What’s Good for the Goose is Good for the Gosling; Rarely

“the Man that will make such an execrable Pun as that in my Company, will pick my Pocket”
–John Dennis according to an epistle written by Benjamin Victor in 1722

2 a.m. came with the caterwauling of two geese. I’m guessing the noise was a result of a fight they were having with a Bremerton raccoon. The prize for said was their eggs. I’m certain they lost, the geese. This is the nature of a Bremerton raccoon, they are not long on loss. They fight pit-bulls and Rottweilers for trash-can scrap lunch, in fenced yards, like a backyard cage-match. And they win. And this morning, a Sunday morning, we are deep into spring. Being on the business-end of Memorial Day weekend, I imagine that this time of year marks the salad days for the Bremerton raccoon.

Brief Aside: I’m not comfortable with the spelling of the word: raccoon. And I have no idea how to spell: brief, without the crutch of spell-check. I didn’t realize this until the raccoon became an integral character in this story. I am 43 fucking years old. My Vest Pocket Dictionary, prepared by the folks at Webster, is of little help. It does contain the word: rabid which is not ironic but it does strike me as counter-intuitive for reasons of comedy. Brief-adjacent, let’s move on.

The caterwauling was desperate but also a bit resolved to the idea that the geese were on the losing end of a battle for the survival of their line. They only get one shot a year. And they generally nest in the same spot every year. They’re territorial that way. And the blackberry bushes along the shore of The Port Washington Narrows are not easily protected from hungry raccoons. The geese lose this fight more often than not.

Maybe these are all clues to the ignorance of anthropomorphizing the geese and their actions, or lack thereof. But it must feel terrible to be so helpless in protecting one’s young. I would be terrified.
And isn’t all great parenting predicated, nay, motivated by fear? No? Okay…

When I was young, I can’t pinpoint the age exactly, but I remember the place, I was abused by a caretaker. Using the term caretaker in this context is both ironic and counter-intuitive. I’m aware.

Aside: I’ve tried to write about this abuse before. Several times. This is the point where I always lock up. I have countless unfinished drafts of this story. They all conclude with the previous paragraph…

…26 minutes pass as I watch the cursor blink at me disapprovingly…my stomach hurts.

The abuse wasn’t at the hands of my parents nor were they to blame. But when the events came to light and the dust had settled, it felt like I was being blamed. If not blamed per-se, I was never assured by my folks that it was not my fault. My entire life I’ve owned a portion of the responsibility for that violation. I still hoard some of it…jealously…

But this morning, in the cries of two roughly evolved dinosaurs, I heard the fear of my parents. The fear that I possess as a parent. The anxiety that these things happen, that some things can only be prevented in hind-sight with a DeLorean. I heard the cries of generations as they digest the horror that some predators cannot be stopped, that some bells cannot be unrung, and some eggs cannot be uncracked. Indeed, in a cruel world where: “you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet” is a platitude, the cries of the geese were probably an annoyance to my neighbors as they were trying to convalesce from drinking heroic amounts of alcohol in celebration of remembering. But for me it was a moment of Zen. I was also recovering. My convalescing is quicker as I drink like a hero every day. A simple hangover was no match for my instant of clarity.

I am not protecting my kids reliably…

That was 2 a.m., it is now 5a.m. and the sun is up in earnest and people are moving. And I am tired. The kind of tired that sleep is powerless to remedy. I’m tired of struggle of survival of caretakers and geese and raccoons and eggs and omelets and kids and parents and cruelty and platitude. My fear is that rest is countless miles from where I sit. Miles not counted by my own weariness but by the blood and sweat that life requires of me, of us all. We got quotas to fill, kid…

But: for now…I’ll try…

2015 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2015 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 850 times in 2015. If it were a cable car, it would take about 14 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Human Dum-Dum

“I swear, gentlemen, that to be too conscious is an illness – a real thorough-going illness.”

–Fyodor Dostoyevsky Notes from the Underground

Bukowski once said something to the effect of: It was writing and the bottle that kept me alive…something like that. For a while, maybe a year…or two, I’ve been trying one half of that equation–vigorously. I haven’t really been writing a lot, and it’s a bit depressing. So I think I’ll try both halves and see how that works out.
I’m not sure why I set an arbitrary 1000 words per post rule. I think I do this to myself for nefarious reasons. I can’t be 100 percent sure. I can remember why I didn’t want to go over that number, but I can be under. This is me giving myself permission to do shorter blog posts. Clearly, this is a throw away paragraph and will not be in the final draft. What? How did you do that, you scrappy paragraph? Well, at any rate–I can’t stay mad at you, you rapscallion.
That last paragraph was a breach of the trust that we have built as writer and reader. And I apologize. This is obviously a blatant attempt at word-padding. And it is beneath us both. But you try and tell that paragraph to get outta here. You can’t; can you? I ain’t mad. Group hug: me, you, and the paragraph.
I recently quit my job. I tried to stay on as long as I could. That’s a lie. I could have stayed on longer, but things were getting dumber there and I’d lost my sense of humor about the entire mess. So, I gave them my three days notice and bounced. Generally, when quitting a job I give two weeks’ notice as a courtesy. But that is if I’m moving on to another opportunity. If that company was inclined to terminate my employment, they would not give me two weeks’ notice. They’d tell me to hand over my keys and leave the property. And I was less quitting my job than firing them as my company. So that’s a justification. But it’s an honest one. As honest as can be expected from the likes of me. This is our unwritten agreement. That made me giggle more than it should’ve.
The fact is, I came up with a philosophy years ago that follows–roughly: “There’s gotta be an easier way to die broke, and we all die broke”. I don’t know if it’s a life-hack or a rationalization. Either way, I’ve a propensity…possibly an addiction…for hitting the reset button on life. But, I’m not the one who made the button red and candy-like. You’re welcome, Ren and Stimpy fans the world over. This blog gets read in Korea, though I’ve little evidence that it’s gaining any traction in that time-zone. But I regress, daily. That made me a giggle an appropriate amount.
Of recent, I tried a thought experiment. I did it on accident at first, but then it became more deliberate. It happened on Facebook, the: “Boys of Summer” (Don Henley version) of the internet. I’d over-estimated the collective intellect of Facebook (I realize that people get offended when one questions another’s actions intellectually; I don’t like it either but as the great sage Lil’ Weezy is wont to quip: “I don’t go around fire, expectin’ not to sweat”.) I commented about Planned Parenthood in response to a hoax video that I’d already known as a farce (me and the rest of the interweb), that The Face had not come to terms with…or: with which Facebook had not yet come to terms. I do not mean to be vulgar. The baby parts “selling” video…it’s not real…Bing it, or Google it, or check out the front page of the internet: Reddit…it is fake.
My next post is about my interactions with some people whom I love. People with whom I can discuss a great deal of issues. But people who seem to have determined that the suggestion of Planned Parenthood–as a positive–communicates that you are pro-abortion. Which is unsettling for this pro-choice/pro-life human dum-dum…

