Unlike the valiant soldier slain in battle...

…my untimely demise I fear, when it arrives, will be as I am ‘relaxing’ at cribbage with the computer, in sets of 100, and I’ve no doubt played 100,000 games of this antediluvian card game and after setting the computer to play its hardest against me with an aggressive optimal defense, we are fairly evenly matched. It – the computer which I have named Kalo Feelosmoo, Greek for 'my good friend', comes with chatter and bells and huzzahs and what-all paraphernalia to make it seem there’s someone here in reality but it is that very someone I DON’T want around with all the blather and drivel between deals etc and re-playing each card (with me nodding sagely in agreement with whatever was being said like I cared but really I wasn’t there and I wasn’t listening), whereas you can shut the program up by a toggle switch which I do and then it is silence reigning as the cards rain down…6, 8, A=15/2, 10, 25, 6= 31 for 2 and when I am whipped into submission by Kalo Feelosmoo(as opposed to sitting across from a humanoid which would be bad form and could get you hurt) I can give full froth in venting my anger and hostility at ‘Kalo Paythee’…no more Mr. Nice Guy, o no, now in this neurotic world in which I dwell, the hostile air is sprayed with vituperations %$#?!&*$, venom, ?%$!##$% and aspersions on Kalo Feelosmoo's mother, character, and his pedigree, all of which bellicose dissembling combined, I believe, is going to send a #1 jolt to the ticker as I croak in the middle of a volley of expletives directed at a machine. A machine for crying out loud…

Pretty ignominious death when you think of it. I better chill out, find something else to ‘relax’ with. Maybe take up basket weaving.

There's a number of things about dying...

…which do not hold that much appeal for me, indeed to none of us, but must be dealt with, so let’s cut to the chase…you and I both know that one of the main reasons the nursing home looks so grim in your mind’s eye is because, a) somebody’s got to wipe your ass and brush your teeth, and b) rarely do you leave the place except in a pine box…so part of the dying process is, unless you get it over with quick like a heart attack or somebody puts a round through you, you gotta move out of your cozy little apartment and into a room with a stranger who wants to talk, and who stinks. All nursing homes stink and you know why, no need to get too picturesque…

Many, maybe even most of the people who work in nursing homes and hospice care are loving and dedicated but in every one of them there’s a virago with a rectal thermometer, an attitude and your morphine so you’ve got to kiss a little ass even on your death bed fer Cris’sakes; for comfort one finds solace in the fact that the poor dear spends all day looking up/down and sideways at assholes; if you are not the lead dog in the traces what are you looking at?

NOT SURE I CAN TELL THIS RIGHT OR IF YOU HAD TO BE THERE…

…but it goes something like this: Some friends went on vacation one summer and had me look after their home etc. and as such I was afforded the use of a shower out of which I have just stepped and noticing a summer heat rash at the top of my legs – let’s get the anatomy out of the way here – the crotch, front…a drainpipe, a scrotum and the twins dangled there – so I saw in the medicine cabinet some cream and put it on…as I dressed, my groin area began to tingle and get warm, then warmer, then warmer - now hot and hotter - the twins are burning up and I begin yelling and yanking my clothes off – thank heavens no one was there – to touch this tender area with this cream on it is like putting a Zippo to my flesh and it’s burning me so badly I am no longer shouting but shrieking in agony – it was at this juncture in my life when I realized that the celluloid heroes who holler manly and shout like stentorians to the very end, actually scream in ear-piercing, off-the-charts, high-pitched decibels; no heroic roars here Dude, o no not this boy - and jumping up and down and racing from room to room – bareass mind you – suffering the worst agonies I’ve ever known…nothing physical before or since hurt that much! Think H2SO4…

O man, had anyone happened through the door they would have seen a raving lunatic yowling in pain and leaping up & down in-place while pointing at his bouncing gonads – funny visual no? Two more showers and one hour later the blaze was out. Lesson learned: Desitin yes, but never put Desenex crème on your nuts…

(I have a beloved Aunt Gogi who loves me but quit reading NFTD many years ago after I told a number of my homeless-covered-with-lice and living-with-rats tales…I wonder how this one would go over…)

UNTIL YESTERDAY AND TODAY...

...I knew from nothing about Howard Stern except what I'd heard about him and read from time to time in a variety of newspapers and I have to say I wasn't impressed, thought he was a nothing, a major ought among many ciphers, and once went so far as to call him a moron in "...NOTES..."

