Bill

 He was what i would call, to steal from Wayne Coyne, one of the fearless freaks... a weirdo in the best and most affectionate sense of the word, which is probably why we got on so well, remained in contact through the various forms of social media even after he had moved away... would try to catch up with each other on those rare occasions when he came through town... he was Deadhead, was well versed in jazz, loved Zappa, knew his punk rock and indie and classic rock, was an unabashed fan of one Hunter S. Thompson, Phillip K. Dick and William Burroughs, and most importantly Kurt Vonnegut... he was extremely well read, well versed in art and philosophy... and really was much the kind and gentle soul... but we all have those demons and sometimes those demons get the best of us... 

If there is one thing i've learned about those kind and gentle souls, it's that shit gets dark... and particularly for those of that nature and it's in those times, like Mr. Cohen said, one looks for the cracks, it's where the light gets in... and hopefully that light can remind the kind and gentle souls that they have friends, the have family, they have people who love them even when shit has gone south... even when it seems like the world is crumbling around them... and while that may be true it's also bullshit... when that darkness falls it grips tight and doesn't like to let go and when one is in it i have a theory which i call rational irrationality, and while i feel as if i developed this theory on my own i'm quite sure it's just an amalgamation of different things i have read processed and repackaged for my own personal use, so that i can understand things when they happen... even when the are hard to understand... 

It did not go unnoticed to me when my friend suddenly stopped posting on the social media shit show a while back, i understand it perfectly, it's a time suck, a way to waste countless hours scrolling and whatnot with no real reward so i'm not shocked when people take a break or dump it completely... i often remind myself to stay away from it, to put the phone down or stay off those sites in order to get more productive things done, i don't need the constant distraction and in all honesty there are many things i'd rather do... and so when it went quiet i figured he was taking a break... and it turns out he was it just so happened that the break was state mandated as he had wound up in county on an eight month stint... 

My friend was rather vague about the specifics but when he popped back up we began privately messaging and he explained what had happened, sort of... he also began posting stories about his last eight months and asking me my thoughts, did he have something? could it be developed into something like a book? and my answer was yes and yes... it was the framework and could definitely be worked on and polished and it was something i felt could be both interesting and valuable... so what happened? the quick version is it involved alcohol and mental health... he wouldn't say much other than that but explained that after a particularly bad incident the police were called, he never said if it was the first time and what unfolded afterward led me to believe it probably was not... he also did not discuss what actually happened but all clues point to a domestic dispute... and as i know probably all too well add alcohol to even a kind and gentle soul and things can go pear shaped quick... 

The sad fact is that we live in a society that still tends to stigmatize substance abuse and mental health issues when in fact they are both illnesses, both are diseases that need to be treated and need to treated as medical issues and not some sort of moral or mental defect... they are not... of course in the land of pay to play medical care it gets tough to get things like this treated or more correctly to get things like this treated effectively... it also gets expensive and there is no cookie cutter solution to helping someone, which means it takes time and effort and ultimately money which is not something we as a society deem all that worthy of the cost... oh we'll hand wring and say the right things, nod thoughtfully but when the heavy lifting starts, meaning we as a society all contribute to help people afflicted or maybe even work to change the system, the crowd thins dramatically... when it comes to men and mental health we're at full blown crisis level... men of all ages are taking their own lives at an ever increasing rate and yet it's not really covered or publicized... once again it seems to go against the myth of the American Male, we're all just supposed pillars of stability who keep our emotions bottled up and whatever other bullshit that's been sold to us... and when the pillar starts to crumble, when we fuck up because we are ill-equipped or don't know how to handle it, medicate with any number of substances and exacerbate the situation even more, as my friend so succinctly put it, when we break down "we are labeled bad men"... and unfortunately he was spot on... the truth is we aren't bad men, we just need help and don't know how or who to ask, we are ill-prepared to deal with it and that might just be the only crime... that as a society, as a culture we have failed ourselves and our sons and it needs to fucking change... 

But every tale has two sides... and this is the other side, the side of my friend that i'll remember most... it was fucking thirty years ago when Bill said to me, "you really need to read Vonnegut"... i shook my head and said yeah yeah, i'll get to him one day but it was way down my list of things to read at the time... but my friend knew me well and knew that once i started i would find a kindred spirit in old Kurt... and once i did start i sat there and wondered what the fuck? why'd it take me so long? and one of the first things i did after tearing through a few of his books was hit my friend up and tell him how much i fucking loved this stuff... he laughed and said, i knew you would i'm just glad you finally got around to it... sometimes our friends know us better than we know ourselves... 

If there was one thing i loved about my friend, what probably made us become friends in the first place, was he was one of those people with an inquisitive mind... he was interested in things... and yes we were interested in a lot of the same things and we'd spend hours discussing shit, i can say there were never any dull conversations with Bill... and his inquisitive mind led him to try things, to write in various forms, from haiku to short stories, to paint, to make collages... it was one of his collages that i had shown to Dr. Rockstar one fine day at Podunk U.  Dr. Rockstar had asked to see it one day when we were discussing shit in his office, Dr. Rockstar seemed a bit fascinated that there was an actual group of fucking weirdos at Podunk who were into weird shit... the collage was basically images from porn magazines, all taken not from the pics but from the ads in back advertising phone sex and various other "products"... and while Dr. Rockstar seemed nonplussed by the work i happened to dig it and argued my point that Dr. Rockstar was missing the point... one could argue i was defending my friend more than his art but i happened to like the piece (actually pieces as it was a series of three i believe) and even funnier was when i told Bill about it he actually looked at me and said, you argued with Dr. Rockstar about it? i laughed and said yeah, fuck him and his pompous academic ass... (oh to be a young and  pompous hipster!) 

 Bill was also the guy who hooked me up with a certain uptight friend of his who i bought (shitty) weed to sling  when i was in grad school, the funny part was even Bill admitted the guy was overpriced and a bit anal retentive but he knew i needed a connection to survive and so he introduced me... there were times he'd drive up to Podunk and get me, drive back the the Burgh where i'd score my shit and then drive me back (he'd then go see his girlfriend, later wife)... he didn't ask for a dime or even weed cuz he recognized i was in dire straits at the time... later on when he'd come to see me when we were both back in the city i'd always make sure he got a fat sack at a discount price... his wedding present was a big bag of free weed... which reminds me of how i attended his wedding, i wasn't broke but i was working with Hippie Jack, getting by and staying high but it wasn't like i had money for clothes, i attended his wedding in the July heat in my thrift store clothes, a tweed jacket, corduroy pants that were threadbare, it was literally the best i could do, sporting giant dreads to boot... both he and his family didn't bat an eyelash and i remember his mom telling me she had heard so much about me and was pleased to finally meet me... 

And he'd periodically bring me paintings... one of which was Charles Bukowski's obituary, mounted and painted with Chinese symbols and it's a gift that still sits on my makeshift altar of my favorite things... with the Morrissey and Bowie candles, the Hail Sagan print (thanks Kid), my father's beer tray emblazoned with a famous Scottish ale in which i share a surname (though not exactly the same), my signed print from the famous Flaming Lips show where i met the band (thanks BD Smash), a Walter White figurine and my title as a Scottish Lord due to the fact i own one square yard of land in Skatlin (as the septics say)... he also brought me another painting titled Mind at Ease, more Asian influenced art... one doesn't get many friends who just give them pieces of art, i've always been lucky in that category and this was no exception... the Bukowski piece is 30 years old and it's always sat in a place where i can see it... 

But the fact is, the hard truth... my friend is gone... and i really fucking wish he wasn't... but wishing, wishful thinking, whatever you want to call it amounts to fuck all in the end... there are a lot of us who wish we could have gotten to him, wish he wouldn't have posted that he was losing his shit in the middle of the night, wish someone anyone would have seen it and gotten a hold of him, to remind him he had friends, people who cared and that no matter how shit things seemed it was worth going on... it was worth it just to finish the work he started, the writing that will now be left unfinished, the story left untold, the daughter he left behind... and i don't know, it does my fucking head in, i've sat over the past week wiping tears outta my eyes and asking why? but i know why... things got too dark and the rational irrationality won out... so my friend is gone... 