That’s Me in the Corner

let it shine, this light of mine…burn it down…what?!?

“Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.” –Napoleon Bonaparte

I haven’t been here in a while. I’m sure my absence has not gone unnoticed. My hands can feel the lack of intimacy they once enjoyed with my laptop. They are fumbling and clumsy and my brain struggles with both recalling ideas and monitoring my two left, thumb-heavy, hands. Some topics are harder to live with than others. Every time I come to the thought of this post, I find something far more satisfying to think about. This is my rationalization, in a paragraph or less.

I’ve given you a summation of my faith as it was influenced in my youth. This post is about my own journey into Christianity.

Like all worthwhile things in which a young male can find himself entangled, my Christian faith began with a girl. More to the point: a girlfriend. Her sister–who was ten, or so, years her senior had taken her to a church service. When she returned home she called me in an excited state. She was raised Catholic-ish and this church was an entirely different experience from that. She had enjoyed her time at Family Worship Center.
Family Worship Center was an Evangelical, Fundamentalist, Bible-Preaching, Pentecostal-Leaning group of people who were, and still are (as far as I know), being manipulated by a portly, affable, charismatic man, and his family. I wouldn’t learn that for a few years. When my girlfriend called me she invited me to a meeting. Looking back, it seems to me that, given her excitement, a young me might’ve had a hard time turning down such an invitation. At that time in my life I sought any excuse to leave my parent’s house and hang out with my girlfriend. I had little trouble. The conversation ended in what could be best described as an adolescent tiff. Read: deeply unsatisfying.

After the phone conversation, my girlfriend and her sister prayed for me. This was revealed to me after I had reconsidered my initial reaction to her invitation called her back and accepted. My young mind had a hard time contextualizing this fact. Once I had given my life to God and asked Jesus into my heart, I put my girlfriend’s prayer in the “miracle” category. It was the first sliver of evidence that God had any interest in me. As I age I’ve come to realize that my reconsidering an irrational reaction to an invitation does not require divine intervention. I react irrationally then reconsider said reaction all. the. time…it’s how I roll, to use the parlance of the youth of a decade ago…

Boring. I started this post 6, or so, months ago. It felt like a good idea. I felt an obligation to explain something about myself. That obligation was made up…it was manufactured in my 41 year-old child’s brain, not to say I have a 41 year-old child. I, at the age of 41 (and into 42), have a child’s brain. Not to say that I extracted the brain of a living, healthy, and happy child and put it in a jar and added that jar to my collection of jar-bound treasures. I mean my brain is child-like.

I’m reading a book about writing a good memoir…I know it sounds like a circle-jerk, but it is a tad more satisfying, trust me. The author writes that the secret to recalling a memory is to hear the screen-door slamming. I agree with her: sound, or certain smells, or the mental image of the glimmer in a friend’s eyes are very reliable place-holders for memories. This is why I spent most of my twenties and the bulk of my thirties trying to forget most of those things. I hate letting all that hard work go to waste.

It’s like a detox…why would I want to detox? I spent a lot of money on those toxins. What kinda scam you runnin’ here, doc?

I regard my childhood memories like a street-person who has a vibe that can only reliably be described as: unhinged. I don’t want to be disrespectful, and as such, I want to acknowledge their presence. But I don’t want to lock in. I do not want to be the Hanoi landing-pad for their cerebral refugees.

My memories are like a distant cousin who went off his meds, against the wishes of everyone, save the voices in his head. In this scenario, I am me–nursing my third Ranger IPA because we are at a family reunion and I’m starting to catch a buzz and I need to keep my shit together (those of you who know me get that joke). The fresh beers are across the room–behind me, and I’m headed to the bathroom with one half of one warm IPA. My un-medicated cousin is standing on line for the same bathroom which originated my trip from being cold beer-adjacent to being loony cousin-adjacent. Then, he turns around and starts explaining the minutia of President Obama’s birth-certificate. And some things he’s been reading about Operation Jade Helm 15 on the web. So I’m stuck drinking a shitty beer and listening to things that I don’t believe or care about.

My childhood is like 9/11: of course I have questions. But I don’t want any fucking answers. You need to have your larger can in place before you start opening cans of worms like some kinda asshole–it’s just common sense.

So I’m not writing that post. Not now, maybe never…because I don’t have to. I went to Kaua’i to help build a Christian church community and during that time I realized: “I don’t give a fuck if anyone believes in the saving power of Jesus’ sacrifice”, because I don’t believe in it. It was just something someone told me and I believed it (and I mean, really believed it) for a couple of decades because it was a great distraction from life. At least it was for me.

I’ve gone into every situation thinking that it’ll work itself out. That is my resting face, life-choices speaking. That idea was never more challenged than when I went to Kaua’i as a church-planter and came home as a Deity-indifferent alcoholic. That shit did not work itself out. What the fuck, life? But life knows that I play the role of bully and victim seamlessly. I come by both honestly, and I’ve no predilection to apologize for either.

I do not regret going to that beautiful island-county, don’t get me wrong. I learned one very important life-lesson. I have no real sense of who I am. I don’t never know if I ever did. I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t doing an impression of the person that the people around me wanted me to be. And I don’t know why that is. I know the blame falls on me. The onus rests on the individual to be said individual. That is true. But, why would I do the foot-work for a therapist who is destined to relieve me of a hard-earned buck or two? Or, mayhaps, I’ll die and it’ll still be a mystery. Either way, I’m no fan of spoilers. Let me enjoy the movie.

