Nation of One

Mon., Dec. 21, 2009

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 03:50:49 GMT

Supposively we are going to Cali in hip new glasses

You know what's funny? When people say they looove to work during holiday weeks such as the one we're right now involved in. This is because supposedly (or "supposively" as many toolbags in Maryland say) there are fewer interruptions in the workplace and so you can clean all the shit off your desk that's been sitting there since September. But really, working during Christmas week is pretty much a complete and total waste of time, especially when two feet of snow has been slathered all over the place just a day before the week began and every school within 200 miles is closed. In other words there is no one at work, and those who are at work are probably surfing the 'net or on the phone with their loved ones planning their summer vacation. Colossal waste of time. Today at work there was no energy, no buzz, just a sea of empty desks filled with people like me wondering why the hell i didn't just take this week off. Plus my back is sore from shoveling 20 tons of Miserable Maryland snow yesterday like I was on a chain gang. Oof. I should have stayed in bed today, really. I would have gotten more accomplished.

But tonight you know what I did? I bought new glasses - two pairs mind you. See I wear these glasses, little round ones that look like Alan Ginsberg glasses, and they have been out of style for, oh, say 40 years now. But I wear them because I like them, and they're different, and I continually tell myself I am not a slave to fashion, which is true but its' only because I am ignorant of fashion trends and because I can't afford to keep changing styles, so I find something I like and I wear it for decades, except for shoes, I have about 20 pairs of shoes. So the other day I was on the subway and this African American woman got on and she was wearing these square glasses made of plastic and they were red and I immediately fell in love with them and had to have something similar. Not red, of course, which would target me a gay man, but square and plastic and kind of Spike Lee-looking. Hip, that's me. So being the obsessive tool I am I go into work this morning and called the company that handles my vision insurance and determined my bennies and then i called the local glasses joint and set-up an appointment for tonight and by 6;30 pm I was sitting in a chair getting air puffed into my eyes by a woman with a face like a Petri dish. When all was said and done I picked out not one but two new pairs of swinging hep-cat glasses, both made of swinging black plastic, both square, both amazingly cool. I will have them in my possession tomorrow and i will get on the subway Wednesday morning and watch as other middle-aged, middle class toolbag men in trench coats and wingtips admire my fashion panache and wish that they too could be so swell.

Oh and i did I mention that my computer has had a vicious virus the past couple of days? Actually it started on Saturday during the snowstorm so i can only imagine that some disturbed little genius snot was probably bored somewhere in the world and decided to hijack computers in Westminnie and totally F them up, which is what happened to mine. This little beauty was called Antivirus 2009 and is a fake virus removal software and it basically took over my computer like an alien and would not let me do anything. It kept telling me that my computer was crawling with viruses everywhere and i just had to load this software, which i knew would make my computer explode, and then when it tired of that it started showing pop-up porn sites featuring women whoTiger Woods no doubt has tapped, and they were in some very interesting positions, one involving a man and a pizza, another called the "reverse cowboy," which, as a reformed Catholic I had to look up. Anyway i have been diligently battling this little beast for two days now and I'm not exactly sure I have it whipped but I at least have it moderately under control, which could make me a technological genius which, if true, would mean I must quickly become interested in role playing video games and watch every one of the Star Wars movies, which i have never seen.

Oh also have I mentioned that La Sooze and i have some traveling coming up? Next week we are going to Atlantic City just because. I think I told you that a month or so ago I went to Las Vegas and was totally not impressed, but for some reason going to Vegas made me think about Atlantic City which offers the same essential nonsense as Vegas only it's about 2,700 miles closer and it's about 50 degrees colder. Anyway as you know from our story i kind of get a kick out of playing the slots (can't you picture me now as an old man rolling an oxygen tank eating egg salad sandwiches on the bus on the way to Atlantic City for a day of gambling?) and I get a huge kick out of La Sooze and so i thought that like peanut butter and jelly, if i put the two together I might come up with something magical. If not, we at least can stroll along the frigid boardwalk glove in glove and have a terrific din-din together and relax for a night which is difficult to do during the holidays when La Sooze is a gift giving and wrapping and cookie baking machine. Of course I will provide a full and complete review of AC after we return, which will be a couple of days after Christmas.

Finally, we are also going to Cali. Glory be. I have a work trip to the Golden State in early January and i happened to have a free airplane flight and so La Sooze and I will be traveling together and will get an opportunity (with hope) to see my fabulous aunt and uncle AK and US as well as my two amazing cousins Pat and Kathy and their beautiful California children who are much cooler than i ever will be. You know what I love? When i say to people "I would love to live somewhere warm, like California," and they respond with "I wouldn't live there, not with the earthquakes." Um yeah, I would rather live here where tailgating is the state sport and over sized SUVs are considered luxury cars and two feet of snow falls even though we are below the Mason Dixon line. I would prefer tumbling into the center of the earth through a large and sudden crevice. I, of course, will make sure that when I go to Cali i will take along both pairs of my hipster new glasses so that I will feel as if i belong in a place that does not ever get two feet of snow and people do not think the George line of clothing at Wal-Mart is boutique. I am just sure I will fit right in.

Sun., Dec. 20, 2009

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 02:25:57 GMT

Do not let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

Of course the big story here at God View and in Miserable Maryland in general is the weather. More specifically, snow, and lots of it. This did not come as a surprise as every single person in Maryland is completely and totally petrified by or obsessed with the weather, in particular rain and snow. They seem to talk about it a lot and they always know what's coming and yet when it rains or snows a significant percentage of them completely blank out and act like complete fools, which in general is their MO anyway. No adjustments for the weather. La Sooze for instance stopped by the ol' grocery store Friday, the day before "The Big Snow" and literally there was an hour wait to check out. A" mad house" as my psychotic grandmother Nana would say. For some reason people MUST buy milk before it snows. I'm unsure why. Maybe they bathe in it or they eat lots of cereal while lounging in their camo Dale Earnhardt pajama pants watching reality television marathons. In fact Friday night La Sooze and I were out looking for a Christmas tree and she had mentioned that her mom aka Mema, had said she needed milk. So we stopped at a nearby Super Fresh (which is a ghetto store, btw, just for your information) and went to the milk section and I kid you not there was not a single carton of milk there, not a drop. Next to the milkie section was the bread section which looked like what i would picture a 7-11 resembled after the riots in LA occurred after the cops who rearranged Rodney King's face were acquitted back in 1992. Seriously, the shelves were bare and populated by the occasional loaf of bread but it was either bread that no one in their right mind would eat (think Pumpernickel) or it looked as if Aretha Franklin had sat on it. Completely insane.

Anyway, again, this particular "weather event" did not come as a surprise to anyone because it has been the talk of Miz Maryland for days. In fact, several days before any weather event of note some permanent resident of the Miserable land will always say to me "have you heard it's going to snow on Wednesday;" and then little by little that little drip becomes a waterfall and everyone is running to the grocery store and brutally raping bags of potato bread sandwich rolls. I personally am the last person to hear these weather ramblings because for the most part I do not give two shits about the weather unless it rains 12 days in a row and then it annoys me. I am kind of zen-like about weather - like whatever. I cannot change it and I still have my eyesight intact and so I can look out the window in the morning and see for myself. If it's raining or cloudy I can stick an umbrella in my backpack. Wow. I do not need Doppler weather crawling up my ass and embedded on my flat screen to make my life complete.

Anyway here's how the snow went down. The "The Big Snow" was scheduled to start Friday night after about midnight. In the meantime La Sooze and I went out and bought a Christmas tree which is like a blow-up sex doll in that it will not retain its shape. It stands up nicely for a few minutes and then suddenly it slumps like a drunk and starts leaning. We have re-set it and re-cut it and re-positioned it and even put little wedges of wood in the tree holder and nothing works. it is currently slumping against the wall in our living room looking very Christmasy. Anyway Sean is home, did I mention that? He got home from Bahston Thursday night. So Friday he and a couple of his friends and Little Kev and one of his friends drove to downtown Bottom Rung Baltimore to see a rock show and by the time they were driving back the Snow of the Century had already started and in a very short time the roads were crappy and it became apparent that i would have three overnight house guests. Let's see - with the entire fam in tow plus my three stranded new friends that would make more-or-less eight adults in my house, nine counting Mema. Oh and did I mention that Sean's two friends are bigga-bigga boys and not to be trifled with at the supper table. Anyway it snowed like a bitch Friday night and then all day non-stop Saturday and by the time the thing was all said and done there was two-feet plus of snow covering God View and its environs. Just lovely. Have i mentioned how much I hate snow and cold and winter? Hate it. I was claustrophobic all day Saturday. I even contemplated walking down to the local music store to buy strings for my electric guitar just to have something to do. I didn't, of course, because as I mentioned we were measuring snow in feet and not inches. I am neither Lewis nor Clark.

Anyway in the end it was all ok. Last night even while it was still snowing La Sooze and i trooped out to the grocery store where this time there was no one and plenty of milk. We stocked up on essentials just in case. Meanwhile Sean and one of his friends scraped most of the snow off our driveway during the Storm of the Century and that was hugely helpful because shoveling two feetsies of snow is, in short, a heart attack waiting to happen. This morning all three of my fine guests one-by-one headed out in the morning and dug out their cars and departed, leaving me a dishwasher full of plates, a mostly-clean driveway and a relatively empty refrigerator. How I love the snow.

Oh, and what did i do on Saturday while everyone else was playing board games or watching bad movies on television? I was looking at homes in Oro Valley, Arizona on a real estate site on the internet. While we in Miz Maryland were looking out the window at Currier and Ives circa 2009 the fine people in my favorite city in the U. S. were enjoying a perfect high of 70 with sunny skies. They were not stuck in their house watching their Cheez Nips disappear down the gullets of young men. Anyway I told La Sooze in the midst of our weekend of pleasure that I will not spend another winter in this miserable state. Can't do it. Whilst surfing on Saturday i found a terrific house in Oro Valley with a kidney-shaped heated pool and Jacuzzi and a courtyard. It cost $1.3 million. Damn, I better write that book, and fast.

Wed., Dec. 16, 2009

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 03:50:13 GMT

Clinging to my lurching existence

Listen it's late. I just finished writing a message to a dear friend of mine who is a pastor and who had asked me for some thoughts on a topic she's preaching on pretty soon. So I just wrote a long and rambling e-mail to her and tonight I had band rehearsal and now it's after 10 and I am tired and am looking forward to going night-night in the Country Squire. So I'll keep this brief.

One thing I wanted to mention tonight was that at band rehearsal tonight i got totally bummed out. This is church band rehearsal, mind you, like in a church with crosses and candles and stuff. The first thing that happened was that the dude who runs the band had the sound turned up way loud so that when i plucked the first couple of strings on my fabulous Taylor guitar it sounded like i was Pete Townsend playing at Wembley Stadium in London. Yikes. So it turns out that the band leader guy, who I generally like, did this on purpose as like an experiment because he wanted each person playing and singing to hear their own output and then make some creative adjustment to tone themselves down and kind of blend in. Like if you could hear yourself blasting away over everyone else then you're probably working too hard. This kind of annoyed me because it was like a grade school lesson, like okay class listen to yourselves now, let's use inside voices. I would prefer that someone would just say "hey, turn it down a little you're too damn loud." This i understand. I think it's my New York street sensibility. Then the leader guy called another guy in the band an "A-hole" because the guy played something he didn't want him to play. The guy didn't deserve it. Actually that's a terrible word. I hate being called an A-hole and share sympathy with anyone else who has been so deemed. Anyway, as a reminder here, we were in church - altar, pews, the whole thing. Even to me, quite possibly the most inappropriate person in the free world, it seemed a little harsh. Then we were playing this song that we've played before but since I play lead guitar i don't pay too much attention to the words of the songs. Anyway this song is called "Forevermore" and is by a Christian musician named Aaron Shust and it had a line in it that said, and I'm quoting here because I looked it up ..."there's no other God I call to, you are the One I cling to, You are forevermore." And I zoned in on the word "cling" which seems to me like a weak word, like if you "cling to something or someone you're weak and probably a stalker. The word "clawing" reminds me of the same thing. I don't think I "cling" to anything, at least nothing good. Cigarettes maybe, and my endless empty need to be loved. But I was thinking, man the guy who wrote this song must believe it, and he must "cling" to God which is pretty amazing really because it would show a lot of guts that I certainly don't have. Anyway all those thoughts bummed me out too because i felt a little like a phony since I'm playing in the church band and I'm clearly not clinging and i certainly don't want anyone to tell me to cling because if they did i would run like mad and try to learn to play heavy metal music. In retrospect, maybe the band guy was really calling me an "A-hole."

