The second I saw her; I knew that I wanted her, in THAT way.
Karen was an actress and very talented. She was small, only about five foot two, and cute as a button.
I met her at a party I was having when she showed up with her friend, Karen. Two Karen’s. Anyway, Karen the actress was hot, and smart, and bright and fuckin’ cool, man. I instantly dug her. It didn’t take long either — not to say she was easy — but we both just RAN right into each other as soon as we could. We had a great little three-month fling and it was a BLAST.
One of her favorite sayings was, “I’m all that and a bag of chips.”
I thought that was pretty clever.
Karen was from Kansas, and, of course, I had to bite my tongue so I wouldn’t say “You’re not in Kansas anymore,” like she had NEVER heard that one before…
Even though she was short and tiny, she never really seemed all that small. I guess she had a big aura. All I know was, she was amazing in bed and that means a lot to me. I don’t know if it was so much that she was amazing, but maybe more like our chemistry was amazing. Trust me, I have FOND memories of her that will last for always.
She told me her dad was always a tough guy and that he would beat me up if I were ever mean to her. I thought that was pretty cool. Then, she told me that her dad was always finding great deals. She said that he was always just in the right place at the right time, as if he was magically standing in the sweet spot of life.
Right after the Twin Towers got hit, her dad was walking by someplace that was selling a bunch of flagpoles dirt-cheap. He bought up all of them because he figured that right after an attack of that magnitude on this country there would be a big need for flagpoles. He was right and made a pile of money. I guess it wasn’t so much that he was lucky, but he seemed to know when there was gonna be a need for something.

The morning of 9/11 I was with Karen.
She woke me up and said, “Hey, Cliff, you’re not going to believe this, but I think we are being attacked.”
I was like, “What do you mean?” and she dragged me out of bed to see what was on TV. I just stood there not really getting the picture, because it looked like one of those dumb action movies like Die Hard or something. Only one of the Twin Towers was on fire. About a minute later, we saw a big jet head straight for the other one. It was on live TV and it went right into the Twin Towers. It was unbelievable.
I remember exactly what I said.
“Well, it’s about time someone finally did something to this bullshit country of ours! Someone finally had the balls to attack us and maybe it will be a wake-up call for our country, which is being run by huge corporations who pay off our government with bribes and no one is held accountable for anything.”
I wasn’t happy about the people who got murdered and burned to death or the overall idea of bad things happening to innocent people, but I was simply making a gut reaction statement that in a more politically correct way would sound more like this:
“I guess it takes a tragedy like this to show this country that there are consequences for our actions with other people and that we should treat people better.”
I don’t think we realize that our actions as a whole are pissing off a lot of people on this planet. I think I read somewhere that the United States is doing a lot of bad things to a lot of people, to other countries, and to this planet and our government is lying flat out to us about what’s really going on. I’m not really anti-U.S. but I am anti-bullshit and having bullshit artists constantly lying to me. I love this country, but I don’t love George Bush and his trigger happy, criminal administration. I believe that he flat out cheated to win the election and lied through his teeth about Iraq and he’s just a low-class bum who’s stealing oil and murdering people all day long. He’s just one below-average- rich-kid-con-man-spineless-flunky, who unfortunately happened to be the most powerful leader in the world, which isn’t saying much, but it is pretty embarrassing to be an American these days.

Anyway, Karen was really awesome and I loved our little three-month fling. We got along great. Most of the time, that is. A couple of goofy little situations ultimately destroyed us.
I took her back east to meet my family, because my sister was getting married and I thought it would be fun to bring Karen. I paid to fly her out and she was just wonderful to have around.
But not everything went smoothly.

The airline made a big mistake and we had to sit at the airport for seven hours, waiting for some dumb plane to get its shit together. When we finally got on the plane we had to sit apart from each other.
Karen just broke down and started crying; she couldn’t take it anymore. She was SUCH a good actress. Man, was I impressed. I don’t think this time she was acting, but one never really knows when you’re with an amazing actress; they are so good at working their emotions.
Anyway, I told her that I would stick by her and if she wanted to get off the plane and wait for another one so we could be together than I would do whatever it took to be by her side.
I was chivalrous all right. One of the guys on the plane was so impressed by my valiant behavior that he offered up his seat so that we could both sit next to each other.
Karen was so cute when she cried. Man, you should have seen her — that cute little face and her cute little butt. Anyway, the flight was from hell, but we finally made it to the east coast to hang out with my family.
My sister was getting married and it was gonna be a Jewish wedding, so I had to wear the funny little hat and carry some tent around in front of everyone. It was an awesome wedding and I hadn’t seen some of the people there for 20 years. Much of my family had been scattered because of divorces and what not.

