no magnetic death cannon, though.

What was your most memorable amusement park experience?

I'll be honest right at the front here and tell you that I cribbed this idea from another site. Not like either one of us care, but if you should happen to visit the same site and have an 'aha' moment I will have already trumped you. This one goes out to Tazzy the Yorkshire sex god and Piggy the...whatever he his- who never visit any more because there are too many big words. Cunts.

New York had Coney Island, California had Knotts Berry farm. Portland Oregon had Oaks Amusement Park. It was not world famous like Coney and it was not state of the art like Knotts Berry was at the time, but what it was, was stone fucking cool.

This midway area was still present in large part when I was a kid, but most of the buildings were boarded up, gated over and flood damaged. Spooky? Romantic? The very definition thereof, my dear.

I defy you to find another amusement park with as much pure class as the Oaks had back then. Think of the myriad haunted amusement parks in Scooby Doo...bullshit. Think of the best midway you had ever visited...roadkill. The Oaks had it ALL. And all of it was blessed with that perfect touch of dereliction, sleaze and enchantment that all proper amusements parks should have.

It had been built at the very beginning of the 1900s on what at the time was a small island in the Willamette river...far enough out of town at that time so that a special excursion trolley ran out to it on a trestle over the water, hung with strings of lanterns at night.

It was a fantasy of carved wood, Victorian lace, gargoyles, a little Venice, a little New Orleans and a lot pure Americana. Straight out of Dandelion Wine was this place.

The main portion of the old park was shut down save for a very few of the pitches. You had to traverse this entire midway to the far end to reach the remaining few operating rides, pitches and roller rink. All of it was set in the midst of huge oak trees full of swallows and bats and the rich smell of the river and cotton candy and diesel.

in the 1960's and '70's, you crossed over a small bridge and the first thing you passed was a tiny cinderblock radio station on the right hand side down amid the blackberies. KXI, I think it was*. It was painted sea green with glass blocks by the entry and a tall tower rising from the roof with blinking red lights on it at night.
And it was haunted.

The story was, a night shift dj had played a farewell song dedicated to his girlfriend...'Misty'...and when someone came in a few hours later to find out why the same song had been playing over and over they found the dj hanging from the overhead pipes with the phone cord wrapped around his neck. Sometimes, late at night, it was said that the 'On the Air' sign would light up, and you could hear 'Misty' playing inside, but there never was a night shift after the dj died.

Wooooooo!

Next you came onto a huge picnic and outdoor gathering park. The living trees were used as part of the decoration, hung with electric lights and incorporated into bowers, bandstands, and picnic enclosures, all of them fancifully themed with spiders webs and wooden vines. John Phillip Sousa had played here during his heyday.

An elfin railway ran the circuit of the park with a tiny engine and 20 cars, a scary tunnel and a causeway out over the water that crackled when the train passed, making fish jump out from around the pilings to take a look as you chugged by.

There was a permanent midway with carnival games of skill. Most of it was shabby and abandoned and cooler than jeezley fuck. All the joints had been decorated with gilt and glass gems, applied- relief cherubs, theatrical masks and gargoyles, monkeys and pierrots and ladies and gentlemen in domino masks dancing minuets, and all this ornament colored. Everything else was painted white. Most of it was fancy with turrets and widows walks and fretwork and oriental arches all falling into the most delicious, mysterious shadowed ruin!. this pitch still operated intermittantly, the faded origional lettering showing up behind the new signs. later it was gated off and used as a storage area and was full of old ride cars and carnival flash.

At the very end of the place was a funky rollerskating rink that was built on a floating platform. It had been added in the 1930's. The place had a pipe organ for music. The works were suspended over the center of the rink and covered with colored lights. The organist sat in a glass block booth high up above one end, wearing a suit with a ruffled shirt. He rang the skates and took requests and controlled the lights and everyone waved at him as they rolled around.

this is a very spic-and span picture of the pipe organ works suspended over the rink. in my day they were crusted with blowing dust scarves and old crepe streamer fragments. the whole place looks like it got the 'Pine-Sol and paint' treatment, which is all for the good.


The thrill rides, I now realize, were probably as close as I ever came to a horrible death in my youth.

