…A TRAIN FREAK IN GOOD STANDING…
…I feel semi-qualified, as opposed to eminently qualified, to comment on them, be they the Green Mt. RR, Amtrak or The Atchison, Topeka & The Santa Fe, for those to whom trains might be of some interest and I tell you, we are legion, beyond the curve, and have no common denominator other than the train.
Many of us were (or are or are going to be) homeless and gravitated to the trains by default while others stepped from their Bentley’s with a Nikon strapped around their turkey-wattled necks to take a picture of, say, an aging milk car parked for a decade on a siding; some of us came to know the milk car because it was easy to get into and sleep in until the railroad bulls came along…
You don’t have to be a train freak to see the graffiti going by you at the crossings and it is remarkable the talent that’s out there, world class painting much of it and barely 10 cars in a row can go by without being tagged. There are too many to comment on all of them but one cracked me up as it whizzed past the other day and I caught a glimpse of a one-liner, “Chubby has a small ball sack”…Say what Dude?
Sunday, February 17, 2013
Thursday, January 31, 2013
WHAT I WRITE NOW…
…is mostly made up but when I die it will be thought of as true; future readers will look back at my non-adventurous life of drunken, drugged-out ease and actually believe I lived large and played hard when in fact I barely left home…although my imagination frequently went out…truth is I’ve spent most of the last six decades trying to figure out how to get by without actually working, I almost got it down to a science; it takes persistence and you have to compromise, but if you’re any good at what you do you’ll someday reap the bennies & eventually you’ll make money, so to that end I am in hot pursuit…I’m a successful writer without a dime…ditto painter, that’s it though, those are my only two real successes, but many people go through life without any.
SUDDENLY THE MEANING OF ‘IT’ BECAME ABUNDANTLY CLEAR…
…and I immediately and for days on end plunged into and was drowning in the sea of despair, morbid in deepest Kafkaesque despondency; it’s too late to change anything, the damage is done. The future is certain, the end is near…
…and that Dear Reader is where I’ve stayed humorlessly (until about 30 minutes ago) for the last two dope-free weeks after a run-in with 911 and a nighttime visit by the EMTs from Grace Cottage, Lou & Scott…to whom I am heavily indebted…so okay I had a major choking spell, nothing new there…but withal I quit smoking reefer - only nothing seems to have changed except my attitude has gone from not-very-good-anyway to bad to worse to worst, so moments ago I said well frig this Dude, choke to death or not, I’m having a toke, and did, and the improvement was immediate - life again is good, my semi-positive attitude and equilibrium return…on balance, it’s a trade-off but what in life isn’t? …Dude, I mean I was so bummed out by this whole scenario I was like a zombie, immobilized, could not seem to rise above it, had no interest even in writing NOTES which for 21 years has been my catalyst, not to mention my raison d’etre and bete noir all in one…a package deal, but even NFTD couldn’t carry me over this one so I spun up a fatty and got right…my love-hate relationship with a life of dissipation continues apace.
…is mostly made up but when I die it will be thought of as true; future readers will look back at my non-adventurous life of drunken, drugged-out ease and actually believe I lived large and played hard when in fact I barely left home…although my imagination frequently went out…truth is I’ve spent most of the last six decades trying to figure out how to get by without actually working, I almost got it down to a science; it takes persistence and you have to compromise, but if you’re any good at what you do you’ll someday reap the bennies & eventually you’ll make money, so to that end I am in hot pursuit…I’m a successful writer without a dime…ditto painter, that’s it though, those are my only two real successes, but many people go through life without any.
SUDDENLY THE MEANING OF ‘IT’ BECAME ABUNDANTLY CLEAR…
…and I immediately and for days on end plunged into and was drowning in the sea of despair, morbid in deepest Kafkaesque despondency; it’s too late to change anything, the damage is done. The future is certain, the end is near…
…and that Dear Reader is where I’ve stayed humorlessly (until about 30 minutes ago) for the last two dope-free weeks after a run-in with 911 and a nighttime visit by the EMTs from Grace Cottage, Lou & Scott…to whom I am heavily indebted…so okay I had a major choking spell, nothing new there…but withal I quit smoking reefer - only nothing seems to have changed except my attitude has gone from not-very-good-anyway to bad to worse to worst, so moments ago I said well frig this Dude, choke to death or not, I’m having a toke, and did, and the improvement was immediate - life again is good, my semi-positive attitude and equilibrium return…on balance, it’s a trade-off but what in life isn’t? …Dude, I mean I was so bummed out by this whole scenario I was like a zombie, immobilized, could not seem to rise above it, had no interest even in writing NOTES which for 21 years has been my catalyst, not to mention my raison d’etre and bete noir all in one…a package deal, but even NFTD couldn’t carry me over this one so I spun up a fatty and got right…my love-hate relationship with a life of dissipation continues apace.
Thursday, October 18, 2012
ONCE I THOUGHT THE WORLD WOULD…
…be mine, that my talents at painting and writing, my savoir faire and cosmopolitan outlook, erudition and all-around cool demeanor would carry the day, that I would be surrounded by my minions like a magnet is surrounded by iron filings, but, ah, a funny thing happened on the way to the forum…actually not that funny but justice nonetheless at every turn, just another step on the well-worn path to obscurity; like Marlon Brando, “…I coulda been a contendah…” but I was busy doing nothing much except floundering in the twilight of a mediocre career.
