every once and again i get nostalgic, and usually it's a zeitgeist that sets in and won't let go. it's a good one. about 20 yrs ago, during college, i got my ham radio license. as an engineer and lifetime signal junkie the technical aspects are a natural draw, but i also thought it would provide a way to be social for once.
first rig was a military surplus deal that, well, was more of a toy than an means to an end. it could pick up nearby cordless phones, the highway patrol dispatch, state prison guard HQ and once a couple of kids running around with walkie talkies. only contact was with a historic aircraft, fittingly.
but the summer after getting my license i broke down and got a handie-talkie that covers the much more popular "two-meter" (VHF) band, and before long i had an antenna up and made my first contact.
it didn't take long to figure out who's who. most of the regulars are friendly, some a bit overbearing but all well-meaning. as in real life the best conversations are off the beaten path, such as the older dudes in the next county that let me join in, or the whiz kid up north who has the top class license already.
still, the introvert in me can spend hours just listening. radio has a magic like nothing else, and sooner or later other towns drift in, especially in the warmer months, and distant civilizations are as close as the desk. and even though all the regional hubs had busy repeaters, none seemed to glow in the night like detroit.
easily the biggest metro within "drift" range, the scene was always alive, something i got to confirm about 10 yrs later when i lived up that way. one machine in particular would bleed into one of my scan channels for a nearby repeater, and more often than not i'd listen. besides, with only five watts back then i had little choice.
some nights the 147.140 frequency sounded like a professional call in show. one an off-duty police officer was fielding questions and had to push back one about a particular case that wasn't appropriate for amateur radio. then later on this gal with a smooth, heavenly voice had an "insomniacs net", and i was intrigued when she mentioned she has grandkids.
eventually i upgraded my license and explored a lower frequency band that, like CB, skips about the hemisphere every 500 miles or so when it wants to. there was still a morse code test back then and so for the first year the mic stayed in a drawer. eventually i made a few contacts and still have the cards, but again, it can be fun to just listen, especially on those nights when the band stays awake longer than i do.
so now i have full privileges and a decent radio setup, have talked to several continents over the years...
so why the nostalgia? got to thinking how in the college years we strive for something bigger than what we have and we don't know what we don't know. and for a radio geek, well, studying sometimes has to wait.
it's blissful quixotism.
and maybe...as it's often tempting to take life too seriously, i need some of that now more than ever.
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Thursday, May 9, 2013
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
more things i needed to know 25 years ago
Pain is only temporary.
Learn what intuition means.
There's a reason why Led Zeppelin got you through the fall of your freshman year.
Everything takes practice.
Idealism is a young man's game.
Emotions matter.
There are as many things to cherish as there are things to take for granted.
There is always hope.
If you can stop and laugh at stupid shit you're doing OK.
Women enjoy sex a LOT more than they let on.
Learn what intuition means.
There's a reason why Led Zeppelin got you through the fall of your freshman year.
Everything takes practice.
Idealism is a young man's game.
Emotions matter.
There are as many things to cherish as there are things to take for granted.
There is always hope.
If you can stop and laugh at stupid shit you're doing OK.
Women enjoy sex a LOT more than they let on.
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
things i needed to know 25 years ago
If you can't look into someone's eyes, or vice versa, find out why.
People usually mean well even when their words don't have the intended effect.
There's
a man in every boy,
a woman in every girl,
a boy in every man,
a girl in every woman,
and everything in between,
just as sure
as love and hate
are two sides of a coin.
If you fear, you won't.
Some things you still won't understand 25 years from now.
A lady won't expect you to know everything but she'll teach you well if you get next to her. Often. And pay attention.
Basketball is cool.
Don't do stupid things.
People usually mean well even when their words don't have the intended effect.
There's
a man in every boy,
a woman in every girl,
a boy in every man,
a girl in every woman,
and everything in between,
just as sure
as love and hate
are two sides of a coin.
If you fear, you won't.
Some things you still won't understand 25 years from now.
A lady won't expect you to know everything but she'll teach you well if you get next to her. Often. And pay attention.
Basketball is cool.
Don't do stupid things.
Thursday, December 27, 2012
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
mikeyism
Newsweek and Time herald it as "definitely something", this whatever it is, this, non-creedal boon of a tidy mind and quiet soul, available in convenient sizes, now without prescription, the very progenitor, an anti-hero most peculiar, the sheer, quivering membrane barring pseudo-intellectual from idiot savant, a Mickey's grenade with the pin pulled, hisses but never pops, all the while despised by some and disgusted by others, an equal opportunity offender, comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable, to Machiavelli, some ask, could it be, suggestion, or sedition, who knows, it sure is fun while it lasts! O the thinkers, rulers, esteemed heads of state, how they all plead his audience, but yea, he will have none of it. Why? Because. Because why? Because, he finds no delight WHATSOEVER in those who entertain the musings of a Midwestern rube.
Friday, August 17, 2012
Afternoons with Doctor Dave
January 26, 1970
“We can expect snow to continue throughout the evening until way past your bedtime, but fear not, someone will be here to keep you company, in fact, we’re always here at WEXL Detroit.”
The view along Straub Boulevard is nothing spectacular but it’s easy, especially with snow trickling into soft glowing funnels beneath the street lights.
“In fact, I’ll be with you for another hour. In case we haven’t met I’m Dave, Dr. Dave Inman. The science freaks in the Channel Five weather room have advised us that snow showers will be heavy at times during the overnight hours, so you third-shifters and other nocturnals be the wiser. Overnight low is 23 and expect the flakes to back off around mid-morning tomorrow with about four inches to show for it. We may reach the freezing mark in late afternoon but 30 is a safe bet depending upon cloud cover. Winds are expected to be fairly calm until the front moves through then picking up, could cause some localized drifting in outlying areas. Well it may not be windy here yet but after a slew of important messages we’ll head to the windy city, got the brand new Chicago - that’s it, they’re just Chicago now, ready to roll, after these.”
Dave keeps both eyes out the window as he fades the mic and cues the ads, only looking away to take a hit off his chicory. Such serenity in the midst of this mad gone town. Chicory is not so warm anymore, maybe he should hire a maid, fat chance, all jocks work alone in this gig. FM is self-sustaining, so the suits say, only AM gets an engineer, besides, don’t you hippy types dig freedom wink-wink?
“Now in stores everywhere, pick yours up, tell ‘em the Doctor prescribes it exclusively on FM 98, here’s your first dose, we’re doin’ side three boys and girls, only on WEXL.”
As the organ grinds he tries to justify the dilemma, having really wanted to highlight “25 or 6 to 4” in the middle of that side but the view out the window is just too damn peaceful for making things complicated. Besides people seem to dig what we do here, ratings are usually single-digits since we went progressive, as we say, so the suits are happy and so we don’t rock the boat, just the town. Man what a trip, here it’s pretty much like college radio except with a paycheck. No more stuffing plump housewives’ feet into shoes at the mall for beer money.
The needle makes its way to the inside gutter and he pulls the mic into place, “That was the very latest from Chicago, now without the Transit Authority, they got told people, read your paper, while you’re reaching for it here’s even more news: Mick, yes, that Mick, was levied a fine by UK authorities today for possession of cannabis. People, take it from a Doctor, for it is written, the Eleventh Commandment, hear my words, sayeth, don’t get caught. Well since we’re already across the pond for a free lecture here’s Pink Floyd on WEXL.”
Doctor Dave does afternoons, 2-6, and gets a discretionary weekend slot which amounts to a theme show on Saturday mornings. Listeners write in (our phone doesn’t work, you illiterate slobs) suggested themes and tracks and they’re drawn on Friday afternoon by a different guest, usually an on-air personality, even from the TV station, although a couple times he got to have a performer stop by for the honor. He tries to keep it mostly music but sharing the right kinda chutzpah with a local legend can go places you’d never dream.
He finishes out the night with Janis and then some southern group the boss asked him to do something with. It was bluesy but not elegant, not at all, but maybe we’ve been spoiled by Duane and Greg. Yeah, that’s it.
The new evening dude goes by Buzz Eldridge and it’s too hard to keep straight from that moon astronaut.
"What's the buzz, Buzz, hows them streets?"
“Uhh, don’t remember. How’d I get here?”
“I would imagine that you slid out of your mother’s hoochamawatcha.”
“And it was slippery as hell too. Be careful driving in that shit.”
“Hey man, this is the Motor City, which is precisely why I take a bus.”
“Dig.”
Tall and lurching with dark hair down to his collar and a week’s beard, Dave strolls up Straub and takes a right for a few blocks, mindlessly taking in the gentle snow amidst a surprisingly un-busy downtown grid. No use waiting for the bus, almost there, and eventually he reaches a third floor flat with an unlocked door. He watches the news and half a game show and then gets up to peek out the window for a fleeting moment, he smells supper cooking in a nearby unit, and the couple upstairs is having a heated discussion about the toothpaste. Eventually he wanders into the kitchen to fetch a Michelob and a sandwich, only to realize that this is most definitely not his apartment.
Sunday, May 6, 2012
The Plight of Mann
Mann sat on a huge granite boulder near the shoreline, anxiously perplexed as he pondered his future. Sure he had built great cities, helped them find sustainable means of nourishment and even saved entire civilizations from catastrophe at times. But just as there had come a point where he was starting to need something...more...is when she first appeared.
Having been consumed with various efforts of her own nearly halfway around the world, Hella had finally made it into Mann's eyesight one day when, once her own people were at peace she became curious what was beyond the horizon and started swimming. She is simply incredible, bronzed by the sun from years of hard toiling yet fair as ten thousand virgins. He knew right away that he would never look at life the same way again, for he daughters of mortals were simply too fragile. He would hurt them.
But Hella, her presence, how it threatened to change the game. They had exchanged yet a few awkward phrases, seeming to point out the obvious, yet they could hardly look each other in the eye. Oh how she made him ache.