I don't think these things had ever been inspected for safety. I don't think that most of them were built during a time when safety codes existed. The oldest and most beautiful of them all was called The Caterpillar. All it was, was a kind of roller coaster that ran in a circle on a planked runway that dipped and banked. The cars were driven from a single engine in the center from which diabolical blue clouds would billow as it chuffed and blew and gathered speed. A fan of iron spokes ran from the central turbine to the cars.

The whole ride was decorated with 'Alice in Wonderland'-y scenes....it had kind of an 'Early Campbell Kids meets Arthur Rackham' look to it. The Caterpiller himself was a cheery, googly-eyed bug with fat green segments for cars and jolly rubber wheels with red centers. As long as you didn't look too closely, this was all very reassuring. Jolly Green Caterpiller was the childrens' friend!

As the ride would gain speed, the fissured, chewed-up tires would begin to skip and sing over the boards, making the cars rattle and bash against one another and tug at the spokes. Faster and faster the ride whizzed around the track, harder and harder you were pressed against the rattling half-moon door of the car, louder and more alarming became the truly amazing creaks, bangs, snaps, sudden jolts and screeches of the machine. Boards would lift away from the racecourse and rattle. Huge blasts of steam would FASSSSSHHHHH! out of the engine unpredictably. The platform of the ramp-in other words, the entire base of the ride- would lift up off the ground on the opposite side and wham back down when the cars passed over it again.
And then, at the height of all this, The Caterpiller Canopy began to deploy.
All along its length it began to unfold from the inner side like an accordian, revealing thousands of brightly colored dots and squiggles, and slowly, slowly, the canvas arched overhead and came down on the other side, latched-
and then the ride REALLY SPEEDED UP.
You were entirely in the dark. Inside the Caterpillar.
The whole thing felt like it was going to wrench itself apart at any moment.
Some of the cars were rattling and skitttering so hard that they juddered back and forth like marbles on a roulette wheel. The platform was lifting off the ground in full earnest now, WHAM!WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAMWHAMWHAMWHAMWHAMWHAM!
Until there was a sudden huge screeching and squealing of brakes and an exhalation of steam, and the entire ride came to a complete stop in the space of a single rotation.
The canopy unlatched and slowly accordianed back overhead; folded itself away with a 'whapkechunk'.

It was the Goddamndest thing!

The Carousel, back then, was a thing of splendour. It had been built by convict labor, horses, decoration and engine, up at Rocky Butte prison**. It was everything the rest of the park was and more. It was a jewelled wedding cake, a castle, a hall of mirrors, a pile of pirate treasure. I have yet to see a carousel to equal it for sheer Victorian glory.
The central pillar was shaped like an octagonal castle tower. Its sides were covered in painted french panels...lady Columbia danced over the river with a star on her forehead that sparkled when the light caught it. Triton rode a sea-chariot pulled by white horses with manes of wave-crest, surrounded by nymphs. A dawn-lit view of Mt. Hood. Men in leather helmets scored a touchdown with a cheering crowd in the background. America the Beautiful, revealed in triumph with an eagle and star spangled negligee; a gorgeous, rosebud mouthed Gibson girl. In fact for years I was certain that this merry go round had really been decorated by Charles Dana Gibson, because that was the style and the skill of the work.

Imagine it!

My favorite mount was a sable charger with patriotic banners and rubies studding its equippage. I loved that horse. It had a real bridle and reins and real stirrups with starred spurs. It was a beautifully executed thing. All the animals on the circuit were-ostriches, kangaroos, sea beasts, zebras, eagles, swans and a jewelled throne for mothers with scared children to circle around in with a little dignity saved.

below is is a picture of the pavillion that housed the carousel taken from a rollercoaster ride that was derelict by the time I came along. unfortunately, the carousel was the victim of a tasteless and unskilled restoration in the 80's.


The other ride that I will never forget was The Mad Mouse.
Remember the Milton-Bradley game 'Mousetrap'? Kind of a Rube Golberg rack of rails and clackety rickety things? That was this ride.
It was based on a roller coaster, but with a twist-the cars were single, and they made right angles. There were no macaroni curves, just ramps and angles. And the whole thing ran at light speed!

