Didn’t the song “Bad Day” feel like a one-hit wonder (OHW) even when it was first popular on the radio? Couldn’t you feel it, as I, who am psychic, did?

I remember seeing Daniel Powter on GMA at the time the song came out, in 2006, and thinking right then and there that something wasn’t right. “The camera don’t lie,” indeed. He looked like the lovely Michael Stipe on a bad day: His skin pallor off, eyes dead/dying; the hat obviously intended to hide baldness, what else is he hiding, he looks like he learned his ABCs from the types of hepatitis, et cetera.

Worse, he seemed uncomfortable with his situation, like he just wanted to go back to Canada and score some horse and be a sensitive songwriter-busker, but some money men had ordained that he would have the hit single of the new century — wait, the new millennium! He was the Powter Keg and they were tappin’ that!

But I could just tell he was too weird to be a star (you can’t kid a kidder), and that the screaming girls outside Rockefeller Center were inwardly dismayed at the appearance of the guy behind the singing voice, but it was too late, the “Good Morning, America!” producers had shotguns, and they were digging them into the girls’ backs whispering for them to keep shrieking.

Then in recent months I had actually thought about Powter again, and wanted to ask someone (Gabe?) or something (wikipedia?): What Ever Happened to Daniel Powter? Clearly he had taken a powder (sorry), because there was no follow-up hit?

Then, in that way that the culture often answers my private thoughts, there he was again in the news, and the answer was what I divined it would be. I hadn’t missed the second big hit from Daniel Powter. I am not that out of touch. There wasn’t one. But I’m $ure he did alright on “Bad Day.”

More than just being a catchy ditty – OK, I bought it on iTunes! – and an OHW, “Bad Day” is kind of a fitting anthem for the Aughts or whatever this decade has been called. We Had a Bad Decade. We had a bad decade. We haaad a baaaaaad decaaaaade. Ay ya ya ya.

He Had a Good Decade

Then the next day you got news that Marshall “Slim Shady”/”M&Ms” Mathers, also a stone cold has-been as I write this, sold more records since 2000 than even the Beatles. He’s the top seller of this decade that has no acceptable name, much as he doesn’t.

Powter’s pre-“Bad Day” album was called “I’m Your Nelly” and his post-“Bad Day” album was called “Under the Gaydar.” Under it, indeed! I don’t know what sexuality he chooses. Let’s just say wikipedia has no section about his personal life. Let’s just say he doesn’t sing about how he loves girls. Let’s just say Eminem would probably refuse to share the stage with Daniel Powter, as he originally did with Elton John. Let’s just say I’ll bet it would’ve been a much different scene if Brüno had flown butt-first into Powter’s face rather than Mathers’s face.

Who cares, though? So “He Is a Bad Gay”? The closeted thing could be all an act, a ploy to get girls, just as I’ve always suspected Eminem’s sullen, frowning “I Had a Bad Day” persona was malarkey. I just know he’s a super-funloving sweetheart, always being silly and pulling practical jokes and laughing behind closed doors in his Ultimate McMansion outside Detroit. Actually outside Rochester, Michigan, which is outside Detroit. Double-outsider. Maybe he has a really awkward laugh he’s trying to hide, like, a nerdy horse laugh like that guy on “Welcome Back, Kotter.” Or a high-pitched winnie, or a ridiculous snort-laugh. Or a super-gay cackle.

(I liked it in the ’90s when Eminem would sometimes wear his practical and fashionable little eyeglasses in public. Like, way to just straight-up torpedo the whole tough persona you’re assiduously selling. Way to baffle me. I guess contact lenses are for queers, in his world? Real men wear glasses?)

I was at Como’s Pizza on Woodward Avenue in Ferndale, Michigan, a few years back, sitting on the lanai, when I whispered urgently and very seriously to my friend Paul: “Oh, my God, I think that’s Eminem! Don’t look now.” Paul stood up and pretended to go to the bathroom (like, he went in the bathroom and made a peeing sound with his mouth, but didn’t actually pee) and came back with his up-close report. “SM, that’s a woman. It’s a lesbian.” I looked back over at the person with the platinum buzzcut, white visor, no makeup, hip-hop clothes, and white tennis shoes and realized that Paul was right. Eminem is a lesbian.

You know who has really Had a Bad Day, though? Tiger Woods.

OK, that’s the end of this blog post. Very topical, for once. Well, I’m a few days late with the Powter and Eminem stuff, but hey, pardon me all over the place. I mentioned Tiger Woods! That story’s got legs!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Read more SM SHRAKE at You Wanna Know What? and The Shrake-tionary.

