Saturday, June 30, 2012

ROSES AND FROZEN PIZZA



Ladies, the god-awful truth is, you might find a guy that will open the door for you, he might bring you flowers, or better yet, work in the garden with you. He might even know which fork is for salad, and which is for dinner, and what a sorbet is. He might even be able to chew his food with his mouth shut, and keep his elbows off the table.
But in the end you will find out that deep inside he’s just a big ol’ pervert.
That’s the truth.

Friday, June 29, 2012

PRIVILEGES

There was a segment on NPR this morning. A man talking about his mother and how happy and caring she always was. And then it came time for her to die, and the man was sad and his mother looked him in the eye and asked him “Do you not know what a privilege it is to die?”

And those were the last words he heard her speak.

I buried my mom and dad all inside a year. It was a long time ago, and it still affects me in ways I’m probably not even aware of. But I am aware of what a beautiful year that was, and what a privilege it was to their son that year.
There was a lot of treasure there.

"How perilous, our infancy"


“We were hunters and foragers. The frontier was everywhere. We were bounded only by the Earth, and the ocean, and the sky. The open road still softly calls. Our little terraquious globe as the madhouse of those hundred thousand millions of worlds. We, who cannot even put our own planetary home in order, riven with rivalries and hatreds; Are we to venture out into space? By the time we’re ready to settle even the nearest of other planetary systems, we will have changed. The simple passage of so many generations will have changed us. Necessity will have changed us. We’re… an adaptable species. It will not be we who reach Alpha Centauri and the other nearby stars. It will be a species very like us, but with more of our strengths, and fewer of our weaknesses. More confident, farseeing, capable, and prudent. For all our failings, despite our limitations and fallibilities, we humans are capable of greatness. What new wonders, undreamed of in our time, will we have wrought in another generation? And another? How far will our nomadic species have wandered by the end of the next century? And the next millennium? Our remote descendants, safely arrayed on many worlds through the solar system and beyond, will be unified by their common heritage, by their regard for their home planet, and by the knowledge that whatever other life there may be, the only humans in all the universe come from Earth. They will gaze up, and strain to find the blue dot in their skies. They will marvel at how vulnerable the repository of raw potential once was. How perilous, our infancy. How humble, our beginnings. How many rivers we had to cross before we found our way.”
Carl Sagan


Thursday, June 28, 2012

"I'LL HAVE THE LOBSTER"

I believe it is often in the simplest of gestures, in the unexpected action, the ordinary becomes extraordinary.  In love we often look for the grand moment.  We wait to hear the words we want to hear.  We plan how love should be, should look, should act.  We miss the signs completely.  Love happens to us every day.  Do you see it?  Can you feel it?    ~ rdg

My Wicked Wicked Ways

by Sandra Cisneros


This is my father.
See? He is young.
He looks like Errol Flynn.
He is wearing a hat
that tips over one eye,
a suit that fits him good,
and baggy pants.
He is also wearing
those awful shoes,
the two-toned ones
my mother hates.
Here is my mother.
She is not crying.
She cannot look into the lens
because the sun is bright.
The woman,
the one my father knows,
is not here.
She does not come till later.
My mother will get very mad.
Her face will turn red
and she will throw one shoe.
My father will say nothing.
After a while everyone
will forget it.
Years and years will pass.
My mother will stop mentioning it.

This is me she is carrying.
I am a baby.
She does not know
I will turn out bad.



Kristi after 40 provided the name of the poet, and I dug this one out of her collection.

NEVER

"... never contradict anyone or seek to prove anything to anyone unless one gets paid for it in cold, hard coin."
george jean nathan

from thisisnthappiness


Wednesday, June 27, 2012

THE INVALIDS

Coaches, man, they always talked so rough.
Deep-voiced and rough.


“Coach, I hurt my big toe. I can’t practice football today.”
“Bullshit. You need a doctors excuse to miss practice”
“Yes Coach, I got one right here.”
“When did you go to the doctor?”
“Yesterday when I got home. My toe hurt. Mom took me.”

Coach examines excuse for a minute.

“So your mommy took you to the doctor. Okay Phantom, get your sorry ass over there with the rest of the invalids”
‘Sorry coach”
“You are all about sorry, aren’t you?’
“Yessir, thank you sir”

Frick’n coaches man, they were brutal.
My nickname used to be "The Phantom".

