GOODBYE SEAFOAM GREEN SWEATER

 My old blog buddy UF Mike hasn't been posting much lately, but he does do some music reviews at a DC rag, THE VINYL DISTRICT.
Today he did one on Elton John. Its worth a read, done in Mike's old unmistakable style, and it brought back memories for me. Click here to check it out.

I was 17 in 1974, and I had this job as a busboy at a posh restaurant at the local Ramada Inn. They had a swinging combo going on weekends, two brothers each playing piano, and chick singer, just like in the Fabulous Baker Brothers.  Only these guys were like 70 and 72 years old respectively, and they did Perry Como songs, and a great rendition of "Come Fly With Me". Standard hotel bar cocktail music ya know? And all these old fogeys, drunk on Mateus wine and full of well done prime rib would hit the dance floor after dinner.
I remember there was one old guy who was a really good dancer, but his partner, who looked to be about 90 years old and recently deceased, just sort of hung limply in his arms, and he swished her around the dance floor, her feet dragging the whole way. I remember watching this, and thinking that old codger must be a lot stronger than he looks.
But the high point of the evening was when they played "Benny and the Jets" on two piano's.
Man, that guy could really go, and his partners feet would fly up every time he did a tun, and her one arm he didnt have a hold of would wave out to the crowd. it was fantastic!

My friend Brad was a huge EJ fan. We would cruise the loop in his Ford Pinto with the Quad turned all the way up, and during "Funeral For A Dead Friend" Brad would reach over into the glove box, pull out a huge pair of sparkly sungalsses, and play keyboard on the dashboard with his eyes closed, blissful, while we begged him to put his hands back on the steering wheel and drive before the song came true for all of us.

 Brads mother had knitted him a sweater for Christmas that year  with a big "EJ" initialed on the front.  Brad waited in anticipation for this sweater and opened it Christmas morning. The colors were Seafoam Green and a kind of pastel Canary Yellow  for the big "EJ", and none of us really knew what gay was in 1974 , but one look at that sweater and we knew that what ever it was, that sweater was it. 

He only wore it twice.

PRAYER IS A FUNNY THING

Surprisingly, we had good weather and a cool evening for the outside concert last night.It had looked like rain all day. Someone said she had prayed for good weather, and pointed upwards to the sky, giving thanks to God.

I was rude, and said sarcastically, “Oh Jesus, help me”. And it bothered me that I would do that. Its not what I’m shooting for. Its easy enough to be cynical about prayer for me. My program teaches me to be open-minded and willing about it. I don’t know if a prayer can change the weather, or stop Obamacare. It doesn’t matter. What I have learned is what a friends grandmother said so well… "Prayer doesn't change God, but it does change the hearts of the people who are doing the praying" I like that. I like that a lot.

When I first came to Narcotics Anonymous I hadn’t prayed in 25 years.
Then one day I got mad at work and started throwing stuff. I told my sponsor about it. He taught me a prayer, my first prayer in 25 years, and it goes like this:
“God, give me just enough serenity and patience to get through this situation with a little dignity left”
And it worked! After 5 years of learning to pray again, I still say it from time to time.

See, prayer for me keeps me from throwing a chair through a window at work. It keeps me from walking out of Albertsons with something I didn’t pay for. It keeps me from lying when it would be easier than telling the truth.
If I pray hard enough at the right time, it can keep me from saying hurtful things. I don't use that prayer near enough.
Prayer just might have kept me from running into a concrete wall at 70 mph on purpose a few times.
It helps to keep me from picking up that first drug.
Mostly, prayer helps me live the principles the twelve steps are about, and to improve my conscious contact with God as I understand him.

I was having breakfast with another addict this morning. I told her that the person in charge of the cookout today at the NA group had called a few days ago and asked where we could get a grill for the cookout.
I had told her “I’ll put the word out on Facebook for a grill”.
So I post a status that says: “Attention all my NA peeps- we need a couple grills for the Saturday cookout-please contact myself or Connie if you have a grill we can use”
You know how many responses we had?
ZERO! ZILCH!
So poor Connie had to cancel the cookout and order pizza.

As we were leaving breakfast, I said to my friend "Maybe I should have just prayed for a grill".
I said it in a sarcastic manner, another little slam on prayer, like the one I threw at my friend who had prayed for good weather.
But I got to thinking about the hundreds of responses you get on Facebook whenever you put out a prayer request, and it occurred to me that if I had asked for PRAYERS for a grill instead of a grill, we probably wouldn’t be having pizza today. If I had posted “Requesting prayers for God to provide a grill for us today”...
We would be having hamburgers and hot dogs.
On a grill. I'm sure of it. 

They call that faith.

See, the thing about prayer is that people respond to it. 

People respond to prayer. 

And maybe on some level, the universe does too.
They call that faith.
Prayer sure is a funny thing.

If there is anything you can ask for and always get a lot of, it's prayer.

"We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us, and the power to carry that out."
Step Eleven

NOT FOR THE SQUEAMISH

I guess this was before Makers Mark announced they were going to lower the alcohol content.
Reminds me of a trip to Toledo Bend where I hooked my wife in the top of the head while some sandies were schooling. We were hittin' 'em pretty good.
She said it didn't hurt, so I clipped the hook off the lure, and picked my rod up, figuring to take care of it when we got back to shore.
“What are you doing?” she says.
“What? You said it didn't hurt.”
“You take me somewhere right now and get this hook out of my head”
Women.
I guess this was before Makers Mark announced they were going to lower the alcohol content.

BEEN A LONG TIME SINCE I DID THE STROLL

I went to the local pub Saturday night to see Swan Song, the Led Zeppelin tribute band.

