On This Day: 4/18/05

Somewhere in the Persian Gulf—

We arrived in the Gulf on 3/18/05, and I’m hearing rumors we’ll potentially be here until mid-June. Baseball season started earlier this month, and I’ve been trying to keep track of the Minnesota Twins, but it’s impossible with the lack of news—sports or otherwise—here^. 

I’m making some money now. Regular base pay, plus sea pay, plus while we’re in the Gulf (a “zone of combat” according to the IRS), our pay is exempt from taxes. Since I don’t have anything to spend my money on, I’ve got more cash in my account than I’ve ever had. I ordered a new guitar to be sent to Lara’s place in Norfolk. It’s a beautiful jet black Epiphone Casino. Can’t wait to see and play it. I also ordered a laptop, and a book on how to use ProTools [audio recording software], so I can finally get my home studio off the ground.

On April 12th, the USS Carl Vinson anchored off the coast of the Kingdom of Bahrain. I admit that I knew nothing of Bahrain before joining the Navy, and now that we were here, in the current climate of aggression towards Iraq and Afghanistan, Al Qaeda, the Taliban, etc. I didn’t feel super safe venturing off the ship. Nonetheless, with a handful of shipmates, I got on one of the liberty boats, destined for shore. As we motored towards the pier—a fifteen minute-long ride—I noticed that each liberty boat was flanked by a US Navy patrol boat with a 50-caliber gun mounted in the bow. 

Once we got to the pier, they shepherded us into large vans which drove us through the city of Al Manāmah towards the base. The ride was short, but we got to see an uninspiring portion of the island: many squat, angry-looking buildings with broken windows. The van lumbered along cracked pavement until we pulled into an alleyway, surrounded on both sides by tall brick walls topped with barbed-wire. In a moment, I imagined all manner of ridiculous things—masked men armed with AK-47s, forcing the ship’s company into a nondescript basement where we’d be held hostage for weeks, until our eventual execution by beheading in front of rolling video cameras. We’d make the front page of the New York Times: MAJOR ESCALATION IN WAR AS U.S. SAILORS EXECUTED. Instead, on the other side of the fence was our base, Naval Support Activity Bahrain. I walked around inside the base, absolutely safe, eating KFC, bowling, and drinking Budweiser. I bought a few items at the commissary, and generally had a pleasant, if boring time there.

Two weeks before we went to Bahrain, the band that I play bass in—Klickitat County—performed at a rare morale-boosting event called a “Steel Beach Picnic”. We had to prove our worth, however, by performing for the judges. Jack Brett, James Rascoe, and I hauled our instruments to a small classroom on the ship, where we played the blues standard “Key to the Highway,” “Two of Us” by the Beatles, and our medley of “Rocky Top/Under the Double Eagle/Take Me Home, Country Roads/Lookin’ Out My Back Door.” Chief Petty Officer Joseph, of the ship’s Safety Department, who was one of the judges, seemed to like our sound, proclaiming “You’ll need to rehearse once—maybe twice—before the picnic.”

A hangar bay, where our band rehearsed for hours, once

The next day, the three of us, along with our drummer Derrick Cribbs, practiced in a corner of the hangar bay for close to three hours. It was quite an experience! So many sailors passing by stopped to listen—smiling, tapping a foot, singing along when they knew the lyrics, applauding us when we finished rehearsing a song. It’s rare to see people enjoying themselves out here. The work is non-stop, the fear is non-stop, the loud launching of jets at all hours of the day and night. We’ve been out here for months and people look worn out: 

• The 18-year-old Aircraft Ordnanceman in his red shirt and helmet, responsible for loading lethal bombs onto F-16s

• The grizzled Senior Chief, who has been doing this work for twenty years and whose third marriage is on the rocks

• The 24-year old LTJG [Lieutenant, Junior-Grade], who due solely to the fact that she is a female on a ship that is 85% male, is leered at all day, every day, and only emerges from her berthing to stand watch or to dine in the Wardroom

The next day, we rehearsed again for the Picnic Magistrates, who, nodding gravely and agreeing that we were progressing well, assured us that with only a few more rehearsals, we would be ready for the big day. The whole routine was pretty laughable, as we’ve been playing together as a band for nearly three years at this point, including shows in Seattle, Tacoma, and open mic nights in Bremerton, etc. but I get it.