Time passed and he saw her not, until one day the people cried out for help, and out of nowhere she appeared and lent a hand, just when all hope was about lost, their efforts multiplied way beyond what each could do alone.
As they walked by the shoreline sharing their amazement at this she took his hand and confessed, of her longings that kept her from resting. And so Mann and Hella became one, and the people rejoiced! After a time, they had a son.
They named him: Ache.
Having been consumed with various efforts of her own nearly halfway around the world, Hella had finally made it into Mann's eyesight one day when, once her own people were at peace she became curious what was beyond the horizon and started swimming. She is simply incredible, bronzed by the sun from years of hard toiling yet fair as ten thousand virgins. He knew right away that he would never look at life the same way again, for he daughters of mortals were simply too fragile. He would hurt them.
But Hella, her presence, how it threatened to change the game. They had exchanged yet a few awkward phrases, seeming to point out the obvious, yet they could hardly look each other in the eye. Oh how she made him ache.
Time passed and he saw her not, until one day the people cried out for help, and out of nowhere she appeared and lent a hand, just when all hope was about lost, their efforts multiplied way beyond what each could do alone.
As they walked by the shoreline sharing their amazement at this she took his hand and confessed, of her longings that kept her from resting. And so Mann and Hella became one, and the people rejoiced! After a time, they had a son.
They named him: Ache.
Sunday, April 8, 2012
love, beauty and sacrament
sunrise
over misty tree-covered hills
a lone slide guitar
played on the porch
stories and laughter
binding generations
last year’s shucked beans
taters and ham
horseshoes in the yard
home sweet home
nearer my god to thee
this land
is my land
Saturday, March 3, 2012
sadder day
there’s no sadder day
than a saturday
just don’t know what
i’m gonna do with myself
‘specially when i can’t get hold of you
traffic on these city streets
pounds though my veins
never lets me rest
even as i sleep
takes me to a place inside
myself i’ve never been
from drivin way too long without the lights on
Saturday, February 25, 2012
home
I've often said that I've been blessed beyond measure to be born late and still have both parents around for this long. As a newcomer into our family dynamic, with siblings in their teens, I was half a generation behind. It was the era of Nixon's Law and Order, where many Americans approaching their middle years felt out of touch with changing society. Before I started school my folks felt it best to move out into the country where it seems safer, more serene. I moved out at age 25 and then briefly again at 39 to get re-established in Ohio, but they are still there.
It's true, you can never (literally) go "back home" as it's a place that exists within. But for many years I could visit the surroundings and my folks, not perfect, just wonderful. At times I would have moments of acceptance as they age, that someday things would change, whatever that meant.
Just as I was returning from out of state things seemed to be happening rapidly. Dad seemed to be increasingly off-kilter in his decisions and behavior. Mom was understandably aggravated. For my part the anger hit first, and at one moment I actually shouted at him. We needed answers, so we took him to doctors over the winter and confirmed our suspicions. Alzheimer's.
This was a year ago, about the time I had a job offer at an office over an hour away. Mom said "you need to do this, we'll be just fine" and I knew she was right. Still, since then I don't think I've been able to spend more than 24 hours at a time in my hometown.
Last summer I finally had the means to digitize Dad's old home movies and videos. The former covered mainly the stuff I missed, the home I was born into but without really knowing first-hand. The latter began when I was in high school and continued for about ten years.
With the videos, it's easy at first to dismiss the seemingly endless footage of the yard, garden, flowers, and whatever else catches his eye, especially once he retired, since the stuff we tend to watch together are holidays and cookouts and such. But then, as I kept fumbling with the technology I noticed more of the "B" footage, and some of it, says more than I would have imagined.
Dad somehow captured the serenity, the essence, of what I knew as home. We were fortunate, the bills were paid, the pension was coming in and after retirement he got to spend his days doing "garage" projects in the winter and gardening in the warm months, things were so green and lush back then. When the fancy struck he would pick up the camcorder and wander about the yard, narrating at times, but not always. Sometimes you see a snow storm through the windows and can hear the goings on inside the house.
In a way, maybe it's a window into the soul of a man who's hard to read. But having been away a few years and realizing his strength was fading, it's hard to know what to think of that. These scenes are something I'll need to go back to for the rest of my life. It's a window to a special place, a place to which I never can return, but alas, I get to visit at times, precious times, the places, sounds and sights that made me and shaped me.
My earliest memories include weekend afternoon drives with Dad. I still love taking drives in the winter when daylight is scarce. Sometime during my kindergarten year I had a dream of one of those drives. We saw the gas fires at the refinery, maybe sit a few minutes watching planes at the airfield, places of wonder in a world that seemed enormous at the time. I would ask what things were and he would explain in a few words. There didn't need to be many words. Sometimes we'd go to the mall and Arby's. We explored the world around us. That was just right.
But in the dream, my minds eye floated out of the car and I was somehow watching it on a home movie screen, and suddenly an evening sunset cast shadows of our heads onto a colorless floor. Something within my tiny soul ached and I tried to reach for the shadows before they disappeared. But instead, I awoke.
Home is not a memory. It really is a place, more than just a zeitgeist, it lives as a coral reef, and life-enabling to the creatures that rely upon it.
So now, my concept of home is changing, younger generations taking on new roles, but with new rewards, let's not forget. We are an amazing group, full of vitality and laughter. But when we lose someone, or maybe just part of someone, honoring their life and contribution to yours and others is not a mental exercise, but it takes some realizations. Sometimes tough love, sometimes hard decisions, but other times...just looking for the love that's always been there.
Before I came back last month for Mom's birthday I got a call from Dad. He can't drive any more so he asked if I'd pick out a card saying such and such, so I did that on the way. The strength is gone but the things that matter most still are.
Honoring Dad comes down to living by his example. Do what you love, love what you do, help those who need it, and take time to rest, and wherever you are, enjoy the scenery.
This year will be replete with cookouts, laughs and times. But I just thought, it might be good to mix in an afternoon drive here and there, even, if there are only a few words.
It's true, you can never (literally) go "back home" as it's a place that exists within. But for many years I could visit the surroundings and my folks, not perfect, just wonderful. At times I would have moments of acceptance as they age, that someday things would change, whatever that meant.
Just as I was returning from out of state things seemed to be happening rapidly. Dad seemed to be increasingly off-kilter in his decisions and behavior. Mom was understandably aggravated. For my part the anger hit first, and at one moment I actually shouted at him. We needed answers, so we took him to doctors over the winter and confirmed our suspicions. Alzheimer's.
This was a year ago, about the time I had a job offer at an office over an hour away. Mom said "you need to do this, we'll be just fine" and I knew she was right. Still, since then I don't think I've been able to spend more than 24 hours at a time in my hometown.
Last summer I finally had the means to digitize Dad's old home movies and videos. The former covered mainly the stuff I missed, the home I was born into but without really knowing first-hand. The latter began when I was in high school and continued for about ten years.
With the videos, it's easy at first to dismiss the seemingly endless footage of the yard, garden, flowers, and whatever else catches his eye, especially once he retired, since the stuff we tend to watch together are holidays and cookouts and such. But then, as I kept fumbling with the technology I noticed more of the "B" footage, and some of it, says more than I would have imagined.
Dad somehow captured the serenity, the essence, of what I knew as home. We were fortunate, the bills were paid, the pension was coming in and after retirement he got to spend his days doing "garage" projects in the winter and gardening in the warm months, things were so green and lush back then. When the fancy struck he would pick up the camcorder and wander about the yard, narrating at times, but not always. Sometimes you see a snow storm through the windows and can hear the goings on inside the house.
In a way, maybe it's a window into the soul of a man who's hard to read. But having been away a few years and realizing his strength was fading, it's hard to know what to think of that. These scenes are something I'll need to go back to for the rest of my life. It's a window to a special place, a place to which I never can return, but alas, I get to visit at times, precious times, the places, sounds and sights that made me and shaped me.
My earliest memories include weekend afternoon drives with Dad. I still love taking drives in the winter when daylight is scarce. Sometime during my kindergarten year I had a dream of one of those drives. We saw the gas fires at the refinery, maybe sit a few minutes watching planes at the airfield, places of wonder in a world that seemed enormous at the time. I would ask what things were and he would explain in a few words. There didn't need to be many words. Sometimes we'd go to the mall and Arby's. We explored the world around us. That was just right.
But in the dream, my minds eye floated out of the car and I was somehow watching it on a home movie screen, and suddenly an evening sunset cast shadows of our heads onto a colorless floor. Something within my tiny soul ached and I tried to reach for the shadows before they disappeared. But instead, I awoke.
Home is not a memory. It really is a place, more than just a zeitgeist, it lives as a coral reef, and life-enabling to the creatures that rely upon it.
So now, my concept of home is changing, younger generations taking on new roles, but with new rewards, let's not forget. We are an amazing group, full of vitality and laughter. But when we lose someone, or maybe just part of someone, honoring their life and contribution to yours and others is not a mental exercise, but it takes some realizations. Sometimes tough love, sometimes hard decisions, but other times...just looking for the love that's always been there.
Before I came back last month for Mom's birthday I got a call from Dad. He can't drive any more so he asked if I'd pick out a card saying such and such, so I did that on the way. The strength is gone but the things that matter most still are.
Honoring Dad comes down to living by his example. Do what you love, love what you do, help those who need it, and take time to rest, and wherever you are, enjoy the scenery.
This year will be replete with cookouts, laughs and times. But I just thought, it might be good to mix in an afternoon drive here and there, even, if there are only a few words.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
beans
The autumn of 2009 was warm and gradual in southtown Kansas City. I rented a small house in a nice neighbourhood and got to spend most evenings propped up with pillows with a laptop running Linux, trying to solve a problem no one asked me to. I was supporting a small online bookseller that relied upon custom-built software to generate prices, and so one day I realise it could work so much efficiently in Java.