A girl asked me if I knew how to dance to Led Zeppelin.

“Sure” I said "Its easy....just unbutton your shirt, stick a sock in your pants and pretend you are Robert Plant."

LOVE AT FIRST BITE

Aunt Laura Lee. She specialized in drop biscuits and fig preserves and raucous laughter. When I went to Alto, the little town where she and all my folks on my mothers side hail from, back in May, my cousin Khim told me a story about her I’d never heard. 

It seems back in the 30’s, during the Great Depression, she and her mother, my grandmother, opened up a little roadside café. My grandmother cooked, and Laura Lee Williams, she waited tables. When business was slow, she would go out to the side of the road, Highway 69, and she would sing. If you'd have blinked you would have missed Alto, but you could not miss Laura Lee in her apron, belting it out. In 1935 she would have been 24, with legs that went all the way to the ground, and flashing blue eyes, and hair that hung down in ringlets. She sang everything from “Cheek-To-Cheek”, the song made famous by Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, to Shirley Temple's “Animal Crackers in My Soup”; she would sing at the top of her lungs at the side of the road. 
(this may explain a lot about yours truly) 
And that is how she came to meet her future husband, Jack Phillips. 
She sang him into the café one day, and it was love at first bite!
After he retired some 50 years later, Jack Phillips was County Judge for Cherokee County, and she was his secretary for about 15 years. He was one of these West Texans that basically talked with his mouth shut, between his teeth. They are different from East Texans that way. Laura, she talked with her mouth wide open, and when she laughed it was a big laugh, raucous, with her head throwed back.
Me and Shila passed through one year on our way to a fishing trip at Toledo Bend. We stopped at the Court House to visit them. While we were there, the phone rang. All we got was one side of the conversation:
"County Court, this is Laura, how can I help you?" "Hello Harlan, how is Phyllis?" "You don't say?" "Bless her heart, you give her our love. What can I do for you?" "Yes, I know that bridge, its Andersons Crossing" "Did they? Oh no, not again" 
(raucous laughter) "Is the fire out?" “That's good they had some barricades to put up. Wouldn't want anyone running off into the Angelina river.” (more raucous laughter) "Well, Harlan, they burn that bridge down every year just before deer season" 
(more raucous laughter; apparently burning Andersons Crossing somehow enhances the deer hunting in that region between Cherokee and Anderson County) "We'll let the roads department know, thanks for calling Harlan" (hanging up phone, more raucous laughter, hollering to Jack through the door to the judges office) "Jack, they burned Andersons Crossing down again last night!" (silence from the judges office, then a soft whisper, like a man talking through clinched teeth echoes back) "Well, shoot, they do it every year. When are we going to get us a metal bridge?"

Uncle Jack, you may recall from a previous story, is the "the good man with the barbed wire wit and big heart" who had told me when I was 4 years old that my mother had fallen into the well, and the only way to get her back was to go in the house and turn the faucet on, which I did, crying my fool head off.

BULLET HOLES ART

My tapestry. Finally hanging on a wall again, MY wall, after many many years. Its one of a set of four. I used to have two of the four, the first having belonged to my grandmother. I was completely fascinated with it from when I was a little boy. I ran across the second of the set (the one pictured above) a long time ago, and it became my life ambition to find the other two.
I have since lost, through neglect and dissipations of a personal nature, one of the two I had. It is still my life ambition to replace that one, and to find the other two as well.
Take a good look at this. Should you ever run across one of the other three that go with it, you will know immediately, and I hope will make haste to contact me.

********

I wrote the above a while back, and posted the image to Facebook. It was a desperate plea to replace the one I lost, and maybe find the other two that go with the set.

That very week i was looking on EBAY and found the missing Tapestry, one just like the one my grandmother had given me, the one I was so fascinated with as a boy. 

100 bucks, an auction item on EBAY. 

With much excitement, I placed my $100 bid an hour before the auction expired, and was over joyed to find that I had won, and the missing tapestry would be replaced....

From the picture you really can't get a feel for the scale. The piece is almost 6 feet long and  2 feet wide.
But not so fast...
It was my first experience with EBAY, and imagine my disappointment when the seller contacted me and said he was withdrawing the item, cancelling the sale.
His reason? He says he did not ask for enough for the tapestry, and it was worth much more that the $100 he had started the bid at.
"How much more?" I asked, because I want that tapestry more than anything in the world.
"Five-Thousand Dollars!" he said "Thats what it appraised at in 1978"
"Well, sir " I said "Your $5000 tapestry didn't garner much interest at $100. In fact, if it weren't for me coming along with my interest, and my interest being solely sentimental, you would have had zero bids at the $4900 discounted price. so why don't you go ahead and name a reasonable price, and we can go from there"

It didn't do any good.
I never heard back from him, saying he might take two hundred, or two thousand for it. I really can't imagine what his deal is.
I don't believe for a minute this tapestry is worth $5000 to anyone but me.
But one thing is for sure....that tapestry is out there somewhere, and I'll bag it.
I will bag it one day.

The one pictured at the top of the post that I still have, I bought that one in a junk shop back in 1983 for 40 bucks. Funny about that one...I've actually seen it in a movie one time, but it was a movie I'm best not to discuss, even here at Bulletholes...

Anyway, as I said earlier, take a good look at these. If you should run into one of the set it will be obvious, and I hope you will make haste to contact me.

Oh, here is a painting I have hanging on my wall. It is the same painting that is above the mantle in this image. it was my grandfathers. I wish I knew who the artist was.