…I haffta laff from this vantage point although 30 years ago when I was still in the running but could see the way things were going I wouldn’t have been quite so sanguine…hmmmm...sanguine is that the right word…hmmm…ah, here it is: sanguine, confident. No that won’t do, I have little confidence and have ever been thus. If you live on the streets covered with lice and sleeping with rats as I once did for waaay too long, your confidence tends to wane and never came back in my case.
…with a huge yeasty eructation burp – we are talking explosive - Doug, who had been called on to give the opening toast at this prestigious gathering of Lander’s aristocracy, such as it was, but who had gotten a little drunk first said, instead of his prepared speech, ‘Let the drinking, belching and fun begin!’ as Joann, his mortified wife, tried to go invisible…
FROM GROWN TO GROAN…
…is not much of a stretch; youth was over in a heartbeat and old age drags interminably along, well, not quite…when you’re young you think old is some ethereal & distant abstraction but when you’re old and frothing-at-the-mouth while groaning, and trying not to tremble with fear at the gaping maw of Mother Earth lying in wait for (us)me, well, I ask you Dear Reader, is it – alone and palely loitering all by itself – enough reason to drink? Ergo, to quote The Bard, I shall partake of the demon alcohol ‘…til sense and sorrow both are drowned…’ Ahh yes, much better…like Nation’s, the place to be, or not to be dependent on your beliefs.
…I thought so, well then, let us(me) open this here bottle of Cooks’ Sparkling Champagne – and for you My Dear, spare no expense Love, nothing for you but the best, top of the line bubbly, $6.99 a bottle, Lass, please, please My Dear don’t thank me, was/is a pleasure, o and while you’re up Lass, mayhap a couple glasses…after which the reality of your (my) indispensability is rendered moot. Where once all lay ahead in wait, now lies behind in ruins. Who knew?
…be mine, that my talents at painting and writing, my savoir faire and cosmopolitan outlook, erudition and all-around cool demeanor would carry the day, that I would be surrounded by my minions like a magnet is surrounded by iron filings, but, ah, a funny thing happened on the way to the forum…actually not that funny but justice nonetheless at every turn, just another step on the well-worn path to obscurity; like Marlon Brando, “…I coulda been a contendah…” but I was busy doing nothing much except floundering in the twilight of a mediocre career.
…I haffta laff from this vantage point although 30 years ago when I was still in the running but could see the way things were going I wouldn’t have been quite so sanguine…hmmmm...sanguine is that the right word…hmmm…ah, here it is: sanguine, confident. No that won’t do, I have little confidence and have ever been thus. If you live on the streets covered with lice and sleeping with rats as I once did for waaay too long, your confidence tends to wane and never came back in my case.
…with a huge yeasty eructation burp – we are talking explosive - Doug, who had been called on to give the opening toast at this prestigious gathering of Lander’s aristocracy, such as it was, but who had gotten a little drunk first said, instead of his prepared speech, ‘Let the drinking, belching and fun begin!’ as Joann, his mortified wife, tried to go invisible…
FROM GROWN TO GROAN…
…is not much of a stretch; youth was over in a heartbeat and old age drags interminably along, well, not quite…when you’re young you think old is some ethereal & distant abstraction but when you’re old and frothing-at-the-mouth while groaning, and trying not to tremble with fear at the gaping maw of Mother Earth lying in wait for (us)me, well, I ask you Dear Reader, is it – alone and palely loitering all by itself – enough reason to drink? Ergo, to quote The Bard, I shall partake of the demon alcohol ‘…til sense and sorrow both are drowned…’ Ahh yes, much better…like Nation’s, the place to be, or not to be dependent on your beliefs.
…I thought so, well then, let us(me) open this here bottle of Cooks’ Sparkling Champagne – and for you My Dear, spare no expense Love, nothing for you but the best, top of the line bubbly, $6.99 a bottle, Lass, please, please My Dear don’t thank me, was/is a pleasure, o and while you’re up Lass, mayhap a couple glasses…after which the reality of your (my) indispensability is rendered moot. Where once all lay ahead in wait, now lies behind in ruins. Who knew?
Friday, June 22, 2012
RANDOM “…NOTES…” FROM WRINKLED SCRAPS…
…remember! In a year from now you could be sitting in the docket awaiting your sentence of death by tribunal for your avowed views and lifestyle, no matter what they are. No one is exempt, it all depends – your living or dying on the scaffold – on who’s calling the shots. In my case, loathsome, hypocritical and disgusting though their actions may be, I’d rather the Democrats and Republicans run this show than some scimitar-wielding Algerian Fundamentalists who want to hack off my tattooed arms because they are an affront to Allah…so whereas I bitch and moan and carp about things in this world I can do so only because the Reps and the Dems are ‘in charge’ (whatever that means) and as long as they are and not the Afghani Taliban or some other cult of death, I’m relatively safe, for now…
…life without radio, television or newspapers is a sea of tranquility…far quieter, none of that nerve-shattering hyperbolic claptrap to rattle your cerebellum, and if you think about radio and television they are both chock-full, 24 hours a day year-round without surcease, of junk and newspapers and magazines too but without the attendant noise…and speaking of junk – a recent four-state volunteers attempt to cleanup the banks of the mighty Queen of Rivers, The Connecticut River, flowing North to South through the Great Granite State of New Hampshire and Vermont, The Green Mountain State, thence between the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and The Nutmeg State, Connecticut, and finally pouring into the Atlantic, yielded 500 bags of trash and tons upon tons of – get this! - “…whole trucks and cars, numerous car parts, plumbing fixtures, roofing materials, chunks of concrete, metal scraps and pipes, styrofoam, kitchen appliances, bed frames, mattresses, tvs, tarps, kiddie pools, toys, fishing equipment, and some hazardous materials like hypodermic needles and 55 gallon drums containing unknown substances…” Humans waging war on Mother Earth.
