Monthly Archives: August 2026

Private Sector Use For GLOVEs

by Woody

In “What could go wrong?” news, it has been reported that Immigration and Customs Enforcement plans to spend up to $20 million to equip ICE officers with electrified patrol gloves that are cleverly, or sadistically, named Generated Low Output Voltage Emitters — GLOVE, get it?

Those who do get it, literally, will receive a painful shock designed to force submission without leaving physical marks, nor bodily evidence of misuse. Indeed, What can can wrong?

An outcry has risen to ban GLOVEs, but I favor limited use in the private sector. For example, equip school librarians with GLOVEs so they can gently place a hand on the shoulders of parents who raise a ruckus to ban books: “Shhhhhh, now. I’m sorry for your discomfort, but books never hurt anyone.”

As for teachers, these are not “kid gloves” as the manufacturer expressly warns that the GLOVE should not be used on children — however, parents who become threatening would seem fair game.

Anyone who must shake hands with That Guy (and we have all met one, unfortunately, often a businessman who is louder than his neck tie; or an annoying uncle; or a former frat boy with an ego larger than his true golf handicap which he has officially made smaller by cheating) Who Turns A Handshake Into A Feat Of Trying To Prove His Alpha Masculinity By Squeezing Your Hand Hard(!) While Grinding Your Knuckles Until You Wince, can turn the tables with a GLOVE and make him cry uncle first.

In a twist from the 1920s, fashionably dressed (or even casually attired) women in 2026 should henceforth start routinely wearing GLOVEs — if her date gets a little handsy, she can elegantly place a hand on his cheek with an electrified caress that surpasses a slap by delivering the kick of a mule.

The sports world definitely can use new GLOVEs. For example, when an obnoxious fan gets truly unruly, or outbattles a kid for a foul ball, how better to handle the situation than with an electrified high-five!

In soccer, the epidemic of flopping and diving when a foul never happened can be eliminated overnight by giving referees a GLOVE and marching orders to lend a helping hand up off the ground to every cleated Shakespearean performer.

A special baseball GLOVE — MITT: Mighty Irritating Timing Tool (trademark pending) — will put an end to extended replay challenges. With electrified MITTs, a baserunner’s twitching body will make it obvious the precise instant he is tagged. Or, no twitch: “Safe!”

The GLOVE will be ideal for restaurant waitstaff when a drunk (or sober) patron gets out of hand or overly flirtatious with a touching hand. Recommended voltage: 15 to 20 percent. As for annoying customers who order a steak cooked rare and then complain because it is pink inside, servers can simply dial up the GLOVE’s intensity, place three fingers on the beef and zap it to “well done” right at the table.

Constituents at town hall meetings will be allowed to “take the gloves off” by putting GLOVEs on to shake hands with any elected official who dodges their questions or flat-out lies.

Walkers and runners will certainly love the GLOVE. When an off-leash dog rushes at them, an electrified hand can safely defuse the situation — not by “petting” the unleashed dog into submission, for the animal is not to blame; rather, by zapping the irresponsible dog owner for not controlling their pet.

Ditto, except with the voltage set to “medium well,” for any dog owner who fails to pick up after Fido does his business.

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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

Woody’s new novel “The Butterfly Tree” is now available in paperback and eBook at Amazon (click here), other online bookstores, and is orderable at all bookshops.

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Woody writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @woodywoodburn.

Small Voices, Big Performance

by Woody

The first concert I ever attended, in my teens half a century ago to see Fleetwood Mac at the height of their superstardom in an outdoor stadium in Southern California, remains perhaps my most memorable — but not because it was a fantastic show.

Rather, it was unforgettable because they did not put on a show at all thanks to a windy landslide-powerful storm that blew in shortly before the band was to take the stage, forcing a literal rain-check cancelation.

Another concert, a few years later, also remains unforgettable — also for an unfortunate reason. Held inside Inglewood’s Fabulous Forum, safe from an unfabulous rainout, my buddies and I arrived very early and decided to stay in our car in the parking lot and listen to the album “Tommy” instead of going in to see the who-are-they band that was opening for The Who.

We timed things perfectly and found our seats during The Who’s opening song.

Or so we thought.

After the electrifying concert ended, including a handful of encores, Keven, George and I grumbled our surprise and disappointment that they hadn’t played “Baba O’Riley — to which a fan next to us told we three tardy idiots, “They opened with it and it was amazing!”

Vowing “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” I have been fortunate to see some other memorable concerts, all without missing the opening song, including Paul McCartney, James Taylor a few times, Tom Petty, and, yes, Fleetwood Mac under a roof, to name a fab four of my favorites.

Big names are wonderful, but to my concert honor roll I added a new performance last weekend by the small attendees of the annual Crescendo Summer Music Camp. Their hour-long songfest, held in the Camarillo United Methodist Church, was nothing short of magical.

Magical does not mean flawless, for herding two dozen kindergarteners and first-graders onstage and into proper alignment is bound to have a lost sheep or two, so to speak, that needs a shepherd to guide it home.

