Where's Waldo...I mean Luch? Pick Luch out and win yourself an Atomic Blue Blog muffler and pantyhose set.

You can't put your arms around a memory

-lyrics by Johnny Thunders

It doesn't pay to try
All the smart boys know why
It doesn't mean I didn't try
I just never know why 

Feel so cold and all alone
Cause baby, you're not at home
And when I'm gone
Big deal, I'm still alone 

Feel so restless as I am
Beat my head against a pole
Try to knock some sense
Down in my bones

And even though I don't show
The scars are so old 

You can't put your arms around a memory
You can't put your arms around a memory
You can't put your arms around a memory

Don't try, don't try 

You're just a bastard kid
And you got no name
Could you live with me
We're one and the same
And even though I don't show
The scars are so old

You can't put your arms around a memory
You can't put your arms around a memory
You can't put your arms around a memory

Don't try, don't try 

Yeah your memory
I wanna put my arms around your memory
I can try, I can try
Don't try
Come on...

------------------------------------
You may not be able to put your arms 
around a memory but you can put your
fist through a wall.  Yeah, it hurts.
I want to thank Mr. Bluesmith
for giving me props on his blog once
again.  Of course everyone reads his
blog so there's no need to really do
this except to say thanks... 

Happy 1st Birthday Sensi...

My niece Sensi. One year old Wed. 

Sgt. Luch. Beer = Muscles.... 

Ker, Senegal, Africa 1998... 

I’ll never see your face again

As I clean out my Jeep, tossing water bottles half full, and coffee cups tattooed with lipstick around the rims, I find two umbrellas on the back seat. It takes me a second to remember why they are there and then I see one of your long blond hairs clinging to the black one…

Do you remember rushing into that restaurant when the clouds, cloaked in black, smothered the sun and the rains spilled forth like long glass wands shattering on the streets, creating the clear crystal puddles we hopped hand and hand over? Do you remember the conversation as the first beer came and the first moment went down? Do you remember talking about everything and nothing at all and not even noticing that the sun had already flung the clouds aside and shook the rain from its molten coat and the streets had some time ago dried? I do.

There could have been many more days like that. There should have been more days like that. There shouldn’t have been thoughts about where the days were leading but only that they were. Sometimes the mind works against the moment and skips to moments that have never been and then the moment that we are in is gone. I never expected anything and well I guess I wasn’t disappointed.

Now I stand in the driveway holding the umbrellas and wonder if the rain will ever fall so hard again and if I will even notice the next time I see the sun and the streets are once again dry…

Who wants to blow this joint and go somewhere with Ker where it's warm and the water is so blue that you get cool just looking at it? I need a place like this to go and work. I could finish a book in two weeks here. Yeah, even with a few nights of drinking thrown into the mix...

Daytona says:

...........the meat sandwich I prefer is one that I perfected in Luch's
Harrisburg apartment. Bacon, ground beef (or lamb) burger, chicken
breast................all in the same pan, topped with cheese and
mayo.................this is the one I call the Barnyard. Feel free to
include this patented name in the blog. You have my written permission.

Thanks Daytona. I might have trouble locating the lamb burger though...

Daytona cheating when no one is looking... 

Drunk? I don't even drink... 

The day was pleasant enough with swirls of what looked like wet toilet paper (clouds) hanging in the azure shower curtain that the ancient Egyptians high on gobs of hashish named Sky. I plunged my fist into the icy Nordic waters of the fully stocked wheel barrow and came up clenching a cold bottle of Troegs Hopback. At that moment I wanted to personally hug the two brothers that had crafted this delicious nectar, to bestow upon them the knighthood of inebriation, to adorn their service vans with bows of lilies and festive cartoonish banners but as is usually the case in such ceremonies of pomp time a plenty would be needed and my hourglass had but grains of sand to go.

No, the time was neither appropriate nor was it right, you see I was attending a party for the graduation of a friend and had met amongst the throng of well wishers a most beauteous divinity with legs that stretched like the pure white wood of young dogwood trees to the hips of which I would soon have my eager hands placed about. Her name was Ambika and she could play croquet like a muther fucker…

Daytona's been at the grill too long...

Mark "Fu Manch" Wislon's 96 oz. meal. Lake Winola weekend

Mark "Fu Manchu" Wilson Downing the 96er

My life is starting over again and again and again and again.

I’ve already forgotten about yesterday. Have you?

Where do I start? Why not here…Ker is an emotional cat. Not a crying at sappy movies punk or over sensitive pussy who backs down to a threat but emotional in the fact that he gives a fuck about people and when they don’t treat him right, then he bites railroad ties in half and spits out toasters. He is straight up and plays no one, it hurts his heart when people turn out to be twisted fucks without true emotion. He can’t relate.

