AH YES, I REMEMBER IT WELL....

Tomorrow is April Fool's Day, 2010.  Nearly fifty years ago on that day, I scared the living bejeebers out of my twelve-year-old brother. 
Before leaving for school, I fastened a butcher knife -- through a bulky knit sweater -- into a wad of tin foil above my heart.  I lathered up with ketchup, lay in the driveway with my eyes open, my mouth a frozen, screaming o.  Then I waited patiently for my brother to round the corner from the back door, his blue corduroy trousers making that irritating, thigh-scraping noise that only corduroy can effect.
He freaked the fuck out.
When my dad got home from work, he removed a significant layer of my ass. It took my brother almost thirty years to forgive me. And my mother was super pissed that I had ruined such a lovely sweater.  (It was her handiwork.  She had painstakingly knit the bugger, after all.)

So kids...

I guess what I'm saying is: Have fun.  Make some family history tomorrow.

JOURNAL ENTRY/ 3/28/10

'Tis to create, and in creating live

A being more intense, that we endow

With form our fancy, gaining as we give

The life we image, even as I do now.

 -- Byron 

There is more life in the shit we make up

than in all the savage sameness 

we're forced to endure.

-- Boogaloo 

THE LOCKSTEP BOOGIE

Disclaimer: I'm old and I'm too lazy to provide links.  (Providing links would require something like research.  And that's as it should be... if I actually cared; if it weren't a Saturday night and my second sheet wasn't just about to hit the nearest updraft; or if I were being paid.)

... but I think it's fucking hilarious that David Frum -- former Bush speechwriter and right-wing doofus -- has been cast adrift by the neo-con think-tank he worked for.  Ha Ha Ha.  (Zee Party vos not vell pleezed vit Herr Frum's modest, common zense remarks.)

 Ha ha ha.... zis is zee time of zee purging.

Don't worry Dave, be happy.  Ha Ha Ha.  (Tough shit and all that.)

FRIDAY NIGHT DRINKIN' AND SMOKIN'

A buddy dropped by the other night for a beer and a chat.  He swilled Coors Light while I, of course, drank Heineken.  He left a couple of his Coors in the fridge.  I am drinking one now.  And I believe it's safe to say it won't become a habit.  I do like the label, though.  Apparently, you can tell when the beer is cold by looking at the mountains behind the big red Coors sign. The snow turns blue when they are ready to go. (Pity the blind, eh?  How the hell are they supposed to know when the stuff is cold?  Selfish, sighted, beer and label makers.)

In other non-news....

I've only smoked a single pack of cigarettes these past five days.  An average of just five smokes a day!  Fuck me, I'm almost  guaranteed an extra hour or two of life.  At this rate, I might even collect a bob or two on the pension.

OBAMA AND BIDEN COME TO THE LUNCH COUNTER, BABY.

Yes, Joe.  Yes it is.

Llewellen... top up our guests' beers, eh.

HEY KIDS, ANN'S IN TOWN!

Ann Coulter has taken time out from her exhausting schedule to visit Canada.  She's speaking at university campuses, providing enrichment for our undergraduates. Doubtless, the young folk will be dazzled by her exacting allegiance to facts and her brilliant insights into subjects as diverse as Darwinian natural selection, human rights, the age of the cosmos, and the divinely inspired poetic jewels contained within the Book of Leviticus.  (She has treated us to her expertise in times past.)

Or maybe she'll just open that facial sphincter and flap those sunken chops about whatever it is that's recently crawled up that nasty right-wing quiff of hers.

Same diff.

Save your time and money, kids.

JUST A COFFEE FOR ME, THANKS

The U.S. health care debate seems to be as much about race (those teabagger signs speak volumes) as health.

Amazing to me that some (white) folks actually prefer their continual ass-fuck by insurance and drug companies to witnessing a black President sign what appears to be a modest bill for reform.

Sad.  And a bit scary. But not really that hard to fathom.

What the hell is in that tea, anyway?  And when the kettle boils, does it whistle Dixie?

March Break, Day Four:

I am so well-rested, I'm nearly comatose. Is this what retirement feels like? 

Say again?  (It's the wife, from downstairs.)

Yes, dear.  Another beer would be divine.

Man, I got it rough, eh?

LAW AND ORDER, UK: Dicks and Stones

Shades of that Monty Python sketch in which trainees are taught how to defend themselves against attackers wielding fruit.

This time, the weapon is a willy.

JUST IN TIME FOR ST. PATRICK'S DAY. IRISH PASTIES!

Oops.  I meant THIS KIND of Irish pasties.  (Sorry for any confusion.)

AT THE PARK

There is a park quite close to the school where I teach.  I have my favorite parking space, right beside the river, where ducks and geese paddle by.  In the wintertime, abandoned nests are visible high up in the trees.  Some are huge.  Possibly mammalian, though dragons come to mind.