So, I started porting it from VB to Java, each evening, on a laptop running Linux, next to a cracked-open window with a glass or beer or bourbon sitting on it. That was back before Facebook games became lame or addictive, depending upon who you ask, and around then it would be time for friends to work on each other's farms. Eventually that game went absolutely nowhere but it fit the moment, along with local TV showing Star Trek TNG each weeknight.
Thanks to some down-home roots there will always be soup beans and ham pumping through these veins, but for the single male, a quarter-can of boiled SPAM in some Van Kamp's Pork N Beans does just fine, no kidding. Fills a bowl and then the soul. Sometimes a dab of cottage cheese would chase it well.
I can't say how long this went on, it was more of a clonal moment, a series of evenings making strides with the code, step by step, closer to a solution, chatting with friends along the way. As it turns out my motivation for doing the Java project was never clear, it just needed to happen.
As with all moments, they are just that, and they must end. This one gave way to a confusing set of events, the company changed hands, and along came one of the harshest winters I'd ever known - literally and figuratively. The ground was covered for weeks in foot-thick frozen snow, the city's prize walking trail rendered useless and I was stuck in that house with not enough work to keep a cat alive.
A few months before, I had pitched the Java version to the company owner and he was probably interested if it could be proven superior, then I would ask for a fee. But then, I was realising my love for code there in that geeky bliss, and so the longer I kept it up the notion of a direct payoff grew less and less important.
As it turns out, just over a year later I got a real job that's soaked in code, not Java, but close enough.
So, I started porting it from VB to Java, each evening, on a laptop running Linux, next to a cracked-open window with a glass or beer or bourbon sitting on it. That was back before Facebook games became lame or addictive, depending upon who you ask, and around then it would be time for friends to work on each other's farms. Eventually that game went absolutely nowhere but it fit the moment, along with local TV showing Star Trek TNG each weeknight.
Thanks to some down-home roots there will always be soup beans and ham pumping through these veins, but for the single male, a quarter-can of boiled SPAM in some Van Kamp's Pork N Beans does just fine, no kidding. Fills a bowl and then the soul. Sometimes a dab of cottage cheese would chase it well.
I can't say how long this went on, it was more of a clonal moment, a series of evenings making strides with the code, step by step, closer to a solution, chatting with friends along the way. As it turns out my motivation for doing the Java project was never clear, it just needed to happen.
As with all moments, they are just that, and they must end. This one gave way to a confusing set of events, the company changed hands, and along came one of the harshest winters I'd ever known - literally and figuratively. The ground was covered for weeks in foot-thick frozen snow, the city's prize walking trail rendered useless and I was stuck in that house with not enough work to keep a cat alive.
A few months before, I had pitched the Java version to the company owner and he was probably interested if it could be proven superior, then I would ask for a fee. But then, I was realising my love for code there in that geeky bliss, and so the longer I kept it up the notion of a direct payoff grew less and less important.
As it turns out, just over a year later I got a real job that's soaked in code, not Java, but close enough.
Monday, January 23, 2012
because somebody has to
Once again we relate the story of an everyday individual who strives to make a difference in this world.
He's a man not much different than you or I really, except he has a very unique function that sets him apart. His name is Uckfay, but if that weren't bad enough, he is the one who has to review television, books, and other media to determine which content is morally acceptable for you and I to consume. Evidently we are not capable of making those determinations for ourselves.
Uckfay wears a suit to work and reports to the Society of Blowhards, or SoB's for short. He has his share of challenges, mainly physical, such as borderline diabetes from only consuming soda, because beer is not permitted by the SoB doctrine despite being made of all-natural ingredients.
And he also suffers from a sore neck from walking on only the right side of the street.
He's a man not much different than you or I really, except he has a very unique function that sets him apart. His name is Uckfay, but if that weren't bad enough, he is the one who has to review television, books, and other media to determine which content is morally acceptable for you and I to consume. Evidently we are not capable of making those determinations for ourselves.
Uckfay wears a suit to work and reports to the Society of Blowhards, or SoB's for short. He has his share of challenges, mainly physical, such as borderline diabetes from only consuming soda, because beer is not permitted by the SoB doctrine despite being made of all-natural ingredients.
And he also suffers from a sore neck from walking on only the right side of the street.
say it
probably
said it before
long ago
far away
chopping firewood
letting off steam
because
certain idiots
here and there
found it necessary
to take
the low road
trying my hatred
because
sometimes
insecurity
and maybe
issues
of esteem
are hard
to swallow
say it?
can't say it
because
firewood
is better
to split
than
a sack
of shit.
and so
ages pass
find myself
of all places
theology school
driven by visions
as if
ranting
at the pulpit
that i grew up
facing
only to push back
at a generation
who
despite best intentions
could not break
their mold
talking
not listening
to young people
should be seen
not heard
their own
life story
often rehearsing
failures, regrets
sometimes
confusing them with
concern
say it?
can't say it
because
you just can't
reason
with a
barking dog.
and then
certain
baby boomers
facing
too many changes
got to clamp down
one last desperate
white knuckled
choke hold
break these
commie punks
even as
some of them
fall
on the same
sword
they had
warned us
to avoid
say it?
can't say it
because
silence can be
defening
and indifference
far more
chilling
than hatred
and so
time wounds
all heels
karma's
a bitch
bastards
will pay.
said it before
long ago
far away
chopping firewood
letting off steam
because
certain idiots
here and there
found it necessary
to take
the low road
trying my hatred
because
sometimes
insecurity
and maybe
issues
of esteem
are hard
to swallow
say it?
can't say it
because
firewood
is better
to split
than
a sack
of shit.
and so
ages pass
find myself
of all places
theology school
driven by visions
as if
ranting
at the pulpit
that i grew up
facing
only to push back
at a generation
who
despite best intentions
could not break
their mold
talking
not listening
to young people
should be seen
not heard
their own
life story
often rehearsing
failures, regrets
sometimes
confusing them with
concern
say it?
can't say it
because
you just can't
reason
with a
barking dog.
and then
certain
baby boomers
facing
too many changes
got to clamp down
one last desperate
white knuckled
choke hold
break these
commie punks
even as
some of them
fall
on the same
sword
they had
warned us
to avoid
say it?
can't say it
because
silence can be
defening
and indifference
far more
chilling
than hatred
and so
time wounds
all heels
karma's
a bitch
bastards
will pay.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Dirk and the Bubbas
Dirk looks up at the clear autumn sky as he's dragged through the leaves, thankful that they're dry and even more thankful to be facing upward. The Bubba brothers had spotted him across the street from the gas station buying a pop science magazine and with but a glance between them decided it was Dirk's turn, and so now they each hold onto an ankle as they saunter along bantering about nothing in particular.
Totaling about 580 pounds of mostly meat between them, they had grown up in various foster homes till they were found useful at Esco's service/junk lot on the edge of town. From a shortened form of their last name that no one seemed or cared to know they were used to being called the Bubba Twins. Those old enough to remember Hee Haw might picture Junior Samples with a buzcut and in stereo. All they had was each other, no one else mattered, except when they needed amusement.
For his part, Dirk was a senior in high school, the very same one his captors had left behind as soon as they turned legal, as far as the state was concerned, and thanks to robust builds landed jobs throwing truck parts and old girders around. No one knew where they lived per se, they just showed up every day. But Dirk's ACT scores and advanced pursuits had gotten attention from MIT among others. Somehow it didn't take him long to realize that this ordeal would be over soon enough, and then life would go on.
When they finally get to some old shack in a small clearing hey sit Dirk in a chair among not a small stash of just about everything one can scrounge in a backwoods county. Bubba Alpha, we'll call him, instructed Bubba Beta, git that thar rope while ahh proceed to arrange for tha enter-tainment. Bubba the lesser then kneels next to Dirk and starts to tie him to the chair, but Dirk doesn't resist.
Daddy Bubba eventually rigs up some kind of car battery to an old portable CD player and turns to Dirk and grins as the bass line to Madonna's Like a Virgin starts up.
Hey boy, think you gonna git laid 'fore you turn therty-fahve, he starts in with a tobacco-stained grin as his counterpart starts to chuckle. Well that thar purdy sawwng is on ree-peat so u gots lots a tahme ta thank about thar ahh reckon, yeap. So the Bubba-squared proceeds to head out the door, each with a rickety pellet gun, and secure it with a padlock.
The thing is, Dirk had lots a tahme while being tied up to spot what he needed sitting in plain view around the shed. That, and, it seems his congenial hosts had neglected to check his pockets for, let's say, a swiss army knife.
It was getting toward dusk when the twins had enough of pinging small furry animals and headed back to see how their prize had fared, although, the expected Material Girl Marathon was not to be heard. Well, this situation calls for words.
Y'all don't reckon tha bat-try done run out?
The other one just stares at the door with a quizzical look.
Bubba Prime digs out his key and undoes the lock, looks at his brother in the eerie silence, and gently pulls the door handle.
Dirk is along a secluded lane just over a mile away when the explosion startles birds in the brush overhead.
The local sheriff rules it accidental, and then life goes on.
Totaling about 580 pounds of mostly meat between them, they had grown up in various foster homes till they were found useful at Esco's service/junk lot on the edge of town. From a shortened form of their last name that no one seemed or cared to know they were used to being called the Bubba Twins. Those old enough to remember Hee Haw might picture Junior Samples with a buzcut and in stereo. All they had was each other, no one else mattered, except when they needed amusement.
For his part, Dirk was a senior in high school, the very same one his captors had left behind as soon as they turned legal, as far as the state was concerned, and thanks to robust builds landed jobs throwing truck parts and old girders around. No one knew where they lived per se, they just showed up every day. But Dirk's ACT scores and advanced pursuits had gotten attention from MIT among others. Somehow it didn't take him long to realize that this ordeal would be over soon enough, and then life would go on.