And speaking of A-holes I have to tell you that i fell again today. I am going down more than a high school slut these days. Our readers will recall that last Sunday I broke my ass on the ice on the brick steps outside God View in one of the more graceful moments I've experienced in years. Then on Monday i accidently whacked myself in the head with a glass door at work and it left a mark. Then today, well, another Kevin plays the fool story. See on Wednesday morning i have to be at work by 8 am because there is this corporate meeting i have to attend which is led by a woman who is an absolute expert in stating the obvious and in talking endlessly about absolutely nothing. She is a bag of air. But i have to go to make a show and last week while sitting around this corporate table at this meeting i noticed that every guy in the joint had on a starched shirt and a tie, except me, of course. I mean i wasn't wearing a Garfield t-shirt or anything but I wasn't exactly challenging the CEO for fashion honors either. So today I wore a nice crisp shirt and a tie AND my dress shoes, which are these nice black numbers that have square toes and are so long in the front they make me look like I have big business in other areas. These are the same shoes i wore to San Francisco several months ago for my Bob Wintershoe and they tore my tootsies to little stumps of flesh. Bad shoes. Anyway today I am running late for my 8 am snooze-a-thon and so instead of standing on the escalator up to the street from the train station I hustle up. Generally I am an escalator stander because this gives me time to fish out a cig from my inside jacket pocket and to find an appropriate tune on the i-tunes that will put a little lilt in my step when i get on the horrible streets of Baltimore. So I am running up the 'lator and I get like three steps from the top when suddenly the mile-long tip of one of my shoes catches the metal edge of a step and I lurch, and then i stumble, and then i lurch. i am suddenly staggering around like a drunk in my tie and black shoes and cannot seem to get my balance. I finally flail my way to the top of the escalator where I pitch forward right into a young African American guy who then lurches forward and whams into a woman in front of him. i am like a human domino knocking over the entire morning crowd - click, click, click, click. Thankfully this young guy was my last stop on my tumbling escapade because I was able to grab onto him and finally right myself and stand vertically again like the evolved homo sapien I pretend to be. I immediately apologized to the guy and the woman and then hid my face from the rest of the onlookers and hustled my ass down the sidewalk to work. I, of course, was late to the meeting. Natch. But more importantly I was wondering what the hell was going on. Suddenly i cannot stand up and cannot avoid injuring myself. I told La Sooze today that maybe I have moved from emotional to physical self-abuse. i am evolving so well. Anyway I am hoping tomorrow will be a better day. I am hoping no one will be called an A-hole in my presence and that I will remain erect for the livelong day and come out unscathed. If not, I will need to find something, or someone, to cling to.

Tues., Dec. 15, 2009

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 02:14:02 GMT

God bless Peyton and the garbage guys

Just a quickie tonight because it is a big day here in the Nation as we are finally and officially submitting Kevin's college applications. Actually I submitted some a couple of weeks ago but only because it was free and I thought, what the hell, Kev might actually have some interest in these no-name Podunk schools, but of course he did not. But after much filling out of forms and kvetching and writing and re-writing of these ridiculous essays, we have finally all come to agreement that the damn things are ready to go out. So tonight, with much fanfare, I will push the button on submitting the two biggies - Boston University and Syracuse, Kev's number one and two choices in order of importance and desire. From here, of course we have to fill out more crap so his high school will agree to send out his grade transcripts and teachers will write him glowing letters of recommendation saying what a wonderful and swell and bright young man The Kev is. Right now my future brilliant scholar is on the couch playing a video game; specifically "Assassin's Creed II" which he tells me is a terrific game. I will trust him on this. Next year, with hope and some luck, he will be at a college somewhere poring over a textbook with a cold bowl of Raman Noodles at his side wishing like hell he was back home on the couch.

OK, so here's a terrific story I heard today from my terrific and beloved aunt AK in Cali. This is a real Christmas story.

I don't know that I've ever mentioned that my cousin Pat and her husband Graham have three amazing children, but one that just happens to stand out because she is special, very special because she is a survivor. Several years ago their daughter, AK's granddaughter Peyton (who goes by the nickname "Pook") was diagnosed with cancer - specifically a malignant fibrous histiosarcoma, which is a soft tissue sarcoma. She was only 7. She underwent surgery and had the tumor removed and is now 12 and cancer-free and a really cool and funny and smart and beautiful and ultimately special kid. Every year for the past several, Peyton has designed a Christmas card that's sold as part of a fundraiser for the Pediatric Cancer Research Foundation (PCRF) (see a short video on Peyton on the PCRF website here). Of course these are both heartbreaking and wonderful cards from not just Peyton but a host of children battling all matter and form of cancer.

So today AK was telling me that obviously she and my cousin Pat both buy and use Peyton's Christmas card (as La Sooze and I do) because, why wouldn't you, and what better message could you possibly send for the holidays then supporting a cure for children's cancer. None. Period. So today was garbage day for AK and Cousin Pat, and they did what generous and grateful people do, which is that they slip a little green inside a card each year and tip the trash guys, whose job everyone needs but no one would want. Of course they slipped this money into one of Peyton's cards. So the trash men do their business and take their cards and leave, and a little while later there is a knock at Pat's door and it is the trash guys back again. They have opened the card and they have seen the picture of Peyton on the back and they have recognized her wonderful face and realized that they have been hauling the trash of an angel. They told Pat that they had actually stopped their truck and pulled over to the side of the street and talked about Peyton and about the endless great loss caused by cancer, and they talked about how one of the men had recently lost a loved one to this terrible, terrible disease. So they had come back to respect Peyton and Pat and the pain and fear that their family has been through. And they came back because Peyton's card had touched them, and they too wanted to help. As they sat on the side of the street in their trash truck they had pooled together the money they had and had stopped by to do their own angelic gesture. They handed Pat $100, a donation, they said, for the PCRF.

There is nothing more to say when you see kindness in a stranger's heart. There are still good people out there. As they say in AA - from Park Avenue to park bench, there are still some good ones out there. And to them I say, God bless you. And God bless Peyton..

Peyton

Mon., Dec. 14, 2009

Sun, 13 Dec 2009 21:30:45 GMT

While La Sooze is nice, I break my ass on the ice

Believe it or not I actually wrote a blog entry last night and then somehow, inexplicably, I didn't post it. This is akin to making a sandwich and then forgetting to eat it. I am a borderline idiot. So as to not waste good words I am retaining much of what I wrote last night only I am adding a couple of things because it's been a big day and, like tuna fish, some of this stuff just won't keep.

To begin with I have to tell you that La Sooze is hot - smoking hot. Today two separate men tried to score her. I have told you that she is a beautiful woman. Now the rest of the world is apparently catching on. Maybe I should stop writing about this. We never know who is reading. First off, la Sooze received an e-mail at work this morning from some guy she's met once, a guy who obviously has vision issues because he missed the ol' wedding ring on the La Sooze finger. This dude wanted to meet her for brunch at a local restaurant. Brunch, mind you. Seriously. La Sooze, in the spirit of full disclosure, sent me the e-mail she'd received. She did not, however, send me her response. This could have been a ruse on her part, like doing the absolute obvious thing while in reality she will be making clandestine plans for a little brunchie in town with footsies under the table. Doubtful, though. Then tonight La Sooze was at the grocery store specifically in the bread aisle and some guy "a little older but pretty good looking" according to La Sooze, the new female Tiger Woods, came up from behind her and said the following: "I think we're both looking for the same thing." What a line, huh? The response should have been "oh, a smack across the face?" but no La Sooze is much too nice for this. She tells the grocery store swinger that she's looking for honey wheat bread, of course and moments later good old Mr. Pick-Up is waving a fresh loaf of the ol' honey wheat up the aisle "I got it for you." What a tool. This guy was either rife with sexual metaphor or just stupid as hell. Anyway La Sooze called from the pumpernickel and rye section, no thanks, she could handle the bread thing herself. Unbelievable. Reminds me of that 60s song from Jimmy Soul - "if you wanna be happy for the rest of your life, never make a pretty woman your wife." Just my luck I had to marry a hottie - La Sooze the playah.

Also I have to mention that Sean's band, Young Astronomy, (well it's not Sean's band but the band Sean is in) just launched their website on MySpace. I looked at it today because Sean had a notice on his FaceBook page saying the site was going live at 5 o'clock. I clicked on it at like 4:47 and it was already up. Overachieving already. Anyway the site is pretty cool. It has a couple of videos and one song and pics of the fellas skulking, which is exactly the look you must have when you are a musician and someone takes your picture. Never smile, always skulk. Anyway I implore you to check it out because the music is really good and of course I would say that even if it wasn't because Sean is my son, but really, this is good stuff, smart and musically mature and savvy. I've actually got a couple of their songs on my I-pod and do not skip over them when they start playing. The band is getting ready to release a four song EP shortly and when they do I'll pimp the heck out of that because again, it's good, and it's my son, The Chief. Anyway, here's a link to the MySpace site (or click on the banner to the left) - click on the band name and check out the fab Young Astronomy.

Also, on Sunday I slipped and fell on ice. Actually what I did was I broke my ass on the ice, which is how my kids would describe what I did, and it is an absolutely apt description of what happened. See I got up early because I had to play music at church. Jeter the gluttonous beagle must go out to do his pee pees in the morning, so when he hears anyone get up, even it's at 4 in the morning, he will get up and pace around because peeing generally means he will be fed. Jeter lives to be fed, period. So Saturday night I was out fairly late, like midnight, playing music with a friend of mine. When I came home it was cold and clear. But of course I got up Sunday and it was raining, which is what it does 28 days out of every month here in Miserable Maryland. Why I did not equate the previous night's cold with the next morning's rain I do not know, but it did not for a second occur to me that perhaps the water falling from the sky could be turning into a slick solid when it reached the ground. Never thought about it. So I've got Jeter on the ol chain and I step out the front door of God View and take one step down the brick stairs in front and then onto the second one, and wham, I am gone. It all happened so fast I didn't have to time to react, not even to put my hand down or to shout "man overboard." I just remember thinking to myself "shit, ice" and then I was hurtling backward onto the brick stairs. What a sight I must have been. I wish I could watch a videotape of me breaking my ass. I bet it would be hysterical. Naturally my left shoulder took the brunt of my ice gymnastics, planting firmly into the sharp edge of one of the steps. Once I went down I was aware of only two things - a terrific pain in my shoulder and the fact that it was 7:30 in the morning and raining and I was flopping around on the front steps like a drunk. People, of course, could be looking. I was picturing a middle-aged woman in a bathrobe and slippers peering out her curtain from one of the houses on the hill above us saying "honey, the guy at God View just busted his ass." Oy. So despite my acute pain I immediately jumped up as if nothing happened. Of course Jeter is no Lassie and didn't even notice that I had wiped out. He was busy sniffing shit, which is what Jeter does. Perhaps if I'd been knocked unconscious he would have eventually sniffed me and then rifled through my pockets to see if I had any food in there. Anyway the end result was that I didn't break anything, at least I don't think so. I have a nice ugly scrape on my shoulder blade and it's swollen and hurts as if I have sunburn. Beyond that, only my self-esteem has been damaged, and there is not so much of that I can afford to waste it. And then today at work I opened a big glass door and whacked myself in the head but good. I have a lump. Maybe I'm subconsciously moving from emotional self-abuse to actual physical self-abuse for all my sins. I hope not. It doesn't feel very good.

Oh, I wanted to mention my Christmas story. Friday, of course, was La Sooze's birthday and for a gift I got her a terrific pair of workout sneakers - Nike AirMax, of course. Anyway as is generally the case, I bought the wrong size. So Sunday after church and then breakfast with my beloved La Sooze, I drove over to the local mall to exchange a pair of 7s for an American 7 1/2. No problem. I did however park at one end of one of the "anchor" stores at the mall which meant I had to walk past numerous racks of terrific merchandise to reach my destination. Of course on the way there I spotted something I simply had to have - a wonderful black and white checkered flannel shirt. Flannel is in again, you know, at least for men, or boys more like it. If you buy a flannel shirt and button the top button and wear a bandanna tied like a headband you could possibly join a Hispanic gang if you so desired. Anyway on the way out I purchased said shirt and when I went up to the counter to pay, the woman behind the register was a chubby little middle-aged mom-type, and as she was ringing up the ol' purchase I made small-talk because standing at a register is always a little awkward because you're afraid you have somehow misread the tag or they're going to somehow screw it up and things will get spontaneously nasty. So as I'm standing there I am aware that there is Christmas music playing in the store, which is no shock. In fact it was Frank Sinatra singing some Christmas song that rhymed the words "holly" and "golly." Only at Christmas do we suffer the word "golly." Anyway, as an ice breaker I said to the checkout mom, "you must get tired of hearing Christmas music." She fixed a stare of death on me and said "I love Christmas music." Strike one. How do you love Christmas music? There are basically 25 Christmas songs in the whole world and they have been covered by every band, singer, choir and hack in the universe and you have heard them roughly 10 million times in your life. No one really loves these things. We tolerate them. Anyway, to try to get a foothold with mom I said "well at least if it's Frank Sinatra singing it's okay." She fixed another stare on me "I hate Frank Sinatra," she says. "I never thought he had a good voice." Strike out. Who says this? Who dares says that The Voice, The Chairman of the Board does not have the finest voice ever gifted to a human? A mom type behind the counter at a retail store at the mall, that's who. Anyway, I took my purchase and thanked the angry woman and muttered "happy holidays" to her and hustled on out of there humming "holly, jolly Christmas" to myself, just to torture her. I only wish I could sing like Frank.

Finally, today Little Kev picked up his senior pictures. What a looker. Thank God he favors his mom, La Sooze the playah. I am putting one of the photos here below. Great eyes, huh? He'd better watch himself in the bread aisle - all those hot housewives.

