horsi unchained

"thought you might find this interesting if you hadn't seen it already coinul. a sad state of affairs but what are you going to do, re-up?

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/121707A.shtml

as an aside, my beef with the horses next door and the pigs that owns them continues and judging from law enforcement's response there's nothing much i can do 'cept stamp my foot and hold my breath. can't squeeze water out of the shower tile as they say whoever they is. the crazy woman aint got a pot to piss in so it's kind of a rock and a hard place kind of a deal. everything points to owner responsibility to fence in horses from the standpoint of the law as presented in the book but enforcing that appears to be the bone d'contendaire de jour as there doesn't seem to be a challenge to the oftsaid "free range county" excuse for not doing anything that resembles work w/o the merit badges for busting a giant meth lab or something to make it worthwhile so nothing gets done until a pickup full of teenagers plow into a 2200 lb pregnant mare on the road in a dark curve on a saturday night and break something. then it's "the owner must have moved officer, haven't heard or seen anything over there for a month" story that makes it to tv after 3 of the kids are taken off life-support and die. i digress...
to me it would be prohibitively expensive to fence that property for stock in the first place and not worth the aggravation in the second place and further more if one don't know what the hell one's doing when it comes to livestock and tries to raise them by proxy then one should be shot for being stupid.
you know, you think, "move to the country and get away from it all", yeah get a little privacy, peace and quiet, the good will towards men routine kicks in and what happens, the stuff i'm trying to hide from follows me out here and squats next door like randy quaid in that silly ass christmas movie.
ooh this just in, the owner wants to meet me at the breaches in the fence so she can fix them. looks like it's going to be fence pliers at 3 paces in the morning.

...to be continued..."

but wait there's more, read on. if you must.

"shellsden@hotmail.com

Spoke to Shelly tonight. She said to call her (before 9 in the evening, email her, go see her this weekend and show her where along your fence line the horses are getting out. She will fix. If you know anybody that wants to buy the horses (the momma and her baby anyway), she is willing to sell them. Don't know the price. This is what she said. Above is her email.

I did tell her again, how upset we all were and about all the damage her horses have caused here and at your place. I also called and left another message for Tommy Cooper today. I will be calling him and leaving messages every single day I see these horses on our property from today forward. I also told Shelly I would have no problem getting him to come out and pick them up if we get them penned up again.

They were eating out of my feeders today and knocked several down and caused even more damage.

Don't know if this will do any good, but I tried. Chris is going to call her again when he gets home."

two more installments from the ongoing horse opera. mine to my lawyer friend and one from my sister n law to me. progress is slow out here and so it goes... uphill both ways in the snow barefoot.

a horse by any other color

i shot a horse in the yard last night. hit that mare so hard the projectile ricocheted into the side of the house thwack! made her colt jump mama mia what was that...
mare did the "omigod somebody shot me" routine and disappeared ass last into the dark. she's a dark horse. she's still out there tonight freezing mad.

this wristrocket is wicked bad.

i'll be waiting...

scopings the drape

meh
i'm so fucking tired of this shit. i like being retired and i don't want to go back to some job. for what? self-gratification? nah. still gonna die with or without. i quit smoking but i'm still gonna die. i quit drinking but i'm still gonna die. i drive safe, got married, eat well and i'm still dying yet. no matter what happens it's always the same. i'm still gonna die.
that's why i aint in no big fucking hurry to get in a big fucking hurry to get to nofuckingwhere faster than i already am because after all... so get off my fucking back about it already and i threw my back out two days ago anyway so fuck off.

but my point was the background noise that has migrated past the threshold of auditory awareness like the ambient sound of dallas on a wet night is now forcing itself into my sleep and disrupting my chi making me grumpy and setting a restlesstude of spirit adrift behind my eyes. i hate it. it's very negative and deliberate in it's force and i can only hope it away for to lean into it would be to invite blooding and troubles around the house which is so unworth it. other solution would be to move further out.

still, reading helps and cormac mccarthy is one of my favorite writers. been getting my mind around delillo for a while now. pynchon, barth, marquez and others. english the way it really works, the way it really is, the way it really paints. i actually bought the latest edition of War & Peace a week ago and there it sits eyeballing me from the shelf like a mad russian. never read it but it's there, waiting for me to tackle this new translation as i find more time to stretch my neurons. thousand+ page tomes don't scare me and i think the translation will be interesting reading.
the weight gain is bumming but with the new togs for the dogs, traversing trail heads is becoming more routine and getting easier. i'm only 20 pounds over since i quit smoking but i aint used to it so i gotta get balanced better. the doctor says eh, could be a lot worse. keep humping the trail.
but if i have to i will go back to work but only if i absolutely have to one way or another i'm going to avoid punching a clock again.

horse latitude (caution)

"hey Jack glad you called. My cell phone is in limbo around the house and it usually just chirps for voice mail but today due to weather and sun spots, it didn't so I got your call late during a brief respite from the aforementioned solar storm. ahem... and sitting logged on corrupts the land line as well. No DSL in the boonies. so solly. Don't bother calling my office phone, I retired. nanny nanny boo boo and it's my birthday phhttttt...After I emailed you I did a little looking around and found some fine print statutes talking about free-range la de da that applies more to the roast fowl and grilled rib-eye of today than the days of ass-busting yore but depending on the precinct (in Texas) and the county commissioners in place, the burden of the property owner to fence in or fence out livestock (in this case horses) is up to the locals and again in this case, is that right?, even the county commissioners and judge I spoke with don't know for sure which it is in this precinct so my options are to get up in front of these yahoos on the 10th and get their attention and possibly pursue a lawsuit against my neighbor for, if nothing else, having the wrong kind of wire strung at the wrong height between inadequate posts in general disrepair and for stomping around and putting 1900 lb. foot prints on my septic field while eating all the grass off it or busting a cap in the head of every horse (8, count 'em, 8) that walks around the corner of the house. The latter doesn't seem much like an option. A thought occurred to me though a lawyer could maybe send one of those "within an inch of your Chapter 11" type letters like willy peter at 300 meters to help things along know what I mean Colonel? I really don't want to go to court with anybody due to the fact I have better things to do but, never say never. I just don't know the details for running this down. Anyway, I'll give you a call. Been a long time Jack and I need a good laugh from the Naval Infantry. I'm just kidding jeez you jarheads are so sensitive. Semper Fi already."

another related document in this ongoing horse opera. my buddy jack and me grew up in the same schools and were always friends in spite of his academic kickass that got him through Annapolis, Harvard Law and a couple dozen years in the Marine Corps.
his irreverence towards his own excellence always impressed me. he called me back and left a message; anytime anywhere anyplace. yep can always count on the Marines.