When they finally get to some old shack in a small clearing hey sit Dirk in a chair among not a small stash of just about everything one can scrounge in a backwoods county. Bubba Alpha, we'll call him, instructed Bubba Beta, git that thar rope while ahh proceed to arrange for tha enter-tainment. Bubba the lesser then kneels next to Dirk and starts to tie him to the chair, but Dirk doesn't resist.
Daddy Bubba eventually rigs up some kind of car battery to an old portable CD player and turns to Dirk and grins as the bass line to Madonna's Like a Virgin starts up.
Hey boy, think you gonna git laid 'fore you turn therty-fahve, he starts in with a tobacco-stained grin as his counterpart starts to chuckle. Well that thar purdy sawwng is on ree-peat so u gots lots a tahme ta thank about thar ahh reckon, yeap. So the Bubba-squared proceeds to head out the door, each with a rickety pellet gun, and secure it with a padlock.
The thing is, Dirk had lots a tahme while being tied up to spot what he needed sitting in plain view around the shed. That, and, it seems his congenial hosts had neglected to check his pockets for, let's say, a swiss army knife.
It was getting toward dusk when the twins had enough of pinging small furry animals and headed back to see how their prize had fared, although, the expected Material Girl Marathon was not to be heard. Well, this situation calls for words.
Y'all don't reckon tha bat-try done run out?
The other one just stares at the door with a quizzical look.
Bubba Prime digs out his key and undoes the lock, looks at his brother in the eerie silence, and gently pulls the door handle.
Dirk is along a secluded lane just over a mile away when the explosion startles birds in the brush overhead.
The local sheriff rules it accidental, and then life goes on.
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Juche
A lump of clay, a nation, a young person. A philosophy, a temperament, an environment. We all have to start out somewhere. The stage is set. Some turn to friends. Others to learning, maybe clubs and activities, becoming leaders and followers. And invariably there are those of us that turn into ourselves.
Juche ideology has been dubbed as North Korea’s middle finger to the world. Melodious chants that decry America notwithstanding, they’re in it for the haul, going it alone in Orwellian bliss. Proles starve if they can avoid the work camps and the Pyongyang privileged justify it for the cause. Outsiders cannot partially-photograph the Great Leader’s graven image as people cry out in worship before him like a tent full of holy rollers. Ahh but we all have to start out somewhere.
The green idealist, naive, intellectual yet insecure and socially unmotivated, with an appetite for apathy, is no stranger to the ol’ bunker hunker in a world that doesn’t get it, with little more to offer than sneers and grinning idiots with their lameass comments.
At church they tried, more or less, to teach us the righteous path, yet, in the end the choices are all our own.
Sometimes even those who love you don’t have the full picture.
Sometimes we bite the hand that feeds us.
Sometimes we throw out the baby with the bathwater.
After all, how would the Wizard of Oz have turned out had Toto never gotten curious about what's behind the green curtain?
Every revolution needs a leader, even an unlikely one standing at 5-foot- something. Purge the dissidents. All associations deemed a threat to her reich were hereby annulled. Funny how surrealism takes a while to sink in.
I had gone into isolation a few years before so why not now? Sure is hard to live in the moment when your head is so well furnished.
Dad took a video during a snowstorm just after Christmas, and as the eyes witness it piling up outside the ears get a conversation with my mom, oh how confused and withdrawn I had become. Later on he evidently asks me to climb atop a two-cord stack of firewood and throw some off for the garage. Ground zero in the year with two eights. It’s all over my face, wincing to aim for the pile eight feet below, within eyeshot of someone’s house that I had betrayed just a month earlier, carelessly opting instead to place my trust in someone who had simply not yet earned it.
I answer Dad's questions bluntly, with few words. Jonestown party of one. If the punch don’t kill ya it has a bitter twinge that lingers in the mouth for years if not decades.
Still, we all have to start out somewhere.
Over time her music becomes my music, her friends become my friends, her worries become my world until the second wind gradually picks up, the cold war thaws a bit, and eventually there’s no choice but to drop my assumed sense of duty and walk away with what I still have left.
Freedom can be a vacuum at times, but then, some things are worse than emptiness, such as never letting go.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
fixture
Twas here i came for things various, and sundry. To learn. To labor. To laugh. To live. And if all else fails, to love. All around are furnishings and windows and bodies and ficus. Conversations ebb, tide in the sea of someones, as is written, nothing new under the sun.
The lady, stroked with water colors, in the middle of the room. She's in all the rooms. Dressed to the nines in pastel wool and chiffon, nothing ever moves, save the eyes. They go as i go, about my business, with no more to offer than Mona Lisa herself sneaking a peek from the netherworld camouflage, foundation and blush.
When i finally shake her hand she offers just enough muscle to make the connection, leaving me to work the pump, and toil at her dainty heft.
That gaze. The latest fly in the sap. Janie come lately, etched into the phosphors sans haste, gateway to possibilities, as stars dot the heavens, that never shall be.
So what? Even as years pass, n'er you hardly even spoke, that charge in the air, you felt it, perhaps you both, has a substance, has a life, a name.
A story.
The lady, stroked with water colors, in the middle of the room. She's in all the rooms. Dressed to the nines in pastel wool and chiffon, nothing ever moves, save the eyes. They go as i go, about my business, with no more to offer than Mona Lisa herself sneaking a peek from the netherworld camouflage, foundation and blush.
When i finally shake her hand she offers just enough muscle to make the connection, leaving me to work the pump, and toil at her dainty heft.
That gaze. The latest fly in the sap. Janie come lately, etched into the phosphors sans haste, gateway to possibilities, as stars dot the heavens, that never shall be.
So what? Even as years pass, n'er you hardly even spoke, that charge in the air, you felt it, perhaps you both, has a substance, has a life, a name.
A story.
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Sophie
Sophie plays with her dolls as her big sister’s boyfriend rings the doorbell. But Sophie doesn’t like him. He has a gruffy face and messy hair and wears white tee shirts and a red bandanna and drives a bad old car and listens to loud music. He comes over when her mom and dad aren’t home and they go in the bedroom until they get tired. Then he sits next so Sophie and gives her a candy cigarette and tells her she’s got pretty curls and makes her smile.
Saturday, June 4, 2011
weekend
some gambler
lost his lucky deck
and the drunkard
just ain’t thirsty
your stoner next door
but no jones
this cagey brawler
can’t throw a punch
a backstreet drag king
running cheap gas
skirt-chasing pilot makes approach
on a drooping windsock
just some vagabond
who can’t find the horizon
but if you got
freedom
do it anyway
Saturday, January 22, 2011
'40 Year-Old Virgin' blames failures on Tony Danza PSA
FAIRFIELD, CONN (Goiters) - A real-life Forty Year-Old Virgin claims that a late 1980's public service announcement triggered a pattern of "romantic dysfunctionalities" during his teens. The ad, entirely a close shot of actor Tony Danza urging young people to not rush into sex but wear a condom if they do, ran in heavy rotation on MTV and other stations during a crucial time in the life of Maynard Snerdley.
"It has taken years to come to terms with this, and it's not easy to talk about."
Despite that fact, he continues.
"We all know that adolescence is a confusing time, and there was Tony telling us to hold off on the nookie and gee willakers, when you think about it, who am I to argue? This man has obviously made some mistakes in his life. I mean, just look at where his career went after Taxi."
Snerdley cites a combination of counseling and even more counseling to help turn things around.
"My therapist led me realize that I'd been distancing myself from women after a certain point. When the relationship reached a critical stage I would become less likely to shave, even for several days. Well golly, what gal wants to have steel filings grind against her face and neck? I bet it's just awful. "
This of course refers to Danza sporting short, bristly whiskers in the ad.
"I guess a light went off in the doc's head one day, then he played me the video and I was like holy macaroni, that's it!"
This was confirmed by his psychiatrist, Dr. Gimmie Cash, who added, "Yep. Holy macaroni."
With his wall-building days now behind him, Maynard is pleased to announce his recent engagement to a lady that, if you can believe it, "looks a LOT like Judith Light," who starred opposite Danza in "Who's the Boss?" for eight horrific seasons on ABC.
"It has taken years to come to terms with this, and it's not easy to talk about."
Despite that fact, he continues.
"We all know that adolescence is a confusing time, and there was Tony telling us to hold off on the nookie and gee willakers, when you think about it, who am I to argue? This man has obviously made some mistakes in his life. I mean, just look at where his career went after Taxi."
Snerdley cites a combination of counseling and even more counseling to help turn things around.
"My therapist led me realize that I'd been distancing myself from women after a certain point. When the relationship reached a critical stage I would become less likely to shave, even for several days. Well golly, what gal wants to have steel filings grind against her face and neck? I bet it's just awful. "
This of course refers to Danza sporting short, bristly whiskers in the ad.
"I guess a light went off in the doc's head one day, then he played me the video and I was like holy macaroni, that's it!"
This was confirmed by his psychiatrist, Dr. Gimmie Cash, who added, "Yep. Holy macaroni."
With his wall-building days now behind him, Maynard is pleased to announce his recent engagement to a lady that, if you can believe it, "looks a LOT like Judith Light," who starred opposite Danza in "Who's the Boss?" for eight horrific seasons on ABC.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
wist
When I ask a question I don't want an answer. Tell me a story. Make it a long one. After a while you'll get used to it. Then maybe, just maybe, I won't have to ask.
Monday, January 10, 2011
charise
Bowling is for Thursday night. Bowling. Nay the sport of kings yet the boon of restless souls in a home town, to exercise body and mouth alike between ten white pins and and a few brown longnecks. Bowwwww-ling. Booyeah.
Her gaze became fixed, the fruit fly in resin, even though I could swear she'd never looked my way.
As an unspoken code we try to keep this a guys night, about half are married, group therapy, now available without prescription. We have a couple of leaguers but the rest of us can hold our own. My average is creeping up into the high hundreds, although in a twelve-lane venue it's getting harder to concentrate on the game lately.