…remember! In a year from now you could be sitting in the docket awaiting your sentence of death by tribunal for your avowed views and lifestyle, no matter what they are. No one is exempt, it all depends – your living or dying on the scaffold – on who’s calling the shots. In my case, loathsome, hypocritical and disgusting though their actions may be, I’d rather the Democrats and Republicans run this show than some scimitar-wielding Algerian Fundamentalists who want to hack off my tattooed arms because they are an affront to Allah…so whereas I bitch and moan and carp about things in this world I can do so only because the Reps and the Dems are ‘in charge’ (whatever that means) and as long as they are and not the Afghani Taliban or some other cult of death, I’m relatively safe, for now…
…life without radio, television or newspapers is a sea of tranquility…far quieter, none of that nerve-shattering hyperbolic claptrap to rattle your cerebellum, and if you think about radio and television they are both chock-full, 24 hours a day year-round without surcease, of junk and newspapers and magazines too but without the attendant noise…and speaking of junk – a recent four-state volunteers attempt to cleanup the banks of the mighty Queen of Rivers, The Connecticut River, flowing North to South through the Great Granite State of New Hampshire and Vermont, The Green Mountain State, thence between the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and The Nutmeg State, Connecticut, and finally pouring into the Atlantic, yielded 500 bags of trash and tons upon tons of – get this! - “…whole trucks and cars, numerous car parts, plumbing fixtures, roofing materials, chunks of concrete, metal scraps and pipes, styrofoam, kitchen appliances, bed frames, mattresses, tvs, tarps, kiddie pools, toys, fishing equipment, and some hazardous materials like hypodermic needles and 55 gallon drums containing unknown substances…” Humans waging war on Mother Earth.
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
BUMMER - GRAY SKY FADING AWAY, SUN COMING OUT...
…s’posed to be a bright sunshiny day which drives a lugubrious, solitary & morose me – around the bend…a lachrymose day made for introspection and reflection and then, done with this melancholy, maybe off to golf or swimming or, not to put too fine a point on it, laying around the shanty with the shades drawn and putting a good package on with choice indica and a bottle or two of Cook’s California Champagne, which I don’t care if they vint it and bottle it in Newark just so’s I get some now and then, speaking of which I’ll have to give my bootlegger a call…bootlegging is an art form the skill of which I do not possess, but he does…in concelebration of all these (no)things, I blast a cork across the room and bounce it off the Holstein on my refrigerator. Quoting seldom-seen Doug Misner, I intone, ‘Let the drinking, belching and fun begin!’
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Like a blow on the head from a hammer...
…the news Whitney Houston is dead leaves me dizzy, she was so the star! Everything about her was good; even her bad was good. Another world-class performer bites the dust. Whitney knew what she was doing but she miscalculated the amount she took thus ending her dazzling career.
…it’s like losing someone you actually know. Most everyone over the age of, say, 13 knows drugs and alcohol don’t mix but we do it anyway. From a very early age self-destruction begins. It’s what we do. What’s up with that? I don’t think a dozen Sigmund Freuds could figure it out.
…and if you don’t get you before someone else does you have to dig your bunker deeper and keep your head down so you don’t get caught in the crossfire; please don’t think I’m a mindless twit prattling on after a bottle of wine and a bone, which I am, but rather as a prescient voice from subterranea…which I also am. Whitney, I will always love you…I can’t believe you’re gone!
NOTE FROM A READER…
‘Ahhh, for Christ's sake...get the f**k over it. Your boredom is becoming your readers' boredom. You've been places, you've met people…how about writing 'bout them/there? No one cares about how many sheets of toilet paper you might use daily...nor how much you might drink or smoke each day. Get BACK to being 'interesting' & f**k a bunch of BIG words…just write shit that matters.’
(Well, I can’t please everybody but I will try to do as bade…thanks for taking the time to write me in the vernacular…)
…it’s like losing someone you actually know. Most everyone over the age of, say, 13 knows drugs and alcohol don’t mix but we do it anyway. From a very early age self-destruction begins. It’s what we do. What’s up with that? I don’t think a dozen Sigmund Freuds could figure it out.
…and if you don’t get you before someone else does you have to dig your bunker deeper and keep your head down so you don’t get caught in the crossfire; please don’t think I’m a mindless twit prattling on after a bottle of wine and a bone, which I am, but rather as a prescient voice from subterranea…which I also am. Whitney, I will always love you…I can’t believe you’re gone!
NOTE FROM A READER…
‘Ahhh, for Christ's sake...get the f**k over it. Your boredom is becoming your readers' boredom. You've been places, you've met people…how about writing 'bout them/there? No one cares about how many sheets of toilet paper you might use daily...nor how much you might drink or smoke each day. Get BACK to being 'interesting' & f**k a bunch of BIG words…just write shit that matters.’