idiocratical

""I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him." Mark Twain.

well today was one of those days where i set out to wreak maximum chaos and mayhem, inflict extreme prejudice in the execution of frontier justice as i see it and ended up with way more than i could have bought even if i could have afforded it. having gotten to the point of no return in my tolerance of stray horses i headed into lockhart to inquire about suing my idiot neighbor for damages her horses are causing. so i'm sitting there getting info from a clerk about speaking at a commissioner's court next month challenging some obscure law about caldwell county being a "free-range" county and whether my yard and septic field is considered free-range as well when in walks the judge hisself heading back to chambers from the men's room. after brief introductions all around, a 30 second spot pleading my case to the actual judge right there in the front office and giving my phone number to the clerk, the judge says he will speak to the animal control deputy about this free-range nonsense and takes his leave being the old cattleman himself and knowing a fucked up law when he smells one. so i'm standing there and the clerk says way to go and me, i'm out the door to lunch. damn i's good. no point in calling the minions for help, just go straight to the top i always say.now whether anything will happen in the next few weeks remains to be seen but i have rattled around the hall of justice and pulled the string of a judge w/o the benefit of an appointment before his bench or the accompaniment of an armed guard. i walk with angels and bad dogs. do not piss off the wrong guy. some people should learn these things. i am the wrong guy.
as usual."

I wrote the above Thursday afternoon in an email to an old friend after I got home and it sums up my general attitude this year towards irresponsible assholes that fuck with me but Mr. Clemens said it best and so i'll leave it at that.

galloping idiocracy

Well shitfire, I'm back. Been away for a month getting the new roof done and chasing the fucking neighbor's horses around my property and not getting anywhere with the sheriff's department probably going to have to submit everything in writing and hire a lawyer to sue a person who has no money. What are the percentages in that I ask ya. Dammit.
Retirement is agreeing with me but the neighbor is pissing me off and generally making herself very unliked around here not that it makes a bit of difference. Sometimes I just want to throw a burning bag of shit at her house. All of this makes me very tired.
I think I will take a nap...

shiney side up

Hooha day 2 of a re-roofing job on the domicile man this is a good thing. Double-lock standing seam 24 gauge metal roof would float if turned upside down. Front porch roof re-built, rain harvesting system incorporated to keep the plants happy with natural water crew of 3 working hard and fast like they know what they're doing. No rain in the forecast sky clear and @ high 70's manomanomano...

paper or plastic?

...and to think I almost forgot what today is. Why it's the one month anniversary of my retirement...that much ballyhooed event that launched me off the books.

lancing a blister in the dark

It's just simply amazing to me that anybody thinks the way they do. I mean really. "What the fuck?" you may ask and I would tell you in great detail if I knew the answers to that and other burning questions but I don't and I can only speculate and cringe and rage at the Stupids with their little Pinheads. I don't have any idea what it is I'm talking about and I'm trying to keep it that way but one thing is for sure, killing for peace is like fucking for virginity. They are both mutually exclusive and the cost of this adventure we are currently engaged in has already been discussed in far greater circles than the average browser will discuss here and nobody is sacrificing for the effort except the families of the dead now rotting and all they can do is weep so let's keep it that way.
There was no threat. There is no plot to invade America. There was only Katrina and her sister Rita and the boys over in the Corps of Engineers whose funding was cut off because there aint no percentages in the weather and George. Poor inarticulate George. Explosions and their body counts are far more predictable so lets practice elsewhere shall we?
Heat and auditory weapons that could be deployed and end the fighting overnight are kept back because why? Because it puts too much policy out of a job. Warfare is human nature as is profiteering from the vast expanse of destruction.

the old mousefart on a cotton ball trick

... so as i was sayin' yeah yeah i'll get used to this aural trespassing and carry on like i own de' place right, know what i'm sayin? just like livin under the Union Pacific trestle next to I-10 holmz no biggie right? get used to it. but...... i mean i still protest it aint what i signed on for says right here and it's a pisser know what i mean? and it aint asking too much to ask you to please shut the fuck up but what the hell you gonna do about it anyway? i ask ya. it's just a fucking pisser and that's just the way it fucking is anymore. fucking pisser...
shit! whaacher gonna do...

...but living out here immaculate in East Jesus de Cortez By the Bay has it's moments that eventually add up to it's worth all this for all that as long as all that don't kill us and more. but then it wouldn't matter anyway would it seeins how we'd be all dead 'n all so it must be worth it for the moment anyway right? that's all i'm sayin's all.

forest for the tree

So I'm sitting here thinking, man we bought this place, this little 10 acre slice of paradise 21 years ago and blew the doors off the pumpkins, glowed in the dark, laid down the law and broke it and generally hurt our 2 brain cells for years until the public started encroaching and we downsized our appreciation for Nature's Bounty so as not to embarrass ourselves and besides all that, we were getting older and wiser and it was time to slow down anyway and we wanted to not offend anybody. Well, why is it nobody else respects their neighbors and let's their animals and children careen out of control without a thought to the consequences? I am feeling cramped and crowded and aurally trespassed upon and there's nothing I can do about it except move but with all the blood sweat and tears that I poured into this place, I cannot and now I'm trapped in my own device. This wasn't how retirement was supposed to play out.
But in spite of all that...

The Gospel according to Moondog

...perchance to dream a Dream of a Thousand Castles in the Bold Aire, each with a Thousand Windows, opened by unseen hands and illuminating Satan's Wretched Creatures of the Dawn sprawled across the lawn spawned in Pathos and doomed to loathsome bedevilment Begone begone thy foul and wretched excess, thy wanton and vile excrement is upon thine heart, why doth thou torment so?

...make fast thyself to the Wings of Light and cast away thy Earthly bonds, to soar upon the Solar Breeze, breathless and coy...

...we are Prisoners of our own Design, reigning over a desolate landscape of broken Dreams and pitiful Aspirations. We plunder our childhood and awaken at Death's Door wondering of the Child we were and beholding a frail and gaunt form that can no longer see the Innocence and Beauty. It is but a short journey from the forceps to the stone, fraught with Horror and unspeakable Terror. Why then must we be left to such impotent devices floundering like carp?

...ah yes, to slumber and dream the Dream of the Dead. To awaken renewed, at one with the ties that bind as The Heart is to the Hunter, home from the hill home from the sea...

