Eskewpades

  ESKEW-TRICITIES Don’t call me Ishmael. Call me Zany. A perpetual comic performer. Onstage and off. I still dare to march to a bizarre drum beat, even in my reckless uh middle age. I refer to my eccentricities as Eskew-tricities. My lifelong tenure as a warrior fighting gloom erupted as a kindergartener in Grand Island, Nebraska, when I thought it would be interesting to wear mismatching socks. By second grade I found it fun to constantly change my hairstyle throughout the day. (I hereby hesitantly confess that I still do that). Throughout my elementary school daze, instead of blue jeans, I begged to don dress slacks. Plus a vest with a Windsor-knot necktie; sometimes an ascot with matching belt and suspenders. Indeed, that proved to be dangerously unpopular around some of the more macho moppets. Desperate for a way to turn funny-peculiar into funny-ha-ha, young Eskew came to his own rescue by becoming class clown. What else? As a self-mocking free spirit, I turned bullies into buddie

  NOT REMOTELY RONG After years of intense self-improvement, I can proudly claim that only about nine major vices dominate my life, one of which is watching too much TV. Using the boob tube as a break from work-related writing and reading, it chiefly functions to distract my naughty but nimble noggin. The prob? I consider most TV programs to be a dreary bore and my thoughts float away. Thus, my distractor distracts me. And that’s sooo distressing. I’ve often referred to my mind (affectionately) as The Wayward Wanderer. Thanks to TV and the dullness it induces, I’ve lost my train of thought dozens of times. Even more times than I’ve lost the same 10 pounds. It’s just that most entertainment shows move at a tortoise pace. As for newscasts, they rate as sacred in our house. Forever obsessed with a need for information about the world around me, I hate missing the slightest informative moments. And, as fate would have it, in recent years, mod tech has blessed me with a new hero: Mr. Anthon