(Well, I can’t please everybody but I will try to do as bade…thanks for taking the time to write me in the vernacular…)
Saturday, February 18, 2012
IT'S TROUBLING IN A WAY...
…I’ve written nothing or at least very little for a long time, months; much of last year all of this year. Lots of things come to mind on which to remark but I’m of a mind these days to say, why bother, who cares, indeed - what’s the sense of anything…
…hours pass, blank hours I hide in playing Scrabble, cribbage, cribbage, Scrabble, crabble, scribbage, bibble babble, say, pass that pipe over here and please pour us another glass of champagne Love, do come sit closer…
…in another way it’s not troubling, consider: not taking time out to write has left me many hours available in which to pursue the nefarious pleasures of life in the subterranean breakdown lane, i.e. drink some of (quite a bit of) Cook’s Sparkling Wine (see Page 1), eating until stuporous, running up the phone bill and smoking herb ‘til blue smoke emanates simultaneously from every orifice above the neck.
…hours pass, blank hours I hide in playing Scrabble, cribbage, cribbage, Scrabble, crabble, scribbage, bibble babble, say, pass that pipe over here and please pour us another glass of champagne Love, do come sit closer…
…in another way it’s not troubling, consider: not taking time out to write has left me many hours available in which to pursue the nefarious pleasures of life in the subterranean breakdown lane, i.e. drink some of (quite a bit of) Cook’s Sparkling Wine (see Page 1), eating until stuporous, running up the phone bill and smoking herb ‘til blue smoke emanates simultaneously from every orifice above the neck.
Saturday, January 21, 2012
I'm sick of being sick...
…I’m not into it at all. I want to run and jump and play like a kid again, to go and visit, out to eat, just out for the hell of it, but no, I dare not get far from the breathing machine, not to mention Grace Cottage Hospital is right next door and they’ve been tested and proven adept at saving my sorry ass, so there’s that, and I continue to fantasize a one-size fits all pill of the future the swallowing of which will heal all that ails ye, so I guess I have to be patient a little longer although I’m a little conflicted about that…because, if patience is a virtue, why is he who hesitates lost? You can’t have both.
“Ahh, mes amis, quell jour de fe te!” (A loose NFTD translation would be, ‘OK fellow scoundrels let the drinking, belching and fun begin! If you’re gonna be bad be good at it.’
When Jack Kerouac did it it was called spontaneous prose, and a snooty Truman Capotes said of it, ‘That’s not writing, it’s typewriting…’ Which did not endear me to Truman but he too was gifted. With me I wouldn’t say it’s spontaneous but more prattling on and on and occasionally hitting all the right letters on the keyboard and making a modicum of sense, or is that true (he wondered drunkenly…)
Anyway I’ve forgotten what I’m banging on about because I’m most the way down bottle number 2 of Cook’s sparkling champagne in con-celebration of events? What events you say? O please, do you see what day it is? Yes that’s right, January 19th, you didn’t forget did you?
Can’t concentrate on anything…one heart attack, several broken hearts, one lung collapse, prostate cancer and emphysema have ganged up on me, so far I’ve held them off…but the deck is stacked against me.
“Ahh, mes amis, quell jour de fe te!” (A loose NFTD translation would be, ‘OK fellow scoundrels let the drinking, belching and fun begin! If you’re gonna be bad be good at it.’
When Jack Kerouac did it it was called spontaneous prose, and a snooty Truman Capotes said of it, ‘That’s not writing, it’s typewriting…’ Which did not endear me to Truman but he too was gifted. With me I wouldn’t say it’s spontaneous but more prattling on and on and occasionally hitting all the right letters on the keyboard and making a modicum of sense, or is that true (he wondered drunkenly…)
Anyway I’ve forgotten what I’m banging on about because I’m most the way down bottle number 2 of Cook’s sparkling champagne in con-celebration of events? What events you say? O please, do you see what day it is? Yes that’s right, January 19th, you didn’t forget did you?
Can’t concentrate on anything…one heart attack, several broken hearts, one lung collapse, prostate cancer and emphysema have ganged up on me, so far I’ve held them off…but the deck is stacked against me.
Thursday, November 24, 2011
I was on pretty thin ice...
…and needed to remove myself post haste or get hurt because the guy in the back of my taxi suddenly grabbed me around the neck and jerked me away from the wheel as he raked a serrated knife back and forth across my throat, ‘Give it up,’ he rumbled, ‘I’ll cut your fucking head off……get it up…’ as I fumbled and said, ‘Dude I ain’t even seen you got no idea what you look like, here take the money and go…
Wheeew, he punched me in the head as he left…his second mistake…I went from standing on thin ice to standing on shaky ground which is not much of a stretch and only a miniscule improvement. Do I really want my throat slit to save two hundred bucks, 40 percent of which goes to the company? I don’t think so…I could run him over and play dumb, but a two-way radio is a quick way to get help and in a very few moments red & blue lights were flashing and two cops ran into the tavern the yegg had gone in and dragged him out and away to the jailhouse. They got him but I never got my money back; fair enough because I fingered him and he got a stretch in Comstock, an upstate dungeon out of the 1800s.