Slender build, honey sun-bleached drapeage, either natural curls brushed out or maybe last spring's perm and some kind of button-up top, and there's bound to be a couple spares beneath those baggy diamond-hipped jeans the girls wear nowadays. She means business, rolls with a considerate kind of confidence and a prose from beyond her years, doesn't leave many standing. A couple of her decisive strikes have given me pause while lining up my own shots. There are always the same four gals in her group.
One night Harry, our bald-headed grandad, catches me looking and word gets around. After nailing a sweet Brooklyn strike in the third frame he gets an arm around my shoulders.
"Intelligence reports have confirmed she's been sneakin' some peeks too, champ." I just shake my head and sneer.
Next couple of frames are kinda rough so an offering is taken for another round, my turn to represent. Right before I embark someone bumps my arm and for some reason I look up just as she's headed for the restroom.
Brown eyes, that shouldn't be, by some counts at least, or maybe it's the game throwing off my gyro. After we pass I wonder if I can ever believe what I just saw. She had whispered "hi"after I smiled, as if under distress before ducking into the latrine. At the counter, awaiting the tray of fresh troops, I actually wonder if I should warn the other women not to go in there for a while.
Instead, it seems the place is kinda sparse tonight, probably the cider fest drawing most of the folks with rugrats.
On the return trip she emerges and smiles this time, nearly choking on a giggle.
All clear, I thought.
We finish the night with scorecards no better or worse than any other. I get home and things feel different, taking a moment to get my bearings as if the furniture had moved. After a shower and shave Carson seems a bit more chipper than usual. Good for him.
Next week the ladies are a no-show and things feel normal yet, I'll allow, a tad empty. Then a special league event forces a break, but finally it's all in place again, she wears a thin sky-blue cardigan, not that I notice. Lately I'd worked up to an 18 pounder and tonight I hit some kind of stride with the thing, landing on a not-too-shabby 216 once the dust settles. Didn't pay for any food or drink that night, and the resulting hubbub earned us a visit from the ladies league who had started a frame or two ahead of us.
"My name's Charise," she assures me with a dainty handshake, somehow grossly out of phase with all the cannonballs fired from that arm somewhere in the annals of my periphery. Her name is Charise. The world around us is of grins and glances, it knows what I know.
"So you're from around here?" It turns out yes and no, as the story unfolds I get the hint of a greater conspiracy from far beyond our respective teams, our poor tired mothers, the silhouette pros of the sport, double agents extraordinaire, leap from the upper walls and draw their sidearms, taking aim from behind pool tables, hold it right there Mister Bond, how kind of you to pay us a veesit. She talks fast, almost frantically, as if there's an egg timer on the bill of my ball cap. New intelligence is in, the eyes are brown, all sources confirm, dark binary stars to planetary freckles, and the (orange?) blush makes it all hard to parse. I gradually perceive her aroma, a finely-tuned ratio of powder, perspiration and AquaNet.
Conversations extend into the parking lot to be punctuated by slamming doors. I sit and take a few deep breaths over the steering wheel of my '82 Cutlass, staring into what's left of the sunset over the shopping centers. The car is just starting to produce upholstery dander, having sat outside every day of its life, the dust dances in twilight with the sweet autumn air.
Her name is Charise. It may just as well be dammit.
Her gaze became fixed, the fruit fly in resin, even though I could swear she'd never looked my way.
As an unspoken code we try to keep this a guys night, about half are married, group therapy, now available without prescription. We have a couple of leaguers but the rest of us can hold our own. My average is creeping up into the high hundreds, although in a twelve-lane venue it's getting harder to concentrate on the game lately.
Slender build, honey sun-bleached drapeage, either natural curls brushed out or maybe last spring's perm and some kind of button-up top, and there's bound to be a couple spares beneath those baggy diamond-hipped jeans the girls wear nowadays. She means business, rolls with a considerate kind of confidence and a prose from beyond her years, doesn't leave many standing. A couple of her decisive strikes have given me pause while lining up my own shots. There are always the same four gals in her group.
One night Harry, our bald-headed grandad, catches me looking and word gets around. After nailing a sweet Brooklyn strike in the third frame he gets an arm around my shoulders.
"Intelligence reports have confirmed she's been sneakin' some peeks too, champ." I just shake my head and sneer.
Next couple of frames are kinda rough so an offering is taken for another round, my turn to represent. Right before I embark someone bumps my arm and for some reason I look up just as she's headed for the restroom.
Brown eyes, that shouldn't be, by some counts at least, or maybe it's the game throwing off my gyro. After we pass I wonder if I can ever believe what I just saw. She had whispered "hi"after I smiled, as if under distress before ducking into the latrine. At the counter, awaiting the tray of fresh troops, I actually wonder if I should warn the other women not to go in there for a while.
Instead, it seems the place is kinda sparse tonight, probably the cider fest drawing most of the folks with rugrats.
On the return trip she emerges and smiles this time, nearly choking on a giggle.
All clear, I thought.
We finish the night with scorecards no better or worse than any other. I get home and things feel different, taking a moment to get my bearings as if the furniture had moved. After a shower and shave Carson seems a bit more chipper than usual. Good for him.
Next week the ladies are a no-show and things feel normal yet, I'll allow, a tad empty. Then a special league event forces a break, but finally it's all in place again, she wears a thin sky-blue cardigan, not that I notice. Lately I'd worked up to an 18 pounder and tonight I hit some kind of stride with the thing, landing on a not-too-shabby 216 once the dust settles. Didn't pay for any food or drink that night, and the resulting hubbub earned us a visit from the ladies league who had started a frame or two ahead of us.
"My name's Charise," she assures me with a dainty handshake, somehow grossly out of phase with all the cannonballs fired from that arm somewhere in the annals of my periphery. Her name is Charise. The world around us is of grins and glances, it knows what I know.
"So you're from around here?" It turns out yes and no, as the story unfolds I get the hint of a greater conspiracy from far beyond our respective teams, our poor tired mothers, the silhouette pros of the sport, double agents extraordinaire, leap from the upper walls and draw their sidearms, taking aim from behind pool tables, hold it right there Mister Bond, how kind of you to pay us a veesit. She talks fast, almost frantically, as if there's an egg timer on the bill of my ball cap. New intelligence is in, the eyes are brown, all sources confirm, dark binary stars to planetary freckles, and the (orange?) blush makes it all hard to parse. I gradually perceive her aroma, a finely-tuned ratio of powder, perspiration and AquaNet.
Conversations extend into the parking lot to be punctuated by slamming doors. I sit and take a few deep breaths over the steering wheel of my '82 Cutlass, staring into what's left of the sunset over the shopping centers. The car is just starting to produce upholstery dander, having sat outside every day of its life, the dust dances in twilight with the sweet autumn air.
Her name is Charise. It may just as well be dammit.
Saturday, January 1, 2011
world where
Shed a sea of blood and the world is better, for every noble cause under the sun, all of which are right. Why dream? Deputy Fife takes aim. With a lone bullet gonna make Mayberry a place where one can break wind without some dooshjob redneck stealing headlines about his lack of wit. We bash each other over the head with a book while healing whispers proximity, old white men in suits selectively adapt a mute button, and that once proud sense of belonging shrivels into a maudlin caricature of itself, ridiculously wanton in its attempt to exhume former glory. Now Barn' done got excited and shot the floor again. Drag 'em in here and turn 'em into one of us. Compunction is a tsunami caused by an epic event no one remembers. We cannot change so they must. Go us. For God's sake we blow up fruit stands to keep the dream alive. Better put Otis back in the cell before he starts making sense. Dreams are for dreaming.
Sunday, December 19, 2010
three dragons
Many years ago a person emerged from the autumn fog with some long leashes and said look over there, and when I looked over there I felt the leashes slip into my hand, then there I stood with three dragons. I had no clue what their names were.
But over time it's become clear that the first is Ambition. He wants it all, from being a 007 coder to bringing down the house with a 12-bar blues solo, and everything in between. Basically a would-be badass at whatever looks cool.
And then there's the one I call Aphrodite, except, well, she's not what you might expect. You know that girl from school who trips over her own toes and just can't catch a break? Yeah. After a while the "blond moments" were obviously calculated for effect but she's starting to take hints. I think.
Finally we have Allure. Al's...something else, totally unaware of what the ladies want, especially when he's got a shot. Seriously. Once you've seen an awkward teenage dragon you've seen it all.
Now, put all that together for a traipse through the park. Can't remember the last time they were all on the same page, you know, off in every direction, stopping on a whim, no stone unturned. Not sure if my insurance covers scorching but so far we've been lucky.
Still, though they wear me out and try my patience...at the end of the day they're simply irresistible. Not everyone agrees, of course, some look down their nose, because, dragons should be stuffed into a cage and not roam around causing problems, messing up the landscape and disrupting people's lives with their youthful ardor.
That bothered me at first, till one day I was shoveling some dragon doo and it flew into a disapproving eye. Then, the strangest thing happened.
I smiled.
But over time it's become clear that the first is Ambition. He wants it all, from being a 007 coder to bringing down the house with a 12-bar blues solo, and everything in between. Basically a would-be badass at whatever looks cool.
And then there's the one I call Aphrodite, except, well, she's not what you might expect. You know that girl from school who trips over her own toes and just can't catch a break? Yeah. After a while the "blond moments" were obviously calculated for effect but she's starting to take hints. I think.
Finally we have Allure. Al's...something else, totally unaware of what the ladies want, especially when he's got a shot. Seriously. Once you've seen an awkward teenage dragon you've seen it all.
Now, put all that together for a traipse through the park. Can't remember the last time they were all on the same page, you know, off in every direction, stopping on a whim, no stone unturned. Not sure if my insurance covers scorching but so far we've been lucky.
