Letters (revisited)

 Existence... is part brilliance and part bullshit... one could conjecture that i take too many psychedelics and spend too much time thinking about things and that statement would be both true and false, could be i think about different things than the average bear or maybe i am the average bear or maybe i try to divest myself from post capitalism, post modernism, Post Malone way of living, who fucking knows... as it is i tend to wander through days in a haphazard way, taking it all in and without any real plan to what? get things accomplished? succeed? i'm not even sure what that is, i don't really know... i have a lot of ideas but lack the time to bring them to fruition... but that's not exactly accurate, it may be more that i'm fucking lazy and undisciplined or decide my time could be better spent staring at the ceiling while hanging with Phat Paco or Archie or another of my cats... 

Recently i renegotiated my contract so to speak... as the BW is often sitting around complaining about things not getting done, pondering hiring people for this or that, a neat little thought popped into my head... see the BW was moaning about my gig, the one where i play serf to the bourgeois, shopping for them and delivering the groceries, her main argument was that it wasn't worth the gas or wear and tear on the Shitmobile, the loving name i've given to the car i use to work in, a third car (oh yes first world problems) that the boyos also use... one driving aimlessly and one learning how to drive... one may remember i was nudged (see pushed) into the gig economy world during the pandemic when the BW's business was quasi-shuttered, needless to say her and her partners did well when it came to the guvment loans and walked away much the better... her businesses do rather well and fact is i don't really need to do this gig economy shit but it allows me to bank a little dosh as well as some autonomy, the last thing i need is to be asking the BW for money as it would be both belittling and frustrating as it's been well documented how it's her money to which all expenditures must pass muster under the bosses watchful eye... 

But the new contract... what i proposed was cutting back on my gig, basically working a day or two (see two) to provide me with some money (as well as allowing me to squirrel some away) while freeing up more of the day for me to get things done around the house... of course i threw in the caveat, as my back allows, but with my local pool reopened i know i can get in the water to keep it loose and in shape... the BW, to my surprise, jumped at the idea and said that would be great... and being an objective sort i understood her issue, it wasn't worth it for what i put in the joint account once the expenditures on gas and such were taken out but the fact is i need/like having my own cash, it provides a modicum of freedom that i otherwise wouldn't have as the BW would keep a vicelike grip on the money when it came to my weed, shrooms, books, records, concert tickets... basically the only thing i actually spend money on... yes one could ask what the fuck i'm on about and hell at this point, three paragraphs in i'm not sure i fucking know... 

The other day as i was cleaning up a room, reorganizing things, sorting through stuff, some to be donated and some that's destined for the landfill (sadly), i found the box of my father's things again... and of course i opened it and read through them a bit, mainly because i miss my father and in reading his letters i can hear his voice... his handwriting was excellent, dare i say beautiful, his thoughts meticulously laid out... i realized now a couple were drafts of letters that i will never know if he actually sent to his ex-wife and ex-mother in law... and it once again provided me with an interesting perspective on my parents and their relationship, or possibly it just reminded me, reminded me of all the things that children may never know about their parents relationship, made me think of what my sons will think when their parents are gone or if/when that relationship dissolves... 

Reading my father's letters i was struck once again at how one sided my parents marriage was... my father, til the end of that marriage and for a few years after, was deeply in love with my mother... i can't say the same for her and in reading those letters again it reminded me of how vindictive, cruel and manipulative my mother was... i, for most of my life, had escaped this wrath due to the fact i was the golden boy, the son her father always wanted and to which she was delighted to give him... as previously laid out i was my mother's choice where my sister was always viewed as my father's choice, mainly because my mother got pregnant as an unmarried 18yr old, something rectified one July day when they were married but a fact my father didn't find out until a few weeks later... he didn't know she was pregnant when they got married, he married her because he loved her... i know why my mother married him and these letters drove that point home... 

There is a line in one of the letters where my mother apparently told my dad that maybe she was the world's greatest actress... this line stuck... she was basically saying she had been playing the part her whole life due to the fact that he provided a pretty nice life for her (and their children), that she never really loved him but that while he was providing for her she could deal being married to him and that once he had lost his job (and she had started working as a school bus driver, the place where she met her first boyfriend) she wasn't about to let him spend her money... a statement that is eerily echoed above... granted my father made all the money but my mother had received an inheritance from her uncle who was fond of stuffing cash in his mattress, she and her sisters where given the money by their mother, my mom getting roughly 33k which she deposited in the bank presumably only under her name.. this is the money my father wasn't going "to spend"... so basically after a lifetime of providing for her, of putting himself through college while working a full time job in order to give his family a better life, that when he needed his wife and partner the most, she walked out on him... 