So i'll parrot what has been said but seems to never be really heeded by the masses... we live in a world more interconnected than ever before but it's more isolating and lonely than ever before as well... yes we can all post and like and comment, we can text, but that's not enough, we need to talk to each other, we need to see each other when possible and if that means a fucking zoom call than so be it, at least we can see a face and talk and laugh and cry and know we are not alone, especially for those kind and gentle souls, souls like my friend Bill... and yeah, i feel like i let my friend down... and this Sunday i'll go to my favorite dive where some of his friends will gather and we'll toast and remember our friend... i love you Bill... i wish i would have told you sooner, wish i knew how dark it was... i hope at least now, back in the void, your mind is finally at ease... this one's for you me friend... if i knew the way/ i would take you home... 

 

Glad All Over

 There are strange coincidences that happen in this life... or maybe there's more at play in this cosmic soup than we know or care to admit, some might call it "god" and some might call it cosmic accidents, i'm squarely in the latter camp but every now and then i sit back and look at things and chuckle at how it's all shaken out.... take for example my football team (soccer to the septic tanks meaning yanks), a team i fucking love, an irrational and almost useless love that borders on what could easily be classified as mental illness... and this is a story about how i came to love that team in the most irrational way seeing as how does a guy from the Cleveland come to absolutely adore a middling to small club from South London? i'll explain... 

The year was 1997 and the place was the infamous hovel known as the 759... it was the early years of El Kono back then, piecing things together through Hippie Jack and Cocaine Mike and Pizza Joe... it was during this time that a girl moved into the upstairs apartment, she was a senior at a local university and it was her happening to move in which led me to two rather important relationships, actually three when one counts the football club i would adopt as my own.... one of those connections would be with Stiv, something well documented in the Wilderness Years, the other would be with her boyfriend, then husband, then ex-husband, who would become one of my best friends, the esteemed Mr. Gulfboot Johnson... a bit like Bubba and Forest, Gulfboot and i hit it off like peas and carrots... the word debauchery would not suffice the hi-jinks that ensued but it was here that i was first introduced to the game of football aka soccer... and it started as most things do in this post-modern shithouse, through a video game... 

My roommates at the time were big into video games and while i myself was not due to my duties of slinging weed out of the back room every now and then i'd play something to be a bit social and what not... mainly Mario Kart and not the other shit my friends played but it was one fine day when Gulfboot mentioned we should rent this soccer game and play it.... truth is i can't even remember the original game though it was the beginning or precursor to the FIFA franchise which has now been renamed again in the name of the almighty dollar... at the time the fucking Gooners were the big squad on the game, Arsenal being home to Henry, Bergkamp, Viera, Adams and of course gaffer Arsene Wenger... it was the team we usually played with due to the fact we were just starting to play the game and needed the better teams to learn with and improve as we went along... it was during these times when Gulfboot and i would talk about our teams, mine being Cleveland teams (the Browns, Cavs, Indians now Guardians) and it was during this time that we made a pact, he would support my teams and i would adopt his... the name of that club? Crystal Palace Football Club... 

And this is where the cosmic accident comes in... for those unfamiliar with the history of Cleveland sports teams let me just say this.. in 1997 we had won fuck all, in any of those sports, in fact most of the time we weren't even that good, we had a shitbag move our football team to Baltimore (though those benevolent billionaires known as NFL owners voted to give us another team, nice of them seeing as when the shitbag Art Modell moved the Browns he didn't meet any of the ten criteria for moving but they still voted to let him), the Indians now Guardians were doing well and of course the year we looked likely to win a title the season got canceled due to a strike (1994), then in 1995 we lost to the fucking Braves and 1997 the Money Marlins, a day in which if i haven't wrote about (i think i may have) i should... the Cavs at the time were in the "rebuild" mode which is a term any Cleveland sports fan is all too familiar with... in fact in 1997 the last time any Cleveland team had won a title was 1964, when the Browns led by the greatest running back to every play the game, Jim Brown, won the last of their titles... the words most often associated with Cleveland teams are hapless and hopeless with a little shit luck thrown in, as in every time we get a good team something goes horribly fucking wrong... in fact when Clevelanders bump into each other in various parts of the world the conversation will invariably turn to our beloved teams and tales of where we were when (insert crushing loss here) happened... 

Which brings me back to my club, the Eagles of Crystal Palace... what i didn't know then which i do now is that never could a guy from Cleveland lucked into supporting a more apt club than Palace, the similarities between my hometown teams and my adopted club are staggering... basically hapless, hopeless, loveable fuck-ups who know everything and anything that can go wrong most likely will... when i accepted Palace as my club Gulfboot was explaining to me that they weren't even in the Premier League and that they were a division below and though they bounce up every now and then it's usually for a season and then it's back to the Championship... didn't matter to me, a deal is a deal and so i embraced my new club wholeheartedly... in fact a few years later when the big "Soccer Boom" came to America and all the kids were picking teams i can honestly say that i was proud to have lucked into being a Palace fan... i wasn't some Manchester United bandwagon shithead, i'd rather walk alone then support Liverpool, Arsenal? nope, Chelski? hell fucking no!! City was still shite and hadn't started the sovereign wealth fund bandwagon and so i was lucky enough to support a proper club and not some soon to be corporation... 

To say i love my club would be an understatement... i am Palace for Life and have gone through the requisite ups and downs over the last 28 years... for most of the first 16 years of supporting my club we were in the First Division/Championship... in fact in those years i got to enjoy two seasons of top flight football only to be immediately relegated after one season, there was financial trouble that almost saw my club relegated to the dustbin of history as had Steve Parish and his boys not come in we would have been proper fucked... in fact it was so bad at one point that our best player at the time, Victor Moses, was told he couldn't play as he was about to be sold to Chelski for 6 million quid and that if for some reason he got hurt and the deal fell through that would be the end of the club, we needed the cash that bad... add in the fact that if not for a late Darren Ambrose equalizer on the last day of the season we would have been relegated into the third division (EFL One) and would have really been in dire straits as that was when Parish and his friends had invested in the club to save us and one wonders what they'd have thought with the team dropping even further down the leagues... of course that wasn't the only time we flirted with the third division as in 2000 we managed to finish one place above the relegation zone...

2000 is also the year of a certain eventful trip to London in which i got to attend two Palace games at the legendary Selhurst Park, the first a 1- nil loss in the league and the second a 1-1 draw in the League Cup aka Moose Cup (Carabao Cup) in which Andy Linegan's extra time equalizer was enough to send us through... we'd eventually end up in the two leg semi-final where we would famously upset the Red Scousers 2-1 at Selhurst, only to be thoroughly thrashed in the return leg at Anfield losing 5-1... (there was a famous incident our hero had with a local sports radio personality who is a big Liverpool fan where one fine Saturday morning as we watched the footie at the local pub Radio Guy kept bleating loudly about all things footie, finally after one too many Guinness and no breakfast i snapped, got up from the bar and walked over to start berating him about how my little Championship club just did his mighty Reds which quickly devolved into me talking about how i was going to kick the fucking shit out of him if he didn't shut the fuck up... luckily i was pulled away, Radio Guy immediately ran out the door and the bartenders proceeded to buy a couple beers for sheer fact i got him to leave...) 

Incredibly enough after three rather rough seasons from 2010-2013, where we flirted rather regularly with relegation, we somehow managed to start going the other direction... in 2013 we managed to finish 5th and earn a place in the Championship play-offs against our rivals Brighton... of course once again it seemed as what could go wrong would, we lost our top scorer Glenn Murray to injury in the home leg of the tie and went to Brighton for the second leg a few days later... Brighton hadn't lost at home in months and we'd won exactly one away game in eleven and now we didn't have our 30 goal striker... didn't look good but as the saying goes, you gotta believe... our dynamic duo of young wingers, Wilf Zaha and Yannick Bolassie both netted and somehow we got through to the final, 2-0 over two legs... the final saw us face Elton John's favorite club Watford and after 90 minutes it was still scoreless... into extra time with the nerves ramping up in what is known as the most valuable match in football... in fact this was the year the new television rights had been renegotiated and the winner of this game would be in for a windfall of 120 million pounds... three years before we couldn't play our best player for fear of injury and the club being dissolved and now we stood on the brink of a huge payday... and so when the kid who would become our talisman (Wilf Zaha) for roughly a decade was brought down in the box a 40yr. old pro (Kevin Phillips) who had started his career at Watford some 19 years earlier stepped up and slotted home an excellent PK to put us 1-0 up... granted we did our best to let Watford equalize but we managed to hang on and Premier League football awaited... 