The cars got released from a starting gate at intervals with split second timing and passed each other as though they were going to collide. In fact, there was a segment of rail that shunted open at the middle where two cars would suddenly find themselves speeding head on, then at the last possible moment race off at right angles to each other.
This fucking thing scared the living piss outta me. I ALWAYS rode it.

The last time I rode, I was the only rider on the course. That was fine. It must have been about 1969-70. The first stage of the ride was a long, slow incline up from the starting gate, upon which you gained speed until you reached the top just screaming along, came to a dead stop, spun in a circle and headed down a zigzag.
My car gained speed going up the hill. All around me flakes of rust are falling off the track scaffolding, rivets are visibly pivoting, some are completely missing and replaced with wire looped around and around.
My car gains speed. My braids are flying straight back.
My car reaches the top.
It comes to a whiplash stop.
And the entire structure continues to move.
Creeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaak k k kkk k.
I look out over the marsh below me. My braids are in front of me now.
The car pivots around in a circle and comes back to the starting gate. The operator hands my father his money back.

It took me years to put it all together and realize just how close I came to taking a swim that day.

The Oaks is still there. It's on the national register of historic places and has been completely restored from what I understand.
I will never go back and visit. I like it just the way it is now.


update:
this brought the memories tumbling back. i visited some historic sites for the pictures and was pleased to find that the stories i had heard, and my memories, were pretty accurate. interestingly enough very few pictures survive from the 60's and 70's, when the parks finances were at their lowest point. I did find mention of the midway being haunted by a kid in 70's clothes, though... I remember when that rumor started! the owners were just beginning to think about reviving the place and everyone pretty much knew that it was something they had cooked up. I found the story on a ghost site! But no mention of the haunted radio station.
*if somebody knows, please tell me!!
** the history says that this was a 'noah' ark' style carousel manufactured back east. I recount the story told me by my father and grandmother. they were certain that the animals had been made locally by convict labor. i remember they had to ship in a tiny litle guy from italy to fix the animated musical contraption inside about once a year, too.

just exactly how many times CAN you beat a dead horse? lets find out.

Once again I am sick. I have bronchitis. I feel very, very grumpy. The doctor gave me Azithromycin, so after I take that I will be asleep for the rest of the day having dreams that David Lynch would envy.
In the middle dealing with that, we hosted a childrens party here for one of the guys that the Yummy Biker works with.
These children have no future I am sorry to say. Their parents are collectively the stupidest, dullest, hyuk-yukkinest, mouth breathing, replacement clone Joad-beasts it has been my misfortune to host in some time. Thus, the following.

I am proud to say that I KNOW that I am preaching to the converted in large part here.
And I love you for that, my darlings!
But this is Blogworld, and I can shout from my virtual rooftop and not worry about tranquilizer darts. And I need to. (worry about tranquilizer darts.)

To wit:
I am tired of not having a meat peer group that I don't have to sign up for as though it were group fucking therapy.
Book circles? Discussion clubs?
I would rather lick the sidewalk in front of the homeless mission.
I would rather stick a lit cigarette in my eye.

YES! I READ FOR FUN!

I am not rich, I am not from a good family, and I do not have a degree.
Nobody made me.
None of it was required for a grade.
I HAVE NO EXCUSE FOR MY ACTIONS.

And it gets much worse.
I don't watch much television.
I like history.
I read nonfiction.
I even have rules.

-In the beginning, once I picked up a book or a magazine, I could not put it down. Even if it sucked, even if the contents bothered me, I had to read it cover to cover.
-If I didn't know a word, I went right then and looked it up. If I couldn't, I wrote it on the back of my hand and looked it up when I could.
-I read whatever I wanted to. 'The Boy's Library of Adventure Stories'? I do not think so, Buckwheat. Yes! I am a rebel; bad, mad and dangerous to know!
-If I was probaby not supposed to read it, I made sure to read it FIRST.
-If I liked an author, I had to read everything by that author.
-Read classics. That wasn't hard!
-Read crap. See, in school you are fed 'good writing' and that's all you know. (Well; I guess it would be a waste of the taxpayers money to teach kids out of 'TV Guide', right?) When I first discovered trash fiction, man, my gast was flabbered. Completely worthless fiction without a shred of redeeming value? I am so there.
-Follow it wherever it leads you. Possibly the best and most important rule of all.
-Read different translations of the same text.
-OWN. My house is a book nerds wet dream. Tissues are provided.
-OWN HARD REFERENCE. And I do. A very nice collection, too. If my hard reference was a person I would make dirty, dirty phone calls to it. Then the police would track me down.


