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A purveyor of tripe …
It has warmed all the way up to 57°F in my little paradise. I may have to don shorts and turn on the air-conditioners again. But it doesn’t matter. I am not going anywhere this morning anyway. I masterfully brought down a Union Pacific train down off of Tehachapi Pass this morning, dropped off a cut of cars and six repaired engines in Bakersfield, and sent the train on its way to Fresno, all from the comfort of my studio.
So now that I have completed a major task for the day, I am free to chronicle. But chronicling is a cheesy substitute for writing fiction. Writing fiction is too much like real work, and I have concluded that I shan’t be completing my novel in this lifetime. I am a producer of tripe, a keen observer of humdrum. And truthfully, I like it that way at this stage of life.
But once upon a time I was exciting. No. Really! I was! I was a carnival flat joint barker and ride operator. A lumberjack. An oilfield roustabout. A truck driver. A bartender. A bartender in a brothel. A programmer. A harvester. A cook. A janitor. A night host. A drug counselor. A deacon. A painter. A carpenter. A sot.
But these days I just molder. If you look closely, you can see the mushrooms sprouting from me. And I write tripe. Once a day, every day, I write tripe. Around two-hundred or so words of tripe.
So, stopping here at 259 words of tripe, I wish you good morning!
Warning: Political Rant
Hard to believe that I have sat in this chair for seven hours and not played one game, spent any time on the simulator, or written anything. I just spent the day snooping through the political feeds and social sites, trying to suss out the trends of midterm elections. It is no secret which side I sit on, and the stats are ominously tilting leftward for the House.
But polls have normally trended +Democrat over the years until the races tighten up in the last weeks leading up to the election. Conservative tea-leaf readers think that it is because the push polling ends as the pollsters need to prove they are non-partisan to keep their credibility. I think there may be some truth to that. Most pollsters tend to be pointy headed academics and draw their employees from academia, so it is not surprising that polls begin flipping at the runup … who wants to be holding the bag of a losing poll?
I don’t know why I do this to myself. It isn’t like all this looking at trends is going to change the election results. I quit voting for left wing candidates for anything higher than the local water board a long time ago.
It is still rainy and cold here in the heartland of Texas where our native son Willeh Nelson went off the reservation and supported a classic dope smoking liberal who luvs jes’ about everbody but old white males, and really wants to be muh leader. <puff!>. Such a good old boy … but he joined a long list of Democratic candidates with stolen culture. Goes by “Beto”, a Mexican endearment for Roberto. The only problem with Beto is that he is a plastic Mexican. Not that he would matter. Just being a damned Democrat and sounding like a yankee is enough for me to dis him. The liberal Texas newspapers sure do fawn over him, though. Like a white Obama. Bleah.
Truthfully, though, I only have one litmus test that tells me all about a candidate. Any candidate who is all for restricting firearms by legislative means tells me that I am dealing with someone who is totally clueless about the Constitution and how to amend it. And that is not someone I want at the national level. I lost the 10th Amendment argument before I was born, so that is no longer a factor. The Federalist won, and the states are like mere counties to FedGovCo now. I don’t know why we don’t eliminate the states and just make the governor a Servile Service employee … maybe with a newly minted GS-17 rating so that they feel like a real executive or something. Then nationalize the police, sort of along the lines of the Mexican Federales or Canadian Mounties, with absolute power.
Oh well … I doubt that even my sarcasm is going to sway many people.
So I sit back and think. Hell. I got mine. Why should I care?
The dawn arrives, but barely peeks through the heavy clouds and rain. Had to turn on the lights in the house, reset the thermostat for winter time, and check the weather ‘cast. 40° but feels like 33°, rain showers for the entire day. No one can fire me now if I am not responsible, so I put the doctor, optometrist and insurance on rain delay, and write while sipping coffee.
The larder is starting to thin some, and so I begin the shopping list, and when it reaches $35, I hit the send button. Well, truthfully, since I tip the driver, I like it to be closer to $50 so they get a better tip. It sounds like quite a bit of money, but when you factor the mileage costs driving to town, the delivery service starts looking pretty good. Plus that long schlepp from the driveway to the house is really starting to tax my strength.
