Sometimes

My Internet amigo Ty says Latty made it through her operation. So, I guess I’ll have to grudgingly admit that good things happen sometimes. Mind you in this world good things don’t happen often and no I’m not a pessimist. I’m a realist of sorts…well, not really but I am glad that sometimes things turn out okay and maybe I should just leave it at that…

The Look

It started as a protective measure. I realized early on that if I looked mean people wouldn’t fuck with me. I soon wore the look exclusively. I wore it to school and on the playground. I wore it with jeans and underneath my Halloween mask. The look kept the monsters at bay when my feet stuck out of the covers (they liked feet with mustard). The look kept the bullies at bay. The look preceded the fist and followed the mundane comment. The look and I were inseparable until many years later when I met her. The look and I had a falling out and parted ways and then later so did she and I. For a while I didn’t wear the look and people began to take advantage because well, people are scum and so I dug the look out of my steamer trunk and now I wear it again everywhere. If the look keeps you at bay then well, it’s doing its job. I don’t want anyone to get too close…

What Matters

Mr. Bluesmith’s wife Latty is having surgery today (yes, the open heart kind). So I don’t want to hear about how someone cut you off in traffic or how you opened a giant can of baked beans and half of the container was just juice. Really, can you be any more trivial? There are more important things to think about but still it would be wise not to try to pass me on the side of the road in your minivan. That said, I want to say that I’m thinking about you guys or something along those lines. How do you really put this stuff into words? It’s so hard to come up with the right thing to say so I won’t say anything but I’ll leave you with a quote that I think pertains to a lot of people including myself at times:

“We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities, we are eaten up by nothing.”

-Charles Bukowski

Flea

Last night I was petting my Chihuahua Flea and I found a big lump on his neck next to his vocal cords. He’s been wheezing for the past six months or so and the first thing that came to mind was that he might have cancer. I thought, damn it might have gone to his lungs.

The vet was worried when he felt the lump and whisked him off for X-rays and a biopsy. I sat in the examination room thinking maybe he didn’t have long to live. I’d miss him more than I would most people.

The vet came back and showed me the X-rays. Flea’s lungs were clear and it appeared that the lump in his neck wasn’t cancer but a seriously inflamed lymph node from an infection from a bite. Apparently his wheezing has something to do with his bad teeth and his nasal passages. He has only about five teeth left and tonight he’s going to get steak…

This close

On Fathers Day I stopped at the grocery store to procure several items before heading over to my Grandparent’s house. It was to be a quick in and out job, the kind of shopping trip that if reviewed on store video tape would only reveal you as a black and white blur. Sure, you could swipe a ham but you wouldn’t only because it wouldn’t be sporting of you.

After approximately 2 minutes I had found the items I needed—cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, Diet Coke—and headed for the checkout. There were only two shoppers in the 15 items or less line so I fell in behind them. Of course this would be a mistake. First of all the Asian couple in front of me had in the neighborhood of 25 items which in itself is a serious violation of the 15 items or less line ethics but their twelve bags of King crab legs wouldn’t be the problem. The problem would manifest itself in the form of the two morbidly obese people in the front of the line.

They stood with their arms on their waists (which was quite a feat in itself) and were mumbling things which I couldn’t make out. The cashier, a young woman with bleached blond hair, looked nervously about, not making eye contact with the two large customers.

In time I gathered from the bits of conversation that passed between the cashier and the two waiting customers that they were all waiting on a price check. The item? A pastry the size of the Love Boat. I could have taken a four week cruise on that pastry with all of Hugh Hefner’s girlfriends and never once touched water. It was the biggest confection of any sort I’d ever laid eyes on and it so it was no wonder that the couple was as big as they were.

After about five minutes (yes I was growing quite impatient) a cashier came back holding another equally large pastry but it turned out that he pastry wasn’t he same pastry as the fat couples so he once again disappeared into the aisles of the store.

“This is ridiculous,” the woman behind me said. I nodded. This was getting ridiculous. I had exactly four items and already I’d been in the fifteen items or less line for nearly ten minutes. I started reading the covers of the tabloids and when that got boring I started to count the number of items the fat couple had and I wasn’t surprised to find they had 23 items.

After counting how many different types of candy were in the aisle and memorizing the order in which they sat on the shelves the other cashier finally came back. “Those pastries are $2.99,” he said.

“Did you say $2.99?” the fat woman said.

“I’m not paying $2.99 for that pastry,” the fat man said.