My old man was a bit of a stoic... rational and organized in his thoughts he was not one to get what one might call emotional... to his young son he was a rock, i've written before about how i barely knew my dad until i was 7 or so, he'd come home from work, eat some dinner and then head off to night school earning a degree in accounting... he went to work each day in his suit and tie and yet somehow it was never enough for his wife who wanted him to be a CPA, something he easily could have done but he was cool with what he was doing... and then of course came the Great Middle Management Purge, ten years after Reagan and suddenly the corporations began to want to "maximize shareholder value", and so many of these employees, predominantly men, men who came of age when what you did for a living was closely tied to who you were, were then handed a severance check, a pat on the back and shown the door... it was also when suicide rates began to skyrocket... and of course it was at this point my lovely mother decided it was no longer expedient for her to support the man who supported her... reading my father's letters there is a vulnerability that i'd never seen until the split and even then he did his best to keep it under wraps if his children were around... these letters laid bare his heart and soul and it physically hurt to read them, a sadness crept in and i wish i would have known more, i wish i could have done more... 

Unfortunately the relationship that my mother an i have is for all intents over... we'll exchange the odd text just to for a modicum of civility and i will briefly keep her informed on what her grandsons are up to but in the history of the lounge i've watched this relationship go from being on shaky ground to being dare i say good and then disintegrating, flaring up and flaming out in a matter of minutes... yes some might say we shouldn't let politics come between us but these day politics in this country isn't the norm... if one is part of a fascist movement then the only thing i can say is get fucked... if you cloak these beliefs in your religion, get fucked twice, if one votes for bigotry and hatred while quoting the Jesus while failing to recognize the hypocrisy one is either willfully ignorant or just plain fucking evil and the truth is there ain't much separating the two... if one claims to be a "good christian", whatever the fuck that is but then puts all their needs, wants, biases and bigotries ahead of voting for the future of the planet, the less fortunate, their grandchildren they claim to love so much then for the third time, get fucked... 

Not long ago my mother asked if she could come down and see Disaster around his 16th birthday... my mother and the fucking nonce who lives in the house my father paid for drove down under the guise of giving Disaster a jar of coins, they had this thing were every time they found coins or money on the ground they matched whatever the found in a jar for all their grandchildren and on their 16th birthday they got the jar... of course Disaster has always been the grandchild least doted on, he wasn't all that found of going to their house and would never go without his big brother, the I-mac on the other hand was their "boy", to the point where it was insulting when they talked to us about him, they gave the impression that they would do a better job raising him than his parents and often talked about how sad he was when he'd have to go home after his visits when he was a wee lad making it seem as if he didn't want to go... of course the BW took less than kindly to these insinuations (what mother wouldn't?) which left me to talk her down and explain that my mother and man who lived in the house my dad paid for were the self righteous, self important type of muppet and that it was best to dismiss their bullshit... (i'm sure i've put this up here before but there is a famous picture of Jesus on the cross, side split open, drawn by a 3yr old? I-mac that is framed on hung on the wall in a very prominent place, a picture they claim he drew all by himself with no help or instruction at all... oh if they could see their little boy now, he's his father's son when it comes to religion or lack thereof and he often wants to tell them exactly what he thinks of their religion...)

It was no secret that there was tension between my mother and i but when they arrived i was polite and kind and wasn't going to bring up any topics that would turn this thing pear shaped as it was ostensibly about my boy Disaster getting his loot... granted in their self-important view they fail to realize teenage boyos aren't exactly all about hanging with their grandparents... or their parents for that matter but the boyos were cool and hung for a an hour or so, a very strange hour and at one point JF aka jesus freak aka my mother's husband, made some stupid comment vaguely hinting at politics to which the I-mac then calmly fucking destroyed using this shit called facts... i just sat there grinning as i watched a certain grandmother and her hubby eat a warm and steaming shit sandwich... as for my mother i knew she didn't know how to handle me but she affected an air of iciness that i actually found surprising... of course what she didn't realize was that her son was an excellent study of his mother's ways, had been schooled by his father in her tricks and so knows how to play this game better...  i remained kind and polite and i could see it unnerved my mother... why? because i didn't bat an eye, i just went about my business of being a decent human being, gave her a hug, talked freely and pleasantly, it's hard to play the game when one side refuses to play... 