...so verily I say unto thee Grasshopper, so thy may know and see thy Path. Go forth into the Sweet Night and tread softly upon it's still waters. Open thine eyes and thy will see what thy need is all around thee and what thy want thy cannot have. If thy sow Ice, thy shall harvest Wind. Strive to shed thy Morbid Concerns and thy will find thyself Righteous and Wholesome.

Verily...

painted in place

it's done. the 28th has come and gone. i am outa work. by choice. to keep from going crazy. preventing a meltdown. retired.

are you fucking crazy quitting yer job at 56 after only 20 years doing the same fucking thing day after day all day long day in day out? oh exceedingly so yes but of course.

to keep from going crazy being the key operative. and to the question mostly no. trouble being the smartest moron in the room is being in the room.

feverish forward... always forward feverish

Yeps it's coming. 12 days to gusto and waiting hard like a midnight watch in the rain. Oh yeah man a birthday's full enrichment, freedomed and spiced like alrighty now. The hunch paying off and oh big time, gonna miss that bloodbath thank intuitive plumbing's reaches.

What kills me is the "in the long run" theory of perpetually insured against the day because in the long run, in a dustless cold wind or dimly lit vacuum and twisting quite putrid dead, we're all gonna be heaving those holy clappers of hell's bells themselves just to stay warm in our recollections insured perpetually or not. To trans-counter blithely away, consider the 'ppfff' of certainty as required.

Moving on moving on, on to the foggy found be bound. O' to the buckled knuckled helli delight, bringing sweet winging light for the light.

is no big deal...

The paper work is signed, witnessed, notarized and acknowledged by the monoliths. The boss informed and the countdown in progress. I am retiring in September. The daily grind is smoother and I feel less stress than I have ever felt in my working career. My humor has returned. They tell me I'm smiling more.
I quit smoking 3 months ago and feel like a different person. After 40 years I should think so. Coupled with alcohol cessation 14 months ago and now my pending retirement, I'm on the cusp. It's scary proceeding into middle age now with a certain anxiety about the future but somehow I'm not as apprehensive as I thought I'd be. This is what I been working for half my life so I'm taking my old position of letting the future take care of itself now. It got me through the folly of my youth but these days I got better plans see. I'm smarter. Going on 57 is about where I would like to start slowing down and reconsider the scenery while there's still time. Eliminating 3 major stressors and taking more naps will help with that transition to a sharper focus.

The moms is growing ever more dotty in her old age and other than dropping in on her now and then, there's no more I can do for her. She's taken care of. Major Operation that one but it was done right. Soon, and I say soon rather than later, more hard decisions are going to be made and the fight begins anew until she slips away, robbed of her senses. It's a hard thing to watch.

So here I am trying to downplay this retirement thing at work because it's only been a 20 year run and not all together that much fun and not like some of these guys that stick around 35 years or more and me I just want to fade and I don't think I'm getting out of there without notice because everybody wants to remind me and I told 'em no fanfare but after working there for so long I know the drill.

lamentation

The future is lurking and I see it spying on me, whispering "now what?" through the salt fog and crusty moon spits before me.

Have you what it takes to forge on without the net it wonders, wonders in my mind at night when the jazz is slow and low as the light.

I see the future bending and shaping under the graceful gaze of the past, undulating, modulating hungry, waiting and fast.

bad hat, Harry

I done good.
I'm retiring from my job in a couple of months. The wife knows now. I broke it to her. She didn't flinch. I have good reason to feel all full of myself and relax and banish the dread to a place in the past and move forward into a new phase of life. I can congratulate myself for not falling victim to institutionalization as some of my long time co-workers have done past their point of diminishing returns only to be even more miserable than me.
Living the dream now.

rebirth

A new era is beginning and I feel that "ants in the pants" I used to get before going to the swimming pool as a kid. I have announced my intentions at my job and I have 2 and a half months left to dwell on a 21 year history of working in the same place every day in the same miserable cube on the same miserable bouncing, overloaded and dusty second floor of the same miserable 2nd rate office building downtown for the same miserable government entity every fucking miserable day. I'm free to pursue other avenues. I'm free from a job I've learned to walk away from without looking back. I'm free at last.

picking and dreaming

Man these health kicks are killing me. Besides abandoning alcohol and it's evil destruction, I have ceased inhaling hot poisonous gas. Will I live longer as a result of these life shattering changes? Probably not and who would want to in this fucked up world? The days are brighter however and the soul's daily forays are less despondent so on the bright side, it feels like living longer whether it is or not. So I must be doing something right. I guess I must be squeezing more sensation into the moment now that I'm no longer numb to the moment. That's a good thing since the oppression of the Cube World is a major counter point to my supposed well being and thus keeping my balance in a flux most of the time not to mention my poor sainted mother's affliction that bleeds my tolerance dry. All I can do is nod knowingly and await the next crisis to rear it's ugly head.

what would Bob do?

Today has been a banner kind of a day. I communicated with a soldier I know whose in combat, brought a smile to his face and a civilian friend in the same part of the world, making him smile. After scolding another old friend in Texas about his drunkenness, he wrote me that he is going to get sober. Saw the error in his wicked ways and wants to change. That made me smile. Three other people's lives I touched today and for the better. My karma, or dharma, I get 'em mixed up, is running hot. If I can keep this up maybe I can save the world from itself. Not likely but if my affection for this mess continues I may have a chance to save myself. It's true what they say; you get out of it what you put into it.

And after a certain amount of anxiety for the last few months, I located my wife's birth certificate, my birth certificate, my DD214 from the Navy and both of our Social Security cards. All of which I needed to proceed with retirement paper work. Getting ants in the pants now.

room with a view

I have seen the damage and I have learned my lessons. My heroics are paying their way now through this sleight of hand we call mass culture. I can talk about it with humor and grace and sympathy and I understand the need and desire and willingness to let go and immerse in the stream of numbing chemical reactions that produce the hilarity and exhilaration before dumping the rider back into the rutted gallery of abuse and depressive twitch and numbing grief. A curious thing being surrounded by those that still require escape from bedevilment that really never goes away that control and send into scalding repetitions of self-destructive narratives of the soul, the cycles that can only be broken by shear system failure or by the inner strength found under the ice in 20 feet of water reaching for a life line as the air runs out. I find strength in the presence of broken spirits and my urge is to heal. If only they had ears to hear above the din of intoxication.