These were good rules. They still are.
I've lightened up on the fiction, though. About ten years ago or so I was quite ill with pneumonia-again- and there I was, lying on the couch reading some piece of crap and forcing my way though it simply because I had picked it up. And for the first time in my life I thought "Would I want to die with this garbage in my hands? Fuck that." And so, if I find that the writing blows or that I no longer care what happens to anyone in the story, sayonara.

Is it an American thing? Is it a feminist thing? An age thing? Blogworld is the only place I can regularly find titles that I have read and find that OTHER PEOPLE HAVE READ THEM TOO. Fuck; its the only place I find titles I've never hear of that OTHER people HAVE read. Is it a class thing? What?

I have read more than anyone I presently know.
That includes EVERYONE.* This is not an exaggeration. This is a fact.
I do not talk about it. Even to me it sounds like I'm just flat making up a ridiculous lie.
I AM NOT.
No shit.
Can I quote like a demon? I cannot. Does that prove I am lying? No, it proves I spent more time reading than I did memorizing quotes to impress YOU.

I am not dangerous, or contagious, or lusting after your underage children, or an arsonist, or a Jehovahs' Witness, or an unwashed nut on the bus who smells like piss and wants to talk to you really really loud about JESUS for the entire busride.
Just well read.
And I might mention a book from time to time.
Fucking deal with it.



*y'all don't count. you could all be magic invisible library pixies for all I know.

oo what a lovely garden

Before I start to work in my garden I do 'rounds', assessing and admiring and generally looking like a vagrant nutjob or a fashion photographer as I comment and kneel and stand and judge and adjust. Not that my garden is a setpiece, oh lordy no. I just want to enjoy it for a little while in depth, you know, before I fuck it all up. That's what I was doing up until just a little while ago, and now I must brag. I cannot stop this urge. It is uncontrollable.

My garden is BEEYOOOOOOOTIFUL, dahling!

Where a huge Lombardy poplar stood dividing my driveway there is now a circular area of blue and pink linnarea and cornflower mixed in with periwinkle and the odd lychnis coronaria. This not only serves to hide the stump* but it works as my trap crop by keeping the neiborhood kids from coming into my yard to pick the flowers. That, I planned, and it works like a dream. There's nothing growing there that they could possibly damage, and so when I do accidentally bust one with a fistfull of blooms, I can smile and be the nice neiborhood lady and help them cut a few more, instead of being the mean neiborhood lady chasing them and yelling.

This area grew up like a monster this year. So did everything else in the front yard, now that it's free of the shade and the poplar roots sucking away all the good from the soil. Poplar roots are rather alarming in their ability to wick damp-I've cut them in half in years past, and the far side just kept on drawing, leaking a thin skim milk trickle continuously into the hole (until I got ooked out and flipped a handful of dirt over it.)

The first large bed in my yard is devoted to red flowers. This is sheer exuberance on my part. My house is a light blue grey and so red has no business being anywhere near it, but dammit, there are just so many great red flowers! So I put them where they wouldn't foreground the view of the house continuously. At least that was the plan, and we all agree that it worked really well, don't we. Yes we do.

This bed actually pulls a great magic trick every year-due to no planning on my part whatsoever, to be quite honest-it goes from blue to red in a period of 4 days time with almost no overlap. April and May see it cool with aquilegia, veronica and periwinkle, viola and blue-toned pinks and chilly jade foliage. June pulls the hemerocallis and the papaveracaea up from the ground like silk scarves out of a magicians sleeve and all the blue petals blow away.

I played around with crossing my papaver the last couple of years trying to make a silk vermilion nudicaule using Flanders poppies as the 'male'. What I ended up with is a vermilion nudicaule with a sienna pollen. (I think it was me. I'm pretty sure it was me. Who knows what the sneaky bees have been up to.) But it's in the place where I planted the crossed seed, so maybe. Very pretty and a good middle ground between the clarion orange of the californicas and the hard reds thrown up by some of the nudicaule.

