Friday, July 27, 2012

WATCH SOMEBODY LOVE SOMETHING

"I never liked jazz music because jazz music doesn't resolve. But I was outside the Bagdad Theater in Portland one night when I saw a man playing the saxophone. I stood there for fifteen minutes, and he never opened his eyes.
After that I liked jazz music.
Sometimes you have to watch somebody love something before you can love it yourself. It is as if they are showing you the way.
I used to not like God because God didn't resolve. But that was before any of this happened."

- Donald Miller


Thursday, July 26, 2012

"Fishing can make a real idiot out of you"

I have been checking out a site called Lone Star Chronicles recently. Great photography, and good outdoors stories and info. This is a recent image from Lake Tawakoni, just east of Dallas.
I've been to Tawakoni.



One of the dumbest things I ever did was on Lake Tawakoni. I had an old Lone Star ski boat, the 1959 model with the fins on it like a Cadillac, that had caught fire and destroyed the seats and canopy, everything inside, even the windshield. It was gutted, no motor, and I bought it on the trailer for 100 bucks. I had a 15 horse for it sitting in my garage. I loaded this piece of shit boat up with all sorts of amenities, seats, depth finder, trolling motor, about 1000 dollars worth.


It leaked a little; after a few hours there would be a couple inches of water in the bottom. I would have to pull the plug and run full speed across the lake to get the water out.
One day at Tawakoni I was doing just that when I came across a school of sand bass. I cut the engine, hopped up onto the hood, and started fishing away. I couldn’t get anything to hit, changed lures, and tried some more. Changed lures again, and about that time I noticed the boat was tilted to starboard a bit unnaturally, and I looked down and I had about two feet of water in the boat. It was almost to the gunwales.
Crap! The Plug! In alI the excitement, I had forgot the plug
Another minute or two, and I’d have lost her.
Fishing can make a real idiot out of you.

And the best part? This isn’t even the story I was going to tell you.
Apparently, given time to recollect, I’ve done TWO really dumb things on Tawakoni.
What I was going to tell you was the first time I went to Tawakoni I had a brand new 15 horse motor, but no boat. My girl and I went to Tawakoni and rented a john boat at a little campground, and fished up by the dam. In a little cove up there, I lost my prop on a stump. We floated to shore, found a 10 foot length of 2X8 to use as a rudder, and a big branch to fashion a sail with from our ponchos. The wind was with us, out of the Southeast; we could sail two miles across the body of the lake, and with the rudder and a little luck, just might make it back to the campground.

But the thing is, it was a stormy day. No one was on the lake, and it was misting rain. That’s why we had the ponchos. Out there on the body of the lake, a squall somewhat (a lot) larger than the one picture above kicked up, and the next thing I knew we were trying to sail a john boat with about a four foot following sea.
I felt pretty stupid, and a little scared, but the gods were with us that day. We made it across, and landed right smack dab in the middle of our campground

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

HARM TO HEALTH

Poster found in ladies restroom of local bar.
Do you use cocaine or meth? Great!
Want to quit smoking cigarettes?



Are you kidding me?
Back in the day, I'd have put MY number on there!
Call now!

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

GUN CONTROL


OR, HOW TWO WRONGS MAKE A RIGHT

First, we relax right to carry laws and get as many good guys as we can carrying guns and as many guns as possible, to as many places as can be. We flood the streets with guns. Concealed, on the hip in plain sight; Thirty-Eights, Forty-Fives, sawed off bubble-gauge, anything goes; at the Piggly-Wiggly grocery store, Putt-Putt golf, Pottery Barn, down at the Pussycat Doll or the Captains Den, wherever people gather, there needs to be guns. If they want the wild west, I say give it to them. It beats the shit out of the weird characters and ineffectual Police Departments of Gotham City, which is what we got now.

Second, and all the folks carrying guns aren’t going to like this, second, we got to get control of just who ought to have Assault Rifles and 50 caliber Weaponry. Those guns go too far beyond varmint control and Sunday afternoon "plinking".  You can have just as much fun with your grandfathers bolt action .22.  For the sake of argument, lets issue permits for 3 (three only) of these weapons per year. Applicants required to pass through multiple layers of personality testing. Winners determined by lottery.

So there.
Problem solved.
After that, I will take on immigration reform, which includes making Mexico a state.


"Mom, can you bring my Glock 9"

Monday, July 23, 2012

Jolie Blonde

Bastille Day marked the 15th Anniversary of my divorce.

When it comes right down to it, getting divorced is really easier and cheaper than getting married, but I got to admit, it stays with you a long time.

