Places I've Never Been, But Would Like To Have.

A lot of the stories that continually swirl around in my head, and which I never actually get around to writing, either begin or take place within a place the official name of which is Rosenberg's Dairy Cafe, and the unofficial name of which is "Shtarkers" (shtarker being Yiddish for "strongman," or "thug").

I think I first thought up Shtarkers when I heard this song: the Amsterdam Klezmer Band's "Sadagora Hot Dub," and I wondered in what kind of place I'd like to hear it played live. Shtarkers leapt into my head, fully-formed and populated. It's easier to imagine it with this song playing in the background.

Shtarkers, of course, never existed. I made it up. But I'm sure countless places like it did at one time. The Yiddish-speaking world, in cities like Lvov, Bialystok, London, Detroit, Buffalo, Chicago, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Miami, Cleveland, and especially New York, was punctuated with places like Shtarkers--watering-holes and gathering-places of the old Yiddish underground. They were places as colorful as the communities they served, where socialist firebrands, ghetto poets, newspaper editors, cartoonists and funny-book men, workers and shleppers, businessmen and bagmen, rabbis and atheists, and gangsters--especially, in my imagination, the gangsters--congregated to eat, laugh, fight, kvetch, kibitz, wheedle, plead, lie, brag, beg, bust balls, tell tall tales, pontificate, do business, and talk, talk, talk, talk, talk with the peculiar intensity, ferocity, and humor which marks Yiddish discourse.

But that's all gone now. I'm sure there are still a few places like this around--in St. Louis, it's Kopperman's--but they're mere shadows of what they once were, and the clientele is people like me, nudniks and nebbishes nostalgic for a world that was long dead decades before we were gleams in our papa's eyes. No more the makhers and shvitzers, the greenehs and the lantzmen fresh off the boats, the nogoodniks and shnorrers, the handlers and the tzaddiks, who used to frequent them. But I like to think about the kind of place where Abe Reles, Big Maxey Greenberg, Gyp the Blood and Lefty Louie, Morris Dickstein and Abe Cahan, Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster, might have congregated, for the sake of the stories that were told there, the stories that began and ended there.

You can tell I'm a phony because I left the jars of pickles off the tables.

The Mysterious Disappearance of Ann Coulter.

Now that it's late autumn and the days grow ever colder and more joyless, of a morning, I like to take breakfast in the glass-paneled, tropical plant-filled conservatory of Palmerwood.

One morning, not too very many days ago, as I was enjoying the usual breakfast of all fabulously wealthy aristocratic international playboys and adventurers of leisure and fortune (onion scones, quail eggs over easy, yogurt, and Apple Jacks), my doughty and redoubtable gamekeeper, Oliver de Baliviere, burst into the room in a state of great agitation.

This isn't the first time this has happened, and it generally bodes ill.

Pausing only to light up a truly lovely Cuban Cohiba (I find that a cigar in the morning hits the spot. Really gets rid of that horrible toothpaste breath), I raced off behind the redoubtable and doughty Monsieur de Baliviere.

Now lest you think I was happy about having to do so, I wasn't. My misgivings increased with every step I took. It would have been so much easier to return to my quail eggs, my carafe of Kopi Iuwak coffee ($600/lb), and my Apple Jacks. But Lord knows, I'm nothing if not a RESPONSIBLE feudal land baron. And as my father used to say, "Sonny, if there's trouble afoot on one's rambling, luxurious, palatial country estate, there's no sense in sticking one's head in the sand."




I followed the doughty and redoubtable Monsieur de Baliviere over a low ridge of boulders at the base of a small hill somewhere up in the far northern and little-explored reaches of Palmerwood. There, at the crest of the hill, half-buried in the ground, are the smoking remains of what appears to be a small spacecraft. No wonder Mr. de Baliviere was so agitated! That's not the kind of think you run across every day, is it?

At the risk of being overly obvious, I got the very strong suspicion that this battered wreck is...[pause for dramatic effect, and please cue the eerie Theremin music]... NOT OF THIS WORLD.