I apologize Howard, publicly and sincerely. You're not a moron at all
and your autobiographical 'Private Parts' is one of the funniest fuckin' books I ever read. I was howling late into the night and up this morning at 4:38 to polish it off. It was brilliant and for me elevates you to Doug Holland-status, Doug Holland whose 'Pathetic Life, Diary Of A Fat Slob', is kith and kin to your 'Private Parts'...and, as is said of NFTD, 'hilarious & poignant'.

It is true that for an aging, prudishly-inclined old puritan like me I also found it (them, Pathetic Life too...) disgusting sometimes but not to the exclusion of my laughter...it was my understanding you were homophobic, racist, sexist and a general all-around creep Howard, but I don't see it like that. You're no more a creep than Lenny Bruce was a creep and he wasn't either. You're none of these things in my mind although some will never see you as anything but. Too bad, they're missing the point.

On the other hand, maybe I am...

ALRIGHT, THERE'S MY MANDATORY TAKE ON HOWARD STERN...

...now about Bill Clinton auctioning off the Lincoln Bedroom to the highest bidders and then having the audacity to say the Lincoln Bedroom was never sold...so what's new?

There were SOME things you just didn't mess with Mr. President and Abe Lincoln and anything about him was one of them. You can have all the girl friends you want for all I care, if you can't control your libido I don't know what to tell you...why is a 50-year-old man so sex-crazed anyway? You do know there's something out there called HIV don't you? What kind of an example are you setting? Then again it may all be media hyperbole to hike the ratings.

What if someone treated your daughter the way pundits, wags and rumor-mongers (ahem...) claim you treated Gennifer Flowers or Paula Jones? How wouldyoulike some randy old goat wagging his 'fireman's cap'at Chelsea?

And get your creepy-ass friends out of Abraham Lincoln's room and out of that bed! Incidentally, are your friends jismating all over the same bed Lincoln died in? You're not that much of a creep are you that you would allow all your 938 friends to boff one another in the same bed he died in...are you?

I used to like you, supported you against the wacky fringe right but all
in all, I give up...publicly selling The White House!? For shame; covertly, Mr. C - covertly, or not at all, plus if you've got spare rooms, well, drag some of those homeless off the dirty streets and grates of Washington and give THEM a bed to sleep in, never mind Barbra Streisand, Barbra Streisand for Cris'sake's has got ten fucking beds to sleep in in each of her many homes.

I give up on you Bill, don't send me anymore post cards. And I don't
appreciate Al Gore sitting around with a bunch of Chinese Nationalists
decidinghowmuch money those monkeys will donate to theDemocraticParty.
Both of you are huge disappointments to a country which figured we were
done with business as usual but o no it's still business as usual! You're a
disgrace, I'm no longer proud of having voted for you. I'm through voting.

LOST IN REVERIE...OBLIVIOUS TO MY SURROUNDINGS...

...I only with great effort am able to return to the present, in my kitchen, glad to be back I don't mind telling you. You have to keep focused on the here and now. You can only be 'lost in reverie' under certain
conditions, at least safely lost.

If you're cruising along I-495 at 85 m.p.h. - naughty you! - in the fast
lane your mind has to be there too, it - your mind - can't be re-living the
beach at Nea Makri while your present-day body is hurtling through space in a
two-ton dart out of control on the highway; lost in reverie behind the wheel
is no place to be.

Ideally, to be spaced-out, (which is what it is, you can call it TM or Zen or whatever you want to call this metaphysical temporary escape from the harsh realities, but it's still 'spaced-out' and to some degree we are all space cadets) is best when you're home comfortable with the wood stove and sated from your maple-flavored sausage and crisp-fried today's eggs, there to repose in satiated bliss. Now this type of reverie can be downright Nirvana-ish and unlike the spaced-out dude in the passing lane - and watch out because they are everywhere, why, I've even seen - so have you I'm sure - people driving and reading too, o my heart...where was I? O yes...

...lost in reverie.

IT USED TO BE MY CONTENTION...

(...mine& Rene Descartes') that '...salvation lies in fidelity to one's
own genius...' but over the years I have learned that in truth salvation lies in the mailbox where a half-inch thick stack of crisp new 20s and a dozen or so bank drafts (could be) are awaiting my signature before I embark on a world tour and the machinations of NFTD come to you from the far-flung pleasure capitals of the world.

Actually now that I think of it what does salvation really mean, does one need to be, ah, salved? Salvated? Salvationized? Let us see what Brother Noah has to say about it: Hmmm...aha! 'Redemption. Spiritual rescue from sin and death.'

Well yes, by all means then, please salivate me in order that I may be forthrightly redeemed and mine life become salubrious once again, meanwhile...

What must've it been like...