Being what is called a yo-yo club, though we actually hadn't been that 15 years or so, we were just happy to be back up, survival was the goal but if we didn't at least the money had now put us on some sound financial footing and the club could build and not worry about administration (again)... after a shaky start the Palace manager carousel began with Tony Pulis helping us out of a hole and securing us safety in that first year... he'd win Manager of the Year and promptly resign due to lack of funds to sign new players... from there most gaffers would last a season or less with the all-time loser being Frank DeBoer who came in among much fanfare but lasted a mere 77 days before being sacked... his teams lost the first four league games and didn't score a goal, we went on to lose the first 8 and things were looking bleak, after four years in the PL we were the betting favorites to be relegated... enter old Roy Hodgson, he'd save us, get sacked, get hired again, save us again, get sacked but in the end the man is a legend... it wasn't the most attractive or exciting brand of football but when not backed by a sovereign wealth fund the goal is survival... in fact every year when we are mathematically safe i celebrate... yes there is no trophy other than the fact we're staying in the top league for another season, it's Palace, we don't ask for much other than the sky to not be constantly falling... yes fans and outsiders may say what fun is it to always finish between tenth and fifteenth? and i'd say the fun is staying up, and as the little Leicester team once showed us, anything is possible as long as you're in the league... 

Which brings us to the present day... after once again not winning any of our first eight games it looked like once again anything that can go wrong will go wrong... as we stumbled along drifting in and out of the relegation zone early on it was nerve wracking and frustrating seeing as how well we finished the previous season, there were calls to sack the manager even though Ollie Glasner had shown what he could do when he has his full squad (truth is even i mumbled it)... then everyone started to get healthy and things began to resemble the squad we thought we had... since the turn of the year, had the season started then, we'd be in a Champions League spot, believe third most points in the league, we ran off a stretch of six away game wins! we kept winning in the FA Cup and then dispatched an Aston Villa team tipped to go through, not only dispatched them but made it look easy... by this time we had climbed the table to our usual 11-12 position and were free and clear of the relegation zone... and we were in the Cup final against the sovereign wealth money of Man City and the guru known as Pep... 

May 17, 2025... it now joins it's place with June 19, 2016... i was tempted to go down the pub, that same one where i almost beat the shit out of Radio Guy but also knew that i had what might be termed irrationally high hopes for this match and the chance for my club to win it's first major trophy EVER... it's origin dates back 164 years and the current professional iteration back to 1905, in that time we'd won fuck all other than promotion and some shite trophy that was around for a few years, nothing tangible really... and so i decided to don my old Palace away kit from 2001-2002 (it was chosen over the 98-99 home kit and one from the early aughts sans sponsor... find any kit without a sponsor these days, it's near impossible...) i grabbed a large bottle of water, turned on the match and then buckled in for what i knew would be (at least) 90 plus tense minutes or possibly 120 or even worse penalties... 

While i won't go into the game in depth it played out like most people thought, City having the bulk of the possession while Palace sat in a low block defending and looking to spring the counter attack... and the fact is i liked our counter better than City's defense and after not getting the ball across midfield for the first 16 minutes when we finally did is was fucking textbook, it involved some our best players and one i've maligned all season (Kamada) who may finally be settling in... Mateta picked it up and played it out wide to the right to Munoz who then got towards the endline and played a low cross back towards the top of the box to see Eze glide in and hit a brilliant first touch shot into the lower left corner... Palace 1 City nil... i'm sure my neighbors heard me screaming at the top of my lungs as i celebrated like i was at Wembley... of course then next 74 plus minutes (plus the ten minutes of injury time at the end of the game) were a nail biting, hand wringing torture... it included a dubious hand ball by our keeper which easily could have seen him sent off and us down to ten men for sixty minutes, a PK that was then saved by said keeper, a goal from Palace (Munoz) ruled offside because the ball deflected off one our players and as previously mentioned ten minutes of fucking injury time that dragged on for what seemed like eternity... 

And then came the final whistle... and this fucking geezer, someone who has spent too many hours following various teams only to suffer heartbreak, who has experienced winning a title in any sport only once before, had just watched his beloved club lift it's first piece of silverware in club history... what happened next even surprised our scribe here... tears... tears rolling down my face as i watched the scenes unfold, of the players but most importantly the supporters... some of whom i knew and were at Wembley and those who i didn't but had waited their whole life for something like this... it was fucking gorgeous!!! 

It was a strange feeling and i'll be honest when i say for days afterwards i could feel my eyes well thinking about it, tears of pure joy, of emotion that was hard to process and put into words... it was brilliant listening to the pundits talk about how it meant so much more for the club and it's supporters to win the FA Cup than it did for a team like City who had won everything in the past decade, how the fans stayed longer at Wembley savoring the moment, singing and crying and hugging... a few weeks before we had gone to the Etihad, went up 2-0 on City and got blasted 5-2 in the end... afterwards our gaffer Ollie told the resident genius Pep that if his team played the same way at Wembley we'd have them sorted... we did... City looked inept and devoid of any creativity, yes they had a few chances but in the end Palace had the better ones and took one of the few we had... every time i think about it i smile... next year we'll be in Europe for the first time ever... yeah i'll still be worrying about all sorts of things when it comes to my club but the only thing i can say at the moment is... that i'm feeling glad all over!!! 

 

Bokononist / (possible) Death in the Afternoonn

 As i've stated before it's an interesting situation to be the world's hairiest soccer mom, though i'm technically no longer a soccer mom hence maybe my other title as the Big Hairy Carol Brady is now more fitting... and as someone who has been what could be called "classically underemployed" for basically his whole life (other than my career in contraband) i understand perfectly that shit rolls downhill... so while i've encountered numerous men who ask the age old question, what do you do? who then find out what i do and ask how do they get that job to which i often reply that they most likely don't want this job cuz it's not all it's cracked up to be... though i should add that with a little organizational skills and what not it usually does afford me the opportunity to catch the mid-week footie matches in the Champions League as well as my beloved Palace when playing during the week... so maybe i should just shut the fuck up and thank my lucky stars that i've made it this far, approaching five and a half decades, and still have done fuck all in terms of being a so-called productive member of society, it's quite possible that i am living the American fucking dream, not to the hegemony but to the commonfolk... 

Which brings me to Bokononism, that lovely religion from Mr. Vonnegut's book Cat's Cradle, a religion based on "foma" which means the harmless lies that bring comfort and meaning (which is quite necessary when it comes to my so-called domestic union)... most of modern Merkin culture is actually based on just this though i'd wager to say that the way i interpret it for myself is different than the way i interpret it for the culture at large... and of course one of the maxims of Bokononism it the phrase- busy, busy, busy... sit quietly at any youth sporting event and one can eavesdrop on the mini-van mafia chirping away as to how busy and hectic their schedules are... it's as if it's an actual crime to have a moment to oneself, to not be constantly running from place to place, sometimes involving some sort of employment and sometimes not but mainly it's more the attitude that permeates the modern American workplace, particularly in the retail or office setting, a whole lot of doing nothing, what the elementary school teachers call busy work... 

The last couple of days i have run myself rather ragged in my duties as the Big Hairy Carol Brady, it seems to have been non-stop list of chores... housework, yardwork, busy work, gig economy serf... granted i'm quite adept at putting my head down and ploughing right through shit and to be honest i have no problem with that, for as much as i'd like to sit around and stare at my navel or watch my toes wiggle i realize as an adult type person i do gotta get things done... maybe the main issue is the fact that many times it feels like i'm the hired help around here... which is an attitude mainly given off by the BW... it's something she most definitely picked up from her father, a man who until recently has been a raging shitbag but as he now steams headlong towards the void is having those moments of clarity between bouts of dementia... in the simplest of terms... she makes the money... i do the rest... 

So what have the last few days entailed... too much nonsense... including a trip to the Imac's university to bring a load of shit home as come the weekend he takes up residence here for the summer... of course once again the Imac did a bang up job of leaving it late and spent the last week scrambling to get decent enough grades to not get tossed out of school though it's looking as if he survived... but not before his momma had to jump in and help with some of his work... the same type of shit she did last year to help him graduate to which she stated she'd never do again... funny how that works and even funnier the justifications for her actions... though full disclosure i was roped into it as well and can state that while i did a minimum of work (seeing as that i've already got a degree) and that i basically let it be known i was doing it under protest, it was mainly so i didn't have to listen to someone piss and moan about things (see BW) as well as prattle on about wasting her money, for around here it always comes down to her money, which is why i retain my position as gig economy serf in order to not have to ask for any of her money, my payment as Big Hairy Carol Brady is food and lodging and my own room so we don't every have to pretend we have any sort of functional "adult" relationship... 