DAD FISHING

I thought I had lost this picture a few years ago. It was very upsetting because I don't have too many pictures left of the old man. I don't even have much stuff of his left, like the tackle box that sits in front of him here, and all the lures that were in it. I enjoyed them for a while, and lost them, and I wish I'd set them aside, just so that I could look at them one more time, and show them to my boy, that he might enjoy them too.

But after I moved last month I came across the envelope that had gone missing, the envelope that said "Dad Fishing" on the outside, and to say I was overjoyed to find what was in it would be an understatement.

I don't know why I am such a sentimental fool, and so full of nostalgia, except to say that I love my memories, even the ones that hurt, even the ones that make me so crazy sometimes.  This picture was taken in March of 1958, I wouldn't be a year old yet, and as I remember Dad is at Lake Benbrook, pulling out of the Marina in Uncle Perk's boat, and I cant tell you how cool it is to think he fished wearing a tie and a fedora hat, like Rock Hudson in "Man's Favorite Sport".

 I can tell you that one of those lures in the top tray is a Heddon "Crazy Crawler" and it fetches about 80 bucks these days. but that is nowhere near the value this picture has for me.

248 WITH MY SHOES ON

Another good Dr. visit.
I lost another 2 pounds, and broke 250 for the first time since sometime in 2008. For the first time since I got the diabetes, for the first time since I had wild weight fluctuations from being on the “Jenny Crank” diet.
I've lost almost 30 pounds since April.

FYI, if you find yourself suddenly extremely thirsty and peeing all the time for a week or two, this is a warning sign of diabetes. If you are drinking 2 gallons of tea a day and still thirsty, and suddenly your vision goes blurry while you are peeing (because you are peeing all the time), well my friend, you are having diabetes.
One day while I was drinking and peeing, not knowing I had diabetes, I wrote this little song to the tune of Steppenwolfs “The Pusher”.
Seems almost prophetic now.
I sent it to Buddy Whittington a long time ago to see if he might want to use it, but he turned me down. Damn.

THE BAKERMAN
You know I smoked a lotta’ Perch,
Oh Lord
You know I mopped a lotta’ spills
But I never Poached nuthin’, noooooo,
That would have been better Grilled
You know I seen a lotta’ people walkin’ round
With Pate’ a Choux in their eyes
But the Baker don’t care, if they live or if they die

Got dang, mmm, the Baker
Got dang, hey hey, the Baker
I said got dang, got dang, the Bakerman

You know the Pastry Chef is a man
With the Love Dough in his hand
He’s got Eclairs an' Tarts an' Pastries
Good God, he’s not a Protein man
Aww, The Baker for a nickel Lord,
will sell you lots of Sweet Creams
You’ll get the Body Fat
And the Dia-bee-tees
There'll be little sprinkles and Confection Sugar
When you Sneeeeeeze

I said, Got dang, the Bakerman...

Well now if I were the Manager of this Hotel
You know I’d report the Bakerman
Immediately to “Personnel”
I’d toast him if he stands and
I’d truss him if he runs
I’d kill him with my Butchers mallet,
I'd Saute’ him till he’s done…

I said Got Dang, the Bakerman...

MAD GIRL'S LOVE SONG

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell’s fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan’s men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you’d return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"

— Sylvia Plath, “Mad Girl’s Love Song”

--- Image Elizabeth Gadd

Both lifted at Liquid Night

Don't think for a minute....

...that I don't remember,  or that it didn't feel just like this.

God, how I love this song on this day.
That's all I can say.

THE SPORTSMEN'S BANQUET

I had never been to a Pottery Barn before yesterday. I had read about them, seen pictures, and heard stories, even heard a story one time about how someone left the Pottery Barn door open, and all the pottery was getting out. But it was in that estrogen soaked environment that my mind began to wander, and I thought I’d share some of my thoughts, and describe to you what happened at the Pottery Barn yesterday.

I should say straight away that I prefer the company of women to men. You can make of this what you like. I know that at dinner parties and various functions, invariably the guests will split up into two groups. Usually the women will congregate to the kitchen, or perhaps a sewing room if one is available, and the men will wind up in the garage, or perhaps repair to a new type of room I keep hearing about…the “Man-Cave”.

I’m not sure I like the sound of that one at all.

Once there, the men, perhaps smoking cigars and drinking cognac as they did on the Titanic, will begin to discuss various manly enterprises (enterprises that I really don’t seem to have much interest in),such as muzzle velocities, gear ratio’s of the ’68 Olds Positrac rear end, and how much they made on E-Trade last week. Of course the conversation eventually degenerates into some discussion over “pussy”, with huge clouds of smoke and many loud guffaws. This may sound hypocritical from a guy with Facebook albums such as “Fully Clothed Women” and “Its Not Safe Here”, but I just don’t care for it. Perhaps there was a time in my youth that I might tolerate this kind of talk, join in even, but those years seem to be past me.

There is a moment in most relationships with guys I call the “Screeching Record” moment, where you are chewing the fat with your good buddy you have known for years, and out of the blue he points to some nice looking soft woman and whispers huskily, “Man, I’d like to have me some of that”. And in my mind, its like a record just skipped across 3 songs, including “Color My World” on my Chicago III album. I’ve known him for years, but didn’t know he needed to talk like that. I’m stopped in my tracks,and wondering if I’ll ever be able to look him in the eye again.

Anyway, like I said, the women go to the kitchen, and sip chamomile tea, and talk about education for children, world peace, how to get a coffee stain out of a white shirt, dust ruffles, and recipes for Blackberry Shortcake. I find all this, and the way they say it, endlessly more fascinating than the men in the garage discussing .22 cal varmint loads and where Goodyear gets its rubber.