Middy likes to bake cupcakes, she tells me through her now more subdued mouth-breathing. I yawn then begin to doze off (“That’s okay, you can sleep, sure, but I’m still gonna tell my story anyhow,” she says cheerfully). But not before catching the first part of her story…

I’m real good at tellin stories, my kids tell me. I got one granddaughter now too but she’s too young to understand my stories and that, she’s only one and a half. But this one’s gonna be kinda scary, anyhow, so it’s a good thing you’re fallin asleep haw haw haw. And I would never tell this one to my granddaughter, she’d get too scared and her mom would yell at me (that’s my daughter [MIDDY POINTS AT FRAMED PHOTO ON COUNTER] Cheryl, that’s her mom).

So anyways, I should start off the story by telling you that this casino is haunted. Yep. It’s owned and run by Indians, you know, but the strange part is I guess it’s built on one-a their, like, sacred spots, a graveyard from way back when there was Indians all over the place and they could just go around you know doin whatever they wanted. So now they get to have these casinos, to kinda like get revenge on the … well, anyhow… it was a garbage dump, or landfill, I guess, between when it was a burial ground and now…

*****

I wake to a woman’s scream. I hear a muffled sizzling sound and smell rotting cucurbitus. “What is that?” I cry out through my jack-o’-lantern mouth hole.

“Oh, that lady in the other room is getting a Pumpkin Peel. Did you want one of those, too? They’re more money, but they get your skin SO smooth it’s unbelievable.”

“No, thank you.”

Neither of us says anything for a while, about four minutes. Middy straddles me on the chair and then places her foot on my shoulder to brace herself as she saws the jack-o’-lantern lengthwise on the side, and pulls it off my head with a thwup. She then starts to scrape the orange goo off my face and place it into a plastic tupper-like container using a spatula. I expect her to put it in the garbage but instead she pulls a storebought pie crust out of the cupboard. I ask what she’s doing.

“Well, you get to take your extra pumpkin facial with you, of course! Most of the gals take em home and make muffins or bread out of em, and that. But I figured since you are traveling and from not around here and that, I would just make you a pumpkin facial pie right here at Soaring Eagle’s! It’s like a special favor I’m doin for you.” “That’s the only nice thing anyone’s ever done for me!” I say, genuinely touched.

“Yeah… I know. That’s kinda related to what I was tryin to tell you when you was sleepin.”

Again preternaturally quiet, Middy wipes the last betacarotene stains off my face using a handtowel with ghosts on it and some nail polish remover.

*****

I look to the right and spy someone standing in the facialry with us, dressed in a really piss-poor “Native American” costume. Straight from Hollywood Central Casting circa 1971: Obvious wig, black wig, pulled into pigtails on the sides with feathers stuck in. Lame “war paint” on his cheeks, strangely business-suit-like soft doeskin separates with precious little bead embroidery. Cheap-looking moccasins.

“How,” he says as a greeting, raising his hand the way people from Michigan do when they want to point to the part of the state that they’re from, for instance the Thumb Area.

“How,” I say back. As he steps closer he seems to be covered in a thin layer of gray powder. Maybe he’s a construction worker at the casino. I didn’t see any construction on the way in, though.

“I am the Ghost of Halloween Past.”

“I told you!” Middy says, in a shuddering voice without using her nose, and she disappears into the next room with the facial pie fixin’s.

*****

“Let’s go, little white man,” says the Ghost, pulling me by the arm and leading me into the bright lights of the area with the 5¢ slot machines. “You’re white, too, I can tell under the dust.” “Yeah, don’t you recognize me?” “Hey! You’re the Indian from the commercial that was on TV during my childhood, with all the garbage. The one that cries,” I say, unconsciously patting my bright orange hair. “Yes, I’m Iron Eyes Cody, born Espera de Corti. Let’s not get talking about me, though. I’m here to show you some scenes from your childhood. Things that will provide a background on why you spread garbage everywhere. And by garbage I mean your bad vibes.”

A tear rolls down my cheek.

You can still smoke everywhere in Michigan, and the air is thick with the funky smell of peace pipes being smoked, mixed with the yucky ammonia-suffused stench of Marlboro Ultra-Lights, and Basics, then some Swisher Sweet tiparillos, and that.