Thurs., Dec. 10, 2009

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 03:20:44 GMT

Happy Birthday to La Sooze

So today as you read this I want you to think of my beloved La Sooze because it just so happens to be a special day for her - the anniversary of the birth of La Sooze - her birthday. Funny, last night I had bought her a birthday card from yours truly and it made me think of all the years that I would buy two or more cards, one for me and one or maybe more fro the kids, and we would secretly go to a room somewhere in the house while La Sooze was otherwise occupied and in their childish scrawl they would tell her that she was the best mom ever and that they loved her to the moon and back, and what was so beautiful and so moving was that they absolutely meant every single word of it. This was when they were young enough to see that she loved them more than life itself and they counted on that because it was all they really had. Now, of course, two of the three kids are away and tomorrow me and La Sooze have plans to go over to a friend of hers, though somewhere along the line i hope me and Kev and La Sooze will sit at the kitchen table as we have for years and we will put a present or two in front of her wrapped in newspaper, which is what we always have done and always will do, and she will carefully read the birthday cards she receives, absorbing the sentimental words in ways that only mothers and wives can. As for me, I can only say that I am happy for La Sooze's birthday because it means that she and I have passed another milestone together, another year where we have moved and thought and run and walked and slept late and left early and done these things together, always together. Have I ever told you that when La Sooze and i met she was a young and very pretty and very together woman. I was a damaged shitshow of an individual, a walking shortcoming, killing a profound pain i was not even really aware of. La Sooze though had and has the gift of insight and can see what others miss. She saw something in me, some glimmer, some quality beneath the hair and the beer and the harm. She still sees it and nurtures and cajoles it. It is a beautiful thing to watch and experience. Tonight La Sooze told me she is done with birthdays and does not plan to really feel anything special about tomorrow. But she is special, whether she wants to admit it or not. She has raised three terrific children who, if they all were home, would sign a card in all honesty telling her she's the best mom and that they love her to the moon and back a hundred times. She has taken me from the wasteland to a semblance of a successful man with a master's degree and 20 years of sobriety and dreams. She has built God View and serves on volunteer boards in the local community and every week helps a little brain damaged boy and his mother. This is what I celebrate today, La Sooze's life and he gifts and her dreams. She deserves presents and love. So happy birthday La Sooze whether you want it or not. I love you and i appreciate you and I look forward to spending many more birthdays with you unwrapping newspaper wrapped packages and reading the words in sappy cards. Have a terrific day.

Oh I also have a mystery to solve. I got a note here in the Nation regarding an entry I'd made talking about our recent college trip to Syracuse (the 'Cuse in the vernacular). The comment was from someone named "BootScoot" and said "don't you have a brother who lives near Scranton?" Well I don't know who BootScoot is or I would drop them a note. Anyway, in response Booty, yes I do - my brother lives somewhere north of Scranton in a little town that i have been to once and that reminded me of towns you drive through on vacation in the Catskills and wonder what it is like to live there. It seemed like a nice place, very small and Mayberryish. I remember my brother drove a big pick-up truck. He has two terrific daughters, and a son I have not heard from in mnay moons. Anyway I talk to my brother usually by e-mail once or twice a year. I believe he still lives up there in the Pennsylvania mountains and I hope he is happy.

The only other thing I wanted to mention today is that i have recently been all hung up on a singer-songwriter named James McMurtry who I have listened to for years but not with any great depth. (his father btw is Larry McMurtry the guy who wrote Lonesome Dove). Recently I pulled out the one CD of his I own and I put it on my I-pod and then downloaded some other songs that sounded interesting. Great stuff. The guy has a kind of sad view of life where it's often easier to give up because things are jus stacked against you. Uplifting, I know. But really, some of his writing is quite good and some of the desperation kind of hits home, even if it is desperate. Anyway before I go watch the Steelers lose to the God awful Browns, I wanted to share with you a couple of lines I heard in a James McMurtry song tonight called No More Buffalo, which is about a guy who just won't let go of the past. I was tot he train station in the freezing cold tonight and I heard this and i nodded and hit the escalator and realized that I still do have some dreams left. Tell 'em James:

"Don't chase that carrot 'till it makes you sick,

what do you think you're gonna prove?

Just let it dangle 'till it falls off that stick.

that's when you make your move."

Wed., Dec. 9, 2009

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 04:24:00 GMT

Velcro sneakers and a fictional kite

Several items since I was thinking tonight on the way home about where my head currently is and I could not for the life of me pinpoint any particular emotion or event or mood that's dominated me in recent days. You could say that I'm just sort of drifting along. OK, if pressed I would say the thing that routinely runs through my mind is my consistent fear of growing old. Not of dying, mind you, but of growing old. I wonder sometimes, for instance, when people start dressing old. Like when do finally give up on the jeans and the tight shirts? When do you give-in to Velcro sneakers? Also when do you just say screw it and just become a passive verb, a "be." Like when do you just begin to exist and sit around the house watching movies at night and ignoring your spouse and not caring if you have any passion about anything? Is this a conscious choice or does it just happen? I was in a corporate meeting today and I looked around at every guy at the table where I was sitting and they all had the sort of old mannish "dad" feel to them. Hair was closely cropped if it wasn't balding. They all, obviously, got their dress shirt done with "heavy" starch and they wore old mannish shoes and said old mannish things like they wanted to take a "deeper dive" into this particular issue. Meanwhile I had pulled in with a black leather suit jacket, a pair of grey pants that are probably a little tight and look moderately "mod" and a black dress shirt with only medium starch. I have not cut my hair in months and so my head looks vaguely like that of a frat boy who just awakened on a couch and looked around to figure out where he is. I don't know if any of this makes any distinction between growing old or not but I had the sense that these other guys really took this work stuff super serious and really felt like if they said smart stuff they would be rewarded for it and would be perceived as terrific and successful employees. I looked at it like it was another hour and another moment and if I could make a meaningful contribution I would and if not at the end of the hour I would move on to the next thing and see how that went. That either means I am thinking young or I'm just an old guy with no sense of priorities. If so, I kind of like that.

Oh, the elevator. I mentioned yesterday that I got stuck in a possessed elevator. I did. This was at work. I got on an elevator all alone in the middle of the day to go down to the street to have a cig. I am on the 7th floor and I punch the button for the lobby. Everything is elevator smooth when suddenly the shit hits the fan. The elevator gets to like the fifth floor and it stops abruptly. then it starts bouncing - violently, up and down, up and down, then the car suddenly shoots to the 12th floor, then it drops to 10, starts jumping up and down again, back to 12, down to 7. Meanwhile I am ridiculously claustrophobic, which might explain why I am not comfortable in corporate America. Small spaces creep me out. When I was a kid two separate incidents screwed me for life in terms of confinement. My brother, a real gem of a child, locked me inside a suitcase once when I was about 5 and sat on it and I thought I would die at that young age. Then I had my tonsils out when I was in first grade and they used gas to knock me out for the operation. The gas was given by strapping a mask to my face. I was never the same. Anyway back to my elevator. After about four floors of playing bouncing car I started to freak. As long as I don't think about being in a small space I am ok. When I become aware of it my bowels become instantaneously loosened. As the car continued to careen from one floor to another I rang the little elevator bell in the car thinking that might do something. It did nothing but ring a bell. Big deal. Then I hit another button that is like a telephone and connects you to someone, somewhere who you assume can do something about the fact that you are shortly going to expire. A woman answered the phone after a few rings and in a panicky voice I told her I am in car number 111 and it keeps jumping from floor to floor and bouncing up and down and I am not liking this, not one bit, and i am assuming there are like really strong cables holding these things up, right?. You know what she did? She asked me to hold. I swear to you. I am staining my drawers and riding a devilvator and she says "can you hold a minute?" Where I might be going I did not know. After about five more horrifying trips up and down the building and being whacked around like a child in a moonwalk, I finally figured I would just keep continual pressure on the little button you push to open the door and if it opened and there was any chance of escaping the death car I would dive out onto a random floor like a detective in a cop show. It worked. After about 10 minutes the doors suddenly opened and I was in the lobby. Mission accomplished. The woman on the elevator phone had returned by then and asked me which car I was in as if I had not already told her this critical information. The one that's lighting up the board like a pinball machine, Einstein. .The one with fresh urine on the carpet. What a hero. I held the door open with my entire body and yelled to the little speaker "The doors opened I am out of here, right now" and I got the hell out of that car and went outside and chain smoked two cigs. I noticed that my hands were shaking. I never shake. I am glad to be alive. I now like stairways very much.

Oh, by the way did I nail the Tiger Woods thing? Dude is a man-whore, no? They're crawling out of the friggin' woodwork now. As a matter of fact, now that I think of it, I slept with Tiger. I think I'll call the Enquirer.

Finally I have a confession to make. I may have told you that I was reading the book "The Kite Runner," which was a very poopular (as my grandmother would say) book, and then it became a movie. Anyway, for some reason unknown to even me, I thought this book was a true story, a memoir. I actually believed this for about the first 150 pages. If you've read this book you can understand that if you believed the story was real it was relatively believable for awhile, like you read it and say, "that could happen." Then you start getting into the coincidences that only happen in fiction - the evil guy the writer knows as a kid just happens to show up again as an adult and he's as evil as ever, and I start thinking wow, this guy had an interesting life, what a coincidence. Then really stupid shit starts happening and finally this little 10-year old kid shoots a guy's out with a slingshot saving the life of the writer. This was the precise moment when I said to myself, now wait just a dad burned minute here pal, this stuff just doesn't happen. I thought I was reading another "A Million Little Pieces," that memoir that the writer basically made up and even got the great and wonderful social and spiritual superwoman Oprah to buy into. Anyway I looked it up. Pure fiction. What the heck was I thinking? I was actually enjoying the book. Now I think it's a piece of contrived poo poo. Shame on me. I wonder if this happens to you when you get old. Is it a sure sign of aging when you go around mistaking fiction for memoir? Scary stuff. I better get a new book quick. And a pair of Velcro sneakers.

Tues., Dec. 8, 2009

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 02:13:17 GMT

No java at the 'Cuse

Last night at this precise time (8:19 pm eastern) I was behind the wheel of the ol white Accord barreling through a vigorous snow shower on Interstate 81 probably somewhere south of Scranton, PA. What a place to be. I miss it so already. See the reason i was busting through the nothingness of Pennsyltucky was that me and la Sooze and Little Kev were returning from a whirlwind college visit tour. This was our second such event, the first a trip to Bahston in October to see Boston University, which Kev loved, and then Emerson College, which Kev said was a collection of smart nerds dressed in fag clothing. Emerson quickly plummeted to the bottom of his college list even though it is in Bahston where Kev ultimately wants to go. Why, I don't know. I assume it's because Sean is up there and so he has a blood connection, and also because Kev has gone up there a couple of times and hung out and apparently liked the place, even though it is freezing cold and snowy roughly nine months out of the year, AND it is the home of the hated Red Sox and their legion of toolbag fans. Not where i would personally want to attend school.

This trip was unique because Kev actually chose the colleges himself. Glory, glory hallelujah. Recently we were having the endless "where are you going to college" discussion with Kev and in the midst of it he sauntered into The Office with the fabulous MacBook Pro and on it he had listed three schools of higher learning, all of which offer majors in video production, which is apparently where Kev is now leaning. The three schools were, in order of importance: Syracuse University, Ithaca College, and La Salle University in Philly, which he had badly misspelled. Of course La Sooze and I were thrilled beyond reason that Kev had actually spent a moment researching these institutions of higher learning and so we immediately moved forward with plans to visit since we are already moving rapidly toward the close of deadlines for applying to colleges that do not contain the word "community" in them. So last Sunday at about 5ish, after a massive five inch snowstorm had crapped all over Miserable Maryland on Saturday, the three of us piled into the Accord and drove five plus hours through the black mountains of Pennsylvania and then north past such forgettable towns as Binghamton and Homer, New York. We had, of course, made a reservation at a hotel which was a little north of Syracuse (if that's actually possible without falling off the end of the earth) and we pulled in there about 11:30 pm. Of course the hotel was hysterical - I'd found it on my Bible, Trip Advisor which said it was cheap but clean, which is just what we were looking for since all we were doing was flopping in the ol' bed when we got there and then leaving in the morning for our tour of tours. Naturally when i checked in the woman behind the desk was about 400 pounds and added another 100 in gold chainage around the folds of her fabulous neck. She also had a red rash on her chest. Yummy. The room itself was reminiscent of a small railroad car with two beds in it. Cozy. There was a slo a bottle opener nailed to the wood frame around the inside of the bathroom door so, I assume, you could take a long vacation in the john with a six pack of bottles and never, ever have to part with the warm seat. Such thoughtful comforts.

After a moderate sleep i got up the next morning and schlepped over to the lobby area for a cup of coffee, and of course they had a continental breakfast place with cereal and Danish and OJ and naturally there was no coffee. I walked into the place at the same exact time as another guest who was an older guy and was about 6 feet 5 and was wearing blue pajama pants emblazoned with pictures of Dale Earnhardt's NASCAR car and number. He was carrying his own oversized metal coffee cup and was apparently planning to do some damage to the java but alas they were Joe-free at the moment. So i walk next door to the front desk and ol' Dale Earnhardt busts in behind me and announces in a loud voice "I have a complaint and so does this guy - there's no coffee." He enveloped me in his NASCAR reality. The guy behind the desk, an Indian guy, says "oh, i am busted" in an Indian accent that sounded like the convenience store owned on The Simpsons. Syracuse, what a town.