But finally to the Pottery Barn, where I learned yesterday the difference between a pillow case and a “Sham”, which is, not much. I bought some way overpriced dishes, and got to talk with the lady as she wrapped them for me. She found out that I had been a chef, and wanted to know what my “specialty” was. I told her that my specialty had been cleaning out the walk in.

“What is that?” she said, having expected for me to give her a recipe for Blackberry Shortcake, or Balsamic Vinaigrette maybe.
“That’s where I go through the refrigerator, and determine what needs to be thrown away right now, and what we need to use up before it goes bad.” I tell her.
“Oh” she says “Like I have to do at home sometimes. I’d hate you to see my refrigerator right now”
“Oh, I know” I said “It reminds me of the Sportsmans Banquet they had every year at a country club I used to be chef at.”

‘”What’s a Sportsmen’s Banquet?” she asked, and that’s all it took to send me flying.

“The Sportsmen’s Banquet is an event held every year, where all the manly men have their wives pull from the freezer all the meats and fishes they have killed and frozen over the years, all in various stages of decay and neglect,and they bring them proudly for the chef, being me, to cook for them at a big manly banquet, where they smoke cigars and drink cognac and talk of their safari they will be taking to the Trophy Game Ranch down by Kerrville. They bring you fish wrapped in newspaper, the headlines which read “JFK ASSASSINATED”, or frozen in a milk carton cut in half; they bring unknown meats in Walmart bags that are disintegrating in front of your eyes. They bring you an elk shank or bear tenderloin, freezer burned so badly you just want to cry. It is a "wound to the heart", as the great chief Sitting Bull would say, watching his beloved buffalo disappear slowly from the plains. There are big zip-lock bags of dove and quail that seem to be all liquid,except for the feathers. As they bring it to you, its pretty easy to imagine it sat in an ice chest for five days as they sat around a fire and told fart jokes at night, then on the counter for a day once home, then finally into the freezer 4 years ago where it settled to the bottom next to Uncle Jacks beef tongue from 1965. And now you have it, the duck that was shot in Nova Scotia all those years ago, and the beef tongue that the proud huntsman would like you to make into some kind of garnish for a smoked salmon tray, the same salmon that was caught on the duck expedition in 1972. It’s a deadly mess, it really is”

Now during this little speech a group of women has gathered, because , well, I dont really have an inside voice, and it just tends to draw a crowd sometimes

“So what do you do with all this bad meat?” one asked.

“Put it on a cart and take it straight to the dumpster, get on the phone and order some elk, bison, Smoked Salmon, duck, quail and beef tongue from a local purveyor, pretend that you are serving these guys exactly what they brought in. But these guys are smart. They run oil companies and stuff . They know what you are doing, and they just pretend what they are eating is what they brought in. Everybody is happy and no one dies the next day.”


I turn back to the clerk, who has finished wrapping my dishes.
“My husband has some elk in the freezer. I’ve been asking him to get rid of it for years” she says.
“They have Elk at Central Market” I tell her.
We exchange knowing looks.
“Thank you so much” she says “Have you seen these Egyptian Bamboo place mats? “They would look very nice with your new dishes.”

THE THERAPIST

He asked me "What is the goal, what is it you want out of all this, Bulletholes?"
I said "I just want what everyone else wants Doc."
"And what might that be?"
"You know, a love that lasts forever, till the end of time."

One of us laughed, and one of us didn't.
Right now I can't recall who did what.

DON'T BE A JERK

Back in 2009, I told you about how my son had come to me, and asked if he and his girlfriend, Maddie, could come over and set up a little love nest in my middle room, because he was living with his mother, and she wasn’t going along with his romantic pursuits happening under her roof.

I told him that was fine with me, but that he and I needed to get my apartment cleaned up a bit first, that it really wasn’t presentable in its current state.
So that night I’m sitting there watching TV, and there is a knock at the door, and its Maddie. She has brooms and mops, spray bottles and towels, and we set to cleaning my apartment, including getting the middle room set up as some kind of honeymoon suite for them. She really is a swell girl, and we went shopping and bought groceries, and I made a little cheese and fruit tray for them to have the next evening when they were together. It was all very sweet, ya know?

So they would come over a few times a week for about a month, and then they stopped. A week or two went by, no lovers setting up in my middle room.The next time I saw the Rip (my son) I asked him about where they had been.
He says “Oh, that’s done”
“Done?’ I ask ‘Whats that mean, “done””
“Done” is his one word answer.
So I say:
“Don’t just say “done” boy, like you finished changing the oil, or finished up a deadline. Say “she broke my heart”, or “We split up” or “Oh, it just didn’t work out”. Give it the respect it deserves. Don’t be a jerk. We are talking about a nice soft sweet woman here, not a steak dinner. Don't say "Done". Please don’t be a jerk.”

So the Rip, here a few years later, he’s watched me fall in love with this woman the last two years.

Back at Christmas, he came over to where I was living, and had dinner, and she came over too. We had  a nice dinner, and she left, and later he asked me “Pops, what are you doing with her?”
And I told him “You know I love her to death. I really do. I'm flat crazy about her." 
And I went on to try to explain what I thought the relationship was about, and what I thought I was trying to do.

 “I can see that. But Pops, you are too sensitive a guy for all that” he says.

“After everything I been through, what do you think she could do to me?” I said.

And he just shook his head.

So I been finding out the last few months what she could do to me. Love just goes its own way, and you can try to control your feelings, and keep your heart safe, but maybe for guys like me it just don’t work that way, and at some point loving a girl can take root in your heart, like a Tanglewood tree, and it grows into something that's too big, too wild, too deep-rooted and its huge and hungry like a crow in the corn, and one day they come and tell you you need to cut it down, you need to cut it down for your own good, and you know if it comes to that, them telling you to cut it down, then they are probably right. They must be right. They must be right or they wouldn’t be telling you, would they? But you have no idea how to cut it down, this thing you been watching and growing and loving all this time. Its been out of your control the whole time anyway, and you are just now finding THAT out.