Klickitat County performing at the USS Carl Vinson Steel Beach Picnic, 2005. (l to r: Derrick Cribbs, Yours Truly, Jack Brett, and James Rascoe)

The day of the picnic was hot, with a hazy blue sky and calm waters. All the jets had been moved from the flight deck to the hangar bay and a small stage was built for the performers. Big charcoal grills were located across the flight deck and hamburgers, hot dogs, and cold soda-pops were freely available. They actually let us dress in our “civvies” if we wanted to, so sailors in t-shirts and shorts gathered in groups, or lined up for food. We were able to pack four full songs into our fifteen-minute allotment of stage time. I was thrilled to see many of our Reactor Department buddies out there, enjoying our set, though they were melting in the hot middle eastern sun. Many acts followed, from R&B groups, to singer-songwriter types, but the final song of the day was an old-school rap, performed by Chief Joseph, which had the crowd smiling and laughing.

Hearing rumors about liberty ports coming up in Greece and Italy, but who knows. For now, it’s back to our day job of navigating back and forth in the Gulf, launching F16s at Iraq. God help us (and the innocent Iraqis in our path).

———————————————

Elsewhere on 4/18/2005:

*Black smoke emerged from the Vatican, signaling that the papal conclave had yet to choose a successor to the recently deceased Pope John Paul II.

*In Pelican Rapids, Minnesota, a 24-year-old man was arrested in the stabbing death of his housemate, another 24-year-old man

*A US civilian aid worker and several Marines were killed in a car bomb in Baghdad

^The Twins lost 2-1 at Cleveland, in the most “Twins” way imaginable: after loading the bases in the bottom of the eighth, Twins reliever JC Romero hit Cleveland slugger Travis Hafner in the elbow with a pitch, thus walking in the winning run. (from The Fargo Forum, 4/18/2005, accessed online 4/13/2025)

“Learning to live takes a whole life”

-Seneca

Diary entry from March 23, 2017

I ran again this morning, blah blah blah.

I posted things to social media and waited around for likes, blah blah blah.

I thought about L. and wished/doubted that she was thinking about me, blah blah blah.

I am a romantic idiot. Haven’t you learnt yet that life doesn’t work the way you want it to work?

I’ve been thinking about L. for weeks, and does she have any clue that you’re interested in her? Absolutely not. And how do YOU know that you’re even ready for a relationship? Maybe she’s not searching for anything like that either. You’re a perfect fool. What are you hoping for? That she is going to be so overcome with emotion from your hackneyed FecesBook posts that she’s going to telephone you immediately and ask you on a date? What if she’s got somebody better on her radar?

What can I say? I’m already looking forward to the next Tuesday morning 3RUN2 meet-up. Why? Because you made such a strong impression last Tuesday? You didn’t even acknowledge her existence, you fucking idiot. What a true fool. 37 years old and a complete buffoon with women—no clue whatsoever.

What would you even say? Imagine for a moment that you accepted her offer to drive you home on a Thursday evening after run club. What would you say as she eased her car toward the curb near the weird yellow house wherein I haunt the upper floor. Imagine she’s looking at you with those sparkling blue eyes. What do you say? I was wondering if you have plans sometime this weekend? Voice warbling like a prepubescent knucklehead. I was wondering if you might maybe wanna get coffee sometime possibly?!? What a perfectly moronic plan.

What are you afraid of? I think it’s fair to assume that she’s got at least some minor amount of interest in you. Interest is relative though. Interest like the way I’m interested in her? Or interest like the way I’m interested in selling all my worldly possessions and becoming a beach yogi drifter in Ecuador?

What do you say? What should/could/would you say? She’s staring at you with those eyes: cool, blue, deep, full of light and life—out of my league gorgeous. And all you can muster is: Thank you so much for the ride. Uhm, have a good night?

Try again, sonny.

While you sit here, “hemming and hawing” as Mom might say, L. is losing interest. Are you trying to sabotage yourself? I think I am! I want this to fail before it can even begin, so I can look back from some distant future and say, “damn, Dipstick, you could have had it all, but you never took your shot.” So that I can forever wonder “what could have been” rather than experiencing the expectation, exhilaration, exploration of the pursuit.