Now, I'm no astrophysicist, but I know enough to know that I'd better not mess around with an awe-inspiring spacecraft of extraterrestrial origin without the proper preparations.

By "preparations," of course, I mean a quick phone call to Neil deGrasse Tyson and Lawrence Krauss, and a slug of hooch. Considering it's right after breakfast, it's a little early in the day for an 18-year single malt, so it looks like Johnny Walker Black for this.

The doughty, redoubtable Monsieur Oliviere de Baliviere and I retired from the scene of the crashed starship to consult the experts and swig a shlook of hooch. As we strolled back to the mansion, I congratulated myself on my own superb judgment. I really wanted to open that chariot from beyond the stars, but I didn't. Because I have superb restraint.

This isn't, however, a quality shared by my children, Intrepid Stella A. and Young Leo J.

Now, I'm well aware that an alien visitation episode means the series can officially be said to have jumped the shark. "Happy Days," "Miami Vice," and even "The Dukes of Hazzard" all started to suck after their alien visitation episodes. However, one could reasonably ask whether the Palmerwood story was ever on the right side of the shark to begin with, so on we boldly barrel.

Intrepid Stella A. and Young Leo J. have occasionally been known to rush in where angels fear to tread. Opening a strange spacecraft of extraterrestrial origin would perhaps be something about which even ten- and five-year-olds might have second thoughts. But not these two.

"Greetings, earth larvae," says an strange voice from the depths of the ship. "I am Xothnarg of Blrk 2645-J, and I have come to your planet to ask a question."

"What we on Blrk-2645-J don't get, terra-grubs," Xothnarg the alien says, "is this: corporate profits are at record highs, oil prices are down, Osama Bin Laden is dead, there's no inflation, interest rates are as low as they've been in three decades, unemployment is at record lows, the stock market is at record highs, the wealthy are still crazy-rich, and millions of Americans who didn't have insurance do now. So why, earth-cubs, why, why, WHY in the name of Grbldrk Almighty, did your people give the GOP a majority in both the House and the Senate? For Grbldrk's sake, WHY??!? When things are going so well, why in the flrkjk did your people hand control of the legislative branch to the same klrgholes who flrkjked everything six ways from Grblday in the first place?!?"

My children, who are ten and five, are still in the nascence of their political awareness, and have no answer to this question. But they have listened to their old man ranting and raving, and they do have an idea or two.

"Well, there's this creature our Pop despises above all others," Young Leo J. says thoughtfully. "The Coulter-Beast," nods Intrepid Stella A. "Apparently, it controls the thoughts of a significant percentage of the voting public. Maybe if you captured it and studied it, that might answer your question?"

Intrepid Stella A. and Young Leo J., take their new acquaintance, Xothmarg of Blrk-2645, to the magnificently-appointed, oak-paneled library of Palmerwood to do a little research.

In "The Big Book of Horrible Things," they hit paydirt: a description of the Coulter-Beast, complete with its diet.

"Excellent," says Intrepid Stella A. "Let's bait the trap."



After stopping off at the scullery to get a few pounds' worth of rotten meat, Intrepid Stella A., Young Leo J., and Xothnarg return to the woods to bait the trap. Young Leo J. erected a hastily-constructed Potemkin village of sycophantic Ann Coulter fans, and Intrepid Stella A. sounded the Coulter-Call.

All that remained to do was wait for the beast to appear.

Intrepid Stella A., Young Leo J., and their newfound acquaintance, Xothnarg of Planet Blrk 2645-J, await the arrival of the Coulter-Beast in the bosky northern reaches of the great Palmerwood Forest.

They don't have to wait long. Within moments, the sound of stiletto heels squelching into the earth is heard and a screeching, strident voice shatters the cool morning silence. Attracted by the stench of rotting meat and the what it perceives to be adulatory attention--both are like crack to its ilk--the Coulter-Beast lumbers into view.

Intrepid Stella A. and Young Leo J., and their new pal Xothnarg of Blrk 2645-J, watch intently as the Coulter-Beast lumbers toward the rotten meat with which they've cleverly baited their trap. Such brilliant children. I'm just sure they're gifted.