Seem that Senator “Pocahontas” Warren proved she was part Indian by hiring her own genetic testing and releasing the results. We can trust those results, I am sure. She is, after all, a woman, and we got to believe the girl. Not much else going on in the newsfeeds or social sites. Maybe it is because it is Monday.
Think this will be a two-pot day … just noticed Snooks started the next pot brewing, so that makes the decision for me. Someone must stay around to drink it, and I am just the man for the job.
Good morning!
I killed the unicorn …
One of my blog friends wrote a fun piece about “peeping”, where you drive around when the foliage changes and take in the gorgeous colors and drying air of autumn. In the high Colorado Rockies where I was reared, the only ones you heard use the term peeping were transplanted yankees working or studying at the local college, famous for taking students who couldn’t get into a better college.
We had ‘turning’ season where the groves of quacking aspen would all turn golden yellow at the same moment. The exact time was a combination of dryness, shortening of days and cooler temperatures. Aborealists say it has more to do with the available daylight than it does with the temperature, so some years the first frost came too soon, and the turning was disappointing. The leaves would turn brown and fall. But in other years, it was mystical. You could hear the soft applause of leave as the morning winds would rattle the leaves, and a hushed peace would settle on the land.
In rare years, hunting season would arrive at the same time, and so many of us equated the turning with hunting. In later years, the ever-wise legislators decided that hunters and tourists was not a good mix, and moved deer season a bit further into the year. But then, there weren’t so many tourists and one could stake out a good hunting ground quite easily.
The last time I went deer hunting was one of those magical years when walking into an aspen glad was like walking into gold. I found a small meadow where I could sit on a rock outcropping and observe the entire meadow, and silently huddled into a small ball for warmth, and waited as the sun climbed rose. Then he silently appeared. A six-point buck.
I smoothly raised the 30-06 to eye height, found him in the reticule of the scope, and picked a spot just back from the shoulder blade, and fired. The buck gave a hop, then stopped, and I debated taking another shot, but he didn’t move for a long time. Then he laid down and rolled over. I rose, oddly shaking with excitement and stiffness from sitting still, and cautiously approached him, using the barrel to poke at his eyelid. It was a clean kill.
I stood there in the golden glade, letting the adrenalin dissipate before starting to prepare him, and a question arose in my mind. “Why did you do this?” The bucks lifeless eye seemed to stare at me for that eternity.
“Great kill!” Orrie shouted as he broke through the underbrush. He had heard the shot and came to help me dress the buck out, and we got started on it. But the gold had vanished from the woods, the clapping hands were silent. It was just a meadow in the woods and the magic was gone. It never came back for me, and I see the accusing eye of that buck in my dreams.
I am not against hunting. If my family needed food and I needed to kill to get it, I could, and I would. Without hesitation. But I knew this buck was a senseless kill. I didn’t need the meat. At that time, I didn’t even own a freezer. As it turned out, I never tasted the meat of that buck. I gave it all away, sold the rifle, and left the country for city life.
Today when I look at a picture of a golden glade, the numinous feel is gone. I killed the unicorn.
No Banjo for da Budgie
Some old maladies returned last night making the golden sunrise a little less cheerful than it would have been this morning. But I dutifully open the blinds for da budgie, so I can’t sit in the gloom and glower at the universe like almost every fiber of my being is begging to do. Still, I get no happy greeting from her, and that just suits me fine. Then Snooks brings me a cup of freshly brewed coffee, and I gratefully accept it while the bird shrieks and whistles with joy at her arrival. Pfft! No banjo for da budgie this morning.
Not a whole lot on the news today. Hillary Clinton, the chief executive of Bimbo Eruptions is calling for more incivility because da pipples dreams were stolen, and a crowd of #metoo actresses join the chorus, and no one catches the irony. Oh well. Onward
The verges are looking shaggy, but I don’t know if my old bod is up to the mowing now that the rain bands have blown over. I hope it will cooperate. I need to get outdoors. I don’t mind the mowing after I once get the startup pre-flights over with.