Springtime and summer. I picnic, solitary, inhaling the tang of silt and water weeds, while hawks cruise overhead.  Early morning,  herons stand in the river, cautious and hungry.  At night, they fly the length of the water, backs lit by the setting sun, going home.

All I've seen there over the years: thrush, eagle, muskrat, beaver, woodpecker, swan, swallow, fox....

All I do there: breathe, drowse, dream.

All I want: another summer or two. 

THOUGHTS THAT TROUBLE THE TROUBLED MIND

At the point of their last conscious thought, do suicides regret the act?  Or is that a given, in the sense that suicide implies regret of the highest order?

At the point (etc etc), do suicides feel relief?

But without regret, would relief even be possible?

Is it possible -- or even likely -- that 'their last conscious thought' happened well before the final act?

I believe that I would regret the following things:







Well, I suppose that's a relief.

SAVIN' THE DAYLIGHT

On the plus side:  

I'll be able to work on my tan at eight in the evening... whilst watching American Idol.

No need to rush supper.  I'll be able to enjoy late, leisurely desserts and still bask in sunshine whilst tending to my Nightshade, Foxglove and Castor-oil plants.


On the minus side: 

If I die before the return to Standard Time, my life will wind up an hour short. (And I shall expect some kind of compensation.  Which will not, I suspect, be forthcoming.)

My next door neighbor, Mrs. Parsons, will have her varicose veins on display until nearly ten in the evening.

MARCH BREAK

Finally.

Now I can do something totally useful with my time: stay up late, listen to music and drink beer.

(By the way, 'late' in my case is about 11 pm.)

Which means it'll be pretty close to business as usual. 

I'm just a party animal, me.

NOW THAT I MENTION IT...

I have a lesion on that scant bit of webbing between my third and fourth fingers that looks for all the world like a tiny vagina.  Let me get my glasses.

Enjoy your evening.

MASSA OF HIS DOMAIN

I love political sleaze stories.  You feel bad for the wife and kids, though.

I'm beginning to think that most politicians (hetero, homo or something in between) are dickheads of the first order.  Tripping on power; getting their junk hauled by subordinates; living a lie.

I bet Massa's also got Jimmy Legs, is a Close Talker, and needs a Mansierre.

Yadda yadda yadda.

THE THIEF I LIVE WITH

I get home today and the dog don't come runnin'.  I call and she don't answer.  She's on the bedroom floor, immobile.  In the kitchen, the fridge door is open.   Stuff's all over the place.  Dog had helped herself to three  cabbage rolls and half a casserole.
Dog is fifteen years old.  Maybe she just wanted one more good meal.
Dumb ass dog... 
never touched a single beer.

Dog is fine.  Gonna live.  But sweet Jeebus -- cabbage rolls?

WEEKEND WRAP-UP

I was pissing around with a short story manuscript yesterday.  260 pages.  14 stories.  I left the bastard stacked on my desk while I hurried out on my usual Saturday emergency supply run: beer, newspapers, cigarettes and snacks.  When I returned, the pages were everywhere.  (Fucking cats.)  I began picking the pages up at random.  I thought it might be fun to record the first line from one page and the last line from the next.  And so on.  I did a wee bit of jiggering and came up with the following three whatzits.  (Yeah, it was a rather lame exercise. But now it gives me something to post on a Sunday night.)

 1.  "Christ, yes."  There's a drunk inside me.   "How the fuck would you know?" he asked.  Because it's 99:30, soft-watch time.   I'd hate to wake up here.

2.  Who wants fish?  "Tell the truth, you bastards.  Don't lie to me."  And don't, whatever else you do, get Johnny mad tonight.  "For the last time, answer my bloody question."  Not a single hand in the air.

3.  "Can you feel the blade, Evelyn?"  It won't hurt if you do it fast, I swear.

* * *

Went to see 'Shutter Island' tonight.  Guess what? That DiCaprio kid is all grown up.  Who knew?

The movie was entertaining.  Probably gonna have nightmares.

Spoiler alert: Leo turns out to be patient #67.

Haven't seen so much smoking in a movie since Bogart was around.

Would you rather live as a monster or die a sane man?  (I think I'd take door number one... as long as there's beer.)  

* * *

It's getting crowded at the top of the English Premier League.  Go Gunners!

* * *

Can't stand award ceremonies.  The Oscars blow.  Overpaid pretty boys all tuxed up with busty companions in tow -- or vice versa.  Who can tell?
The Olympics only lasted two weeks.  This Oscar crap goes on all night.

Llewellen... Bring me a beer.  And have one yourself.

ASSHOLISM 101

Yeah, Soudas, the public has spoken to this dumb-ass subterfuge.  Now just get the fuck back to work.

Ernest Hemingway once remarked that his best work was a six-word story (that he may, in fact, have been challenged to write.)  The actual genesis of the thing is still shrouded in mystery.  And I love that. 

Here is Hemingway's story:


For sale: baby shoes.  Never worn. 



There.  Now you can tell that cute chick at the coffee shop that you read a short story last night. That'll impress the hell out of her.

You're welcome.