I have been in the middle of a steady rash of divorce dreams lately.
Like last night’s version of the move-out. The ex is packing up, the truck is being loaded, there is nothing I can do to talk her out of it.
It is not traumatic like it used to be, I don't plead with her stay, or wake up crying uncontrollably. Hell, I even jump in and help her pack at some point.
And any misery associated with the move-out is tempered by the entrance of a blonde Angelina Jolie, who I manage to get to third base with in the dream.
What do you suppose all that could mean?

I don’t really see what the attraction is with Angelina Jolie in real life. Take away those long long legs, the almond shaped eyes, the bee-stung lips, that beautiful thick and wavy brown hair, the slender neck, awesome breasts and dynamite ass, what do you got?
Nothin’ but a lot of money, that’s what you got.

Sunday, July 22, 2012

BUT I MIGHT DIE TONIGHT

GOT A MINUTE FIFTY-FIVE?

Thursday, July 19, 2012

I GOT TO RUN TO KEEP FROM HIDIN', AND I'M BOUND TO KEEP ON RIDIN'

It was four years ago last night that a cop pulled me over, dragged me out of the car, bent me over the hood and asked “Do you have anything on you we need to know about?”

The whole scene din't go quite like I had expected it would when the time came.

I thought about it for a second or two as he felt my pockets and I said “Yes sir, there is some dope in my pocket.”
I know you are not supposed to do that, but I've never been slick, I've never been tough, I've never been cool.
As he was putting me handcuffed into the back of the car, there was this still and quiet voice that came to me, as I asked myself this question:
"What if I hadn’t told him? Would he have found it?"


Over the last 4 years of staying clean and sober, no dope, and not so much as a sip of white wine, I sometimes ask myself that question, and always I hear that same still and quiet voice that I heard in the back of that cop car that night.

I think about how much better my life is now. I recall how powerless over my addiction I had been, and how unmanageable my life had become. And I didn’t even recognize it.
I think about the way coming to believe that a power greater than myself might restore me to some semblance of sanity has had such a beneficial effect on my life, no matter what higher power or what belief in it I may have.
I think about the way turning my will over to a power greater than myself has actually prompted me to participate in my own life again.
I think about the first recovery dream I had, and how good it made me feel.
I think about the 40 or 50 or 100 people in recovery I became friends with, and all the fun we have had over the last 4 years.

But sometimes as I’m falling asleep, or when I first wake up, I still wonder:
“Would they have found that shit had I kept my mouth shut?
Would they have caught the Midnight Rider?"”

And always, the same still and quiet voice comes to me, the same voice with the same answer as that night they handcuffed me and helped me into the backseat of the squad car.

The voice just says three words:
“Oh, thank God!”

I could stop now.






I know that if I hadn't gotten busted I would still be using.
And people think I'm smart.  Shit.

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

ALL MAN


When I was 12, I used to find these magazines at construction sites as I walked home from school. They had pictures of naked women and ads for X-ray vision glasses and for how to grow a creepy looking VanDyke mustache in the back.
I collected them and took them home, hidden in my toy box.
I came home one day and they were gone.
When my dad got home, he sat me down and asked what I was doing with these magazines.
I told him I was thinking about growing a moustache.
He whupped me pretty good.

I'm glad UF Mike is back to posting.
 My most fun posts come out of his comments section.

Sunday, July 15, 2012

DON'T SNEEZE MICK...

YOU'LL LOSE IT ALL

Congrats to the Stones on 50 years of doin' it. I wonder if I am the only one to ever change the station when a Stones tune comes on?

I asked this question over on Facebook, and was amazed at how many people really don't care for the Stones.
They are, arguably, the greatest Rock and Roll band ever.

Deserving honorable mention might be The Who, based as much on the offstage persona of drummer Keith Moon as anthing.
I read a great story about him a few days ago. He was famous for smashing up hotel rooms.
On the way to the airport from a hotel after a gig, Moon indicates he forgot something at the hotel. The driver turns around, goes back to the hotel and Moon goes to the Frontdesk.
"I forgot something upstairs mate" he says, and they give him the key.
He goes back upstairs and throws the TV out the window.
All done now!

Its stuff like that that can make you immortal, but the problem with immortality is you have to live through it.
The Stones have somehow done that.

Now can someone, please, blow Jaggers nose?

Thursday, July 12, 2012

NOT MY BROCCOLI

Back when was just a baby chef and just started working for Hyatt, I went through a bit of a rough patch.


I started out in the Crystal Cactus, the fine dining restaurant at the hotel. But after hosing down a gay waiter with a fire extinguisher on New Years Eve, and spending a 3 day suspension at home, I was recast as a banquet cook.
I had a few problems there too, though not connected with fire extinguishers or gay waiters.

I had problems with counts on occasion. The counts are important.  We would be plating a party of 500 with Prime Ribs and Yorkshire pudding, and somehow we would come up short about 10 Yorkshire Puddings. Chef Felenczak would look at me, and I would tell him I was sure that I had made enough.