The BW has spent the last 18 years helicopter parenting the Imac... to which i would add much to everyone's detriment... i don't believe it helps him though he does need to learn some organizational skills (her specialty) and responsibility but in the end there is always and excuse to help him... i'm of the school that sometimes the best help is no help at all... they gotta learn and sometimes failure is the greatest teacher of all... that said i also understand how his momma worries about him... a fact i try to impress upon the boyo all the time... granted she doesn't helicopter parent Disaster as that's supposedly my job and i basically tell Disaster that he knows what he has to do and i expect him to do it... i've also told him he'll be better served because of it as he grows up...

A quick summary of the week that was involved some gig economy serf work in order to keep the weed cabinet stocked, driving Disaster multiple places (side note- i do roughly 97% of the driving around here when it comes to the boyos, always have, it's like pulling teeth when it comes to getting the BW to actually take them somewhere or pick them up and i'll add it's not lost on the boyos), cleaning the house, driving back and forth to shuttle the Imac's stuff and him home from school (about 1.5 hours one way), doing piles of college boy's laundry, cleaning the laundry room for the new appliances, then after that shit was installed calling the gas company because i kept smelling natural gas... which freaks me the fuck out.... i then used some leak detector (basically soap) and hit the valve to discover a leak that i didn't like, called the gas company who came out immediately, said it was decent leak and who then swapped out my old valve for a brand new one, checked my lines and gave me a thumbs up which certainly lowered the stress levels cuz as stated that shit freaks me out... which brings me around the yard work... once the Imac is back i will abdicate this duty and Disaster will pick up the slack soon enough  but for now i still needed to mow the lawn... 

My front yard out here in the lily white runs downhill, actually at a pretty decent angle which makes cutting the front grass a real pain in the ass... it's a lot of pulling and pushing uphill and downhill and it generally fucking does my back in for the rest of the day if not into the next as well... there is also a small old tree stump near the point where the slope stops and the flat part begins and there has been a small hole in the ground for years... every now and then a rabbit will take up residence and it was while i was mowing closer to this spot that i saw something move... a baby bunny, hopping to safety as i got closer to the hole... then i saw another, then another... as one could surmise there is no shortage of rabbits around here while there is also no shortage of  predators, hawks being the biggest one but also a few outdoor cats, coyotes and what i was soon to discover, crows... 

Now being the bleeding heart fucking pansy ass animal lover i didn't want to kill the poor baby bunnies, not only cuz of the mess it would make but because they deserve their shot at this mortal coil even if it does end badly for them... though honestly the current state of the world it could end badly for all of us... that said i was careful to watch them hop away and quickly finished up near the nest so they could get back to relative safety... and of course the whole time i was talking to them explaining that i didn't mean to disturb them and that they should get back to their nest... i can only wonder what the neighbors may think as they watch me have full blown conversations with animals but i have some pretty decent neighbors who have been around the hood long enough to know i may be a bit, for lack of a better word, "odd"... (one may recall Rosebud, the opossum, who i was trying to cultivate a relationship with by feeding her cat food in order to bring her around to eat any ticks that may be about seeing as ticks are the opossums favorite food, except for maybe Meow Mix) 

The baby bunnies all slowly scattered and i got through the front grass and headed to the back, finished up, grabbed the weed whacker and did some trimming, ran inside and took a quick shower as the second leg of Champions League semi-finals were about to start and i was most keen to watch the Barca-Inter classic unfold... i took my seat on the couch, Paco made himself comfortable first by head butting me and rubbing his face on mine and then by making biscuits next to me before passing out on his favorite blanket... and the match was a blinder... granted as i'm partial to the Catalans (they do wear the same colors as Palace) we came out on the wrong end but from a football point of view it was both high drama and high art... and then towards the end of the match i heard something...

As extra-time in the match was ticking away there came a strange squeaking noise, it sounded somewhat like a bird but a bird i had never heard before, it kept up, would stop and then start and after aa couple minutes i got up off the couch and went out the front door... it should be noted that Paco, on hearing the sound, sat straight up and began looking around and trotted after me to the door... i opened the door to see two large crows hovering over a poor baby bunny and pecking at it, i jumped at them and they flew away but the poor bunny just laid there, breathing sporadically, i began talking to it again knowing full well if it was still conscious i'd probably be freaking it out even more but it didn't look good.... i was a bit distraught as i knew the little bunny had only fled the nest due to the lawnmower and it was probably trying to hop it's way back when death from above came swooping in...

I stood on the porch wondering what to do... every now and then the bunny would move a bit and so i grabbed a small shovel and moved the bunny back towards it's nest... my hope was that it would recover enough to get back in the nest and for the next hour i kept looking and it was still there until i finally looked and noticed it was gone... i walked out for a closer inspection to see if there was any trace of it but there was none, no fur laying about, no sign of struggle, granted there is a good chance a hawk or some other bird scooped it up though i'm not sure the crows would have been capable of carrying the bunny off so to placate the guilt that seemed to be plaguing me i convinced myself that the little bunny had made it's way to safety to live another day... call me a "real" American as i decided to believe the possible lie instead of the highly likely scenario that the bunny didn't make it anywhere other than into the food chain... 

While i didn't say too much about it i did say to the BW that i felt a awful that i had a hand in the possible demise of the bunny and that i hope it got back in the nest.... the BW, who loves animals as well, seemed to take an almost sadistic delight in making backhanded comments to the fact the bunny probably didn't survive knowing that i was bummed about the whole ordeal... such a loving and supportive relationship around here eh? for the next 24 hours i kept checking the nest though i haven't seen any of the little bunnies who had scampered their way from one danger to the next... i mentioned again that i hope the little bunny hopped away and of course the BW laughed and dug the knife in a bit deeper... a tough afternoon for our cream puff here... out of the Champions League and complicit in the possible death of a poor little baby bunny... the world can be a cruel place...  

 

The Wilderness Years - The Perfect Barbarian

 It's been awhile since we last saw our hero so to refresh the memory... when last seen our boy was driving home and singing at that top of his lungs after having orchestrated his release from the warehouse and in doing so obtaining unemployment bennies for the next six months, he then proceeded to head down to his little corner bar for a night of business and celebration... a six month paid vacation courtesy of a dipshit square, a general manager who would never understand or approve of the lifestyle of his former minion though he may have been a bit intrigued by his business acumen... it was a wonderful life... all our hero had to do was keep his shit wired tight, keep his ass out of jail, juggle various women and keep the wheels greased and running smooth... sounds simple enough... of course he would have to do this while partying like a fucking rock star but the truth was he had both practice and experience in this area... 

It was around this time in the history of the King of North Oakland that one could say he had began reach the top of Maslow's pyramid... the old hierarchy of needs... who knew that those old college communication courses would come in handy... having spent countless hours staring at that old colored pyramid and not really giving a shit about it other than to pass an exam or two... i had been well ensconced in the self-esteem phase by this point... i was well respected ranking hood, i was confident in my ability to handle my business, both professional and personal and one could argue that i had become a unique individual according the good Mssr. Maslow... the fact was i was generating enough income to live outside of the system and what i found is that if one had the money a lot of questions seemed to go by the wayside, like renting apartments or dining at swanky restaurants, plunk down some cash and one is greeted with a smile and a nod... but at this point i can say that i was now skipping my way towards the top of that old pyramid and becoming the self-actualized individual old Abe thought we all aspired to be... 

The plan when i had dropped out of grad school was to move back to the Burgh and pick up where i had left off, in the only business i had every truly aspired to be good at, slinging weed... a quick recap in the evolution and education of a weed dealer.... first study the guys doing it, watch what they did right and what they did wrong... Cowboy Dan and Hippie Jack were the two main case studies with Cocaine Mike basically being a study in what not to do... these were my teachers... and so as has been previously documented when Cowboy Dan lost the plot myself and a friend and i discovered a connection and took up the mantle of Podunk U.'s weed suppliers, basically the only game in town, i financed my end by cash advancing a credit card knowing i had to succeed or i'd be even more broke and with no help available as the parents were in the midst of a divorce battle... i quickly managed to pay the card off so that the seed money was now mine and now the profit went straight into my pocket... and being the only game in Podunk profits were good... 