I am not a Christian. Nor am I a materialist. I’m comfortable with a reality that transcends my understanding. But, I’m not gonna try and figure it out. I figure that if that transcendent entity has an interest in me, it knows where to find me. If that happens, I suspect it’ll have some questions for me…I will have some questions too. You see: I’m a lover, not a fighter…but I’m a passionate lover. So, pack a lunch. Either way it goes down, calories will be burned.

One other thing, to nobody in particular, don’t give a person self-awareness and then demand that they deny themselves…that’s a dick move, bro…(or sis, ladies?)

That’s Me in the Corner: Prologue

courtesy of morguefile.com

“Look, as sentient meat, however illusory our identities are, we craft those identities by making value judgments: everybody judges, all the time. Now, you got a problem with that… You’re livin’ wrong.” –Detective Rust Cohle form T.V.’s: True Detective

I recently-ish received a text from a friend (I think) that read: “I just can’t figure out why you’d uproot your family and move to Kaua’i”. That was the gist. You know me, I don’t do research and I don’t remember quotes. I remember the general feel. I’m a wordsmith; I don’t need exact quotes. My answer to the text was dismissive as I felt that was the tone of the text-volley. But as I studied on it, I found it to be a good question. Not that the text was a question or even good. But it led me to a good place of introspection. The text would’ve been better if it had read: “Why would a person, of seemingly sound intellect and pure intention, uproot his family and move to a small island under the auspices of helping to start a church community only to return six months later with no allegiance to that church or any church whatsoever?” Now that’s a good fucking question. But that’s just one man’s biased opinion. And there’s a good answer. That may also be one man’s biased opinion. I can sleep with that.

This series is called: “That’s Me in the Corner”. It is in reference to the R.E.M. song titled: “Losing My Religion”.

There are those among you who may have a knee-jerk reaction to the term: “religion”. I get it. I know I’ve said in conversation: “It’s not a religion, it’s a relationship”. I hope that is true for you. It turns out it isn’t for me. Were it a relationship, personal to me and my dear savior Jesus Christ, there would be no reason for me to be reprimanded for suggesting that–for example: the story of Noah wasn’t an historical narrative or for positing the idea that maybe Christianity isn’t the exclusive route to reconciliation with God, the God of the Bible. If there are people who feel obligated to hold me to a specific narrative concerning my rapport with one of my friends, in this case Jesus. I have a hard time parsing the distinction between a religion and a relationship. Maybe that’s just my ignorance. I trust you’ll forgive me.

But I’ve gotten ahead of myself.

I’ll never forget my first interaction with the Evangelical Christian Church (I’m sorry if it annoys you, but I am going to err on the side of caution concerning capitalization in this post. I don’t mind offending with my ideas, but I’ll be goddamned if I’m gonna offend with semantics. Whether or not I’m goddamned for my ideas is an issue for another post. I will not be the author of that post.). My mother had involved herself with a para-church (a para-church is sub-set of the church proper which operates under its own rules…but that leash has its limits) organization called: Aglow. She invited one of her friends from this club to our house when I was tweenish. Her friend was a Spanish-Catholic woman named: Dora…I shit you no (which is Spanish for: not). Dora traversed our house in a tambourine-jangling holy-water-sprinkling one-woman parade-boogie. It was a cleansing. She even blessed my ZZ Top El Loco poster which featured no less than 100 pounds of weed in the foreground. My brother Ryan and I found this hilarious. It was a cleansing that I was glad my dad didn’t witness. Who needed that shit-storm?

My dad had his own ideas about how I’d relate to the babe in the manger. There was a stint when we had to go to an Evangelical-Free church (there is no reality where-in I could understand the distinction nor explain what Evangelical Free actually means…my best effort: boring as fuck) on account of the fact that his boss went there, and–I imagine–my dad felt guilty for one reason or another…at any rate: we had to go. The only upside: cinnamon rolls and hot cocoa at the Manchester Inn. Yes, that Manchester Inn. At that church I was forced to go to a Sunday Skool Klass. I remember having a sense of separation anxiety that I cannot, in my present state, justify and which seems laughable at this stage of my life. I can remember not wanting to go because one of the “students” was the first bully that I encountered against whom I gathered the courage to sucker-punch one day at recess. He was a dick to me…then I made him cry in front of our entire class. So that was awkward. One day, out of the clear blue sky (in the interest of full discloser on the ambiance tip, the sky was probably gray and precipitous), my dad decided that my Guns and Roses poster was “satanic” so he tore it down. The poster was a cross with the death’s head depiction of each of the band’s members lined up in crux fashion. You know, the cover art for the album: “Welcome to the Jungle”. This concludes my dad’s influence over me, spiritually speaking.

I’ve had my own forays into the faith. This is a prologue. The dirt is yet to come. I have nothing against anyone who felt it important to introduce me to Jesus, or encourage me into a deeper understanding of the gospel. I have also felt that compulsion. I still do, if I’m being honest. Which I rarely am. Leastwise, not compulsively. We’ll get to that…

Churchill’s Dog

You using that leg?

“That terrible mood of depression of whether it’s any good or not is what is known as The Artist’s Reward.” –Ernest Hemingway

