THE NATIONS NEWEST MONUMENT

"I believe that what self-centered men have torn
down, other-centered men can build up..."
MARTIN lUTHER KING JR.

Official unveiling of the National Monument was Sunday, August 28 2011, 58 years after his "I Have a Dream " speech.
 Curving granite walls are engraved with his words taken from various speeches and writings. I can imagine as one reflects at the site, they might hear that beautiful lyrical voice of his:
"I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality... I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word."
Me too, good Doctor, me too.

Dr. King had a great effect on me when I was growing up in Detroit, greater that I had realized at the time.
Back in August I posted this photo, and the text above on Facebook. Not all my friends see Dr. King in the same light as I. Perhaps someday they will have a monument of their own.
God, I hope not.

THE BLACK HOLE

I know I moved into Buckshots house less than two months ago with 12 pairs of socks.

I absolutely know I did.
Fucking socks.

THE CIRCUMCISION GUN

""David took his men with him and went out and killed two hundred Philistines and brought back their foreskins. They counted out the full number to the king so that David might become the king’s son-in-law. Then Saul gave him his daughter Michal in marriage."

1 Samuel 18:26-28

You might think it a strange request, but it was not. Body parts such as scalps, hands, heads and feet were often collected as trophiess of war. Sauls request for foreskins would insure it was Philistines that David had slain, and not just hapless Jews.

What he needed was a circumcision gun, like the one shown above to get the job done.
One pull of the trigger and BAM!
Home before evening prayer and supper!

IT KNOCKS THE WIND RIGHT OUT OF ME

Here in Texas a lot of people have taken to putting out inflatable decorations. Santa, and a sled, and reindeer and elves, made like big balloons with lights in them flying across the front yards, and an extension cord trailing into the garage that supplies electricity to a pump that presumably keeps air going into the inflatables and lights the lights inside Santa and his compadres.


The thing is, these things must be on a timer, because the festive scene you passed by the night before, the next morning looks like a crime scene. Santa, his reindeer and elves, and the big green letters that spell out HO-HO-HO are laying slaughtered on the lawn, airless and deflated like characters out of Flatland. They are dead and cold and covered with Jack Frost, and its really nothing you want to see first thing in the morning. Very sad.
 
 
Thanks to UF Mike...I knew there was something about this Christmas worth mentioning (or not), I just didn't know what till I read his post.
 

THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS

"Once there was a man who held a political make-work job like so many here...shining a brass cannon around a courthouse. He did this for years...but he was not getting ahead in the world. So one day he quit his job, drew out his savings, bought a brass cannon — and went into business for himself"

~ robert heinlein

ITS RAINING HODGE-PODGE TODAY

Nice weekend here in Bulletland.
First,  went out dancin' Friday night. My daughter came. Some old friends that don't usually come stopped in and made the night. Charro, Bobbo's wife, was there and she is such a hoot and we danced it up bigtime!

Then Saturday morning I got up and drove to a meeting. Its was a good meeting and I went across the street to the Buttermilk for breakfast. All the waitresses know me, and I usually have one of my girlfriends with me. The waitresses always ask if these girls are "girlfriends" or just "girl- friends". I always tell them   that if they figure it out to please let me know. That I really don't know myself. It seems to me that if they were girlfriends, then I would be making breakfast for them at home while they read me the paper.

Anyway, the first meeting was so good that I went to the next one as well.
It was about how "The true measure of our recovery is in the daily maintenance of our spiritual condition" from our "Just For Today" Daily Meditations. If you scroll down at the link, you can read them too!

That line stands out to me from the early days, from the first meetings I went to. I didn't really think I had a "spiritual condition" at the time. But what I have found the last few years is that getting regular sleep instead of staying up for days on end is good for your spiritual condition. That buying car insurance and keeping your vehicle registered is great for your spiritual condition. Its good when you can see a cop and not have a heart attack. Drinking enough water is good for your spiritual condition too, and learning to listen to stories about how other folks stayed clean this week, and kept from blowing their top, or reacting to other people in a way that would create resentments, all that is good too. I need to make about 3 meetings a week it seems, or else people start looking ugly and stupid to me.
Its funny how that works.
I don't sit around and read recovery literature per se', but I am always on the lookout for good words that will help me stay serene. I do this everyday, and everyday I call someone that wants to help me in my recovery. Thats funny too, because we don't usually talk about anything in particular, or even NA in general, there is just something therapeutic about engaging someone on a regular basis.

I do all these things on a daily basis, just like because of my Diabetes I watch what I eat every day. I have a little meter that measure my blood sugar, but you know what? If I maintain my diabetes program on a daily basis, I don't hardly need it.
Clean time does not equal recovery.
The true measure of my recovery is in the daily maintenance of my spiritual condition.