Expectedly, not every note was sung in key, nor every dance step executed in sync — or even executed at all. Too, the sixth- and seventh-grade handbells symphony, under the expert direction of camp co-director Kristi VanKeersbilck, occasionally rang notes a fraction early, or late — but every note was struck with visible joy on the bellringers’ faces.

And that was the real magic of the concert — the joy on the faces of the 98 young performers and their eight music teachers’ countenances as well. Joy being highly contagious, the packed pews were also filled with the sunbeam smiles of siblings, parents, and grandparents, including my wife and me to watch our 7-year-old granddaughter Maya sing “I Am a Pizza” with laughter in her eyes and “You Are My Sunshine” with welling moisture in ours.

Another highlight was “Do Re Mi” sung by second- and third-graders, their rendition rivaling the Trapp children’s in my opinion.

Similarly, “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” was a roaring success and Prince’s “1999” was royally good; Michael Jackson, Justin Bieber, and Earth Wind and Fire songs were also well worthy of applause.

But my favorite performance, most assuredly, was the finale. Under the guidance of co-camp director Connie Halpern (belovedly know as “Mrs. Fig,” who used to own The Bookworm bookstore in Camarillo), the Crescendo Campers took the stage en masse, spilling into the wings on either side, and sang — and signed with their hands — “Heal the World.”

Unlike “Baba O’Riley,” I would not have missed it for the world.

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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

Woody’s new novel “The Butterfly Tree” is now available in paperback and eBook at Amazon (click here), other online bookstores, and is orderable at all bookshops.

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Woody writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @woodywoodburn.

Mourning Beloved Irish Musical Poet

by Woody

Irish poet-singer-songwriter Glen Hansard died last week, tragically and far too young at age 56, leaving behind a wife and three-year-old son. As evidenced by the viral outpouring of grief on social media, he also left behind more fans worldwide than he could have possibly known he had — including me.

My son first introduced me to Hansard’s indie-folk music 20 years ago, and my daughter and I had a truly masterpiece evening together at one of his concerts last October, as shared in this column from my archives…

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Sometimes, rare wonderful times, when everything seems to be going wrong it somehow all turns out wonderfully. Such was the case the other evening when a young child cried and technology pouted and traffic threw a tantrum – and serendipity just kept smiling over and again, and once more.

Ever since she was a toddler my daughter and I have gone on “Daddy Dates,” as she called them then, and still does, because to my great fortune she has not outgrown these special outings, just the two of us, even though she is now well into her thirties.

In one of my favorite photographs, Dallas, maybe 5 years old, wears a sunflower dress and holds a bouquet to match, and I am in a “tuxedo” which is what she called the sport coat she requested I wear. I, in turn, requested that when she was older if a boy did not open car doors and pull out her chair, she not give him another date.

Naturally, when she and I went to a concert in San Francisco’s Masonic Auditorium recently I opened doors and helped her into her seat because I do not want to be unworthy of future Daddy Dates.

This date almost ended before it even began because a tearful two-year-old did not want her mommy to leave. A delay that would surely make us late should have been frustrating, but instead it was actually a joy to watch my daughter soothe her own daughter with love and patience.

Heavy traffic, followed by a serpentine security line, then a brief snafu with our online tickets all conspired to make us miss the opening song. And yet, somehow, we made it to our seats literally five seconds before the house lights went down and the music rose up. It was as if serendipity winked and asked The Swell Season to wait specifically for us.

As for our seats, a birthday gift from my son, they were terrific: floor level, slightly left of the stage, and so close we could see Markéta Irglová’s fingers dancing – gently sometimes, other times frenetically and mesmerizingly, always seemingly perfectly – on the piano keys.

Similarly, the skill and passion of Glen Hansard strumming his acoustic guitar with speed and fury was a thrill to behold and explains the comet-shaped gash worn through its face just below the sound hole.

The Swell Season sang familiar old hits from the movie “Once” and new gems from their 2025 album “Forward,” but the highlight was the final encore, an acoustic rendition, sans microphones, with the ginger-and-grey-bearded Hansard magnetically leading 4,000 patrons in a goose-bumps beautiful sing-along of the classic American folk song “Passing Through” popularized long ago by Pete Seeger.

Joining in I was 11 again, transported back to elementary school when my beloved fifth-grade teacher Mr. Hawkins played guitar for sing-alongs.

Walking the city aimlessly after the concert, Dallas and I happened upon 608 Bush Street and serendipity smiled once more with a California Historical Society commemorative plaque noting that Robert Louis Stevenson, the great Scottish writer who penned “Treasure Island” and “Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” briefly lived and wrote here in 1879 and 1880.

Our Jekyll-and-Hyde evening continued on the drive home with freeway traffic wheezing along as congested as lungs with pneumonia. Yet this, too, proved to be a silver lining because it wonderfully extended our time together.

Naturally, I walked my date to her front door – but there was no need to apologize to her father for missing curfew.

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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

Woody’s new novel “The Butterfly Tree” is now available in paperback and eBook at Amazon (click here), other online bookstores, and is orderable at all bookshops.

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Woody writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @woodywoodburn.