"By the holy bouncing Jzflgr of Grbldrk Himself, young Earth sproutlings!" breathes Xothnarg. "I've fought the Wild Snarling Snerks of the Burning Wastelands of Captillion-7, seen the Snagfestering Grook of Tau Alphalon-9 disembowel a whole flock of Shibboleths, and watched the Glumbering Horkthul battle the Klagging Smeerkachalot of Stampophilion-5--but I've never seen anything as horrifyingly and nauseatingly vile as the Coulter-Beast of Earth!"

My precious lil' poppets, Intrepid Stella A. and Young Leo J., are dab hands at building rope-snare traps. With a SNAP-WHOOSH, the Coulter-beast is lofted into the air and dangles there like knock-kneed yo yo. Which she is, come to think of it.

"Look at this whore-shoe," Intrepid Stella A. growls, picking up one of Ann's stripper-heels in disgust. "REAL women don't need to wear shoes like this to make them look good."

"I am, of course, a newcomer to this planet, Earth-larvae," muses Xothnarg, peering at the Coulter-beast's exposed junk, "and little-versed in the anatomy of your kind, but from what I can see, that's not a real woman."

Xothnarg of Blrk 2645-J couldn't have been happier with the Catch of the Day.

"Deepest gratitude, earth-tadpoles," he says. "We'll subject this creature to a few rousing sessions of good old-fashioned alien probes, and perhaps science will be able to answer the question of why your people vote so stupidly. And in gratitude, I'd like to give you a gift from the people of Blrk 2645-J."

Xothnarg hands them a small metal box festooned with sciency-looking blinking lights.

"It will help you in your struggle against the Klagg creature which now oppresses you. Open it when your fellow terra-spawn are born... but not a minute before, you got me?"

Now I am, as a fabulously wealthy international adventurer, Defender of the Republic, and celebrity, of course well-connected at the very highest levels of government, and a quick call to the right people sends a flock of the world's foremost experts in alien life scurrying to Palmerwood for a closer look.

But when they arrive, all they find is an empty crater where the alien spacecraft was. Everyone is mystified.

Everyone except, of course, my doughty and redoubtable gamekeeper, Oliver de Baliviere. This skilled woodsman and tracker's discovery of a mysterious whore-stiletto heel leads him to believe that there's more here than meets the eye... but will the world ever know the whole story????

L'Apres-Vie

Artur Schopenhauer wrote that death is not to be feared, as it is simply a return to the state of unbeing--a state we all occupied before conception and birth.

Or, as Mark Twain far more accessibly put it, the idea of death didn't bother him, since he'd been dead for millions of years before he was born, and it had never caused him the slightest inconvenience whatsoever.

The admirable Mr. Clemens expounded upon this idea in his personal creed, which first saw the light of day in 1973, when it was published in What is Man? And Other Philosophical Writings (Stanford: University of California Press):

There may be a hereafter and there may not be. I am wholly indifferent about it. If I am appointed to live again I feel sure it will be for some more sane and useful purpose than to flounder about for ages in a lake of fire and brimstone for having violated a confusion of ill-defined and contradictory rules said (but not evidenced) to be of divine institution. If annihilation is to follow death I shall not be aware of the annihilation, and therefore shall not care a straw about it.

Whether there is or there isn't any continued consciousness or existence after we croak is something I don't know and neither do you and neither does anyone else on the planet. It is also not something I waste a lot of time thinking about. But if, on the off chance, there IS an afterlife, my own personal preference would be to spend a few billion millennia yacking with some of the greatest and most interesting talkers humanity's ever produced.

After shuffling off this vale of tears, I'd invite (left to right and then clockwise) Sigmund Freud, Joseph Heller, Joseph Pulitzer, Leon Trotsky, Noam Chomsky, Richard Hofstadter, the aforementioned Mr. Twain, and Herbert Bayard Swope to sit around my celestial salon and just gab.