And my annual inspection needs to be booked. Men my age are spared the indignity of the rubber glove inspection … unless they are having problems. Damn. There’s just no justice.
And so the day starts. Good morning!!
Rainy day banjo
Light rains and 70° this morning as Snookums delivers the first cup of steaming coffee to the studio. The weather forecast is for violent storms starting around noon and going on ‘til sundown, so I must put off mowing for yet another day, and you know how that distresses me. I’ll console myself with a refill and a handful of Oreos.
The news feeds are thankfully quiet other than a few bigshot columnists who must produce to get paid. Seems the Democratic Party’s strategy is to try to keep the believe the girl coalition incensed until November. Maybe they can pull it off, but I believe most of the Kavanaugh hate will dissipate as the left goes back to its low-level government jobs. Got to pay off them student loans.
So this rainy day, I sit in my studio and write and await the brunch bell. Then a little snoozing later, followed by more writing, snoozing and dinner. It’s a grind, but someone has to do it.
Good morning!
The morning after …
Well, the orgy is over. A judge who half the people desired while the other half didn’t, gets sworn in. I don’t have to believe the girl now. She’ll annoyingly go on like Anita Hill and write books and bask in her stolen credibility from the man she savaged to get it.
And the sun still came up on time this morning. The news pages remind me of a morning after one of my drinking binges. Litter is everywhere, and vague recriminations lurk in the dark corners of the mind as fragments of excess float across the landscape. You know that you are going to have to make apologies but aren’t sure as to whom or why … and you don’t want to leave the house.
Snook got the budgies music going before I rose, so I sit here peering into your universe and sip my coffee to banjo / guitar runs, and let the daylight infuse my sleep swollen body with wakefulness. Life on the macro scale is the pits, but on the micro scale isn’t so bad. I suppose that is what it was like in other turbulent times. One group gets up every day and does its chores, and another group rises up and revolts.
I was reading an online friends blog page where she gave a little innocent bio of herself. It was an interesting read, and I am certain she didn’t mean to stir up anything. But she used phrase “we the people” and that triggered me. Why is it that every reactionary group thinks it is “the people”, when the truth is that most people want to be left alone by group spokespipples. It is like politicians of both stripes mouthing “the people want” to make a vague political statement and hoping to sound authoritative. And another trigger word crops up. Authoritative.
But back to my coffee that is slowly infusing my soul this morning. Annie-Annie, my lab+something unknown lays on my bare toes, warming them in the morning chill. It is a humid day, hazy in the autumn sun, but may reach 90° early this afternoon, with occasional rain.
Snooks is mowing the kennel run/back yard. I should mow the outside verges later if something doesn’t intervene. It wouldn’t take much to make me sit the chore out today.
And that, my friend, is what life is like in the fast lane.
Good morning!
More dreary symbolism
It took me awhile to suss this one out. It is a brick wall of women, right?
How so … ah … symbolic, or something.
Can’t people just take a stand on something without theatrics?
Unto each life a little rain must fall
This Shabbat morning comes in dark and rainy with the autumn rains. It is a gentle, soaking rain right now, but harder rains are predicted later in the day and on to Sunday. Last night was the first night I didn’t run the big air conditioner, just letting a little portable A/C cool the air in the master bedroom.
Snookums rose a bit before me, brewing the coffee so all I need do is walk into the kitchen, receive the filled cup, grunt some sort of morning greeting, and pad down to the studio to entertain the bird by putting on spiritually uplifting music on the google puck. Yeah, I have become a tool of google. Why fight it? You too will be assimilated.
Kippur da budgie responds to the music with happy clicks chirps and burbles. She just went through a molt and now has pin feathers around her eyes and beak. Usually that makes her crabby, but Snookums has some sort of special feed that cheers her up during her frequent molts. Maybe my bird is an addict.
