Thursday, May 31, 2012

ROUGH SEX & WELFARE CHECKS

Linda, I remember the night I came to see you after work. It was 1 or 2 in the morning, and I got to your apartment door and started to knock. But before my fist hit the wood, I heard a “Yelp” come from the other side of the door.

I paused.
Then came another “Yelp” only louder, and another and another. It sounded like you. And then you started in with the “Ohs”. Like “Oh-Oh-Ohhhh!”
Then comes a “Yelp-Whoo-Oh-oh-OOHHH!” and I thought to myself “Linda is in there having some kind of sex” and I started to leave.
But then the slapping started.
“SLAP! SLAP!SLAP!” then “Oh-Oh-oh” back to “SLAP” then “YELP” “SLAP” “Ohhh-Oh-Oh”

And I thought, “OK Linda is either getting beat up or she is having some kind of rough sex” and there was really only one thing to do.
I knocked on the door.
And the slapping and moaning stopped, but just for a minute.
“SLAP! SLAP!SLAP!”
“Oh-Oh-oh-YELP-“Oh-Oh-oh”
SLAP “YELP” SLAP “Oh-Oh-Ohhh”

And I thought to myself "Someone is in there making mad violent love to Linda", but there was still the possibility that she might be in trouble.
So I knocked again, a little louder.
A moment of silence, and again:
“SLAP! SLAP!SLAP!”
“Oh-Oh-oh-YELP-“Oh-Oh-oh”
SLAP “YELP” SLAP “Oh-Oh-Ohhh”
And then it sounded like a table got knocked over, and the sound of breaking glass,and there was more slapping and moaning and I really didnt have a choice now.

I went to a pay phone and called the cops, who came to your apartment and beat on your door with flashlights until you answered, only to find out you had headphones on, listening to Billy Idol or something, and you were dancing and clapping and whooping it up all by yourself in your apartment at 2 O’clock in the morning!

I'll never forget, as I waited at the pay phone for the cops to report to me, and when they came they said everything is OK, and Linda says you can come up if you want.



Happy Birthday Linda!

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

NICE DAY FOR A WHITE WEDDING

This dog I live with~ I’ve tried really hard to like her~ but its like impossible.
She’s a Boston Terrier names Cuddles, and she is twitchy like hell. She runs circles around the house, and likes to get in your face, and she has no boundaries or good sense and specializes in running into closed doors.
I think she’s part squirrel. She can be standing there, facing the kitchen and suddenly leap 10 feet sideways to land ass first in your face, then she spins around like a washing machine, clawing your chest with her paws, and licking you on the mouth with every pass, only to suddenly dart away to the trash can, which she knocks over and strews chicken fat and coffee grounds all over the house.

We have to keep her in a cage all day long, but even that is not enough. She thrashes around so violently in the cage as to knock over vases 10 feet away.

Her master, Angela, says that Cuddles is “not all there” and that " maybe smokes crack", but its more than that. I have renamed her “Devil-Dog”, and fully believe Devil Dog is possessed by unclean spirits, I expect to see her vomit pea soup and spin her head around like Regan in The Exorcist any day now. I suspect she may be Satans concubine.
I have determined her cage is actually a Portal to Hell. I come home in the afternoons, pick up the lamp that has mysteriously fallen from the end table, straighten paintings that have hung themselves upside down on the wall, close the windows flung open by an unknown force and look to see where she has managed to transport her cage to, and what carnage may lay in her wake.
Its pure Lovecraft.
Sometimes she will have thumped her way to the utility room; two days ago I followed a trail of broken ceramic Angels to find that Devil Dog had her cage upside down between the bathtub and the toilet, and the toilet was over flowing, the carpet soaked all down the hall.

So we took three cinder blocks and put them on top of her cage to try to slow her down some. I am afraid to go home today. It won’t surprise me one bit to open the door, and find smoke and steam hissing from her cage, and flames issuing forth, and from somewhere deep in the bowels of that portal to hell, there will be Korn music blaring, and Cuddles will look at me wild-eyed and bark out like Billy Idol in that heavy metal death chant:

“FEED ME CHEW TOY FEED ME HUMAN
FEED ME CHEW TOY FEED ME HUMAN
FEED ME CHEW TOY FEED ME HUMAN
FEED ME CHEW TOY FEED ME HUMAN
FEED ME CHEW TOY FEED ME HUMAN
FEED ME CHEW TOY FEED ME HUMAN
LICKMELICKMELICKME~
AAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGH!”