To the best of my knowledge, none of them ever met each other. Pulitzer and Twain were roughly contemporaries, as were Freud, Trotsky, and Swope. Swope actually worked for Joseph Pulitzer for a while, but by the time Swope came to work for the New York World, Pulitzer's paper, Pulitzer was essentially an absentee despot who ruled his paper from his yacht via telephone, telegrams, and letters, and I know of no evidence they ever met. Hofstadter, Heller, and Chomsky all lived and worked throughout the twentieth century in pretty close proximity (Chomsky is still alive and active), but I don't know if they ever met.

But wouldn't a confab between these guys be something to witness? Almost makes one wish one could believe. 

A Little Skin.

Since the "Nanny Klagg versus Palmerwood" saga is, of necessity, on hold until the impending Palmer twins are born, I decided to try and tide the Minions' insatiable appetite for Palmerian adventure over with...

...a little skin.

In these bleak and joyless days of autumn, when memories of summer vacations are rapidly ebbing away and the days grow shorter and ever more colorless, what could be more welcome than the arrival of the "Palmerwood Illustrated Swimsuit Edition"? Gorgeous beaches, celebrities frolicking under tropical skies, and scenes of a carefree life of surf, sand, and sex?

the Swimsuit Edition--whether that of "Sports Illustrated" or "Palmerwood Illustrated"--is more than just pictures of scantily-clad hotties. It's a passport to the life we all wish we could lead. And it arrives at precisely the time of year when such an escape into fantasy is most needed.

So without further ado... the "Palmerwood Illustrated Swimsuit Edition 2014--Too Hot for Facebook"!!!

Boy, there's nothing like the excitement of seeing the thing arrive, is there? One can almost feel one's fingertips all a-tingle.



I figured we'll roll out the Palmerwood Swimsuit Edition 2014 with the baronial, blue-blooded Palmers themselves on location at the ultraswanky and extremely expensive Vista Del Mar hotel at luxurious Smegaroon Beach. 

I'm always ready for the waves in the Speedo Powerflex racing suit in basic black ($39). Intrepid Stella A. and Young Leo J. enjoy a traditional Palmer family beach activity: the Live Moray Eel Fight. Intrepid Stella A. wears a My Little Pony lycra one-piece ($16.99), and Young Leo J. looks fly in a SpongeBob drawstring suit ($14.99). The Greek takes in a few rays in a Laura Ashley floral print maternity suit ($124). 

And of course, why not let the help get in on the action, as well? Here, my gamekeeper, Oliver de Baliviere, isn't afraid to show his sensitive side in the form of a lovely, delicate butterfly tattoo (who knew?!?) in plaid trunks from J. Crew ($75) as he reels in the catch of the day... and Executive Chef Bechamel de Bouillabaisse grills 'em up beachside sporting the 80's retro classic "Aloha"-patterned Jams World trunks ($32.50) for the full-figured beach bum.

Now, insofar I am an insanely wealthy and glamorous international celebrity, it does occasionally happen that I run into other insanely wealthy international celebrities--even those I don't particularly care for. 

While shooting the "Palmerwood Illustrated Swimsuit Edition 2014" on location at the ultraswanky Vista Del Mar, we bumped into a couple of old "friends"--why, it's Fox News owner and News Corp President and CEO RUPERT MURDOCH, and moronic Fox News personality MEGYN KELLY!

I hadn't encountered these two since my adventure in the Far West, and it was good to catch up. If you haven't seen it yet, you can read this thrilling tale of action and derring-do by clicking here.

Rupert looks...dashing...in a pair of Brooks Brothers Montauk Golden Fleece trunks ($95) and Megyn looks fetching as always in her Classic Locking Ballgag from Xtreme Restraints ($38.50), and leather thong from Leather'N'Heels ($14.99).

How on earth the children's Giant Voracious Carnivorous Salamanders happened to get out of their cages, I have no idea. None. None whatsoever. Honest.