Anyway, I’m talking to the Rip about it last week, and I remember what he said back at Christmas about me being “too sensitive a guy for that” and I asked him how he knew back then. How did he know I was too sensitive?

He says “Because I’m just like you Pops.”

“What do you mean?” I says.

“Well, I have these girls that come to me, and they want to have sex with me; they are nice and soft and smell so good and they look at me with those big caring eyes and I fall in love with them. And then they break my heart.”

I’ve never been so proud of him all my life.

My boy, he’s not a jerk after all.

MY NEW NEIGHBOR

I finally met a neighbor worth knowing. He is into fitness products. We talked for some time, decided that there is not much better than a nice swim on a hot day, mustard is the way to go for a hot dog, metallic blue is the best color for cars and bikes,and stuff, that girls are pretty much for the birds (until you find a nice one), and that 1000 jumps on a pogo stick isn't that hard, but it is something to shoot for and, and that growing up is a really bad business.
His name is Riley, and he is 9 years old.

SONNET DESPITE

darling she said darling he said
love is work draw me that triangle
again tell me it’s the strongest
shape you and me are always near
an open window that’s three we
expected firework but settled for
romance in the shape of tuna
melts we go away to try to miss
us from a different angle I want that
feeling of swallowing a big ripe beet want
mine to bleed with yours that makes
two he said yes two he said yes two

she said the third is all the nameless
that keeps us rising despite despite

—OLIVER BENDORF

ONE-EYED HUTCH

First time I met One-Eyed Hutch he was hitchhiking down Hwy 10. Buckman and I had just seen Dick Gregory at UTS's Texas Hall. During the course of giving Hutch a lift, Buckman  gave him 100 bucks to score a pound of what Hutch had said was "really good stuff". We dropped him off at the corner of Brown Trail and Redbud.  He said he'd be right back, dashed into some apartment complex and we didn't see him again for like two years.

The last time I saw One-Eyed Hutch was 20 years later. He was driving a cab in downtown Fort Worth.

"Say man" he says "If you got a hundred bucks I can get you some really good stuff"

"Really?" I say "Where at?"

"Right around the corner" he says, and he turns to point over towards the bus station "Its just right around the corner, and its really good stuff"

But when he turned back towards me, I was already gone. 

 ONE-EYED HUTCH'S SUNGLASSES

THE PURGE

Between all the teenage angst, tears, sweat and underwear, and my various endeavors with "Fully Clothed Women" , "Crashingly Beautiful" and the latest album I havent ruined yet "This is my Favorite Song", and the many silly things which have  been the focus of my attention lately, I may not have mentioned that I have my own place again, having been on the road, renting rooms the last 21 months.
All my possesions and mineral resources have been in storage all this time.
I'm doing some unpacking and have reached a severe impasse.
The plan was to get rid of any book I would never read again. I can't do it. I've never been able to "let go".
I need a new plan, one that is possible.
And all these out-of-focus sunspot old and mildewed pictures.
What do you do with those? If you say "throw them away", then I don't think there is anything else I care to hear you talk about.
So, there.

Having said that I will list some of the books that can be scavenged from my front porch.
No Charge.
"Love in the Time of Cholera" ( sorry Oprah, never got past page 100. I really did try)

"Ordeal By Sea:The tragedy of the USS Indianapolis"

"The Great Gatsby"... I just opened it and found I have passages highlighted, and so I will have to keep this one. No, lets not. 

"The Stand"(its a paperback, and the print is finer than a silver needle. And the story sucks)

"Dr. Wayne Dyer: Pulling Your Own Strings" (He lost all his credo to me when he came out on PBS in a Dojo and sandals, and talked about selling all his worldly possessions and moving to a small island in the Pacific. Maui, to be exact. How spare could it be?"

"Dylan: An intimate Biography" Really?

"The Friars Club Encyclopedia of Jokes" (Teaser: "I dont believe in superstition. It brings bad luck." Gone, gone, gone.)

"Life of Pi" (The movie sucked too)

"Message in a Bottle" ( Oh, God, I remember the night I picked this one up at the Tom Thumb, 3 am, raining and freezing. It was a lousy year)

"Parenting Teens With Love and Logic" (still in wrapper)

What did I keep? 

"The Number of the Beast", "The Way of the Sufi", "The Fellowship of the Ring", "Waiting for Godot", "The Sun Also Rises", Asimov's "Foundation", The Fountainhead", Lonesome Dove"  and one well worn Larrouse Gastronomique.

We have a few boxes to go.

And for any of you who may have stuck with this post this far, please give me and my Higher Power a thought as I will be sharing my story at the Valley of Hope in Grapevine tomorrow morning.
Thank you. 

NOPE

Here are some parts of a spider some people might find attractive:

THE MULE

Reminds me of the story about the scientists that took a new tractor to a farmer who had always pulled his plow with mules. They showed him how to start it, how to put gas in it, how to lower the plow , turn the steering wheel, apply the brake, everything, then asked if he had any questions.

‘Just one” he says “Where do I hook up the mule?”