Ok, lets translate that. I used a Flanders poppy, which is small and orangey-red and has a single row of petals, and pollenated a red Iceland poppy with it, one that was as close to orange as I could find in my garden. Icelands have a larger blossom and more petals, and the petals are of a beautiful, 'crumpled silk' texture. I actually opened a bud that was ready to pop, immediately dabbled the center with my Flanders poppy, and then isolated the Iceland blossom with a little bag made of a nylon stocking so nobody else would visit. When that blossom ripened a seed capsule I planted those seeds in a cleared and marked spot. And it worked!

I have a variety of poppies. They are so generous. I grow one Orientalis; a dwarfed orange with a black throat that for all its' modesty-for an oriental poppy, that is- still wants to take over the earth. It is a perennial, and it will easily outlive me as the Orientale commonly reach the three digit years.

All the rest I grow are annuals. Clear lemon Welsh poppies for the spring with their herbal looking foliage, Californians for the sheer love of everything about them, Himalayans on occasion, Flanders, Icelands, and Somniferums.

I have a time with the somniferums. The things come up everywhere-even in my houseplants!
Some are an ill, washy, liver-and-lights pink, some are lavender. Most are dreamy rich pink like a raspberry milkshake. Some are single and tiny, and some are so huge and fat and doubled that they resemble silk ribbon pompons. These fell themselves, being so greedy. Some are a peculiar color-I call it 'heart patients' lips purple'-and these are the ones that bleed milk at the slightest scratch. The seed capsules look like tethered Perispheres or upside down jade Montgolfier balloons bobbing above the garden...Kind of a faery, bubbly effect that I like against the whipcracks of the serpentine garlic I let go nuts in my front border.

Yes, you can get nice and ripped on raw opium grown right in your own garden. Ignore the' only the scarlet ones; only in a hot climate' bullshit. You can grow it right in your own back yard; hell, you can grow it on top of your car; the shit's profligate. You can also subsequently experience the perfect joy of a perfect and instantaneous constipation, one which will magically transform the contents of your bowels into perfectly hardened oatmeal made with epoxy glue. Lacking opium poppies, you can easily duplicate this effect at home in your spare time by packing a burlap sack up your ass as far as you can reach with a broomhandle. Skip it. Get drunk instead.

And in fact I like to garden with a beer or three going. It is important to stay hydrated when engaging in summer outdoor activities. Wandering around the flowers with a can of lager and a rose shears; speaking of looking like a vagrant nutjob, hell, I fit in perfectly. Sumas, I am home.


* We cheerfully await the day when somebody decides to whip a bitch through the flowerbed ha ha! oh, how incredibly funny! And gets their undercarriage high centered on the hidden stump. Oh come on, baby! Yeah!

oh allright fine. here is a picture taken last year of me and the goonybird in the strawberry patch. as fast as i'm picking them, he is eating them. this is in the backyard and there are yellow columbines and serpentine garlic coming up through the strawberry plants.

book review- the empire of the wolves, jean-cristophe grange'

Despite the title, the Empire of the Wolves is not gothic horror, and let God be praised. No, what it is, in fact, is the best police thriller I have read in many, many years. It is extraordinarily good.
Does it have everything going for it? It does. Drugs, murder, procedure, espionage, torture, corruption, double crosses, narrow escapes, gunplay, the whole croissant.
-Oh yes, it's French.

No, now, wait.

Most French-to-English fiction suffers from having been too literally translated to communicate properly, I know. There is none of that here. It certainly reads 'French' but you are spared the indecipherable pop culture references and the awkward idioms like 'He is short like a kneeling apple', in the middle of an otherwise smooth read. Ian Monk as translator gets the coveted 'Golden Blowjob' award for this one.

No, I am not playing with you. It's a 1. French 2. cop thriller that's 3. so good even the translator gets props.

This is the part where I should tell you something about the story. I would like to. It is a smoking hot story. But this is the type of read where discovery is part of the thrill, and there is no way that I want to ruin any of the pleasure or fun of reading it for anybody. I am not trying to be cute; I know, its annoying when people do that. Still, this novel is structured in such a way that my detailing the ingredients would take the starch right out of it.