But why should the living have all the fun? The Undead enjoy sun, sand, and surf as well as anyone. Plus the salt kind of pickles them, and helps them keep. Here, some of the Palmerwood zombies are returning to shore after a tubular afternoon. They're sporting the O'Neill Superfreak surfing wetsuit ($290.95) and the RonJon 10" Triple Stringer Veneer classic longboard ($549.00). 

Intrepid Stella A. and Young Leo J.'s nanny and archnemesis, dear old Nanny Klagg, prefers to go "au naturale" at the shore, but we talked her into this charming two-piece Gottex French-cut bikini ($75.95) for the "Palmerwood Illustrated Swimsuit Edition 2014." As dear old Nanny Klagg showers off the beach sand while striking an Elle McPherson-esque pose, JP's feeble-minded but faithful valet, Cubbings, maintains his dignity in this vintage 1904 cotton men's one-piece suit and a Scala straw boater from St. Louis's own Levine Hats ($59.95).
 

And of course, I saved the best for last in this year's "Palmerwood Illustrated Swimsuit Edition." I know what you've been waiting for. We bring this sultry, smoldering Smegaroon saga of surf, salt, sand, sun, and skin to a close with the Palmerwood yetis modeling a little eye candy: the ever-popular Classic Whaletail from Teeny B ($98.00). 

Well, thanks for viewing, Minions. Now back to autumn.

The Help.

My life-partner, The Greek, recently informed me that she's knocked up. With twins.

I think it was never more aptly put than by the old Southern African-American lady who said, "Sweet Jesus, prop us up."

This revelation occasioned a sort of epiphany during which I realized that I'm screwed like a housecat.

However, fearless and selfless Republic-defending heroic type that I am, the thought of changing my name, getting plastic surgery, liquidating my accounts, funneling the money through untraceable offshore accounts in both Switzerland and the Caymans, purchasing property in Nome, Alaska, and living out the rest of my life in terrified anonymity in my own self-imposed Witness Protection Program never crossed my mind. Not for a minute.

No. Not even once. 

No, instead, I decided that I'd better look into getting some extra help around Palmerwood. Two children--even two such adorably rambunctious little poppets as Intrepid Stella A. and Young Leo J.--I can handle. Four's a different ballgame.

So it was that the precious little Palmer imps and I found ourselves dressed in our Sunday-go-t'-meetin' best in the magnificent, awe-inspiring, oak-panelled, suit of armor- and ancient family oil portrait-studded entrance hall of Palmerwood, ready to greet... whom? Whom? Whom were we awaiting??

 Why, it's dear old Nanny Klagg, the nice lady the agency sent over! With all the extra help we'll need around the place with two more Palmerlets, Nanny Klagg might be just the ticket. 

Well, I was just tickled by dear old Nanny Klagg. She seems like something straight out of some British Victorian novel. Why, she's an old dear!

The children, however, didn't seem to agree. Nor did Cubbings. Nor did the yetis lurking outside. But dear old Nanny Klagg just sipped her Earl Grey from one of the Palmerwood antique museum-quality Sèvres bone china teacups and chuckled in her dear old creaky, drafty old voice, "Don't worry a bit about it, Mister Palmer. I'm sure we'll all be the best of friends in no time."

Nobody seemed convinced of this but me, but hell, I pay the damned bills around here.

Feeling every confidence in dear old Nanny Klagg to get the situation well in hand, I made ready to leave for work and was just on my way out the door to defend the Republic we all hold so dear when the children accosted me.

"Precisely where the hell do you think YOU'RE going?" shrieked Intrepid Stella A. "You're not leaving us with HER?"

"Pop, not her," begged Young Leo J. "Pop, this woman has no sex appeal at all. None."

"The two of you shut your mouths," I retorted. "Young Leo J., if you recall the matter of the two 19-year-old Swedish au pairs, Daddy's American Express card, Daddy's G-4, and the week you three spent at the Sands Casino in Macau, you'll understand why I hired an old bat well past her breeding years. Now you two be good, mind dear old Nanny Klagg, and don't bother your mother. Daddy will be back soon. The damned Republic we all hold so dear isn't going to defend itself."

And off I went. 

