Sexy Mumbles

Many laypeople believe that R+B (Rhythm plus Blues) music is made by the simple addition of Blues 

to Rhythm. But connoisseurs of the genre know that Rhythm and Blues are only 2/3 of the necessary 

ingredients of a traditional R+B song. The unaccounted for ingredient is Sexy Mumbles. 

Sexy Mumbles are what the R+B artist or group of R+B artists engage in at the beginning of a R+B song, 

pre-harmony, just before the beat "drops." Standard topics for Sexy Mumbles include:

1. Asking the DJ to please start playing ("drop") the beat as soon as possible

2. Reminding us that this is how we (the R+B artist[s]) do

3. Reminding us of the name of the R+B artist(s) who will sing the song you are about to hear

4. A Beautiful Lady (the Subject of the R+B song about to be sung, generally)

Renowned Rhythm Plus Blues Artist Bobby Valentino is like the Cadillac of Sexy Mumbles 

(you only need to listen to like the first 20 seconds of each of these, if you are too busy to HEAR ART):

And of course a short but stellar example of Sexy Mumbles from R+B titans Boyz II Men:

Wonderful.

Now. As an innovator, a pioneer, an asker of difficult questions, and a fervent believer in the 

vitalness of Sexy Mumbles as an art form, The Steelworkers Promise is sitting here wondering 

why not write a whole Rhythm Plus Blues song comprised entirely of Sexy Mumbles? I mean if 

you love chocolate ice cream, you don't buy Neapolitan ice cream, you buy a whole thing of 

chocolate. (That is called a "pitch-perfect metaphor.") 

The Steelworkers Promise believes that this sort of questioning of the fundamental construction 

of Rhythm Plus Blues music is precisely what our troubled world needs right now. 

Why? 

BECAUSE THAT'S HOW PROGRESS GETS DID. 

So buckle your Brain Belt, reader, so you don't get whiplash from this PARADIGM SHIFT.

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PRESENTING: The World's First All-Sexy-Mumbles R+B Song

TITLE: (Oh my God girl) You're so Beautiful

soft violin/piano intro

LYRICS (mumbled sexily):

Oh my God, girl.

You're so beautiful. 

Standing there, 

shimmering in the noonday sun. 

Like a diamond-studded art work

by an ancient art master.

A statuette

representing the faint hope of real human connection and love

in this cold digital age.

And boners.

That's probably the most important thing you represent. 

My boner.

Oh my God girl. 

I can't believe my incredible luck.

Of all the places in the world

that a lovely lady could choose to stand

you picked this one,

this lonely bus stop outside the Big-Lots.

What do you have in those shopping bags, girl?

Is it my heart?

Oh my God girl.

Look at that tasty singlet you got on.

You know some people say a large and floppy bosom

like the one you got girl

is an accurate indicator 

of future success in life.

Girl I am one of those people who say that.

I believe in you. 

Oh my God girl.

Are you really getting on the same bus as me?

How in Heavens have I never seen you on my bus before?

I ride this shit every day.

Are you new in town?

Are you stranger in this big city?

Did you come from a faraway place to pursue your dreams?

Or did your alternator go out or something,

so you have to ride the bus today

to get your errands did?

Either way, girl. 

Fate has descended upon us.

Like a fucking comet from space.

Destiny's comet crushed us girl, 

and left a smoking crater of serendipity.

Oh my god, girl.

Where you gonna sit?

You need to decide fast, because the bus is about to start rolling again.

Girl, come on.

Sit the fuck down. 

I need to know where you're sitting

so I can sit near but not next to you

in the optimum position 

to admire your beauty. 

Two rows back and on the opposite side.

Is the standard position for that sort of thing.

The bus has started moving.

THE BUS IS MOVING GIRL.

SIT THE FUCK DOWN GIRL.

Well God damn it.

I just slopped Gatorade G down the front of my shirt. 

I lost my balance for you, girl.

See how I sacrifice for our love?

Oh my god, girl.

What could you be thinking as you stare out that bus window?

What are your dreams, girl?

Could you be dreaming of me?

Is that even a possibility, 

considering that you and I have never formally met?

Is it even within the realm of reason, girl

that despite the fact that you are unaware of my presence on this planet,

with the exception of that lusty glance you threw at me

when I fell into the bus aisle a second ago,

is it possible that you are staring out that dusty bus window 

dreaming of me,

dreaming of making love to me?

I believe it is possible, girl. 

I believe in dreams. 

The beat "drops," and the song ends immediately.

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And we leave the world a better place than we found it. 