PINOCHLE AND A PRILOSEC

They took me in for questioning. There were no questions. They said they were going to book me for murder, but there was no corpse. All I had going for me was that Prilosec sittin' on the bowl of chili.
They knew I had done it and they had my accomplices, McGinty and Barswock, two of the worst Pinochle players I ever met. Can you play Pinochle with just three players? Sure you can, but you have to have a widow. That’s where Lucy came in. It wouldn’t have mattered with these two anyway, I'd skin 'em on Cutthroat or Racehorse any ol' day.

The cops just cut them loose and here they were, one on each side, before the cops even had bothered to question me.
“Nuthin’” McGinty said with a wave of his hand “we didn’t give them nuthin’”
“Yeah, you’se in the clear” echoed Barswock.
That was proof enough they had spilled their guts.
And the girl, the dead one no one had found yet? I didn’t even know where she was. When the dead get up and walk, who is to say where they go? All I knew was she was wearing the World’s Biggest Necklace, and she had left with the cards.
The worst part wasn’t that I’d had a Thousand Aces when she made her break. The worst part was that I had actually killed someone and couldn’t remember what why or how. I just knew the who ~poor Lucy~ and that the two knuckleheads couldn’t play Pinochle for shit.

SHARP AS A TACK

My brother, Don Renfro, his first year at West Point. Davy sent me this picture years ago, and I love it.
Don fell to cancer January 4, 1997. He was a retired Lt. Colonel, 56 years old..
I remember the way the West Point yearbook described him:
"A quick wit and sure smile".
Yeah, he sure was that.

A classmate in an online eulogy says:
"Sometimes we'd wonder if he ever took anything seriously, then we'd see his class rank".

My first memory of Don was on the front porch, where I was taking a piss. I was about 3 years old. Don snatched me up and spanked me. He took that serious enough. I always pissed off the back porch after that.

My brother Don was sharp. He reminds me so much of my dad, without the cigar and gruff. Don was 16 when I was born, and he was off to College and to the Point by the time I was two, then Vietnam and Panama and Saudi Arabia, and sometimes I wonder how many times I actually got to spend any time with my brother.
I do miss him so.

WRITING IS A TIME MACHINE

My niece and nephew @ Dave Mows Grass and Jen Writes are a very strange batch of Renfro's.
They both write so well and with such purpose!
Its funny. I try to write just the way I talk. Their writing is very different from mine, but it is the same in that they seem to write just the way they talk as well.
They remind me so much of their dad.

 I knew something was going on when it wasn't good enough for them just to write, but there seemed to be some insinuation that it needed to be useful. I didn't get that gene. I'd have to say that my best writing tends to have no real use whatsoever, at least not at the time it was written. My best writing is when I seem to have no idea what I am writing about, or why I am writing it, untill weeks, or even  years later, when suddenly I think "Ah yes! I wrote about this one time".

A WORD FROM OUR SPONSORS

The dude in the hoodie with the mule-bray voice is none other than my boy, The Rip, doing his rousing reggae rendition of "Layla". What he lacks in vocal prowess he makes up for with dynamics.
So far he has 135 YouTube hits.
His mother is very proud.

NEW YEARS EVE

Dancin' to the tunes of Buddy Whittington and Michael Lee Clemmer. Michael is a 21 year old whiz kid of a blues guitarist from around these parts.

Here he is doing an old Freddy king number "You Got me Licked"...

DANCING IN STARLIGHT

You tell me your life is alright, even in spite of this place.
But where are the eyes that I once knew? Why don’t they light up your face?

I know you are not one to wander. You care not to circle the earth.
But to judge by your voice and your manners you’ve settled for less than your worth.

And the creek wants to run to the river. As it would were it not for the damn.
And you might be dancing in starlight, far from this cold empty land.

And I’ve not found the answer to all things and I haven’t yet learned how to fly.
Sometimes the sunlight can’t find me, and it’s all I can do just to try.

But I will not be stranded here thinking of everything I should have done
Let no one will build walls around me, I’ll not let anyone block out the sun.

For the creek wants to run to the river. As it would were it not for the damn.
And I will strike out for the starlight, with a smile and a wave of the hand.

The roads and the cities may scare you, with dangers that play with the mind
But a place where your dreams are kept silent is as deadly a place as you’ll find.

So take care that the wind doesn’t fool you into hearing a false melody
And look at your face in the water, and see if you like what you see.

And the creek wants to run to the river. As it would were it not for the damn.
And you might be dancing in starlight, far from this cold empty land.

- James McMurtry

Ya'll know I'm nuts for McMurtry, so to find something unreleased that didn't make the cut to an early album is a real treat for me. I'm guessing it was his first album "Too Long in the Wasteland", but thats just a guess.
 I take the name of this blog from the title cut of that album.
I just have to share. its as good a way to start this year as I can figure.
Thanks to a guy named Matt for loading this to the 'net.