So if you don’t have the juice and Ker is feeling ornery then be prepared to be fucking written about. I mean not that I would use real characters so that I might get sued but I will write about people YOU can identify with. Capice? Comprende? Get it? Got it? Good.

If you chose not to know Ker then it’s your loss. The future is wide open and so are his arms. Tone it down…all you ever needed to do was ask. You are fading from my conscience. I’ve erased all your numbers and deleted all your pictures. What is left? Nothing. Just the way I write it. You see SHE is out there and someday I will find her and the world we will travel, my pen I will wield like a great saber, slashing down the words in our adventures. It is after all this modern knight errant’s duty to record every thing through the kaleidoscopes that are his eyes…

Where is my mind

Last night on my deck with my faithful Chihuahuas, Uma and Flea, sitting on my lap I drank Guinness after Guinness in an attempt to reach some kind of semi-conscious karma, to go to that place in which reality was stripped of the stainless steel meat cleaver it wielded. For being a knight errant in modern day times one learns to disarm the enemy in any way possible, even if the enemy dwells with the walls of one’s own head. There is no glory to be won in these battles the only prize being one’s own sanity and the gentle rub of the alcohol as it eases through one’s veins like a lazy barge.

I gazed up at the moon which sat there mocking me in its own way, its full grapefruit like brilliance sucking up the spotlight of the dark show called night, to which I was a lonely spectator with a nose bleed seat. I pondered the possibilities that flitted through my brain like moths moving toward some brilliant light but ultimately like the moths when they reach the light I found I had nowhere to go with them, that these possibilities were only possibilities illuminated and nothing more.

“Fucking cocksuckers,” I yelled as I threw another bottle at the cherry tree that hangs over my deck.

The Chihauahuas howled as the glass shattered and sprinkled over the deck and I thought myself a bastard for riling them up so but I had to do it, outbursts of such a nature where the only way I could fully be sure that I was actually still alive. I had the fucked up feeling that if I didn’t do something, make myself somehow known to the gods that I would fade into oblivion and not even my words would be left.

I tried to phone friends but I’d found none would answer my calls and so I left long drunken messages assuring that the next day I would also be alone. It seemed I’d used all my friends up, had isolated myself, that I was on an island and was drifting further and further out into the sea of anonymity.

I watched as my elderly neighbor fiddled around in his yard, coaxing his dog to piss and playing with the tarp on his pool. In the darkness he moved, only the glint of his glasses reflecting the moonlight and the scuffing of his shoes along the sidewalk gave him away. He could be happy in his trivial chores for his wife awaited him inside his home.

I got up and pissed off the side of the deck and as the urine ran down the side of the cherry tree and mixed with the broken glass and beer my cell phone rang. I snatched it out of my pocket and looked at the display. It was her.

“Hello,” I said.

No answer.

“Hello,” I said again.

Still no answer. I knew then that she wouldn’t speak, that she couldn’t that she was too far gone. I would never see her again. I closed my phone, stretched my arm back and threw it. I watched as it sailed through the air like some sort of mechanical bug and crashed on the road, breaking into a hundred moonlit pieces.

I sat and opened another beer and my Chihuahuas licked he dew off the sides of the can as the moon disappeared behind a clump of gray clouds and everything went black.

Luch in Iraq 2005 - Thinking of you

You were always on my mind...

Art work by Mark "Fu Manchu" Wilson

Ker is back baby. No more melancholy. This life’s to short to get stuck on the ho’s when there’s all you beauties out there. Special thanks to my internet sweetheart Nicky. Totally loving the song. You know which one. You helped Ker when he needed you. Slick the momentary doubts and come back like a bear in an explosives shop. Be the Bear Ty says. Chop Chop to that. And as stated before Ker is an elephant that doesn’t ever forget. The future is wide open. Writing is not only good for the soul, here it is the soul. Okay, on with the show.

Observations in Miniature: People in the gym 10?

If you see yourself amongst these people it might be time to change your gym habits.