My visitor last night is an old friend and co-conspirator. We have reconstructed the world many times over through the years. It was a sad spectacle watching him hover in drunkenness over the deep hole in his soul. A bottle of rum does many things to a broken heart. One thing it won't do is fix it. It never will nor has been known to fix a fucking thing. Telling a foaming drunk that his life is fucked for good unless he unfuck it while still able is a perfect example of bleak futility. It takes courage. It takes a faith to change. Not a faith in something higher, for that just means resigning one's responsibilities to a third party but a faith in yourself. I could not give my self up to chance now. I survive on purpose through my own free will. My old visitor last night will wallow with his demons in the ruins he has made of his life by choices he made under the spell of alcohol. I have lost friends in the past to this rat shit and I seem to be losing another. The sad thing is he knows better but allows it to engulf and smother and seduce and kill him softly.

casting an orb about

Trickling along babbling like a brook important things in the air like a watermelon thump and 4x4's in the mud. Antibiotics need not apply. Beyond medicinal aid this perception of wilderness as therapy. Visitor from the metro tombs due to arrive with reams of research into lifestyle your mother warned you about. Sad baggage review over midnight oil pending. Meanwhile forest vibrating and glistening and alive as usual. Menacing weather moving elsewhere to wreak havoc on some other's day. Not mine today. Today is teeming and with Italian on the menu.

Others not so lucky: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/061607A.shtml

The fix is in and the funeral plans should be laid by now. The families should try to face the reality of the situation and begin the healing. Fathers should not have to bury their sons. It should be the other way around in a perfect world. Why do we fight I ask myself every day I breathe and wonder at the stupid affliction know as Belief and Faith among the pious as if the degree of faith will edge you over the next guy in line. I think not.

it's in the light

... done. I finished Pynchon's portfolio. I had to. What a genius that guy just wore me out giving me the weirdest dreams keeping me up nights absorbed in another world. Few writers can transport me out of the mundane like this fucking maniac. What a flight.
I should add that re-reading "Against the Day", his latest, precluded any further exploration of other authors. Everything went on hold until I was sure. I think this will be a hard act to follow.

background wave lengths

gaahh...

Fortunes of war took it's toll and all but now I remain as ever.

Trusty confuser went down in flames like a faithful Spad. Between antibiotics and corrupted code I have been otherwise sitting on an event horizon. Disconnected from the web is a home based reality show. Have to reach back and find what I did before e-life in this modern world. Not surprising the more traditional activity prevailed; things like reading books and going to bed early. Almost finished with the second reading of AtD like a I threatened to do a while back. It's a real jewel. Being sick and then offline for a few weeks allowed some overall down time and a new set of long wind chimes humming along out in the yard. I want to get a variety of large chimes to hang around. Plenty of trees. A brasso profundo chime would be cool on a gentle day. Nice to read by.

I must be feeling better although the day job keeps me dumbed down. The wheel is grinding down though, I can feel it, the timing when it's right. I hear the scrape down slope and I hope the segue be seamless as if retiring into a new activity could be. Next stop, middle age plumbing supplies, watch yer step.

At least I hope to get out of there alive and upright. There's still time on the clock to play this out in my second childhood, get a new puppy to raise. Sunny is a frame of mind. Time I got a little practice in with the Future just around the corner.

ah... Pynchon

Lo these past five months I have been on a quest albeit a personal one but no doubt as noble as any I have attended. Sobriety brings a certain clarity to the room as I have discovered. Back in November I gave myself a birthday present. I felt like I deserved to be rewarded for my keen sense of humor and sense of the absurd. Besides I was bored with military techno-thrillers, spy games and sea stories. I had not read serious literary work since college and that was some time ago, tried to read "Gravity's Rainbow" in the 70's but dozed off somewhere over London and never finished it.

So the years went by and I forgot about the guy, this Thomas Pynchon weird writer guy. An alert friend noted in an email to me that his new novel "Against the Day" was just released in case I was, you know, interested. BOING!

The next morning I called the local retail outlet and reserved a copy. "Yes, I'll pick it up today during lunch break" I promised breathlessly feeling like a kid at Christmas. It was November 30th. I finished that delicious novel by New Year's and found myself wanting more. From there I read every one of his books ("Slow Learner" is still waiting) and haunted websites and wiki's trying to read all I could find like I was dying of thirst here. I finished "Crying of Lot 49" just a week ago.

In between deliveries from Amazon I also perused some of the others (Delillo, McCarthy, Amis, Wallace, Barth etc.) while waiting. I still gravitate back to Pynchon. I can't explain it or his writing or my utter marvel at his chops.

When I get through with these others on my pile, it's getting shorter, I intend to reread "Against the Day" with more otium cum dignitate. It will be a scholarly appeasement of the muse and I'll be in a slow soak mode. I smell a Nobel Prize lingering somewhere.

D. F. Wallace almost turned me against post-modern fiction but I prevailed and deep-sixed his smart-ass. He will never be as much fun I don't care what they say.

When I read I don't like to multi-task and work several books at a time. So first things first. One more Delillo and half an Amis to go. Then I will single up all lines and get the hell outa here...

white hot wire

Today was one of those days. Ya know, one of those days. One of those days when you wake up in the morning ears ringing, numb at the prospects of sharing pale watery sunrise with the traffic crawling like seekers to the mountain and it's wizened old guy at the top that tells you every time "go back and start over, you don't know yet" and sadly we trudge and trudge into the din doing what we have to do so we can eat and drink and play and laugh and cry and yell at the sky and pretend we have some semblance of a life away from the wizened old man on the mountain telling us every time what we don't want to hear again like a voice in our heads.

The day was a relief however as is the night and every night and every day and every solution proffered is a relief because like pain it reminds you that you're still alive with nerve endings spreading like tendrils gathering the bombardments of relentless provocation, shaping into projectiles to launch back and splash like protoplasmic calculations to make the muses cry and curse and agree it's all an endless parade stretching in time from one mist to the next.

...static discharge running up and down pegging meters fluxing singing the currents and always crisping the contrasts sharper in cold bare light...

hot iron and dust

Here we go again. Sunday on the Shores of Anticipation. Time away from the grinding stone is slipping by like the proverbial hourglass. A week off is never long enough to re-acclimate. At least the rain stopped long enough to mow and talk with the creatures that inhabit the grounds. Just the usual tip o' the hat in a jovial sort of way. The copperheads stayed hidden as well they should. Colonel Colt was riding shotgun with me on patrol today and was positively vibrating at the possibility of shredding reptiles. No such luck today Colonel, maybe next time.

The clouds are diving in again like Stutkas dropping pellets of rain and banking away to refuel. Another day in the bunker... The Evil One is lurking in Kansas far to the north.

some bread and a circus

May Day.

All good oppressed workers unite! That time of year again for the teeming millions to march demanding better pay, health care, etc. WE WANT MORE STUFF! (hint: Stop having so many babies.)