Still, though they wear me out and try my patience...at the end of the day they're simply irresistible. Not everyone agrees, of course, some look down their nose, because, dragons should be stuffed into a cage and not roam around causing problems, messing up the landscape and disrupting people's lives with their youthful ardor.
That bothered me at first, till one day I was shoveling some dragon doo and it flew into a disapproving eye. Then, the strangest thing happened.
I smiled.
tutelage
beauty protects the skin
skin protects the woman
yet
sometimes
there's just no place
like
vulnerability
skin protects the woman
yet
sometimes
there's just no place
like
vulnerability
Friday, November 19, 2010
bird legs
as for the girl
the boys talk to
but rarely
about
the one who
comes to mind
at odd moments
and somehow makes
you feel
ashamed
they say she has
bird legs
kinda stringy
not much
to grab onto
until
one evening
you both walk out
to the parking
garage
as she plays
with her
keys those eyes
make the sales pitch
the smile
seals the deal
and despite the
bird legs
her leather sleeves
gently
crackle around you
she says i'm
a compulsive liar
you say i don't
believe you
raucous blazing futility
behind a pillar
about your waist
bird legs
get
what they came for
and as you
drive home
you can't decide
whether you lost
or she won
but either way
she is the
girl
you'll never call
who walks away
on
bird legs
the boys talk to
but rarely
about
the one who
comes to mind
at odd moments
and somehow makes
you feel
ashamed
they say she has
bird legs
kinda stringy
not much
to grab onto
until
one evening
you both walk out
to the parking
garage
as she plays
with her
keys those eyes
make the sales pitch
the smile
seals the deal
and despite the
bird legs
her leather sleeves
gently
crackle around you
she says i'm
a compulsive liar
you say i don't
believe you
raucous blazing futility
behind a pillar
about your waist
bird legs
get
what they came for
and as you
drive home
you can't decide
whether you lost
or she won
but either way
she is the
girl
you'll never call
who walks away
on
bird legs
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Revolution Day
All the pundits will suddenly be correct
You don't know how long we've waited for this
The suits and the hippies finally agree
Belly buttons and aholes everyone's got one
Pot gut accountants been tellin us for years
Who are we to disagree
Schoolyard bullies got their own undies up their crack
You don't know how long we've waited for this
The suits and the hippies finally agree
Belly buttons and aholes everyone's got one
Pot gut accountants been tellin us for years
Who are we to disagree
Schoolyard bullies got their own undies up their crack
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
tlc
Being good evangelicals, we swarm to the fairgrounds that May evening, to hear Leighton Ford, in-law and close associate to Billy Graham, as he strives to redeem the word "crusade" for both infidel and faithful alike.
The youth from my church waste no time, finding solitude for its own sake, along a paved trail to a bridge at the foot of the woods. Immediately a lit cigarette and maybe a beer materialize and make their rounds as the only bona-fide couple in the group studies French.
As I stand there agaze at the surreality before me, having been heretofore excluded from such extracurriculars, she reluctantly takes a hit of the coffin nail. Later on she tells me she wasn't sure why she did, "I used to smoke but I quit," just as she'd always revealed herself to me.
So I seek refuge, not really finding it in the grandstand, next to two chicks I know by name, as usual, engulfed with inane chatter about boys and boys. And so goes the entire service, even as I see one of the party crowd mope to the makeshift altar, and the razor-sharp chill in the air keeps on cutting. It's as if everyone there knows somebody else yet I evidently don't even know myself.
Afterward, in the twilight she has a choice. Being the alpha for once, at the ripe age of thirteen, I extend my mom's offer to take her home. Somehow I just know, then she hesitantly shuns the others and comes with me as several pairs of eyes hurl their daggers. We meet her dad at the agreed place and I hug her goodbye, but not before she tells me she's kind of glad she didn't go off into the night doing God knows what.
And so the lines were drawn. Some of them blew me off for weeks to come, but she rode a horse to my house and I escorted her back on my bike one summer's day, and so it was, till just over a year later. We got the call as I lie on the couch after school, ironically, having just seen her there not two hours earlier. At least she lived through my birthday as I felt sicker and sicker, until the next day, then she was gone.
(for a friend I'll always miss)
The youth from my church waste no time, finding solitude for its own sake, along a paved trail to a bridge at the foot of the woods. Immediately a lit cigarette and maybe a beer materialize and make their rounds as the only bona-fide couple in the group studies French.
As I stand there agaze at the surreality before me, having been heretofore excluded from such extracurriculars, she reluctantly takes a hit of the coffin nail. Later on she tells me she wasn't sure why she did, "I used to smoke but I quit," just as she'd always revealed herself to me.
So I seek refuge, not really finding it in the grandstand, next to two chicks I know by name, as usual, engulfed with inane chatter about boys and boys. And so goes the entire service, even as I see one of the party crowd mope to the makeshift altar, and the razor-sharp chill in the air keeps on cutting. It's as if everyone there knows somebody else yet I evidently don't even know myself.
Afterward, in the twilight she has a choice. Being the alpha for once, at the ripe age of thirteen, I extend my mom's offer to take her home. Somehow I just know, then she hesitantly shuns the others and comes with me as several pairs of eyes hurl their daggers. We meet her dad at the agreed place and I hug her goodbye, but not before she tells me she's kind of glad she didn't go off into the night doing God knows what.
And so the lines were drawn. Some of them blew me off for weeks to come, but she rode a horse to my house and I escorted her back on my bike one summer's day, and so it was, till just over a year later. We got the call as I lie on the couch after school, ironically, having just seen her there not two hours earlier. At least she lived through my birthday as I felt sicker and sicker, until the next day, then she was gone.
(for a friend I'll always miss)
Sunday, August 8, 2010
our year
Mostly children in January and quasi-adults by December. One time this kid actually asked me why I cut in the lunch line, because I'm a senior, all I had to say. Despite asserting my maturity I manage to land a paper wad into the same girl's lap, twice, from across Mr. Runneal's study hall.
You only need to know three words to get by around here: Attitude, attitude, and attitude. Of course the trick is knowing which one of those to use in a given moment.
The Berlin Wall had fallen on our watch and suddenly we have Russian hair band called Gorky Park in league with the regulars. One day a freshman gal comes up to me to bum change for a snack and belts out BAAANNNG BANNNNG.
In the courtyard we'd bum around on the grass and I half-listened to dudes brag about what they do with their girlfriends and contemplate give or receive if ever faced with a prison situation.
We were doing graphics on those shoe box Macs in computer science class and someone is told to erase a cat's tail because it appears too phallic.
As we descend stairs to the gym for commencement someone points out how this is the last time we'll all be in the same place at once. As I say goodbyes afterward I can't help notice all the hair pins on the floor, amazed at how many it takes to attach a girl to a mortarboard.
When the events that summer took a turn no that one could have imagined, people I talk to never cease to remind me how numb-brained stories always fill in the void before the truth is revealed.
I say some things I should have kept to myself but usually pass up a chance to say something I should have. Didn't take the independent living class but could tell the discussions are priceless.
You are your car. You are your GPA. You are your personal and team stats. You are what you create. You are the college you start in the fall. You are your charm. You are your group of friends. You are your reputation. You are your look. You are your image. You are your future.
Every time I see MTV it's that chick singing about her succotash wish.
Bush Sr. builds a shield on foreign sands, and inevitably someone tells me I hear they're gonna start draftin'. That same evening, as I cross a snow-dusted parking lot from Taco Bell back to the store where I work, I could swear for a brief second I was riding on the back of some transport truck in full fatigues. Some of us were already on their way.
While chasing a deal on car wax I come across one of our gals and was surprised at how much she told me in maybe fifteen minutes, and how much she reminded me of my girlfriend from another school. Funny how we're all made of the same ingredients yet each with a unique recipe. Really should have gotten her phone number.
When it comes down to it, you are your heart.
You only need to know three words to get by around here: Attitude, attitude, and attitude. Of course the trick is knowing which one of those to use in a given moment.
The Berlin Wall had fallen on our watch and suddenly we have Russian hair band called Gorky Park in league with the regulars. One day a freshman gal comes up to me to bum change for a snack and belts out BAAANNNG BANNNNG.
In the courtyard we'd bum around on the grass and I half-listened to dudes brag about what they do with their girlfriends and contemplate give or receive if ever faced with a prison situation.
We were doing graphics on those shoe box Macs in computer science class and someone is told to erase a cat's tail because it appears too phallic.
As we descend stairs to the gym for commencement someone points out how this is the last time we'll all be in the same place at once. As I say goodbyes afterward I can't help notice all the hair pins on the floor, amazed at how many it takes to attach a girl to a mortarboard.
When the events that summer took a turn no that one could have imagined, people I talk to never cease to remind me how numb-brained stories always fill in the void before the truth is revealed.
I say some things I should have kept to myself but usually pass up a chance to say something I should have. Didn't take the independent living class but could tell the discussions are priceless.
You are your car. You are your GPA. You are your personal and team stats. You are what you create. You are the college you start in the fall. You are your charm. You are your group of friends. You are your reputation. You are your look. You are your image. You are your future.
Every time I see MTV it's that chick singing about her succotash wish.
Bush Sr. builds a shield on foreign sands, and inevitably someone tells me I hear they're gonna start draftin'. That same evening, as I cross a snow-dusted parking lot from Taco Bell back to the store where I work, I could swear for a brief second I was riding on the back of some transport truck in full fatigues. Some of us were already on their way.
While chasing a deal on car wax I come across one of our gals and was surprised at how much she told me in maybe fifteen minutes, and how much she reminded me of my girlfriend from another school. Funny how we're all made of the same ingredients yet each with a unique recipe. Really should have gotten her phone number.
When it comes down to it, you are your heart.
