TIP THAT WAITRESS

I was at a Sports Bar, listening to a little Buddy Whittington music with a large group of friends.
A poor waitress comes to me in tears. It seems a friend of mine and his wife have walked their check.
Its 30 bucks, not enough to blow your nose on right? So I go ahead and pay it, and give her a $10 tip for her trouble.
Several people call Tracy the next day, to let him know. I didn’t have his number, he wasn’t THAT good a friend.

So I figure the next time I see Tracy, he’ll pay me right?
Fast forward 6 months, and here is Tracy and his wife, drunk again already.
I go and talk to him for a minute, waiting to see if he is going to remember to pay me back for standing good for him.
Apparently he has forgotten, or is just too drunk.

So I say ‘Hey Tracy, you hadn’t forgot about that $30 bar tab have you?”

He looks at me like I just slapped him with a Rainbow Trout.
‘Aw man, you know I’m going to take care of you” he slurs. “I’m going to take good care of my buddy that stood good for me.”
He goes on, through bourbon breath, to explain that they hadn’t really “Walked” the check, they had each thought the other one had paid.
‘So what are you drinking?” he asks.

“Diet coke. Remember Tracy, I been clean and sober for five years now”

‘Conflabulations, dude, thazzz rilly great”
I can see that he is a bit confused as to how to repay me without buying me drinks, so I point towards the entrance.
“There is an ATM right over there Tracy”

Again, I get the look like I’ve hit him with a trout.
“I’ll get you paid.You know I’ll get you paid. How much was it? 30 bucks right?
“Yeah Tracy 30 bucks, plus I gave her a 10 dollar tip. That makes 40.”
Tracy straightens up a little (actually he looks more sober for a second than I’ve ever seen ) and says “Well, that’s on you”
“What do you mean, “that’s on me”?” I say.
“You didn’t have to do that, a $10 tip,  so that’s on you.”
I cant believe what I’m hearing.
So I say:
‘No, Tracy, I did have to do that. You are one cheap Mother-Fucker”

Do you think he ever made it to that ATM to pay me?
Nope!

TUMBLEWEEDS

They had a little wind in West Texas last night.

FEAR AND LOATHING

As the story goes, my friend Alan had a groundskeepers job at Tulane sometime in the 70’s. He got wind that Hunter S. Thompson was going to be there for a lecture. He ran home and got his well worn copy of “Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail”.
By well worn I mean to say it was almost disintegrated, without a spine, most of the pages loose, and he had had to keep it in a big Ziplock bag for years.
So Alan runs home, grabs the baggie, runs back, catches the good Doctor going up the steps to the lecture hall and handing him the baggie, asks if he will autograph his book.
Thompson takes his pen out of his pocket, opens the baggie, finds the cover and signs it.
As he hands the baggie back, he looks over the tops of his glasses with a fairly critical eye and says to Alan:
 “You know you ought to be arrested for this”

NEGLECT AND DECAY

Man, I been gone!

I didn’t even post anything for Valentines Day.

But the last several posts were schmaltzy enough, that’s probably a good thing.

I took a road trip up through Pennsylvania to help a buddy (my sponsor actually) move back to Texas. It took 4 days, and was fraught with danger.

Anyway, to try to get back in the swing of things I’ll tell you a little story about the conversation I had with the ex Mrs Bullets last week. She was asking about an old buddy of mine who happened to be our sons scoutmaster.
I’ve known Bobby since we were 15 or 16, we even worked at a Bonanza steakhouse together for a while.
I said:

“Yeah, Bobby was a strange one. He would look at you with a completely blank look sometimes, it was like he didn't even have any wheels to spin. Other times he would have this quizzical look, and you wondered what was going through that weird head of his. Then you would ask Bobby a question and his answer would be so obscure, or so implausible, that you probably wouldn't have any idea what Bobby just said.”

Ex Mrs Bullets looks at me a second and says “So its like you and he have traded places then?”

Man, she really knows how to stick it to me.

"THE GODS WAIT TO DELIGHT IN YOU"

About  of the last 4 or 5 posts seem to be variations on a theme, starting with a poem I wrote just kind of out of the blue, and then on to a Thomas Merton quote that was may have inspired the Secret a little.
In between, there is a friend of mine with a blog, we call her Lucky, and she told a great story about herself, and tied it in with what she does, which is to teach people how to be lucky.
She says it can be done, and I think she is right.
She quotes Emerson:
“Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen”

Lucky left me a comment, and I replied:

"...on a good day... I look at people and I just smile.
I saw three guys, tough looking guys, at the Latte machine at the local gas station. They were in coveralls, and they had all these beards and shaggy hair and beat up boots, and they stood in front of the Latte machine like they were six years old looking at candy bars instead of coffee, giggling and smiling and pointing at which flavor coffee they were going to have.
I smiled to myself, and I just wanted to hug them, and be in on it with them somehow, but I stirred my coffee, put the top on, and headed to the register. I swear I smiled all the way to the car.
Those are the days I know I'm OK."


Kristi said that that comment was better than the Merton quote, I dont know about that.. Someday, I'll have to tell you what goes on in my head on a bad day.


And that got me to thinking about this great Bukowski poem, and how it fits right in with what seems to be a theme running the last two weeks. I remember giving this poem to my son back when he was going through a pretty bad spot.

THE LAUGHING HEART
your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is a light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you.
charles bukowski

FROM THE BULLETHOLES NOTEBOOK

I got to wandering around looking at some of the crap I've posted and came across and interesting list from December of 2007.
The post was titled "What you buy is what you own, and what you own is what you pay for". I think that is a corrupted Stepen King qoute.
The List is supposed to be wisdom of some sort I have gained over the years....haha!



I am…. therefore I’ll think.
Rub her feet.
This looks like as good a spot as any.
Its better to than not.
My best effort in exchange for your best effort...
Lift the seat-Lower the seat.
Sunday Morning=Pancakes & REAL Maple Syrup.
It won't look as bad after a little Nap.
Be nice until its time to not be nice...then still be nice a little longer.
Give more-expect less.
This looks like as bad a spot as any.
Stick and Stay and Make it pay.
Milk is best served  in a frosty mug.
Easy does it.
The Jumbo-Large Economy size is not always the best deal.
Don't drop your load.

In the comments there was one more that fell out...
Growing closer is the most important thing we will ever try to do.

I like that.

EPIPHANY

“In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It is a glorious destiny to be a member of the human race … there is no way of telling people that they are... all walking around shining like the sun.
I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God’s eyes. If only they could all see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all of the time. There would be no more war, no more hatred, no more cruelty, no more greed…”

~ Thomas Merton from Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander.

I was thinking about this Merton quote, in part, when I wrote "The Secret".