A LITTLE NIGHT MADNESS



"In dreams the origami of the brain
opens like a fist, a pomegranate,
an expensive geometry."

-from "Night Madness Poem" by Sandra Cisneros

gathered from kristi at lifeat40



Tuesday, June 26, 2012

CUTTING LOOSE

FROM THE CONTINUING CHRONICLES OF FIGHTING JOE, v. 2.5


When he was 4 years old, Buck Boopman cried all the way to and from the all-girl tap dancing lessons his mother made him go to. But he did not cry during the classes. No, that would have been too humiliating. It was bad enough to have to wear that leotard and those shiny black shoes with the little ribbon as a shoelace without bawling like a big baby about the whole thing. The real reason Buck kept it together was simply out of respect for the little girls in that class, especially Teddy, the daughter of the Minister at the church he went to. Buck always looked forward to seeing Teddy there. Teddy was Buck's first love. Tap-dancing lessons may not have made him a dancer, but they taught him that sometimes love is just hoping to see someone, and keeping it together for them when you do.

A few years later, in the second Grade, Buck would walk home from school with Donna for lunch everyday. And everyday he would split the baby Snickers bar his mother had given him with Donna when they met on the corner for the walk back to school. One day when his mother gave him his usual Snickers bar, Buck asked if he might have TWO Snickers bars today.
"Why do you need two today?" his mother asked.
And Buck explained to his mother that everyday he split his candy bar with Donna, and that today he thought maybe Donna might like one of her own.
"Oh yes!" his mother beamed as she wiped her hands on her Watermelon Apron and reached into the pantry for another Snickers "You most certainly may!"

These two events would form Bucks attitude towards women that he kept for the rest of his life.
It was also why he felt a bit nervous and uneasy about the effect that his step-sister Betsye had on him, all the while hoping something might happen between the two of them.

******

Betsye was 16 years old. She had a father somewhere that sent a birthday card to her on her birthday for the last 14 years. She loved her daddy like all little girls do, but stayed confused as to why he chose to stay away. She had had to suffer the looks and jeers of quite a number of her mother's
boyfriends over the years. She had grown up 'fast" as the old folks say, having started her period at the age of 10 and having her breasts come in when she was only 11.
And oh my, did they come in!
The flat chested girls could not imagine what a curse it could be. Boys never looked you in the eye. Some of them even would just come up and grab at them.
Old men gawked and didn't even try to hide their lust

She didn't quite know it, but she was more than breasts. She was also very pretty and sweet, its just nobody had ever really told her that. She had never  had a boyfriend, she stayed too busy just trying to defend herself at school, and on the walks home, and when she and her girlfriends would get cornered by some boys down at the Bellaire.

So when Fightin' Joe Jarmack, the toughest guy at school, showed an interest in her and asked her out, it made sense to her to say yes. Nobody messed with Joe, and nobody would dare mess with Joe's girl. She was scared and vulnerable, and she did whatever Joe asked, but she wasn't really afraid of Joe. Joe liked her too much to ever hurt her; she sensed that. In fact, it seemed to her that Joe was even afraid of her.
But for her, he represented protection, and it seemed like a good trade, her affection for his protection.
Recently, since her mom had married Bum Boopman, she had taken a liking to her step-brother Buck. He was kind and gentle, and had always showed her a great deal of respect. He smiled to see her in the mornings, and lately she found herself daydreaming about him during class, and at night before she fell asleep.
*******

No one was home when Betsye got there. She took a shower, wrapped herself in a towel, and painted her toenails while she sat on the edge of the bathroom countertop. She didn't hear when Buck came home until she heard him gasp "Sorry" as he rounded the corner and into the bathroom..
"That's OK!" she said as she hopped down from the counter to face him head on.
Buck fought the urge to look at his boot tops.  He held his ground and stood there, looking straight
into Betsye's eyes.
Betsye knew it was up to her.
She was tired of the affliction, tired of playing the role of Fightin' Joe's girl.
She  smiled her best smile, took a deep breath, and let the towel drop.
Buck, in a rare moment of dash,  stepped into the bathroom and pulled the door shut.

Sometimes love is not about keeping it together.
Sometimes love is all about cutting loose.