Well! It wasn't but a minute after I left that dear old Nanny Klagg set about confirming the children's suspicions. The door had hardly closed behind my tauntaun when she decided to clear out the clutter in the nursery.

"Precisely where the HELL do you think you're going with THOSE?" demanded Intrepid Stella A.

"Language, my dear," Nanny Klagg creaked. "Little ladies don't talk like longshoremen, do they? We're going to have to clean up that mouth. Then we'll do something with that hair and make you look like a proper little lady. And I don't think children need weapons like these. I'll just pop down to the armory and return these to that nice Mr. Dailey and that nice Mr. Miller."

"Lady, you thought WRONG," yells Young Leo J. "You don't get it. This is PALMERWOOD."

The children weren't the only denizens of Palmerwood whom Nanny Klagg antagonized in short order. No sooner had she denuded the nursery of assault rifles, grenade launchers, katanas, broadswords, harpoon guns, Stinger missiles, and handguns than she set about denuding the yetis.

"They smell like wet wolfhound," she said, and fired up the Braun clippers.

Now, JP has suffered the depredations of yetis for years. Years. Their low-down, nouveau-riche, cigar-swipin', Scotch-cadgin', quail-stuffed-with-wild-boar-and-fennel-sausage-gobblin', capercaillie-in-white-wine-and-truffle-sauce-snarfin' ways have been a thorn in his side for quite some time now. But he'll be the first to admit that that there is something absolutely heart-rendingly pathetic about a shorn yeti.

Politics makes for strange bedfellows, and the enemy of my enemy is my friend. At least temporarily. Nanny Klagg's presence has forged an alliance between forces which, until now, had been the bitterest of rivals and the most implacable of enemies.

A sinister, candlelit conclave takes place in the old barn.

"Look at us!" Young Leo J. snarls. "She pomaded my hair and put me in this fruity Little Lord Fauntleroy get-up. Death to her. DEATH."

"Quit whining," Intrepid Stella A. growls. "Look at me. I'm in a &$%ing PINAFORE, for Christ's sake. I look like Anne of Green $%@&ing Gables."

Both the staff and the estate's most terrifying monsters--the yetis, the zombies, the giant squid, and the children--agree to put aside their differences. Even Cubbings and Executive Chef Bechamel de Bouillabaisse, who have despised each other for decades, agree to bury the hatchet...for now.

Chef de Bouillabaisse, infuriated by Nanny Klagg's disdain for his vichyssoise, agrees to stop trying to make calamari out of the Giant Squid (infuriated by Nanny Klagg's plans to drain "that malarial swamp," as she refers to beautiful Palm Lake). The yetis agree to stop raiding Chef de Bouillabaisse's kitchen and wine-cellar. Cubbings agrees to stop chasing the yetis out of the mansion. The yetis agree to stop swiping the zombies' arms and legs to use as croquet mallets.

The zombies just kind of stand there and groan. They don't know much, but they know they don't like Nanny Klagg, either.

Led by Intrepid Stella A., the warring factions take a blood oath of secrecy and loyalty: DEATH TO NANNY KLAGG.

As inspiring as taking the oath of murder and mayhem was, sobriety sets in quicky. My children, having spent their formative years in the company of zombies, yetis, chupacabras, werewolves, vampires, attack-trained birds of prey, and their father, are deeply realistic. Fearsome though the entities gathered around this table may be, they recognize that Nanny Klagg is a formidable adversary.

And so they decide to call in reinforcements. They employ a little-known and poorly understood psychic phenomenon known as Creepy Little Kid Telepathy to reach out across the ether and summon the most dastardly and dangerous entities possible. What, or whom, could they possibly be reaching out to across the psychic airwaves? What terrifying forces are they attempting to contact on the astral plane???

Friends of mine will know that I am, of course, highly skeptical about the supernatural. Ghosts. Telekinesis. Chi. Karma. Angels. ESP. The Lord. All that stuff I'm pretty sketchy about.

Nonetheless, I can't deny that something very strange indeed happened when Intrepid Stella A. and Young Leo J. employed Creepy Little Kid Telepathy (CLKT) (tm) to call for help in their struggle against dear old Nanny Klagg.