…three times I volunteered to go to Vietnam between 1963-1969 but I never made it, instead sent to the Caribbean and the Mediterranean aboard a bird farm – aircraft carrier if you don’t know - and a 2-year stay in Nea Makri, Greece…but whereas once being a Vietnam vet, or in my case a Vietnam-era vet because I was never in–country, could get you cheers and catcalls all at once, now there is a certain cachet to having served during the first war we’ve ever lost…but I made sure there were no VC in the Med and I did a good job because in all those years I never saw a one.
A READER ONCE SAID OF ME…
“You’re a great writer, so glad to hear you are just drunk and stoned and not dead…” Thank you LuAnn, you’re right of course, I totally agree with you that I am a wonderful writer and if anyone dare have the temerity to disagree, well, I offer you a challenge, we’ll have a write-off, you pick the subject, 500 words or less, give or take a hundred and NFTD readers can decide...what say you? Join in the scrum…it’s all in fun, free entry, NFTD will donate $50 to winner…if I am chosen I will donate $100 to Doctors Without Borders…
WE’VE SCARED, ARE SCARING…
…migrant workers away. The law is coming down on illegalos, and the crops are dying in the fields. New laws are scaring the immigrants off and there’s no one to pick the corn. “The government’s decision effects every farmer and every person who hires one or more employees,” says Marc Higginbotham, a commodity director for the Alabama Farmers’ Federation. “The fact is a lot of Americans aren’t willing to do temporary jobs that involve intense work in the hot sun…”
Wheeew, he punched me in the head as he left…his second mistake…I went from standing on thin ice to standing on shaky ground which is not much of a stretch and only a miniscule improvement. Do I really want my throat slit to save two hundred bucks, 40 percent of which goes to the company? I don’t think so…I could run him over and play dumb, but a two-way radio is a quick way to get help and in a very few moments red & blue lights were flashing and two cops ran into the tavern the yegg had gone in and dragged him out and away to the jailhouse. They got him but I never got my money back; fair enough because I fingered him and he got a stretch in Comstock, an upstate dungeon out of the 1800s.
…three times I volunteered to go to Vietnam between 1963-1969 but I never made it, instead sent to the Caribbean and the Mediterranean aboard a bird farm – aircraft carrier if you don’t know - and a 2-year stay in Nea Makri, Greece…but whereas once being a Vietnam vet, or in my case a Vietnam-era vet because I was never in–country, could get you cheers and catcalls all at once, now there is a certain cachet to having served during the first war we’ve ever lost…but I made sure there were no VC in the Med and I did a good job because in all those years I never saw a one.
A READER ONCE SAID OF ME…
“You’re a great writer, so glad to hear you are just drunk and stoned and not dead…” Thank you LuAnn, you’re right of course, I totally agree with you that I am a wonderful writer and if anyone dare have the temerity to disagree, well, I offer you a challenge, we’ll have a write-off, you pick the subject, 500 words or less, give or take a hundred and NFTD readers can decide...what say you? Join in the scrum…it’s all in fun, free entry, NFTD will donate $50 to winner…if I am chosen I will donate $100 to Doctors Without Borders…
WE’VE SCARED, ARE SCARING…
…migrant workers away. The law is coming down on illegalos, and the crops are dying in the fields. New laws are scaring the immigrants off and there’s no one to pick the corn. “The government’s decision effects every farmer and every person who hires one or more employees,” says Marc Higginbotham, a commodity director for the Alabama Farmers’ Federation. “The fact is a lot of Americans aren’t willing to do temporary jobs that involve intense work in the hot sun…”
Friday, November 4, 2011
For Weeks I've Written Nothing...
…hours on end I sit here, waiting, waiting, waiting - with a bottle of Cook’s California Champagne in arm’s reach, for if you know anything about life and drinking you know no matter how good it tastes it’s cleverly-disguised poison with which I’ve had/have a 54-year long attachment…in good times and bad times it stays with you. So it accompanies me as I ponder this world, a world running amok…why were our brave Brothers and Sisters killed in Iraq, Afghanistan? What do either of those countries have we can’t live without?
…the Iraqis and Afghanis in the main are dirt poor and we’re over there putting the arm on them, what gives? Where is my beloved America the Beautiful going with this? We got zero business there. And even if we did - money makes a lot more sense than slaughtering our young and theirs and remember – they are home, like it or not they see us as invaders and Afghanistan has never backed down and sent Moscow packing tail between its legs; Afghanistan will outlive us all. And when we’ve finally firebombed all of us back into the Stone Age they’ll be right at home, in my opinion. Give ‘em money…a few suitcases worth of greenbacks are cheaper than the loss of one soldier!
“OKAY, WHAT ARE WE NOT DOING TODAY,” I ask of myself…
…as I wrestle with a broken cork and finally give up and push it in…flotsam and jetsam in my wine…it’s not easy being a lush, there are many hurdles to overcome. That aside I’m having the time of my life because from here on it’s balls to the wall, party ‘til you puke…I pour another cup of Bisceglia Vin Rose, tastes alright I guess, I don’t drink for taste, I first check the percentage of alcohol, this one’s 12% so is fairly potent and I shall be six sheets to the wind before noon…what a success story huh! I haffta laff, life is good usually but you may have a different take on it…
…I can’t quote him verbatim but John Steinbeck once wrote that the first 3rd of the wine bottle was all hail-fellow-well-met hardy har har, midway down the second phase was introspection and thirdly, bottom of the bottle with the dregs, the biggy, emotional, physical and psychological meltdown…just what I had in mind!