Ultimately i know how this plays out and the main reason i know this is my father's letters... he wrote way back in that letter to my grandmother about how a mother treated her children, how she didn't understand why they were upset and pissed at her and how after she had sacrificed so much they were nothing more than ungrateful shits... and as my father laid it out in brutal honesty, she loves to play the victim, is a master at twisting the facts to make it look like she was nothing but sweetness and light instead of vindictive and cruel and now those ungrateful spawn of hers had turned their back on her... in what i can only laugh at as the greatest of ironies, mother and daughter are all that is left of that old nuclear family, the two who battled the most, mainly because in the end they were more alike than either would want to admit, have each other... i have always been my father's son but i also possess the self awareness that i was raised by two people and most of my worst traits i have gotten from my mother... funny how those traits mostly come out when i'm dealing with her though maybe that's because over the years i've watched her shitting on different people, some of whom i loved fucking dearly, i'm a good student, i understand i get a certain satisfaction out giving her that same treatment, wondering is she recognizes what her bastard son is doing? Though i know that when she speaks of me to her cronies it's probably how horrible it is for her to have raised a son who is a heathen and i'm sure places the blame for it on her ex-husband... though the heathen displays a lot more empathy, kindness, tolerance to the world at large than his "christian" mother... 

Still those letters get me thinking about my dad... about how i miss talking to the guy, about what a good dude he was, how most of what i know about being an empathetic and decent human being i learned from him, what unconditional love actually looks like, how i wish i could have done more for him... that even though the woman he loved more than anything broke his heart he put himself back together and lived out his days with dignity and decency... and he even managed to have a little fun with a few girlfriends along the way, something i like to think he picked up from his wild-eyed son... he always used to tell me if he could do it again he would do it just like me (he also told me getting married was a great way to fuck up a perfectly good relationship, probably should have listened).. i could tell him anything now it would be thanks for being a great guide, teacher, friend and that i was lucky to have a father like him, that i try my best to emulate him when it comes to the boyos with varying degrees of success and failure... of course Pops would give his familiar laugh and tell me, that's life kid, just keep trying... or as it said up top, half brilliance half bullshit... 

 

The Good, The Bad, The Ugly... or a family vacation pt. 2

 If the previous post was the bad and the ugly there had to be some good right? yes there was some good, in fact there was some very good... starting with Key West itself... i've always loved the beach towns, they are haven for freaks and weirdos, drawn to a life a bit different than what could be classified as the norm and Key West is like the capital of such places... it took me back to the Ocean City years but in a different way as i noticed a lot of people near my own age were living down here... they were bartending, waiting tables, being tour guides, yeah they were working and maybe working two jobs but after spending an afternoon in a local pub with an old friend of mine now living down there i realized why this place was unique, i could sense it was a place to get lost, to dropout of the mainland rat race and move to where the weather never changes (sans the occasional hurricane) and one could live in relative anonymity doing what they want while getting by just fine, a different way of living or more apt maybe a different philosophy... my friend talked of riding his bicycle around the island every morning, riding to the bar, the famous Key West time which basically meant you get there when you get there, no rush... one could say it appealed to my Dudeist sensibilities...

Obviously one of the big highlights was seeing my old friend, a guy i met way back in the Wilderness Years when he worked at a bar and i worked out of that same bar... in fact one fine evening i was in that bar working, at the time i had a few different types of weed on me and i had unknowingly dropped a quarter ounce on the floor, after i left i got a call from him asking if i had lost something, a quick check of my inventory and i stated in fact i had lost something, this was during the raining money period mind you, he stated he had it and would hold it and i told him there was no need, it was his, he protested for a moment and i stopped him and stated i was fucking sloppy, i dropped the fucking thing but the real point was he called to give it back, how many people would have done that? most would have said nothing and kept it and so i told him it's his now cuz honesty and friendship should be rewarded... he laughed and said something like "thanks wastoid feel free to drop shit on the floor anytime..." we both had a good laugh at that...