************




LinkS to the other parts of this story....click here.
This part should follow Part 2, "The Scariest House on the Block" and come before Part 3, which was renamed at some point to  'The View From The Smoking Area"

If you actually go read all this crap, you may note that the names changed somewhat between Part Two and Part 3. Thats because there were some Baumgardeners that lived in this area, and they had nothing to do with the story, and when I posted the story to FB, I had to clean up the names to protect the innocent.

Monday, June 25, 2012

WHAT AM I GOING TO DO?

You may recall that my 1975 Chevy truck burned to the ground last month.


I’ve been going to the Dallas Can Charity Auto Auction the last month looking for a new car. I’ve been going with my pal Jeff, who has bought several cars there, and had pretty good luck. The last car he bought was a 2000 Mustang. He bought it for my daughter.
See, in addition to being one of my High School pals, he is also stepfather to my daughter, by virtue of being the husband of the Ex-mrs Bulletholes.
But all that is a whole ‘nother story.

Jeff has bought several cars at the auction. You get them pretty cheap, but there is no way of knowing what all may be wrong with them until you drive them off the lot.
The first week, Jeff stopped me from bidding on a cute little British 1977 model MGB-GT. It ran, and it sold for only $800, but as cute as it was it would have been the wrong car for me. I barely fit in it.
The next week, there was a nice Accura, but the bidding took off, and it went for 3000. I don’t want to spend that much on a car, only to find I need to put another 1500 into it just to get it roadworthy, because like I said, you don’t really know what they may need until you drive them off the lot. And the assumption is that most will need something.

Last week, I bought a car. It is an Isuzu Rodeo, in good shape, and I thought it might go for 2000 or more, but the bidding got stuck at 1500, and I won!

But when I drove it off the lot, the transmission was slipping. So I had to take it to the shop. I had hoped that 1500 might get the transmission fixed, and that would seem to me to still be a pretty good deal, but these transmission are apparently harder to fix.
The price is 2500 for a rebuild on the transmission!

So I called the Ex Mrs Bulletholes and told her how much it was going to cost.
“Twenty –Five hundred dollars for A Joe Isuzu Japanese Transmission!” I told her.
She gasped, and asked “What are you going to do?”

"What am I going to do? I tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to NOT GO GET ANY DOPE, that’s what I’m going to do!!!”

There was about 8 seconds of silence over the line, and then she says real softly, real relieved:
“I am so glad for that”

People not in the program probably don’t really know what that means, how positive an action it is to actively stay clean, and while she has watched me for all these years do what it is I do, I think for the first time she really understood what that meant.

The miracle is that it wasn’t long ago that every last thin dime I had went right up my nose.
The mathematics of it is I actually have the money to do this.

And its still not a bad deal for 4000. Not for Dallas Can Auction, not for me, and certainly not for the transmission guy.

Friday, June 22, 2012

AWWWW...



thanks westexasinsomniac

FREEWAY VIEW

I got my book published!

The premiere was last weekend down at Barnes and Noble.
The title, which I am still trying to figure out, was “A Room With A Freeway View”.

I sat at a table, surround by stacks of my book. A blonde haired woman with cat glasses and a huge pearl necklace in a low cut dress stood and handed out copies of “A Room With A Freeway View” as customers walked by.
But the book, it had a green and gold colored paper sleeve on it, it looked just like a  Narcotics Anonymous book “The 12 Steps Stepworking Guide”, but instead of saying that on the cover, it said “A Room With A Freeway View”.


So I asked the lady handing out my books why.
“Why does my book have this green and gold cover and look like an NA book”
“Because it is an NA book” she says.
"No, no, no, my book IS NOT an NA book!”
She bent over a little, real close like, her pearl necklace dangling next to my neck and I could see her cleavage real nice from her low cut dress, and she whispered kind of matter-of-factly into my ear:
“Oh yes dear, it is definitely an NA book”

And I woke up. And I kind of realized that any book I might write would be an NA book of sorts and that everything I do the rest of my life will  be grounded on the principles I try to apply to my daily life that I have learned about at NA. That without having come to NA, I would still be slugging in out in the unmanagability and insanity of my life, riding a bike everywhere I went, likely homeless and jobless and miserable.
And all I could think was one of the things we say at the group a lot;
“The only way to keep from returning to active addiction is not to take that first drug.”

follow the link above to see where I must have got the title for this "book"

Thursday, June 21, 2012

CELESTIAL MEANS


"Looking at the stars always makes me dream, as simply as I dream over the black dots representing towns and villages on a map.