…the Iraqis and Afghanis in the main are dirt poor and we’re over there putting the arm on them, what gives? Where is my beloved America the Beautiful going with this? We got zero business there. And even if we did - money makes a lot more sense than slaughtering our young and theirs and remember – they are home, like it or not they see us as invaders and Afghanistan has never backed down and sent Moscow packing tail between its legs; Afghanistan will outlive us all. And when we’ve finally firebombed all of us back into the Stone Age they’ll be right at home, in my opinion. Give ‘em money…a few suitcases worth of greenbacks are cheaper than the loss of one soldier!
“OKAY, WHAT ARE WE NOT DOING TODAY,” I ask of myself…
…as I wrestle with a broken cork and finally give up and push it in…flotsam and jetsam in my wine…it’s not easy being a lush, there are many hurdles to overcome. That aside I’m having the time of my life because from here on it’s balls to the wall, party ‘til you puke…I pour another cup of Bisceglia Vin Rose, tastes alright I guess, I don’t drink for taste, I first check the percentage of alcohol, this one’s 12% so is fairly potent and I shall be six sheets to the wind before noon…what a success story huh! I haffta laff, life is good usually but you may have a different take on it…
…I can’t quote him verbatim but John Steinbeck once wrote that the first 3rd of the wine bottle was all hail-fellow-well-met hardy har har, midway down the second phase was introspection and thirdly, bottom of the bottle with the dregs, the biggy, emotional, physical and psychological meltdown…just what I had in mind!
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
A Stop In Rocky Mount...
…the day before Christmas 1970 I find myself (alone and palely loitering) on a highway in Rocky Mt. NC, which then was but a pit stop (where all the sedge had withered from the lake and no birds sing) and where to my chagrin I noted as I passed through town – hitch hiking mind you – o what can ail thee knight-in-arms - trying to get a ride to New York City and back in my taxi cab; meanwhile I’m a rookie cop’s dream come true because I’m stranded after my car broke down and freighted with a suitcase full of evidence to burn…needless to say I’m more than a little nervous, but it was a living and somebody had to do it.
…I’m a bearded, long-haired hippy freak so I keep walking and walking and as I get closer to town there’s a billboard on my left, big sucker, 15 feet high 30 feet long and on it a KKK klansman on a white stallion rearing into the air as the klansman held a burning cross aloft, and above the whole thing in two-foot high letters was written -
“YOU ARE NOW ENTERING KLAN COUNTRY! BEWARE!”
…O man do I need this, I gotta get out of here - out of North Carolina - so I cross over to a Greyhound station and ask the guy how much for a ticket to NYC and he says 40 bucks and I said well look I only got 24 dollars how far will that get me…he looked at me and said, ‘That’ll get you to Richmond…’ the kindly ole gent looked again, ‘’Y’all don’t want to be hanging around here son, better catch the next bus to Richmond and I got a ticket here that somebody left behind and it’s from Richmond to NYC, so get on that bus and, not to be rude dude, get gone ‘fore y’all get hurt.”
In some things I’m a quick study so I immediately jumped on the dog and we left…
…I’m a bearded, long-haired hippy freak so I keep walking and walking and as I get closer to town there’s a billboard on my left, big sucker, 15 feet high 30 feet long and on it a KKK klansman on a white stallion rearing into the air as the klansman held a burning cross aloft, and above the whole thing in two-foot high letters was written -
“YOU ARE NOW ENTERING KLAN COUNTRY! BEWARE!”
…O man do I need this, I gotta get out of here - out of North Carolina - so I cross over to a Greyhound station and ask the guy how much for a ticket to NYC and he says 40 bucks and I said well look I only got 24 dollars how far will that get me…he looked at me and said, ‘That’ll get you to Richmond…’ the kindly ole gent looked again, ‘’Y’all don’t want to be hanging around here son, better catch the next bus to Richmond and I got a ticket here that somebody left behind and it’s from Richmond to NYC, so get on that bus and, not to be rude dude, get gone ‘fore y’all get hurt.”
In some things I’m a quick study so I immediately jumped on the dog and we left…
Sunday, September 11, 2011
LET’S GET SERIOUS…
…what are we doing in Afghanistan? What do they have we want that as of June this year is worth the lives of thousands of our favorite Sons and Daughters? And millions of dollars every day…Tom said, “Lithium, what they have is lithium…” So ok, what’s the big big deal? Buy it from the poor bastards; Afghani dope is another thing, multi-billion dollar business right here in the good ole US of A, millions of dollars daily, I mean come on get over it. It’s here to stay and has been a political football too long. You want to smoke dope, fine, certain restrictions apply like drinking, okay that works. The only reason herb got illegal was because at the end of Prohibition all those unemployed cops working for Harry Anslinger and with too much time on their hands needed a new bogey man…but I digress…what’s up with Afghanistan? The only two things I ever wanted from there was an Afghan and some ‘ghani, both of which I got and both of which are now gone. Bring our soldiers home.
LIKE A MONUMENT TO RESTRAINT…
…I put off opening a bottle of Yellow Tail until 2 in the afternoon? Now I ask you to consider, is that not in and of itself reason to celebrate? I say it is and blast the cork from a bottle of Cook’s champagne bouncing it off the ceiling and ending up in the cat’s water dish…it’s her new toy but every now and then I have to pick them up (ok ok my friend picks them up) because it is also a testimony to my out of control drinking problem…something like that….