Churchill’s “Black Dog” is sniffing around my leg again. He’s not hanging around to hump it or piss on it. He’s waiting for me to be done using it. Then, he’ll pick it dry and clear the bone of marrow. Who knows what next, but my liver is well preserved so–if he’s smart–he’ll go for the heart. It’s not getting any softer, dog.
In the past, I would’ve kept this a secret for a while. On account of my shame. I’d have driven myself crazy imagining people drawing a corollary, or even worse, the direct cause of my depression being my recent religious conversion to: godless heretical heathen, or–what I call: reasonable seeker (6 of one and all that rot). I spent the bulk of my thirties both worshiping the son of god and being profoundly depressed. I medicated with prayer, pills, and lots of sweet, sweet booze. Nothing worked. And maybe the cocktail was to blame. But I’ve neither the time nor patience for armchair shrinkery. I probably have the time. But: time sans patience is a cruel trick.
It’s been a while since the dog has tracked me so tenaciously. I’m still mourning the loss of Kauai in a strange way. I don’t harbor the delusion that I could get back what I had when last there. But I haven’t felt “at home” since I got back to The Evergreen State. We were squatting at a friend’s old house and now we are house-sitting for another friend until this spring upcoming. The house is beautiful and I’ve always felt comfortable here, but it’s weirdly unsettling. Like playing house–with hubris. I have a new job. I think I can say without fear of hyperbole: I fucking hate it. And mayhaps that’s the crux of it all. With one caveat, I fear leaving this job will give me no reason to get up…no goal to employ the “one foot in front of the other” trudgery which is a wickedly effective salve to the soul. I’m too close to chance it.
The job is as Sisyphean as any I’ve had. I run a front-end loader around a rock quarry, digging out of various piles of rock. I then take those scoops of rock up a hill and dump them into a feeder that services a rock crusher. I am literally pushing rocks up a hill. I will grant you: it isn’t the same rock over and over again. But in a freezing December down pour when the entire quarry turns slick and purple–like animal husbandry–it is impossible to distinguish one rock from the other. At least from where I sit.
Worse still, is the complete lack of imagination shared by almost every one of my colleagues. Good conversation is a welcomed oasis. But it is every bit as deep and engaging as a mirage. I am a pretentious asshole. I own that part without loss of sleep (usually). I whittle the hours of my life there listening to podcasts and engaging in tumultuous inner-dialogue.
I work really hard to not carry that frustration home with me. But it is impossible. On good days I’m disengaged from the rest of the house. But on days when I am engaged I vacillate wildly between lashings-out and sullen apologies. And none of it feels real. It is all forgotten by the next morning. I wake up with a vague sense of failure behind me and more rocks and hills in front. Kristy has been my hero through it all. I nearly lost her.
I had come to fear that our trust was beyond repair. I was wrong. A definitive stance on such a topic when both bodies are breathing and willing is almost always: premature. But I’m no marriage counselor…you do what you like. I had a couple of friends do their best to help through that situation. I appreciated their help, but–in the end–I had to weigh the loss. There is no easy way to sum up twenty plus years of life. It becomes a gut thing at that point. Thank god for small miracles. Whatever that means.
I can say that there was one standout text that I received during that time. That time when I was scared and confused about what the right decision was for the future of myself and my family, whom I love. And I am aware that there are those among you who feel as strongly as anything that there is no confusion to be had in the face of such a decision, to you I say: I envy your self-assurance…I’ve never had it. But this text was as succinct as it was dismissive. It read: “I heard the news; disappointed man”. That may not be an exact quote, but it contains the exact sentiments from the text which originated 2-sometimes-3 time zones west of Bremerton. One: the qualification of “the news”, he hadn’t heard it from me, I’m not sure how many sources he’d consulted, but–nevertheless– it was “the news”. And Two: disappointment, the bastard-child of outright condemnation. The term: “disappointed” carries not the authority of its unavailable father, but it knows how to appease its father without over-stepping its bounds. “I lack the authority to condemn you, but good luck trying to parse the difference within the distinction, asshole”. Message received.
I had hoped to end this post with an heroic assertion: “Fuck it, I’m quitting my job!”…that’s not happening. As I write these final words, it is 8pm on a Sunday night and I’m staring down the barrel of a dismal, albeit short, but dismal week…shortish: half- day on Wednesday–that’s Christmas Eve. Santa’s Birthday I get off, that’s Thursday. But then I work all day Friday and 6hrs on Saturday. So–yeah–shit-storm week. With no end in sight. But, after talking to my friend Matt, I realized that my job is not the problem. It is not the solution. But neither is quitting said. The problem is adjustment…I’m not adjusting well, and quitting my job would be useless and reactionary. I have no problem with being reactionary. But I despise being useless.
And to the dog: find another leg, motherfucker. I’m still using this one…

