from a Dr. Carlos Martin something or another. He left a message on my voice mail. He’s reportedly in “intelligence prison.” A follow-up call by him revealed that “intelligence prison" is a euphemism for “nursing home.” So for you code breakers out there, A is the first letter, I is the 9th and S is the 19th. ABC goes into 2, DEF into 3, GHI into 4, and so on. If you can break it, this apparently might have implications for the health of Larry King’s wife, who is dying of Alzheimers and a kidney infection. Her life, apparently, hangs in the balance.

This isn’t the first time I’ve dealt with Alzheimers. Once I was a waiter in a hotel restaurant. A wealthy elderly woman lived in the hotel and took classes at the University of Michigan. One day she snapped and left me a $14,000 tip on a $7 egg white chicken liver omelet. Bless her heart. It would’ve gotten me out of student loan debt. Did I collect? Nope. Am I still bitter? I guess so.

Oh, and for all you sensitive souls who demand music with empathy, and loud guitars, Ian MacKaye’s “Evens” are playing Ft. Reno on Thursday. I’ll be there, but I’m too shy to talk to girls.