Do they think that the leaders really give a shit? Do they really think the Power Elite is going to share? Ah but everybody loves a parade right? Make their voices heard! Let's roll people. Yo!

Sadly the working class is always going to be in the hapless position of neediness. Law of the jungle my dear. Of course if free education was a reality then we'd all be rich and no menial tasks would get done because there wouldn't be any undereducated around to do the work. Ever mowed the grass in Gucci's? I didn't think so. Of course a pair of Gucci's does not an education indicate. More of a status totem that says "I got more than you." More what? Money? Hope you choke on it.

Human culture has always been a pecking order. Just like (gasp) the animal kingdom except we're just a bunch of stink-footed bi-pedals in the minority that fuck for fun while other people pay money to watch.

Why are these immigrants coming into this country? Don't they know there aint no money in America? Nasty rumor I heard. Oh sure there's minimum wages for those of you who are called to a life of servitude to the Junior League with a swarm of brats at lunch time. A lot of roofs in that new subdivision you can't afford to live in to build. Whose going to dig all those sewer lines anyway? More power to you people. Lemme get outa your way.

Mandatory community service at age 18 for all citizens. Combat arms? No problem. The Marines are always looking for a Few Good Men. Be an Army of One. Accelerate Your Life. Aim High. GI Bill for continuing education. No? No military service because of moral issues? Well then, step right up. Darfur needs you. The starving refugees need you. New Orleans needs you. Get off your fat collective asses you selfish bastards and help somebody instead of whining for more tit.

stress in the rear view mirror

Things are looking up... man, vacation week is looming and it's time to take a well needed rest doing whatever comes to mind and off schedule. Starting in 24 hours we will be 80 miles away immersed in fun and frolic with old friends who are crazy enough now to farm the kids out to Grandma for a few days and let the dogs loose. Adults only acting out suppressed energy in the sun, sharing food and games just being ourselves for once without any serious responsibility oh the highway humming on the road back home in no hurry for a change.

born out of grief

The kids are alright. Yep. I can see it. Feel it. Life goes on and smiles are returning to the cell phones and a generally springyer step across the way captivates. Lo the wariness tempered with determined fire is penetrating and sharing a communion of like spirits and there is hope breaking out all over after all. The concept of random death at inappropriate intervals just got hammered home. That future looks pretty important now that now is here.

Good morning children. And how was our little nap? Oooh, cover mouths when we yawn. There, there that's good. Okay, now today our lesson is "The Art of Living" by a well-known author that you are all familiar with; B. T. Love a.k.a. yourself. Please open to Chapter One.
Remember my little darlings that there are no problems, only opportunities. No need to nod curtly back to a passing nod but rather return it with a clear steady gaze, one of knowledge and wisdom forged from despair, horror and the keeping in mind precious lambs it can be far, far worse.

Now then, let's begin anew shall we?

faith in a can

And I was sitting here taking in this not so glorious day thanking my lucky charms it was Saturday watching a deer in the yard when I stumbled upon a Test of Faith in the on-line edition of the local right-wing rag. Having come from a church going family whose head of the household was also the head of over a dozen parishes in my hometown, Bible studies were sort of expected of me whether I liked it or not. Mostly not. I was force-fed the New Testament, Western Civilization, cathedrals built to the glory of God on High out the WingWang, how to swear like a sailor before I was 18 and other hubris that somebody thought I couldn't live without. My dad was a multi-talented old sop with a yen for gin and communion wine on Sundays. Mom was a chirpster in the choir who wielded a leather belt with the best of them on Saturdays. The old man on the other hand cleared the air with a glance. The following link is to a vanilla extract quiz that asks nothing outside the bounds of daily headlines.

http://www.statesman.com/life/content/life/interactive_sm/04/042107_faithquiz.html

If you think Joan of Arc married Noah Ark and they had a son Bois D'Arc who later moved to the south of France and became the Architect for the Arc de Triomphe, you need to call me for some clarification... hark.

I might add here that after I took this so-called test of faith (missed 4 out of 10 because they were trick questions) I was informed by the author that there is more to it than praying for the Longhorns to win. Whaa, wait a minute, this is bullshit what's college sports got to do with it anyway?

lost at sea...

Yeah, the world is still a mean-ass bitch, brimming with resentment, still looming without remorse to beat you down at the top of your game. The light and passion extinguished under a hoard of senseless and random acts of violent nature, the warnings ignored, never saw it coming. Look up one morning bright and cheery into the path of a bullet before your coffee gets cold just days away from a new life all full of promise. There is no reason, the motive now dead.

Another shred of innocence died within me as did those bright and vibrant minds in Virginia. The children caught in the vortex of insanity, lives cut short...
The warnings were all there.
Are we to become tattle-tales to maintain civility? Are the terrorists coming out of the backyard home grown and bitter? Should we watch each other for danger signs?

http://www.statesman.com/news/content/shared-gen/ap/National/University_Bomb_Threat.html
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/04/18/18stedwards.html

The outpouring of support for one another in the student body of that campus reminds me of another generation before them, mine. Seemingly self-centered this generation, they truly love one another and maybe a new foundation of trust can come from this tragedy. I hope there is a lesson here somewhere, the days are short and there's much to see.

I looked at the students at UT Austin today and remembered a shooting on that campus when I was younger. My heart went out to them. I remembered the hopelessness and waste. Today, 24 hours after their world changed forever, I look upon these bright young minds now with compassion and wish them well. I'm confident they will emerge even stronger from this horror and more determined to make their world a little better than the mean-ass bitch that was handed them and hopefully, God help 'em, they will start looking both ways before crossing the street while they still can.

The young people that died this week are gone. They are lost but they will live on in the reactions of their colleagues and their families so that their deaths will not be in vain.

whose life is it anyway?

There is a local woman in the news lately. She has a terminally ill 17 month old child. He has Leigh's Disease, a neurometabolic disorder that causes the central nervous system to collapse. The boy is blind, deaf and on a respirator. Has been for weeks. An MRI indicates his brain is as close to dead as dead can be. The medical staff wants to let him die with dignity. His unmarried mother wants to prolong his suffering because to do otherwise would be akin to murder. She can no longer conceive because of complications during child birth. May be a good thing to keep her out of the gene pool anyway. Where is the father of this child in all of this? Prison? On the run?

http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/04/15/15emilio.html

http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/04/15/15bioethics.html

In my opinion, this woman is not only selfish but stupid. This is not a baby doll like the one she had when she was a little girl. There are hundreds if not thousands of children alive and well who need adopting in order to have a normal, loving upbringing. But no, she wants this child. A child that will never know life in the sunshine of childhood. Never grow up to love and enjoy his time amongst the living. He is broken and cannot be fixed and his mother is killing him softly.