So the highlights man the highlights... easily my favorite parts involved animals because as we all know i'm a cupcake when it comes to that... Key West is known for it's wild rooster/chicken population and i took great delight in watching them run all over town... there were many at the place we stayed and one particular rooster lived in the shrubs right near the steps i went up to get to the condo, i began making clucking noises, i do a killer chicken impersonation, and my rooster buddy would come rolling out of his abode every time i went by clucking, though i think if he could speak he'd have told me to knock that shit off as i may have sounded like an attractive hen to the randy rooster... at one point as i walked towards the car clucking away he sorta charged at me as if to say cut it you giant muppet... the sounds of roosters crowing could be heard wherever one went and i also got to see chickens fly into trees which is something i didn't know they could do, in fact i stood there dumbstruck and laughing the first time i saw it, learn something new every day... 

As previously stated the place we stayed in Key West was fucking ace! even more so because the music that was played near the pool and in the main lobby was fucking fantastic... it was all roots reggae and dub for the most part, in fact i can attest i heard better reggae here than i usually do in Jamaica... in Jamaica it's nothing but a steady diet of Bob, mainly because i'm sure that's all the average Yank really knows... whatever streaming service this place had going was superb... i heard Lee Perry, Augustus Pablo, Max Romeo, Peter Tosh, i was fairly floored by the quality of tunes i heard over the five days we were there...absolutely stellar!

Which brings me back to the wonderful screened in balcony/porch the place had... yes it was warm and humid even at night, though at night the breeze did kick up a bit but not much, enough to make me appreciate it when it did blow through and while the boyos ran around and hung out near the fishing docks and the BW went to bed, i'd sit out on the deck in the dark doing nothing, drinking water and hitting the weed pen and listening to the sounds of the night, the wind through the palm trees, the symphony of insects, and of course when the wind and distant traffic dissipated i could hear the sound of the waves gently lapping on the shore, i couldn't see them but then again i didn't need to, knowing they were there was enough... i'd watch the coming and going of the other people staying at the place, i'd see them wobbling back in from Duval St., i'd notice who else was sitting on their screened in balcony, but mainly i just sat and listened, let the mind wander, sometimes dozing off, all i really needed were my cats to be completely content (because i always miss my cats when i'm away)... during the day when the boyos were at the pool or sleeping and the BW was taking her afternoon nap (just like at home), i'd sit out on the balcony reading Hemingway, seeing as he spent a good deal of time down here, a book given to me when i graduated from college by another old friend, Forty-Nine Short Stories... it was perfect as i flipped from place to place picking which stories to read... which of course brings me to what might have been the biggest highlight... 

In my youth i loved the classics, so to speak... Hemingway, Steinbeck, F. Scott even a little Dos Passos for good measure... so this little trip would finally afford me the chance to see old Ernest's place in Key West along with those world famous polydactyl cats who roam the grounds and what could be more in line with my sensibilities than wandering the house of one of an early literary hero and hanging with cats? at present there are somewhere in the range of 57 cats living at the house and i got to scratch a few behind their lovely ears, wandering the grounds and the house where Ernest once roamed, drink in hand, probably meant more to me than any of the family understood, there were many photos and in back of the main house was a little cottage house where Hem wrote, the old typewriters, the first editions of old books, for a literary book nerd like me it was like heaven, add in the swimming pool, which for a long time was the only one on the island and one that was made to swim laps in (guess Ernest and i have something in common) and i could do nothing more than wander and grin at all the things, reading captions and studying bookshelves... with any luck pics will go up shortly but for me it was like wandering history... (it just so happened that day i wore a shirt that simply said Bokononist, a reference to Vonnegut and Cat's Cradle and it was funny watching the one woman who worked there gazing at it and then finally smiling when she figured out what it was, she then leaned over to me and whispered, i like your shirt, i smiled and said thanks...)

I'd also be remiss if i failed my drink at the World's Smallest Bar... to be fair there are many places vying for this title but apparently there are governing bodies that rule on this type of thing and the I-mac decided to research this claim and found that this particular place was recognized by various authoritative types as the world's smallest boozer... granted there were claims by other places but this seemed to have more than a few sites giving it said title... and of course there was my selfie with the Spongeman, i've always had a penchant for the strange and the stupid, aka touristy type shit, and this was no different, a mannequin outfitted in sponges outside some store selling trinkets, yeah gotta get a picture with that... it's the small things that please me the most... 