This seems like a pretty credible realization.

I am sabotaging myself. To protect my fragile, precious, hungry baby-bird ego, I avoid the difficult—and best—parts of life: the uncomfortable parts. This is good…I feel like I am on the right track here! I prefer misery to happiness, don’t I? I see myself as Elliott Slantwise Smith: a dark, tragic figure who needs to feed off his own misery in order for his art to be meaningful, and ends up thrusting a steak knife into his own heart. Everyone will call me a fraud if my art is anything but authentic and informed by the deep despair and grief inherent in my own lived experience.

What a sham, man! What a sad, simple sham. That’s no way to live. Anyway, if you were gonna be an artist, you woulda been one before now.

I’m suddenly feeling enthusiastic that I have discovered (or rediscovered?) this about myself. It only took 37 years of failed relationships. What does a successful relationship look like? I guess one in which the other person either brings a dowry of joy, novelty, passion, and brunch into your life (not fucking likely), or one in which she is as interested in your personal growth as she is in her own. F! Where is all this solid relationship advice coming from all of a sudden? #NotMad.

Okay, so now what are you gonna do about it, asshole? Why don’t you write a few more tear-stained pages about it? That’s helping push your goal forward, isn’t it?

On This Day: 2/16/16

Every so often, I’ll dip back into my Morning Pages to find an entry from this day in my history, and reproduce it here.

Dear god, another two weeks have elapsed since last I cracked open this journal. It’s been a month since I moved into my new apartment, and it is finally starting to feel like mine, yet I haven’t spent much time there, except to sleep. Two weeks ago, I taught four yoga classes, and last week I taught three—seven total from Wednesday to Wednesday, that on top of my 40+ hour per week day job. Add that to band practice and recordings and I’m feeling maxed out.

Yesterday, finally, I had a true day to my Self, and I got a lot accomplished. I did some freelance audio editing, fit in a good run at a fast 6’54/mile pace [holy shit, I actually cannot believe I ever ran that fast for any length of time], and played a show with As 40 Sleeps at fucking Phyllis’ Musical Inn. Lord, how I despise that place. But before our show, I walked down the street to eat a sandwich at Jerry’s. While I was sitting there, feeling pissed off that we were playing so late (midnight!), a gent sat down next to me at the bar. 

You are really pulling off that scarf, my man.

“Oh, thanks!” It was the one that Hailey (my 15-year-old niece) crocheted me for Christmas, and I told him so.

Yeah, he said, I tried that scarf thing once and I ended up looking like Helen Mirren. I laughed—hard—and we had a good, long conversation about Wicker Park in the 1990s, the gentrification of Chicago, Ron Carter, Michael Jackson, House music, day jobs, playing with soul goddammit, the devaluation of art and attention in the age of social media, etc. He was a really interesting and thought-provoking dude. We exchanged business cards before I excused myself to Phyllis’. His name was Jevon Jackson, apparently a really well-known House DJ in Chicago for decades. He told me to hit him up some time. What a cool dude.

Liz Phair in Wicker Park in the 90s. Photo by Marty Perez

That conversation with Jevon really made me love/hate our set at Phyllis’. 

I loved it, in that our conversation truly informed my musicality that night. I think I played with more soul (goddammit) and more awareness than I usually do, and especially with this band [compared with my performances with MIDWEST^]. And I hated it in that I was acutely aware of the people who were dancing to our music: snobby young sons and daughters of wealth, who were sneering through a night out, not at the fancy bars and restaurants they (no doubt) frequent, but making the extra trek to rip Schlitz at one of Chicago’s dwindling “dive” bars. I guess what I’m trying to say is I felt like a fraud, playing music for a bunch of bigger frauds. 

Milwaukee, North and Damen in 1988. Photo by Jeff Wassmann

I want to live as authentically as possible. I want to live authentically, if possible.

Be authentic. Be real. Single-task whenever possible. Keep an eye on the finish line, but don’t forget to watch the ground passing underfoot.