…to awake on the cold ground of a dreary morning to your 19th century father’s bark to get moving and hitch up the 20-mule team because “…we got a contract with Borax and are fixin’ to cross the Mojave, and when you’ve got all them leathers and traces hitched up and fixed get your self a piece of hardtack and one ladle of water to drink or wash with, don’t spill a drop…”

…I’m a 21st century man and feel put upon if I have to walk across the room to put bread in the toaster. Pioneering would not have been my thing. I’da been one of those guys who got off the boat in Plymouth, Massachusetts and directly headed to California but the privations drove me to despair and I only got as far as the great Green Mountain State of Vermont and stayed…

Well, it's High Noon here in...

…the downtown Townshend metropolitan area and in my small part of it, all is mediocre…practically paralyzed by the sudden realization that life is not forever, I face each day with increasing trepidation and waning hope…but with the gentle ministrations from a cute little bottle of Bailey’s Irish Crème Whiskey, coupled with a nip or two of Kahlua and all washed down with a libation by the redoubtable Arthur Guinness, I manage to cope, plus a little dope helps; I mean let’s be real here, this is no time to suddenly become abstemious – in fact, if there was never a reason to be absolutely dissolute before, this is the one I’ve been waiting for, pull out all the stops, go for broke and all that, projectile drinking, smoking up Mexico and snorting up Peru, all part of the current day in a life…well, in my mind maybe; the reality is more boring day after day fencing with the fool in the mirror…waiting for God and Godot.

I SUPPOSE YOU HAD TO BE THERE...(from NFTD Archives)

...but I'll give it my best shot...

'Big Ed', as in big biker Ed, 6-5, 280, at least an ax handle across at the shoulders, narrow at the hip, black leather-clad, drinkin' Bud, talking Harley-Davidson, Carlos Santana blasting in the background; Big Ed with his long & very gray hair braided half-way down his back, pounding down another Budweiser, having a good ole time hanging with like-minded people on this the first real weekend of bike ridin' warm weather, when suddenly from an adjacent 2nd story window, Kari, a beautiful teen-aged girl pokes her pretty head over the sill, and spying her Big Ed spins on his booted heels and throws his arms wide crying, 'Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down thy golden hair...' - I hooted with laughter; it was such an anomaly coming from so unexpected a quarter...
(I should probably tread lightly here or Big Ed spin on his booted heels and walk all over me...)

IT'S TAKEN 12 YEARS, 3,000 APPROVING LETTERS AND DOZENS OF REVIEWS...

...to the contrary but finally someone's gone and done it...finally NFTD has gotten a couple baaaad reviews...and I don't mean gooood...about which more anon, meanwhile...

Without further ado I quote from page 34 of Zine World #6, Spring 1998:

#284: 'You know when you meet someone, and they say one or two clever things, so you jump into a conversation...which grows increasingly bombastic and dull, until you realize you already heard the best this guy has to offer? This is like that. Nothing much of interest, dressed up with pretty language from someone who's full of himself' - E. Persimmon, PO Box 460931, SF CA 94146

(I hate when people see through me...honest to God it's like I wrote that paragraph myself! It's just exactly what I say when I'm telling the truth, which doesn't happen very often, only I use more expletives...)

#291: 'Terry rambles on about a fictional drunk lawyer, a ghost he saw, doing shrooms long ago, Brahms, drinking and driving, how great his paintings are, and how great his zine is. The ego is strong but the writing isn't, and a lot of it seems like padding, just more words to fill the zine's six-page allotment. Terry, you're obviously convinced you have plenty of talent, so quit coasting and write something worth reading.' - Pam Yamaguchi, c/o Zine World, 537 Jones St. #2386, San Francisco CA 94102

(I'll see if I can do better; my standards aren't too severe. Like Ms Persimmon, you are very perceptive...too perceptive by half for me: once again my transparency shines through, although you’re gracious enough not to call NFTD actually boring).

AS I SWOONED, COLLAPSING IN A HEAP...

...deeper into the big easy chair on which I'm sitting, I close my eyes and disappear from here in a blue-smoke cloud of ethereal warmness and comforting unconsciousness, about as close to an out-of-body experience as you'll get smoking dope, but as pleasant as the sensation is you wouldn't want to have it when driving because if you do you're going to hit a tree and not only will you be having an ‘out-of-body’ experience you'll also be having an out-of-car experience as your formerly somnambulant self hurtles out the windshield, wide-eyed and mouth agape through space; so do your tokin' at the kitchen table in your shebang, where the most you'll hurt as you drop to the dirty floor (clean your house too!) is maybe get a knot on the head or bust a few dishes up on the way down.