DEAR SARAH PALIN…I would write…
“What is it we’re not supposed to like about you? You’re alright at least as much as any other person seeking public office and we’ve all got our idiosyncrasies…your speeches are good to listen to and I don’t see you as a wild-eyed maniacally-inclined woman, ergo I wish you the best unless anyone can point out to me a real reason for opposing you…did I miss something? I kinda like you but part of that is mcp – you’re pretty, which is not a good reason. But I also like your style plus I’ve always been a little crazy too, keeps me from going insane.
Monday, July 11, 2011
Stop me if you've heard this one...
…as Curator of The Dump for many years in the Town of East Eden (the provenance of this screed in case you‘ve wondered ‘…where in hell is this fool coming from!?’…) I came by everything you can think of…in its questionable wisdom (as I only learned much later) the town select board - with sweeping gestures of its collective arm - had told me when they hired me as we stood atop a mountain of putrefaction alive with dancing flies and disease-ridden rats itchin’ for a bite of my plentiful adipose tissue…‘It’s all yours, do what you want…don’t bother us with it…’
…man, it was like taking candy from a baby or leaving me your keys & credit card while you were away…cool, I’ll turn it into a cash cow and for awhile did, including one time finding 900 issues of LIFE magazine dating to 1936 when it started and even had a copy of the 1st one, it is a picture of the Fort Peck Montana dam…a 90 year old man had his manservant toss them away and so as not to tip my hand and let the guy know they were valuable in which case HE mighta got ‘em instead of me, I helped him wing them off the truck and over the bank laughing away with the dude as LIFE magazines went tumbling and blowing around and down a football field sized dump on a 30-degree incline, so they were scattered far and wide…soon’s he was gone I dove over the edge tossing rats left and right oblivious to the ten thousand flies, tons of Pampers, every chemical you can think of, all the stuff you see - and then the nasty stuff - into this ‘…stinking, steaming pile of shit…’ – to quote Zap Comics – I chokingly go enveloped in the smell and corruption of this festering detritus, and finally hours later had collected as many as I could, 896. I painstakingly cleaned them off and stacked them neatly in my storage shed at The Dump…
…fast forward six months, Dee is standing there looking thru the LIFE magazines, Dee a WW2 South Pacific Marine vet and even at his advanced age obviously rugged. ‘Hey Dee, how’s it goin’ with you…’ He looked up from the LIFE magazine - and I could see he was holding issue number one; he said, ‘My step mother took this picture of the 1st LIFE magazine, this one November 14th, 1936.’ I said to myself sure she did Dee and I said to Dee, ‘She did?!’ And he said yes she did.
…I was taken aback because I knew who had taken the picture…so I said well Dee, like, who was your step mother, and he answered ‘Margaret Bourke-White…’, bingo…’Margaret Bourke-White is your step mother!’ I said incredulously, he nodded, ‘…well, who is your father!?’ to which Dee - Dabney Withers Caldwell - replied, ‘Erskine Caldwell’ - talk about six degrees of separation…how’s that?
I have to say that if you’re 55 or over this story might mean something, if you’re younger than that you maybe never heard of one of WW2’s most renowned photographers, Ms. Bourke-White, and the famed author Erskine Caldwell, ‘God’s Little Acre,’ ‘Tobacco Road’…well now you have. When they are happening we don’t always recognize what ultimately becomes a significant moment in our lives…
…man, it was like taking candy from a baby or leaving me your keys & credit card while you were away…cool, I’ll turn it into a cash cow and for awhile did, including one time finding 900 issues of LIFE magazine dating to 1936 when it started and even had a copy of the 1st one, it is a picture of the Fort Peck Montana dam…a 90 year old man had his manservant toss them away and so as not to tip my hand and let the guy know they were valuable in which case HE mighta got ‘em instead of me, I helped him wing them off the truck and over the bank laughing away with the dude as LIFE magazines went tumbling and blowing around and down a football field sized dump on a 30-degree incline, so they were scattered far and wide…soon’s he was gone I dove over the edge tossing rats left and right oblivious to the ten thousand flies, tons of Pampers, every chemical you can think of, all the stuff you see - and then the nasty stuff - into this ‘…stinking, steaming pile of shit…’ – to quote Zap Comics – I chokingly go enveloped in the smell and corruption of this festering detritus, and finally hours later had collected as many as I could, 896. I painstakingly cleaned them off and stacked them neatly in my storage shed at The Dump…
…fast forward six months, Dee is standing there looking thru the LIFE magazines, Dee a WW2 South Pacific Marine vet and even at his advanced age obviously rugged. ‘Hey Dee, how’s it goin’ with you…’ He looked up from the LIFE magazine - and I could see he was holding issue number one; he said, ‘My step mother took this picture of the 1st LIFE magazine, this one November 14th, 1936.’ I said to myself sure she did Dee and I said to Dee, ‘She did?!’ And he said yes she did.
…I was taken aback because I knew who had taken the picture…so I said well Dee, like, who was your step mother, and he answered ‘Margaret Bourke-White…’, bingo…’Margaret Bourke-White is your step mother!’ I said incredulously, he nodded, ‘…well, who is your father!?’ to which Dee - Dabney Withers Caldwell - replied, ‘Erskine Caldwell’ - talk about six degrees of separation…how’s that?