Alexis, myself, and Jack Brett. Photo by Crystal Lynn circa 2016

[^My former band MIDWEST’s music below:]

On this day: 12/14/2016

—La Colombe (Damen Ave, Chicago, IL)

I am enjoying this new Sunday morning routine. I have been waking up at 6am and riding Wolfy to Stan’s Donuts and thence to La Colombe for a coffee prior to leading the weekly 3RIDE2 adventure. This morning, the girl behind the counter at Stan’s <<CHECKS PHONE>> asked for my name, because she sees me there every Sunday. I’m trying to create routines that encourage fitness:

• Monday morning recovery boots at Edge, coffee and working on my yoga class for that night.

• Tuesday morning Edge plyometric workout

• Saturday morning Bang Bang 3RUN2 crew run followed by yoga at Tula from 11 to 12:30

• Sunday morning Stans, Colombe, 3RIDE2 <<CHECKS PHONE>>

How many minutes did I just lose there, looking at my device? Checking for hidden notifications? I’m addicted. Yesterday, my little Andorinha came home from the Turin Hospital for Children. She is beautiful. I named her after those beautiful Portuguese birdies and the even more lovely song about them sung by Amalia Rodrigues and Carminho <<CHECKS PHONE>>. We took our maiden flight together from Turin to Lifetime yesterday afternoon. She rides like a little dream. <<CHECKS PHONE>> It’s no wonder that I can never finish anything, can never write anything worthy if I am constantly being pulled from the present moment to see who LIKED my most recent post. What a waste. I miss writing so much <<CHECKS PHONE>> I think I’ve got a problem. What was happening in my life last year on this date? I wrote bad poetry. I wrote about how Tall Rob told me after yoga that he was chatting with another one of my regular attendees at the gym who told Tall Rob: “I love Josh’s classes. Josh is like a SOFT MOUNTAIN.” I loved that so much <<CHECKS PHONE>> Wednesday is the anniversary of my writing “We All” arguably the best, most rambling and schizophrenic poem I’ve penned to date. I’ll need to issue a special revision for the anniversary <<CHECKS PHONE>>. I got drunk on Dewars white label scotch and wrote for about three solid pages, of which I revised and edited to what I thought was the best lines of the bunch. In fact, while I’m thinking about it, I should <<CHECKS PHONE>> What I was going to say is: perhaps I should revise it now as I am thinking about it. I have the master version saved on Medium. I will perhaps make time this morning—while I’m in recovery boots—to further revise. <<CHECKS PHONE>> I can’t believe how much has changed in one year since writing that piece. Last year I was flying to Tampa for a pre-Christmas trip someplace warm. I was unemployed, or had actually just been hired as Operations Manager at WFMT. I feel like I am a more confident yoga teacher today and that I am in a better place emotionally, though still a long way from where <<CHECKS PHONE>> I hope to see myself.

CHECKS PHONE

<<>>

CHECKS PHONE <<>>

Andorinha

On this day: 12/7/2015

Every so often, I’ll dip back into my Morning Pages to find an entry from this day in my history, and reproduce it here. On this particular day, I was flying from Chicago to Florida. Flying is often where I get most of my good writing done, because it offers so few distractions, comparativley. This entry directly sparked my poem “We All”.

Leaving today for Tampa, visiting V’s Mom and Charles there this week. It will be nice to get the hell out of Chicago for a few days of sun and beach. I’m going to do my best to enjoy the trip and not get pulled back into Chicago bullshit for a few days, at least.

Another rejection letter. This time from the SIXFOLD contest, in which a poem is rated against six others, through three rounds of voting by other poets. My “Leatherbacks” didn’t make it past Round 1, earning a score of 3.6 out of 6. Oh well…keep trying. [“The Leatherbacks” later titled “Prey” would eventually be published in Pest Control Issue 2, March 2021]