As is usual with the BW she was fretting over if the boyos were having a good time and though they did their fair share of low key complaining they actually did (i kept reminding her that they were planning on a Jamaican party week so anything but would be a letdown) so since we had to drive back to Miami the day before we left she decided we'd leave two days early and hit Hollywood Beach, the typical tourist town complete with boardwalk and the like... it gave the boyos more time to run the streets and the BW shocked me by not minding my love of walking the boardwalk, sometimes sitting on a bench and watching the world stroll by... once again the place we stayed was excellent and we had a room overlooking the bay and i could lay in bed and watch the sunset over that bay... (i should add the Key West sunsets were some of the most gorgeous i've seen) and at night i'd leave the curtains open so i could stare at the moon over the water while drifting off to sleep... i also got to spend one glorious day swimming in the Atlantic which is one thing i truly love...  all in all it turned out to be a pretty swell little getaway... but by the end i'll admit i wanted to get home and see my cats... 

And so i close the page on another family vacation... it's not lost on me that these are probably coming to an end in the current form as the boyos are getting older and soon i'm sure they won't be all that jazzed to go on vacations with their parents beside the fact that they are growing up and will sooner than i realize be venturing off into the world to do their own thing... which is just as it should be... yeah someday there might be that other type of "family vacation" with the boyos and their significant others and possible children... or maybe not... anyone following along knows there's a lot of "ifs" involved in that scenario... but for now i'll take it all in and appreciate the things i've gotten to see, the time spent with the boyos... in short, enjoy the ride... 

The Good, The Bad, The Ugly... or a family vacation pt. 1

 And so once again we come to the part of the year where Clark Griswold loads up the wood-paneled station wagon and sets off for parts unknown... or in my case, barely sleeps, gets up at 3am to get to the airport and then flies off to somewhere to (with any luck) listen to the sound of the waves meeting the land... this year was no different except that the plans were changed due to circumstances beyond our hero's control... the BW's father has been in and out of the VA hospital, i won't go into what and why other than to say it's part lack of taking care of himself and another part having chemicals dumped on him way back in the jungles of Southeast Asia... i won't go into the shit show the VA has turned into in the last six months as that's a post in and of itself but it harkens directly back to a draft dodging, supposedly bone spur having fat man named the Orange Shitgibbon... a sentence that now may get me detained and shipped to scenic and lovely locales in Central America... 

The original plan this year was to head back to Negril in West Jamaica, a place i love... and it looked to be sailing right along towards that until the BW started having second thoughts... first it was the fact the boyos were way to up for it... the I-mac would be legal to booze in Jamaica which meant when he and Disaster went roaming around the resort in the evening his big brother could get him drinks... not to mention their love of a certain plant (i guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree), a plant readily available on this island... needless to say their mother had some reservations and began voicing them as she felt the trip was shaping up to be a non-stop party for her two boys... the funny thing is she always enjoys the trips to Jamaica (this would have been the fourth) due to my amenable and easy going demeanor i have when there, i can sit and listen to her pontificate on various thoughts in her head mainly due to my being pleasantly stoned from morning until night... every day i wake up and smoke a small joint and eat some ganja cake, head to breakfast where i drink  some delicious Blue Mountain coffee, and then set off upon the day where i smoke every few hours along with more bits of ganja cake until the evening when the BW tends to wind down goes to bed and i sit and listen to the ocean while getting righteously stoned... 

It was becoming abundantly clear that she was not feeling great about this trip and then when one tossed in her father's health issues it got even worse... granted i understood where she was coming from, sort of, her father having been an asshole for most of his children's lives  was lucky his two middle kids, the ones who got the least and shit on the most, took an active interest in his well-being... the oldest and youngest? the ones handed money, the typical way the old man showed his love, well they couldn't be troubled with daddy's health and tend to visit only when they need another handout... also a post for another time... and  so with shit piling up i agreed and said she should cancel Negril and look for a place in Dumbfuckistan so that if something did happen while she was away it would be easier to get back...she also had been calling him daily and while it's not a huge issue being out of the country makes that a bit more difficult though i noticed she called him maybe once while we were away so why that became an issue i don't know... 