“You have got to be fucking shitting me,” I said under my breath.

Obviously this couple had indulged in more than one $2.99 pastry and for the size of the thing $2.99 was not only a reasonable price it was a STEAL! That pastry could have fed an entire village in the rainforest for three months.

The couple then started to get surly with the blond cashier, chastising her because the pastry didn’t have a price on it. I wanted to suggest that maybe they ate it but bit my tongue.

So, after fifteen minutes we were finally ready to check out. WRONG! The fat woman pulled out a wad of coupons and shuffled them like a deck of cards. EVERYTHING she bought had a coupon and while she threw coupons at the cashier she chastised her for not being fast enough.

I was this close {read space in-between these brackets} to telling the rude mother fuckers to shove the pastry and their coupons up their corpulent asses but I didn’t because jail didn’t seem like an attractive option at the time.

So what

You want to believe but the grass is damp with dew and the fat man in the long station wagon tosses a newspaper onto your lawn and you pop another pill because sleep is so much like death. The neighbors come out to get their papers and they stop and look at you sitting on your front porch shaking. You grind your teeth together and wave but you know the wave is all wrong; too fast, too desperate, too human. The neighbor turns uneasily to go inside and then sprints to the front door. You pour more coffee down your throat and you are sure you feel your soul come unhinged and you are SURE you see it float up into the clouds and hover there protected in the anonymity of the water vapor. And so another day passes…

Lion Heart

So, I’m walking my Chihuahuas this morning and out of nowhere comes this giant Rottweiler. He’s foaming at the mouth barking madly and hops towards me. I scoop my dogs up and turn towards this massive dog. He growls and I laugh and take a step towards him. From behind some bushes I can hear his owner hissing, “Duke, get back here, now!” I get ready to toss my Chihuahuas onto the nearby bank and confront the dog; I’m sure he is going to attack and I think I’m going to have to grab him in midair and slam him on the pavement but his owner rushes out from behind the bushes and grabs his choker chain. No apology or anything. He turns and drags his dog back inside his house. “Fucking, cocksucker,” I say.

And you know what I love about my dogs? They’re only five or six pounds but had that dog attacked they would have gone after him to protect me. Now that is balls. The heart of a lion stuffed into a rib cage the size of a yogurt cup. I’d like to think I was that brave and for you (my friends) you know I’d do the same. I wouldn’t run. I’d be by your side. I ask you, who else will be next to you when the shit goes down? Will they even notice or will they be in such a hurry to get home and watch Oprah that they won't even see you lying on the street bleeding from the head?

Fuck you I won’t do what you tell me

-Rage Against the Machine

Pigs from Space

Accept your fate. Stephen Hawking says we should start building space stations on the moon and mars. By 2020 he thinks we could have workable space stations. He says he doubts we will last a hundred years on this planet. Frankly I think it is for the best. Most of you are pigs (don’t hide behind that human cardboard cut out) and I only hope I can complete my personal space shuttle before all this goes up in a big ball of fire. I want to watch above it all through four inch think heat resistant plexi-glass. I want to watch the pigs roast over the ultimate spit just like the original solar cowboys used to do on the lone big bang prairies before time began …

My Jesus eggs

I was eating scrambled eggs this morning, shoveling them in, barely chewing. Inhaling might be a better word. Yes, inhaling will do nicely. At any rate I was just about finished when I happened to look down at my plate and there next to the crust of my toast lay Jesus Christ. Yes, I said it, Jesus Christ was in my scrambled eggs. Not only was he in my eggs he was on the cross in my eggs. Can you imagine? I felt so very special. To think Jesus would send little old me a message in my eggs. Well, not wanting the eggs to rot but eager to show all those in the world that I was indeed special I went to my garage and got a can of shellac. I shellacked my Jesus eggs and put them in a pantyhose egg and then I headed off for work. That may seem redundant to put Jesus eggs in a panty hose egg but I can assure you that it is probably one of the safest ways to carry any type of perishable food item. In fact in the bunker I’ve constructed under my home all my perishable food stuffs are stored in pantyhose eggs but of course I digress what I really want to tell you about is my Jesus eggs and what happened to them.

When I got to work I E-mailed the local paper and reported my Jesus eggs to them asking if perhaps they’d like to do a feature on us (me and the eggs). They never responded. I took my Jesus eggs to lunch and opened the pantyhose egg exposing them. “Uh, excuse me,” the waitress said, “you can’t bring food in here. This is a restaurant.” “Oh, this isn’t food,” I said, “this is Jesus.” They kicked me out of the restaurant. “Fuck you,” I yelled outside the restaurant, “Jesus doesn’t love you anyway.”