Fast forward... after a summer working at the beach, a month of homelessness and couch surfing, the good Doctor and i scored a place in North Oakland and began working a series of shit jobs... first night stock at the local supermarket chain and then me moving onto the bagel store gig where i could heist food and dollars from the dollar deal special they ran and being between connections that $10-15 extra a day was like fucking gold nuggets... then luck shined again and i lucked into a connection that would front me two pounds at a time and once again the money began to roll right in... i gave some of the proceeds to the good Doctor who stated he didn't want to be involved but had no problem hanging and answering the door and since he was my best friend back then i thought it only fair to give him a cut... the only worry was supply which could be a bit spotty due to the connection having to drive roughly 90 minutes to re-up and the organization that involved... the connection, an old college friend, had lucked into a source provided by his old high school friend whose father had set him up in the business from the state pen... the old man was a coke kingpin back in the day supplying all the rock stars in late 70s and 80s California... there's an old story on the lounge about my friend and i driving that 90 minutes in the Doctor's car through treacherous conditions (basically a snowstorm) with five pounds of weed in the back seat, this being dawn of the Clinton Era where more people went to the can for weed than ever before wiping out with five pounds of gear was not an option, my friend and i didn't want to be cellmates and when we finally were safely back in our hood we both let out a sigh and my friend asked if i was just ignoring all the cars that had spun out and wrecked to which i laughed and replied, "yes!"... 

Things rolled right along until late May when the Source was visited by some nice men with fancy badges who stated they knew what he was up to and should stop or that soon they would have all the proof they needed but decided to give him some friendly advice... needless to say the source closed up shop and kept the money he had made, a wise decision no doubt but one that left me hanging and so with grad school looming i followed a girl back to the beach and worked the rest of the summer there at the Fry Hut making money... then came grad school... 

The ill-fated time in grad school has been well-documented in Raskolnikov's Blues, a year spent even deeper in the "wilderness" where our hero was forced to use all his wit and guile to stay afloat... dropping out second semester after making sure the loans came through so that there would be some cash to live off of... washing dishes off the books at the local coffeehouse... relying on the kindness of various women, namely his girlfriend and the kind cashier at the university dining hall who would let him in for free so he could eat... and of course the old fallback, slinging weed... hindsight being what it is i can now say, unequivocally, that the weed i was selling at this point was the worst i'd ever sell, bought from up an uptight and high strung douche who's prices were basically exorbitant to say the least, had there not been a serious weed drought in Podunk at the time i'd have been fucked, this shit was brown and dry and absolute shit, one knows how shit it is when one is apologizing for it as you take the money which is exactly what i was doing... 

After another (and final) summer at the beach working two jobs and endless hours just to dig myself out of a hole and make sure i had some money for rent i moved back to the Burgh with the sole purpose of selling weed... once again i was forced to go through the uptight dipshit but luck always seemed to find me... sitting in one of my favorite (now gone) boozers i bumped into an old co-worker and her old ex boyfriend who just happened to be an old hippie... yes it was Hippie Jack and after our initial conversation i met him the next day to get a sample of his wares... yes it was much better than what i was getting not to mention a slightly better price, the reality of it was i could confidently sell this for what i was asking without any hassle and so a deal was struck and i began getting half pounds off Hippie Jack... soon it would be a pound and then after a couple months two at a time, usually cash in hand though after he got to know me Jack realized i was good for it and would front me a half or whole pound if i needed it... it was the first X-mas i knew him, a scant three months after meeting, when he stated i was the best thing to happen to him and that i was an ace at moving shit, that he had even gone so far as to tell Mr. Big about me and told me he was going to introduce me... 

Then Hippie Jack discovered rock (introduced me to it as well which was luckily a short lived romance i am thankful to have survived frankly) and shit went south real quick... he was robbed (most likely by Cocaine Mike) and out of the business per Mr. Big... he tried to keep me in the stable but after a shit deal with a couple of junkies, Franny and Ollie, i was in the market for a supplier again... just so happened that Cocaine Mike had replaced Hippie Jack as Mr. Big's new distributor and so i got on board with him for an ill-fated stint which ended up with Cocaine Mike fucking up the money much like Hippie Jack and being out of the game as well... which i can say was honestly a relief, in a business full of fuck-ups and psychos this guy was both... 

These were worrying days for our hero here as he knew he couldn't survive off the slightly more than minimum wage he was making at the party store warehouse and was without a steady supplier... it was at this point that i got connected to Max and Ruby... Max was a rich kid from near Philly who was playing house with Ruby, it was a great connection while it lasted, Max was getting some pretty high end weed along with some middle of the road stuff so i actually had variety for a brief period, throw in the fact that he was also getting mushrooms and i was practically a full service psychedelics outlet... once again the only problem was supply, i was moving shit at a pretty good clip and Max had to rely on his boy driving him the gear every couple of weeks... i did a good job of stretching it when supply ran low, sometimes explaining to people that i had to spread it around so that everyone was happy, luckily stoners are not cokeheads so people were cool about it... and things were running smoothly though i could see the trouble brewing, one on the domestic front with Max and Ruby and two, and more importantly, with the fact Max's boy was a bit of an overly paranoid asshat with apparent anger issues...

One fine evening as i was going to re-up on weed and shrooms, between the time i got off the phone and the ride over Max's boy had called and Max had mistakenly stated that he had eight pounds and not ten, he quickly corrected himself but it was too late as Anger Issues had started screaming and told him he was turning around and coming back cuz Max was trying to fuck him over and blah blah fucking blah... another shining example of motherfuckers lucking into something they can't fucking handle... and so i got there and was told to go back home cuz Anger Issues needed to come back and ream out Max... i left and came back a few hours later but i knew how this story would end, granted it lasted a few more months, Max had went from getting five pounds to getting 10 or 12 cuz as he told his boy he had one guy who moved roughly 85-90% of the weed and about half the mushrooms... in the end it wasn't Anger Issues who nixed the deal but a breakup between Max and Ruby... I paid one last visit to their place, Ruby was already gone, Max was leaving at the end of the month to move back east and wouldn't be getting anymore gear, he did offer me the option of driving and meeting halfway but that was more risk than it was worth... i grabbed close to three pounds to get me through a couple weeks as i looked for an new supplier... 

Interspersed between suppliers there was always Pizza Joe and his cadre of hoodlums who hung out around his bar and pizza shop, when things got desperate and a steady supply chain was shaky at best i'd hit up Pizza Joe who would call his boy and sell me a pound or two of Mexican brick weed... of course it was always "fire" as the kids liked to say but it was always anything but... it was fucking brick weed, granted it was greener than the shit i was peddling in grad school and better quality but compared to what i had usually managed to procure it was most definitely a step down... but it's always better to have gear than be dry and one of my claims to fame was the fact that i was very rarely out of weed and if i was it was only for a day or two until things got worked out... i had a rare talent for finding something and being rather dedicated to my craft people were always telling me about a guy who knows a guy who can get the best shit... 98% of the time it was bullshit but those other 2% were golden... throw in my brief forays of selling the locally grown kind bud with the seeds clandestinely smuggled back from Amsterdam (this is long before the US became the weed capital of the world) and i had always managed to piece things together so that the money would sometimes trickle and sometimes roll right in... 

Which of course brings us to the current day, working with and scheming against Stiv, yes it was nothing more than dumb luck and being good at what i did that led him to my door... if one recalls Stiv was a friend of Gulfboot's girlfriend way back when, he clocked my business when someone said thank you rolling out the door of my apartment and was soon showing up and buying two ounces which he in turn sold to an engineer at exorbitant prices, a customer who would subsequently be turned over to me when Stiv left for his ill-fated trip to the Pac-North... Stiv's old punk rock buddy was hooked into the pipeline and since Stiv was in tough straits after his debacle on the Puget Sound his friend decided to help him out mainly cuz Stiv told him he had a guy in the Burgh who could move shit... and what started as me taking five pounds at a time on the front would soon grow into the one man juggernaut flipping forty pounds every three or four days... or as the saying goes, the rest is history... 

And so there i was.... freshly laid off and on the dole, flipping forty pounds a week minimum with a net of roughly 6-8 grand a week... honestly? what the fuck? working was for suckers and squares... i had set out to pay off my student loans and bank a little money and now i had done a lot more than that... i could have walked into the bank and paid off my loans in cash and still had a safe full of $1000 bundles... i had reached that top of Abe's old pyramid... the old self actualization... having set out to sell weed i was not only selling weed i was living the life... i wasn't selling anything that would kill someone (morality), i had managed to piece things together in any number of ways to keep the money coming in (creativity), i could live and do what i wanted when i wanted (spontaneity), and i was fully accepting and embracing who i was and what i did (acceptance)... i may have been living outside the bounds of society's "norms" but i was living in a fully actualized state of being...  in short i had become what my father and uncle had theorized... i was now the Perfect Barbarian. 