redemption

---

<——— Oliver Minnall, 2001

Thinking about Brian Kennelly today, as I was telling V about my Navy days. I haven’t thought about him in years—an outrageous character—who roomed with Vincent Mak in “A” School. Mak would become one of my closest friends on the Vinson. Then there’s Oliver Minnall, Mark Howard, Lloyd Colgin, all ghosts from my past. Names with nothing else attached to them. How insane is that? I spent over a year with these guys, hanging out every day. We watched the towers fall together in real time on 9/11, and now all I retain is a faint recollection of their names. Some, not even that much: the hulking MM mechanic with the square, bald head, who I shared a bathroom with, who I was slightly terrified of, who drove me to downtown Charleston one night to party, where we got completely hammered on $5 Long Island Iced Teas, and on the way home I thought I was certainly going to piss myself, and he got into the bathroom first, and Minnall [my roommate] was playing Dreamcast—or whatever game system was en vogue at the time—at 2 in the morning. Or the 1980s movie marathon that I held in our room one weekend, people popping in and out at all times of the day. Jesus. It was another lifetime. Playing sand volleyball on a Sunday afternoon, going to the beach when I was in Prototype—which beach? I know it had a name—drunk on Smirnoff Ice and boogie boarding, and the strap of the thing getting caught between my thighs somehow as a fucking riptide pulled me out to sea, towards the pier. I surely thought I would die that day. Or the other time at the beach, covering myself in Coppertone Classic—essentially COOKING OIL—and falling asleep in the sun, getting burned so badly that my entire forehead erupted into a billion blisters and I looked like Freddy Krueger for two weeks. Or that blonde instructor at Prototype [Timothy Croak, RIP 8/29/2024] who was so goddamn cocky and hated everything and all of us and was the meanest 2nd Class Petty Officer I ever met in the six years I served.

How is it possible that all that exists in this INSTANT?

Staggering to think about, really. Everything goes. Nothing lasts—and we all act as if it really will last forever. Like we have an eternity to do the things we want, like we have all the money to do everything we want. Life is a short bus. Suddenly, all the stress about giving up a full-time job to explore yoga teacher training seems TRIVIAL. But isn’t everything trivial, extended out to a long enough timeline? The older I get, the more convinced I become that trying to make a thing last is the definition of futility, Nothing lasts. That is the only truth I know. Every day we wake up, we are infinitely different than we were the previous day. It’s impossible to remain the same, day in and day out. We are trapped inside these humyn bodies—which is such a relief, because at least we have that as an anchor point—the same face staring back at us from the looking glass each morning; something recognizable. I could wake up tomorrow an accountant living in a remote yurt in Mongolia, and the only thing that would surprise me is if I no longer recognized the face in the mirror.

This hippy, sitting kitty-corner from me has been in his stocking-feet since he sat down; plane still attached to the jetway, baggage still being tossed into the compartment below—stocking-footed. I have to laugh. It’s only a two-hour flight, brah.

Why am I terrified to write what is actually concerning me? You know why. People read over shoulders, that is why. I am a bad person, aren’t I?

No, I am not. This is life.

We all make mistakes, we all make friends, we all make a mess. We all clean it up. We all write. We all swipe left. We all pick our noses when nobody’s looking. We all cry. We all avoid those we don’t want to see. We all seek out those we want. We all drink scotch before noon. We all see our therapists daily. We all take our medicine. We all experience turbulence. We all get cancer. We all kill sheep ritualistically on the Autumnal Equinox. We all stab one another in dark alleyways for 20 cents and a bus pass.

We all sit in crowded airplanes in our stocking feet. We all sing. We all laugh. We all shoot heroin. We all soil ourselves. We’ve all been to Lisbon. We’ve all been to Reykjavik. We’ve all been to the laundromat. We’ve all run a marathon. We all are made of comets. We all are bloodsacks. We all speak to aliens. We all believe in Santa. We all turn our TV on, watch it for hours, and never learn a goddamn thing. We all cook eggs. We all cheat. We all lie. We all roast in the flames of a fire we all built. We all store our dryer lint in a sandwich baggie by the DVDs, so we can use it for kindling to start that fire. We all drink an entire bottle of bourbon by that fire when we should be at home with hubby. We all pet someone else’s kitty behind the ears. We all brag about it later to our friends, or anyone who’ll listen. We all glisten. We all glow. We all shine. We all swim. We all drown.

