A statesman is an easy man, he tells his lies by rote. A journalist invents his lies, and rams them down your throat. So stay at home and drink your beer and let the neighbors vote. William Butler Yeats
Some Guinness was spilt on the barroom floor When the pub was shut for the night. When out of his hole crept a wee brown mouse And stood in the pale moonlight.
He lapped up the frothy foam from the floor Then back on his haunches he sat. And all night long, you could hear the mouse roar, “Bring on the goddamn cat!” unknown
Fill with mingled cream and amber, I will drain that glass again. Such hilarious visions clamber Through the chamber of my brain. Quaintest thoughts, queerest fancies Come to life and fade away. What care I how time advances; I am drinking ale today. Poe
Not much of much..... the Thanksgimme holiday is over.... ate drank slept. All is good. So I just have stupid random bits...... Lee, from Oshkosh Beer posted a great history on the history of Oblio's..... actually did a two part article on a great location that has been a tavern since 1874. check it out. He was also real kind to me and scanned a cartoon for me.
See, like I mentioned a few posts ago, I used to write small articles for the old college newspaper. Mostly just short stuff. I wrote one in which I was distressed about the price of coffee at the Student Union going from, get this, a dime to twelve cents. I rather ranted that we should just grind up students and brew them. Well, it was sorta funny...... but the funny part was the illustration they ran with the article...... me looking into a coffee cup.....
..... the guy in the cup was our editor at the college paper, dude named Scott Hassett, who just recently lost in his bid to be Attorney Generral of Wisconsin. I knew him just a bit....and really would have thought him better suited to be a writer for National Lampoon than an attorney.
The Illustrator was a bit more interesting. He was a great artist, loved comic books and lived just down the street from me one year. He was a good friend of one of my roommates who was also a comic book junkie. His name was Mark Gruenwald.... and he is now in the comic book hall of fame after being an editor for Marvel Comics. You can read more (here) from wikipedia.
He died from a heart ailment he didn't know he had. Now, I didn't know Mark all that well..... but he was well thought of at the newspaper as a sweet guy. He drew a comic strip for the paper that was extremely first rate.
The real deal, as far as I am concerned, is that when he died in 1996 they followed his last wishes....... his ashes were mixed with ink and used to illustrate a comic book.
I want to be mixed in hops and brewed. I think it would be a funny, bitter beer. There ar worse things.
Yupperz...... in just a couple of days America is gonna descend in to an orgy of Porn! Food Porn!
Yessirree, Bob! We are gonna get a big one, and stuff it and shove it in our mouths until we cannot stand. Then, maybe, have a cigarette and ask, "Was it good for you too, Dear?" Now some may have duck, or ham or chicken, or venison or goose porn.....replete with taters, and cranberries, and squash, and wild rice and that stupid green bean casserole thingee, and pumpkin pie and apple pie or mince meat pie &jello salads& rolls& breads&&&&.....now, I am not disparaging a good meal, far from it, but it does bring to mind that there are starving folks out there and iffen you don't at least drop off a can of cramed corn at your local food pantry, well, gosh. shame on you! Moi will just stumble down to the Roxy and purchase my feast at a reasonable $10.95. I get together with my family on Satzurdae The Kid goes with her Mom to her family for the Holiday. All in all it suits me fine. Of course I do have my special dessert that I will indulge in while watching the hapless Detroit Lions lose to whom-ever.
.... and that works for me. I have kinda fallen off the 'Holiday Wagon' Expectations are way to high and I tend to be a little low key on events that involve spending shitloads of money I do not have but at the same time hope everyone enjoys whatever event is planned. Really. Truly.
Just take some time to think about what you are really grateful for, what you are thankful for, and pick up the p;hone and call someone you love. If you are a churchy-person, say a prayer for peace& make a special plea to whatever God you worship for more kindness and understanding in the world. If you have had a great meal... make sure you say thank to whoever made it. Smile a little bit for someone, whistle a tune as you walk the street, wave to someone. Give creepy Aunt Agnes a hug. Don't tell Uncle Bud he's an asshole when he farts in the middle of dinner. Tell someone there baby is cute even when it looks like Winston Churchill. Forgive your brother for being a jerk for the last thirty years Aw, shucks just be nice, OK?
Otherwise.. it's just food porn.