Fathers and Sons vol. 2

 ---- in attempting to start this post, Paco aka Phat Paco aka Pacito, decided it would be a swell time to jump up onto my lap and take a nap... now if one has ever lived with a 20lb cat one would understand the difficulty in typing while said kitty decided to take a nap in one's lap... and as it's been well documented that i am a complete sucker for my cats i had to let him chill for a bit, he curled up into a ball and slept and purred and then his brother Archie came down to see what was up... Archie then walked into another room and since it was obvious to all involved there must be something awesome in that other room Paco immediately jumped down to follow his brother... these two in particular crack me up on a daily basis and it's interesting to see how Archie has brought Paco out of his shell a bit... they're buddies... having stumbled upon a great observation, about how our pets are part of our lives but we are their whole life and that we should not take for granted the time we have with them so i sometimes put off what i was going to do in order to spend more time with them, let them lounge on me, toss the jingle ball or string for them to chase, (Paco is a fetcher and will bring the toy back to have me toss it again) but it's something that i keep in mind when it comes to my cats... and probably something i should keep in mind when it comes to humans it's just that i tend to like cats more than i like most people... ----

We move through days... much of the time caught up in the trivial bullshit that encompasses modern living in a a culture based on consumption... and of course these days there is the ever present shit show known as Dumbfuckistan which could easily eat up most of the waking hours if one let it but there are other posts for that... from the Longest Day (Feb. 13) to the Last Day (May 16) i tend to think a lot about that time seven years ago, going back and forth to Cleveland, cleaning out my dad's apartment, hanging out with him in his assisted living home, i think a lot about the relationship i had with my father, sometimes things dawn on me and it reminds me how much i loved that guy, how much i still miss him and how there are many times when i still talk to the air as if i'm talking to him, maybe it's those little things that in my own mind keep him alive because i thought the world of him, yes i know he was human and yes i know he had his flaws (and he would be the first to tell you that) but dammit if he wasn't one of the most decent and honorable human beings i've ever met, much more so than his wayward son... though i do know Pops was endlessly amused by the shenanigans of his only boy... 

Thinking of Pops inevitably bring me around to my own sons, his grandsons, the boyos, and my ever evolving relationship with the two of them... i understand now (that i'm older) that when you're young your dad (sadly i must add, if he's around and/or involved) is this mountain, this rock, this pillar of stability that offers safety and knowledge and wisdom... not that this necessarily is true in all cases and in fact most times it is not... on one hand this, call it myth for lack of a better word, is perpetrated on men through an outdated and crumbling mindset, most likely rooted in that consumer culture which attempts to make men feel inadequate if they don't have a garage full of tools and landscaping equipment and golf clubs... (for the record i have none of those, yes i have things to take care of the "yard" and this also presupposes that we're all affluent white people living in the tree-lined suburbs, a close study of advertisements of all sorts and one can easily see the narrative being pushed/sold to both men and women), i'd say that a decent number of men would like to lounge around watching the telly or spend time down at the old pub debating any number of things or better yet getting laid (though ads do tend to insinuate that if you have the aforementioned things you'll get laid)... a far cry from the image that's being sold and much closer to what i'd call the truth... (Honest Abe somewhat said the same thing...)

Looking back at my own life i understand why and how i ended up being what the suburban sect would call "weird"... i watched my father do what he thought he was supposed to do only to have it all yanked out from under him... his job downsized out of existence (only after he redesigned the company's whole accounting system), his wife bolting mainly due to that fact... i was 21 when it happened, barely a man, but i saw the crippling effect it had, that pillar was suddenly crumbling and when he looked around what was there? who and what did he have? it was in the great middle management purge in the early to mid 90s, done in order to increase shareholder value, that the suicide rate of men in their 40s and 50s began to skyrocket, why? that was easy... because everything they'd ever known, everything they'd been told they should do, turned out to be a lie... a handshake and a severance check and good luck out there... i worried about my own father and he was the most even keeled guy one could imagine... luckily he had his family,, not his soon to be ex-wife or his daughter who was wrapped up in her own world but his brothers and sister, his mom, and his son... 

One of the things i miss most are the long conversations i had with my father and now, as that strange and wonderful thing called existence is apt to do, it's come around to conversations i have as a father with my sons... the Imac is now starting to take those baby steps into adulthood, going off to university and learning what it's like to live on his own while understanding he still has a safety net... Disaster is still winding his way through high school and it's interesting to watch them both as they are most definitely different in their approaches to things... if i can say i've done anything right in this parenting game it's that i've cultivated a love of knowledge along with a healthy dose of skepticism, instilling that they need to think for themselves and questions things and not blindly accept what  they've been told by would be "authorities", before the Imac went off to college i schooled him in his civil rights as small town cops are one of the worst types of the species especially when it comes to college students... and while the Imac has always been eyeing my bookshelf i've noticed that Disaster is suddenly beginning to eye it up as well, even commenting on the book i was reading the other day (by Noam Chomsky) and stating it looks interesting and asking if he could read it, i told him of course he could and that he could read any book on those shelves... after he walked away i doubt you could have punched the smile off my face... 

But back to that circle of fathers and sons... with the Imac up at school i often laugh when my phone rings and it's the boy on some excited diatribe on the state of things... there are strains of his old man running through his excited rambling and i'll be damned if i don't hear the calm and calculated tones of my father when conversing with him... these days most of our conversations are about politics, the hegemony of white butthurt, the world of futbol or his interest in a certain plant... yes the boy likes his cannabis and while it started when he was in high school (and seriously who doesn't start smoking weed in high school? if one is partial to that sort of thing) he has a genuine interest in the science behind it while still maintaining his status as partying college student... Disaster, on the other hand, is just now coming into his own and talking about all kinds of things with me but his two favorite seem to be space and the universe at large (he just wrote a paper on the Big Bang Theory, the event not the tv show) and posing me philosophical questions, sometimes pulled from social media, to which i often am stumped and tell him i need to think about it which then leads to us talking about it for a bit... to say their weird old father loves this stuff would be and understatement as it's one of my favorite parts of this mortal coil i'm wandering through... 

Which of course brings me round to this mortal coil... if there's one thing i've tried to drive home to the boyos is that someday they will have only each other and they need to look after and out for one another... the BW has a close relationship with her siblings, one in particular she's really close with unlike myself who is pretty much estranged from both my mother and sister, things previously well documented her at the lounge... and it warms their old man's heart when i watch how they make time to hangout with each other when the Imac comes home from school... yes they still have their brotherly battles, that's part of the game growing up but i also see how close they are and it brings me a sense of comfort... there is an interesting dichotomy between the way they process and handle things... the Imac being far more emotional and reactive, he wears his emotions on his sleeve yet still seems to get over or move by things quickly, he has an understanding and self awareness of things even when he's being a right shit and will freely admit, after the fact, that he was a right shit... 

Disaster, is a much more reserved when it comes to things, he does not wear his emotions on his sleeve like his big brother but feels just as deeply if not more so... this trait also reminds him of his old man as his father has often been told, by numerous people including the BW, that i keep things in and yes i worry about my boy being like his old man cuz i do understand the need to let things out... my baby boy is a lot more sensitive than he let's on and there are times when he hangs onto those feelings unlike his big brother who can be screaming at you one minute and pleasant and smiling the next, (often the Imac doesn't understand why the party being berated hasn't moved on in an instant but his mama often tells him, particularly when it's her in the crosshairs, that the other party is allowed to have feelings as well and might not get over it as fast)... these days i have a pretty good read on when Disaster is pissed or upset and also unlike his brother who tends to talk his way through it Disaster is more like his old man, he processes and eventually moves on but doesn't say much... they are each their own person and damn if their old man doesn't love them both even when he's frustrated with them though i laugh thinking about what Pops must have thought dealing with his kid... 

Which brings me to the words... when i talk about someday they'll have to look out for each other it's interesting to see how they handle it, meaning their father will be gone... i remember how they both talked to their mom about the day my father passed and the Imac stating he was surprised by how well i handled it... granted i had time to prepare, i knew it was coming and i knew it would be sooner than later... when i speak to the boyos about my impending exit there's a marked difference to how they respond... the Imac is very pragmatic, he understands when i discuss how that's the natural order of things and that's how it hopefully shakes out... when i speak of death being a part of life and that there's nothing to fear about the former he takes it all in and understands what i'm getting at... 

