Uncle Steve

I dreamed I was workin in a Chinese Walmart one time. I was in charge of the duck pond. We had a big pond, ducks everywhere. People would come in, pick out a duck. I'd wrangle it out of the pond, snap its neck, gut trim and feather it, truss it up in a brown paper wrapper and send then to the checkout.
Busy busy busy, chop, chop!

I even had a Chinese name....Uncle Steve

BATESVILLE CASKET COMPANY

 

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, "Wake In Fright" with Donald Pleasance. He played a schoolteacher who was stranded in a funny scary small town in the Australian outback, 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 another town like this on my way to a private lake to fish and camp overnight.
The cashiers at the grocery where I stopped for ice and some hot dogs looked at me funny and said "From out of town aren't you?" and its not a question at all. As I passed through the town square there were familiar looking grizzled old men on the courthouse porch that didn't bother to look up from playing dominos. They knew I was there, they knew I was there since before I left the grocery store. I waved at the one who did look up, but he just spat some tobacco juice and stared right through me as I passed.

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. She says it like there is a deeper meaning, one you cannot quite discern, and you feel a chill go up your spine. You start to imagine that somewhere someone is building an altar of straw in the shape of an 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. That you will be swallowed whole by a straw alligator, and then a mob of angry townspeople will come with pitchforks and torches and set the straw alligator afire.
And all you really wanted to do was catch a couple bass and cook some hot dogs over an open fire.

Trying to get a weather report on the car radio, it doesn't surprise you one bit when you find your car battery has died, or when the local deputy shows up just past 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.

GROUP BEHAVIOR

 DISRUPTIVE BEHAVIOR

GENERAL

All members are responsible for the wellbeing of NA. Individual recovery depends on regular safe meetings and other recovering addicts to provide support. There are certain fundamental principles that need to prevail in a group for it to function well in fulfilling its primary purpose. These are:

i. The importance of an atmosphere of recovery in NA meetings;

ii. The personal responsibility of all members to maintain that atmosphere;

iii. The need to refer to a group conscience for both identification of inappropriate behavior and the decisions regarding action;

iv. Principles before personalities in dealing with disruptive individuals.

PRINCIPLES

Atmosphere of recovery in NA meetings

Recovery can be a delicate thing, it grows best in a stable and supportive environment. Each of us plays a part in maintaining stability. An atmosphere for recovery is vital so the primary purpose can be fulfilled.

If there is chaos, aggression, disruptive behavior, etc. it is likely to prevent our carrying the message of recovery.

  Personal responsibility of group members

Our common welfare requires personal commitment and responsible action to ensure a meeting is safe for all members. In pulling together we learn that we really are part of “something greater than ourselves” (Basic Text, Trad. 7, p.68). Some behavior, when addressed promptly, in an atmosphere of love and inclusion, may prevent escalation of actions considered to be disruptive behavior. All members

       pg 8 of 55 pgs

should contact the Secretary, Alternate Secretary or Keyholder Coordinator with concerns regarding disruptive behavior, as quickly as possible after an incident has occurred.

The need to refer to a group conscience for both identification of inappropriate behavior and the decisions regarding action

The decision as to whether behavior is inappropriate or not should be made by group conscience. We all have different ideas about what constitutes “disruptive behavior” and this is where a group conscience is crucial to gain a consensus.

Every situation is different. It is very difficult to document specific examples of what constitutes “Disruptive Behavior”. Please discuss issues with a more experienced member, pray and consult the IP “Disruptive and Violent Behavior” when making the decision to address a member you feel is exhibiting disruptive behavior. Remember that the disruptive member is the “still suffering addict” too and we would prefer to resolve the situation without banning the member if at all possible. The following procedure is used to protect the welfare of other members and the group as a whole, not as a resolution of personal issues you may have with an individual member.

Examples of Disruptive Behavior include but are not limited to the following:

Obscenities or profanities directed toward another member;

Using discriminatory language or making generalizations about groups of people;

Describing sexual or violent acts or encounters in detail;

Aggressive or threatening behavior; physical and/or verbal threats;

Interrupting other people sharing;

Audible side conversations that make it difficult for others to hear the message;

Destruction or theft of Northside property (or neighbors within the business park);

        Other issues that could affect NA as a whole with regards to the outside community.

Principles before personalities in dealing with disruptive individuals.

There are many distracting influences that can divert us from our primary purpose’ and “each time our focus is diverted from our primary purpose, the addict seeking recovery loses out” (It Works, Trad. 5, p.161). We do not seek to expel disruptive ‘still suffering addicts’ from our meetings, but to demonstrate recovery, offer love and acceptance, and create and maintain firm boundaries to protect the environment and vulnerable members.