Anyway we toured Syracuse in the morning and I have to tell you that all three of us were really impressed. The town, or city, is kind of blue collar, like Scranton or Pittsburgh maybe, but the school is terrific and has the old brick and stone buildings and a very laid back vibe. They also have a terrif video program and a nationally ranked school of communications. Of course the major impression that the "cuse left on all of us was that it was cold, really cold, and they always have the ha-ha funny little student doing the tour, which naturally was almost all outdoors and it was like 28 degrees and we were done with the jokes about halfway through the tour and anxious to tour the inside of a building, any building, math and science would have done just fine. After the 'Cuse we got back into the Accord and drove about an hour and half into the middle of nowhere New York and visited Ithaca College which Kev was not exactly thrilled with. Nice school, terrific liberal arts program, but kind of off the beaten path. The little town of Ithaca is a super duper rich boy liberal enclave since Cornell University is nearby and you can tell the people from Cornell because they wear clothes like Ryan O'Neal in Love Story, lots of pricey wool coats and scarves. Not exactly kev's style. Ithaca immediately replaced Emerson at the bottom of Kev's college list.

Anyway I am back again and anxious to tell you many things, among them about my getting stuck recently in a possessed elevator where i saw God. Well not exactly God but the reasonable facsimile who hangs out in elevators. But right now I have to go. Kev the future college boy has asked me to watch a movie with him. This time next year he will be away at college somewhere and i will be typing alone. I have to take advantage of these things while i can.

Thurs., Dec. 3, 2009

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 03:20:21 GMT

Too long in the wasteland

Sometime over the past month or so I made a decision in the silence of my own heart. I think I made it on the way to work one morning. I can drive to the train station using this main road that's a state route and is two lanes of perfect aggression filled every morning with endless lines of cars with individuals who all think they are more important or better than you. They drive fast and push close to your bumper as if they have the ability to impose their will on you and you will somehow disappear or turn into Speed Racer in their blessed presence. That road bothers me. Since we moved to God View I have been taking another road, one that's 40 mph and runs parallel to the mini raceway. This road is like the old man road. Hardly anyone drives on it. It is lined with little suburban homes and school bus stops. There are a few farms with horses, a dark pond with a short wooden pier jutting into it waiting patiently for a boy and a fishing pole. I was driving there one morning when a complete sense of my utter ordinariness overcame me, and it was good. I suddenly felt as if I were in the place I was supposed to be. As if driving to another day at a job that leaves me limp and self-doubting is precisely where I need to be. I was humbled and a little ashamed. I felt as if I had been a child daydreaming, flying over foreign lands and slaying dragons and when my mother called me I had awakened alone in my room and i was plain and knew i would never learn to fly. I felt a certain comfort in this, as if the fight were over, as if all this silly yearning was done and i could do what other people do - settle into myself comfortably and ride out the job and the days easily until the next phase came. Somehow i was a little embarrassed too. I had caught myself perhaps lying to myself. One of the commitments I made to myself that day on the green road was to talk less, to not say everything that's on my mind just because it's there. No one cares that much. I also said i would stop looking for other jobs. I would embrace what I have, like counting my blessings, my toes and fingers, the children grown and moving.

No wonder that tonight I was driving home from work thinking about my notebooks. For years i always had a book, a pad, a journal, that I'd carry in my backpack and nearly everyday I would write in it - something, anything. I have dozens of these things stashed in boxes and abandoned on bookshelves in the basement. They're filled with scribbles of drawings and song lyrics and poems and days. I used to pull them out sometimes and read them. I don't anymore. They are only days in books now, like the bent stubs of cigarette butts in the ashtray in the courtyard. I dump them out every few days and then fill it again with the remnants of my brief pleasures. I don't even have a notebook now. I used to write on the subway a lot. I would sit and scribble oblivious to the strangers beside me. For awhile the electronic sound the train makes at each stop was like a Pavlovian signal to me. I would hear it and the robotic voice - "this is Lexington Market, next stop is Charles Street" - and I would want to find a pen and a blank white sheet and put something down that would capture what I felt or what I saw or what i wanted to see with the thought that sometime I would share it with somebody. I was wondering tonight where the hell my notebook had gone. What the hell had I done with it?

I put in an old CD for the drive home and cranked it. Music always sounds better, feels better, when it's loud, though i rarely play it that way. When you can feel the cymbal and your foot taps instinctively on the rubber mat, one and two and three and four and one and two...you know you're lost somewhere and it's a good place. I listened to some blues and made my throat raw singing it. "I wanna be more like Jesus, oh Mary don't you weep." Good God, somebody help me. I needed this. Release. I had been quiet long enough. Another song, "Lucky Man" from The Verve spoke directly to me, as if it were the first time I'd ever heard it. "How many corners do i have to turn? How many times do I have to learn? That all the love I have is my mind?"

I think I've told you I have a dear friend who is a pastor at a large church. Now and then she preaches and she'll send me a note and tell me what she's going to talk about, what the lesson will be. She humbles me by asking for my input. She's preaching again in a few weeks. Her theme is "scared moments," those brief times that are somehow and for some reason holier than others. She is using the story of Christ who, after he has risen from the dead, meets the apostles on the road and they don't recognize him and they walk and talk and when they stop to eat he breaks bread and they suddenly know who he is, and he disappears. Once I was driving to a job interview in Washington D.C. and I had been laid off for months. I was still drinking then and it was morning and I was wearing a suit and had a beer can between my legs. It had rained and the road was wet. I was on I-95 doing 70 in traffic. Like someone had grabbed my car and spun it like a top, the back of my truck fishtailed and then it turned and it turned and it turned. There was nothing I could about it but await the crash, the traffic behind me, the angry drivers rushing toward their success. But the crash didn't come. I spun three times across the interstate and ended up in the median strip facing the wrong way. At that very moment I closed my eyes as the cars rushed past oblivious and I felt the presence of God there with me, in me, as if He was breathing on me . I looked down and there was rubber from the steering wheel under my fingernails. I had come that close to losing it and I still wanted yet to breathe. All the love I have is in my mind. And in my heart. And sometimes in those moments when you cannot stay so quiet anymore, it is time to turn up the music and listen, and look around to see who and what is sitting beside you breaking soul bread at your table.

Tues., Dec. 1, 2009

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 01:33:37 GMT

The art of the shart

Today I was standing on East Lombard street having a cig and this beat car rolled up, like a dark green Saturn, and the driver's side window was rolled down and there was a woman driving and she was playing music really loud, like obvious loud the way the ghetto poseurs do with sideways baseball caps rockin' ridiculous rap music to absolutely prove to you they are cool even though you don't care. But this woman was not rockin' the rap, no, if possible what she was blasting into the B'more streets was worse than that. It was Jimmy Buffet's 'Cheeseburger in Paradise." I kid you not. This is akin to listening to something as horrifying as Abba - music that is horrible and annoyingly uncool but a certain percentage of people will try to convince you that it is actually so uncool it's cool. None of that is true. If in fact you happen to have a guilty pleasure moment (and pray God you don't) and you absolutely must listen to music as putrid as Jimmy Buffet doing 'Cheeseburger in Paradise" then you must do this with the windows tightly closed and the sound turned down so no one else can hear it. Otherwise you are a nothing but a nerd driving a beat Saturn and not a hipster. That moment was soooo Baltimore all it needed was a Ravens bumper sticker to complete it.

Also today I was thinking of the word "shart," which cracks me up. This, of course is a combination of shit plus fart and is used to describe what happens when you twee frap and get a little bonus with your wind. Of course this is not a word i think of very often but today I was at work and i went to a bathroom which is not on my designated floor and this word jumped into my brain. To explain, most of the men's rooms (women's too I assume, but this is purely anecdotal, I have not done the research) have key codes on them in the building where I work. In other words you cannot just enter a bathroom, you have to punch a specific number onto a little keypad to gain access to the urinals and stalls. What's interesting is that you can just saunter into the building like you own the joint and get on an elevator and go to any floor of your choosing, but you cannot take a pee unless you are in the secret society that knows the key code. Anyway the floor I usually work on requires a code to use the potty, a code I happen to know, being in the secret society of that floor myself. The floor I was on today, however, generally does not - free peeing for all. Except today I went to go wee wee and discovered that they had actually installed a keypad and now the john is secure and locked up tight, which did me and my busting kidneys no good. As I stood there looking at the closed door that said "Men" i was thinking to myself - "good thing I don't have to do major duties here or I'd be screwed. I would be sharting away for myself here in the hallway and pounding numbers on the pad to no avail." Just then a guy came up who I happen to know and he made a joke about the john security and then confidently punched in the numbers giving us both access to the safety of le toilet. Oh, another word I like - smegma. You'll have to look that one up.

So tonight I started basketball. I told you the draft was held a couple of weeks ago and I have my team roster which consists of the same exact girls I had last year when we won a grand total of three games. Well actually I have 10 girls and nine of them are from last year. I had one girl graduate and she was replaced by a girl who actually knows how to play. Can you stand it? I met this girl tonight - a real sweetheart, softspoken and nice. She actually played freshman and JV high school ball and then was the last cut from the varsity team during tryouts this year. I asked her tonight if getting cut had pissed her off and she said "oh yeah." But she added that she waited to cry until after she'd gone outside and did not cry in front of the cutting coach. She will fit in nicely. Oh, and on the way to our first practice tonight i stopped at the fabulous Wal-Mart in order to pick up one of those pins that you use to pump up basketballs. My balls are flat, as you might imagine. So I bought this little packet that had one pin in it and when i got to the car I looked at it and noticed that the packaged actually said "2 needles," and not one. Then I noticed that the package had been opened and someone had actually stolen one of the pins and put the thing back on the rack. Who steals basketball pump needles? It was $1.00 for two. What a world we live in.

Finally i wanted to mention that La Sooze was recently featured in a magazine, which i have not said anything about. This was a part of a large feature article on independent filmmakers and La Sooze was quoted (including a pull out quote, mind you) and is featured in the story and there's a picture of her. Now as you know La Sooze is a beautiful woman and so any photo of her will be flattering and terrific. Only when she and I picked up the magazine this weekend we immediately turned to the article and noticed two things. First, the writer said La Sooze had a BA in Theatre Arts when, in fact, she has a BFA degree. Shoddy reporting, of course. Second, La Sooze did not like her picture. Actually it's not a bad picture. The lighting seems a bit bright but in truth it looks like La Sooze and that is a good thing. Again, this is a very pretty woman, though she would not admit that. I personally have to tell you that she is and that she turns my head still everyday after lo' these many years of terrific and growth-filled marriage (29 years in January - how great is that?) Anyway La Sooze told me tonight that a bunch of people have mentioned the photo to her and they all raved about it and so she admits it can't be that bad if people are all about it. As for me, the picture doesn't matter. I am proud of La Sooze, her accomplishments, her depth and her great and wonderful and obvious beauty, and I don't need no magazine picture to show me any of that.

Mon., Nov. 30, 2009

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 03:48:55 GMT

Up with Chief notes, down with Tahger

So the kids left today. Shannon pulled out sometime this morning after I'd left for work and Sean had a flight back to Bahston at about 1:30 and La Sooze drove him to the airport (or the Erport as my kids like to say). Of course tonight we are back to some semblance of what has now become normal since two of our three kidlets are in college and only give two shits about us, the parental units, about two out of the seven days of each week. In fact when Daughter Shannon and Sean the Chief were home for Thanksgiving they were rarely actually "home." Much of the time we would catch brief glimpses of them like you would a rare bird and then they were off again. We did, however, gather last night in the God View living room and watched the movie "Up," which Sean very much likes. We watched it with Number One Son Sean and Little Kev and two friends of Sean's who were much more respectful of the standing ":Shhhh don't talk I'm watching a movie" rule than I am. I like to ask questions and make comments during films. I do not consider them to be holy objects as apparently the rest of the world does. I get shusshed a lot. Anyway, Up is a terrific movie and I actually enjoyed it - funny and sad and campy and unpredictable in a Wallace and Gromit sort of way. I recommend it - gets my highest rating - three Jeters. (Oh btw did you see that Derek Jeter was named Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year today? When the Yankees won their coveted 27th World Series title last month my terrific aunt AK sent me a Yankees World Series t-shirt with the number 2 on it and Jeter's name emblazoned on the back. How I love the Jeets. I can now rep the World Series hero who also happens to be Sportsman of the Year. Good choice on the shirt. Looks good on me too).

Anyway last night when i went beddie bye Sean The Chief was already gone, having headed out with his buddies to go to another friend's house to do things i myself probably did lo' these many years ago. So when i was getting ready for work this morning I went to my beloved coffee maker to brew the holy first cup of morning coffee and there was a handwritten note from Sean strategically placed near my cup that was addressed to both me and Little Kev that said, and I am quoting here because i saved the note "See you guys in three weeks. Let's watch more Pixar movies. Tell Shan bye - dunno when she'll be awake. Love, Sean." I of course immediately loved this note and folded it neatly and put it in my backpack for safe keeping. What I liked most was that whatever ridiculous time he came home last night or this morning, Sean was thinking about us and about me. See i am still not accustomed to the whole father love thing. I know inherently that kids love their dads on deep heart levels that even they, we, cannot explain. But I do not think of myself like I think of my own father, as a bag of dad air spouting phony words of advice that we both knew were bullshit; playing a dad role like reading lines from a book. I think of myself more like a mentor and a power of example, and so when I get little notes beside my coffee cup in the morning I am greatly pleased and moved and think that perhaps somewhere along the line, even through my own desperate damage, I (actually la Sooze and I - mostly La Sooze) have done some good.