The newest Palmers, all veiny and slimy and gross, were minding their own business, floating serenely and quietly in amniotic goo. Suddenly, an urgent psychic request awakens them! Their eyes open! Expensive liquor, Cuban tobacco, and old Palmer family portraits mysteriously appear in the ol' "bag of waters," as the OBGYN rather grossly referred to it!

"Well, well," the freshest Palmers grin sinisterly, "We don't really understand concepts like 'good' and 'evil' yet, but it appears we'll soon have the chance to cause mayhem and chaos! Sit tight, siblings. This withered old Klagg bag doesn't stand a snowball's chance in hell."

October.

While autumn is, in general, a bleak and joyless season, I've got a sneaking fondness for the month of October. It's the month when ghouls walk abroad. That in itself is fun.

In one chapter of Ray Bradbury's magnificent "From the Dust Returned," the Elliott family, a collection of undefined spooks, ghouls, and ghosts who live in a big rambling farmhouse in northern Illinois, are wracked by an identity crisis. Who, or what, are they?

They are, they finally decide, in need of no better nomenclature than "The October People." "We are the October People!" they exclaim triumphantly, and, having laid that question to rest, move on to other matters.

And we've all got a bit of October People in us, don't we? Well, the baronial Palmers of Palmerwood sure as hell do. 

I'm always somewhat inconvenienced when the Palmer Family Curse rolls around this time of year. Why, I've already had to decline invitations to three chic, swank, celebrity-studded soirees this week alone. And the Diddies, the -Z's, and the Albrights will be so disappointed.

However, our "October malady," as my grandmere delicately referred to our condition, is no reason not to indulge in a little father-son male bonding in the wild and far off reaches of the estate.

And then there's the Annual Halloween Pilgrimage to Palmer Gardens, the Palmerwood private family cemetery. 

On that night, we wake the children at midnight and we all traipse merrily, still in our pj's, down to this rather unkempt and somewhat eerie corner of the estate to see the ghosts of the ancestral Palmers rise from their graves and walk freely through the wind-lashed October night. 

Those passing through the grounds on that wicked night report strange sights and sounds. And if you listen carefully, you just might hear spectral voices complaining about politics, lying through their teeth about their exploits, telling raunchy jokes, and fighting about politics.

Death can but remove our carnal forms. It cannot excise our basic nature. 

Autumn And Its Discontents.

Autumn brings with it few pleasures. One of those very few is the sort of grudging realization that, since there's not much to be done outdoors, one might as well curl up in one's sumptuous oak-paneled library with a Cohiba, a bottle of something peaty, amber-colored, and aged not less than 18 years, and a good book while the storms rage outside. 

Not, however, are these pleasures for the scions of the ancient Palmer dynasty: Intrepid Stella A. and Young Leo J. The passing of the Paradiso of summer into the Purgatorio of fall and the eventual Inferno of winter (sounds counterintuitive, I know, to refer to winter as an "inferno," but who am I to quibble with Dante?) occasions something worse than grief in them. The passage of the seasons engenders ennui. 

Gone are the days of chasing the giant squid around Palm Lake, the days of tearing recklessly through the woods, the days of croquet and Lawn Darts. It's cold, wet, and joyless outside. And now that the rain and gloom of a Midwestern autumn have descended upon stately Palmerwood, they're bored out of their socks. 

"There's nothing to doooooooo," grumble the Palmerlets bitterly."I'm booooooooooored. Boooooooring." 

This portends no good. Idle hands, so they say, are the Devil's playground. And fewer sets of mitts on the planet are, at the moment, idler, or, in general, more prone to deviltry than those of JP's adorable lil' moppets. Evil gestates in their tiny brains, and mischief will soon be abroad. 

In desperation for distraction, the Palmerlings decide to explore some of the lesser-known reaches of Palmerwood in search of distraction and havoc. 