"You may kiss the Bride of Satan"
Painting courtesy of Donald Roller Wilson

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

BRING IN THE HIGH PRESSURE HOSE

I didn’t think to take pictures of my 1975 Chevy Cheyenne as it burned like Chernobyl right down to the ground last night on Precinct Line Road. But here are the “After” pictures.

There are parts of my truck melted right into the asphalt that will be there for many years. It took 3 Fire Trucks, 4 Patrol cars, 6 Fire extinguishers and the high pressure hose to put her out.

The worse part about the experience is the dirty looks you get from people who have been delayed and have to pass single file past your smoldering livelihood. You can see them mutter "How dare you hold up traffic!" as they idle by in their shiny BMW's
But the best part was the first cop to arrive on the scene. He did a quick U-turn, said he had the Fire Department on the way and emptied his little carry-on extinguisher into the engine compartment. The fire just got bigger, and he scratched his head.
I said "What do we do now, officer??"
He hollered "GET AWAY FROM IT!"
 and we hauled ass as fast as we could it to the side of the road and waited

Anyway, I'm allright. I bailed way before the cab filled with too much smoke and the windshield blew.



I wish I had taken a picture while it burned.


 I had suspected a gas leak for a couple of weeks. I couldnt see one, but my mileage had dropped by 30% overnight. I should have known better, and taken it to a pro to find.
The engine compartment, where the fire started, doesn't look that bad.

But the cab burned burned burned. You cant tell from the pic, but the seat upholtery burned to where there are only wires and springs Everything is melted right down to the bones.

SUNBURNED

Too long in the sun yesterday, and my shoulders are toast. My friend Robin at the Subway Sandwich shop suggested I rub sliced tomatoes on them.
Subway and their tomatoes!

Sunday, May 27, 2012

NEXT STOP 50 MILES



gathered at westtexasinsomniac

Makes me think of this...
"Taxi, Taxi, Hotel, Hotel
I got the whiskey baby,
I got the whiskey baby
I got the cigarettes...."




Thursday, May 24, 2012

FAN LETTER TO BOB DYLAN

Back some time around 1985 or so, I was listening to a whole lot of Dylan all the time. I’d been a fan for years, I went to the “Rolling Thunder Review” at Tarrant County Convention center in 1976, and the horrible music from the early 80’s had sent me running back to Dylan. I was just a huge fan.

And one day I sat down and wrote the Bobster a letter. It went something like this

Dear Bob Dylan:
I am huge fan of yours. I know all your songs by heart. All I listen to anymore is Bob Dylan, and Bob Dylan, and more Bob Dylan. I never listen to Duran-Duran, or Van Halen; all this “Guys like you Micky” these days is flat killin' me, and  you won’t catch me listening to any Men at Work. I think Christopher Cross is an OK guy, but he can’t hold a candle to you, Bob.
So what I would like to do, Bob, is to invite you down to Texas, where I have a nice little campground on Toledo Bend Lake, and we can do a little bass fishing and sit up at night, poking the fire and singing your songs. In the morning I’ll fix you a nice breakfast with bacon and eggs and coffee and pancakes if you like. Then we can go run the trotlines and have catfish for supper. I think you would enjoy that very much.
So once again, I would like to say how much I like your work, and how much we seem to have in common, and just let me know what day you will be coming down and I’ll have the boat and groceries all ready to go.
May you stay Forever Young,
Bulletholes in the Mailbox


Well, ol' Bob never wrote me back. I never got to go camping and fishing with him.
But a few years later I saw an interview with him, and he said that he got letters all the time from people that thought they knew something about him, and that wanted to do some gardening with him, or take him to a show, or to sit around and help him write a song.
And he said he got letters from people that wanted to take him fishing, or go jogging with him, like he could relate to any of that, but that these people didn’t know him, and that he could prove they didn’t know him in any court of law.

And I thought to myself “Is he talking about me?”
Do you think he was talking about me?
I got to tell you, I never did like him so much after that.


Here's Bob, getting ready to go run the Trot lines.
Happy Birthday, 71 years old today!




Wednesday, May 23, 2012

ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY DEGREES

I have had occasion to use a line from a very old post today. Twice.