Oh, speaking of kids, little Kev is finally starting to awaken from his life stupor and focus on colleges. Tonight in fact he actually, of his own free will, brought up the names of three colleges that offer terrific film and video majors, which is apparently what he is at least partly interested in studying. Can you imagine? It's like a bear has finally left its cave and grumbled at me. The funny thing is that most of the colleges he is looking at, including the majority of those he mentioned today, are in ass-freezing locales. How about Syracuse University? How about Ithaca College which is three miles from the North Pole? Add to this list Boston University, which is in Boston of course, which invented snow, and you have Kev the academic snow bunny a year from now. I asked Kev tonight if there aren't schools in places which do not measure snow by the foot that perhaps offer the same major possibilities. He did not know. I shouldn't argue with success, of course, at least he came up with some names, even if they are all places where skiing and snowmobiling are varsity sports.

And finally, what about ol' Tiger Woods? La Sooze says I'm enjoying this whole Tiger thing way too much - you know, the little accidente with the tree and the fire hydrant and the possibility that his model-beautiful wife was chasing after him with a 2 wood ready to jam it up his Tiger ass for catting around with other beautiful women. To be honest i do love these goings on, mainly because I am no great fan of the Tiger (or "Tah-ger" as la Sooze's mom aka Mema pronounces it. Mema, who loooves to watch golf and bowling on the tube when she can find it, is totally in the tank for Tiger). Anyway Tiger, as we know, did not really do much wrong here. I mean he wasn't robbing banks or running over kittens with his Buick. But that doesn't matter. The reality is he's an over-the-top larger-than-life sports character who collects millions of shekels and accolades like i collect pennies in an empty Chock Full 'o' Nuts can in my closet. And yet Tiger baby is aloof and demands his "privacy." This always kills me. The guy just happens to choose an incredibly public profession and has no problem scooping the cream off the top, but then he wants to go home and hide because he is famous. Right. See, there are advantages to being Joe Schmoe. Nobody cares when you run over a fire hydrant. Anyway Tiger is now in deep doo-doo because he is obviously trying to hide a little something something because even tools like me know when you drive out of the house at 2:30 am with no shoes on it is not because you are trying to get a better look at Saturn. No, something is amiss. And then Mrs. T. takes a golf club to the car window, and meanwhile there's this little matter of this smoking hot woman Rachel Uchitel (Rachel is no La Sooze, of course, but attractive nonetheless) who Tiger may have been doing Tiger things with recently. Anyway, it all reminds me of a movie La Sooze and i watched this weekend called "The Devil and Daniel Webster," a 1941 dandy with Edward Arnold and Walter Huston. This farmer guy has a run of bad luck and sells his soul to the ol' devil (called Mr. Scratch) so he can become fabulously rich and, in turn, a total toolbag. Then eventually it comes time to pay the piper with his soul and suddenly he's not so crazy about being rich and famous anymore. In the movie, Daniel Webster ends up defending the guy in a jury trail against the devil and of course gets this tool out of his eternal damnation. But let's be real here, Daniel Webster never had to deal with the likes of TMZ, the National Inquirer and Fox News. These are worse than the devil himself. Hey Tahger, good luck with all that, buddy.

Sun. Nov. 29, 2009

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 04:12:11 GMT

Back in Black

You should never give me time off - I never use it wisely. As you know i took off last Wednesday and so I had 5 consecutive days off with little more scheduled than eating turkey and maybe doing a little shopping. I mean I could have repainted the house and washed every car we own and written the better part of a novel and maybe developed a vaccine to prevent scoliosis. But I am now at the very end of that blank sheet of five day paper and what do I have to show for it? Aside from the remaining cooked flesh of a bird in a plastic bag in the 'fridge and several bags of purchased Christmas presents stashed in my house, I have nothing to show for my terrific time off. Oh wait, i vacuumed my car out the other day. Backseat looks great. Big doins'.

Y'know I can see from my precipitously lazy perspective that it is a damn good thing i actually have a job. if I did not have a good reason to get up in the morning i would say there's a better than average chance i would not. What's worse is that we're in the Daylight Savings Time mode now which means it gets dark at like 5 pm and so each day of my recent nothingness I got up at like 10 and then surfed the internet and drank coffee and did not think of a single useful thing until about noon and by then you have a good 5 hours of daylight left, tops and i would say, well, not enough time really to take on those massive projects, and then before I knew it it was dark again and i wanted to go back to bed. I don't think I was cut out for vacation and relaxing. Makes me feel like a sloth.

The one actual thing I did accomplish this week was that I dragged La Sooze up at 4:30 am on Friday for our now annual rite of shopping passage - Black Friday. Last year we actually popped our Black Friday cherry after many years of scoffing at all the trashy douches who would awaken well before the dawn to get a deal on a Cabbage Patch kid. But last year quite by mistake, we happened to be at a Target store, which is a half-step above Wal-Mart mainly because they actually clean the floors sometimes, and we saw these target guys setting up boxes of flat screen TVs in anticipation of Black Friday and it turned out the price was amazing and we just happened to be in the market for a flat screen for Little kev and so we set the alarm and we waited in the line and we magically got the item we were looking for. I gotta be honest with you here, we actually got a charge out of it. It's like setting a reasonable goal and then actually achieving it. It gives you a buzz. So this year there was a another item I am in the market for and so on Thanksgiving Day I carefully pored through the many sale fliers in the local paper and i found a terrific deal on said item (I cannot reveal the item because if I do i will blow a Christmas surprise and unmask Santa for one of my already-grown children). So Thanksgiving night La Sooze and i went to bed and set the ol' alarm for 4:30 am and we were out the door and on the road before 5 (there is no showering required on Black Friday - cuts into the shopping time). Now I do have to admit here that this is all a little white trashy and I am well aware of this and fully accept it. I try to hide that aspect of me when i can but occasionally, Black Friday in particular, it will ooze out. I mean normal people probably say "I will pay the extra $100 for the damn thing if i don't have to get up at some ungodly hour and arm wrestle with a woman in a sweatshirt that say "bad hare day" and shows a picture of a bunny rabbit." But I am willing to do this because it is all about the hunt, that's the buzz. it's the standing in line wondering if you have completely wasted your time and lost hours of good sleep only to find some woman in a shit brown crushed velvet running suit has already carted the last of the "door buster" items you coveted.

This year La Sooze and i went to the local mall for our desired bargain which meant that unlike last year when i risked frostbite in the Target parking lot, we were at least indoors. Bad part, of course, was that I couldn't smoke, which sucks when you have to blow an hour in line with complete strangers who are all a little jazzed up and chatty because they too are nervous about scoring their heart's desire door buster. What happened this year is that La Sooze and i went in the Mall and there was not a single soul lined up at the store that held our personal Holy Grail which was terrif. Of course we arrived at 5 am and the place didnt open until six. Meanwhile there was a huge line nearby running right down the center of the mall and as it turned out the mall people were giving away bags of stuff to the first few hundred idiots who showed up by 6. These bags contained God knows what except the chance to get like a $500 gift certificate which could be used at any of the fabulously pathetic stores at our local mall. so since it was still ridiculously early and we really didn't need the dynamic duo of both me AND La Sooze in the same line, she went to the center of the mall line and I established my beach head as the very first chooch in line at the store i wanted. So for awhile I basically stood around, the alpha shopper while late arrivers piled up behind me. I was cool, of course, reading news stories on my blackberry and listening to the people around me talking about what they were buying and what other stores they'd been to. While this boring scenario was unfolding suddenly these two Hispanic guys, young guys one with a tattoo on his neck, the other wearing a sideways black baseball cap with gold lame printing all over it, slid up to the front of the line under the guise of looking in the store window to scope out the location of goods, which is muy importante on Black Friday So ol' Cheech and Chong do their scoping out, and as i suspected they don't go back to their previous place in line but stay in front me. OK, so what does one do? I mean i spend much of my life being passive and getting mad at myself for doing so but in reality whether i was first or third in the store meant little, but then again it was the principle of the thng. So i waited until the last 10 minutes and as people started jockeying for position as the lights inside the store flickered on I stepped to the boys and said "Uh you fellas aren't really thinking about jumping the line are you?" And the boys of course said oh no, they were just looking and besides they weren't planing to buy anything right away and so they wouldn't block me, and to their credit 10 minutes later the door opened and they stepped aside and let me be numero uno, and I went right to the desk and told them what I wanted and why i had gotten up at 4:30 am and i made my purchase and just as i turned to leave there was La Sooze and she had not gotten the $500 card but did score a bag of bullshit, and we celebrated our Black Friday win and got the hell out of the mall in short order. Of course before we went home we stopped at Target for old times sake, but the place was an absolute zoo, and so we left and went home and carefully hid our big purchase in the closet like the Hope diamond, and by 10 am we were back in bed going night night. And come to think of it, while I might have been lazy this week, I did accomplish something. I accomplished Black Friday. Never again.

Tues., Nov. 24, 2009

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 03:58:56 GMT

What I will do on my day off

A few random thoughts tonight on yet another rainy evening in Miserable Maryland. All it ever does is rain here, seriously. I didn't think I could hate it here anymore than I do, but if it continues to rain as it has for the past seven months I am starting an "I Hate Maryland" page on FaceBook and inviting others to join me.

So I went to work today even though I had told you that I was going to take today and tomorrow off. This is the kind of dedicated fella' I am, employee of the month material. Where's my free parking spot with the sign? Actually I had a couple of items I needed to take care today; set-up some video shoots and finish a script and this type of thing. Anyway I finished it all up within reason today and my plan is to actually not take the subway tomorrow and not go into rainy Baltimore and not give two shits about work. I will probably not eat or shower until late in the day tomorrow. This is what I do when I am off work, I drink coffee and smoke and wear a hat most of the day to tame my totally unkempt hair until I gross myself out and then shower at about 4 o'clock. Heaven.

Speaking of my hair, I have refused to cut it now for several months. I may have mentioned this but I decided a little while ago that I wanted my hair to look like that of Adrian Grenier who plays Vincent Chase in the HBO show Entourage, which is probably the only show on television I can actually say with conviction that I love. Ol' Adrian's hair is kind of a long and kind of curly and is essentially a complete mess, which is the look I'm going for. I think I told you I bought "product" that I put on my hair in the morning to straighten it and attempt to get the Adrian look. Reality is Adrian is about 30 and he's a hunk of burning love and I am not. My hair is a complete shitshow right now, really and if la Sooze had not trimmed the top of it a couple of weeks ago I would look like a brown-haired version of Carrot Top, who is not even remotely an attractive man. I may have to give up on this hair thing and just cut the shit short again. A stud I ain't.

Also lately Jeter the psycho Beagle, who pissed on the carpet in kev's bedroom today, has been an absolute sniffing maniac. I think there are rabbits or deer or some sort of beast that must come through our yard while Jeter, who sleeps constantly but usually with one eye, one ear, and one nostril open, is somehow predisposed. Every night now I take him out for his little pishee walk and he's like a cartoon dog - the tail goes straight up (beagles, as you know, have a white tip at the end of their tails so when they hunt you can see them tracking shit) and the hair stands up on his back in the pose we refer to as "the Mohawk" and he gets all jittery, or Jetery, and does circles with the snout pressed so hard to the dirt I'm surprised he doesn't snort pebbles. I tolerate this for short times because I figure it's instinct and he's just a stupid dog but then I have to keep telling Jeter that he is not really a beagle, not a proud hunter at all. He's kind of a faux beagle, a kind of gelded haus frau. I actually talk to him while we're out walking in the wet grass, telling him that If he were a person he'd pad around the house in worn slippers and have a cigarette hanging out of the corner of his mouth and he'd eat lots of Cheetos and watch lots of television and people would describe him as "frowsy." he does not listen to my criticism though. he doesn't seem to care that I have sniffed him out. He keeps the nose to the ol' grindstone.

Also last night La Sooze and I went to the YMCA gym to work out and La Sooze was waiting for an elliptical machine because they were all occupied by sad middle-aged people who dress in clothes that try to say "working out hard over here" and on each of these elliptical machines is a little sign that says basically don't hog the machine for more than 30 minutes because despite what your mother told you, you are not the only or the most important person in the Y. So La Sooze, ever vigilant, takes a look at the time collected on the machines and spots two guys who are each closing in on the magical 30 minute mark and she patiently waits behind them until one guy, an old dude with male pattern baldness, hits 30 minutes and then reaches down and adds another 30 while La Sooze watches, just to prove that yes, even old people can be assholes. (I btw was working on another machine while the elliptical drama was unfolding but I could see la Sooze in the reflection of the glass and looked occasionally to make sure no one messed with her because I will throw down with blading men to protect my soul mate.) Anyway La Sooze to her credit moved in front of the two perspiring toolbags and asked quite pointedly if one of them was going to get off since they'd used their 30 up. One of the guys said yes he was done and called her "darlin'." I actually heard this through my headphones. "I'm done darlin'." I should have smacked him in his face.

Finally before I go to bed, I want to mention that number one Sean is coming home tomorrow - back from college for the Thanksgiving break. I have to pick him up at the airport at like 10 o'clock I think. I'll have to check on that. La Sooze, of course, is thrilled because she loves nothing better than having all three kids in the house at once like back in the old days, only we don't have to bathe them anymore before bed and no one asks for a story.