Monday, July 26, 2010
Duke Fabulous Reporting
WELL this is certainly one for all the ages and a few in between. It was last Saturday or maybe one a them other days, and I found myself ex-akkitakillay where I was, in a rental boat on the edge of the lake with not much more than a net an' a bucket. Lately my fryin' pan got to hankerin' real bad for some frog legs an' so there's only one thing left to-do. I say. So here I am a tryin' my best to troll along tha shore line and catch a few so long as they don't hop quicker than a body can swing a net. Well at first the pickin's are right slim but finally there's this great big daddy rascal facin' tha other way, and just as I'm right on 'im there's a knock-knock on the side of the boat. Now, seems to me a feller might expect a knock-knock at a door ever' here an' again but when he's crouched precarious on a craft it can bear, as we say, un-expected results. This bein' the case, imagine my very own surprise to see that bullfrog hop right along cassidy and all the while beneath the Duke's very own shadow. Right after the big splash is when I hears a giggly kind a laughter back tha other way. So I clears off my peepers best I can to find THE orneriest grin behind a snorkel mask that might - an' jest might - have had somethin' to do with my personal state of hydration. So as we make our ways back to the dock 'bout half an hour later ol' Harley who runs the bait shop just stares and shakes his head. As we get out he starts in, dad-GUMMIT Duke! How many a them there frogs you have to kiss 'fore one of 'em turns into a prin-cess? Well by then I pretty much had ta answer tha man so I let a wink and say, I say why, jest the one with the prettiest legs can'cha tell? Anyway hear what the Duke says. Them ol' English yarn-spinners were sure onto somethin' when it comes to a lady and a lake. Duke out.
(with hopes that a certain frog-catchin' uncle a mine gets back out there real, real soon...)
(with hopes that a certain frog-catchin' uncle a mine gets back out there real, real soon...)
Saturday, July 17, 2010
nevertheless
Someone joked the other day about me winning the lottery, which I don't play, but all said, it would amount to a decent motor home and an mp3 player stuffed with every Springsteen track they have. Sooner or later I'll show up in your town to empty the sewage tank and see if you wanna come along for a ways, fare is one six-pack unless you pass a visual inspection. Not only do we get to see and smell the country but throw in a few state fairs and even a ball game in every park in America, and just to one-up the players I'll visit some kids in the hospital, just imagine the looks on their faces as they think, "who the hell are you?"
Thursday, July 15, 2010
it's like
Sitting on the hood of your car with a girl from years ago, except this is here and now, in the twilight there's not another soul around, and she can't seem to get enough of you, she asks should we and because you don't know what to say you start telling a story.
She patiently listens and falls asleep, in your arms you feel her breathing to a chorus of bugs, until you find yourself gently nibbling her cheek.
A bright flash of a smile turns into sighs, she runs her hands through your hair and it gets more the more, until, your thoughts take you to the late innings of a ball game.
This joint is packed tight, a grand canyon of souls, most but not all in the home team colors. Season tickets have paid off in the form of primo seats for division playoffs.
The second game could tie the series and couldn't be more heated, back and forth all night, and for just this fleeting moment all thirty odd thousand minds strike a chord, pining for extra innings, because, this is the here and now.
She patiently listens and falls asleep, in your arms you feel her breathing to a chorus of bugs, until you find yourself gently nibbling her cheek.
A bright flash of a smile turns into sighs, she runs her hands through your hair and it gets more the more, until, your thoughts take you to the late innings of a ball game.
This joint is packed tight, a grand canyon of souls, most but not all in the home team colors. Season tickets have paid off in the form of primo seats for division playoffs.
The second game could tie the series and couldn't be more heated, back and forth all night, and for just this fleeting moment all thirty odd thousand minds strike a chord, pining for extra innings, because, this is the here and now.
Monday, July 12, 2010
before a fall
At the request of the deskside support team I take the helm of a remote session. They had been trying for a while to untangle a strange issue that keeps someone's email client from opening, and I happened to be the only one on the project with experience and even certification in the platform. Having administered and deployed it for two solid years I inadvertently became a top gun, and every so often come moments where saving the day is a snap of the fingers.
As we go I try to explain things for the benefit of the techs hovering around so they can hopefully have an advantage the next time this happens. Just as I finish up the mods and open the email database I stand up and turn around even before it opens, hearing cheers and accolades from those still looking at the screen as the elusive result unfolds before their very eyes.
And so I'm smiling and slapping high fives all the way as I smack broadside into the door post.
As we go I try to explain things for the benefit of the techs hovering around so they can hopefully have an advantage the next time this happens. Just as I finish up the mods and open the email database I stand up and turn around even before it opens, hearing cheers and accolades from those still looking at the screen as the elusive result unfolds before their very eyes.
And so I'm smiling and slapping high fives all the way as I smack broadside into the door post.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
later that summer
We got a call during the week from the folks a few doors down, retired couple making the sojourn to Florida. Of course we'd love to help load the truck this Saturday and can you bring a side dish for the luncheon? Well, we've already got potato salad coming but how about baked beans? That's wonderful, thanks so much, see you at 8:30.
Dad and I arrive a tad early, he in his work clothes and I in Nike shorts, tank top and my brother's old ball cap. Just as we greet ol' Bud his wife comes out jabbering with a certain young lady with whom I haven't spoken in over a week. I had tried calling a few times since we went out but she never seems to be able to talk long if at all, which just seems odd because up until now our conversations had always come easily enough.
Pretty soon the group rounds out and we start with the bigger furniture as the hens finish boxing up some odds and ends. In and out of the house, on and off the truck all morning we work and joke and laugh and rib each other but she still won't hardly look at me, and if I do get an accidental glance she tries her best to play it off, sometimes well enough to fool me.
Before long we have the big stuff all in place and their son's family are coming over later to help wrap things up so let's eat, everyone to the back porch before the flies carry it off.
Call it fate but there's an empty seat next to her at one of the tables and I figure why not. I plant myself there and hardly find it surprising how she throws herself headlong into a conversation with the ladies and I may as well not even exist. So I enjoy my meal in solitude, being careful to conceal my smile with a hot dog or plastic cup as needed.
When I'm done I arise to throw out my plate. keeping the cup, and then check out the back yard, only to return in a few minutes to see her heading into the house.
Without missing a beat I proceed into the garage, then the kitchen and she stands facing the other way, the wall phone's receiver to her ear. I take a sip of my pop.
After a few seconds she says, "Hi, it's me...yeah we're all done and I've had lunch, so I'll be home after a bit...okay, I will...okay, bye."
She hangs up, leaving her hand on the receiver. I take another sip and move closer. I place my hand on her shoulder. She remains still. I step to within inches, and she doesn't move a muscle. I reach up and brush her hair back past her ear, and she turns slightly as if to conceal a clandestine grin. I lean in and lick the right side of her face, from chin to temple in a single stroke, and then, I walk home.
After showering and resting off the move I end up at a trailer park down the road, where there always seems to be something going on involving slingshots and other crude munitions. I get back a bit after eleven, grab a handful of Chex Mix to graze on as my parents doze in their recliners, then start watching an SNL rerun in my room. Halfway through the guest monologue there's a knock at the window, so I peek behind the curtain and there she is.
Dad and I arrive a tad early, he in his work clothes and I in Nike shorts, tank top and my brother's old ball cap. Just as we greet ol' Bud his wife comes out jabbering with a certain young lady with whom I haven't spoken in over a week. I had tried calling a few times since we went out but she never seems to be able to talk long if at all, which just seems odd because up until now our conversations had always come easily enough.
Pretty soon the group rounds out and we start with the bigger furniture as the hens finish boxing up some odds and ends. In and out of the house, on and off the truck all morning we work and joke and laugh and rib each other but she still won't hardly look at me, and if I do get an accidental glance she tries her best to play it off, sometimes well enough to fool me.
Before long we have the big stuff all in place and their son's family are coming over later to help wrap things up so let's eat, everyone to the back porch before the flies carry it off.
Call it fate but there's an empty seat next to her at one of the tables and I figure why not. I plant myself there and hardly find it surprising how she throws herself headlong into a conversation with the ladies and I may as well not even exist. So I enjoy my meal in solitude, being careful to conceal my smile with a hot dog or plastic cup as needed.
When I'm done I arise to throw out my plate. keeping the cup, and then check out the back yard, only to return in a few minutes to see her heading into the house.
Without missing a beat I proceed into the garage, then the kitchen and she stands facing the other way, the wall phone's receiver to her ear. I take a sip of my pop.
After a few seconds she says, "Hi, it's me...yeah we're all done and I've had lunch, so I'll be home after a bit...okay, I will...okay, bye."
She hangs up, leaving her hand on the receiver. I take another sip and move closer. I place my hand on her shoulder. She remains still. I step to within inches, and she doesn't move a muscle. I reach up and brush her hair back past her ear, and she turns slightly as if to conceal a clandestine grin. I lean in and lick the right side of her face, from chin to temple in a single stroke, and then, I walk home.
After showering and resting off the move I end up at a trailer park down the road, where there always seems to be something going on involving slingshots and other crude munitions. I get back a bit after eleven, grab a handful of Chex Mix to graze on as my parents doze in their recliners, then start watching an SNL rerun in my room. Halfway through the guest monologue there's a knock at the window, so I peek behind the curtain and there she is.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
up the river
A small swarm of state cruisers wails past just as we get our bikes onto the highway, spreading a wake of pebbles and dust around our tires, and just as quickly they fade into the horizon. Whatever is going on is way up past the bridge, it would seem.
Just over a mile later we make our way to that spot where the guard rail sprouts from the ground, as if it has roots, and marks a flat clearing where anglers and whoever else can head along the south shore.
For whatever reason we find this overcast morning rife with excitement and what better place to start than the riverbank, since it's probably too early for weirdos to be roaming around yet, not that we've ever seen one. We coast off the road a little ways and come to a stop facing the steep bank with about 40 yards of thick brush to water's edge. A group of us sometimes go hunting down there in winter when the growth is dead, but after a rainy spring it's a world of its own that doesn't welcome our kind.