They find themselves in a dusty, ill-lit, and long untraversed corridor on the first floor of the far north-northwestern wing. Portraits of some of the less savory Palmer antecedents grin malevolently down upon them. And they discover, under the Persian-silk Kerman floor-runner, a trap door. What, oh what, could possibly await them beneath it?

The fearless lil' poppets descend an ancient stone stairway into a cavernous--uh---cavern yawning beneath the stately halls and teak floors of Palmerwood above. A vast cathedral-like space opens above them--bats flutter in the darkness. Armed only with a guttering candle and their infinite capacity for mischief, the Palmerlings venture deeper into the Mysteries of Palmerwood. Whatever, oh whatever, shall they find?

In a chamber just off the main space at the bottom of the stairs, a wondrous sight meets the small Palmerkins' eyes: the fabled Palmer Treasure Room, long thought to be no more than a legend. Sacks of gold doubloons sit like fat, drunken pirates--treasure chests piled up like children's building blocks line the walls. Art treasures from around the world are scattered hither and yon, and great amphorae overflowing with jewels, gem-studded gold chains, crowns and tiaras, and other priceless adornments of royal princesses long gone stand like sentinels.

But the lil' Palmerels' eyes are drawn like bees to honey to a strange, rather Egyptian-looking headdress perched on an old steamer trunk. And next to the headdress lies a mouldering old book on the cover of which is written in fading, spidery handwriting, "THE JOURNALS OF FFOULKE GRYMCROFT-SMERTHWICK PALMER, OBE."

Intrepid Stella A. and Young Leo J. open the old book they found lying beside the odd Egyptian headdress and begin to read its yellowed, crumbling pages. 

Great zounds! It's the journal of JP's great-great-great-granduncle, the famed explorer Doctor Sir Ffoulke Grymcroft-Smerthwick Palmer, Baron Palmer, OBE, who discovered the tomb of Pharaohess Khol-Dah-Nom-Khamen outside Qasr-Farafra in 1862! Fascinating!

In it, they learn some interesting facts. First, that Sir Ffoulke Grymcroft-Smerthwick preferred to employ belly-dancers instead of ordinary Egyptian laborers (which really wasn't much of a surprise); and secondly, that the strange headdress that Sir Ffoulke Grymcroft-Smerthwick discovered inside Khol-Dah-Nom-Khamen's sarcophagus has some... some rather interesting powers.

Now, my children, while charming, well-mannered, extremely clean, and undoubtedly very highly gifted, are sometimes possessed of less than superb judgment.

When one comes across an ancient artifact from a lost civilization--a thing redolent of mysterious occult power and positively dripping with ominous supernatural puissance--one might hesitate before putting it on one's head.

However, that's precisely what Stella did.

Having observed the somewhat uncanny effects on his elder sister of donning the ancient Egyptian headdress in the Fabled Legendary Palmer Treasure Room, Young Leo J., one would think, would be a little hesitant to slap it on his own gourd.One would be wrong. Young Leo J. also puts on the ancient Egyptian headdress, although he's a little more Zen about the process.

The precious, precocious progeny, the Palmerwood poppets, race madly back up the ancient, winding stone staircase. Have their wishes come true? Was the account they read in the Journals of Doctor Sir Ffoulke Grymcroft-Smerthwick Palmer, OBE, of the old Egyptian headdress's strange powers true? Whatever, oh whatever, shall they find waiting for them upstairs??

Meanwhile, back in the library, I greeted the sudden appearance of the world's largest fishtank (Stella's wish) and my own somewhat precipitate transformation into the DaddyMonster (a creature that appears out of nowhere and chases the children around when they've been rotten) with little more than a quirk of my eyebrow and a sigh.

"Cubbings," I growled, "be so good as to call Dr. Pooley, Rabbi Felsenfeld, Father O'Herlihy, and whichever other experts in healthcare and supernatural afflictions and ailments you can think of, would you? The children appear to have found that $#@&ing old Egyptian wishing-hat that my great-great-great-granduncle, Doctor Sir Ffoulke Grymcroft-Smerthwick Palmer, Baron Palmer, OBE, brought back."