Oh one more thing. did I ever tell you that I have a terrific and gross and ugly allergy on my hands? I've had it for years. Every now and then my hands break out in blisters and then the blisters pop and my hands crack and it hurts like hell. I got magical medicine from a dermatologist for this years ago and the stuff works like a charm so when the hands start itching I put it on and in a short time it clears up and then it always comes back again like rain in Baltimore. Anyway, I started to itch again last night and after 20 years of this it suddenly occurrs to me that this reaction always starts at my ring finger on my left hand where I wear my wedding ring, the perfect gold circle that trumpets my endless love for La Sooze. So last night I started an experiment. I took off my wedding ring and left it at home and I will go ringless for awhile to see if my hands break out again. If they do not I have finally cornered the culprit, solved the great hand ick mystery. Of course La Sooze is a little suspicious of this no ring thing and claims that women, who are much more subtle than men, look at men's fingers to check for rings and that I might give the impression that I am free and willing, which i am not. I, of course did not help this situation when I texted her this morning after I got to work and said "I need to get all these women out of my office because I simply cannot get any work done." She texted back that I was an a'hole and a cockhound. Touche, of course.

OK, now I have told you everythig i know and I am going to bed. I have tomorrow off work. Ha. Ha. ha.

Mon., Nov. 23, 2009

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 03:29:24 GMT

Empty pots and broken toys

The other day at work some woman who I barely know was standing in the kitchen when i came in for one of my roughly 15 cups of daily coffee (i actually only drink half cups at a time, though i don't know why. Probably the same theory behind my buying one pack of the cigaretens at a time. I reason that if I buy an entire carton of the smokes I would be admitting that I am hopelessly addicted. If i only buy one pack or drink a half cup of the Joe then I am not really obsessed and could quit either vice at any moment - last cup - last cig, really, i swear). Anyway I sauntered toward the coffee pot which is one of those large silver bullet-type pots with a black plastic pump handle that you see at like corporate events, and when i did this the kitchen woman said to me "I hope there's coffee because i understand you get a little testy when we run out." I loved this statement immediately because I always view my own self in sort of a pussy fashion. like I don't see myself as someone that other people would avoid or be afraid of, though i wish sometimes that i were. Unfortunately, I am not intimidating. In fact sometimes I look at myself in the reflection of store glass when I'm walking down the street downtown and I wonder if I'm the kind of guy that people who do such things would choose to "jump" as they say in New York and perhaps other large cities where jumpers prowl. Like do people size you up real quick and go "no, leave that guy alone he's too big," or "he looks psycho," and then when i walk along they go "oh, Kevin, totally pussy. Take his wallet."

The other day I was talking to a new guy at work and he too rides the same subway I ride and he was telling me a story about a bunch of young kids who walked past him about a year ago as he was heading toward the same subway station I frequent daily and the guy made the mistake of actually looking at these thugster youths, which is something even i have learned you do not do. There is this concept now of "respect," which basically means every guy on the street believes he is king shit and if you dare to not kiss his Jordan sneakers he will ruin you. Just how it is. Anyway, after this work guy walked past, one of these stellar youths called him, in a loud street voice, a "jar-headed MotherF'er" because the guy sports a snappy crew cut. Then after tossing that fine epithet one of the terrific young men tossed a cup of soda at him and then rushed him and pushed him against the wall of a nearby building. This guy, who is larger than me in many ways, simply hauled off and punched the fine youth in his face. I assume the guy did not make this story up because why would i care, and also he showed me the scar on his knuckle where the disrespected young man's tooth had penetrated his hand and left a terrific scar. Anyway, i was thinking whether I, the massive passive wimp, would have the same reaction if placed in the same situation and concluded that i probably would not. As far as fight or flight i would not run away, but I also don't think my first reaction would be to whack some kid in the chops. I might have talked it out, perhaps asked about his upbringing and why he felt this aggression toward middle-aged white men and had he perhaps considered counseling? That probably would have disarmed him, huh?

Anyway back to where this began. The reason this woman thinks I'm a coffee psycho is because an entire new group has recently moved onto the floor where i work and the overwhelming majority of this group is from a certain area of the world where apparently it is sacrilegious to make another pot of coffee when you finish the previous one. I end up making, i swear to you, like four pots of coffee a day, most of which is then quickly gulped down by these floor invaders who are like caffeine locusts and leave behind in their ruinous wake nothing but the faint scent of curry. Of course i do not take this reckless coffee draining lightly and am quite vocal when I push the handle down on the pot pump and get a sound reminiscent of the one made by a toilet when you have turned off the water and flushed. A sad sucking sound. Recently I posted a note on the coffee pot that was a little, let's say direct in my request that perhaps the emptiers show a little consideration for coffee fiends such as me who have little patience for empty pots. I believe this is where the woman in the kitchen got the notion that i am a prick, which i am not. Only when i need coffee dear, only when I need coffee.

Oh, and here I have ranted so long about coffee and what a wimp i am that i forgot to tell you what i really wanted to tell you and that is that basketball season is starting and I so excited. I mean my basketball season. Long time visitors to the Nation know that I coach high school-aged girls rec league basketball and have so for many years. I think I started when Shannon was in the sixth grade and she in now a senior in college. I am not a pedophile. I'm not even creepy. At least I don't think so. I just love it, mainly because high school aged girls can be pretty funny and because most of the coaches in these leagues are toolbags who think they are Bobby Knight. I am much closer to Gladys Knight, and I also figure that my coaching at least saves 10 girls a year from having to listen to yet another fat guy who tucks his t-shirts into his jeans and thinks his daughter is Michael Jordan. I may not actually be doing them any favors, but I like to kid myself that I am and there is nothing wrong with living occasionally in my own fantasy world since most of the time I try to be fairly honest about what a consistent tool I am too. Anyway the interesting thing about my coaching is that for some reason, and I think it's because I never show up for the league meetings or the player draft, i always get every weird and problematic kid in the league on my team. If there is a one-legged heroin addict with bad skin who plays in this league she will immediately be assigned to my team no questions asked. Just the way it is. Of course in short order I will love the one-legged addict as if they are my own and consider cutting off my own leg because, as you know, I have a huge soft and mushy spot for broken toys because I myself am a broken toy and rather proud of it. So on Wednesday i got my team roster for the 2009-10 season and it is all the same girls who played for me last year (when we won about a total of four games) since I had only one senior who graduated, a girl named Dam who I loved. I have two Russian sisters on my team who I call the Crushin' Russians, an absolutely clueless young lady who plays a mean game of chess but could not score a basket if i gave her a ladder and directions, and a point guard who wants to be a professional dirt bike racer. A motley crew if ever there was one, and me at the helm. Perfect. I just wonder if the girls think I'm a wimp and will jump me at some practice outside an elementary school gym and steal my wallet. I hope not. I think I have raised them better than that. I may not have ever taught them to adequately break a half-court trap, but I do think they will grow up to be people who will damn sure make a new pot of cawfee when they take the last cup.

Sun., Nov. 22, 2009

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 02:19:45 GMT

Figuring out who Kev is, and the band, and Oprah, and me

Tonight I've been working on Little Kevin's college application, which is very interesting. Kevin, of course, has had some input into this, but since I'm the acknowledged writer of the family it generally falls to me to at least sketch out these kinds of official documents before others take a crack at it. The funny thing about these college apps is that they essentially ask you the same question over and over in different ways, and that question is: "Who do you think you are?" They do this is several forms, usually in limitations of 500 words. So I've had to answer questions such as "Elaborate on one of the activities you're involved in (250 words)." Then there's " Indicate a person who has had a significant influence on you, and describe that influence (500 words min.)", and then classic I'm struggling with tonight: "Select three words that describe you best and tell us how you will use these qualities/characteristics to contribute fully to the college community. " That's basically "Who are you" once again. My fire inclination, of course, was to answer Manny, Mo and Jack, and let it go at that. Naturally before I actually sat down to actually answer this Sphinx-like conundrum I consulted with Kev, asking him to give me three words he would use to describe himself. After telling me what a load of shit these questions are he could only muster two attributes - "funny" and "outgoing," neither of which i chose to use because they're too predictable. He also suggested "Tall, dark and handsome," which would cover all three, and i thought that was pretty funny, but I'm not so sure the wonks that read these things have much of a sense of humor. No sense taking chances on that. Anyway I'm multi-tasking right now, writing this here blog entry, writing kev's essay, and texting on FaceBook with my nephew who, btw, is flying in to see us on Christmas night. I wonder if one of his three key attributes on his college application is "timing?" Anyway as i write kev's application i was thinking about a comment number one son Sean made recently when i told him that Kev had just bought the new Call of Duty 2 video game that just came out for PS3. Sean the Chief, an acutely insightful young man said "sometimes I wish I was kev." Now i know why, and it's not because Kev is tall, dark and handsome. He's actually light-skinned.

So this weekend marked the return of our band Nation of 3 for a reunion show attended by millions across the world. Well actually it was more like 300 people who were actually at the venue, a firehouse in a place called Arcadia, Md, for a silent auction that was a fundraiser for a little boy La Sooze knows and cares about. It was actually ok despite my own personal doubts. I mean the band, THE BAND, hasn't played together in a couple of years probably and not that i thought that we would sound bad, but i was more afraid i would be bored and distracted with the whole thing. But really it was kind of cool. The set-up was that this was a silent auction where people just walk around and write bids on all kinds of stuff from super duper tool kits to vacation packages, and during the time they're working the numbers we played and played, doing our harmonies, making witht he jokes, playing a couple of covers,, an original, the usual. Oh and also there's food at this thing. As I mentioned earlier Lutheran old ladies run the kitchen for theis fundraiser and they made fried chicken which i adore because it was touched the veiny but loving hands of old Lutheran women, and pork which was cooked on the actual pig somewhere out behind the firehouse while we were not looking. The pork was quite good btw and the chicken was terrif. I ended up bringing home some of the chicken because possibly i was the only person there who appreciated its true value as love and comfort food, and at the end of the night one of the Lutheran ladies called me over in a clandestine voice and presented me with an entire box full of the stuff. Heaven. l took it home and ate a piece before I went to bed last night and then we all had some tonight. Little Kev, of course, hated it. He said it tasted like crap. Well of course he did. He's 17, much too young to appreciate the joy of a piece of chicken cooked in a firehouse by Lutheran women helping a handicapped child. Much too subtle yet for him

In recent news, I don't know what I'm more bummed out about - the forward motion of the creepy Health Care bill or the announcement last week that the Big O - the great Oprah, is going off the air and moving to the Discovery channel in like a year, as if we all needed a year to prepare ourselves. What will I do with my life? Seriously, the media covered this story as if it actually meant something. What saps we are. The gazillionaire culture queen is moving to a different channel and i actually saw a picture of her the other day on the internet getting all weepy as she made this announcement on her show, which btw I am proud to admit I have never, ever seen. Anyway, the media sells us so much entertainment and bullshit under the guise of news that it's quite maddening. The Big O will keep making her money, don't you worry, and we'll manage to stumble through our lives and figure out how to keep our houses uncluttered if we don't happen to get Discovery Channel on our cable. Meanwhile, there absolutely has to be something more important than this for me to occupy my head with, right? Please, please tell me there is.

Finally two short things. I'd mentioned to you awhile ago that a friend of mine who lives in Gettysburg, PA and is in a terrific band, had asked me to collaborate on some songs with him. Well this weekend he actually sent me some lyrics and a note saying he's recorded some music and sending that along to go with the lyrics and he wants me to give him some input on the words. How great is this? The hard part, of course, is messing around with someone else's words. I'm always a little nervous about that because I know how I can be about such things - sometimes when people screw with even one of my fabulous words it's like they're kicking me firmly in the ass, even if the words suck. It's an ego thing, y'know. Anyway this guy, Bill, is very cool and I think he and I have a good enough soul connection that we might actually pull this off. I'm kind of excited. maybe it will get me off my own writing dime where i have been sitting and pondering my navel for quite some time. (Btw as I write this I'm listening to the Dance of the Swans from Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake. Great shit. I recommend it to you next time you're writing college applications and blogs simultaneously). Oh and lastly I'm thinking of taking the next couple of days off work. Last Friday I was looking at my paycheck and realized that i have like three weeks of vacation left and nowhere to go. So I'm thinking of taking a couple of days off this week since no one will be at work anyway and since i am only slightly more important to the business than the woman who carefully waters the plants in the office every other day. I actually want to spend a couple of days doing nothing, which is what i do anyway, only I don't want to feel guilty about it. This seems like a good opportunity. Right now I'm not bringing much to the table of life anyway and nobody really cares,so i may as well revel in it. It will give me something else to be thankful for on Thursday.

Thurs., Nov. 19, 2009

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 02:52:16 GMT

Dear Josh,

Tonight I left work at a little after 5:00 and it was dark already here in the East, that chilly November darkness that is both energizing and foreboding. It said to me that the grey, lifeless winter is coming to lock us up for what will seem like an eternity before it grudgingly lets go again. I could feel it.