“Are we not all Psychic, with our brains operating like Time Machines, where information from the future influences events of the past?”

And then I ran into this poem. Something about it seemed to connect at first, but now I don’t know. But I will mark it just the same, and see if there is an event in the future that made this necessarily so…


Have you considered the possibility
that everything you believe is wrong,
not merely off a bit, but totally wrong,
nothing like things as they really are?


If you've done this, you know how durably fragile
those phantoms we hold in our heads are,
those wisps of thought that people die and kill for,
betray lovers for, give up lifelong friendships for.


If you've not done this, you probably don't understand this poem,
or think it's not even a poem, but a bit of opaque nonsense,
occupying too much of your day's time,
so you probably should stop reading it here, now.


But if you've arrived at this line,
maybe, just maybe, you're open to that possibility,
the possibility of being absolutely completely wrong,
about everything that matters.


How different the world seems then:
everyone who was your enemy is your friend,
everything you hated, you now love,
and everything you love slips through your fingers like sand.
ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY DEGREES

by Federico Moramarco

Monday, May 21, 2012

FAT BOY BLUES

My baby said so sweetly
"You're still my all in all-
but either part of you got bigger baby
or part of you got small"
I looked down in consternation
couldn't even see my shoes
Houston we have a situation
me I got the fatboy blues


well my friends they treat me kindly
My friends they treat me great
They're just so quick to remind me
I've put on even more little weight
And then they add too quickly
"It sure looks good on you"
Then they try to slide on past me
and leave me with the fatboy blues


I don't know how it happened
I ain't no Elvis P.
but one day I just woke up
just as fat as I could be
Now I stumble out to the kitchen
for another chicken or two
Well yeah I did it my way
and now I got the fatboy blues


Well my pants keep getting tighter
But it ain't cause I'm aroused
I can't reach in to get my lighter
or keys or loose change now
guess I'll get a fanny pack
if they come in size fifty two
Yes I am the walrus
and man I got the fat boy blues


I was a tush like Belushi
when he was living large
gonna make like Cleopatra
sail the river on a barge
down to New Orleans
where they know a thing or two
about rice and beans and sausage and garlic
and the fat boy blues


If I ever do slender
I bet I'll miss myself
eating fruit out of a blender
snow peas and kelp
Well you know I never was good looking
but now I'm in the ugly who's who
but you can take your stair stepper up to heaven honey
cuz I'm down here with my fat boy blues

Ok, I know,  I have inundated ya'll with Greg Brown lately. I went to the show Friday with half a dozen friends that had never heard of him, and we had a great time. They loved his music, his deep grovel voice, and his excellent lyrics about love and loss, good morning coffee, sleeping all night by your lover, fishing, home-made preserves, tall grass, gravel roads and sweet garden loam.
And the Fat Boy Blues.

There were only about 50 people at the show. There was a woman there, that after the show when we all  got to meet Greg, the woman shook Gregs hand, and then she began to sob, and then she just hugged him, weeping with her head on his shoulder, and he held her as she broke down completely. My friends, they commented on this later, but they aren't as familiar with Greg as I am, and he couldnt do all his songs, but I know exactly how that woman feels.
I feel the same way about Gregs music.

Friday, May 18, 2012

NATIONAL SECURITY

I'm relieved to know that Obama is up on his pop culture, as evidenced in his appearance on THE VIEW, and that now he can take the appropriate action to protect the country from the horrors of the Kardshians, like maybe Seal Team 5, or a Drone strike. I don't think Kim Kardashian has much of a missile defence.

Thursday, May 17, 2012

THE TRAINER

“You need to do 30 minutes of weight training when you come in.”
“OK.”
“Then you do 30 minutes of cardio.”
“Got it.”
“Lay down here, on your stomach. Raise up on your elbows then rock up on your knees and hold it”
(grunting)
“Try to stay under 3000 calories a day. Eat a big breakfast, and smaller meals as the day goes on. No carbs after 6:00. Can you do that?”
(grunt)"I'll try"
“Still holding? Good, get your butt down a little. That’s good. Think of us here as a college course in getting healthy. I want you to do different exercises every time you come in, to work different muscles, and different parts of muscles every time. I believe in exercise. I believe in weight training. I believe in pushing yourself. But just three days a week to start.  How you doing down there?”
(grunting)”I…believe…in…exercise”
“Good. Don’t try to train every day. Come in 3 times a week. Any more than that and you’ll hurt yourself. You have to do the weight training. For every pound of muscle you add, you will burn an extra 500 calories a day when you are at rest. People think they can come in here and run it off. It doesn't work that way. Get your butt down again. Good. This that you are doing is called a “Plank”. After a while you will do it from your toes, not your knees. That’s good. Your breathing is good. Are you OK?”
“I..(grunt)believe..(grunt)..in..(grunt)exer...cise”
“Hahaha! You are a funny guy Mr. Bullets! You can come down now”
(swoosh)