Don't get me wrong....... I like porn...check out my favorite magazine below
I have to be an honest person, and perhaps a bad son, but the truth of the matter is my mother was a bad cook. Not BAD as in she burned the food or under-cooked it or did anything despicable with the family meals, it was just that all-in-all, our food was never very interesting or exciting or original. Her idea of seasoning was pepper and salt. Exotic spice was a dash of paprika. Hold it..... I mean she did make a GREAT Thanksgiving turkey &dressing, actually fabulous, and I will miss it this year, but that is just one day out of the year, see.... and her apple pie was to kill for! &&& the Chocolate cookies were fantastic.....but again, as much as I would like it, a steady diet of cookies and pie is not really sustainable. Nope....she serve up just boiled potatoes and butter ... a salad was just a bit of shredded lettuce, dump some bottled dressing on it.... and it's hard to screw up oatmeal or french toast. Breakfast was safe.
Ok... I got a point to make, and it isn't about bad mouthing my mother's cooking. I'll get to it. MAYBE. See, of all the bland dishes my mother made, my favorite one to eat and hate was Tuna Casserole. Yupperz, and being a good Catholic family, we ate it every friday. (well, I must admit she would surprise us once in awhile with fish sticks and boxed macaroni&cheese, served with only the best bottled tartar sauce!) Now, there are a lot of things you can do with a tuna casserole; add peas, cheese, beans, different noodles, onions, but none of that ever entered my mother's imagination. Here's the recipe. I have it memorized. Two cans of cream of mushroom soup, a couple cans of tuna, elbow macaroni and a potato chip crust. That 's it. Oh, a little pepper, too. Just boil the noodles, mix the soup with milk, combine with noodles top with chips and bake until reasonably firm. Serve with a side of applesauce. 98% OF ALL FRIDAYS!!!!! I mean there were the fish sticks and occasionally Dad would pity us and take us out for fish at the VFW, but there never was grilled Halibut or baked Salmon or fried panfish....nope.....Tuna Casserole. Now.... the thing of it was I played football on Friday's all through High School so Mom, being considerate, would make it early on football game days so I could have a healthy meal before the game. I really didn't mind. Like I said, I both liked it and hated it at the same time and some of our 'away' games were over an hour bus ride, so I usually scarfed up a bunch of it at four in the afternoon...with applesauce and then!!!!!! invariably puke it up sometime during the third quarter of the game. By the time I was a Junior the manager would see me hacking with dry mouth and bring a bucket. Sometimes I never made it off the field. Once the other team was looking at third and long and I puked right before the snap. Mouth-guard out, right on my helmet bars. down my jersey.... their left guard wouldn't even block me and I sacked the quarter back for an eight yard loss. By the time I was a Senior that Tuna Casserole was legendary. I came to look at it as a good luck charm, seeing as we only lost three games in three years. It was honest, unlike this email I got from Sarah Palin's PAC
Dear Friends, (fuck off bitch)
Time is running out on SarahPAC's exclusive offering of Sarah Palin's soon to be released America by Heart. We are very happy to be able to extend our wonderful supporters this chance to get a signed copy of Gov. Palin's America by Heart for each gift of $100 or more.
Sarah's new book makes a great gift for the Christmas Season. With a signed copy of America by Heart, .......(yadda yadda bull shit bullshit).... so please seize this opportunity while you can.
As with all donations these funds will be used .....( ya gimmee a break) to support individual candidates around the country who passionately and consistently support...... (my daughter's TV career) ......and those core principles.
We want to thank all of you for the wonderful support .......( ya, blow me!) The conservative resurgence we witnessed earlier this month ....( is enough to gaqg a maggot)
Happy Thanksgiving and God Bless America!
At least My Mom and her Tuna Casserole were honest. Sarah Palin stinks like oil-money drenched fish.
OK. I'm really not as morose as I think I am. And after a couple of beers I can no longer spell morose...and after four, think it a strange flower with thorns. So anyways.... while shifting through the book I found these lyrics to a song I liked a lot, a Leo Kottke.song. When I was on the forensic circuit I would often read lyrics to rock songs rather than real 'poems'. Didn't help me win anything, but I wasn't doing it for a prize in the first place.
Morning is the Long Way Home
I heard your voice at midnight
By the river shore
I saw your child sleeping
Behind an open door
The moon was in the river
Shining up from the floor
And the fish swam like moonlight
Through your child's closing door
And morning is the long way home
The fisherman was drowning
By his broken heel
His screams were tiny bubbles
And his tongue made of steel
When he died his teeth made stones
For your lonely child to feel
And his eyes like prayers were quiet
When you heard his tongues of steel
And morning is the long way home
The ghost of ghosts was passing
And the grasses waved like hair
I Knew I'd die forgotten
I'm the whisper of your care
The water would surround me
And my body would despair
But my heart would understand
The door that's closing there
And morning is the long way home
Leo Kottke
The deal was... I dug our some old Kottke albums that were stashed and sat around for a few hours.....the guy is one of the most eclectic acoustic guitar player EVER. I have seen him about four or five times, the most memorable being twenty-one years ago when my daughter was six weeks old and we took her to the show because she was still being breast feed. Fifth row. To this day I believe it is why the Kid is mellow, talented and totally in love with her Dad. Last year her and I went and saw him again at the Grand Opera House. Valentines day. I think we need to go to a show together again, soon.