"Hiding in a Drop of Water"

It is early morning, and death has forgotten us for
a while. Darkness owns the house, but I am alive.
I am ready to praise all the great musicians.
Whatever happens to me will also happen to you.
Surely you must have realized this from hearing
the way the strings cry out no matter who hits them.
From the great oak trees in the yard in October,
leaves fall for hours each day. Every night
a thousand wrinkled faces look up at the stars.
Still we know that at any second the soul can stand
up and start across the desert, as when Rabia ended up
riding on a resurrected donkey toward the Meeting.
It is this reaching toward the Kaaba that keeps us glad.
It is this way of hiding inside a drop of water
that lets the hidden face become visible to everyone.
Gautama said that when the Great Ferris Wheel
stops turning, you will still be way up
there, swinging in your seat and laughing.
- Robert Bly, Hiding in a Drop of Water  
My Sentence Was a Thousand Years of Joy

LIKE ALEXANDERS ASHES

I was talking with my ex last Friday night. Actually, she was talking to a group of our friends at a big party.

 She says “Do you want to see the difference between men and women?”

Of course, everyone said “Yes”, and she turns to me and asks “Steve, what is the date of our divorce?”

“I don’t know” I said “I took no note of it”

And everybody laughs.

“That’s right” she says “You didn’t even show up in court”

“Sure didn’t “ I said.

And everybody laughs.

Then she asks “Steve, how many years were we married?”

“Oh, That’s easy…thirteen years”

“Nope. Fourteen years 2 months and 12 days”

And everybody laughs and looks at me.

I think about it a minute and say:

“She’s right. I’m counting time from the day we got married to the day I got booted out of the house for good. Thirteen years and some change. I knew it was for good. I knew there wouldn’t  be any coming back. I’d used all those up. She had made up her mind. And there is nothing as unwavering as a woman when she ‘s already made up her mind. She’s counting to the day of the divorce. Bastille Day.”

And everybody nods their head, and I look at her, and she's pleased as can be with herself.

"And that" she says "Is the difference between men and women!"
But I'm not going to let it go that easy.
"She is right. But its important to note that like Alexanders ashes, I am still Alexander"

I don't know if anybody got it but me. I just think its cool we can talk about it like that.

SILLAGE

Sillage (n.)- a scent that lingers in the air; the trail left in the water; the impression made in space after someone has been and gone; the trace of someone’s perfume.

My friend SL @ Assorted says that the french don't say "I miss you", they say something that more closely resembles "You are missing from me".

Goes well with LIGHT BLUE... from earlier this year.

I was going to buy you some perfume.
But I decided I was trying too hard,
Holding on too tight
So I got this card instead.

I can remember the smell of you
And your perfume
The way it would linger for days
I’d pass you in the hall
And at the bottom of the stairs
And it was like you were still there
A spirit lover.
I’d smell you as I brushed my teeth ,
and put on my shirt…

I loved you so much then and I still do
I never stopped.

I’d put on my shirt and find my shoes
And I’d just feel so homeless and lost
Only your lovely scent to guide me out the door
I believe the whole world becomes a marvelous place
A marvelous place for everyone in it
When you are with me.

I step outside, you fill my empty world as
The clear sky turns light blue and full of love.

bulletholes 4/2013

RUIN ME

“Maybe...you'll fall in love with me all over again."
"Hell," I said, "I love you enough now. What do you want to do? Ruin me?"
"Yes. I want to ruin you."
"Good," I said. "That's what I want too.”
― Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms

UP TO ME

Previously unreleased, having not made the cut for "Blood on the Tracks", this almost seems to be a sister piece to ""Shelter From the Storm". Lyrically, this seems to be more personal, and I love the tenderness in the last lines, a tenderness for something that seemed to have gone so wrong and took a long time to resolve. Its so rich I can't single out a favorite verse.
I've lived this song more than once now.


Everything went from bad to worse, money never changed a thing,

Death kept followin', trackin' us down, at least I heard your bluebird sing.
Now somebody's got to show their hand, time is an enemy,
I know you're long gone,
I guess it must be up to me.

If I'd thought about it I never would've done it, I guess I would've let it slide,
If I'd paid attention to what others were thinkin', the heart inside me would've died.
I was just too stubborn to ever be governed by enforced insanity,
Someone had to reach for the risin' star,
I guess it was up to me.

Oh, the Union Central is pullin' out, the orchids are in bloom,
I've only got me one good shirt left and it smells of stale perfume.
In fourteen months I've only smiled once and I didn't do it consciously,
Somebody's got to find your trail,
I guess it's gonna be up to me.

It was like a revelation when you betrayed me with your touch,
I'd just about convinced myself nothin' had changed that much.
The old Rounder in the iron mask, he slipped me the master key,
Somebody had to unlock your heart,
He said it was up to me.

Well, I watched you slowly disappear down into the officers' club,
I would've followed you in the door but I didn't have a ticket stub.
So I waited all night 'til the break of day, hopin' one of us could get free,
When the dawn came over the river bridge,
I knew it was up to me.

Oh, the only decent thing I did when I worked as a postal clerk
Was to haul your picture down off the wall near the cage where I used to work.
Was I a fool or not to protect your real identity?
You looked a little burned out, my friend,
I thought it might be up to me.

I met somebody face to face, I had to remove my hat.
She's everything I need in love but I can't be swayed by that.
It frightens me, the awful truth, of how sweet life can be.
But she ain't gonna make a move,
I guess it must be up to me.

Now we heard the Sermon on the Mount and I knew it was too complex,
It didn't amount to anything more than what the broken glass reflects.
When you bite off more than you can chew you gotta pay the penalty,
Somebody's got to tell the tale,
I guess it must be up to me.

Dupree came in pimpin' tonight to the Thunderbird Cafe,
Crystal wanted to talk to him, I had to look the other way.
Now I just can't rest without your love, I need your company.
You ain't gonna cross the line,
I guess it must be up to me.