You May Be Right

This is called foreshadowing, folks…

“The unexamined life is not worth living, man” –Demetri Martin

It has been since March last I darkened this particular internet doorway. Apparently having fun is no reliable bridge-troll on one’s path toward the flight of time. But there has been some fun, kiddos…fear not.
My family and I have moved from the Garden Island to the Emerald City (Emerald City adjacent) after only lasting one half of one year in paradise. I guess we’re just purgatory types; who knew? I have yet to determine whether or nether the leaving of the Island County of Kauai belongs in the W (win) or L (loss) column of life. My honest suspicion is that it’ll land in the WGAF (who gives a fuck) column. This is a column reserved for the score-keeping of existential crises too complicated to solve in the years I’ve been allotted. It’s best just to move on. Mayhaps I’ll revisit the issue.
I had hoped to get more writing done during my time in Hawaii, but like my friend Matt says: “There’s a reason why the folks from island paradises didn’t take over the world” (do not allow the quotes to fool you, that was a paraphrase…a poor paraphrase). The point being: warm, satisfied, happy people aren’t long on lofty ambition. Those ambitions are best left to cold, white, sexually repressed folks–you know–like they got in Europe. And he is right. It is rare when Matt is wrong about such. I did manage to get some writing done for the natural foods store where I was employed for the bulk of my stay. I was the lead copy writer and editor for the blog that accompanied their website…our website. This was and is no small source of pride for me. I even wrote this post which inspired a woman to tears. She shared this moment with me while I was ringing her up at the counter (I was also a cashier, and a shift manager, as well as a closer. But I’ve already bragged about that position so I won’t bore you) having no idea that I was the post’s author. This was the single greatest highlight of my writing career to date. A close second, my meeting Walt Morey–author of: “Gentle Ben” and “Run Far, Run Fast”–when I was in grade-school. He also authored: “Sandy and the Rockstar”, but at this point I’m showing off–sounding like all of the other needy and desperate Walt Morey groupies or “Morey-Whoreys”: as we are wont to call ourselves. At any rate, it was huge for me.
While on the island, I made a grip of great friends and three of the best friends a boy could want. The final reckoning of a short history of all things me might reveal that I lost more friends than I gained during that period of my life. I face said with no regrets. But, again, the numbers aren’t in.
Jesus and I broke up while I was there. That makes it sound like an event. It was not an event, it was a series of events, spanning somewhere between 5 and 10 years. The chronology is squirrely(It’s a squirrel!). We still love each other. I’m just not apologizing for things about which he’s never considered. Also, I’m not constantly pestering him to put in a good word for me with his old man. My indifference toward god has been a source of consternation more for his (or her, ladies?) followers than for the actual being who seems to be unaware of my disbelief…much like my prior belief. More on this up coming.
Tangential Aside Alert: I think, and I’m sure you’ll agree, that “facial scrub” model is the toughest modeling gig out there. Have you ever noticed that these heroic women are rubbing what amounts to sand all over their faces whilst smiling ear to ear? Practically beaming, really. I use an apricot scrub to promote the radiant glow of my pallid, Irish, pock-marked crater-face. When I use this scrub, I imagine myself looking like Gilbert Gottfried. Like Gilbert Gottfried receiving a prostate exam. From a gigantopithecus. Like a gigantopithecus somehow mustered his (or her, ladies?) way through med school and somehow through an horrific karmic tale of woe became the family practitioner in charge of Gilbert Gottfried’s prostate exam. And the ape has an OCD habit of needing to use two fingers. No one knows why this is, but most suspect it’s on account of Aladdin. This is how I imagine my face looks while using an abrasive facial scrub. So, yeah, those ladies are pretty much heroes…suck it, fireladies (or men, fellas?).
I’m not sure what is to become of this blog. I may be over it, and you might be too. I’m not sure. I’m still writing the short-story from which I shared the first two chapters on this very page. But I will not be posting the ensuing chapters here. I plan on finishing it and handing copies out to some folks (who may be tortured–your play, Obama.) for their frank and intelligent consideration. It just seems like a more productive plan.
So here we are. If you are disappointed in my lack of prolifery (not to be confused with pro-lifery…I’m not anti-life either–don’t get the wrong idea–I love life, mostly. rather this is a modification of the term: “prolific” with which the human language mill has yet to ketchup), I am truly sorry. I did not see this coming either. But we are moving forward. The muse, she mumbles and–when I am not being a lazy pile of waded shit-stained toilet paper–I listen, usually. But hey, you know what they say, progress and some other stuff…

It’s Been a Minute: But Fear Lightly

smile and the whole world in his hands…

I’m still working on chapter 3…My brain produced a new plot element that has to be included in chapter 3.  This called for a re-write…after an existential melt-down…forgive my stating of the obvious, won’t you?

It’s been tough…this adventure to the garden isle.  I’m having a hard time finding my rhythm.  Especially with regard to writing time (the time I use to write, not time that I’m writing…I don’t write time, I just act like I do…I’m aware).  I was telling my friend that this was the hardest button to swallow.  He said it was worse than I thought because now I’m mixing metaphors.  He was right.  It is rare when Matt is wrong on such.

So read the first 2 chapters and comment.  I will be using the comments for editing when I write the second draft for publishing.  We are gonna get through these dark days like we always do: together with liberal amounts of hyperbole and hubris…Mahalo

It’s the End of the World as We Know it and I Feel Like Eggs: 2

Courtesy: morgueFile.com

Chapter 2

There is a long string of notes that play as my body blocks the laser and reflector that triggers the siren-song of passage through the door of the old gas station/convenience store.  Not a ding or a dong, but a series of dings and dongs that warps into a version of some melody no one has the time to sort out.  Least-wise when Keystone Light is on sale for 8 bucks a suitcase.

The coffee station lay dead ahead so I walk over to it.  There is but one size of cup: big…like 20 ounces big.  I dutifully fill the cup just beyond the demarcation, heeded by more sensible men, that was printed on the cup by the manufacturer.  I snap the lid into place splattering coffee onto the counter and my hands.

“Shit!” I yell without a thought.

“Hey, this is a family store,” retorts a voice.

The voice’s origin is blocked from my view by a glass case filled with all various paraphernalia one would need to “paint the town red”, to borrow the nomenclature of the kids.  I can hear that this is no stereotypical convenience store clerk.  The voice belongs to an old woman, which isn’t so strange I guess.  I’m just used to clerks who are not fluent in English (more fluent in English than I am in Bengali, to be clear).  Occasionally, the clerk is a gen-Xer whose life expectations had punched them in the back of the head so hard that it rendered them incapable of interaction with other people in a meaningful way (oh generation X, what happened to us?  Insert jaded “blow-off” quip here).  This is a sweet old lady.  It is cliché to assert that a town is: “a place that time forgot”.  Valentine is a town that afflicts time with amnesia.

“It’s not a big deal, so you burned yourself; there’s no reason to be cussin’ and chasin’ out all my candy buyers and their parents.”

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking.”

“No harm…no glory; that’s what I say,” as she wipes the counter dry.

“Uh…right.”

We walk over to the register so I can pay for the coffee.  The register has the benefit of being near the window, offering a view of what John is up to.  I wouldn’t put it past him to leave me here for dead.

“You’re from outta town.”

“Yeah I’m here from the Seattle-area doing a story about Mountebank International.”

“International indeed, John went to high-school with my boy, he’s lived here all of his life.  Then he starts welding together oversized steel coffins in an abandoned parking lot, and all the sudden he’s a bonafide globetrotter?  Horseshit!”  “Sorry,” she quickly interjects.  “It just gets me upset!”

I feel semi-obliged to tell her that it isn’t my rule she’s violating.  It is hers.  I think better of it.

“So you’re not a believer?”  I ask.

“A believer?  That’s perfect!  These guys are the revival-tent preachers of the impending apocalypse; they invite a bunch of paranoids to their job shacks and fleece them without even taking the time to set up the backdrop of a crystal cathedral, or ball.  Bunch of goddamn hucksters!  Sorry,” again.

At this point I’m distracted, but I make note that I should come back.

“What’s your name?”  I ask.

“Didi.”

“Good to meet you Didi, they call me Patso.”

“Why do they call you that?”

“Because I make them.”

I give her a buck for the coffee, and head out the door, John is on the move and I don’t want to miss my ride.