Check out the video...... you have to click on the the word "rings" cause I am too stupid to do it any other way!!!...& it frustrates me...I am going back to a yellow tablet and a #2 pencil &sending out posts via pigeon!!!!
* there is another very cool version of " Rings"that Leo did a few years ago with Mike Gordon of Phish and the album "Sixty Six Steps". The same album has a killer version of "Oh Well" the old Fleetwood Mac written by Peter Green. I do mean killer. I am too lazy to find a link. Knock yourself out.
It's all in the book. A ticket to a movie at the Downer Theater in Milwaukke, $2.25. A lower box seat at County Stadium for a Brewer game, $5.00. A polo match at Uihlien Field, $1.75. "The Who" at Dane County Coliseum, &6.00. A Badger Game at Camp Randall $5.00. And at the time I was taking home about $60 a week pushing a hack, plus tips and whatever i could make on the side selling imports from Mexico. ($90 per lb in lots of ten... retail at $15 an oz...do the math) My share of the rent was $67.50, utilities included. Cable was an extra $3.00 apiece, We opted not to have a phone. It's in the book. Even the warning tickets, cause, see, I liked to push the taxi 35-40 in 25 zones. Got a ticket once for running a stop. Took that one to court, full trial, and got away with only a $10 fine. That's in the book too. And the little poems I used to like so well.
Stars the human wars are not over so I am riding this train north
My legs are long and hang over the sides Little black music notes stream out of the smoke stack and spread over the land
the people in the fields straighten their backs for a moment and wave
I am hanging on tight Gerald Lange
Poem this love making is cloisters-fishing shacks on the North Sea
the cold wind drives us together; we spread its little teeth. William Rosenberg
There's a lot of them. Even some of mine which, to be honest, I didn't much care for thinking, like a parent of a grown child, that they could have done much better in life. But that is just stuff&such and they are in the book too. See, I scribbled while I was in college. In between pushing that cab and selling imports and occasionally going to class. Mostly on desks and toilet walls. The shitter on the third floor of the library by the Government Docs dept and the faculty crapper in Radford Hall were some of the best reading rooms I ever visited. But then I got caught. My first 'published' poem was lifted off a desk in one of my journalism classes; someone had seen me write it, and the next thing I knew it was in the school newspaper and I was writing satire and color stories for them. That's how the book started. Clippings. And then any old thing I liked. Ticket stubs, menus, articles, cartoons, drawings..... just about anything I liked at that moment got pasted into the book. Anything. Well, someone said something and I dug it out ... after at least twenty-five years. Such stuff!!!
"....in an atmosphere of blue snow, dim light, and extreme cold." I didn't write that. Wish I had. "... sometimes when we are entertained by each other, we are bold about it, but just as frequently, it seems embarrassing, and we turn our faces aside." Again, I wish. There is an article I wrote about Transcendental Meditation. Not a bad article, but then I remember that I came to think of TM as a crock of shit and that tequila and a good joint worked much better anyways. Ronald Boeing, 22, was the last of 1,174 Wisconsin boys killed in Vietnam. A 7 day unlimited travel Greyhound bus pass cost $76 during the Bicentennial. A photo of me from the Milwaukee Journal protesting out side of a Ronald Reagan campaign stop on campus in 1976.... all that is in the book, too. Cards and drawings from Nancy.... who had legs that went on forever and who took my heart and went fishing with it in a different lake. Notes from Bonnie and Maureen and Suzanne..... folks who didn't fish. I didn't really study in college....but, boy&howdy, did I get an education.
So I wrote a bit for the school newspaper but I also was in a bunch of drama productions, did some minor work for student government and joined the Varsity Debate team. All that while working and maintaining a solid 2.4 grade point average. I certainly wasn't a zealous activist .... this was all pragmatic. The newspaper kept beer in the fridge that stored the film....the only place on campus you could drink at 11 am... being an actor assured you of possibilities for getting laid in odd places and in unique ways. The debate thing was just something that enabled me to travel to strange and foreign places like Mankato, MN, Mt. Pleasant, MI, Eau Claire, WI, plus... the University gave a very generous per Diem food allowance and you got to stay in really really fancy Holiday Inns. Hey, I was living on $60 bucks a week or so and you could not count on the import business especially if you smoked a lot. A guy has got to eat.