Why, I ask myself, shouldn’t the shining dots of the sky be as accessible as the black dots on the map of France?
Just as we take a train to get to Tarascon or Rouen, we take death to reach a star. We cannot get to a star while we are alive any more than we can take the train when we are dead. So to me it seems possible that cholera, tuberculosis and cancer are the celestial means of locomotion. Just as steamboats, buses and railways are the terrestrial means.
To die quietly of old age would be to go there on foot."
Vincent van Gogh

And Anita has pointed the way to actually travel on a roller coaster called a "Euthansia Machine".
What a way to go!

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

ABBIE-NORMAL



An old long lost friend sent me a picture of his sister last week. Norma was a friend, and she died. Thats her in the center, with the yellow top.

It reminds me of  when Norma and I went bowling one night. She always wore big t-shirts and loose fitting oversized tops. She always “dressed down”, like a tomboy or something. But we went bowling one night with one of her girlfriends (Norma liked to bowl) and that night she wore something more “Girly” than what  she usually wore. I got to looking at the shirt, and finally I just had to blurt out:

“Norma, girl, you got to wear that shirt more often. I never knew how stacked you are. You got it going on!”
And she and her friend both spewed coke all out their mouths. We had to get a mop, and change shoes and everything.

My friend he sent me this picture, and he has been through some of the same things as I have and come out on the other side, just a little worse for the wear, but overall, we are still here. I'm glad to have him still here, and hope to see him one day soon.

Thanks, my friend, for reminding me of Norma. I always called her ""Abbie-Normal".
That was my name for her.

I put this post to draft a few weeks ago. I started to post it yesterday, but got busy with the "Bang", "Frogs" and "Mitt" posts, and figured to post this today.
I found out late yesterday it was Norma's Birthday. I just missed. That would have been sweet.

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

LOOKOUT MITT!

With the Republican National Convention coming up, I sense that Romney is building some steam. He likely will not have to worry about Ron Paul coming in and stealing the nomination (though I have a few friends that still think it possible).... Its doubtful that Sarah Palin, or Chris Christie or even Paul Ryan will mount a last minute surprise, and win the nomination from the floor.

I keep seeing posts about Alan West, the tough talking youngster from Florida being an excellent president, but this has mostly been because few people really wanted Romney from the git-go, and they are looking ahead to 2016.

If there is a Dark Horse for the GOP this year, it could come in the way of Ronald Reagan, whose unremitting Facebook presence is incredible, rising from the dead to save the country again.

Hell, I’d vote for him
Ronald Reagan returns from grave to enter race at the last minute and in a landslide, save the country once again!

thanks to unremittingfailure for the image

A HEARTBREAK

We have a Salvadorian restaurant around the corner. I can't go in there. The food is good, but they have the place decorated with all sizes, shapes and colors of dead stuffed frogs. Some of them are playing guitars or driving '57 chevy's. There are two that appear to be getting married, with a little frog priest and everything.

Its very sad looking to me, and the little ones playing baseball just break my heart.




"While my guitar gently weeps"




BANG

The album that inspired my 10th grade year. (see previous post)
I think sometime even after the 10th grade, I used to take the album to different people’s houses, and much to their chagrin, insist that they play it. I did the same thing with an Atomic Rooster album. Its a wonder I had any friends at all.


The image above was the cover. On the backside, the gun barrel telescopes down into a gun held by an outlaw looking fellow, and there is a row of empty graves fresh dug and ready for him to fill.
Between that and the music, it was everything a 15 year old boy needed.

Monday, June 18, 2012

MY SCIENCE PROJECT

Oh wow. When I was in the ninth grade I had this album by a band called Bang, and they had a song on it called "Future Shock". I loved that album, and the next year a book appeared on a reading list at school called "Future Shock" by a guy named Alvin Toffler. So naturally I picked this book, and did my book report on it.
I think the song was about the book, because it warned of the nightmares that our technological progress was going to create.
My friend Nita did a post about this book, and she says she didn't finish reading it, and the thing is, I don't think I really read the book. I have no recollection of it, and I think maybe I did my book report on the song, not the book.