And that's when it appeared. From beneath the bridge some type of craft emerges, at first maybe a bass boat, but no, it's a wooden raft and with someone on it, or maybe a mannequin. I turn to Jake and quip about there being a float parade here in the middle of nowhere.
As more of the barge comes into view there are several men, all wearing suits and lying in and about a white four-door Continental. Not sure what to think of this until I note the flat tires and blown-out windshield, and then the bullet wounds magically appear, as if someone had switched on a black light in some macabre special effects show.
By now I am unable to look away. It's somehow zooming towards me, forming a full-body death grip and filling my veins with the icy murk of the currents below. Finally I turn to Jake, finding him pale and still as a limestone monument straddling his bike seat.
"Hey -"
He doesn't move. I lean to take a swat and barely get the sleeve of his faded gray t-shirt, having to catch myself from falling over in the process. This brings him out of the spell a bit and he shifts his lifeless gaze down into the foreboding vastness of vegetation.
"Let's go."
Jake draws a deep breath and starts maneuvering his bike toward the road. I hold off at first to make sure he's able to keep it together, and then, I follow.
Just over a mile later we make our way to that spot where the guard rail sprouts from the ground, as if it has roots, and marks a flat clearing where anglers and whoever else can head along the south shore.
For whatever reason we find this overcast morning rife with excitement and what better place to start than the riverbank, since it's probably too early for weirdos to be roaming around yet, not that we've ever seen one. We coast off the road a little ways and come to a stop facing the steep bank with about 40 yards of thick brush to water's edge. A group of us sometimes go hunting down there in winter when the growth is dead, but after a rainy spring it's a world of its own that doesn't welcome our kind.
And that's when it appeared. From beneath the bridge some type of craft emerges, at first maybe a bass boat, but no, it's a wooden raft and with someone on it, or maybe a mannequin. I turn to Jake and quip about there being a float parade here in the middle of nowhere.
As more of the barge comes into view there are several men, all wearing suits and lying in and about a white four-door Continental. Not sure what to think of this until I note the flat tires and blown-out windshield, and then the bullet wounds magically appear, as if someone had switched on a black light in some macabre special effects show.
By now I am unable to look away. It's somehow zooming towards me, forming a full-body death grip and filling my veins with the icy murk of the currents below. Finally I turn to Jake, finding him pale and still as a limestone monument straddling his bike seat.
"Hey -"
He doesn't move. I lean to take a swat and barely get the sleeve of his faded gray t-shirt, having to catch myself from falling over in the process. This brings him out of the spell a bit and he shifts his lifeless gaze down into the foreboding vastness of vegetation.
"Let's go."
Jake draws a deep breath and starts maneuvering his bike toward the road. I hold off at first to make sure he's able to keep it together, and then, I follow.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
the earth is my body
We stand in this sepia landscape, my older sister and I, next to a runoff ditch near our house, except, here we live in a farm house, and where the neighbors' should be.
But the ditch is dry and I am finding out that it can talk to us. They explain it to me as if queuing a sound bite, then a deep resounding voice has its moment, "the earth is my body."
I wander around in the wispy grass, noting weeds and withered cattails that line the eroded creek bend, and a small bare tree protruding near the bank, just a stick really, "that's his pee-pee," my sister tells me.
Then I turn and hurry toward the house as it all fades to the tune of a buzzing alarm clock.
But the ditch is dry and I am finding out that it can talk to us. They explain it to me as if queuing a sound bite, then a deep resounding voice has its moment, "the earth is my body."
I wander around in the wispy grass, noting weeds and withered cattails that line the eroded creek bend, and a small bare tree protruding near the bank, just a stick really, "that's his pee-pee," my sister tells me.
Then I turn and hurry toward the house as it all fades to the tune of a buzzing alarm clock.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
that odd-numbered year
The economy is down, unemployment is up here in "free" half of the planet but it keeps on spinnin' just the same. For me it's not so much the threat of the bomb, it's more that the Iron Curtain is so opaque. I choose not to watch The Day After but hear about it at school.
One time I waited while my mom got groceries, lying down in the back seat of our '71 Monte Carlo. Two dudes I didn't know, with partially grown-out Mohawks, knock on the window above my head and ask if I have any matches. Seems I should take that as some kind of compliment.
Hanging out with a buddy I learn that 50's sounding song from the radio is actually a new group called the Stray Cats. Back then we'd sit in church with felt-tip pens and insert guns and grenades into the cartoon hands of unsuspecting Bible characters.
My sister is expecting again, and so we become blessed with one of my favorite brunettes ever.
Sooner or later we end up at a discount store called Rink's. Even though I had shied away from popular music when I had a near-nervous breakdown and accepted Christ last year, I find myself taking a look through the records and tapes. The Police, Journey, and Styx are all on an end cap with their slick cover art and strange symbols. The Styx release has a robot face and even says it contains backward messages, maybe even the kind that make you worship the devil, and so the End Times will probably happen before the next Olympics.
In my last year as a student in Vacation Bible School there were five of us in the "sixth grade" class, which we would start officially next fall. Two girls and three boys, the latter of which went to my school, one of them living next to my sister's family. Sad to realize at a young age how fast friends are rarely the best kind.
The summer is filled with uber-hot days that encourage me to stay inside, usually the house and sometimes Radio Shack. When I start back to school we change for gym and I can't believe how everyone else is tan around their shorts. By then all the girls are in heat over Michael Jackson, and one of the dudes cracks me up every day retelling the comedy routines he hears on cable channels.
Every night at the supper table there's a waxed paper half gallon of Clyde Evans store-brand milk with the owner's name on it. My friend's mom works in one of his delis. There is a S-A-V-E in EVANS.
Here lately the other kids seem to spend a lot of time standing around talking, and whenever I walk by it seems that's all there is to it, just talking. We used to just go with the flow and play stupid games all the time.
To escape the heat we head north to camp on the shore of Lake Huron, and Ontario's quasi-puritanical charm was the perfect oasis. There's a picture somewhere of me dragging my dad's pocket comb across the sand, as if I were a "beach comber." Get it? Anyway there are also shots of storm clouds I tried to capture in black and white film back then, because storms brought refuge from the sun, but it all taught me there are some things you just have to experience.
My childhood friend and girl next door is turning into a young woman and that's just insane, even though she still has me over to play Atari. Both her parents work and so some days she comes over after school to push my buttons. One time her dad butchered their chickens in the back yard. All said, my first real taste of dark humor.
Where's the Beef?
Mom has choir practice before the Sunday evening praise service, so Dad and I get milk shakes unless we pick up a lady and her toddler son, and either of those is kinda fun. With the shakes it's a hard choice between mocha and mint chocolate chip. We always drive the pickup, the same one used to haul firewood that he cuts around the area, sometimes with my older brother. It's like pulling teeth to get me to help out with that kind of thing. The buzzing saw gets old really quick, plus it's either too hot or cold and I end up waiting it out the cab.
Another one of the neighborhood girls just drives me insane. Period. There's a bug-zapper on her back porch that we can see and hear through the thick brush in their yard.
During one weekend in the spring, we hear some really loud rock music coming from two houses away. I ride my dad's bike to the neighbors' and peek around their bushes, when all of a sudden two high-school dudes come running out. One of them comes straight for me and the other gets in a car. I'd never worked the pedals so hard and finally make it to our garage. Dad goes out front as we watch the dude stroll past the house, staring as we stare back, and get picked up by his brother. That was the end of the loud music.
Jimmy Swaggart preaches his ass off every Sunday morning in our living room as we eat pancakes in the kitchen. Seems I could always hear the same nasal voice during the sinner's prayer at the end. There's a new name written down in glory!
It's mid-summer when mom finds it necessary to visit my sister's house while they all have a stomach bug and then brings it home for the weekend.
I'm usually scouring flea markets and garage sales for deals on seasoned electronics or cameras. One time I scored an old bag-type hair dryer, minus the bag, just because it produced hot air. Sometimes when the family came over for a holiday meal I would set up a card table in the living room to show some of them off, or else, just set up a tape recorder and narrate things.
One Saturday I had to be at the church while Mom was doing something, and the junior pastor gives me some "youth character building" books to read. One of them featured a drawing to illustrate that adults also "throw up when they are sick." To this day I'm not at complete peace with that moment.
At the mall you could go preppy or valley girl. Ewww my gawwwwwd, like, totalayyy.
About a month into the school year we spend half a week at a nearby YMCA camp doing all kinds of camp stuff. It's amazing how delightfully scary your peers can be in moments when there's little sense of adult supervision, fervent chants and wild-eyed speculation of pantyraids and orgies, only to have our counselor show up and make us pretend to sleep. My sister's neighbor boy was in my group and "found" that my camera had been messed with. But at one point someone wants to see how many of us can stand on an old tree stump and so a quiet blue-eyed girl I hardly knew gets an arm around me. I don't think I bathed the whole time.
As the Dukes of Hazzard loses steam the A-Team becomes the coolest TV show ever. Magnum PI was still for a more mature palate. Blue Thunder is fun, I don't care what they say.
Yet another girl next door teased me for the way I tried to deploy an experimental FM antenna. As I struggle to explain it and she'd keep asking "so that's why you were throwing a board onto your roof?"
At one point I start running speaker wires through the crawl space to set up a house-wide radio station serving the "Living Room, Family Room and Greater Garage Area" with the help of an old rack-mount PA amp someone gave me. I type up a charter of sorts for operating "The Speaker" on an on old Remington portable I drug home from Goodwill and co-sign it with my dad. It doesn't take long to figure out what volume levels will draw fire.
During some kind of meal event in the fellowship hall a bunch of us are sitting on stacked tables by the wall. One of the new dudes cuts a squawker and gets red in the face laughing as we scatter.
Just after Christmas I develop a taste for country music, years before people my age were flocking to Garth Brooks but not before Able Archer raises a few eyebrows behind the Iron Curtain.
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