I walk hand in hand with the Ghost of Halloween Past, and we sit down at one of the slots. You get 10 free gambling chips with every Pumpkin Facial, and I take them out of my pocket. “No gambling today,” says Iron Eyes. Before my eyes, the face of the Double Black Cherry slot machine transforms into a dusty miasmatic cloud of blacks, grays and purples. Soon all is smoke, and I am walking up the steps of the Royal Oak Public Library, alone, aged 6. My mom is there, but she’s putting money in the meter. I cannot wait to get inside and check out my favorite — not just Halloween book, but book period: The Littlest Witch.

*****

Right before I turned 30, in mid-October, everything in my life was falling down around me through some fault of my own. I wanted to just push my way back to normality as hard as I could, push through the mess and nothing would be wrong and I would wake up from the unending, sleepless dream that was snuffing out the last of my energies. Whistling past the graveyard, walking past the library, doing unhinged, desperate things like asking the librarian whether they had The Littlest Witch. They said they had it at another branch, so I went and picked it up because this year, with a big dose of magical thinking, I was going to dress as the littlest witch from the book.

But my addled memory had played a trick on me, and it wasn’t possible to dress like the littlest witch, because she was drawn in this expressionistic, ultrasimple way, like, just a pointy little inkblot. She barely even had a witch hat, she was so abstract.

But when I was still a child of 6, things could sometimes work out. My mom had sewn me a witch costume that year, just a plain witch costume that required no explaining.

*****

“What would you say to your 6-year-old self there, Evan?” asks the kindly Italian Indian.

“I would say, ‘Why do you want to be a witch?’ because I honestly don’t remember how that started. Also, I would probably call myself names, like fa…”

“Let’s move on to the next vision,” says Espera.

*****

[Part 3 Coming Soon...]

I’m neck deep in “mid”s. Mid-aged me driving a mid-size rental car through mid-Michigan. Temperatures in the mid-50s. Mid-weekend (Sunday morning). Mid-October. You can just call me Middy.

Actually, call her Middy, because that’s her name. She’s the lead facialist at Soaring Eagle’s Casino & Resort. Like me, she’s in her mid-40s, but Father Time and Father Class – our two dads – have had very different ways with us. Class dictates the general outlines of our appearances, with an assist from Midwife Gender, who is a trickster!

I’m a well-preserved middle-aged man-child with an expensive haircut and all my hair, which is dyed orange. No wrinkles, reasonable shape, about 15 lbs overweight. Which looks like more on my diminutive 5´0˝ frame. I always wear the same navy blue suit, but I change the shirts and ties most days. The lack of outdoor work exposure is written all of over my smooth, age-defying face. The good men and women of Mount Pleasant all pause as I walk into the room, the main casino floor, and ask where to get my Pumpkin Facial.

*****

In the sanctuary of the spa, Middy is washing her hands and humming along with the traditional Native American drum music playing softly from two speakers in the corners.

She’s got the standard-issue Bo-Rics sensible haircut, a ladies’ brushcut, really; frosted fakely. Bride of Frankenmuth. She’s taller than me and about 40 lbs overweight, but who’s counting? Her frames were free with the eyeglass prescription. White Keds. Stretch pants. Halloween-motif sweater with baby ghosts, scarecrows, “cute” (not scary) witches, bunnies dressed up as goblins, candy pieces and pumpkins with devilish grins dancing all the way around Middy’s solid, midwestern mid-riff. Hard, chapped, farmeress hands, simple oxidized bronze wedding band growing into the flesh on her ring finger. She breathes audibly as she stands over the sink. Through her mouth.

Because people don’t breath through their noses in Michigan. It is too cold, your mucous membranes up there freeze and you can die of nose hemorrhages. Most of the first settlers died of nosebleeds in their sleep, they just bled out in their sleep. That is the reason the northern midwestern accent is so “nasally.” Noses are closed for business! Permanently. Like the Ford’s plant where Harv and Shirl worked until last spring.

Middy, who looks like she is in her 60s, even though her casino-issued name tag clearly states her full name (Marlidden K. Jakob) and age (43), lights a pumpkin spice candle with one of those lighters that looks like a tiny, slim DustBuster that spits flames.

“There, how’s that?” She is referring to the pumpkiny, spicy fumes. “Real good.”

As we exchange the traditional pleasantries, she takes out a large carving knife and begins to saw a hole in the top of the pie pumpkin in her hand. Those are the smaller kind of pumpkin, the ones you use to make pumpkin pie

She carves out the “lid” with its pumpkin seeds dangling in their stringy orange viscous pumpkin matter. Holding the lid by its stem handle, she begins rubbing those pumpkin guts all over my face and neck with brisk circular motions, and I feel sleepy and contented.