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

"CEPT FOR YOU AND ME"




"half the people you see these days are talking on cell phones
driving off the road and bumping into doors
people used to spend quite a bit of time alone
i guess nobody's lonely anymore
'cept you & me babe 'cept you & me


it's raining sheets of rain everything is cold and wet
nobody's going out of doors
they're all at home living it up on the internet
so i guess nobody's lonely any more
'cept you and me babe 'cept you and me


people meet somebody new & they leave the rest behind
we can have it all even though our lives are short
the kids they'll get used to it it happens all the time
no one is even surprised any more
'cept you and me babe 'cept you and me


i take my coffee black or with a little cream
i wake up every morning with the sun
i wanted to be your man that was nothing but a sweet dream
i always tell the truth to everyone
'cept you and me babe 'cept you and me"

Greg Brown, from his 2000 release "Covenant".
I'm going to see Greg on Friday night. He has been on my short list of singer/songwriters I would like to see for almost 20 years. Greg plays about 3 or 4 shows a year, and I really didn't expect to ever see him.
He has been mentioned in this blog several times over the years (click here)


AWESOME


"Shadow and light always go in pairs..."


“If you discover a very thick and deep shadow, be sure that there is, somewhere within you, a great light. You must learn to use one to reach the other.
In the East, this theme is well known: at the center of all our darkness there is a sun; at the heart of our ills there is an opposite mystery. Each element, however obscure it may be, even the most grotesque mistake, contains “depths of truth.” We must pass from one to the other.
In Christianity, this passage, this “easter” takes the shape of the cross, but—as we have too often forgot in the West—it is a transfigured cross. The free acceptance of death opens onto resurrection, the two are indivisible.

Alphonse Goetmann, Dialogue on The Path of Initiation

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

ASK ME ABOUT MY TESTOSTERONE


Normal is 500.
Low is considered 300 or less.
Last year mine was at 150.
That explained why I felt like crap all the time. No energy, no stamina, walking around the block seemed impossible. I stopped playing tennis because it had turned into a torture.
I got medicine for it, and they checked it again back in January.
Still at only 170.
“Doc, you got to do something. I got zero energy these days. They tell me when I am dancing, I am not as flamboyant as I used to be. I get out there, wiggle a little and I’m exhausted. I have a reputation to protect here”
“OK Bullets, we are going to double your dosage and check again in three months”

So after three months at double dose still feel like crap. I certain that it has not helped. I go in to my appointment after giving blood.
“So Doc, what does it say about my testosterone level? Still low right?”
He looks at the numbers, smiles and says:
“No, Bullets, you have the testosterone level of a 20 year old! Seven-Hundred and Seventy-Seven!”







JACKPOT!

“Well then, why do I feel so bad all the time?” I said.
“Bullets , you have some other things working against you. Diabetes, High Blood pressure, Cardio-Vascular Pulmonary Disease. You HAVE TO lose some weight. You won’t feel better until you do.”
My doctor and I we joke a lot. I crack him up, I really do.
But I can tell he is dead serious.

So Mothers Day (Happy Mothers Day to all you ladies) was my birthday. I spent the weekend bored. I laid around, nothing on TV, I thought about driving to Oklahoma and spending 100 bucks gambling. Went to eat with my daughter Saturday night, then declined going to Karaoke with her.
Just too tired, just too lazy, just too bored.

But I got up Sunday morning, went to two NA meetings and breakfast, and on my way home I decided to buy myself a birthday present.
I stopped in and joined a gym.
I need a change, I need to do something different and I need to…no…I HAVE TO lose weight.
I’ll keep ya’ll posted.