Disaster, on the other hand, handles it a bit differently, granted i know he's young, at 15 you don't want to think about that sorta shit and it's a bit frightening when you do... recently i was talking about things as his other grandfather probably doesn't have much time left, the man is scared shitless of his demise and one of the main reasons is he wasted most of his life being a horrible shitbag... i was talking about if you live a decent life, love the people you care about unconditionally, find things that interest you to study and learn, use the mind and body to the fullest and enjoy the ride you won't have that fear... i explained i didn't fear it and wasn't all that worried about it when it happens and it was at that point that Disaster turned and looked at me and said, i don't like when you talk like that... and it was one of those moments... sometimes people don't realize how much someone loves them until it hits them square in the face... i could see the look on my son's face, he's always been his father's son, i raised him when he was a little dude, his brother at school and his mom at work it was me and him, in that moment i realized how much the kid loved his old man and the thought of him not being around was horrible to him (and something i could fully relate to)... it also struck me that though one never knows when the number is up that i needed to watch how and when i talked about it to him, how hopefully i'll have the time to talk about it later on down the line but even then i know he'll be uncomfortable with the conversation... but it'll be okay... i also understand just how much the kid loves his dad... and he understands how much his dad loves him... both the boyos do... 

And so i move through these days doing the best i can to help develop and raise decent human beings... ultimately i know it's up to them and they can be whoever and whatever they want to be but i also realize that they've grown up around people who are empathetic, compassionate, kind, interested in the world around them, thoughtful, skeptical, critical thinkers, who enjoy a good laugh (and a good time) and i know that they've developed these traits on their own as well, yeah one could argue the nurture vs. nature thing and how they've been raised but i tend to believe that we all have to make our own way and our own decisions and take responsibility for that... looking at the boyos i know they are on their way to being decent human beings... yes they have their flaws, like both their father and grandfather, but i'd tell them Pops would like who they've become and to keep up the good work... their weird and once wild man father would tell them the same thing... 

Lumpen Prole of Suburbia - vol. 2

 There is that famous quote, attributed to Sinclair Lewis though it's never been proven that he said the exact words, that when fascism comes to America it would be wrapped in a flag and carrying a bible... and while when looking at the current state of things and what's happened over the last few decades one could easily agree with that statement i might add that when fascism comes to America most of the population will be asleep or distracted by their phones... one might also add they may not be able to read above a 6th grade level or think critically and will believe a media that has now been gobbled up by conglomerates that will use those entities to advance their own agenda under the guise of reporting the "news"... and i'm not just talking about the propaganda channel known as Faux or it's fledgling competitors with catchy names like America Rules Yeah! (though i do find it interesting in the age of apps how there are now some independent tools being developed to help people cut through the bullshit, informing the reader of who owns the news source, what bias they show, things of that ilk... of course one would have to be civically engaged to use such a thing and when the biggest portion of the voting block are the apathetic non-voters one could question how valuable a tool like this would be, mainly because you need people to pay attention and as we know if it's not broken down into easily digestible one or two minute blocks that's a stretch...) 

Over half the adult population in Dumbfuckistan reads at or below a 6th grade level, the average level for the entire country is 7-8th grade level... easily the biggest myth in America today is that of American Exceptionalism though if one went to the gym where i swim one would find many of the red hat set bleating on and on about how fucking awesome we are, of course ask them why and one will likely be met with a blank stare, then be called a "communist or a faggot" while never actually receiving an answer to the question... basically what the red hat is inferring is if one doesn't know why "we're great" said individual falls into one or both of those groups cuz like uh because... currently one of the biggest threats we face as a nation is that of the Dunning Kruger, the level and lack of self-awareness, critical thinking skills, civil discourse, is at an all-time low, precipitated by the largest and loudest of the DK crowd, the man who knows everything until a shit show (see scandal) starts then apparently knows nothing, the Orange Shitgibbon... when one thinks about a guy standing at a podium and exclaiming, i love stupid people, while the crowd cheers that statement it's not a big stretch to think that one is an extra in the movie Idiocracy... 

In Erich Fromm's book Escape from Freedom he talks about the fact that freedom is hard, it requires a level of intellectual and civic engagement, he then states the reason so many will give it up knowingly while pretending to still have it is for that very reason, the reason they'll submit to an authoritarian is because deep down they need a daddy to tell them what to do, who to hate, how to think and to reinforce their worst forms of racism, sexism, bigotry et al... the red hats have fallen hook, line and sinker for this shit and it poses a very real quandary to those of us sitting in the middle and living in it... toss in the fact that those corporate masters, the oligarchs and plutocrats who donated millions upon millions to buy the legislative branch and certain segments of the judiciary are only concerned with maximizing profit at the expense of the lumpen proles and the environment... more aptly put they can't see the forest through the trees... but what they really want and have successfully done is to create a society where the vast majority, the super-majority, are nothing more than indentured servants, strung out on the guise of capitalism that is telling them how they need to "grind" to get ahead while the masters know full well the minions will never get ahead, they use the tactics of distract and divide to keep the proles fighting with each other instead of clamoring at the gates of the castle... this vision the masters broadcast to the minions is called the American Dream and it's a ruse, a mirage, sold to the suckers who believe a large flat screen television and the newest smartphone are the signs of success...

Of course now we have a small cabal of oligarchs, most of whom inherited their wealth, working behind the scenes in hopes of envisioning their dreams of the techno-state... dividing up the country and world into kingdoms where the population would be beholden to the masters, much like the company towns of yesteryear these "visionaries" want to literally take us back to the bad old days where one worked for the company, lived in the company house, shopped at the company stores and basically was forced to accept what the company gave them in working conditions and compensation... the choice was to fall in line or see one's family and themselves ostracized and starving in the hinterlands, the game also involved inflated prices of goods and living quarters in order to keep the lumpen proles indebted to their masters... call it slavery and with today's technology once booted from one techno-state one would be proper fucked if they revolted as the name and ID number would be disseminated to all the other techo-masters to make sure the other slaves didn't get any funny ideas about doing the same thing... any organized uprising would be of course violently put down by the private security forces of the ruler... something that is not unheard of in the history of this country... (i can easily drive to the site of the Homestead Strike, one of many examples of violence in this country perpetrated upon workers when demanding better wages and working conditions...) 

The fact is we are currently living through a coup, where a would be king and his cabal of white nationalists issues edicts without worrying about that pesky legislative branch and if those edicts are challenged, the king and his minions begin issuing calls to, more or less, eliminate the judiciary... remember why the Shitgibbon loves the stupid? they clap and cheer and buy more shit merchandise as their country slides into a dictatorship... having no understanding of history, having no ability to critically think about the situation and what they are willingly giving up they fail to understand that they too at some point will be told to take a knee to the ruler and the ruling class, some who thought this would be a great thing have found out rather swiftly that losing their job, their health care, the programs for their kids isn't all it was built up to be while simultaneously whining that they didn't think it would happen to "them", it was supposed to be for those "others", you know the  ones who don't look like "them" and don't speak the language, who might not tote around a crucifix and what not... they clutch their faux Wal-mart pearls and cry into their social media posts... there is no use being in the "i told you so crowd", what needs to happen now is to get those people to understand what they need to do... if that's even possible... as Carl Sagan so aptly pointed out, those who have been bamboozled do not like to admit they've been so, they'd rather go along with the lie then admit they were suckers... 

Which then brings us to the other interesting bit about the new #1 shithole country... there is no opposition party to the current regime... at least not one with any sort of backbone or as the football coaches say, intestinal fortitude, why? as always follow the money... it wasn't that long ago that the White Grievance Party (gop) looked to be on it's way to the morgue but these days that would be the blue boys who seem to have gotten kicked so hard in their blue balls that they've decided the best course of action is to do nothing... or damn near next to nothing, they'll pretend they have a plan but except for a handful of actual voices calling out the bullshit they may as well be called the Wet Noodle Party aka limp dicks... they've basically been bullied to the side because they don't want to admit the other side doesn't give a flying fuck about the rules only ruling which renders their methods impotent... 