And so i watched Negril fade into the ether... i would not be imbibing in my favorite weed and homemade Jamaican ganja cake, no jerk chicken or peas and rice (peas being beans), no stellar fucking coffee... and that's okay... add in the fact that last year's foray into the Caribbean ended with us being in Grenada and caught in a hurricane which severely altered the trip and the BW wanted what she wanted, and let me add that she and her family take great pride in their vacation planning, maybe it's foreign to me cuz my childhood vacations were spent in Ocean City, Md. where it was pretty cut and dry what one did... her clan is much more into far off places now and love the planning of "excursions" and the like... the amount of research into places to stay, flights, things to do, borders on obsessive... 

So what was the back up plan? Enter Key West... and truth be told as an alternate i was excited to head down to the southernmost point in Dumbfuckistan to check out a place i had never been... unfortunately the boyos were not so excited and one does not need any foreshadowing to understand what that meant... i spent a few weeks leading up to the trip talking to Disaster about it as he was the most gutted about the situation and i knew why... see the above about big bro sneaking him booze and getting high... in fact i told him as such and explained that between last year when his brother, being able to drink in Grenada, going completely off the fucking rails and the prospect of both of them doing that this time i was a bit apprehensive about the trip, mainly because it would quickly devolve into a fucking mess where the BW would be raging about "all the money she spent" and how it wasn't for some week long party with arguments most likely breaking out on an almost hourly basis... and guess who the referee would be? i would also be the one subjected to long diatribes by the BW as she complained about the boyos when they were off partying and how she'd never do this again...  it wasn't exactly what i was looking forward to and i explained to Disaster that if the BW was having a miserable time the rest of us would be having a miserable time... he said he understood but i wasn't exactly convinced... 

If there was one pleasant part of the trip down it was the fact it would only be one flight... no stressing connections or late luggage and we still left ridiculously early, something that Disaster loves, he loves getting up and going to the airport super early, he's been doing it since he was a toddler and i understand that it's one of those memories he'll carry with him... granted when one (meaning me) barely sleeps due to the eldest boyo fucking about and staying out too late and then sleeping less than two hours the day can get mighty fucking long... add in the fact it's tough to sleep on planes when one is 6'4 and by 10am i was fucking well spent... of course the BW decided not to put anyone else as a driver on the car so after landing and collecting luggage i got to drive the 3 hours and change to Key West, an interesting drive to say the least but not when one is so tired one wants to pass out and even tougher given the straight line drive on a single lane roads... it was a real struggle to stay awake... 

The place we stayed was lovely, i may be a snarky bastard when it comes to the BW and her fretting and worrying over places and plans but she always seems to find excellent places... this one being a two bedroom condo with a full kitchen and two bathrooms... why two bathrooms? the I-mac is a fucking nightmare when it comes to the bathroom, veritably locking himself in for hours it seems while doing nothing other than scrolling his phone and sitting on the toilet or taking showers the length of baseball games... it's fucking irritating to say the least and i often remind him of the water he is wasting (he pulls the same shit at home where i have been known to flat out shut the water off), even better the place had a screened in porch which was brilliant! no mosquitos and like which meant i could sit out there in peace without having to bathe in bug spray... (more on this later) 

As for the rest of it? well we'll refer back to the title... but in reverse... the boyos had a decent time but the fact is Key West wasn't exactly their bag especially when they were banking on Negril, granted they got along for the most part but the fact is they were bored a lot of the time and it was a bit different than what they were used to... yeah white suburban kid problems... that said they did seem to make some of their own fun and since the I-mac has a pen i'm sure he shared it with his little brother, we also bought some beers which they could partake in while in the condo but they didn't get to run around and get wasted like they had planned... granted the last two nights we spent in Hollywood Beach near Ft. Lauderdale where they could roam freely, (Key West was a little more difficult as we stayed on the far end from Duval St. which wasn't far but too far to walk... they could have hopped a bus or a cab but i don't think either of them felt the need especially since there were a few girls hanging around the place at night who they had been trying to talk to...) 

The biggest issues, other than the boredom, were mainly with the I-mac... granted they both got to snorkel near a reef, parasail, jet ski and wander Duval St. but the eldest boyo kept up a steady stream of complaints about not being allowed to get fucked up... seeing as he spent most of the previous vacation in Grenada drunk of his ass due to his ability to get his own booze it was more a relief to his parents but to him it was a crime against humanity... to call the boy self-centered and for lack of a better word, spoiled, is an understatement... he has a bad habit of bitching about all the things he doesn't get while not seeming to grasp all the things he does fucking get... something which pisses his father off royally as it hasn't exactly been a life of hardship for the boyo... 