There's a note left in the bottle, you can give it to Estelle,
She's the one you been wond'rin' about, but there's really nothin' much to tell.
We both heard voices for a while, now the rest is history,
Somebody's got to cry some tears,
I guess it must be up to me.

So go on, boys, play your hands, life is a pantomime,
The ringleaders from the county seat say you don't have all that much time.
And the girl with me behind the shades, she ain't my property,
One of us has got to hit the road,
I guess it must be up to me.

If we never meet again, baby, remember me,
How my lone guitar played sweet for you that old-time melody.
And the harmonica around my neck, I blew it for you, free,
No one else could play that tune,
You know it was up to me.

REACHING INTO THE INFINITE

Continued from "ALTO, TEXAS", a Mothers Day post---

I passed through Tyler, the Rose Capitol of the World, and all the roses in planters for sale at the side of the road. They made me think of all my lost loves.
I guess I've been lucky.

I bought a small rose for planting, for momma.  It wont  live, it wont last long down there, but I wanted to do it just the same.

Apparently Tyler is also the Psychic Capitol of the world too. I must have passed 10 places I could go  inside and have my cards read, my fortune told. I wondered what interesting things they might say. I wondered whose face these psychics could conjure when they looked into my eyes, if Madame Cassandra might know where she is, if she could see us naked in her minds eye, if she would know.

If she would know.

It made me think about “The Wizard of OZ” and how Dorothy had run away from home and happened upon  Professor Marvel.  He invites her into his trailer and is going to read her fortune. He has her close her eyes,  in order to be “better in tune with the infinite".

He says " We cant do these things without reaching into the infinite”

And while her eyes are closed he reaches into her purse, and finds the picture of Auntie Em. He tells Dorothy that somewhere there is a woman who is worried, with a broken heart, because she has lost something.  Professor Marvel  may be a shyster and a hustler, but he is a very kind man, smart too, and is just trying to do the right thing like any good psychic in tune with the infinite might. And Dorothy realizes he is talking about her Aunt Emily, and takes Toto and runs home to Auntie Em.

Anyway, this was my day dream as I left Tyler, still not knowing what the future might bring. Us humans, we always want to skip to the end of the story, but it just doesn’t work that way. We have to go along, a day at time, a breath at a time, a pain at a time.

And the psychics and rose dealers do it that way too.

I got to Alto where I found a man mowing in front of what had been  Aunt  Verda’s  house.  He said that Mary and Junior were living in Mama’s old property, and that their sons were living across the street now.  I had not expected to find kin there, but I did, 2nd and 3rd cousins.  I took a picture of an old shed that a cousin and I had thrown every potato from good-sized stack of new potatoes at, watching them splat against the wood, delighted. It almost killed Uncle Carroll to see what we had done with his hard work, and Uncle Jack was liable to have killed us if it weren’t for Aunt Laura.

Walking up to the house, I passed where  the root cellar had been. There was no longer a trace. I passed a giant pecan, and there was a big hunk of metal grown into the bark, and I wondered how long it had been there, and which of us cousins might have done the tree this injustice. I put my hand on it, and it felt good to touch this tree that had overseen many a summer day of my youth. In fact it felt kind of like reaching into the infinite, as though the vibrations of every conversation at the family place might be in the vibration of old pecans memory, like the way traces of every meal lay in the metal of a cast iron skillet..

I stepped to the back porch, and my 90 year old cousin Mary came to the door. She had seen me coming up .We recognized each other instantly and we both held each other and I just cried and cried and cried. She said she had been thinking of me just that morning. We sat and looked at pictures for an hour, and then something interesting happened .  Her son came in, a third cousin I had never met. He is only a few years older than I but somehow we never crossed paths.

He sat down after introductions. We told a few stories back and forth and then he had a question for me.  It was one of those questions it takes five minutes to ask and boiled down to this:

“Have you secured eternal life by accepting Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?

I told him that I had not, that I was a recovering drug addict, and had only recently learned to pray again, and that I was growing closer to a god of my understanding through prayers and meditation, and I was very grateful to God for helping me stay clean, but  that I would leave eternity to my God, and just try to follow my program.

Of course, he doesn’t recognize a god of my understanding, my understanding having failed me most of my life, and I get that point. It didn’t turn into a religious argument, and I’m glad my program has helped me to be tolerant of other peoples views. I assured him that many addicts do find a deeper faith outside of the program, and that I would remain open-minded as my program has taught me to try to be. We closed with a prayer and then the next interesting thing happened.

As we stood up, I took his hand, and I leaned in to hug him. I was surprised to find that this man, full of Jesus love, my third cousin, took a step back in order not to receive my hug. All Gods Childrens is different I guess.

Then  I went for the real reason I was there. I stood next to mom and dad at their grave, and for the first time in forty years I stood next to them clean and sober, involved in a spiritual program that shapes my life as best as I will let it, keeps me striving not so much for eternal salvation, but just to have the strength and courage to do the next right thing one day at a time, and it felt good. It just sure felt good.

I think mom and dad would like that very much.

Me,   I’ll have to leave the infinite for my God and the psychics.

Oh, for those of you who read Part One....yes, Kevins rustic handmade horse training pen is still there, fashioned to gether from 1000 saplings and held together with baling wire, god knows what and Kevins cowboy spirit.
It is a sight to behold. The picture does not do it justice.

I THINK I DREAMED THIS ONE LAST NIGHT

There was a point in our lives

where if I slit my throat, it was you who would bleed.

You say goodbye too often in autumn.
Tonight the last leaf fell off the tree beyond my bedroom window,

and I could hear the sound of branches aching for love to wrap

around their leaves like limbs.

It was three a.m. in the last stretch of May.

Springtime calls for heartbeat symphonies

and when we pressed our bodies together they coincided like

chords, like staccatos when I ran my hand down

your spine.