The plot is straightforward; a victim on the run from a double cross gone bad. The main characters follow standard types...The embittered old timer/hired gun called in to show the youngster the ropes, the honest cop confronting temptation and battling his own nature, the idealist turned rebel. We go from prissy Parisian chocolate shop to the Turkish ghetto, horrific crime scenes, doctors offices, torture chambers, middle class living rooms, a columbarium, a cheap disco, a high desert archaeological site, and nothing breaks the logic or throws you out of the movie. Nothing.

More twists than Orson Welles' upper bowel.

Simply as a reading experience it was worth the time. The guy is a master technician and can make the flow of narrative do amazing things without breaking pace. His dialogue is genuine. He plays with character drawing in a way that I can't remember seeing before on the genre fiction level and it works flawlessly; the author remains invisible. But as a brass tacks cop thriller? It wiped me out. What a ride! A thriller that is genuinely thrilling! You become so enmeshed in the tale that putting this book down for a moment is jarring.

No, this ain't Clive Cussler. Not for a minute.

Go read it NOW.

Trapped! Dante Texas Fart Barbecue! The Modifier Laughs!

Chaucer, you are so in trouble.

In his seat high atop Mt. Olympus the Baby Jesus looked down and saw Chaucer and his evil henchpersons cheating all over the place like dogs. Now although the Baby Jesus was a big fan of The Canturbury Tales, that was not all right with the Baby Jesus AT ALL.

Quick as a wink he became the Holy Infant of Prague and flew down to stop the bout.

!!!!!FIRE IN THE HOUSE!!!!!

As every one knows, there are only three rules in cage match fighting:




1. This outfit may not be worn. Not ever. Not by anyone. It makes people cry.









2. Any and all references to Marty Feldman, particularly those which represent Mr. Feldman as engaged in eating a corndog, automatically end the proceedings; all points are declared null and both teams forfeit.







3. No member of either team may refer to a member of the opposing team as 'bitchtits'







4. Children with unsightly goiters are automatically barred from the proceedings.










Round one was a tornado of tears, saliva and torn underthings! Both champs threw the rulebook to the winds. First blood was Chaucers', following a remark made by a sneering Dante describing the corndog eating prowess of Marty Feldman-seated nude on the toilet after having a bath!!!
Dante fell to the floor, bleeding profusely from a self-inflicted blow to the head to dislodge the tainted image! Still, he managed to rebound and taunted the Murderous Modifier by quoting from the poetry of William Shatner while assaying a crushing series of holds!

When the bell rang at the end of the round with no points awarded, both champs retreated to their corners and tagged their seconds.


A suspiciously spry Dame Barbara Cartland tossed aside her walker and vaulted the top rope amid a buzz of shocked exclaimations and discussion from the audience. Cries of 'Juice! Juice!' and loud neighing did nothing to daunt Bab's spirits as she strutted rounded the ropes, taunting the audience with a dazzling glimpse of her mature trimmed box (buxus nojesusno glauca var. 'Stinky Boatman')

Sleek as a panther and twice as deadly, Edith Head emerged from behind her horn rimmed specs and took her stance. This jungle cat had murder on her mind and a roll of nickles in her trunks!! We think.

With a snarl of bloodlust Edith flew into Dame Barbaras meaty embrace! The HEAT WAS ON!

And at the end of round two Edith Head was pinned by the steely yet tender, caressing gaze of Dame Barbara Cartland, a gaze which seemed to undress her with tantalizing deliberation, pausing only to admire each new quivering discovery of flesh so new to the hand of woman yet begging for her touch! First point - Team Dante!










Round three began with a spirited showing by the Margarine and the Armadillo handbag as they indulged the crowd with their mastery of the scientific techniques of this ancient sport. Neither opponent showed the slightest sign of letting up for a moment and the moves just kept on flying!






Armadillos use of the deadly Square of the Hypoteneuse brought the crowd to its feet!








But the Margarine turned the move around at the last moment and executed a Kentucky Back leghold, pressing the Armadillo handbag into the horrifying yeasty effervesence of a Full Liter GruntCan! Technical pin, round three closed with the point going to Team Dante!