You know this damp chill of course, having dug your own hands into your pockets for Baltimore winters years ago, scanning the grey skyline for something resembling spring. I have the fondest memories of us leaving work in winter and walking along frigid Lexington Avenue to find your car. We would drive to Catonsville once a month to run a poetry reading and we would always stop at that Chinese carryout next to the coffee shop where the reading was held. You would get a paper carton of vegetable fried rice and I would get something with meat in it and you would open the carton and it would steam and you would take in a forkful and say "good feed," and it was. The warm car, the poetry, the friendship.

Tonight when I walked out of work it was raining. Pouring, really. When I pushed through the revolving glass door of the office building and stepped toward the street there was a crowd of people in front of me huddled under the building's overhang. The rain fell in great grey sheets and fat drops tumbled one-by-one off the tall eaves above us, and the people just stood there fiddling with umbrellas or looking to the sky hoping the ugly rain would slow. It did not.

I looked at the sky too and was thinking about you. I had just read your blog before I left work and read about the guy you had connected with, Kevin Foley, the guy who wrote the Card Blue blog, the 37-year old guy who passed away today of Epithelioid Sarcoma, the same damn ugly cancer that won't seem to leave you be. I got on the Card Blue website after I read your notice and read the words his wife had written about him. I loved that she said he could cook and curse with great flair. It made me want to meet him, to hang out with him for a few hours and hear him rip off a blue streak just for the hell of it, just for being alive.

A couple of weeks ago I remember you had sent me an e-mail about him, about a note you and Kim had gotten from his wife. He had just been taken into hospice and she described to you that Sunday night, "knowing he would never be in bed with me again, watching ambulance guys strapping him in and taking him out of our home for the last time... you can imagine how painful..."

You recognized the poetry in thher pain, which is why you sent it to me. It is poetry because our lives are poems and each line is written sometimes carelessly, sometimes with great care. But in the end, you know, it all fits together, it all makes perfect sense.

I pulled up that e-mail you'd sent me today and read it again and felt badly because I had not written you back. It wasn't that I didn't want to, it was that I get lost sometimes in myself and forget about others, even dear friends with cancer thousands of miles away who think of me sometimes when they think of poems.

So tonight when I saw the rain I wanted to answer your note the only way I knew how. I hesitated only a moment at the front of the building, just long enough to see how hard the rain was falling. It was hard, complete. I couldn't just stand there. Not with Kevin Foley in my head and you in my heart. I couldn't worry that I would get wet and uncomfortable. How could I? Sometimes I think of rain as baptism, like it washes away my sins and I get a fresh start again and again. It is as if I am forgiven . Tonight I stepped out into the storm and walked, listening to music on my headphones. I think it was Deep Purple's Hush. It sounded right. I swear to you I walked right down the middle of the sidewalk, no hiding under eaves like some pussy. I sloshed through huge puddles. I took my time about getting good and drenched.

I miss you my friend. I should write more often. It shouldn't take the loss of another saint to the sarcoma to jolt me back, but this time it did. This time I walked in the rain for you because I grieve for Kevin Foley and his family but I do not grieve for you. You are alive and vital and fighting, and for today that's all that matters. I am grateful to you because you made me remember that. I am grateful that you are my friend.

Blessings and love brother,

Kevin

Me and Josh in Seattle, 2008

Wed., Nov. 18, 2009

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 03:25:35 GMT

Getting a raise out of Vern

So today I did something I have not done in probably 25 years or more. I asked the boss for a raise. Can you stand it? The last time I had to do something like this was when I was working at a weekly newspaper in the booming metropolis of Tipp City, Ohio and I was making like fast food restaurant money so I made an appointment with the publisher whose name, I shit you not, was Vernon, and he was a white-haired guy with a red face who talked like a character on Hee Haw. But the dude had a presence and a reputation as a tight ass and a prick, so when I went in his office and sat in the soft brown leather wing chair that day I knew I was going to get my ass kicked, but at the time I was like 22 and the money was so shitty I figured that if he fired me I could always get a job at the 7-11 and it would probably mean a raise. Anyway ol' Vernon told me that day that, and I'm quoting here, he'd "like ta give me a raise but the price of paper went up," and so apparently according to Vern, his business was teetering precariously on the brink of ruin and could not afford to reward me for my dedicated service to his newspaper. He ended up upping my massive salary by the amazing sum of 25 cents an hour. This is the same guy who, as a Christmas gift one year for the kids who delivered his newspapers, bought McDonald's gift certificates, and that American icon Mickey D's that year was giving away free Christmas ornaments with every was $10 worth of certificates you bought. These ornaments were the cheesiest shit you've ever seen, they were circles of fake gold and looked as if they'd been stamped out of Reynold's Wrap. So I guess ol' Vernon decided that since he had these terrific ornaments in bulk, he would use them, so he put one in the pay envelope of every employee of the company, except the paper carriers of course, who at least got a friggin' cheeseburger out of the deal. Anyway on payday I went out drinking with one of the guys who ran the newspaper press and we got quite intoxicated at a local bar and in our state of reverie we decided we were unworthy of such a special gift, and so we would return our ornaments to Vernon so he could give them to poor Ethiopian children who could make better use of them . Fortunately it was late by then and ol' Vern was probably home whippin' his wife with a cat 'o nine tail and so we had free access to his office. We took our terrific ornaments and bent them into pretzel shapes and placed them on Vernon's desk for his re-gifting purposes. In the process of bending this precious metal I also cut my finger and figured that was a sign, so I squeezed as much blood out of the little cut as I could , painting the papers on Vern's desk in dark the red drops of my drunken soul, just for good measure. Btw Vern never mentioned our symbolic ornament drop, but he also never gave out McDonald's Christmas ornaments again, at least not to us.

Today's raise begging was not such a traumatic experience and did not involve ornaments or white -haired Southerners. What little hair this boss man still possesses is still dark, and he no Vernon, I assure you. See the point is that I really like my job and I suspect that the boss guy is satisfied with me or he would have chased me out a long time ago. However, the problem is that I have not had a raise, a call-the-wife promotion in many a year. In fact I could not even tell you the last time that occurred. So today I went in and sat in the boss man's leather chair and told him that I thought maybe the time had come to promote me to something, anything, that I thought personally that I was doing a swell job and he should think that too and reward me with a few shekels and a boost of good old fashioned self-esteem. Now this is the guy I have referred to here as VA, the Visionless A'hole, mainly because he's the boss man and my rebel streak always causes me to lean in the direction of poking fun at anyone above me. that's just the way it works. To his credit, though, ol' VA was neither visionless nor an A'hole today. In fact he was actually nice, and while he did not give me a single shekel he did tell me how terrific he thinks I am and promised to look into some options that might make me a happier employee. I'll take it. Truth is, it felt good to just say it, to lay it on the table, as it were. The problem with these corporate jobs is that they're guided by corporate mentality, which means that the people who actually control the shekels make sure they get their fair share and the rest of the masses under them get to fight over the crumbs. I am not a fighter and so it is easy to ignore a schmuck like me; toss me a few bucks once a year and let me be. What do they care? But today at least I spoke up and I looked the dude in the eye and asked for a little sliver of the pie. The fact that I walked away hungry was not as important as the fact that at least I asked. At least I did that much.

So did I mention that the band - the me and la Sooze and our friend Uncle Dave band - is playing this weekend? The band btw is called Nation of Three and back in the day we used to play pretty regularly, like nearly every weekend for awhile, and we had a little fun with it, writing songs and learning new cover tunes and the like. But Dave, Uncle Dave, moved away and with him went our dreams of become middle-aged rock stars. But this weekend we are back together in a one night only reunion appearance at a fundraiser to make money for a little boy who is brain damaged and his parents have massive medical bills to cover. The big show is at a fire house somewhere near here and it part of a big raffle that goes on, and obviously Nation of 3 is only a very small part of this event but at least we are doing our part. Our only charge for the show is that we get to eat, which is terrific because the thing is run by a bunch of Lutheran women and I know from personal experience that Lutheran women may be quite white bread in their approach to most things in life but can they cook. I am already salivating like Pavlov's Dog in anticipation of the Lutheran fried chicken. Terrific stuff.

On a final note, as you know I just returned from Las Vegas and I pretty much couldn't stand the place. I bring this up because now I am planning a trip to Atlantic City, which is even cheesier than Las Vegas but is much closer to home. Why am I going to Atlantic City? I do not know. I am actually doing this as a goof for la Sooze's birthday, which is in December. We are planning to drive up tot he ol' AC and stay at a casino hotel and have a terrific dinner and play a little slot machines and maybe even see a show. La Sooze is not much of a gambler but the woman is lucky, and I have already told her I plan to pump money in a slot machine and then rub her head and let her go at it while I watch. We can split the massive earnings. Anyway I will keep you informed of these plans and also whether I figure out why of all places I suddenly have a terrific urge to go to Atlantic City. Maybe it is to spend the terrific raise that I did not get today. Oh well.

Tues., Nov. 17, 2009

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 02:57:54 GMT

The politics of drunks

I just got home and it's 9:58 as in the PM, and you know how I am always treacherously tired because really, as a full-blooded American I am soooo busy all the time and thus I am soooo tired But really, this is legit. I mean I actually went to work this morning at like 8ish in the AM and I actually worked today and wrote a video script for a gigantic corporate big wig with wings of gold and I did lots of other stuff that no one in the world would possibly track, but I felt lucid again and like i was participating in the human race, a feeling I have not had for a little while.

Then this afternoon I got a call from a woman I work with who told me there was this community meeting being held by a state politician in a volunteer fire house in a scuzzy part of town and she didn't want to go because she is a known entity and they would be talking about stuff that could annoy the local residents who would show-up for this kind of thing and would I please go instead and sort of keep my mouth shut and report back on what these interested and participatory citizens of our country were talking about. It was kind of like I was a spy - Double Oh Kevin. I needed a wire taped to my hairless chest. Anyway I worked until like 5:30 and then took the train and got the White Accord and drove to scuzzytown and attended this meeting which was at the fire house in a big cinder block room painted some icky shade of off-white and they had little metal folding chairs set out and you could just tell this was a perfect location for a ham and bean fundraiser on any given Thursday night.

The really interesting thing about my clandestine little meeting tonight was watching these local politicians do their act. It's amazing really. Are all local politicians as sleazy and stupid and transparent as they are in Maryland? The dude who ran this thing was sooo dim-witted and he totally made a mockery of the English language and he made an hour-long presentation about all this pollution he thinks is going on in the local area and his point was basically that no one does anything about it including any of the local politicians. Of course I was sitting there shifting in my metal chair desperate to jump up and shout "um, aren't you a local politician?" but that would have broken with my spy persona for the evening so i just sat still and wished I had a phone in my shoe and wished that i could take a warm shower because the dude was creepy and slimy and made stuff up and the people around me were lapping it up like kittens at a plate of milk. Also there was another guy who helped this brilliant politician make his phony presentation and this guy is a wannabe politician who is running for something or other and the dude wore like a maroon shirt with a black tie and his hair was slicked back like Chase Utley and seriously, he looked like a small-time hood with a laser pointer instead of a piece. And i am wondering "who the hell votes for these people?" And i am also wondering "why the hell do these scuzzy guys want these political jobs so badly anyway?" I can't imagine working that hard and being that disingenuous just for the opportunity to talk to 30 people in folding metal chairs in the hall of a volunteer fire company. Maybe it's because all the people there agreed with him. I suppose there is power in this, in making shit up and finding people who will say "my God thank you for bringing that bullshit to my attention. Where would I be without you?"

Then on the way home tonight I had the radio on and I heard on the news that under our current prez the national debt has already risen more than $1 trillion, which is something even Bill Clinton couldn't accomplish in 8 years. No wonder i have no stomach for politics. Oh, and Sarah Palin is pissed because she's on the cover of Newsweek in running shorts and she wanted a better picture. Enough said about politics and politicians. I have little tolerance for toolbags which is why i stay away from this shit. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

So I didn't tell you that while I was in Vegas and Death valley I kept getting calls on my cellular telephone device from this guy I know and I did not answer them. I am awful. This guy, you see is someone I knew years ago from work, not like we were hanging out or anything but I knew him and liked him. Anyway he was pretty successful and left the company and i never heard from him again until a year ago when he called and confessed that he was having serious problems with drinking and his wife had left him and he was in bad shape. We spoke a few times and I tried to help him out and once he cried on the phone and I was deeply moved because I too have cried on phones over my own pain with alcohol. But last year this guy called and said he'd meet me and then he didn't and that kind of said something to me, and then he called me in Cali and left a message saying that a guy we both knew had passed away and he was wondering if i was going to the funeral, which i wasn't because this guy who passed was at a totally different pay grade than I am and he would not have noticed me even from heaven. Anyway even after leaving this seemingly benign message the guy kept calling and kept calling and I did not pick the phone up because if i thought he was in trouble I would happily help but obviously he was not, and was by then starting to creep in on possible stalking and i am not a huge fan of being stalked. So today he called again on my cell and i was on a call and so i ignored it, and then he called on my work phone and I felt like i had to eventually talk to him and so I answered. It was strange, really. He told me that he had ended up at a rehab back in June, the same rehab I went to, only he didn't sound like someone who was five months clean. He sounded strange and was alternating between laughing and choking up and was talking about Kareem Abdul Jabar and football games and pills and the whole thing was very strange. I could not tell what he wanted, if he was reaching out or weirded out or if he really was clean and wanted to share that with me. I just don't know. I finally told him i had to get off the phone and he said he would call me soon and we would go to a college basketball game together but I don't know if we will do that either. I mean, who am i to judge, but i just got an odd feeling and he never asked me for anything. I am a drunk, despite my years clean and sober, i am still a drunk at heart, and if another drunk asks me for help i will crawl across cut glass to help. No one understands a drunk like another drunk. No one. But drunks are as also as full of shit as anyone in the free world, and when they're hustling I want no parts of it. I felt like he was trying to hustle me today. I have no time for that, I can't, really. Tonight i will go to bed sober and i will whisper a prayer for my friend who called me so many times and then had nothing to say. I will pray that he eventually finds whatever the words are that he's looking for. And if one of those is "help" I'll be there for him in a New York minute.