Fog is one of the top reasons that drivers get killed each year.
In the backseat of my car we almost caused

the hundredth casualty,

but all I got were bruises in the shape of apologies

along my thighs.

There are certain people who leave scars when they go.

Tonight I cut my thumb while I was peeling an apple.

I thought of you.

— “A Rendition of Autumn,” by Shinji Moon

Gathered at Dissections, where she says its a "poem you never get tired of reading"

"Much will be said, but little will be done"

1400 posts.
That's how many posts I have written since September of 2006.. This will count as 1401. But 142 of those are in draft, and on review I don't see that any of them can be salvaged, but there you go.
Its been a strange time here at Bulletholes lately.
Many things unsettling. Many things unsettled. Many things that will just have to wait.

I think back over the last year, and it seemed like a lot of nothing.
I think back over the last year, and there were a lot of things I didn't think I'd ever feel again.
There were a lot of days I felt huge. And a lot of other days I felt so small.
There were days I felt huge and small and huge again, all inside the space of a few moments.
Those are hard days, and they leave you feeling oddly out of place..

I can look back, and I see that I moved from my apartment, and I got separated from my Home group at NA, and I started going to fewer meetings.
I have been going back to more meetings lately, about one a day for two months now, and its got me through a tough time. I've even been going to a treatment center the last month, and sharing my story with addicts that are trying to get a day clean by being in a 28 day rehab. That is very rewarding to do, we keep what we have only by giving it away,and its my ministry I suppose, if you want to put it that way.

I also separated myself from something I loved, and that was hard too, and unsettling.
The ways of love are hard, and sloppy and all over the place it seems, worsened by the fact I'm not really free to talk about it, which in fact I'm finding is a blessing too, not being able to talk about it.
Talking doesn't really seem to help.  I find myself relieved many days by what I haven't said even more that by what I have said.
A guy at the group said something a few weeks ago:
"Much will be said, but little will be done."

Part of what that means is something I've learned the last few years. The circumstances of our lives may  change very slowly, but the way we view the world can change right now.

I've been playing the role of the roommate for a year and a half, and its not a role that suits me.
After abandoning the search for a house to buy a year ago, I overstayed where I'm at and find myself just about miserable there.
But I'm moving in two weeks to an apartment close to my group, where I can relax again, and cook naked in the kitchen if I like, or watch TV in my shorts on the couch,  just like the good old days.
Home hasn't seemed like home to me for many years, but maybe after this latest sojourn, I will find my place.

Oh, while we are at it, lets link to one of my favorite buddies UF Mike, and a story he wrote a while back that I think is sheer recovery beauty.
Its called "Alcohol"

APRIL SHOWERS

She and I played in the rain
We would walk to the top of the hill
And break a small piece of twig
To float in the gutter
Back down the hill we would follow our twig-boats
Wait patiently for them to free themselves from eddies
Watch delighted as they bounded over and around
Small rocks,
Clumps of leaves
Cracks in the pavement
Then skipping through the rapids
We landed at the bottom of the hill
Drenched and happy
Running back to the top
To do it all over again.

bulletholes 5/2013

ALTO TEXAS

I haven’t seen mom in 26 years. I haven’t been to her grave, where she sleeps next to dad, in more than 20 years.
But I’m going tomorrow, and take a rose, and place it there for her.

I’ll walk the dusty red road by her mothers place, look to see if the frame of the root cellar might still be there in the bank of the hill. When we were kids, into it we would peer, and shudder at the thought of what may be inside the cool dark earth.

Down the drive I’ll stroll past the big planter next to the black walnut tree; the well has been gone for some time, but likely there will be a trace, and I will remember trying to find my mother on the big porch.
I had lost her apron among all the other aprons, and I went to Uncle Jack, who told me she had fallen into the well.
“How do I get her back?” I asked in tears.
“Go turn the faucet in the kitchen on” he had told me.
To the sink where I went and cried a river waiting for mom to emerge genie-like out of the faucet.
What a bastard, that Uncle Jack.

I’ll look to see if my cousins homemade horse pen is still there, rustic and made from several hundred saplings, held into an almost perfect circle by baling wire and whatever, and by the sheer strength of Kevin's cowboy will.

Next door to my mothers mothers place is my mothers mothers sisters place, from a time when family and community were indistinguishable, a time when towns were just big families, and you only needed a few families and a couple of loners to make a town. A time before the family’s had all scattered. Both house’s both looked the same, with the well, and the wrap around porch, the fig trees and plum trees from which jelly's and preserve were made. Under pecan trees in the back yard there would be a stove, used for canning during the summer, sitting there bare like the trees in the winter, under the glare of the Vapor light.
I'll look to see if the big iron cauldron is still there, right in the middle of the yard, used for boiling cane and sorghum to make the syrup and molasses Uncle Jack liked on his biscuits in the morning.

I’ll walk back out to the road, along the stretch I remember from when I was a very little boy and my cousin Patricia had taken me by the hand and we picked flowers from the roadside to make a bouquet. Blues and reds and little pinks, I thought she was beautiful, this young girl Pat who would become Miss Little Rock a few years later, and maybe tomorrow there will be flowers for me to pick, and to place there for Pat's mother, my mothers sister. Maybe there will be enough blooms for all four sisters; raised in Alto Texas, they are together in Alto Texas, still.

Maybe there will be flowers enough for all the great aunts, and all the grandfathers and grandmothers, all the cousins and second cousins, and half brothers.
Maybe there will even be one tiny one for Uncle Jack, the good man with the barbed wire wit and big heart.
It seems certain parts of the family haven’t scattered after all.