Anyway, I’m in the music business and my sister is marrying a guy who has a cousin who is a BIG SHOT in the music business. My sister is no dope, so she makes sure that me and my new cousin-in-law sit at the same table. She tells me all about him, etc., and I try to keep it together and not make it look like a setup. I figure I’ll wait until the right moment and then tell him about all my amazing record projects, etc.
Karen, by the way, used to go out with a big dog in the record business, who will remain nameless to protect the innocent, but let’s just call him John K. He’s the guy who used to wear the big white suits who was always ripping off John Lennon’s image with the long beard, etc. Anyway, he was a big dog and Karen went out with him for three years. After they broke up, he bought her a brand new Mercedes sedan! That was nice of him. Well, I was broke and didn’t give her anything except just plain ole me and that old big dog might still be missing her. If I’d had money though, I would’ve bought her all kinds of things. That woman was WORTH IT; let me tell you!!!!!!!!!

So, after about three hours of the wedding and hanging out at the table, I finally got my chance with my new cousin- in-law, the big dog record biz guy. I heard him say that he just read the Celestine Prophecy and I jumped in and said, “Man, that was the best book. I read that thing three times!” Which was true, by the way. He was impressed. We had a really intense talk about synchronicity and all the coincidences of life and how it’s really more than just a coincidence about many things. I told him that I was so into the book that I started underlining lines in the book and making notes and writing down bits and pieces to further educate myself about the material, etc.
He was impressed. I wasn’t trying to impress him, but I was just telling him what I did. We had a big conversation and then we segued into other books and just rambled on for a little while longer. At the end of the night, he gave me his business card and said that he knew I was a music producer and that if I wanted to send him some music, he’d take a listen. He said he couldn’t promise anything, but that he would give me a shot.
All I wanted was a shot. I never wanted any handouts; I just wanted a fair shot. That’s all I really want in life in general is a fair shot. I should call myself “Fair Shot Brodsky: That’s All I Really Want In Life.”

Karen got along great with everyone at the wedding and totally impressed them all by how cool she was. My new cousin-in-law still asks about Karen and still comments on how cool she was.
She was a cool fuckin’ chick, man. She had a way about her that made people feel easy to be themselves; maybe it was because she was small and not big enough to kick anyone’s ass, which could have made people not feel threatened by her. Or, maybe it was because she genuinely had a gift about her that made people feel comfortable. Or maybe it was because she was just a great actress and knew how to work a room. I’ll never know for sure. But one thing was for certain: she was a cool fuckin’ chick!

The wedding went great and Karen and I had a blast and visited with my whole family and everyone loved her. Things were looking great.
I should mention one thing, however. She was about eight years older than I was, even though that doesn’t really matter. I just thought that people should know at some point in the story.
Let me tell you, man. This chick had some EXPERIENCE. She had been married before and lived in New York City and hung out with Madonna before she made it.
Karen told me a story about Madonna. She said that her husband used to be in a band and he rehearsed in the same building that Madonna rehearsed in before she became known. Madonna was just basically a club chick who could dance and BARELY sing. That’s still true today.
Anyway, Karen told me that a pimp came to the building looking to recruit hookers. Madonna, without flinching, of course, ran after the guy and begged him so that she could get a job, doing what women do. The story goes that she got turned down by the pimp because she wasn’t hot enough, or sexy enough, or nasty enough, or for whatever reason, like maybe because she was TOO nasty and didn’t shave under her armpits (which I think was the actual reason why she got turned down to be a prostitute).
I think that’s funny in a way, that Madonna couldn’t even get a gig as a prostitute, but ended up being a HUGE MOGUL in the music industry. I guess that might say a little about what the music industry is like. Feel free to take liberties guessing.

And now, it’s time to tell about the wishbone incident.

It was around Thanksgiving and there was a wishbone sitting on a table in my apartment.
Karen said, “Hey, let’s play the wishbone game.”
I said, “OK, let’s play!”
She picked up the wishbone and we were gonna pull it apart when I said, “Hey, wait a second.”
She was like, “What?” She was holding the wishbone about halfway up and I was holding it at the tip like you’re supposed to. I pointed out to her that she was supposed to hold it at the end like I was.
She just looked at me horrified, like I was the grim reaper, and angrily laughed at me, like I was an idiot, and said, “You hold it the way you want to and I’ll hold it the way I want to, and let’s fuckin’ play the stupid game!”
I was like, “Well, here’s the thing. If you hold it halfway up, you’re going to win and it’s not fair. Everyone knows you’re supposed to hold it at the bottom so it will be a fair fight.”
She said I was crazy and that she had never heard that before and that I was being a total jerk. She was getting all irate and angry and red in the face.
I said, “Time out. Let’s hold off on the wishbone game and see if we can talk about what’s really going on.”