I have to say that if you’re 55 or over this story might mean something, if you’re younger than that you maybe never heard of one of WW2’s most renowned photographers, Ms. Bourke-White, and the famed author Erskine Caldwell, ‘God’s Little Acre,’ ‘Tobacco Road’…well now you have. When they are happening we don’t always recognize what ultimately becomes a significant moment in our lives…
Monday, May 30, 2011
IT WAS TERRIFYING...
…and, like NFTD – not for the faint of heart, but a moment ago I had the strangest rush; it was as close as you can come to passing out without actually passing out, see what I mean? Choking, gasping for air, actually reaching out with my hands as if to scoop some into my ruined air bags I staggered to and fro in my little apartment bangin’ off the goddamned walls & waking Peg downstairs I would guess…but to no avail, the lungs don’t function…not enough O2 was getting in nor CO2 out…I wasted precious air to curse whoever the Supreme Being is, take your pick, God, Allah, Other, and raged and yowled enough to wake the dead, hmmm…not to use that term.
To push the envelope any further would have been final, ah, fatal, well, both…assuming there’s no hereafter…fortunately this time I was home and not at the wheel and this mini-death was neither drug nor alcohol related nor neither was it self-induced in any fashion, discounting six point three decades of self-abuse; it just comes with the lung cancer territory.
I was scared make no mistake about it; I am scared still - and from now on knowing what I know. Once this episode passed I fell onto my bed and lay there in a stupor, trembling head to foot, thinking after all that if being dead is anything like this it’s not half bad once you get pass the strangulation. It was sort of a practice session, a brief glimpse into the beyond. Speaking of which…
Cemeteries are beginning to have a deleterious side effect on my psyche because all my life I have hung around them - they are great places to hang out if you don’t have to…the history lessons there and the stories the gravestones tell and don’t tell are a cornucopia (how’s that for mixing a metaphor, life and death…) of unbelievable scenarios, no two alike; one’s imagination runs wild, is released from limitation…but now it’s getting personal and I’m having to rethink a lot of things I once took for granted. Anymore when I’m in Townshend at the Oakwood Cemetery sitting with Ginny Albee or Alexander Cushing I’m wondering where’s a good spot for me…
The common denominator in the graveyard I once thought, is plural, not only death, but sorrow for the living - alongside each grave, I mused, someone once wept…but now I say, surely in the Pauper’s Field on Old Ferry Road some of those poor, demented wretches went to the ground known to no one…that said and there being a gamut of emotions run through at the boneyard maybe death is the only commonality; well, that’s the way it goes, you’re here for a while then you’re not.
At NFTD we believe in getting off to a cheerful start. It’s that - or give in to despair which I could easily do if it weren’t for you Dear Reader, you are my lifeline, my saving grace, the reason I am able to carry on - but o I tell you once I hung my head and wept, sobbed until the fucking table top I was leaning over looked like someone had spilled a glass of water on it…I don’t guess anyone saw nor heard me or if they did they couldn’t be bothered, which is just as well, wheeew - macho man crying is not all that cool. I felt quite the fool. I’ve overcome the blow…
To push the envelope any further would have been final, ah, fatal, well, both…assuming there’s no hereafter…fortunately this time I was home and not at the wheel and this mini-death was neither drug nor alcohol related nor neither was it self-induced in any fashion, discounting six point three decades of self-abuse; it just comes with the lung cancer territory.
I was scared make no mistake about it; I am scared still - and from now on knowing what I know. Once this episode passed I fell onto my bed and lay there in a stupor, trembling head to foot, thinking after all that if being dead is anything like this it’s not half bad once you get pass the strangulation. It was sort of a practice session, a brief glimpse into the beyond. Speaking of which…
Cemeteries are beginning to have a deleterious side effect on my psyche because all my life I have hung around them - they are great places to hang out if you don’t have to…the history lessons there and the stories the gravestones tell and don’t tell are a cornucopia (how’s that for mixing a metaphor, life and death…) of unbelievable scenarios, no two alike; one’s imagination runs wild, is released from limitation…but now it’s getting personal and I’m having to rethink a lot of things I once took for granted. Anymore when I’m in Townshend at the Oakwood Cemetery sitting with Ginny Albee or Alexander Cushing I’m wondering where’s a good spot for me…
The common denominator in the graveyard I once thought, is plural, not only death, but sorrow for the living - alongside each grave, I mused, someone once wept…but now I say, surely in the Pauper’s Field on Old Ferry Road some of those poor, demented wretches went to the ground known to no one…that said and there being a gamut of emotions run through at the boneyard maybe death is the only commonality; well, that’s the way it goes, you’re here for a while then you’re not.
At NFTD we believe in getting off to a cheerful start. It’s that - or give in to despair which I could easily do if it weren’t for you Dear Reader, you are my lifeline, my saving grace, the reason I am able to carry on - but o I tell you once I hung my head and wept, sobbed until the fucking table top I was leaning over looked like someone had spilled a glass of water on it…I don’t guess anyone saw nor heard me or if they did they couldn’t be bothered, which is just as well, wheeew - macho man crying is not all that cool. I felt quite the fool. I’ve overcome the blow…
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