We all

〰️

We all 〰️

We all believe the Olmecs were the best. We all burn at the stake. We all set the stakes too high. We all play ping pong with the neighbor boy. We all flunk algebra. We all write “poetry” when we’ve had a little too much to drink. We all eat far too much cheese. We all chew our food with our mouths hanging open. We all wish we were cabana boys. We all love fado. We all love Larry David. We all love Donald Trump. We all are gay. We all are Muslim. We all are salmon. We all are Kodiak bears. We all play the bass fiddle in folk-rock bands. We all read magazines when we wait in the lobby for our turn in the dentist’s chair. we all drive Vespas from the café to the lycée with our teeth chattering in the cold. We all watch our friendships die. We all watch our friends die. We all play the radio a little too loudly for our own good.

We all buy houses we can’t possibly afford. We all run up our credit card debt. We all have a 401k. We all get two weeks for vacation. We all sip mimosas on the beach in Cancún as the sun rises. We all black out. We all forget who we are. We all forget who we were. We all forget whomever we were supposed to be. We all regret. We all paint in the style of the modern man. We all get accepted to the Ivy League. We all make six figures. We all winter in Istanbul. We all watch airplanes fall from the sky. We all fly with the angels. We all smoke too much. We all have an app for that. We all Just Do It. We all Enjoy Responsibly. We all refresh our Facebook feeds. We all swim with sharks. We all hunt giraffes. We all know how to sling a sledgehammer. We all have a Hall of Champions. We all have won a Grammy. We all belong in Cooperstown. We all died on the Titanic. We all would love a Toblerone, if you’re offering. We all play Jeff Buckley’s version of “Hallelujah” on repeat and cry ourselves to sleep. We all take hemlock when the time comes. We all write our memoirs prematurely. We all snuggle under the covers as we watch our lives slip away. We all hike the AT. We all re-enact the Battle of Bull Run. We all break down screaming on the floors of airports. We all blow our brains out on live TV. We all grunt. We all moan. We all laugh until our sides hurt. We all sing XMas Carols. We all have favorites. We all have enemies. We all have a hard time with it. We all hope for the best. We all prepare for the worst. We all wish we had more time.

We don’t.

On this day: 11/27-28/2002

Every so often, I’ll dip back into my Morning Pages to find an entry from this day in history, and reproduce it here. On these particular days, November 27th and 28th, 2002, I was checking in to the USS Carl Vinson for the first time.

11/27/2002: Woke up at 3am to check out of TPU [Transient Personnel Unit] San Diego. What a joke! It only took five minutes to check out and now we must wait hours before the bus comes to take us to the ship. I heard the USS Carl Vinson is due to pull into San Diego between 1300 and 1600 today. Bus takes us to a large warehouse where we wait. At about 1230, the Carl Vinson first comes into sight. As it approaches, I am absolutely dumbfounded at the size of the ship. We wait two-plus hours until they finally let all fifty of us new check-ins onboard. A lot of paperwork and finally they show me to my “pit” or bed. It is about six and a half feet long, three feet wide, and two feet between my mattress and the lower frame of the bunk above mine. There are two sliding blue curtains for privacy.

11/28/2002: Woke up at 0600. It’s Thanksgiving morning. Went to breakfast, which consisted of hard pancakes. Mustered with my division at 0730. We were released around 0900 to go to the flight deck as CVN-70 got underway. Stood atop as we transitioned out of the harbor. Quite a strange feeling to be that high off the water, watching the tiny kayaks below. The ship is so large that I don’t think I’ll ever see all of it. In a bit of a dilemma though, as I don’t have enough space for all my belongings and have had to sleep with my backpack crammed into my pit with me, restricted my already minimal space to sleep. Apparently, somebody else is using my locker, so I can’t put my things away until that is sorted. The ship begins to rock and it is becomes obvious that we have left the relatively calm harbor waters.

Wish I could call Mom and Dad and say Happy Thanksgiving, but I’ll wish it to them anyway. Slept for a long time during the day. Woke up at 11pm! They were serving Thanksgiving dinner for mid-rats (midnight rations), and since I slept through it earlier, I helped myself. There was turkey, ham, mashed potatoes and gravy. I was eating my mid-rats alone, missing home, and feeling lonely and sad. Someone came and sat next to me and asked me if I was okay. That was nice of them. I think I’ll like it here.