“Come again,”  Didi shouts over the warped melody.

I guess she has more in common with her Indian colleagues than her pale complexion lets on.

John’s in no mood to wait around, he is waiting to pull out of his parking lot onto highway 83 southbound, but when he sees me risk my life to run across the road he has pity on me and waits.  I climb into the truck and he makes it clear that he is none-too-happy with my choice of words when I spoke to his clients.

“This is the problem with you media types, always got an opinion.  Leave your opinion in your pin-head when you talk to my clients or you’ll be hitchin’ back to the airport.”

“You got it.  Sorry about that.”

“Fuck your apologies!  This is about money!”

“Okay.”

Fifteen miles–or so–can seem like a long distance when you find yourself on a desolate stretch highway in a truck with a stranger whom you’ve pissed off and whose grasp on reality is questionable.  We turn off on a non-descript dirt road (though I had some descriptors for it).  We arrive at a small grassy field.  I’d guess us for a quarter-mile, through the woods, from the highway.  But it’s hard to estimate distance on a shitty dirt road.

There’s an excavator for digging and a bulldozer for leveling the site.  The grave that holds the shelter is still open so the utilities can be hooked up.  Inside the hole rests 3 40′ storage-container.  The family who purchased this 1000 square foot monstrosity is nervously walking around the site.  The work crew is comprised of two guys–both employees of John’s.

It turns out, having two guys do the work of four is motivated by more than the bottom-line.

“Three people can keep a secret, as long as two of them are dead,” John cryptically informs me when I ask him about the small size of his crew.  I also ask whether or not he brings in sub-contractors.  “No subs, no inspectors.  It’s a matter of security.”

The family of preppers make a bee-line from the edge of property to John’s truck when they see him.  They seem confused.

“We just thought of somethin’”, says the man.

“Oh yeah, what’s that?”  John answers.

“Where are we going to hide our truck once we get up here?  I’m perfectly willin’ to pick off any soul willin’ to risk his neck by comin’ on the property, but I don’t wanna advertise we’re here.”

“We’re gonna build a blind on the north-eastern corner of the lot, then we’ll cover the whole lot in gravel so that there will be no visible driveway or ruts for when you move from the highway to the blind.  We maintain the gravel until the day of reckoning.  Then, once you move in, you let the weeds and whatnot grow as per usual.  It’s all in the paperwork.”

“That’s what I was tellin’ my wife, but I couldn’t remember for sure.”

They both seem more relaxed after that, relaxed enough to finally notice me.

“So is this the newspaper guy you was tellin us about?”

“Well I’m not really from a newspaper,” I begin but I’m interrupted by John.

“Yeah, this is him.”

“What does he mean he’s not from a newspaper?”

“He just means he doesn’t work for one newspaper he writes for a couple of them,” John replies giving me a look to play along.

“Yeah that’s what I meant,” I say confidently.  But now I’m confused.

The tour of the shelter begins in the “media room” of the underground shelter.  There, I’m shown the security-camera monitoring system.

“The cameras capture images from every angle of the property, lettin’ us know if anyone is here who’s not s’possed to be,” says the man.  “They’re all powered by solar with a battery backup that can be charged by the diesel generator that powers the main grid.”

We tour to the living quarters, the sleeping quarters, the kitchen, and the cold-storage area where around a year’s worth of “food” (enough powdered eggs and canned beans to make me wish I’d have died prior to reaching the shelter) could be stored.  All of these spaces are cozy enough to belie their subterranean perch.  But for the lack of windows, it is easy to forget that one is in a dungeon of one’s own making.

“The idea here is to be able to live in the shelter for a year or so, till the heat blows over, while havin’ the ability to go out–when it’s safe–to hunt or fish or whatever.  The security keeps you aware of threats you may have to eliminate, long before they become an unwelcomed surprise,” John explains.

“No such thing as a welcomed surprise,” the woman quips.

“She can talk,” silently I marvel.

The explanation is unnecessary.  This is a culture of people who are so narrow of view that they are nothing, if not self-explanatory.  It is becoming apparent to me that self-explanation is the second favorite pastime enjoyed by the preppers…right behind: paranoid squirrel impressions.

There are hushed deliberations between John and the customers.  This is a reoccurring role for John.  He is, for lack of a better term (or mayhaps in the midst of a wealth of better terms), a lunatic-whisperer.  Once all is said and done, everyone seems at ease.  The crew works tirelessly as Mr. Mountebank quiets any and all concerns.  Then it’s time to go back to town.

I have a room at the Trade Winds Lodge just a bit north of the parking lot that serves as Mountebank International.  John takes me back there for the night.  We pull up and John watches me into my room.  He leaves.  I walk out of that room, through the door that connects the next room over…the room in which I’m sleeping.  I never considered myself a paranoid person.  But when in Rome…the point being, I just don’t have a warm and fuzzy feeling about all of these preppers, and it seems prudent to hold on to a few secrets of my own.  I chose this hotel because, while I was doing some research on the story, I came across a story about the owner.  He had had a business partnership with Mr. Mountebank that turned sour.  The story made it clear that he was no fan of the local “prepper-cult”.  His words.  I trust that the secret of my decoy room is safe with him.  He makes the arrangements for a rental car to be driven out to the Trade Winds Lodge, just in case I have to drive out of this place pre-maturely.

Yes, I’d never considered myself a paranoid man.  But I’m dealing with people who think it’s a good idea to kill a body over powdered-eggs.  Right or wrong: the entertaining of the idea, in my opinion, is a moral short-fall.

I think a bit about the conversation I had with the family whose bunker I’d visited that day (it is hard to describe people when they won’t give you names).

“What lesson do you feel you are teaching your kids about humanity with all of this talk about the end of the world and the fall of society?”

“These are lessons that I wish my folks would’ve taught me: look out for number one, everyone is out to get what you have and they will do anything to get it.  These are hard lessons, I know, but they are the truth.  The sooner my kids know, the better”, the wife replied.

“But do you worry that those things are not actually true, that what you are really doing is perpetuating a paranoid worldview, and causing undue stress in the lives of your kids?”

“I don’t know what you mean by all of that, but I can tell you that it is true…I’m absolutely convinced of that.”