Let this infant have peace and while your at it you stupid woman, get a life of your own and stop abusing the staff and this infant with your immaturity. It is not murder to let Emilio go.

It's shit like this that jacks up medical costs for everybody and causes undue stress on those who are trying to do the right thing. Not to mention my blood pressure. I have zero tolerance for the stupid.

highway love

Love. Ya gotta love it. My faithful truck went into surgery today for suspension work. We made love all the way home. We were One with the road. Every delicious curve rose up to greet us with a caress and a sigh. We were an item without an audience.

and your point is...

Okay so what's this anyway me wonders. I mean who really cares about some guy posting personal observations and ruminations, canting along about foibles found in and around about. Politics? Romance? Technology? Naahh. Who cares? I think the Blog has become a cultural icon. More like the cordless landline of yore and maybe not. I hesitate to compare it to the CB radio craze in the pre-cell phone age. But money and endorsements have generated a niche market for less than profound writing in some blog realms. I know I'm wrong somewhat about that but who wants to read the minutia of some other bloke's life anyway? What else is new? Maybe I'll find out. I don't want to look like one of those people who have to see themselves in print. Unless I do. If I wanted that I would write to newspaper editors everyday and include the latest pic. I'm the other somebody living along at a slow gallop sending back dispatches from the frontier. My observations from the daily breath. My postcards from the edge. I can't talk to myself and expect a return unless I'm just crazy after all and that takes practice. So hither I go.

In writing this blog I set out to find an interesting seat in the bleachers and focus on the inter-relationships my brain chemistry has with the oxygen 2 rich world just outside the calcium barrier. Within a hydrogen 2 + oxygen 1 rich environment the relationship is even more primordial but that's another story.

With that in mind, my musings bear no more resemblance to full contact journalistic bombast than I do but dishing them out to a soup line keeps them going like pilgrims.

One way to bring these minglings along is to inject a convulsive reactionary stimulus into the core transmission thus causing a polar conduction and discharge of excited molecules. By doing so, the influx of oxygen 2 into the organism heightens universal arousal of the senses and improves overall performance at rest, provides clarity where there was none and reduces arguments with the wallpaper. (sorry Oscar)

So here it is, 6 weeks into the back country of post-literary obfuscation without a pot to piss in. I could do a lot worse.

I got yer fundamentalism...

The following link goes to an essay in the Guardian from Martin Amis. He pretty much sums up what I've been thinking all along about all Fundamental Religionism wherever it hides. What a bunch a sore heads.
I will confess here however that some of my best friends are Vegetarians.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,1868732,00.html

Obsessed with dying to meet God and live in splendor forever is a concept that's been around since dirt but is a not an all together healthy point of view in my estimation. Are they so bored and lonely they have to take everybody else with them for company? I think it's pathological, an organic disorder teetering into homicidal psychosis. Salvation through intimidation and murder is abhorrent behavior and blaming the West for the world's ills is a congenital defect of mind and symptomatic of developmental immaturity of culture and remission of civilization. One does not kill for God. Suicide is killing God you eediot.

a bunny day

Easter. A good day to hang. It's cold and wet and pretty much miserable enough outside to match my mood inside. Poised here on the brink, time to gird my loins again so to speak for combat in the early morning mist of Monday. Back to the mill house of pointless endeavour we call working for a living. It aint fun this constant push-pull making money to pay the government so they can waste it blowing up deserts somewhere killing things that never met me coming or going. The fucking bastards. Quit complaining already.

They let those British sailors go home. Ha ha just kidding we weren't going to hurt you just you know teach your boss a lesson about diplomacy yeah that's all. No big deal. Go home, kiss the baby hug your mother. All is forgiven. Meanwhile, dark steel hulls of instant death gather in the shallows locking in co-ordinates for their little birdies to fly to just in you know, case they try that shit again, we'll just blow 'em the hell up. Yep. And so it goes. The thuggery continues unabated while God snoozes somewhere and the lost Easter eggs rot in the rain. The priests and rabbis are working overtime expressing their brand of calmness. What do we need to do? Forgive ourselves and move on? Why yes indeed. If you love yourself then everything else sort of falls into place. Right? I guess. Whatever. Quit complaining already.

I went to see my father the other day. He's still reclining there on his back looking up past the sky dreaming. Says he's doing alright considering. I picked up the litter around him deposited by the other less than considerate breezes among us. The grass is of course in it's seasonal brown cloak but the riding mower's tracks indicate that somebody is at least getting paid to watch over it. I couldn't stay long and told him so. Thought about my mother. How she had become quite the pill now forgetting everything. How she longed to join him but I think he preferred to remain alone. No nagging that way. No more screaming suicidal threats or promises to move in under the Congress Ave. bridge just out of spite. She's mostly passive now I thought mostly over burdened.

Plenty of basking time with forever without interruption now boy. I think my father is bored though. He repeats himself. We had this conversation before and he understood my haste to leave. There was living to be done elsewhere and now see where it gets you. Besides I have to piss. Bye daddy...so long member of The Greatest Generation. Until the next time old man. ta...

So the day drags on. CNN spewing it's informational bile in a crawl across the room. Laundry appearing in piles to be folded and put away. Dinner defrosting on the counter. Shades of gray with a hint of green staring back at me through the windows hybrid Afro-Celtic music drifting in-between. Typical Sunday options however limited. Quit complaining already.

I look forward to a sunny day.

who ya gonna call?

I hear tell the Iranian Disposable High Command bestowed upon some maritime coasties the (gasp) Medal of Honor for capturing those cowardly Royal Navy and Marine personnel found loitering in rubber boats. Man, what a heroic struggle that must have been. What a diplomatic waltz of brinkmanship.
Had my man Hornblower been there, those smirking Persians would have been shark shit.

drenched in photons

What effulgence doth hover and I thought last Sunday was the day. Today I'm the windshield and light is the bug. The air is locked, refracting it's wares on my tools and beckoning like a Siren on a sparkling waterfront, winking and smiling re-arranging my past.

I'm ready to withdraw my synapses from the over-charged influences of metropolia and immerse myself in the bounty of muted organisms and dappled shadows. The weather extremes serve as a reminder of the timeless quality of life or Otherwise and the futility of over-involvement in the world's funereal mass for solitude is the source of all wisdom, that for which I strive as concentric ripples on a pond in my midnight might strive; a constant coming and going, the past and the future co-mingling and enabling companionably in measured rhythms and silent communion.

