No. 263 – Master of Puppets

Performer: Metallica

Songwriters: James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich, Cliff Burton, Kirk Hammett

Original Release: Master of Puppets

Year: 1986

Definitive Version: S&M, 1999. I love the verse and chorus. Metallica’s rocking, the San Francisco Symphony is filling in the spaces, going full tilt, and the audience is singing the lyrics. The entire concert hall sounds alive with music.

It was a satisfying accomplishment when I pulled off Mom’s surprise 60th birthday party in May 2000, shortly after I bought S&M. Aside from the actual surprise itself—having Jin, Jack and Sally show up—we also did some fun stuff. The main event was the Saturday, as I mentioned. After the basic surprise, we went to the nearby Easton shopping complex for dinner.

I wasn’t too keen when it was announced that Easton was coming. Easton, of course, was the first outdoor mall that was meant to resemble the small-town retail centers that stores, such as The Limited, helped to destroy when they built their suburban megamalls in the 1970s and 1980s. The irony was delicious, but the idea that it would wreak havoc with the traffic driving to and from work and, more important, around my house was a bitter pill.

It turned out that it didn’t affect me at all. Easton and Rt. 161—my exit off I-270—were walled off, so you couldn’t get from one to the other. And no one came down Sunbury Road to get to Easton, except me. I suppose had I continued to live there, I would’ve enjoyed a nice increase in my property value.

Anyway, when the Easton Town Centre opened in 1999, one of the anchor restaurants was Brio, which is an upscale version of Bravo (owned by the same folks). Debbie and I had been, and we liked it. Mom loved Bravo, so it seemed to be the perfect choice—Italian, fairly straight-forward, not too expensive.

Actually, the final aspect was entirely my concern, because I told the server when we arrived that I got the check. I can’t remember the first time I ever picked up a dinner check for a group—I’m sure it was well before that day—but I love doing it when I can. It makes me feel successful.

I also made another arrangement with everyone: We were partly celebrating Mom’s recovery from lung cancer, but we also were encouraging her attempt at sobriety, which we pressed after she got out of the hospital. So I told everyone it was an alcohol-free weekend. I had said—and I held to this—that I didn’t drink around Mom, period, so she would have a good example. Everyone agreed with me, and no one ordered anything stronger than an iced tea.

We had a blast at dinner, and apparently an even bigger one was had on the drive home. Debbie and I each drove, and Debbie ended up chauffering Mom and her family, and the typical crude humor in which her family excelled flowed fast and furious. It continued when we got home and Mom opened her presents.

The key present was the Bub L Breezer, and it should tell you all you need to know about my Mom’s side of the family (of which I’m a part, yes). For those of you who aren’t aware, the Bub L Breezer is a toy straight out of Spencers Gifts of a guy bent over at the waist with his pants down to his ankles. In perfect time, he raises his arm from the soap barrel to blow bubbles with his expelled gas. (Get it: the Bub L Breezer.) Of course, no Bub L Breezer would be complete without appropriate sound effects.

When we started it up, it was funny enough, but Scott and I took particular delight in a smaller detail. Or, as Scott put it: “Look at his expression. It’s one of total ecstacy.” Yes, Bub’s gap-toothed grin and dreamy eyes showed abject pleasure, and Scott and I started to mimic it—in perfect time with the sound effect—to uproarious laughter. Hey, any good comic knows his or her audience.

We broke up late and reconvened the next morning for a mandatory Bob Evans run before Jack and Sally had to catch their flights home. (Jin stayed a little longer.) When I drove Mom home at the end of the weekend, she thanked me over and over.

I was glad to do it, and I’d like to think that if Mom looked back at her life in her final days and weeks, she would have concluded that it was one of the best weekends she had in her later life. What was telling was she noted with a bit of bemusement, “no one had a single drop of alcohol the whole weekend.”

Yes. That was my whole point. See? It CAN be done. Unfortunately, it was a lesson she didn’t take to heart.