Looking at the book again really brought back memories.... articles that I had clipped about Nam and Nixon resigning and Agnew bullshit (least we think of the current crop of politicians as having invented bullshit) plus there were music reviews and all sorts of neato keen stuff. And then I came across the kicker.... Tom's obituary. He was the sweetest guy who ever put a shotgun in his mouth. He had been President of the University Student Government and a pretty good friend. He was the one who got me the gig booking guest speakers at the University... no pay, but free tuition for a semester. A slim,clean, grinny guy with a wave and a smile for everyone. Everyone liked Tom. Everyone. I saw him the morning he pulled the trigger, at the laundro-mat. It was a combination laundry and liquor store, which really made wash day bearable. So we were sitting there drinking a six pack and getting clean. He was bumming..... he had graduated and couldn't find a job.... he was breaking up with his girl... he was sick of Oshkosh...the regular complaints. I remember telling him I would keep an ear about for work and that everything would be ok. Later that night someone said that he had left a note explaining that he had bounced a check for the shotgun and would someone please take it back. He left a neat stack of folded laundry in his room and had taken the sheets off the bed before he laid down for the last time. He was a neat person. And only 22. It's in the book. Maybe I could have said something more, but probably not. Word was he saw a lot of people that day... and no one really could tell he was that low. See it is good to remember, it's good to have a book....... even if you are the only one who reads it.
There are places I remember all my life, Though some have changed Some forever, not for better Some have gone and some remain. All these places have their moments Of lovers and friends I still can recall Some are dead and some are living In my life I loved them all.
I have choices today.... worry about the world's troubles, do laundry, wash the kitchen floor, shave, restore democracy to America, re-write 'Moby Dick', take a quick trip to Seattle, make some baked beans, climb Denali, take out the garbage, re-invent the wheel, go to the library, watch old movies....... I am always struck with the possibilities that engulf me as I open my eyes in the morning.
There is a moment before reality kicks in, a peaceful clarity that today I can do anything; that there is nothing that cannot be achieved.. All I need to do is smile at someone and they will be happy.....give away a simple dime to insure someone's well being, tell a joke and ease a pain, laugh and make the rain stop.
But then my feet hit the floor and I resolve to just watch football and drink beer.
I almost got into it with a stranger. Just words. But I did the right thing and just shut up. I guess I was a couple of beers into a quiet night and I just starting waxing on about how we just need to end the wars and we could save the economy. Just a flippant remark to a friend. Ain't no deal, he knows how I feel. But the guy next to my friend, with the NASCAR jacket and the Packer Baseball cap pitched right in. "Well, if we don't fight them there, we're gonna fight them here." I kinda looked at him and decided the beer was too good to interrupt, to comment back. I heard that shit forty years ago and all that happened is we ended up with a lot of Vietnamese restaurants. The guy went on...".....and if you don't support the troops, what kind of American are you? This is when we need Patriots!", he almost thundered. Well, I am a Commie-Socialist,tree-hugging, beer-drinking, dope-smoking, free-love, hippie, eco-freak, doughnut-scarfing, porn-watching, bearded, sushi-eating, children-loving, atheistic,sandal-wearing,unemployed kind of an American, but I really didn't want to try to explain all this to him and I assumed it was a rhetorical question anyway. I guess I would have lost him at 'tree-hugging. Gees...it takes about 175 years to grow a decent oak tree... ya gotzta hug that kind of perseverance, right? But I figured that it would have been a waste of time to try to explain that to a fellow who likes watching cars go around in a circle at 200mph while sucking a six-pack of cheap beer. But it gave me pause. I thought just a little about the cheap kind of Patriotism the guy tried to pass off. It wasn't new. I heard that shit before and I'm sure I will hear it again.
I'm not the kind of guy that gets a huge honking hard-on wrapping myself in a flag...... but sometimes the possibilities are inviting. I mean, if Patriotism was like a good mind blowing orgasm, shit&whiskers, I would be running down the street wearing nothing but a flag. But that doesn't work. The real deal, though, is I do support our troops. I would love to support them all the way home. And I am not a 'dis-band' the army kind of guy. We unfortunately need soldiers. And unfortunately, they all seem young. Anyways, in a couple of days it's Veteran's Day, or Armistice Day, or Wave-Your- Fucking- Flag Day.... the 11th minute of the 11th hour of the 11th day when in 1918 the War to End All Wars Ended. Hmmmmmmm.... that didn't work out, huh.
He's five foot-two, and he's six feet-four,
He fights with missiles and with spears.