That sounds real right to me because there was another Bang song called "Our Home" on the same album, and I used it on my science project that same year. The project was that I got an aquarium, and put some fish in it, then poured oil in it to simulate an oil spill, and recorded the results; i.e. how long it took the fish to die.
I had a cardboard exhibit set up in the lunchroom, and the centerpiece was the lyrics to Our Home, with a cassette player that played the song,  and in a small corner of my poster board backdrop, there were the results of the study:
That the fish had died painful deaths as a result of the simulated oil spill I had created.
But the teacher asked me why I had no pictures of the project, or the aquarium itself as part of the exhibit, and stuff like that and all I could do was point to the lyrics, and ask her if she wouldn't like to hear "Our Home " again..
Finally she said "You didn't really do all this, with the fish and aquarium, did you?"
and I bowed my head and said "No ma'am" and she still gave me a "D".

That's the kind of student I was in the 10th grade.

I know you guys are dying to hear a Bang song, just to see what scholarly music it was that I was listening to in the 10th grade. I'm really torn as to which one to play for you, they are both so great...haha.





Thanks Nita, for reminding me what a horrible student I truly was.

Sunday, June 17, 2012

YOU MUST HAVE BEEN TALKING TO JACK RENFRO


Jack Renfro was my father.
Bruce was my fathers very best friend while I was growing up which was just fine with me because I liked Bruce maybe as much as my father did. Where my father was dry and always under control, Bruce was effusive and jolly. They never spoke curtly to each other and always had a good time together. When I was a boy, their entire relationship seemed to be centered around fishing and camping. This is the story of how their friendship began:

Bruce and Jack worked together for Hobbs Trailers. It was 1958, life was good and they were in their prime. Jack was a big time fisherman while Bruce was, well, I have no idea what Bruce was before fishing, except a really nice guy.
At some point as the friendship grew Jack took Bruce bass fishing. Jack was not a minnow and worm fisherman. No, Jack liked to use lures, wood carvings and plastic models with hooks attached, replicas of baitfish, frogs and worms, designed to fool a fish into striking the treacherous bait.

They went to Lake Benbrook. Before too long, Jack catches a fish which excites Bruce to no end.
“What did you catch him on? “ Bruce wants to know.
“A Jiitterbug” replies Jack.
“Nah, now Jack, don’t go puttin’ me on” Bruce says, thinking no way could a fishing lure be named after a 20's dance.
“Not a bit” says Jack and shows Bruce the lure with “Jitterbug” printed plainly on the lure.
“Well I’ll be” says Bruce ”I want one of those”
Jack ties the Jitterbug on for Bruce to use. Before too long Jack catches another fish. Bruce is curious.
“Whatcha catch ‘im on?”
“A Devils Horse.”
“Nah, now Jack, don’t put me on”
“Here it is written right on the lure, "Devils Horse!"” So now Bruce wants to use a Devils Horse.
Bruce is very intrigued about the names of these lures and wants to know more names so Jack begins to recite some lure names, like the classic ‘Hellbender”, “Water Dog” and "Boy Howdy", which Bruce sees in the tackle box as being for real.

My dad had crazy names for names for lures that did not actually exist. Names like “The Bottom Sratcher” “Doodlesocker” and “Gullywampus”. There was the "Rebel Yell" "Do-Diddler" and 'Who hit John" none of which were actual lures, just names my father dreamt up. He had a million or so screwball names for lures. and he recited all those to Bruce as well.

The next day at work Bruce comes in, hooked on fishing, and tells Jack that at lunch he wants to go down to Leonards Department store and buy a rod and reel, a tackle box and all those lures they had talked about the day before.
“Can you make me a list of those lures, Jack?”
“I’d be glad to, Bruce”

Bruce goes downtown at lunch and walks into the Sporting Goods Department. The salesman helps him find a rod, reel and Tackle box. Finally, Bruce says “I’ve got a list of lures here” and hands it to the salesman who studies the list for a moment, then looks up to Bruce and with a chuckle, hands the list back to him.

"Is there something wrong?" asks Bruce.
“No, no, nothing wrong really”, says the salesman “But you must have been talking to Jack Renfro!”


And that is the story of how my father and Bruce Myers got to be best friends! 
When I was growing up I must have heard this story a thousand times and never grew tired of hearing it. I'd give anything to be sitting on a camp stool by a fire, listening to the two of them go on into the night with their friendly banter.