On this day: 11/20/2015

Every so often, I’ll dip back into my Morning Pages to find an entry from this day in history, and reproduce it here. On this particular day, 11/20/2015, I was drinking copious amounts of dark rum and listening to Tom Waits albums, while typing whatever came into my head. Here is that transcript.

A screaming skeleton of a squirrel squirms down a stick of nasty branches that, once upon a July, some summers ago, resembled an Ash Tree; an Ash Tray, today. Getting deeper, getting loster, lostest, flawstest, flautist. Sing! You scorpion, serenade me or shut your face and BEGONE! Do Not Feed the animals after Midnight. Not under any circumstances. Nor shall ye allow them to graze upon these pastures, unsupervised, lest they needs be shot betwixt the eyes. Cry yourself to an early grave, sob yourself into oblivion.

Scroll away, scroll away on that fucking device. Watch your life slip away. Why am I sitting at this godforsaken typewriter when I could be watching the TV set? Can’t I be the Cabana Boy? The Handsome Handyman? Write, you brute, or the whips are coming out for the Cabana Boys. It’s time time time. Time to go back again into the brass cage. You sickly little worm, you sicken me with your sticky green slime. Your snail trail smelling to high heaven. Is this #Real life? #IsThisRealLife? What? WHUT? Just put the fucking phone down, will you? You could write 10,000 words of nonsense each day if you can only put that fucking phone down. Flush it down.

“All the donuts have names like prostitutes”. I would give my left nut to write a line like that. GAWD. Where is that barefoot balladeer, with a voice like Sam Cooke, trimming his sails in a world sans snark? And how are you supposed to get your writing done when this dog needs pets? Stop opening drawers, stop scrolling, stop running, running, always running. Sit your ass in that chair and put your goddamn phone away. Why waste your time? None of this is going anywhere. Please, please, by all means, check to see if you collected any likes, loves, hearts, hugs, comments, favorites, kisses, emojis, thumbs-down, “WTF?”s in the past five minutes. We will wait…Ha! One like, indeed! Score!

Lets freshen that up for you “while you wait”. We will freshen you up in a real jamboree jiffee. Woman Pushing Scotch in Stroller: Google it. Why do you think you were not born to be tamed, like the screaming squirrel in the stick tree? And what is this nasty white shit I see drifting down past the windows? It had better be something that is delivering me a hot pizza or a winning Mega-Million ticket, or else it is entirely unwelcome round these parts.

In a world sans sadness, sans snark, sans sharks, sans Smack—wasn’t that a cereal? Smacks? Jelly Smacks? Honey Smacks? Nine times out of ten, dimes out of yen, slimes out of MEN, chimes out of pen, crimes out of Glenn?

There is something foul and fluffy floating down from clopping clueless clouds, clobbering clammy clapless clots clubbing their way to Clubanistan. Back to the brass cage, you little stinking shit-heeled Cabana Boy, you slippery shit, you. Where is my whiskey goddamn you?

Where is my lantern? Lantern? What is this? 1946? A lantern, for Pete’s sake? Who is Pete? Sipping, slipping, snipping sage cervesas, certainly, senselessly. Some screaming is certainly coming from down the hallway. I’m not sure how much screeching should be expectorated on such an occasion. You can’t hide from the screaming skeletal squirrel as he inches down the branches.

Whose panini is this, over here? Crushed and dismantled, with plenty of garlic and crickets added to the thing, thus ruining it, in flavor at least. It does, at minimum, bear a slight visual resemblance to a sammich. The american cheese slices pressed between rye crusts doesn’t CHALLENGE the PALLETTE. This is not the greatest sandwich ever. One star. *. If I could give it Zero stars, I would. After all, I mean, who leaves a whole, fresh panini unwrapped, still steaming, on a park bench anyway? And who wants to take my sheep for a spin in the pastures? I can pay $5.00 for the day of work. That amounts to $0.42 per hour of good, h’old fashioned walkin and workin, before he is whisked away to his pretty brass cage, where his scotch stroller sleeps soundly, folded up in the corner, collecting cobwebs, collating cumberbunds, correcting cokeheads, captured, crusted. No editing required or desired.