He's all of thirty-one, and he's only seventeen,
Been a soldier for a thousand years.
He'a a Catholic, a Hindu, an Atheist, a Jain,
A Buddhist and a Baptist and a Jew.
And he knows he shouldn't kill,
And he knows he always will,
Kill you for me my friend and me for you.
And he's fighting for Canada,
He's fighting for France,
He's fighting for the USA,
And he's fighting for the Russians,
And he's fighting for Japan,
And he thinks we'll put an end to war this way
And he's fighting for Democracy,
He's fighting for the Reds,
He says it's for the peace of all.
He's the one who must decide,
Who's to live and who's to die,
And he never sees the writing on the wall.
Now the thing that getz me....war doesn't kill a bunch of middle aged men.... it kills young people. And it is the young who must wake up and decide they do not want to die. Or grow up and see their children die. We need a lotta things in this world..... and one of them is NOT more dead Veterans to remember.
But without him,
How would Hitler have condemned him at Dachau?
Without him Caesar would have stood alone,
He's the one who gives his body
As a weapon of the war,
And without him all this killing can't go on.
He's the Universal Soldier and he really is to blame,
ok. The world just got stranger and smaller. Beautiful downtown Wisconsington just elected a Teabagger. Replaced a clear thinking honest politician (not an oxymoron, really) with a small thinking idiot fuck who will not be able to find the Senate bathroom with a google map. The guy believes Sun spots are causing climate change and that small businesses create jobs while still employing Dept of Corrections inmates as almost ten percent of his work force at his factory. Saves him over 100K in health insurance benefits. But he doesn't believe in government aid to business. And he has yet to employ any of those inmates after their sentence is served. I could go on.... but then I would have to start drinking and even by my standards it's early.
Well I'm not going to rant and rave... yet....there is still time, like the next six fucking years! But I'm sitting at the New Moon having a coffee and a cheese scone this morning when this Dude in his mid-thirties comes up to me and says, "You're Okjimm....from the Eggroll Emporium." Now.... I'm thinking the CIA or FBI or EPA or DEA or OSHA or some such as finally caught up with me. But then I realize that the statute of limitations should have run out long ago on most of those major felonies and I never figured they would send anyone after me for stealing that lady's underwear or the parking tickets. And that shit that happened in Beirut was a long time ago, under a different alias and Brown Bob was the only one that knew of guns and he's dead.
Well.... it turns out that there are more than four folks in this burg of 62,000 that read this stuff. Frankly, I was shocked. And then I was even more shocked when he introduces himself as one of our city councilmen. And THEN... I realized I voted for him and boy&howdy....it sure took him a long time to come around and thank me for the vote&stuff! But connection was beer. See... he's read Lee at Oshkosh beer and had moseyed over here from there and recognized me from that photo I put in the story about Oblio's. ( I really must be more careful about posting photos or an arrest MAY be imminent) And he recognized Al in the window.....now I knew Al was a real SOB...member of Society of Oshkosh Brewers, But I never new he was also one of our County Board Members.
I just thought he was a guy who knows good beer and whose wife makes a fantastic mango salsa and beer rye bread. So I spent a few moments talking with Bob who is almost as upset as I am over Feingold's loss in the Senate elelction and he gives me his take on a couple of people who are running for the School Board, including a nut-job homophobe. It was a short talk, but a nice one. Homophobes are fun to talk about and it really has a nice sound, homophobe, kinda like microbe or isotope or big dope. Anyways... it was nice. Nice to know that there are some folks, outside of my sincerely beloved circle of bloggy-buds who read my drivel. Maybe. ..........it's been a glum few days. I can't believe we are such a nation of idiots.... and I DO NOT mean because Republicans won more legislative races than Democrats.... but it was the way the election was run and they type of candidates that won. Fear Mongers. Racists. Bigots. Know Nothings. I guess I was naive enough to think tha America was beyond all that bullshit. But we are not. Most voted as if they were casting a vote for a Fox Stupid Reality show....."Dancing with The American Idol". It broke my heart. And then I realized that WE are still here. Folks of a like nature. Kind, interesting and (except for me) mostly intelligent. We may find each other in cafes, or bars, or blogs....but we seem to search for each other. The Media has let us down. The TV stations, the Newspapers, The Magazines.....but in that failure it becomes clear that there must be an alternative way to connect, to communicate, to embrace new and wonderful tomorrows. The future is us. We just don't know it yet.
Proud to have voted for the only Smart, Educated, Rational, Honest short-twice-divorced-Jewish guy in the Senate! iffen I was gay..... I would marry him!!