Cialis: Prologue

CIALIS: PROLOGUE

It is the fate of each of Nature's pristine dawns to be spoiled by the first groggy human to wake up and 

begin his noisy human errands. And so it was a kind of a fulfillment of destiny when, just as the horizon's 

axis eased below the peach-colored morning sun, Dan Brown missed the unpaved turnoff from the main 

road he was looking for, jerked the wheel hard right, and sent the tail end of his 1993 Ford Flareside pickup 

spinning and squealing through the roadside gravel. In his oversteer's wake, Dan's wife's pretty sleeping head 

thonked against the passenger side window. One hard sharp thonk, and a second smaller rebound thonk. 

She woke up cursing. 

"-ucking (THONK) son of a (thonk) FUCK."

The truck rocked to a stop perpendicular to the main road, facing it, gravel dust settling on the hood. 

The radio, which Dan had turned way down in respect of his wife's nap, was playing an oldie very softly, 

it sounded like The Hollies maybe, and the beat of it (the oldie) very nearly but did not quite sync with 

the beating wings of the startled birds retreating eastward. 

"I'm sorry. I missed the turn."

"Fuck."

"It was a mistake."

"Most people's mistakes don't concuss other, sleeping people. Generally."

"I'm sorry. People make mistakes. You do. Make mistakes sometimes."

"The very fucking definition of innocence, a sleeping person is."

Dan pulled a U through the shallow trench by the road, and the heavy old claw foot tub he had tension 

strapped to the bed of the truck that very early morning slid surprisingly gently into the little bump in 

the bed's surface that accommodated the back right wheelwell. 

"Very nearly literally the last people on earth who deserve to have their heads slammed into a piece of glass."

"We're almost there."

"Well keep on going then."

But Dan and his wife, pickup and antique bathtub were already gently bumping down the little unpaved road. 

*

Parked lakeside, Dan with one boot up on the lip of the tub. He flipped open the steel clasps on the 

straps, releasing each with a quick zip of retreating nylon. His wife stood at the tailgate's open mouth 

with her arms crossed and the ends of her sleeves pulled over her hands. She watched the lake's easy 

movement, the grace with which water can accommodate anything it touches. 

"Don't scuff it."

"Just stand right where you're standing, and I'll push it down to you."

Dan wedged himself into the narrow tubless space at the back of the truck's bed and unfolded his little 

body against the tub, pushing with everything he had. It moved haltingly for three inches or so, the tub's 

claws turning up brittle curls of the bed's paint. He stopped to pull off his sweatshirt.

"They don't make bathtubs this sturdy, this uh, solid, anymore."

"That's true of almost everything, I imagine." She looked at him directly for the first time that morning. 

"Maybe you should come up here and help me push, and when we get it kind of tilted over the tailgate, 

I'll jump down and grab the other end."

She ignored his offered hand and pulled herself up. They took positions and pushed, Dan's wife's side of the 

tub moving a little faster and veering off to Dan's slightly slower moving side. After a few heave-ho stops and 

starts, they got it seesawed over the tailgate and stopped, hands over their heads holding the lofted end of the 

tub. Dan's wife looked at him. 

"Maybe I better go down and grab it instead."

And of course as soon as she turned the tub loose, the heavy old thing lifted Dan up off his kicking feet and 

slid down the lip of the tailgate and slammed into the ground so solidly it barely made a sound and Dan, 

doubled over the airborne end of the tub, had just enough time to wheeze some air back into himself before 

his own relatively insubstantial body weight tilted the tub clockwise and sliding across the tailgate's edge, 

lengthwise toward the earth. And from his perch he watched his own slow fall, the inevitable advancement 

of the ground, and clung to the tub as if it might save him, somehow. 

When he opened his eyes, he learned he had landed or rolled far enough from his truck to see from the ground 

back up into the empty bed, where the tub's claws had left desperate jagged trails, like it had been trying to 

prevent its own abduction. 

*

Together, they rolled the tub upright and pointed it at the lake. 

"Thank Christ that's done."

"Well, halfway done." Dan a gave a kind of mock-bemused 1/4 smile. 

"What does that mean, halfway done?"

"I mean we have to go get the other tub, back at home."

"The other tub?"

"His and Hers. Yours and mine."

"HIs and Hers antique claw foot tubs at the lake."

"I thought that part was evident, from the two tubs tubs sitting there in the the garage."

Dan's wife closed her eyes. 

"I mean the truck's not big enough to hold them both." He gestured at his truck to her shut eyelids. 

"I can't do this anymore."

"We can get back and set up by sundown, if we leave now. It'll be perfect." 

She pinched the bridge of her nose. Her disappointment always capsized his stomach, rolled it right over, 

it made him hate himself and everything he'd seen and touched in the world in his lifetime that his best 

effort to finally stop disappointing her, his last, best plan, had caused more disappointment, for her. 

"If we can just get through this, things will get better."

"Where are you going to get water to fill the tubs, Dan?" 

He touched the bottle of pills in his pocket. 

"If we just do this, things will start getting better."

"Were you going to use lake water, Dan?"