On the last night, in Hollywood Beach, he finally found some guy to get him booze and came home fucking hammered... i was not amused... he proceeded to pretend to not be blitzed and then immediately went to the bathroom to throw up... something that lasted until roughly 3:30am and which kept me awake due to the noise and the need to make sure he was okay... the BW slept through most of it and i believe silently delegated me to deal with it... don't get my wrong, Disaster wasn't exactly sober when he got home but even at his age does a better job of hiding it... toss in the following day where the I-mac decided to have one of his patented meltdowns in the Miami airport, basically pissing and moaning at his mother, who was now almost in tears, and it was more than a bit embarrassing... so in stepped the bastard aka me... i explained that it was not the time or the place to be having this discussion and that i'd gladly discuss it with him when we got home... he understood the sly smile on my face would not bode well for him once back to the Burgh and so he gradually got over his dumbfuckery and realized once home he might be a bit fucked... at one point he whined about his parents wanting him to move out to which i explained that's not what was said but that while said parents were providing much financial support and the like if he didn't like the current situation and the rules that went along with it he was free to pursue his own living accommodations which also meant supporting himself... it wasn't long after that his tone changed drastically... 

To be fair i understood it wasn't what they had planned on and in all honesty they did manage to entertain themselves and have a decent time to the point Disaster actually has spoken about how much he liked Key West and the I-mac pondered the idea of working down there for a summer in the future... then again the I-mac is a master at grandiose plans that never come to fruition... to be cont... 

The Mushroom Diaries - vol. 31

Greetings and welcome to another edition of the life and times of a psychedelic geezer...  yes it's been almost three months since our last update and i should add i don't exactly write about every time i take a dose which considering this is post  31 says something about the dedication i have to tripping like a fool while staring at the ceiling and traveling inner space while lounging on the couch... of course one could posit the theory that i'm also traveling outer space but we'll leave that debate for another time as this post is about the ingenuity of the wasted... it's a popular myth among the squares of the world, started by Nancy and Ronnie (nee Raygun), that anyone dabbling in these substances is obviously a detriment to society, that the kids should just say no... of course looking around we see how well that's gone, the most successful countries when it comes to combating the "drug war" as it's called in Dumbfuckistan, the sane places don't really view it as that, have found that decriminalizing and legalizing these substances lead to a much better outcome when it comes to public health and welfare... meaning the prisons aren't overflowing with non-violent "drug" offenders and those who do develop addictions to certain things are treated as humans with an actual medical condition and not criminals... of course when one lives in a country where for profit gulags, i mean prisons, are big business and publicly traded one understands why the shit goes down like this... to make a profit those corporate types need consumers or what's commonly known as inmates and the easiest way to go about that is to prey on disenfranchised communities so they can easily stock their cells... but i digress... 

There is this myth of the lazy stoner/drug user and as someone who knew a whole lot of junkies back in the day i can assure you that they are far from lazy as they work quite hard to feed that dragon... granted it may be scamming and stealing at times but don't discount the effort, it's there... as for the stoners of the world i mainly know nothing but highly productive weed-heads who tend to get more things done stoned than most people do not stoned... which brings me around to the mushroom and my love of the effects but hating the taste... not that the taste stops me, i've always found a way to chew them up and swallow them down it's just i've always pined for an easier, less nasty way (for my tastebuds) to ingest my favorite fungi... 

It's been documented here about a wonderful little site that grows and ships these lovely bits of fungus all over the place, it's a great site that seems to be using loopholes to get their product out, something i've seen before, most famously in the nations' capital where once they legalized possession of weed some bright stoners decided that they'd create a delivery service for t-shirts, which cost the exact same price as an eighth of weed, or say you wanted two t-shirts, that miraculously cost the same as a quarter ounce, see if one bought a shirt one got a free bag of weed with it... brilliant really as it circumnavigated the law... hence this site does roughly the same and seeing as fungi doesn't have the same aroma as cannabis it's a bit easier to ship, especially using a certain shipping company who is notoriously lax when it comes to finding certain types (see drugs) of contraband... add in the new technology in opaque packaging and voila! they can ship stuff all over... 