To breathe the Present, to know the Future, to predict the Past and Divine the structure, essence, the fiber of Being. To put language to the muse, to see the machinations as a world in it's own globe of swirling wonderment and know as a distant star cluster knows, that which we are we can become and we have a choice between gods and cannibals and the quick and the dead are one and the same.

a conversation

I visited with the Future last night actually this morning very early as the sky was convulsing and disgorging water and light and maxed-out bass line like a low rider at a stop light on the wrong side of town looking for souls to steal.

The Future offered up advice amidst the artillery and trotted out thoughtful cognoscenti from behind the veil of random illuminations, fleeting though they were but nevertheless compelling. Time that great equalizer, is easing on and there is no turning back.

I awoke in a reflected bath having said nothing in return.

only lumins

Ever have that feeling of seeing yourself coming around the corner at you walking away at the same time? I had one pass me by with a wave twice in as many seconds a minute ago pulling a Category 5 behind it for an hour the other day.
Saw my new photo ID swipe card for work this afternoon. Compared it to the current one, one that is about 15 years old. New one is about 3 months old. Just got it.
I recognized the shirt I was wearing and remembered when I bought it 15 years ago. I also saw what was in my eyes then and remembered why I bought that shirt. It was a long time ago when my house burned.
I recognized the shirt I was wearing 3 months ago. I also saw what is in my eyes now.
I seemed older in the older picture.

grinding the fires

Today is one of those days that lives right here between the books, between rain, between the loads of laundry, between cigarettes, between the getting my game on for Monday morning in the traffic infested thunderstorm, between arriving soaking wet to a cluttered desk full of ghosts from last week still unresolved, with issues that bore me and still just waiting and between me and my immersion in rural mindset that balances like a fine time piece, embraces with it's solitude and shields from a world cold and violent and between meals I languish here undisturbed between the days.

The air is squeaking sweetrinsed clean, it's rowdier zephyrs corralled bedded down for the night still stirring a leaf there and daylight's rheostat angling down, gravitationally challenged. TV off I resting. This the best of times of all if at all is being one of these days to relish because a little relish goes a long ways in these the best of times of all.

The depth of my resolve to finish an otherwise unremarkable career is increasing quickly. It's become a jumping from way high; no turning back. I can see the end and wonder what beginning I face as the future looms at high speed causing me Doppler effected shift excitations but the question still remaining though, is it doable can I both retire and remain too happy too at the same time in a redundant sorta way too (?)

The rhumb line

So I steer a loxodromic cut away from this setting phase of Now, pursued not by hellish hounds but by the very doubts that drive me into nocturnal lucubration, stretching within my grasp the evolutionary Expressionism lurking vestigial. The snide calculus has failed to predict this untrodden mud uprisen to beckon unto me the cerebral precision and gleeful stance with exactitude of rage for which I have full incubus. This is so. The anterior movement of mind is preponderant as time vacuums me closer to my lugubrious kismet. As such, a rising star will reign and I will allow the syntax of my days to cure.

bayonets

Somewhere a man, probably Uncle Babboo, promised Yasmeen and her brother Ahmed a sweet American fried pie in apple or cherry, their choice if they would ride with him on an errand in the old Toyota. Along the way they stopped and picked up Mo, a friend of Babboo's so he could help Babboo with a large package. It was a nice day, not too hot and promising a superb drive. The children were excited at the prospects of escaping their abusive unemployed father or at least he seemed unemployed but the explosions across town after which he would come home flush with pockets of gold coins seemed to indicate otherwise and their pathetic excuse for a mother who cowed under her veil in a dark corner her entire life unless of course their father wanted some and then she would produce another child to wander the streets several years later.
It was a glorious Praise God to be out in the fresh light of day kind of a day. The kids were happy. Uncle Babboo and Mo talked of grown up things the way grown ups do; in Code.
After much driving and jostling, promises of fried pies soon, Uncle Babboo finally stopped the car and he and his friend Mo got out and ran away. Yasmeen and Ahmed looked at each other the way curious siblings do and wondered. Someone was approaching and asking something. Yasmeen being the eldest, sat up in the backseat and tried to hear what this nice person was saying while whispering to Ahmed to be quiet.

The old Toyota started to expand, very slowly at first with a tearing sound the way sheet metal sounds when it tears very slowly before you can actually hear the tearing sound and a flash of light that was so slow that blinking several times fast would still not see it come and go and the drenching warmth that popped and snapped gave way to numbing cold and darkness and silence, compressing the puzzled yelps in a nanosecond. Then it stopped.

A slight breeze carries away the smoke, the plastique's primordial bark had reverberated back up the long narrow alleys to sleep at doorsteps of the living leaving the old Toyota behind now split open exposing it's charred contents in the middle of the street, the nice person sprawled nearby without a face.

"Everything's a matter of taste," said the Devil as he helped himself to another forkful of roast infant.

That's why they call it work.

I haven't had any fun all week crunching the aforementioned numbers. Paused awhile this afternoon to chat with a co-worker who was pursuing the same inane dead-end as I. He was worked into a lather. I suddenly didn't feel so put upon. "You too huh," I drawled his way. He had that look. "Why in the hell are we the only ones still making little ones outa big ones?" he hissed, referring to several others who were blithely going about their business doing something else. He rattled off a status report they had posted with the boss and could not understand how they could be finished already. I couldn't either for that matter. Hmmm, something afoot here. I thought about it and realized that with all this effort, we were actually doing what we were supposed to be doing; turning out a correct data base for this job. I looked at him and said "Well, look on the bright side, the boss wants this done right and we're making it right. That's why we're being subjected to this. Dingdong doesn't have the time to give it back to the perpetrators and we're It." He looked at me like I just strolled up out of the ocean bone-dry. Then he thanked me. For the next 15 minutes I kept him in stitches until he called it a day and went home then I found a stopping point myself about 30 minutes later and logged out recalling that briefly a little while ago several of us were just chuckling amongst ourselves easing up getting a little oxygen making ourselves feel better it was a good note to end on for a Tuesday...

Work, bah! I'm still not having any fun yet.

...sharpest string in the drawer.