I could see in her eyes that she was, and there was nothing more to say about it.  I’ve had similar run-ins with the self-assured, and I’ve learned when to count my losses and drop the subject.  How do people become so dead-set on an idea that is accompanied by no evidence?  There has been no catastrophic failure in the social fabric, the likes of which preppers preach, in recorded history.  But on this assignment over and over again I’m hearing the subjective first-person accounts of “this power-outage” or “that ice-storm” that had miraculously subsided: “but if they’d gone on for one more week…all hell would’ve come uncorked.”

Do these people have some insight concerning the frailty of society, or are they just so grateful to have a hobby that it matters little to them what the social impact of their crazy ideas are on those around them?  And if their paranoia is so crazy, why do I have a decoy room?

I’d witnessed a sampling of the hobby of paranoid preparedness but tomorrow’s tour of the wilderness survival and firearms-safety camp, owned and run by John Mountebank’s brother and business partner Tim, is sure to be a whole new level of end times improv:

“I am going to grab you in the woods, kill you, and rape your wife.”

“Yes, and.”

One thing I’ve learned about improv is you always answer “yes, and”.

It’s the End of the World as We Know it and I Feel Like Eggs: 1

Courtesy: morguefile.com

Chapter 1

The morning of February the 22^nd in the year of our Lord, 2012 was one of those mornings when it’s not easy being a freelance journalist.  It was one of those days when I barely possess the strength it takes to roll out of bed at 10 a.m. and crawl five feet to my desk to try and hammer out five or six words.  The kind of day when I just stare out the window at the sideways rain being driven through the neighbors’ house like a fire hose through insolence (or at least that’s what I’d look at if I had a window through which to look).

I had no stories and no prospects.

Bleak would be an understatement.  Not that there’s anything wrong with understatement, or over-simplification for that matter.  We run 24/7 news-cycles fueled by the dense, clean-burning coal of over-simplification.

Now is no time to stop.

These are dark days, friend-o.

“Hey, is this Patso?” a voice on the other end of my cell phone asked.

“You got it, boy-o this here Patso”, I replied.

I’ve always been a fan of butchering the English language like a common hill person whilst on the phone.

“I was told to give you a call.  You doin’ a story on apocalypse-proof underground shelters, right?”

“That is correct.”

Now things had gotten sober…no reason to talk like hill folk…besides, the voice on the other end of the line sounded like that was his natural speech pattern so it was better to drop it right away.  Keeping up the accent would be exhausting in the long-term and I didn’t know for how long I was going to embed myself with John Mountebank, the man who owned the voice on the other end of the line.  He came by it honestly, his voice.  It was one of the few things that that could be said of John.

The Good Doctor had a saying: “When the going gets weird, the weird go pro.”

This guy had gone pro years ago.  The world’s foremost producer of survival shelters and the means by which one would stock them, he had expressed an interest in doing an interview as both advertising and proselytizing in light of humanity’s impending perils.

He had reached out to me via the internet and now we were speaking face to face…in a way.  His one request was that he not be made to look foolish, a caveat to which I agreed.  Hell, I wasn’t going to try and make him look anything.  I had no problem telling this story straight.

If he looked foolish in the process my hands would be squeaky.  Ah, the low-hanging fruit of naiveté.  I also had no reason to make this harbinger of bad mojo look silly, hells-bells it’s 2012; the year the Mayans come back to destroy the ground that was taken from them, said is my understanding of the Mayan apocalypse, an understanding largely informed by John Cusack and Michael Bay…I merely wanted to be the messenger, and I was ready to roll up my sleeves and dive in to some serious reporting about Mr. Mountebank and his company.

I was to meet him at Miller Field, a flat and cold wind-swept airport near Valentine, Nebraska.

I was unfamiliar with this locale.  I Google-mapped it.  It looked rural.

The unabated flow of bourbon I’d been ingesting since leaving Seattle had put me in a dark mood, and in no shape to board a puddle-jumper in Rapid City, South Dakota and fly (in a manner of speaking) down to Valentine.

I turned weird many moons ago.  I turned pro just after that so I knew I could handle it.

The shelter site was actually about 15 miles south of the air field on highway 83.  First we were to meet, then go to his Nebraska office, then head out to the site to see what the families of the post-apocalypse were going to use as domiciles.

It seemed natural, waking up from the apocalypse in Nebraska, a landscape already familiar with the trappings of a dystopia…like Daniel Tosh once said; it is “the place where dreams go to die.”

Dreams are more vivid, more worth the race of the chase the closer you get to the coast.

I live near the coast.

Based upon the rate at which I chase my own dreams: not near enough.

Once on the sweet secure soil of Valentine, I saw a man running across the tarmac toward me, from a distance he looked portly, however the speed at which he closed the distance belied his waist size.  He was not only more athletic than he looked, but had the energy of a hummingbird on an experimental mixture of Crack cocaine and Mescaline…discontinued on account of the savage madness it inspired in lab rats.

We had a mission he assured me and no time to waste, this was all fine, I’d checked no baggage…I was ready to rock.

“Let’s roll”, he said.

Very 9/11(never forget).

It is a growth industry, the selling of wares to those with the proclivities of preparedness, and growth has been nothing if not exponential in the last couple of years.  There are tales of Solar Flares, the switching of magnetic poles (you know North to South and vice-versa), and the grandmammy of them all–December 21^st–is happening this year, as she does every year, but this year she was to show up with a bullet, least-wise that’s the word on the street.  All of this has given Americans a terminal case of paranoia…well, not terminal in the classic sense, my guess is everyone will feel much better come December the 22^nd…I know I will.

While, Mr. Mountebank’s company specializes in shelters and supplies—there are companies that make any number of things from Zombie preparedness kits, to Arcs (derivative much?) meant to stay afloat and support you and a couple hundred of your closest friends for five years.  This is, in my opinion, one of the great arguments for dying in the apocalypse.  I wouldn’t last five weeks on an arc surrounded by people who could afford a spot on an arc.  Add to that the almost inevitable presence of someone who’d caught the Zombie virus, or bug (I’m no medical doctor, I don’t know how these things get passed around; I only know they do), I’d go crazy and take everyone with me.