Mon., Nov. 16, 2009

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 03:32:23 GMT

Blue

Sorry, I didn't write last night, did I? Truth is I was tired. Truth is, yesterday, Sunday, was an absolutely gorgeous day powder blue sky and 70 degrees. I went to church at 8 am, and played in the terrific church band and then went out afterward to breakfast with most of the fam (sans Sean the Chief who is, of course, in Bahston). See my former brother-in-law, now friend Uncle Dave (UD) was in town with his daughter, my niece Jamie, and they were leaving so Daughter Shannon drove down from the ghetto hinterland of College Park, MD and along with the fab La Sooze and Little kev and aka Mema we all destroyed eggs and pancakes courtesy of Bob Evans. Down on the farm, dontcha know? Then, despite the fab weather, I returned to God View with a belly full of bacon and i looked out the louvered shutters in our bedroom out into the street and said "what a beautiful day," and then i grabbed a blanket and shut the shutters and promptly passed out for two hours. So much for taking advantage of the weather, I pulled the blanket up and blissfully went to a place where no one could find me.

See, in addition to the fact that I have figured out that I nap much better than i sleep, I was tired, i think, from the trip to Las Vegas and the fab Death Valley and fatigue always takes a day to catch up with me. Plus as i was sitting on the plane on Friday getting ready to leave The Entertainment Capital of the World I got an e-mail message from the person above me in the corporate chain, the person I call PAM (Person Above Me - clever, huh?) and she played her routine passive-aggressive game which is that she said in this note first "Hope your trip went well," and then followed with a cryptic and hostile "I want a full review of what you did on your trip on my desk at 9 am Monday," or something to that effect. Of course it bugged me. In fact, it kind of pissed me off for numerous reasons including the fact that I am an adult and a professional and she is essentially a clueless boob who takes no interest or action with regard to my job. Anyway, her weird little note ruined my whole trip, and I couldn't get it out of my head and even though i did not retire to the Country Squire until like 1 am on Friday i could not sleep and kept seeing Pam's boobish mug in my fitful dreams, which is not something you want to see. She reminds me of a middle-aged version of the girl who was the editor of the high school literary magazine who would act as if she were smarter and more insightful than everyone else in the room but would still have to buy a homecoming corsage for herself . Sad, but maddeningly annoying at the same time. I ended up resolving my own insecurities and obsessions over her note by sitting down on Sunday and making a complete list of every work project and bowel movement I had taken last week and sending it her on e-mail. Turns out she wasn't even at work this morning and would not have received my 9 am life justification if I had met her stringent specifications anyway. My God, who are these people and why are they in my reality?

So that little incident and being tired and being in phony Vegas has made me blue for some reason. Today I was just like depressed, i swear. I just can't seem to get it up for work right now. I wish sometimes I had a mindless job or a mindless soul so that I could just go to work at the same time everyday and leave at the same time and have no paranoia or guilt or even thought about what I'm doing or why or what anyone thinks of me or doesn't. But I can't. This is the curse of being a poet in an office environment. It is all very shallow and obvious, the people who are working scared and the people who are trying to cut your nuts off and the people who are slowly oozing their way into jobs that are much better than yours and there's not a damn thing you can do about it. My problem is that I see all this and I take it heart, though not because I am trying to maneuver myself into anything, but because I am wired this way. Today I walked out of my office and this woman was there talking to one of the big wigs, and this woman takes all this work stuff very seriously and probably writes her shopping list in an Excel spreadsheet, and when i walked out she said to me "oh it's all his fault, the bad communications we have here," and she said it as if it was a ha ha ha moment, but I kind of felt like I had happened to walk out while she was talking some shit on me and she covered it over with a lame attempt at humor. It wasn't funny. It made my poet ache, and I wanted to tell her to shut up and go home and take up watercolor painting for a hobby, but I didn't. You can never be honest at work. I laughed a phony laugh and went and got a cup of free coffee and felt my blue get bluer. I've either got to stop thinking and letting this shit bother me or just lunge across a desk and pound someone stupid because this middle of the road stuff is wearing me out.

Oh speaking of which, I got an e-mail today from Bob Wintershoe in Connecticut. Bob is still very interested in me and promised me I will make it to the next cut but unfortunately the next cut has been delayed by budget issues and may not come for awhile. My life story. This actually might be fortuitous because the way I am feeling right now i would run into the arms of any Bob Wintershoe with a $10 bill and wry a smile just to get out of my current situation. I swear, i would commute daily 300 miles to Connecticut to get away from PAM and tools like the Excel Spreadsheet Scarecrow. Please, someone spare me.

So tonight me and La Sooze actually engaged in a creative endeavor together. I think I told you that I've been asked to a do a poetry reading in January as part of a new poetry series being started up by a woman i know and like and respect. She asked me because years ago I used to read in another series she ran and La Sooze read too and sang with me sometimes, and besides La Sooze is a mover and a sharer unlike me, who is a whiner and schvitzer. Anyway we went to the planning meeting tonight for this reading and there were all these people, poets and artists, who I knew and have not seen in a long time because i long ago gave up on poetry because I got tired of my own voice and the voices of others like me desperate for someone to tell them how smart they were. So this one woman comes in, a poet, and she hugs me and says "you've gotten so skinny" which I suppose is better than "you have blown up like an overfilled helium balloon," but it still made me feel as if i were fighting the consumption.

So after a blue, blue day like this I was coming home tonight on the subway, the only place I really think anymore, and I was listening to my trusted I-pod and this song comes on and i did not want to hear it. See with the I-pod I just flip through songs until I hear something that seems to fit my mood at that moment. Otherwise I am like a 5-year old with a television remote. So this song pops on and I don't want to hear it, but something says to me, don't turn it off and i don't and it is a church song that the church band plays sometimes from a band called "Casting Crowns" called Who Am I and the words are terrific and in the darkening November skies outside the train I listen to it and really hear it, and it's stuck in my head as I get in the car still blue, but thinking, at least thinking, that someone out there, or up there more like it, actually gets me:

Who am I?

That the Lord of all the earth

would care to know my name

would care to feel my hurt?

Who am I, that the bright and morning star

would choose to light the way

for my ever-wandering heart?

I am a flower quickly fading

here today and gone tomorrow,

a wave tossed in the ocean,

a vapor in the wind.

Still you hear me when I'm calling

Lord you catch me when I'm falling

and you've told me who I am.

I am yours.

Fri., Nov. 13, 2009

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 07:36:57 GMT

Riding the Titsmobile to the moon

So I�m back in Las Vegas. Viva Las Vegas, certainly. Today me and Uncle Bill awakened in Ridgecrest, California, which is a half-mile from the moon, and we drove to this power plant which is actually on the moon, and shot a video, which went swimmingly well. Seriously, this plant, which is a coal-fired power plant, is located in a place called Trona which is in the Mojave desert, which is a terrific place if you like absolutely nothing, which I do. We finished our terrific video shoot today about 2:30 and got in the ol� rental car and drove and drove and drove. Yesterday, of course we did precisely the same thing, taking seven hours to drive from Las Vegas to Ridgecrest through the Death Valley National Park. Of course we stopped, me and Uncle Bill, like gay tourists gaping at the lunar landscapes. In fact at one point we actually got off the highway and followed the signs 13 miles into the desert to a place called �Dante�s Peak� which is a terrifically windy overlook down into Death Valley. The interesting thing, to me, of course, was that as we first entered the national park we stopped at a little roadside place which contained only a small kiosk where you could make a donation to the park, and a toilet that was like one of those park toilets that is a fancy hole filled with flies and the droppings of many previous visitors. Anyway, as we got out of the car a young yuppie couple in a white Range Rover was getting back in their car and I did not see them but Uncle Bill did, and he told me the woman of the duo was attractive and had similarly attractive breasts. It did not matter that I did not see her because there is only one woman for me, and she was at that moment in Miz MD. The fabulous La Sooze, who I miss always when I am on the road. Anyway, we immediately nicknamed this anonymous woman �Tits� because we had nothing better to do amidst the arid and great emptiness of the desert. So miles later after 13 specific miles of bad road to Dante�s Peak we pull up and get out of the car and to fully appreciate ol� Dante�s view you have to walk along this long and treacherous ridge that looks like God�s spine made of red dirt with the bones of ancient rocks poking out. So we�re trudging along and who comes walking back headed to the parking lot having already communed with Dante but �Tits� and her handsome escort, only she was then wearing a sweatshirt because Dante keeps his peak cold, so I again did not experience her own twin peaks. Then, after 13 miles of bad road back again to the main highway Uncle Bill says he has to go wee wee and so a few miles later there is a visitor�s center for the national park and as we�re turning in Uncle Bill says �I bet Tits will be here,� and damned if we don�t pull into the parking lot and what�s there but the Titsmobile? Amazing. Uncle Bill, an avowed liberal and frequent federal park visitor said he knew our new best friend would be there because people like this (and us, apparently) will stop at each and every distraction in such a vast wilderness. I personally think they were stalking us.

So yesterday�s jaunt across the desert took Uncle Bill and I like 7 hours because we were acting like tourists. This afternoon we had to make the same drive back to Sin City again only this time we decided we would not stop as we did yesterday, at every rock formation and canyon in California. In fact yesterday we even stopped yesterday for lunch in a town called Pahrump, Nevada. I shit you not. We stopped at a place called �Terribles� which was a combination casino and schtick joint with a restaurant that anyone�s grandmother with a gambling itch would have greatly enjoyed. The waitress had a moderate harelip and the food was similar to what you would eat at an old age home. I don�t even remember what I had. Today, instead, we took a more direct route that took us more like 4 hours with only one stop along Rte. 95, a two-lane desolate road where if you did not go at least 80 you would be run down by a tractor trailer or two. Our one stop was at the one gas station we saw in like a 100 mile stretch. We stopped to go wee wee again. Seems like we�re always going pishees when we�re on the road. The station also, of course, had a store connected to it, which reminded me of a large and old cinder block garage someone had turned into a convenience store. Behind the store, of course, was a saloon and when we went to the bathroom, which had not been cleaned since gold miners visited this area, we could hear a juke box banging out some country music. Of course from the bar emerges an ancient skinny white-haired woman who looked like the wreck of a poodle. She obviously doubled as bartender and store-keeper. Hard working dog.

So we made it back to Sin City at about 6:30 tonight and we got off the highway on the opposite end of Las Vegas Blvd so we could ooh and ahh at all the phony and overblown hotels along the strip. At the end of our oohing and ahhing we made it back to the same hotel we stayed at on Tuesday � The Luxor � because I made the reservations through the travel agent at work and figured it would be easier to just stay in the same place twice then to figure out another hotel in a town I know nothing about. So we go to check-in at the Fab Lux and Uncle Bill�s experience is smooth as silk and when I step up to the desk the woman there, an angry and pert woman, says that there is no reservation for me. There was one yesterday she says, but not for today. And oh, btw, they charged me for yesterday even though I was a total no-show. Nice. As it turns out the brilliant mensa-like guy at the travel agency had indeed booked me for yesterday. Actually he booked me for two hotels yesterday, the one I actually stayed in and The Luxor. I, of course never checked the dates on the travel itinerary, assuming the guy was competent. Bad assumption. So I got a room at the Luxor tonight but it was like $50 more than the original room, and when you throw in the price for yesterday�s room I could have actually stayed at a decent hotel. The Luxor is a shit hole, btw It must be shaped like a pyramid because Ancient Egypt is quite dead. So is this place. My room has cigarette burns and strange assorted stains on the carpet in front of the bed and the bed itself is so uncomfortable it could quite possibly be made of straw. But at least the Internet works this time. Four Stars at least.

Finally, before I leave Las Vegas tomorrow I wanted to mention gambling. I, of course, love to gamble but am a small timer . I play 25 cent slot machines, period. Wheel of Fortune to be precise Everything else is too scary and intimidating to me. Anyway, it always takes me awhile to find the right �Wheel� machine at a casino, and I found mine last night but then it got too late and I went to bed. Tonight I played the same machine a little while before dinner and then Uncle Bill and I went back for a quick round after we stuffed ourselves silly with overpriced food at a place where the waiter actually laid the napkin himself on my lap as if my precious hands were to break if I spread it myself. After that Uncle Bill and I walked around a little and then he, looking bleary-eyed, left for his fabulous Luxor accommodations. I immediately, like a GPS system, headed back to The Machine, but horror of horrors, someone was playing it, and they were enjoying it, and they looked like they were in for the long haul. I felt slightly violated. So I came up here to the fab room and am writing instead. I may go back down one more time to check on my machine and make sure she is ok and has not been tapped out by those heathens. Or I just may go to bed dreaming of Dante and the peaks and this bleak and empty road that always seems to lead back to Las Vegas.