ACTION

If a member is exhibiting “Disruptive Behavior” the following steps will be taken: 1) A) During the meeting Key holder addresses individual requesting the behavior cease (verbal caution); document incident and drop into safe or contact keyholder coordinator or group secretary to report details of incident.

B) Outside of meeting concerned members make a request that the behavior cease (verbal caution); contact keyholder coordinator or group secretary to report details of incident.

2) If behavior does not cease, is repeated or severity dictates a final warning by the group secretary will be given via talk or text or email.

3) Any incident that is to be addressed by Group Conscience/Emergency group conscience will be posted to the Group Conscience Idea Board according to Part I, Section 8.3.

4) Incident(s) will be addressed at Group Conscience (or Emergency group conscious if deemed necessary) to vote if the following corrective action will be implemented.

a. 90 day ban with appeal at first regular Group Conscious after at least 30 days have passed.

It is strongly recommended that the members who witnessed the disruptive behavior and the members involved in any warnings be present at the group conscience or emergency group conscience if at all possible.

pg 9 of 55 pgs

  Returning DURING the ban or after the ban period has passed.

If the member who has been banned shows up at Northside (inside or outside the meeting) or if the member continues to exhibit disruptive behavior after the ban period has passed, the following steps will be taken:

1) 2 members will request that the member leave (verbal caution). If the disruptive member does not leave after being asked the security guard will need to be called. In the event security does not respond or in the event the member becomes violent, call the police. Contact the keyholder coordinator or group secretary to report details of the incident.

2) Any incident that is to be addressed by Group Conscience/Emergency group conscience will be posted to the Group Conscience Idea Board or according to Part I, Section 8.

3) Incident(s) will be addressed at Group Conscience (or Emergency group conscious if deemed necessary) to vote if the following corrective action will be implemented.

a. One year ban with appeal at first regular Group Conscious after at least 90 days have passed.

4) If the member continues to show up at Northside (not abiding by the conscience of the group) then the landlord will be contacted and a peace bond will be requested for an indefinite period of time.

FOLLOW UP

1) The date of the ban and name of the member will be posted on the inside of the supply cabinet in the coffee room in order to make sure the will of the group is carried out and the group is held accountable. 2) If a member who is banned is a trusted servant they will be asked to give up their key (if they have a key). The combination to the supply cabinet, safe cabinet and supply room (if the trusted servant knew that combination) will be changed.

3) If a member who is banned holds an elected position at Northside they will be resigned from that position and it will be posted for election at the next regular group conscience meeting.

Awkward?

 

I tell you what awkward is.
Its going to babysit the kids while the X goes out with your ex-Best Friend and when she gets home she's drunk and talking about some drink called a Slippery Nipple made from Baileys and Kahlua, which she just happens to have right there in the kitchen,  slobbering and slurring "thanks you so much for being my good friend" while she's mixing up the drinks and the next thing you know you are sitting there on the couch with your ex and your lips are pressed against a Slippery Nipple.

NEVER

 I went to a ZZ Top concert with my ex-wife and a good friend of ours, Lisa, in April of 2023.

The concert was great, we had a good time, being the best of friends for many years. This story is about the day after the concert in Gruene Texas. We went to a music venue that afternoon at Gruene Hall, a hill country landmark. Built in 1878, it has an amazing music history; its an open air big barn dance hall with a big patio. Good bands, good times, good beer.

At some point I notice the girls giggling and pointing to their phones, just the way girls do sometimes. Then they inform me they are going to the bathroom. When they come back, more giggling, more pointing to the phones. Then they excuse themselves saying they are “On a mission from God” and head to the patio. When they get back they are very excited.
Shila tells me, in hushed tones that they have spotted Elwood Francis, bass player for ZZ Top!
He is out on the patio, wearing red sneaker with a group of six!
Now these girls, Lisa and Shila, they are very excitable ladies that love to laugh it up. And they are thrilled that they have spotted Elwood.
They show me a picture of Elwood they have googled up, without his fake ZZ Top beard and hair.
"We are sure its him, but can you go take a look on the patio and see if you agree?” they ask. “But keep it on the lowdown, he probably wants his privacy.”