I was crunching some numbers today, filling in a spreadsheet, running through a bunch of calculations that screamed at me for more typo's. They were hungry and not getting enough, making it too easy for me. Kept me constantly checking and rechecking my entries straining my eyes getting confused back tracking to recheck and forgetting where I was and starting over going "oh yeah" I already did that one and checking it off only to start on the next line and going through the routine again inverting numbers and backing and retyping over and over again.
I'm a line drawer, an illustrator, a colorist, a writer. I didn't sign on for bean counting. Oh yeah, technology has really developed this process. Yeah, just what geekdom wants. Numbers. Yeah, that's it. 4 of the last 26 years I have been pounded as a round peg into a square hole daily. I'm tired. I dunno. Maybe time to retire from the govt. job. They don't care anyway. I've watched most of my career go down the shitter when They decided They wanted me to do my job differently 4 years ago. Our product went away. It's now under construction. Younger employees are hired and they move on within a few months. The old hands are slowly retiring. Decades of experience are sliding out the door. Nobody cares. Politics has become more important than the product more important than the trench dwellers that work all day to make Them look good more important than a twinkling dew-laden pasture at sunrise, the mourning doves cooing.

I hate my job. Working in a cubicle in a filthy building with filthy air conditioning filters for people who only have their own asses in their best interest is driving me mad. So what else is new.

I figured this out all by myself.
Does that make me a pretty fart smeller or what?

Ode to a Warrior

I talked to my friend's widow today. She is not so sad now but her heart weighs heavy. Her husband of 31 years still bumps into things after the lights go out. He limped away from a head-on collision 2 years ago this month with only a broken kneecap. He was not at fault. He was victimized at random by a criminal. Their paths crossed in space/time.
I talked to my friend a week after the wreck and we laughed at his situation. He said he might get used to this being "waited on hand and foot" shit while he was recovering. He was in exceptionally high spirits. We were best friends. I never got mad at him. Maybe I should have.

He dropped out of high school in '68 and joined the Airborne. I thought he was nuts. He wanted to jump into some stinking jungle. He wanted something better than moping around the old hometown with nothing to do when there were serious guns to shoot and planes to fall out of. He wanted to fly. He wanted to wear camouflage and sneak around. I told him he was crazy and could get very killed.

He injured himself in jump school so the Army being the Army, made him Infantry and introduced him to his mistress; the M-60 machine gun. My friend was a large apparition. He wore a size 14 jungle boot. They called him Lurch and put him in recon so he still got to sneak around in camouflage. He spent the early morning hours of his 19th birthday hosing down a tree line from the skid of an inbound slick, having the time of his life.

I was with him the night before he left for Vietnam. I later joined the Navy to avoid going where my friend had gone but I ended up there anyway, killing by proxy from the deck of an aircraft carrier. My friend came home hardened, like a concrete bunker. He came home scarred and decorated for valor, introverted, but he came home.

We decompressed together over the years, rode motorcycles and fished unlikely spots, drank our share of beer. Then he got married and followed his dreams. We had been friends since the 8th grade. He would only talk to me about his combat. He said nobody outside of his unit would understand what he had gone through but he said I did. He talked of the noise, the smell of fresh blood and spilled brains, of smoke, the screaming, the taste of fear like an old car key, the ringing in his ears, of the urge to shit. There are men alive today because of him. I've met a couple. He was a man with heart, a man with courage and compassion, a true hero. I was humbled and honored to be his friend. We called each other Mel just for fun.

When I talked to him last, we laughed and made plans to get together during the coming summer. He and his wife were going to be in town and somewhere there were cold ones with our names on them.

The next day I talked to my friend's father-in-law long distance. My friend had thrown a clot and collapsed in a parking lot somewhere. The ambulance was late but they found him. They had to restrain him because he only wanted to go home. He was fine he said. The medics said otherwise and ran hot, lighting up the traffic.

He died a few hours later.

When I got off the phone to my friend's father-in-law, I wept like a child.

Sometimes, I still do.

He was my best friend. He was a warrior with a heart of gold.

78 years

Today is my mother's birthday. She probably doesn't remember. My father died in 2002. So did my mother. Her body still walks around, talks with others, eats, sleeps, pretends to read, pretends to know. Her mind however left on the last train out. She has become a child. The roles have reversed. The day before my father died, he told me to take care of her. I have done the best I can.
Watching my mother devolve has been very depressing. I have fought it. Depression was not going to take me. A revelation came to me but it wasn't free. I have lost some connections with certain family members. This is my life after all. I am sober now. I cannot reason with drunkenness either in myself or others. It is a sacrifice I'm willing to make.
I sent my mother roses for her birthday. I didn't talk to my brother. He's been drinking. I cannot reason with him. He lets my mother drink. Her meds say not to. She is clinically depressed. She is miserable. Today is her birthday.

tears for Allah

I apologize.

They aren't supposed to act this way; so much hate and rage.

No. The killing. Hearts and minds beaten into submission. Caked blood beneath the broken fingernails of History's sad progeny, all about the taking, always the taking. Never the giving, the tender mercy shown within the lamp of God.

No, just rot of death, of dreams left out too long, broken by violence. Only silence greets me now. No murmurs of concurrence, nothing ... A still water waiting to be plumbed.

They don't understand what they do. They are impoverished and will die alone. I will not miss them.

I apologize.

...oh the little darlings...

It recently came to my attention that the 20 somepin' generation, with their heads firmly entrenched within certain dark cavities, was thinking their joyful noise was the "True Path" to salvation and redemption, if indeed one considers text-messaging, streaming video, MP3 racket on a cell phone and garage bands from Hell as forms of "True Path" salvation and redemption. With the lack of a military draft to keep them up nights in cold sweat worrying about ballistics, trajectories, crushing pressure wave fluctuations, singing fragments of hot steel, smells from beyond the imagination and responsibilities away from the Peter Pan World of NeverEverEver Land, these offspring from parents younger than I just plain scare me sober. They need epiphany in their lives to reveal the talent, if there is any. They're the ones that need to be scared. The poor dears.

Now I say recently came to my attention but this has been going on a little longer than that. Since as far back as I can remember I've been paying attention not that you'd notice. I remember all too well the rolling of eyeballs and snorts of disgust when Mick and the boys first visited my father's house in the form of street wise poly-rhythms on the old Motorola. John and Paul followed and the pointed zippered boots had to be hidden and worn only when certain parental units were not present.

"Farfuckingout!" I gleamed, ensconced in dreams of being a rock and roll star just like on the radio instead of going to school and actually learning something useful.

But alas, I have aged well as the saying goes and my allotment of tolerance has grown exponentially, my taste in artistry improved to the point that the crabgrass growing out of the entertainment district, calling itself music and posing as profound is so much easier to ignore now. Soon enough SxSW will go away and all the refugees, the hawkers of "The Next Big Thing", the litterers and overhung will head out to the highway to wherever the hell they come from and I can relax in the traffic that's fucked up instead of the traffic that's really fucked up.

Okay, call me old-fashioned but you can call me long distance. If you have a complaint, please press 3 now...