Berlow’s Freak Show

By now I have years of blog posts saved up from half a dozen blogs. All the blogs have been removed from the internet except my last one, “The Cynicism of Diogenes” which I will delete as well eventually. But some blog posts should remain forever on the internet. For example, the one on “The Cynicism of Diogenes” where I relate my experience at summer camps should always be up there, for it’s perhaps the only place on the internet where you can read about Camp Onibar. I just got an e-mail today from some other guy that went to Camp Onibar.

The original post on the “Diogenes of Sinope” blog about Summer Camp can be found here. I’m getting a surprising number of hits from people searching for “Camp Onibar”. I only went there one summer.  I was about nine years old, I’m guessing, so that would’ve been 1968. But that’s not right, since I remember talking to another kid at LSD camp (Landon Summer Day) about Martin Luther King getting shot, and that was 1968. So maybe I was ten and it was 1969 that I went to Camp Onibar. I think one of the reasons that I went to Camp Onibar is that my Dad went there as a kid, so it must’ve been around a long time, since my Dad was born in 1923.

The following post is worthy of being resurrected from obscurity on my hard drive. I think it never got the exposure it deserved because it was written right around the time I was kicked off Blogtimore. It originally appeared on the Harish blog on Wednesday, September 21st 2005. The events described really happened. You can’t make this up.

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Once upon a time I was at a 7-11 buying a chili-cheese hot-dog when a guy comes up to me and asks me if that’s my Volvo parked outside. I say “yes”. He says he’s a cop and that I’m in violation and that he can write me a ticket for $500. He follows me out to my car, asking questions. He’s not in uniform but he’s neatly dressed and at first I take him at his word. I go along with what he said, that he’s a cop. But the more questions he asks the more I wonder if he really is a cop. Perhaps I should ask to see some ID. But then I think that that might piss him off and I’ll get that $500 ticket. I’m trying to figure out what to do when I let loose a loud long fart. I’d been feeling flatulent. The “cop” hears the fart (maybe smells it as well) and makes a disgusted face. Before the cop regains his composure, I say “Excuse me,” hop in my car and drive off.

Tags: Once Upon a Time //