Although late into the ring at the beginning of round 4, Gregory Chaucer shook off this faint start and rapidly gained ground with a punishing Rear MickSlap that sent Dante reeling onto the canvas.










Pausing only to pass a mysterious signal to his team, Chaucer then knelt to deliver a crippling Whirling Dutch Star to his downed opponent!













Some in the audience were too stunned to react.












A reddened Dante staggered to his corner where his teamates attempted to revive him!







Meanwhile Team Chaucer hurriedly assembled an ominous object in the center of the canvas. When Dante staggered to his feet, still game to go, the trap was ready to spring! Like a greasy hotdog up the ass of a Mouseketeer Dante was plunged into the gaping maw of the demonic device and the door slammed shut! A propane feed was produced from the foul depths of the Armadillo handbag and suddenly Chaucers evil intentions were made clear! He was about to deliver the coupe de ville!

Dante was about to meet his Maker in the lethal TEXAS FART BARBEQUE!!!

HOW WILL IT END?
WHO WILL TAKE HOME THE BELT?

WHERE IS THE BABY JESUS?!

RUMBLE!!!

THE EXCITEMENT IS ALMOST UNBEARABLE!

THE RESULTS ARE IN!!!
the teams are chosen and the fight is ON!
Chaucer, the crowd favorite, bags DAME BARBARA CARTLAND and THE ARMADILLO HANDBAG
Dante bags EDITH HEAD and THE MASKED MARGARINE, fresh from a stint on the luchador circuit!

You people are sick, yo.

AND I'M TAKING THE REST OF THE WEEKEND OFF. HAVE A HAPPY 4TH OF JULY! BLOW SHIT UP!

update CAGE MATCH! update

NOTICE: RETURN READERS, VIEW UPDATE AT THE END OF THIS POST!!!!!!

THIS AINT NO CATFIGHT!
THIS AINT NO DOGFIGHT EITHER, BABY!
THIS IS A FULL ON NITRO CHARGED MEGA TAG TEAM ARMAGEDDON!

THE FINAL CHALLENGE FOR THE ALL TIME WORLD TITLE BELT!

LAST MAN STANDING!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Dante 'Il Guanto di Gomma' Alighieri !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

vs

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Geoffrey 'The Murderous Modifier' Chaucer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Our pre-bout chat with the opponents revealed the startling feud that has been taking place behind the scenes. Jeff Chaucer describes his strategy thus:
"This fucking spaghetti bender has been trying to steal my crown for the past 400 years. I'll have him tapping out by the end of the first round, you hear me? Tap tap tap! Crying like a schoolgirl! 'Oh wah wah waaaaah! Oh please don't spank me, you bad ol Murderous Modifier!' Yeah, I got news for you, Mr. Ali G. Harry! Abandon hope all you who enter the ring with ME, baby! I'm gonna show you what hell's all about! Me! Thats right, bitch!'
Combatant Alighieri retorted:
"The poor guy, you have to feel sorry for him. He reminds me of Kurt Cobain...you think you're on top of the world and then you realize you've been fucking Courtney Love. Hey Jeffie, gimme a kiss. You feel that tickle where a beard shouldn't be? Yeah, thats whats going to happen this coming week, Jeffie, you hear me? Get the pot on the fire 'coz here comes the Teabag! And it's my special Italian blend! You smell what I'm cookin'? This is the cookbook right here! And every recipe is made with pain!"

In a nod to the fans who have been supporting these rivals for so many years , the Federation, in a suprise move, has decided to let THEM decide who will make up each man's team!
The pool of contenders:

This margarine

Walt Whitman, no stranger to the salty side of the ring. A veteran of the mat wars, Mr. Whitman can bring the pain just as good as the up-and comers. Possibly better. 'I've got zits on my back tougher than either of them' boasts the poet from Long Island.





Another veteran, Dame Barbara Cartland is widely hailed as the inventor of the 'Scissors of Death' leghold. Many a promising career has expired in the relentless viselike grip of those thighs!