Monday, May 14, 2012

"GOOD ADVICE FOR SOMEONE LIKE ME"



behind the pain
someone is rejoicing
behind the torture
there is love
who's going to buy
this bullshit
if you don't become the ocean
you'll be seasick
every day

leonard cohen

Saturday, May 12, 2012

GETTIN' DOWN AND DIRTY


"You're a character George --- a pillow fight on our honeymoon!"

Friday, May 11, 2012

FRACKING CHICKENS and ANT ACID

I love going to grandma's. Last year the county sheriff moved in across the street so we really don't have to worry about her being taken care of, it’s a sleepy little town anyway. Sometimes I get stuck on that old road east of town while I’m dove hunting, but an old family friend usually comes by in a truck, a really rusty old truck, and soon I'm on the road again, lemonade down my chin and fish in the ice chest. So.


The hardest part of the trip is that sometimes I keep going back and forth from home to grandmas’, and back home again, and again and again sometimes there are many stops on the way, like two weeks ago when they had the road closed for fracking for pecan pie down around Corsicana, the Pecan Capital of the World. Lots of that going on, and they say that just when you think the pie is gone all you have to do is bring out the dynamite and frack some up. Its really worth the stop after all. So.

And when we put grandma in the nursing home I think it was a mistake, but there was nothing we could do about it, like the tornado that seems to always be in the garden right next to the house. Thus far its done no real damage, and it is nice to look at. It’s like grandmas friend Lila, at the nursing home, she seems real nice just don't look too long. So.

Last night when I went down grandma had new carpet going in to the old homestead, and the fishing was good in her living room. She had one of those lights on a pulley that you could pull up and down to get them closer to the water or the book or the newspaper if you needed. She always told me not to eat the grapes from the vine, the vine out there in back where the chicken pens were. They are always green, and sour, and I never could stay out of them, because there they sit just for the picking. I get up there on the cage, and eat away, my mouth all puckered and my lips raw and you know there got to be snakes here somewhere in these vines and all this old wood and I hear one now its ringing its fool head off and now I got to wake up and get some ant-acid (ant acid, now there’s something to make you wanna be an ant) and get in the shower and get my ass to work.

I have dreams all the time about being with mom and dad, and then dad dies and it’s just me and mum, and we are talking about how much we miss him, and then at some point I realize I'm just dreaming, and mums already gone too; that they are both gone.

It sounds real sad, but its really a good feeling--bittersweet--- but good.

The kind of good where you can't wait to have another dream like that.

Thursday, May 10, 2012

At the Jack-in-the-Box...


At the Jack-in-the Box on lunch break with your 3 very stoned friends, 1975…


Jack: “Can I take your order?”
Driver: “Ummm, yeah man, what did you want?”
Backseat #1:“A coke a taco and some fries”
Backseat # 2 “ Lemme have a Whataburger with no pickles and a shake and onion rings”
Driver “Dude we are at jack in the Box”
Backseat #2 “Huh?”
(muffled laughter)
Driver: “Dude, I’m trying to order, we are at Jack-in-the Box, get a fucking grip”
Backseat #2 “Is that where they have the big Macs?”
(car explodes with laughter)

And it just goes downhill from there, right?
Once you started laughing, that was it.
How we didn’t starve, I don’t know.

Wednesday, May 09, 2012

DIG THOSE SOCKS

"You're not a moron. You're only a case of arrested development."
- Chapter 6, The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway

Tuesday, May 08, 2012

BARE-BEAMED AND BUCK-NAKED

Dad would have been 95 today.

I always think of Rubber Band Trotlines whenever I think of dad.
And then I think about the time we set one up at Toledo Bend Lake when I was a boy.
Then I think of the old man I met down there, years later when I was grown , who told me of some of the legends around the lake, like the haunted bridge, and the bubbles of natural gas that attracted huge schools of crappie, and the giant catfish down there, big as Volkswagons.
But my blood ran cold as we stared into the fire and he told about a man and a boy who had caught hundreds of fish, here, right off this point one night on rubber-band trotlines.
It’s a creepy feeling, hearing something like that and knowing he is talking about you and your dad, and you decide to just keep it to yourself.

When the legend becomes a fact, just stick with the legend.