So I go out to the patio and spot the guy in the red sneakers and sure enough, he could be Elwood Francis, the bass player from ZZ top without his fake beard and hair.
I start to go in and make my report that yes, it could be him, but instead I just marched over to the table of six, gave them my best smile, leaned over the table and addressed the fellow in the red sneakers directly.
“Excuse me, I don’t want to intrude, but I was wondering if you might be Elwood Francis?”
He looked a bit confused.
“Who”
“Elwood Francis”
“Who is Elwood Francis?”
“He’s the bass player for ZZ Top” I replied.
No sooner were the words out of my mouth that the table exploded with laughter!
“Why would you think that?” he asked.
“My Ex-wife and Lisa are in there convinced you are him. They sent me out here to find out.”
And the table erupts again in laughter. We are all seven of us laughing it up.
They ask me about the concert, and I ask them where they are from, and apologize for the intrusion and start to make my way back to the girls. I’m sure they will be disappointed.
I got about ten feet away and spun around and went back to the table.
I leaned over again and said “What do y’all think if I go tell the girls they are right , it IS Elwood, and if you want you can go get his autograph and take a few pictures”
Again the table erupts in laughter.


And so it begins. I report to the girls.
“Y’all were right. It IS Elwood!”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I went up to the table and asked”
“You did not!”
“I sure did. And guess what? If y’all can keep it quiet you can come out and meet him. Maybe get a picture and an autograph”

I cannot describe how badly they were fan-girling. They had to run fix their hair and when they came back they were breathless, holding each other to keep from falling down.
We made our way to the table, and everyone at the table was laughing, and I was laughing, Shila and Lisa were fan-girling, and Elwood stood up and gave them hugs.
Then everyone started taking pictures and I couldn’t stop laughing, even though I was, deep inside, starting to wonder how and when to break it to the girls that it was all just one big funny joke, haha.

All this, after earlier in the day I had told Lisa and Shila how much the NA program had changed me. That I didn’t tell all the lies I used to tell, or misrepresent myself anymore, or make jokes out of other people.
“It’s OK to joke yourself, but it’s not OK to joke other people” I had said.



When we got back inside, they were still fangirling. They checked their cameras and discovered that they did not have a single picture of them with Elwood. There were a lot of pictures of the entire party, but what they wanted was one of the pics where they were draped over Elwood.
Me? I was laughing so hard the entire time I never took a picture
‘Can you go back out there and see if they have a pic they can send us?” and Shila gave me her business card with her number and Email to give to them.
So I went back out. When I got to their table they were still laughing their asses off.

I leaned over the table again, but on the end away from Elwood, closer to the three women.
“Y’all wouldn’t believe how crazy excited they are. They want you to send some of the pics with just Elwood and them, and any other good ones” and gave them Shilas card.
Then I addressed the three ladies.
“What I want to know is when do I break it to them that it wasn’t really Elwood?”
All three at once said one word:
“NEVER”

(To be continued)

Elwood Francis, without his "Fake Beard"

From the Moon

 You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, ‘Look at that, you son of a bitch.

Edgar Mitchell

WE MUST AVOID THINKING OF EACH OTHER AS GOOD OR EVIL

“In 1877 a British philosopher and mathematician named William Kingdon Clifford published an essay called “The Ethics of Belief.” In it he argued that if a shipowner ignored evidence that his craft had problems and sent the ship to sea having convinced himself it was safe, then of course we would blame him if the ship went down and all aboard were lost. To have a belief is to bear responsibility, and one thus has a moral responsibility to dig arduously into the evidence, avoid ideological thinking and take into account self-serving biases. “It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence,” Clifford wrote. A belief, he continued, is a public possession. If too many people believe things without evidence, “the danger to society is not merely that it should believe wrong things, though that is great enough; but that it should become credulous, and lose the habit of testing things and inquiring into them; for then it must sink back into savagery.” 

More recently “…this habit of not consulting the evidence has become the underlying crisis in so many realms. People segregate into intellectually cohesive teams, which are always dumber than intellectually diverse teams. Issues are settled by intimidation, not evidence. Our natural human tendency is to be too confident in our knowledge, too quick to ignore contrary evidence. But these days it has become acceptable to luxuriate in those epistemic shortcomings, not to struggle against them.”

The Bulletholes Strategy for the Trump Defense

I’d put him on the stand. Absolutely. Have him go all Nathan Jessop and say something like:
“Yes, I did her. You’d have done her too. That I can tell you”
It would assure his conviction, and probably prison time, but for many of the voters that are somehow on the fence with this guy they would be able to say at last:
“He did it. Donald Trump finally told the truth about something. He DOES have a sliver of an honest bone in his body”. He would be elected 47th President of the United States, and from whatever country club minimum security corrections facility they have him in, Trump could pardon himself and be in the Oval Office that very day, ready to round up and deport 21 million illegal immigrants

. 