But you cant argue with the fact that you are 10 short, all you can do is stand there holding your dick, and start scrambling around for more Yorkshire pudding, which can be prepared on the fly all right, but you can’t just pull it out of your ass either.

In the meantime, you look like completely incompetent.

Finally, one night when we were short again, and I was almost in tears maintaining I had prepared the proper amount, the Chef looked at me and said:
“I’d like to believe you Bulletholes, but your record ain’t that great”
He said it in all kindness, and from that point on I never came up short again.


But I had a bad spell for a couple months on something else as well.
Broccoli.
I just couldn’t seem to keep from overcooking the broccoli for these big parties.
I would take 100 bunches of Broccoli, portion it into 750 portions, put it in the steamer to blanch, and proceed to overcook the crap out of it. It would be mush, without a trace of green. It was the color of a WWII Tank and looked as though it had melted into the pan.. Ugly, flavorless, and beyond repair, I would have to go to the storeroom and hope they had 5 more cases down there for me to fuck up again.

It had gotten to the point where I would have to stand next to the steamer and constantly check it, and even then the odds were I would botch it. In the kitchen they call a guy like that a "shoemaker".

Then one night, as we were plating up some broccoli that was just barely edible, I made a passing comment to the chef.
“Chef, I’m sorry that your broccoli is a little overcooked again tonight.”
The chef looked at me, took a handful of broccoli and threw it in the trash can and said:
“This isn’t MY broccoli, Bulletholes”
It worked. I never destroyed the broccoli again.

I did a post a while back about the Four Good Words I‘ve learned to say that help me through times when I used to get otherwise unwound:
“OK”
“Youre right”
“I’m sorry”
And “So What?”

The broccoli story comes in handy for me too.
It’s amazing how much broccoli people will try to bring you that is not your broccoli.
And likewise, how often I try to take on something that has nothing to do with me.
Not my broccoli.

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

ME TARZAN YOU JANE

At the Hyatt we had a guy from the Ivory Coast, a Banquet Waiter. We called him "TOP GUN" because he was here in the states to train for flying F-16's out at Carswell Air Force Base. 
He had a real thick accent, part British, part French, but with a heavy dose of Zulu.
Top Gun didn’t know the names of a lot of stuff he had to work with at the hotel.


One day, here he comes running into the kitchen, wild eyed…
“I NEED…CAN OF FIRE” he says.
“A what?” I ask.
“CAN OF FIRE!” and he cups his hands in front of him. "I NEED THE CANS OF FIRE!'
“Oh, Sterno, you need Sterno for the buffet.”

It was hilarious, and reminded me of Tarzan when he said:
“Big bird come….take man away”


Tuesday, July 10, 2012

MY LITTLE PROBLEM


I did a post 4 years ago that is getting a lot of attention lately.
It was just a silly little thing, poking fun at Sarah Palin, being a little bawdy, just one of those throwaway posts inspired by a picure someone sent me.
All of a sudden, the last 6 weeks, it has received about a thousand hits.
When people Google “Beef”, or “Beefalo” they are directed to this stupid post, and while it is a typical Bulletholes offering, it doesn’t really speak well for me.
I’ve looked at it over and over and there is really no edit or rewrite to keep it from being 6th grade potty-mouth style humor.

Its called "What is a Muffalo". Click the link to see the post.
But if you want to read something better than that, check out Mike's post about whether animals want to be eaten.


Does anyone have any suggestions?
I’m getting 20 -30 visits a day to this post. In about 2 months it will be the most visited post ever at Bulletholes in the Mailbox..
Maybe add a disclaimer at the top?
Or just remove it entirely?
Is it as bad as I think it is?


Monday, July 09, 2012

GOT CRAYONS?

I went to Half Price books last week. Books intimidate me these days. I walked up and down the aisles, trembling at all the pages, all the words, the musty smell of the classics. Up and down I went, shivering past Dean Koontz and all his counted sorrows.
I stopped briefly at Scott Turow, where there was book I dreamed about once upon a time. I had dreamed I wrote a book called “Innocent Blood” and it was hugely popular and had made me famous, and when I woke up I thought what a great name for a book. I was out in the garage a few weeks later and there on a shelf was my book, Innocent Blood, already written by Scott Turow.


See, that’s how it is with books, Its all subliminal and shit.

Books scare me these days. Too much commitment. Blogging has ruined me for books. If it has more than 20 lines, I’ve already lost interest. Unless its UF Mike writing about Brain Salad Surgery.
What could be more ridiculous than spending 30 hours wading through a book (Moby Dick) you have already read 4 or 14 (Atlas Shrugged) times? Because I have a real tendency to buy books I’ve already read.

Anyway, up and down the aisles I went, growing more and more uneasy at the prospect that I might BUY a book, and bring it home, and the worst thing that could happen is that I might like it, and sit up all night unable to put it down. It might be a real Pageturner.