Saturday is the big brunch day, but I have some turkey sausage and egg croissants that need to be consumed. Maybe I can add some pears on the side … and make Snook drink a little grape juice. It’s good for her even if she isn’t so fond of it, and it gives me a chance to get even in dispensing the good-for-you’s
And hopefully, the heroes of the Senate will vote on Kavanaugh and put to rest the horror that they have inflicted us. The advise and consent provision was never to be a public forum, but it is a grotesque circus now. And I know precisely who to thank for that.
*sip!
I am in a two-steps forward, one-step back dance with my health. Some weeks I measure victory by mere millimeters.
And so the Shabbat unfolds with a bit of promise of a future time.
Good morning!
Mz Muse Scores a TKO
Determined to write something this morning, I locked my $49 executive chair into the full upright Mavis Beacon posture, scooted up to the keyboard where my index fingers were poised over the home keys, donned one of my 3 for $6.00 computer glasses, and typed this sentence.
“That’s it, champ! The goal is to write! write! write!”
There she was, perched on my K-Mart banker’s lamp, wearing black sweats instead of the usual hideous fuchsia pink rayon blouse and brown plaid pencil skirt. She had a sponge in one hand, and a small metal bucket at her feet, looking a lot like Angelo Dundee[i], the famous boxing trainer and cornerman.
“I think Angelo was better looking. What brings you around?” I asked.
Throwing a left jab/ right block in the air, she replied “I’ve always been in your corner, champ. But you’ve taken one too many dings to the head and can see any more.”
“I hate boxing metaphors. I sucked at boxing anyway. I was a street fighter.”
“Yeah, and you sucked at that too!” She crowed.
“I did lose a lot” I answered ruefully, “but they all knew that I would fight, and fight viciously. They let me be after one go-round.”
“Well, you’re writing a little now. That’s good. And I see you are shuffling Akashaic around.” She said, changing the subject.
“I was looking for anything that was salvageable in it. I think some of the characters may remain, but the storyline has to be discarded.”
“That’s too bad.” She cooed.
I went on, brushing aside her mocking sympathy. “No, it was really too much of an epic. I just wanted to tell a short tale, not write a Wagnerian opera. The tale just got away from me. And the dyslexia has gotten so bad on some days that I just hate rereading anything I wrote.”
“You still have that knack for surprise endings. Why not work on that?”
“Surprise endings are a gimmick, usually. I would rather have fairy tale endings where everything is wrapped up. At heart, I am a moralist.”
“An amoral moralist. Now that is interesting!”
Again that tone. I think I was mocked again. “Aw shaddup. But yeah, you are right that I am more amoral than most believe. Most think I am a bit on the priggish side when in fact I don’t think that anyone lives up to a very high standard. I am not a big fan of mankind.”
“Then why are your hero’s so ‘pure’?” She asked.
“Good question. Perhaps I want to believe that one can have pure morals. I dunno. To me, a narcissist is worse than a pedophile. So my hero’s tend to be selfless, and my villains tend to be self-centered.”
“Well, write about them, champ!” she said, blocking with the right and feinting with the left.
“I just can’t seem to get going on it. The dyslexia is stealing most of the joy of writing. I reread some of my old posts and I am aghast at the errors. I just can’t see them when I write them, no matter how often reread the passage.”
“Well, just write it and go on. It isn’t like you are going to publish any time soon.”
“People keep telling me that, but when a sentence or a phrase just doesn’t read right to me, it drives me crazy and I can’t go on until it is right. If I go back, then I focus on the sentence, and then the paragraph goes out of whack. So I focus on the paragraph, and find it doesn’t fit the theme. I don’t know how to stop doing that.”
“That’s my job.”
“Not in that get-up.” I shot back.
“That from a man who writes in his underwear? Please spare me!” she said, dancing around with her hand clasped over her head like a winning champ.
[i] Angelo Dundee was an American boxing trainer and cornerman. Best known for his work with Muhammad Ali, he also worked with 15 other world boxing champions, including Sugar Ray Leonard, José Nápoles, George Foreman, George Scott, Jimmy Ellis, Carmen Basilio, Luis Manuel Rodríguez and Willie Pastrano. Wikipedia
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