I don't know where Dad came up with a Canoe. Nor do I know where he came up with the "Rubber Band Trotline" either.
Twice a year my mother’s family would get together at Toledo Bend Lake. We would camp on an old road that now led to the lake in either direction. There was a dirt path wide enough for a car that you now used to get to the road.
Moms family was made up of Southern Baptists; and they were hardwired to the bone Baptists that did not believe in doing anything on a Sunday but go to Church. All cooking and shopping was done on Saturday. It was even against State law to buy anything on Sunday... the "Blue Law".


So it was during the fall get together that Dad, big Bruce and I loaded the Canoe and set out for a point and an Island, a good mile away where my Dad would show us how to set up a Rubber Band trotline. Actually, there were to be three.


Let me now describe the Rubber Band Trotline for you. First, you must find and aquire 1/2 inch rubber band stock that comes in 100 foot lengths {available at most Army-Navy Stores}. Then you need about 100 feet of Trotline with as many hooks as you can get on there.
Now double the rubber over to make fifty feet and attach to the trotline You now have 150 feet and you will need to find a stump approximately that far from the bank. Tie the rubber band to the stump and take the trotline to the shore. There should be a little tension on the line. And you should be able to pull the trotline all the way in onto the shore and bait the hooks. The increased tension, provided by the rubber band, pulls it back out into the water towards the stump. Tie it off on a green stick poked into the mud.


With my dad in the stern, Bruce stationed amidships, and myself in the bow with a quick "heave to" we glide from the safety of the firmament onto the glassy surface of Toledo Bend. My Mom, and Bruce’s wife have arrived to see us off. The look of worry on their face makes me wonder if "Edmond Fitzgerald" may be scrawled on the side of the Canoe.


'Stevie, are you sure you don't need a Jacket?".
"I don't think so mom, I'll be awright"


Its a sunny 76 degrees. I glance to Dad who has managed a thin grin. I watch as his cigar rolls from one side of his mouth to the other and the grin never changes. How does he do it?


"Bruce, you boys be careful out there!" shouts Jean.
Jean is the love of Bruce’s life. She is wearing white Clam-Diggers, a flowered top and a crazy straw hat. Looks like a cross between Betty Boop and Minnie Pearl.
"Aw, Jean, I've been doing this all my life" says Bruce.
"You be careful just the same"
"Yes, Mother" Bruce says. They have been married for years, have three kids, and his pet name for Jean is "Mother".


We arrive at our destination, midway between a small island and a point of land. We successfully tie off two of the rubberband trotlines. I am starting to get pretty excited, as is Bruce. My Dad was always coming up with pretty cool stuff and this was looking like a real winner.


Bruce is my dadas best friend,  about 6'5" and weighs in at a good 300 lbs and so far has been pretty good ballast for the Canoe. But when Dad asked for a knife (he had misplaced his) and Bruce stood up in the middle of the Canoe, there was real concern in dads voice as he said;


"Bruce, I don't think you should stand up in this canoe."
"Aw, I have been standing up in Canoes all my life, Jack!


I,  for one, was pretty certain that Bruce had never been in a canoe at all and that we would all soon be very wet.
Sure enough, we rocked once to the left then once to the right- I glanced at Dad who had that Cigar clenched in his teeth- and the canoe turned over and I found myself underwater, slowly rising to the surface.
Now I can see the sky and the bottom of the Canoe.
I can see Bruce break the surface and gasp for some air.
Slowly , very slowly rising to the surface, I see my Dad 's hat, then his nose, and then there is that Cigar. It's still clenched in his mouth and I see him give a few puffs, and there a little smoke, and then a few more puffs and PRESTO! clouds of cigar smoke. Its like magic! He has been fully submerged but that  cigar is still lit!


We made it to shore. We lit a fire from Dads cigar. We stripped down to our underwear and hung our clothes to dry. We heard the rumblings of motors and cars on a gravel road that led right up to us. It was my Mother and Jean and Mom's Southern Baptist Family. They had gotten word and come to check on us.


I am sure they would have stayed away had they known what we were not wearing.
Except for a pair of wet tighty-whiteys, Dad, Bruce and I are bare-beamed and buck naked.


The caravan of cars slowly parades by with those Baptist Bitter Beer faces gawking out the window.
Finally the car carrying Mom and Jean pulls up and stops. Jean climbs out of the car and hollers at Bruce "Just what do you think you are doing there Brucie Boy"
Bruce looks down at me and grins "Just tryin to get dry, Mother"
Jeans got her hands on her hips now and yells at Bruce "Don't you know you can't just take your clothes off any ol' where, light a fire and think you are going to get your clothes dry?"
Bruce looks down at me again and winks "Been doin' it all my life, Jean!"