LET ME

There was an old Motts store next door to the Gibson's Department Store for a while. They had 45 records. I bought "Incense and Peppermints" and the pretty older girl behind the counter told me it was a "good choice" and I thought she might want me, like a lover, even though I was only 12 and she had to be at least 16, and every time I went back and bought another .45 I hoped she would be there, and maybe she would want to be my girl, based on my wonderful musical tastes, but she was never there until one day there she was, and I spent a long time looking for just the right records, and ended up with "Snoopy vs The Red Baron" by The Royal Guardsmen which she didn't have a word to say about that one and I was heartbroke.

Thinking back I should have gone with "Let Me" by Paul Revere and the Raiders.

NAKED KITCHEN DREAMS

Over and over it’s the same kitchen dream. I don’t want to go in to work.
The reasons are many:
I don’t like it there.
The job is too hard.
The pay is lousy.
The pressure enormous.
There are no utensils. No spatulas spoons ladles or tongs.
The walk-in doors are many, dimly lit, and its cold in there.
Often, in my kitchen dream I am naked. As naked as the Pillsbury Doughboy. All I am wearing is a cloth chef’s hat and a neckerchief. No one seems to notice, but it’s a very uncomfortable feeling, talking to waitresses and frying bacon, bare-beamed and butt naked.
Last, but not least, are two really good reasons:
One- I’m already 4 hours late.
Two- I’ve been no call no show for several days and they’ve probably fired me by now.

Then there is the sinking feeling where we realize since we have been no call-no show for the last week, we probably won’t be getting a check for some time.
Still,we don’t want to go in.
Its really that bad.
Just as the anxiety level reaches its peak, we begin to sense there is no cause for worry.
Its just a dream. We don’t work in a kitchen anymore. We work in an office. Its well lit, warm in the winter, cool in the summer and never smells like shrimp. The pay is good, the job is easy.
In fact, now that we know its just a dream we are in the clear. We can dream whatever we want!
Besides, we recall now the dream where we asked the waitress if she liked our chefs hat, thinking it would be a good opportunity for her to point out that yes, the chefs hat was fine, but she wished we would put our pants back on. But she did not, so we deduce that she must not notice we are naked.
And its just a dream anyway, right?

Like this:
I come in in the morning, 3 hours late, take off my pants and hang them on the back of my chair. i sit and tap-tap-tap at my computer. In the next room is the Employee Cafeteria and if anyone wants something to eat, I will put my clothes back on, wash my hands, and fix it for them.
But that is optional. I do not have to cook if I do not want to.
Then I will strip back down and start to work at the Computer again. Something doesn’t seem right about working in my drawers but it is quite comfortable, just as it is right now, and I’m not one to complain about everything.
It is a busy day. In fact, Corporate HDQ people are coming through the door. We don't get to see them very often, so this is a real treat.
I stand and greet each one with a warm handshake as they admire my physique. What a fun dream! The women are especially friendly today; I have been taking vitamins and my hair is fuller, or else my head has grown smaller.
Grown smaller? Is that a thing?
The CEO of the company enters, I introduce myself and he asks if I might fix him some breakfast.
’What would you like this morning?’ I inquire.
‘Biscuits” he says.
‘Biscuits it is” I snap back, trying to hide my disappointment.

You see, in the kitchen there, we have everything. And we have a HUGE Freezer where the Biscuits are kept. It is so huge a river runs through it. But I can NEVER, I mean NEVER, find the damn biscuits. It doesn’t matter how long I look.
I get my clothes on and go into the freezer, knowing I am more likely to find Admiral Byrd or Daniel Webster in there than I am to find a single Biscuit. I enter like I’m stepping into a time machine.
Its very cold, and even with my clothes on my balls start to draw up.
Shelves reach a mile high, filled with boxes.
I cannot see the back wall, and the side walls run to the horizon.
Surely this freezer was built by MC Escher.
But just on the other side of The River That Runs Through It I find a box that says “Pillsbury”.
Hallelujah!
I grab it and clutch it to my breast! See? That wasn't so bad.
I make my way back across the Frozen Tundra, past Saint Alphonsos Pancake Breakfast, cheese blintzes, 16/20 Shrimp, and just as I reach the door leading me back to the kitchen and the CEO or whatever the hell this guy is, I look inside the box.
Damn….its Pillsbury Dinner Rolls!
Thats how fast a dream can turn on you.