It has been a contention of mine, since the time i discovered the book, Lies My Teacher Told Me (way back in the early 90s), that the education system may not be as altruistic as it was once made out to be... this is not a knock on the teachers, not at all, the fact is there are a lot of great educators out there trying to teach things like critical thinking, reading, writing, to use the mind... granted they are often hamstrung by rules and regulations and a reliance on test scores and i understand that and yes it was much better than what we are facing now which is a total dismantling of public education which does nothing more than create a bigger wealth gap in our society, i was also lucky enough to be raised by a father who taught me to be a skeptic, to question the hegemony because believe it or not sometimes they lie to you... which led me to sit in the library and read books, books outside of my course work, to continue reading books even after my formal schooling was done because number one, the mind is a muscle and needs to be used and two for all those reasons mentioned above... i wanted to know what's going on and how bad i'm being fucked over... George Carlin does a great bit on that and mainly, as i've told the boyos and others in my years on the planet, all one needs for an education is a library card, i've learned far more in my own "studies" than i ever did in formal schooling but the system is set up so one has to play the game, there is great stock put in those little pieces of paper (not to mention great expense which creates debt which of course the bankers love)... 

Currently there is an all out assault on critical thinking, on learning, because it apparently makes one "woke", whatever the fuck that is... or to once again cite Orwell and Huxley, they who control the language controls the game, hence why the current regime is banning books and words and doing it's best to disseminate disinformation, a lesson learned from their Russian daddy, controlling the flow of information helps consolidate and solidify power... hence the frustration with the Blue Donkey party who don't seem to be able to message a fucking birthday party without shitting the bed... 

Which brings me to another point about this two party system we live under, yes there are some smaller, what i'd call fringe parties, but the fact is there are two parties which are beholden to the same masters, one just feels the need to completely satisfy those masters (of whom they are usually one of... masters=donors) while the other tries to throw some scraps to the citizenry while keeping the masters somewhat happy... problem is these days the masters seem to want it all, though it does seem there may be a bit of a divide on that issue... but the fact is, as pointed out by Prof. Chomsky, the new #1 shithole country is the only modern western democracy that doesn't have a labor party... and no the Blue Donkey doesn't quality, they are far more friendly to labor than the White Grievance Party but what the professor was speaking of was one by and for the workers, yes the red hats would read something like that and start screaming socialist! communist! while not grasping the concept at all... the concept being that a political party rooted in labor would look out and legislate for the working class, of whom many of us belong to and has nothing to do with the color of the collar (see white and blue), it would not work for those controlling the means of production and their trickle down theory whose main goal is to increase profits at any cost and therefore increase shareholder value and funnel the money upwards (funny how the terms funnel upwards and trickle down are complete opposites yet interchangeable in pol-speak) ... and of course the main shareholders just happen to be those sitting on the top of this pyramid scheme doing the least amount of labor while reaping the maximum benefit... 

So what's needed? well the easy answer is more choices in political parties which would mean the children (hopefully an offshoot of this would be electing adults but that's still be a big if) would have to work together to get things done, this forgotten word called compromise which was demonized by an earlier iteration of the White Grievance Party... the best way would be to have a viable and potent third party, a party rooted in labor, that would gum up the works of our current sorta two party system... of course if one wanted to see those two parties work together it would be on this issue right here, they would frame it differently, the Blue Donkey's current leadership would speak of unity, sticking together, all while sitting on their hands and doing their big donors bidding, while the WGP would scream socialists, which happens to be one of their favorite words... granted it will take the gutting of a certain Citizens United ruling which is where the decline of any semblance of democracy started in this country, when the robed ones declared corporations as people and opened the spigots of cash meaning the 1% had finally bought themselves a country... 

And so to quote David Bowie... where are we know? well we've come to the point where we must heed the words of the late John Lewis and be "good trouble", it means using words as protest, it means actually get out of the house and protesting, it means brushing up on the laws (though soon it may not matter as the WGP decides who those actually apply to which would come at their discretion- see storm guvment building, shit on floor, deface property, wave confederate flag- perfectly fine... peacefully protest under the 1st Amendment not so much)  so one knows what the authorities can and cannot get away with... it means civil disobedience... it means if this site suddenly goes dark, my dear handful of readers, that the author might be sitting in a cell... the academics who study this have stated it takes roughly 3.5% of the population to peacefully protest, the key word being peacefully, to swing the tide and topple authoritarian regimes, not that it's any comfort that people like Timothy Snyder and Jason Stanley have taken positions in Toronto because they know what's happening and yet while some of us will sound the alarms there is still a good portion of those who will sleep right through it... we need some of them to wake up, sadly many won't until the shit show shows up at their front door... by then it might be too late... but sitting on one's hand is not an option anymore... 

The Mushroom Diaries - vol. 30 pt. 3

To paraphrase what Fred the Jerry once said, without music life would be a mistake... i completely and wholeheartedly agree with this statement, i know that music is such and important and meaningful part of my life that i really don't know what i would do without it... and as i've grown older my musical tastes have broadened, i no longer am squarely ensconced in that indie rock bubble that i once lived in, no i haven't given it up, not by a long shot it's just these days there are a lot more genres tossed in there which gives me a greater appreciation for all of them... 

There are certain songs that will stop me in my tracks, that will get me to stop what i'm doing, to sit down and just listen... how often these days in the world of non-stop news feeds and electronic bombardment do we actually just stop, close our eyes or stare off into space, and just listen, let the mind take it all in, let it wander where it wants, the daydreams and memories that a particular song will invoke, it's one of the most beautiful things a human can experience... (hell i know even animals sometimes latch on to a piece of music, my old cat Pablo (1994-2007) was extremely fond of the Grandaddy song So You'll Aim Toward the Sky... and for the record i am too...) 

Which of course brings me back to a certain song from the show, Screamland, the highlight, one may have wondered (though probably not) why i didn't post it with the last bits of the Mushroom Diaries? well that would be because it was deserving enough of it's own post... if there is one thing i love about music it's the way each song can be intensely personal and yet universal... each and every one of us will get something different out of it while still being able to share that song and enjoy it with whoever... call it the Wedding Song Theory, or why people pick a particular song, of course some pick the same fucking Eric Clapton song which can only be attributed to a lack of creativity or thought (granted one could really love that song but it's a bit of a cliche at this point), oddly enough the one played on that day many years ago at my little ceremony was called Hope by the Dirty Three... Everything's Fucked by said band would have been a better choice (and also one of the songs that will stop me cold)...

Certain questions will tell me a lot about a musician and one of those questions is when they are asked about the lyrics... i can tell right off how invested and seriously they take it by the response... when i hear said musician explain ad nauseum what the lyrics mean and how they came about i know right off they are missing the point, maybe they're young and don't understand the question but it often points to not understanding art... most of the artists i love and admire the most, from writers to painters to musicians, won't answer the question, they'll explain they know what it means to them, without ever really saying what it does, and then proceed to talk about how they'd rather have the listener, reader, viewer interpret it themselves, to apply their own meaning for their own lives... and maybe that's just a school of thought but i happen to believe it's the correct one because regardless of what the creator might say the meaning will always lie within our own individual interpretation of those works... 

Which brings me to Screamland... there is not a line in the song, from the verses to the chorus that does not resonate with me in some way, that does not invoke a memory or feeling that relates to my existence, and yes that's the beauty of music, how it relates to us personally (and as stated universally)... for those of us who haven't become completely numbed to ourselves by this modern living, who haven't become completely anesthetized to the world around us, who can look up from our phones and technological gadgets and appreciate what we have, what we seem to be trying to throw away, for those of us who still exist with empathy and compassion, who believe strength is in kindness and not hatred and bigotry, who can still appreciate the beauty of art, who move through the world daydreaming and believe the simplest acts of kindness and decency can help create a better world, who are soundtracking that movie in their head so they can feel, dream, cope with a species seemingly hellbent on it's own decline and demise, these bits of art and music that we can relate to are the sustenance and nourishment for our soul, it's what reminds us what matters and what we stand to lose if we don't pay attention, if we forget to cultivate and care for our humanity... and to me, this song, conjures all those things... 

And while i could sit here and elucidate on the meaning of this song that would quite obviously contradict everything i have just written... so i won't... i will say that hearing this song live in a heightened state of awareness and empathy (mushrooms have been proven to elicit and improve feelings of empathy and kindness to the world around us, to connect us more to the natural world and dare i say awaken us to what we are part of and will someday return to egoless and formless), in a room full of other humans, many of whom, like myself, were transfixed by what was happening, it was what one might call a transcendental moment, those brief glimpses of existence where the facade falls away and one understands and physically feels the beauty of it all... 

Love must find a way/ love must find a way/ after every desperate measure/ just a miracle will take...