JUST CHECKIN' THE OIL

A BULLETHOLES NEW YEARS EVE REDUX


Back in 1999 I was lucky enough to live in a very bad part of town.
As I would pull down the gravel alley at 5:30 in the morning on my way to work, there were two girls on the corner that always asked me if I wanted a "date". Being a bit of a rube, it took me a while to figure out what was going on there.
But before long, as they would wave and smile at me, I would holler out the window:
"Hellllloooo Ladies!", "Yabba-Dabba-Doo!" or "Honey, I'm home!"

And these girls would all laugh and wave because, well, I am a funny guy, even to a whore.

Some times I would go to the corner and talk with them late at night, staying out of sight so as to not drive off any Johns. There were probably 3 or 4 girls that worked that area at any given time.
One night a guy I knew from High School pulled up.
Boy-howdy, was he surprised to see me!
But thats not what this story is about.

This story is about the very pretty little whore that would work the streets on occasion. She had beautiful, soft looking, well groomed hair that she would toss about in a very sexy way. She seemed different from the other girls…very different. She was pretty and clean and wasn't all schitzed out, mumbling to herself, or pacing back and forth incessantly.
I figured she was a "Part-Timer"; a bored housewife that came out on occasion for a little taste of life on the edge.

One morning in my driveway I was checking the oil in my truck. This pretty little whore was passing by and so I says to her:
“Good morning!” all bright and cheery, because really, I had been dying to say something to this pretty little whore.
She stopped and tossed her sexy hair back and shielded her eyes from the sun and says to me:
‘Whatcha’ doin'?”
I looked at her as I slid the rag slowly down my dipstick.
“Jus’ checkin’ my oil “ I says, and added with a grin “Would you like me to check YOUR oil?”
She didn’t miss a beat and fired right back:
“Would YOU like to check my oil?”

She was smiling pretty as she tossed that sexy hair around again.
I must have turned about 5 shades of red, because, yes, I would have liked to check her oil, but I really did not have the guts to go about it.
She knew it and decided to let me off the hook.
“You don’t “date” do you?” she says
It was less a question, and more of a statement spoken as a matter of fact.
“No ma’am, I don’t…I’m probably better off all by myself”.
“OK” she says, flips her hair back and starts away.
It may sound silly, but I had some notion that maybe I had hurt her feelings.
"You sure are pretty though.” I says
She stopped and turned around and just laughed and flashed a big pretty smile at me, and said
"And you are awful sweet, and are probably better off all by yourself” and she  tossed all that sexy hair as she turned away while waving good-bye. She had let me off the hook again. And I watched as she shook her pretty little ass down the street, thinking I had missed my chance.

                 **********************
A few nights later on New Years Eve, a happy married couple I know saw her and they pulled over to the right in their Convertible Rag-topped Corvette. It was nice out, and they had the top down. They wanted to know how much she would charge to take on the both of them!
Just a little curious, they were... just wanted to see what it might cost for a little taste of life on the edge.

Before you could say “Tit-Bit and Gimme a Dollar” they were surrounded by the Vice Squad.
They were arrested and spent New Years Eve in Jail.
Yep. You see…
That pretty young whore was a Cop.



HAPPY NEW YEAR!

YA'LL BE CAREFUL OUT THERE!

"IF YOU CAN THINK IN FRONT OF A TIGER"

TWO-HUNDRED AND SEVENTEEN
Thats the number of posts I've done this year. It ties my most procuctive year so far, back in 2009.
So does this post really count as a post?
Hell yes, especially if I add on this little nugget I sent to a fellow addict whom I am sponsoring.

""If you know the point of balance, You can settle the details. If you can settle the details, You can stop running around. Your mind will become calm. If your mind becomes calm, You can think in front of a tiger. If you can think in front of a tiger, You will surely succeed." - Mencius

Part of my recovery is going to meetings. Part is talking to other addicts, working the steps, and my service work in Group Conscious. Part is having found a power greater than myself that seems to strengthen my resolve to stay clean and practice principles. But the biggest part may be in just finding things out here in the world that help me stay clean, and finding a way to relate everything in my life to the balance point that is my program.


 Its my first time being a sponsor after 3 years in the Narcotics Anonymous program.

EAT ME RAW

I had always thought that the biggest hairiest baddest lookin’ dude on the stage had to be the bass player. Whenever I looked at album covers, I could always spot the bass player. Like Geezer Butler for Sabbath or Felix Papparlardi for Mountain, I thought I could pick them out based on their hair, their sheer size and the mean scowl on their face.