Save yourself a lot of grief; moderation in all things, including moderation (which will thereby allow you an occasional fling), but maintain yourself, don't get drunk and out of control, or all messed up on heavy-duty drugs & show off how berserk you can get, bad form, plus: you'll live longer. (Hold on a minute here son...up above you're telling me you just passed out from a huge toke and now a couple sentences later you're going on about moderation? Did I miss something?) Actually, I've been getting (limited) flack from the USPS regarding the fact NFTD is what is termed a ‘bi-fold’ and as such must be handed across at a window for canceling, or rubber-banded and dropped in a box, all in all more inconvenience for me. I've been curious if the reason is that I'm being singled-out for my pro-reefer stance...or is my addled thinking merely idle twaddle - pot-induced paranoia striking deep?

WHENEVER YOU THROW GOD INTO THE OLIO…

…you’re going to have trouble because everybody’s got their own version of God. Moslems have a certain God, the Jews have a certain God, so too the Christians and each individual in those three beliefs has his/her personal concept of God and so we are left with a different God for each believer - six billion or so different concepts of what/who God is and what he/she/it does, or, factoring in the non-believers, who he/she/it isn’t and what he/she/it doesn’t do. As a survived Catholic my picture of God was sort of an old Christ, very old…now 59 years into this life I’m not sure what if anything is out there; nothingness is my aging existentialist guess, nothing & no purpose, but I’m open to suggestions although I don’t want anybody jamming their ideas down (or slitting) my throat. My favor needs be curried. The secular humanist in me cries out for reason midst chaos, or is it the other way around?

A careful reading of current events hints broadly of further carnage by all of the above in the name of God. Juxtapose the order as you will, Jews are killing Moslems are killing Christians are killing Jews are killing Christians are killing Moslems ad nauseum and, I’m afraid, ad infinitum, as there is no end of the circuitous, ubiquitous slaughter in sight.

Armed forces are fighting hammer and tong around the globe, the battle in the streets has not come full-circle to America yet but soon a cabbie in Manhattan will blow himself up in front of Sardi’s, the war comes home, the WTC, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania prelude to the catastrophes sure to follow.

I USE TO HAVE A SHORT FUSE AND A HAIR-TRIGGER BAD TEMPER...

...but I no longer have the horsepower to back it up. I never really did; bluster, bravado and nuance saved me a few beatings…push comes to shove, I'm sunk…so these days I tend to blow fuses and throw tantrums at home alone, with only the walls to witness the childish/churlish display of outrageously inane behavior, a case study in Type A male running amok, me the sole victim...perp & victim rolled-in-one. Little wonder I live alone...

One night Betty gave me a ride home to my little hovel by the brook and upon entering the dimly-lit-with-a-red-bulb, one room former chicken coop I lived in and called home, immediately I saw a painting was missing, a big one, no way I could've misplaced it, it was gone - oh, incidentally, at this point my relationship with Betty was about six beers and four hours old and I was plumb ready to get cozy with the little beauty but the minute I saw my painting was gone I flew into a rage and began screaming bloody blue murder and yelling and hollering into the late night sound-asleep neighborhood, and, not that anything else was needed, but for emphasis I began flinging pots of paint Pollocky around the walls of the chicken coop and when last I saw my main squeeze Betty, well, with a screech of tires, she was hightailing it up the driveway in her slant-six Dodge and even though I couldn't see her I just know she was wiping her brow with the back of her hand and going, "Wheeeew, fuckin' head case...lemme outta here..." and Dear Reader - can you believe it, I never saw the poor lass again, but I did find my painting which some of my buddies had hid (Doc Pomus-like) up on the roof...

…PINGUID AND ODIFEROUS WITH GRUMP…

…and incandescent with disbelief, I lay my head on the table, stunned and shaken by the grim news. Life hasn’t been fun for quite awhile but the death of the mother of my children, Sean and Cassandra, my ex- and only wife, Linda, the love of my life, has plunged me into despair. She was a wonderful girl and a great woman. Lady doesn’t fit, wrong era, she could break a horse, tie a fly, climb a tree or cut it down and wrestle you to the ground. She also looked very pretty in a dress.

She was 17 to my 21 then on The Acropolis where we met and in the warren of streets beneath it, The Plaka, where we played, when she astonished me one day and said, “Will you marry me Terry? I will always love you and never leave you?” I know what it means to weep for joy and now with her gone forever I know what it is to weep from a sorrow so deep I see no end to it in this life.

It points up exactly my many faults and as I have said before, no other success compensates for failure in the home; it is a badge of insufferable pain and shame I will take to the grave. I would’ve, I should’ve, I could’ve come crashing down on me…