Sure as shine.

We climbed into his 1981 Chevy Suburban; it was a large black truck, with very little in the way of creature comforts.

There are two schools of thought when it comes to vehicles of the apocalypse.  There is the “Robert Kirkman’s Walking Dead” school, that is defined in its pragmatism: you take what is available, what works, and upgrade as necessary.

Then there is the “Hot Wheels” school.  This school of thought seems to be predicated on the premise that five year old boys design the best cars and trucks…mainly trucks.  It is, after all, the end of the world so it seems only natural that one would need a truck with the look of at least one of the beasts of the four horseman…the truly cool “Preppers” (as they are known to those of us who’ve The Discovery Channel) draw on elements from all four.

John is of the latter school.  His truck, a five year old’s wet dream, were said possible (again, I’m no doctor).  The bottom of the cab is four solid feet off the ground, and the tires are huge, the biggest I’ve seen (and I spent a week following a “Big and Rich” tour in the Pacific Northwest).  On the inside it has: an AM radio, a CB radio, a mobile-HAM radio, a Police Scanner, a couple of gun racks, a heater, storage for MREs and water, and not much else.  Mad Max could not have designed a more apt mode of conveyance.

“It’s nice to finally put a face to the media persona”, I said to him.

I had been following John’s story for a decade or more, ever since he had made waves in his opinions about Y2K and then again post 9/11 (never forget).  His was a media blitz born of the proletariat-empowering internet, and the crazy ideologues of AM radio and cable “news” fame.  Even so, I’d never really seen a clear picture of his face.  He is a roundish man, with a beard, circle rimmed glasses, and a much sunnier disposition than one might expect, given the nature of his vocation.

“Yeah, I try to stay out of the spot light; you never know who’s keepin’ tabs on you.”

“True”, I reply.  I say this even though I feel I don’t know exactly what he’s saying, or whether I think it to be true.

He looks at me very seriously and says: “We are headed to the office to meet up with some clients that I been dealin’ with, Solar Flare folks.  I been consultin’ with them ’bout how to get all their vehicles ready for when the sun knocks out every microchip and circuit board from here to Taipei.”

I think, “here to Taipei, is that still a thing people say?”  I say, “Solar Flares?”.

“Yeah, they’re nuclear explosions happenin’ on the surface of the sun that send a bunch o’ radiation into the earth’s atmosphere…ain’t good for electronics, that’s for sure.”

“True”, I reply.  This is going to be a long assignment.

We arrive at the office just in time for the appointment.

The offices, at least the Nebraska branch offices, of Mountebank International are nothing more than a 23 foot job-site trailer, like one would see on any construction site, sitting off to the side of a paved parking lot, it has a small porch-like protrusion at both of its doors.  The parking lot has half a dozen different vehicles, in various stages of repair, and on the other side of the parking lot, facing the trailer, is a small, three-stall, pole building that looks as though it is used as a repair shop.

The Solar Flare folks, who have no intention of giving out their names, seem “on edge” at the very sight of an outsider, probably anybody would put them on edge, but someone like me more so, as it is clear I know how to write…at least I have all the implements that would cause one to believe such nonsense.  Media is not welcomed in this community, and only a few—who feel it their duty to disciple the masses on the gospel of preparedness—step out into the lime-light to utter their prophesy.  Usually, these prophets are driven by financial gain (what, did you think I was going to write: “profits”?  I’m no hack.).

John speaks with them a little while.  Their minds are at ease—at least to the point that they’re  open to answering some questions as anonymous survival enthusiasts.

“How does one prepare for impending Solar Flares?”  I ask.  The man answers, as his wife (I think) looks vacantly at a Shell station across the road.

“Well, there are lots of things you could do, we’re makin’ sure our truck’ll run after a flare takes out the world’s electronics.  That means removin’ everything in the engine that isn’t a mechanical operation.”

“Ah, so making the car run like they did back in the 50’s and 60’s.”

“That’s right.”

He’s warming up to me so I decide to ask an obvious question.

“How much fuel are you storing, and what are you doing to keep it preserved indefinitely?”

He is not that warm.

“What the fuck are you talkin’ ‘bout, boy?”  He inquires.  “We got fillin’ stations all over the county here, and we don’t need to store a drop, we just need the truck to run.”

I regret what next comes from my lips…but alas, I am an arrogant writer, and a smug observer of the human condition…I really can’t help myself.

“Well”, slowly–I start.  “Gas these days is almost impossible to keep fresh, especially in large quantities, because of the high ethanol content, add to that that every pump I’ve seen around here so far, around the world really, is an electronic middle-man.  Beyond those two things, there remains the issue that if someone did get a mechanical system set up for pumping fuel, eventually the supply would run out, and I imagine the entire system of fuel-transport relies on electronic machinations on every level.  How do you get fuel into your rig?”

You don’t have to be a psychoanalyst to parse the mood of this man or his wife or John after that…shit is a little tense.  The fuse has arrived at the keg.

“Boy this ain’t no time for you to be comin’ in here tryin’ to make me look like an idiot in front of my friend and wife, by callin’ into question every little rock I ain’t turned over in this here plan.  Can’t you see this ain’t no time to study on every situation (I’m not sure how to spell it as he says it)?  I think you fail to realize this ain’t no time for your cold-big-city logic, you stupid fuck; logic ain’t relevant, we’re bein’ attacked by our goddamed sun!”

I recognize that it is time to apologize.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what I was thinking”.

Now the man’s wife is distracted from whatever it was that held her gaze in the parking lot across the road.  She seems to realize that her husband is upset.  She intuits that it is my doing, and shoots me a look of confused disdain that slides into embarrassment.  The look comes easy.  She has used it before.

John takes them back into the office, to calm them down.  I have nothing left to ask them anyhow, I’m not about to lose my shot at the tree just to roast one fallen nut.  Wondering what had held this woman’s gaze for so long, I look over to the Shell station and see a couple of crows fighting over a hotdog wrapper.

It’s a fitting image.

I decide to get a closer look at the station and grab a cup of coffee; mayhaps these neighbors have seen something interesting in the parking-lot of Mountebank International.