But then I went to Moody Auditorium on the SMU Campus September 15, 1974. That was the night Gary Thain, the bass player for Uriah Heep, got electrocuted.
It was in the middle of either July Morning or Sweet Lorraine. Of course, we were there to hear "Stealin'", but we had to settle for listening to it on 8-Track going home.
Uriah Heep hadn't been onstage very long, just a few songs.
We didn't see any sparks or nuthin, just all of a sudden the stage lights flickered and the music stopped. Then crowd murmurs and the house lights came on and the show was over.
The Heep were supposed to come back someday, but I don't think they ever did....not that decade, and sadly, not with Gary Thain.

But the opener, Suzie Quatro, she stole the show.
We had gone to see Uriah Heep, but ran head-on into Suzie Quatro.
Suzie played bass. She was the biggest meanest hairiest person in the building that night.
Between songs, she would raise her right hand and give us the bird, and holler out "Fuck you’se Dallas!”. I’ve never seen that kind of animosity between a crowd and an audience, except maybe the night Leslie West crushed the first two rows at Texas Hall.

Susie says:
"Eat me raw through a Flav-R-Straw"

"...a lady just walked by wiggling it...and we are not dead yet."

Charles Bukowski, letter for employment

(click on image for better resolution)

SEX AND MUSIC

The post I titled last week "LAST MINUTE GIFT IDEAS" tripled the traffic that day. I guess it was the title that did it, or maybe the picture of the "friendly hooker". Then earlier this year I did a post title "Smurf Porn" that really brought them in. It brought them in so heavy I had to delete the post. So I have no idea what might happen with this title. I don't usually trust singers who talk their way through songs, but Wilcox is a great songwriter, and I'm sure he has had fun with this one. I started to post the lyrics to this a long time ago and never got around to it. Enjoy.

 And for all of you maybe interested in what Smurf Porn looks like, feast your eyes you bunch of freaks!

image by our buddy Martjin!

ALL DOGS POOP OUTSIDE, NO EXCEPTIONS

Christmas.
At the Ex-Mrs. Bulletholes.
With my sister there. My sister is just so weird.
She has a Chihuahua dog, with the fancy ears. They call them "Papillions" or something. The dog is as weird as my sister. She treats the dog like an incontinent human invalid. She has those hospital bed pads for the dog to go poop on.  When the dog looked like it might poop, she wanted to put one of the pads on the floor in the kitchen instead of letting my daughter, you know, take the dog outside. But the Ex-Mrs Bulletholes said "no dice" to that. She explained the dog would not be pooping in her kitchen, right next to the buffet table, or anywhere else in the house for that matter.. It took a while for that to sink in with my sister, in fact it blew her mind a little, but there is nothing as unwavering as X Mrs Bulletholes when she has made up her mind.

Of course, weirdness is not out of my domain either. There was a young lady there, of Oriental descent. I guessed her age as being between 8 and 17. Those Orientals are timeless you know. Anyway, I was really leaning towards her being about 14 so I went ahead and just asked:
"How old are you, sweetie?"
It was one of those questions that you don't know its rude until you see the look on the other persons face, and realise that they are aware that they look like a child, but are in fact a full grown woman. I never would have imagined her to be in her late 20's and attending graduate school.. Next time I run into a situation like this, I will save myself the embarrassment and just ask if she is in High School yet.

Then everyone was reminded of the axe I gave my son for Christmas...back when he was 6 years old.
I did better this year I think. I stuck to shirts and jewelry and stuff.
I'm really glad its over.

LAST MINUTE GIFT IDEAS

A FRIENDLY HOOKER WOULD BE NICE

DO NOT OPEN TILL CHRISTMAS

THIS WAS A SURPRISE

BUTTERBALLS!

FOR THE OFFICE...

I LOVE THIS ACCORDIAN. REALLY NICE.

SOMETHING FOR THE YARD...IMAGE BY OUR FRIEND MARTIJN.

I DON'T PLAY VIDEO GAMES ANYMORE, BUT THIS WOULD BE NICE TO TAP

MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM BULLETHOLES IN THE MAILBOX!

AND THANKS TO 'THIS ISN'T HAPPINESS"

FOR THE MANY IMAGES AND GREAT CAPTIONS

AND LINKS TO OTHER SITES WITH GREAT IMAGES

 HE HAS SUPPLIED FOR MY PERUSAL THIS LAST FEW YEARS.

ON BEING FINE

The beginning of being fine is noticing how things really are.

1. Life is uncertain, surprises are likely.
2. If you are alive, that’s good; lower the bar.
3. In a dark place, you still have what really counts.
4. If you are in a predicament, there will be a gate.
5. What you need might be given to you.
6. The true life is in between winning and losing.
7. If you have nothing - give it away.

- John Tarrant