*****

I simply had to turn off the highway when I saw the blinking orange digital display advertising Pumpkin Facials at the casino. I had no choice. Because Halloween is very important to me, and so are my fading looks that I’m trying to keep. This is the ultimate way to get up close and personal with the season: En-pie-ing your face in pumpkin, letting the fruits of the pumpkin patch nourish you from the outside in. You are literally diving face-first into the spirit of autumn, letting it coat your face.

Middy is looming over me spackling my cheeks, forehead, and chins with the pumpkin meat. She piles it on like it’s going out of style. My head sinks deeper into the pillow under the sheer weight of this facial. As soon as she is done doing this – taking care not to get any in my eyes! – she carefully places a fresh jack-o-lantern over my head (the bottom has been carved out), making sure the eyeholes are in line with my eyes. Now it has to set for a while. I close my eyes.

To pass the time, she begins telling me a story.

*****

[Read Part 2 here...]

You wanna know what? Do ya? After years of planning, the world’s first-ever accent contest will take place this fall in America’s Midwest.

This groundbreaking event will be sponsored by the National Association for the Study of American Linguistics (NASAL) and the prestigious Schwa Institute for the Study of Vowel Degeneration (SIftSoVD), both based in Washington, D.C.

Linguist Paul Conrack of NASAL stresses the importance of celebrating regional accents in this way: “No one knows exactly how the Midwestern accent . . . um . . . evolved. It seems to have just sprung up out of a vacuum of other influences. Some people blame the Finns, the Poles and even the Canadians for the flat, nasally sound. But none of that has been verified.”

Others blame the constant inhalation of the pungent odors given off by the wide assortment of questionable food products most Midwesterners consume on an hourly basis.

“Either way, it’s really just like a ‘filler’ accent between the more interesting dialects of the East Coast, the South and of course California,” Conrack said. “So we figured we could try out a contest here in the Heartland, then take it to ‘real’ places if it’s successful.”

The contest, to be held at the Lutefisk Inn in gray, semi-deserted Lansing, MI, will be divided into several categories:

• “A”-Sound Torture (“Bee-yæd”=Bad)
• -G and -LY Dropping (“He’s doin’ real’ good”)
• Special word: Car (Kya:r-r-r-r-r)
• Special word: Fire (Fuh-yer)

Special competitions will rate contestants’ use of Midwestern regionalisms such as “Is that right?” “Good deal!” and “You wanna know what?” Extra points will be awarded for each 50 pounds that a challenger is overweight.

Finalists will compete for the Maude Flanders Gold Cup, the “Roseanne” Silver Cup for Nasal Excellence and the Mike Ditka Bronze Medallion for -ING Slaughter.

Celebrity Judges

Accent chameleon Madonna Ciccone-Ritchie, a native of nearby Bay City, MI, was planning to attend at press time. “Do you wanna know what? I’m real curious to see who wins! Real, real curious,” said the international superstar from her new hometown of London, England. She will be the top judge of the contest, along with her buddy, Indiana native David Letterman, and that possessor of the Michigan accent extraordinaire, Michael Moore of shock-doc fame.

Disciplined Contenders

Fowlerville, MI, resident Barb Frajowiczizsky pointed out that she takes the upcoming competition real serious: “I been practicin’ for this by wearin’ a clothespin on my nose for three weeks!” she whined through the still-in-place nasal vise.

Frajowiczizsky added that she is about 132 pounds overweight, but hopes to bring that up to 150 before the competition so she can receive three 50-pound obesity credits. “Corndogs for breakfast, lunch and dinner from now on!” she laughed, taking a long, wet puff on her Misty brand cigarette.

Naturally, local pride plays a big part in the Midwestern Accent Contest and Fair, as the competition has tentatively been dubbed. Folks from as far away as Colorado, Ontario and Ohio will all compete for the Flanders Cup. Michigan has the home-team advantage, although a huge caravan of minivans and trailers is expected.

“Why fly? I never been on a plane,” said Kris Whitetone of Yup, WI. “Ya know what? I never been more than 20 miles from my house, and I’m proud of it!” Whitetone plans to live it up on this big trip to the next state over. “I seen big cities like Lansing on the TV set, and you wanna know what? I’m real, real excited to go to a restaurant,” Whitetone gushed.

Read more SM SHRAKE at You Wanna Know What? and The Shrake-tionary.