Man, we did catch some fish that night.

Monday, May 07, 2012

BIG TIME FUNNY GUY

I played this fun game over at Nita’s place last week. Heres what you do:


Take your resume’ and go online to one of these translator sites. Translate your resume' into Chinese. Then take the Chinese version and translate it into Russian. Take the Russian version, and wash it back through into English!
You wouldn’t believe how it comes out!
There is a line in my original resume’ from 25 years ago that goes like this:
“Serious about task, people oriented with an outstanding sense of humor”
The ExMrs Bulletholes she never did like that line, but I always thought it was great.
When I wash it through the translator, it comes out like this:
“Friendly businessman and big time funny guy”

So you want to know what it was that dope did to me? I knew it long before I ever quit doing dope. Dope took away my personality. It made me neither happy nor sad. It made a usually friendly guy into someone that had nothing to say to his friends. There was no way I could ever meet and make a new friend. Why would I want to? I already felt so good inside from the dope I didn’t really have to do anything else but sit there like a big lump of feel good, just a big flesh-sack of chemically induced endorphins.

There was even a funny little thing that would trigger me to using dope. I was even aware of it. I might go a couple weeks without any dope, not because I was trying to quit, but because I was out of money, or I was too tired to go get some, or I was just letting my nervous system recover from my last go. And one day I would walk into a store, and I’d smile and joke with the cashier, or the people in line, and they would all laugh and I’d say please and thank you and generally be the friendly businessman and ig time funny guy that I was meant to be, and I’d walk out of the store and realize I could no longer stand being me and decide it was time to go get some dope so I would just shut up and start minding my own business again.
And that’s what I would do.
Did it just like that for years.

And when I finally came to Narcotics Anonymous, and got a couple months clean under my belt and started getting my personality back and being friendly and funny, people would say “Oh, you must have been a blast to get high with” and I’d tell them “No, its just not true”, because once I got high I couldn’t wait to get away from people, and get back to my little apartment and sit there like Gollum with my precious.

My precious.

You know, it funny that when you lose your personality and start to get it back, its really not easy. Its hard sometimes to be me. It takes a little getting used to, being friendly and polite and looking people in the eye and saying ”Hello” and “Please”, “Thank You” and “You're welcome”.
But once you do, get used to it again that is, it’s also very nice to be a “Friendly businessman and big time funny guy”.

Anyway, this is what I shared at a meeting yesterday, and maybe you have to be an addict to really relate (many of us have experienced this same thing I have described) but I thought it was worth writing down.
Worth writing down in English.

Sunday, May 06, 2012

WHERE HOUSE FORT WORTH

Great flyer from my young friend at Where House last week.


Thursday, May 03, 2012

"WHAT DID YOU DREAM?"


"ITS ALRIGHT, WE TOLD YOU WHAT TO DREAM"

Wednesday, May 02, 2012

KARN EVIL KITCHEN


When I worked for Hyatt, we had General Meetings once or twice a year. They always had a theme, and one year the idea was that each department would do a “Booth” that demonstrated or informed as to what that departments role was in the Hotel.

I came up with a Booth called “KARN EVIL KITCHEN” representing the kitchen where the Pastry Chef taught folks how to pipe a rosette from a pastry bag (with a lot of free pastries for the audience) and another chef was carving a block of ice.
But the centerpiece of the booth was a 3 burner omelet station all set up for anyone to come and try to flip an omelet. Had a big sign that said
“FLIP AN OMELET- WIN A PRIZE”
with Karn Evil cooks helping the participants to try to flip an omelet.
I stood out front like a Carnival Barker with this an oversized chef hat, a purple cape and a cane, and from a tape player behind the booth came the music of ELP’s “Karn Evil Nine”.

“Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends” and so on.
It was beautiful, and our booth won first place in the the booth contest.
I’d forgotten about this story.

Tuesday, May 01, 2012

A CONVERSATION WITH SUSAN, PART III




Need I say more?
And thats just how it goes with my best friend Susan @ Assorted, who was in town last week from Mobile.
For Parts I and II, click here.