Not So Bright Guy – One. Two. Three. Five. Hold on hotshot you just skipped a digit there. If you skip every third rep like that you’re going to be working out for three days straight. What you need is a something like a seeing eye dog. What you need is a smart guy to lead you around the gym. He’s called a trainer. The coffee machine? I think we’d better hold back on the java until we’ve taken a week course on how to pour that shit. I don’t want you walking by me while I’m benching and for you to spill that on my crotch. I think it’s great you’re trying to do the whole body mind thing but you may want to work a little harder on the mind part. Here’s a clue. It doesn’t matter how much you can bench press if you’re out on a date and you don’t know how to tip on a forty dollar dinner bill. No puffing your pecs out like a pit viper isn’t going to get the job done. Maybe you should have paid attention more in school. What? School is for dummies. I think we’re done here. One. Two. Seven. Eight. Carry on…

The Jammer – Enough with the fucking air guitar. This isn’t a fucking Journey concert it’s a fucking gym. I realize you work here and have the remote control to the stereo tethered around your neck but if I here I’m a Material Girl one more fucking time I’m going to throw a 45 pound plate through the CD player. What you are playing is not workout music. It is gay dance club music…I think. Why do you think I wear my headphones all the fucking time? It’s so I can drowned your lousy music out and yes, I am going deaf thank-you very little. At any rate from now on keep your fucking lost in the eighties hands off the fucking stereo. I can’t workout to A Flock of Seagulls one more time before I go seriously ape and do something you’ll regret. Turn up the fucking Killers NOW!

Red Guy – No I’m not talking about Native Americans here, they’re not actually red. You my friend are fucking as red as a fire truck. You have the oddest fucking tone to your skin I’ve ever witnessed. You look like you’ve been dry humping a nuclear reactor. That can’t be the result of tanning. Is that bottled tanning? Are you on the juice? Were you crossbred with a strawberry? Are you fucking staring at me? Word to the wise you full body birthmark I’ve killed tomatoes tougher than you. Why you come in here with a shiny tank top and shorts that are made out of as much material as the collar of Dick Vital’s turtleneck and glare at me is beyond any reason. But seriously I want to help. Come out to my car. In the back I have a gallon of brown stain. What I’ll do so you don’t like a drunk’s nose is paint you from head to toe and while I’m at it I’ll tell you the facts of life which are that I can kick your fucking ass so if you ever glare at me again your worst problem won’t be trying to get that stain out of your hair. Get it? Got it? Good.

Cardio Guru (the triathalon master) - (for my buddy Jay up in Maine) – Sweet mother of Mary are you running on that treadmill in a Speedo? You might need a shoe horn to tuck in your unmentionables somethings hanging out on the left. No your other left. And you don’t have a problem with chaffing? Sure and butter is a good sexual lubricant. What the Hell is the purpose of a triathalon? Swim, ride bike, run. The end you say? That’s the same goal I have with a bottle of beer. I have an idea I’ll race you from my easy chair. I can carb load watching Scooby Doo while your joints are rubbed down into cartilage filings. When we’re done with our “race” I’ll pull you in a wagon to the nearest bar. Sometimes the laziest does win the race.

Sally workout slut – You might want to pull that swatch of nylon out of your crotch that you call shorts, right now its looking like a tiny life raft sinking in a pond of hair. Did I just here a sucking sound when you got up off that bench? Two words: Baby Powder. Here’s a clue. Uh, yeah, please, no more splits. You aren’t fucking tantalizing, you’re gross. You look like a cross dressing rooster. Quit hitting on the twenty year old guys. The only thing you’re going to pick up in here is athletes foot on your ass because 90% of that tugboat is touching the surface of the machines that I unfortunately want to use. If you want to hook up put on some clothes and go to a BAR! I’m sure you will be able to find a guy drunk enough there to think your deflated hot water bottle teets and the mole the size of a donut hole on your chin is alluring.

Father Son combo - Spending “quality time” with the son are we? Good for you Goober. How old is that toothpick of a kid? Seven? Do you see how is arms are hyper extending under the weight of that bar? That’s not exercise that is child abuse. You do know that with the Gomer Pile genetics you’re sporting that his odds of becoming the next QB for the Packers is about as likely Jim Morrison showing up for a Doors reunion. Stop yelling at him this isn’t boot camp! How would you like me to come up with a bull horn and yell at you while you’re doing your five pound leg extensions? Let me guess, you were never more than third string on any little league or high school team. I know I’m right you didn’t need to tell me that. So, how do we remedy this situation before junior here goes whacko and clubs the opposing pitcher over the head with an aluminum bat because he strikes out? Let me tell you how. Lay the fuck off. The world isn’t run by star athletes. George W. Bush was a cheerleader for God’s sake. Sure the star athletes get the chicks and I know you married a woman that looks like Bea Arthur and you want more for your seed but the fame is only a flash in the pan of life. So take your kid fishing or introduce him to the classics. No you moron the classics aren’t a type of aerobics class. They’re…forget it.

To my #1 fan. I still internet love your smile.