Undaunted, I came home with 4 blank VHS tapes, Tarkus, and a coloring book.

Friday, July 06, 2012

In a dream...

In a dream I meet
my dead friend. He has,
I know, gone long and far,
and yet he is the same
for the dead are changeless.
... They grow no older.
It is I who have changed,
grown strange to what I was.
Yet I, the changed one,
ask: "How you been?"
He grins and looks at me.
"I been eating peaches
off some mighty fine trees."

- Wendell Berry
 

Thursday, July 05, 2012

AS BAD A PLACE AS ANY

Dad had this swim trunk outfit he wore.
It was red, with Tongatoan writing and Easter Island statues printed on the fabric.
There were the trunks, and then a matching top, which amounted to a loose fitting shirt with no buttons. Dad was an apple, and his big belly stuck out, but the whole outfit looked right on him.
Of course he always had that cigar.

He wears that when I see him on the shoreline of Grapevine Lake, launching the boat, and we are about to go fishing.

“Do you think I can drive the boat today dad?” I always ask.
“Umm-hmm” will come his absent minded reply. But I know that I will not drive the boat today. I never did. Instead, we will cruise across the lake, and he will pull up to a spot, and say “Do you want to try it here?” and I will grin, and grab my pole.
As we lower our lines into the water, dad will look at me and grin, and with the cigar still chomped between his teeth he will say:
“This looks like as bad a place as any”

Sometimes we caught fish, and sometimes we didn’t, and I never did get to drive the boat.

If I count the years back, I haven’t seen dad for 25 years now. I count all the years that he had Alzheimers, and couldn’t do all the things I remember him doing, locked away in that VA hospital. That would make almost 40 years without dad.

But I imagine heaven, and seeing him in that funny red outfit, and we are fishing again.
In heaven you get to do stuff over you know, and I’d like a do-over on our fishing trip.
You might think my do-over would be where I get to drive the boat.
But that’s not it.

In my do-over, when we stop to fish and dad says “Do you want to try it here?”, I beat dad to the punch, and it is me who says:
“Looks like as bad a place as any, Pop!”

I have to remember to do that when I get to heaven.
I think he will like that a lot.

Wednesday, July 04, 2012

"MICHIGAN SEEMS LIKE A DREAM TO ME NOW"




"It took me four hours to hitchhike from Saginaw
I've gone to look for America"

Since I went through grade school in Detroit, this Simon and Garfunkle tune from 1968 song always resonates with me, especially on the Fourth of July.
Thanks thisisnthappiness for the sweet hitchhiker.

"LAY ON GROUND"

"LIGHT FUSE. GET AWAY."

YEAH, RIGHT!
Have a safe and happy Fourth.

Tuesday, July 03, 2012

WE MUST BE GETTING OLD

Writing a blog is funny haha.

Just a week ago I has so many posts in my head I wasn’t sure which one I wanted to do.
Now today, I’m sitting here and thinking where did they go?
Because it just seems like I haven’t had an original thought in ages.
Probably because I’m not talking on the phone enough to my friend SL at Assorted. We talk all the time. She flat cracks me up, always has, ever since we went through puberty together.

I have a fantasy about her you know.

In my fantasy, we take some of her money and we get us a big travel trailer and we go all over the United States and visit all the National Parks. They have a little book with all the Parks listed, and everytime you get to one, they stamp your book. We will fish for trout’s in cold mountain streams, we’ll have bacon and eggs over a fire in the morning, pick pine bark out of each other’s hair, stop for souvenirs at gift shops, buying stuff like rubber tomahawks and wooden planks with latrine jokes wood-burned into them. We each have hiking sticks, highly decorated, that we carved ourselves from birch limbs gathered at Yellowstone. We use them as we hike up Denali (which means “The Ancient One” in native Assinibone), and then we skinny dip in Crater Lake. We never fight the whole way (even when the Park Rangers kick us out of Crater Lake), because we are too busy laughing. Later, as we take the same route as Powell did through the white water of the wild Colorado and the Grand Canyon by boat, we’ll move on to Dinosaur Valley, where we discover fossils of an entirely new species they will name after us, maybe Assortedadon Bulletholemus Rex.

But that is my fantasy. I don’t know if she has enough money, or where I’ll get the energy to do all that, or if sightseeing will be enough.
Shit, we must be getting old.

But now what to write?
Writing a blog is funny haha.

Just a week ago I has so many posts in my head I wasn’t sure which one I wanted to do.
This wan't any of them.

WANNA GET YOUR BOOK STAMPED?



 

HOLIDAY

Monday, July 02, 2012

BEHAVIOUR GUIDE

#7. For girls: all boys are more or less the same. For boys: all girls are different.

text gathered at yimmysyayo