There are a couple of interesting products on this site, the mushroom made into pill forms in various guises... the one is straight up Matrix shit as it's a small soft gel, think one of those little green or orange Nyquil soft gels except slightly smaller and red, they are the equivalent to 1 gram (1000 mg) of boomers, sourced from a Cambodian strain and have a large warning on the site that they are NOT for microdosing... it's an interesting concept and one i was interested to test out and so i bought some and can attest to their effectiveness... the other product were capsules filled with ground up shrooms (the vaunted Penis Envy strain) in various doses, the largest being 400mg, which meant i could vary the size of the dose a bit more depending on what i wanted to achieve... these were also good for going to shows and riding trains as they were super easy to transport and take as if i was taking supplements or vitamins, which in theory one could say i am... 

It was after trying the capsules out that my stoner brain got to thinking? i could probably do this myself... the site charged about $26 more for the same amount of the ground up version and so it dawned on me to look up empty pill capsules, for some reason i knew they were out there and of course they were and so i began researching sizes seeing as i never realized there were different capsule sizes... why i don't know as pills come in different dosages and so i settled on one that stated it held roughly 400-800mg of "supplements"... i then got to work with a lovely little coffee grinder that was rarely used and would grind up the mushrooms into a fine powder... it should be noted i would do this before i discovered the capsule and i'd spread the powder on peanut butter cracker or just toss pinch after pinch in my mouth and quickly swallow it down with water... needless to say both methods didn't completely eliminate the taste but it was a bit better than munching them down though i have to admit the organically grown boomers from this place tasted somewhat better than the ones i used to get on the street... 

Now being the industrious sort when it comes to this shit i spent a few mornings grinding various strains, currently (i just realized) i have six different strains to choose from and it's interesting to see how they hit and what they do... though they all do somewhat  the same thing but there are slight differences in effects... the process would be to get them as fine as possible and then transfer them to the capsules which came with neat little tools, basically tiny spoons, to fill the capsules, the opposite end being flat so that one could tamp down and pack the powder and bits of boomer down in order to get a tightly packed capsule... granted the dosage in each isn't going to be exactly the same but i'd have a rough idea of what i was taking and let's be honest, i used to weigh out the mushrooms on a tiny and not very accurate scale so the truth is i always had a rudimentary idea, though not exact, of how much i was taking... 

Of course i had to work out some issues as far as filling the capsules, there was some trial and error and i've refined the process each and ever time i do it, the biggest dilemma was what to do with the filled larger half of the capsule while filling the smaller end before putting them together, a problem solved with a small piece of styrofoam into which i pressed an empty capsule to create a nice little divot which would snuggly hold the filled part of the capsule while i worked on the other part... i laughed out loud when i came up with this, my eureka moment, not as if i'm some fucking genius more like that of a mad scientist, pleased with his methods... now i have a bunch of old pill bottles all labeled with the various strains... Golden Teachers, Puerto Ricans, Bluey Vutton aka Smurfs, the JCs which is short for Jesus Christ shrooms, a name i gave them cuz they're fucking large and strong, the last of my "street" shrooms, and of course the Penis Envy capsules and Cambodian soft gels... yes kids i like psychedelics... 

Which brings me to my other favorite thing, my post psychedelic smoothie... i became of a fan of the smoothie some time ago after trying to find something that wasn't horrible for me when i was out being the gig economy serf... enter Smoothie King and the Daily Warrior smoothie to which i soon figured i could make myself, at least something close to it and so i found some organic super food smoothie mix at Costco... yeah man i'm fucking DEI and am almost relieved Costco is as well cuz i get most of my clothes there at this point, comical yes but i'm too old to worry about fashion, unless of course it's my ridiculous assortment of t-shirts, but back to the smoothie... the mix i found has bananas, blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, spinach and kale... shit i wouldn't eat unless tossed in a blender, though that's not entirely true... i toss it in with some OJ, a little peanut or almond butter, some plain Greek yogurt and voila! fucking super delicious, even though it may sound like it wouldn't work it does... i fucking love them... and it's cheaper than always hitting up Smoothie King which has now become a bit of a treat for me... so after a fine night of psychedelics the next day i get up and knock back a smoothie, mainly to help replace what was lost tripping as one can get a bit dehydrated and one is not exactly looking to eat while on the trip... so there it is, the rituals and habits of a psychedelic loving stoner...one could call us lazy... but you'd be wrong...  

Bill

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Glad All Over

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Bokononist / (possible) Death in the Afternoonn

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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