Friday, June 15, 2012

SONGS YOU WONT HEAR ON AMERICAN IDOL

Old men crying, young men dying
World still turns as Father Time looks on
On and on
Children playing, dreamers praying
Laughter turns to tear as love has gone
Has it gone?

Oh, it's a hard road
Oh, it's a hard road

Whirlwind churning, lovers learning
On this path of life we can't back down
Is it wrong?
Widows weeping, babies sleeping
Life becomes the singer and the song
Sing along

Oh, it's a hard road
Carry your own load

Why make the hard road?
Why can't we be friends?
No need to hurry
We'll meet in the end

Why make the hard road?
Why can't we be friends?
No need to worry
Let's sing it again

Brother's sharing, mother's caring
Nightime falling victim to the dawn
Shadows small
Days are crawling, time is calling
To the Earth another life is gone
Love line drawn

Oh, it's a hard road
Carry your own load
Oh, it's a hard road
Oh, it's a hard road...

Forget all your sorrow, don't live in the past
And look to the future, `cause life goes too fast,
 you know
Forget all your sorrow, don't live in the past
And look to the future, `cause life goes too fast,
 you know
Forget all your sorrow, don't live in the past
And look to the future, `cause life goes too fast,
 you know...



I’m posting this mostly because it hardly sounds like Black Sabbath.
It is on one of their later albums, an album I didn’t really care for, even after being a HUGE Sabbath fan when I was in my teens. It severely lacks those wickedly strange riffs, and musical theme changes  typically done by Sabbath.


But I found this live version, and it sounds better than the album version, which had a bunch of orchestration included in it. It was the only song I liked on the album at the time, but I do like this live version better.

I like it a lot, I just can’t stop listening to it and humming it as I drive home in the afternoon.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that even if you don’t like Black Sabbath, and don’t care for Ozzy, that you might still like this just the same.
Because to me, it sounds like a pop song.
Just because you won’t likely hear it on American idol, doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be there.

Thursday, June 14, 2012

PSYCHO'S


One of my favorite blogs to go to is Sous Girl. She is a Chef up in British Columbia. She's not an experienced Chef, and neither is she a Baby Chef. She is what I would call a Teenage Chef.
She has all the angst and sturm and drang of a teenager. She has also recently won a victory over cancer.
It is a very uncomfortable place on the learning curve, just like it is a very uncomfortable age to be.
This is probably why I like her blog so much, it really takes me back to read some of the things she is going through. She has inspired more than one Bulletholes story, and I am adding her to my sidebar today.

Recently she has posted about employees meals
Long time ago I had a major grudge against employees meals as well. I think most chefs do at some point. Things get busy as snot in the kitchen, and you tend to run on heat.
You run on heat big-time. You sweat paper chef hats right off your head.
That can make you a real asshole about your third hat for the day, and you don't realise how unnecessary it is at the time to be an asshole.

But I remember sending some real crap down to Cycles, a lot of real crap some days. “Cycles” was the given name for the employees dining room. Some bright bastard from Human Resources had thunk it up during some kind of meth induced psychosis I’m sure. I think it was short for “Recycle” but I don't think that’s what the author had had in mind. Me, I changed it up slightly and called it “Psychos”. Sounds like cycles, but total different meaning.

One day I sent some real crap down there, probably chicken bones and carrot peels, and the next thing I knew I was in the GM’s office, and he was explaining to me that it was the most important meal I would prepare that day.
I didn’t believe him one bit. But what I did come to understand was that if I wanted to win the respect of every manager in the hotel, and the undying love of all the employees, all I had to do was take good care of their free meal for the day. And do it as happily as if it was for a paying customer.

I would come to find out many years and tears later that it might be the only meal they got that day.




Wednesday, June 13, 2012

"HER SMOKE ROSE UP FOREVER"


With apologies to thisisnthappiness, I have stolen his tagline.
 He has the best taglines.
Image gathered @ carabaas

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

BEST OVERSEAS ARTIST/ STAY IN SCHOOL

A few times a year I do posts about my good pal Buddy Whittington, who has never had any job his whole life but being a musician. He and I went through puberty, and High School together, and after 15 years of touring as John Mayall's lead guitarist, he spends most of his time back here in Fort Worth with his wife and kids. He plays gigs all around town and has a good following, and at any given show there will be up to 100 of us regular Fort Worth fans, most of us being friends to one degree or another.