On my way back to work I stopped at a hotdog cart. I set my pantyhose egg holding my Jesus eggs down on the hotdog cart while getting my wallet out. I ordered two chili dogs, potato chips and a Diet Coke and paid the man. With food in hand I went to retrieve my Jesus eggs but my pantyhose egg was GONE!

“Someone stole my fucking Jesus eggs,” I yelled. “Easy big guy,” the hotdog vendor said. “Easy? Easy?” I said, “ Do you know I found Christ in my eggs?” “I didn’t know Jesus was missing,” the hotdog vendor said. “What’s all the hubbub about?” a portly cop said. He burped and his breath smelled like shellac. I was sure then that he had eaten my Jesus eggs. Surely he would go to hell…

I’m a figment

You can dream me up if you want. Like some muscled demon two fisting beers, with sideburns like knife slashes, the top flat and bristled up, the eyes encased behind one way mirrors, ready to explode geyser like with the vengeance of the exploited. I’m down with the trodden and machine like in my loyalty to the written, once bitten, twice the size of the next guy in your mind. Bring it on. It is the only way I can be sure this dream is real. The taste of blood…

tuck it away

When the mundane sweeps you over, when you are lost in the eye of the TV, when they pass you over the conveyor belt like a piece of luggage waving detectors at you--know that I have never left you. I will be thinking of you. I will be thinking of the last time I followed your car on my ten speed, of your name burned on my chest with a soldering iron, of the Christmas presents I bought you and opened myself.

I will do pull-ups on the door frame of my padded room and with each repetition shout out your name in a different language of my own construction. I will spit Gatorade in the pharmacist’s eyes, pocket the lithium, tap dance with crushed Diet Coke cans taped on the heels of my slippers. I will bend metal lunch trays into the letters of your name and superglue them to the underside of my cot and then lie under it at night and stare at your glittering name.

Finally, I will have my roommate (yes the one that sees God in his orange juice) wrap me in a cocoon of athletic tape with a case of Merlot and an exacto knife. I will drink and I will be transformed and I will cut myself out of this cocoon and I will emerge a beautiful butterfly. Do you think you could love a butterfly with checkerboard wings? Fuck you it will be the only thing I can find in the rec room…

Go ahead and smile

So tell me how can you smile when they’re winning? How can you smile when they’re closing in? How can you smile when they take away everything that matters?

Oh, I see your smile is an amalgamation of wood putty, cellulose and white out. Clever but all I need to do to get rid of that smile is to hold a magnifying glass over your lips while you’re sleeping on the beach.

Whatever you are by nature, keep to it; never desert your line of talent. Be what nature intended you for and you will succeed. -- Sydney Smith

I got this quote off of T-Mag.

Yes sir/mam

I have a multi-faceted personality like most people. I act one way with friends, another way with co-workers and another way still when say speaking to a complete stranger in the grocery checkout line. The point is that we all take on many different roles in our lives. I know this isn’t a ground breaking revelation but I’d like to enlighten you as to one fun little game I like to play and the situations that evolve. If I don’t agree with a person’s beliefs or don’t particularly care for that person for one reason or another and have little or no respect for them but must be subjected to them regularly I use a personality that allows me to go about my business without having to have prolonged interaction with them. This is my playing dumb personality. Of course this in itself isn’t groundbreaking either but let me enlighten you as to how useful this little tool can be when used properly.

In my life I must interact with a know-it-all who thinks he/she is not only an expert in his/her field but also so cunning that no one can see through his/her bullshit stories and manipulation. This person little realizes that I am not a pawn in his/her game that I am the one controlling my own destiny and that I only play dumb so that little is expected of me. In this way I can pursue my own interests and I display just enough knowledge in a given field so that I appear to be useful but not threatening to their own agenda. I take advantage of all outlets that I feel will aid me in the pursuit of my goals but again without threatening him/her. I might add that it helps to appear awkward and somewhat shy.

An exchange between me and him/her might go like this: Oh, was I supposed to go to that meeting? I thought that meeting was just for those in management. Really? It was for everyone? Damn, I would have liked to have gone to that one. I’m sorry. I’ll make it to the next one (yeah right).

Meanwhile I take notes on him/her for my next book and I must say the person that evolves is not a flattering portrayal but then what do I know? I’m just a pawn in his/her world until I’m not…