She just looked at me like I was Satan and couldn’t believe that I was such a total loser and jerk that I would be so controlling as to make her play the wishbone game a certain way. She started yelling at me and dancing around the kitchen with the wishbone threatening to break it in half herself so no one could play the game.
I was like, “So that’s how you wanna play this? If we can’t do it your way, you’re going to ruin the game so no one else can play? Is that how you were as a little kid in school? If people couldn’t play the way you wanted, you were going to wreck the game? If you had a kickball and no one would let you play, would you poke a hole in the ball so it wouldn’t work? If all the kids were making a house of cards and wouldn’t let you play, would you just knock it over and ruin all their fun?”
You can see where this was going…
I said, “Listen, woman, this isn’t about the wishbone game. This is about something else, and I want to sit down with you and work it out because I don’t want us to have a miscommunication about something and have a fight over literally nothing just because there was a misunderstanding.”
She said, “Okay, let’s sit down and see what you have to say.”
She was a very intelligent, and spiritual person, and I think she really had a great heart and she wanted things to go well. I don’t think she was aware that she was having a spontaneous age regression and was clueless that EVERYONE KNOWS YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO HOLD THE WISHBONE BY THE TIP, NOT HALFWAY UP, MAN!
But, that could just be one of my issues and I’m willing to take a look at it.
We sat down on my couch and I said that I’d been reading a lot of John Bradshaw books and he said that a lot of families have different rituals and sometimes during Christmas, for example, some people open all the presents at the same time and there’s anarchy and that’s just how they do it. Other people like to open the presents one at a time and talk about them and write down in a little book who gave them the present and what it was so they can keep track of all their little gifts and be organized about how they were going to send their thank-you letters. Some people saved the boxes and the ribbons, and some people threw everything away. It doesn’t make one person or family better or worse, but simply DIFFERENT.

I was trying to say in a nice way that people do things differently and that it wasn’t about the wishbone game per se, but that we should be able to make compromises and figure out a happy medium. The problem with the wishbone incident was that I was right and she was wrong, and why should I play along with her cockamamie idea that there isn’t a standardized way to hold the wishbone, when it’s a plain fact that there is only ONE way to hold the wishbone and it’s common knowledge.

Karen told me that I was just making that up and where she comes from, since as far back as she can remember, everyone holds the wishbone from the middle. She couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t hold the wishbone from the middle, like her. It would be an even match that way.
True, I said, it would have come out the same, but I knew for a fact that you’re supposed to hold it from the bottom and that it would be better and that she should do it my way because it was better.
I think that maybe I should have just held it in the middle because of one simple fact: Karen had such a great little body that I so adored, and I mean ADORED, that it was a pretty small price to pay to keep that show runnin’.
Man, I should have just gone along with her little game. I was such an idiot. Who cares if I was right? It pissed her off and that was the second-to-last straw for her. She was the kind of chick that if you crossed her, man, that was it. She was a tough little cookie. But, GOD, did she have the most perfect little body you could ever believe. I still think about her in that way sometimes.
She also was super pretty. It wasn’t just about her perfect little ass, but it was a pretty important factor in my brain and I’m just being honest here because let’s face it: guys like that sort of thing. It’s just how we’re wired.
Anyway, Karen finally broke up with me and she did it in such a way that I couldn’t really do anything about it. She called me and left a message, crying, saying how she couldn’t go on like this anymore and that it was all her fault and that she was a mess and that she was sorry and that it was just best to quit before anyone got hurt. She was so good at her little message that I just couldn’t say anything other than, “Yeah, I guess you’re right, we should just quit while we’re ahead.” Maybe I should have fought more to keep her, but that’s all just water under the bridge now. It’s been about five or six years since we broke up, and she’s moved out of town and she’s gone, man.
But I’ll always remember her and how great she was, even though she tried to cheat in the wishbone game. I bet she knew all along that you were supposed to hold the wishbone from the end and she was just messin’ with me. I guess I’ll never really know what happened on that fateful day, but I’ll always remember two things: her cute little face and that A+ little ass she had!
Who cares if she cheated in the wishbone game? I should’ve just given in and let her have her way. I was such a numb skull. Man, was she hot!