But several times a year Buddy sets out to play for all the crowned heads of Europe, touring with Peter Green's old band, through Italy, and Luxembourg and Germany,  steams his way to the pubs of England and Ireland, and then back to Holland again before coming back home with all his dirty laundry. Buddy says he loves the European blues fans, that there is a huge appreciation over there for blues beyond  what you find here in the states.
It seems that Buddy has been nominated for a British Blues Award in the category of Best Overseas Artist. He faces some pretty good competition, with Joe Bonnamassa and Walter Trout also in his category.

I would ask all my Bulletholes peeps a favor,  to maybe go to the site BRITISH BLUES AWARDS and vote for Buddy just because I said so.
Or you can go to YouTube and check him out, and the other nominees too, and make up your own mind.
 Or you can take a look at some of my past posts about Buddy.
Or you can just sit there, whatever.

Here's one you shouldn't miss; Buddy and Mouse Mayes* doing an old Fleetwood Mac tune. I swear they do tear it up @ the 1:30 mark.



*Mouse Mayes is no slouch either. Thats him on the right.  He plays every bit as well as Buddy, his notes seem to start down in his toes, like a Mike Tyson punch, and Mouse has the best Rock Star shirts you've ever seen. Mouse has done what he calls "three tours of duty" with Black Oak Arkansas.


My son asked Mouse if he had any advice for young guitarists.
"Stay in school" Mouse says.
Good advice

Monday, June 11, 2012

THE FUTURE IS IN URNS

Some small towns are funny. The rest are just plain scary. I remember being in Batesville Arkansas once; they manufacture caskets there. As you pass by the town square, there are a dozen grizzled old men, retired casket-makers, that give you the hairy eyeball. There is a stop sign there, but its best just to roll right through it. I stopped off at the diner, where the owner needed more information about me than what I would have expected before he could serve me.


'Its not me, " he explained, "its the darn Chamber of Commerce. They don't want no tourists or college kids classin' up the place."
He told me that it was for that reason he couldn't get anything but frozen peas to serve with his Chicken Fried Steak.
"No fresh vegetables" they had told him, "Too delicious, people might come back"
None of it made any sense, even when he asked if I would like to buy his restaurant so he could get out of Batesvlle Arkansas.

It reminded me of a movie I saw long ago, "Outback" with Donald Pleasance. He played a schoolteacher who was stranded in a funny scary small town where they drank every night and everybody played a game with dice and no one could leave until they won the stupid game. Of course Pleasance never won, the movie ends with him sitting in the scorching sun, sucking on the barrel of a rifle and a single bullet in the chamber.

I just got back from passing through a town like this, where the cashiers at the grocery look at you funny and say "From out of town aren't you?" and its not a question at all. As you pass through the town square there are grizzled old men that don't bother to look up from playing domino's, they know you are there, they knew you were there since before you left the grocery store. You wave at the one who does look up, but he just stares right through you as you pass. Later at the lake there is an eerie quiet and there are no fish, or fisherman, its just you on the lake and you feel a million eyes watching you.

The lady at the grocery store said there had been gators in the lake, and they called in a gator hunter and he pulled 23 out of there and thinks he got them all, but none of the locals will go near it. You start to imagine that somewhere someone is building an altar of straw in the shape of and alligator, like the one in the movie "Hook" and you fight back the feeling you and that altar will have a lot in common around midnight.
It doesn't surprise you one bit when you find your car battery doesn't work, or when the local deputy shows up at dusk with a bottle of whiskey and a set of dice.

The next time you pass by a big 18 wheeler full of coffins, take a look at the tags.
I bet its from Batesville.


NOTE:
This story is inspired by my visit to Tommy and Tammy Rutledge's back about 6 weeks ago. It isn't at all what I intended to write, but every single part of it is 100% true. In fact it is so true that the only thing not true about it is that I took the unbelieveable parts out.

NOTE #2- this was originally posted a year ago under the name "Batesville Casket Company". I've added a bit to it after reposting @ FB.
I've also changed the title, inspired by Soubriquet comments.



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LIQUID NIGHT




"I felt that I was leaving part of myself behind, and that wherever I went afterwards I should feel the lack of it, and search for it hopelessly, as ghosts are said to do, frequenting the spots where they buried material treasures without which they cannot pay their way to the nether world."

— Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited

gathered at liquidnight

Friday, June 08, 2012

SO WHAT

‘Sometimes people let the same problem make them miserable for years when they could just say, “So what.” That’s one of my favorite things to say. “So what.” My mother didn’t love me. So what. My husband won’t ball me. So what. I’m a success but I’m still alone. So what. I don’t know how I made it through all the years before I learned how to do that trick. It took a long time for me to learn it, but once you do, you never forget.’

–Andy Warhol



GOOD WORDS

These are the words I’ve learned to say that help me a great deal:

"OK."
"You’re right."
"I’m sorry."
"So what."

And I’m getting a lot of mileage out of something a Chef told me a long time ago:
“The more you explain now, the more you will have to explain later.”

And a friend of mine, he wrote a poem about clouds, and asked what do clouds hang on to, and he's going through some kind of shit, he has been going through it for a long time, and in all kindness I want to tell him, I did tell him, that only half of life is about hanging on, and the other half is letting go.

But he's gripping too tight to know what I'm talking about, and I didnt want to tell him that its ALL about letting go. Its all about surrender.
So I'll just say "OK."


Thursday, June 07, 2012

Wednesday, June 06, 2012

WEEBLES WOBBLE

TRAINING UPDATE


Things are going well down at the gym.
After 4 weeks, I have only missed 2 days! Instead of 12 days of training, that would be 10 days complete. That’s like an 85 out of 100. I’ll take it.
My first day there I stepped on the scale. It read 278.
Since then when I stepped on the scale, it just read ERROR.
But the goal has not been so much to lose weight, but to get in shape and FEEL better. To be able to dance more than a couple few times a night when I go out. To be able to come home in the afternoon and not jjust die in front of the TV, mouth open, fast asleep and drooling on myself. To have the energy to go sing Karoke with my daughter.

I’m pleased to report that I have met two milestones.
My first few workouts when I got on the treadmill to do 30 minutes of cardio, I couldn't make it more than 20 without getting really gassed, and having to step off. I told my trainer this on my way out one day.
“That’s no good. You have to stay on for 30 minutes. Are you slowing the speed down after you reach your Target Heart Rate?” he said.
“No, I didn’t know that was legal.” I said.
He looked at me like I was nuts.
“Of course it is. Just bump the speed down after you reach your target, and you’ll be fine. Can you do that? He said.
“I’ll try.”
He looked at me like I was completely incompetent.
When I went back in two days later and trained for 30 minutes on weights, and went to the treadmill, I was relieved to know I could lower the speed if I needed to. But you know what?
I did all 30 minutes at the original speed!
That’s progress.

A week or two later, I went back to the scale, and it registered “Error” again. It was frustrating a little, not being able to see my weight, but there was a cute trainer at the desk, and I went and asked her what was wrong with the scale.
‘Nothing.” She says “I just used it”
“Every time I get on it I get an ERROR” I said. “Maybe I’m about to break it or something”

She follows me to the scale and I get on it, and it shows error again.
“Try it again” she says “And this time, try not to wobble”
“Am I wobbling?” I ask.
“Yes. Don't wobble.”
I step on it again, and I try to stand there straight and not wobble, but I can tell now I have reached a shape that makes it impossible to stand and not wobble.
The scale says “ERROR”.
She looks at me, sorrily, and says “You wobble too much, Mr. Bulletholes”
“Yes Ma’am, I will have to work on that”

I don't know how you are supposed to work on that, it seems kind of stupid. doesnt every body wobble a little?
Maybe, maybe not , but I stepped up to the scale yesterday and you know what it said?
278!
Same as 4 weeks ago!
But I didn't wobble!
I call that a victory!
Weebels wobble but they don’t fall down!


Tuesday, June 05, 2012

Friday, June 01, 2012

Trouble at the "Four-Elevens" Banquet Subcommittee:



"No, in European cuisine, the salad should be served AFTER the entree."


WRITE EVERYTHING DOWN

You never know where your next million might come from.

FAMOUS TRAINS, WORST POLITICIANS

I don't get over to The Throwaway Blog as often as I should, but I stopped by today and he has a post up, looking for your suggestions for Famous Fictional Trains and Sorry Ass Politicians. Throwaway, aka Dmarks., always does some interesting stuff with his topics, so go by and give him a visit.
Be sure to tell him I sent cha!