Devil-may-care funnyman Danny Kaye. Some say his mastery of the Greco-Roman style is responsible for his popularity, others, his carefully schooled gag reflex. Any way you look at it, Kaye has chiseled out a spot facedown among the deadliest deceased commedians on the roster.

This handbag






Meatwads' style has been likened to that of a highly trained samurai warrior, a jungle cat, and a fat woman in a wool dress showing a Clumber spaniel.NOTE: DUE TO LACK OF EARLY VOTES MEATWAD HAS BEEN DISQUALIFIED FROM ENTERING THE COMPETITION

Mat maiden Edith Heads' Piledriver and Flying Takedown are fan favorites. Best known for her iniminable showmanship, the very sight of a berserk, drooling Edith gnawing on the turnbuckle has made many a grapplers' bowels turn to water!







A bean burrito

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

Rules:

Each champ gets two team members, his second and one alternate. Crossover favorites will be judged at the discretion of the Federation and assigned by random coin toss. So vote early and vote often! Your decision could be the one which determines the fate of the World Literature Wrestling Title for your favorite champ!

WHO WILL BE THE NEXT MARGRAVE OF THE MILDEWED MAT?

update: the results so far...
since many commenters proved loath to make a team determination, any mention was counted as a nomination for consideration. those butch enough to take on the responsibility put their nominee solidly on one mans' team or the other.
remember, final results will be determined by coin toss!
chaucer: one vote each for
margarine, danny kaye,
edith head
bean burrito
dante:
dame barbara cartland-2 strong votes
armadillo handbag-1 vote
edith head-1 vote

out of the running: meatwad, with no votes and no mentions.
most votes recieved: the armadillo handbag, whom some found so aggressive they dared not assign it a team, choosing wisely not to risk incurring its displeasure
second most popular: edith head, who seems to be exerting the same degree of menace as the armadillo handbag.
REMEMBER-VOTE AS MANY TIMES AS YOU LIKE! BUT CHOOSE FOR THE LUVVA FUCK!

ewe are so beautiful to me.........

Well woo hoo!
I just got a dorky haircut!
Yes I did. But everything evens out because I wrote a bad check for it.
I included a tip, though.
This is what happens when I have to get up and be expected to do things in the morning. Like drive and shit. I grabbed the wrong checkbook. Halfway into town, for some reason that completely escapes me, I decided that if I didn't get my hair cut TODAY, as SOON AS POSSIBLE that life as we know it would just GRIND TO A HALT.
Except for a very unfortunate few times in my life I have always had longish hair. Not dumbass long, but shoulder length. Still, it's beginning to look a little 'mutton dressed as lamb' now that its a. thinning and b. greying and c. sprouting out of a 46 year old woman. What I usually do is realize that my hair is getting rather too long to bunch up into a clasp, so I grab it into a ponytail and hack it off with a scissors. But today something told me that I needed a short bob, so I went to a cheapo taiwanese salon next to Wal-Mart and a very nice young lady sheared me. Right about the time I signed the check and handed it over, and right about the time she looked at it oddly and blushed is when I realized that my name wasn't on that account, but she didn't read English.
So I passed it. Shit, what was I gonna do? I already had the haircut.
I fully intend to go back tomorrow and make things right.
I look like the victim of a tasteless practical joke involving a balcony and a pekinese.

I am sitting here at my daughters computer (by the way, chickie, the repeat is set far too slow for the lightning-like touch of SPEED MUK) writing this while the goonybird attempts to watch the Making of Dark Crystal. He is supposed to be taking a bath but he let the stopper out and clambered out dripping wet and ran a couple laps around the room; so he's dry, at least. And significantly cleaner
He spent the afternoon eating tree sap. I caught him gnawing the marbles of sap off the trunk of the cherry tree trunk today. Honestly. Like a little pink muskrat. I also caught him sucking on the cut end of a mugo pine branch that had a drop of sticky sticky pitch leaking out. He swore it was good. He probably won't die.
Now he is whapping me on the arm and insisting 'Sheep! Sheep! Sheep! Sheep!'
'Sheep? What?' I am finally reduced to asking-that or get a bruise.
'Yeah!' he replies cheerfully, and leads me to the kitchen.
Apparently there are sheep in the refrigerator that I am keeping him from. We have done this twice already and each time he carefully examines the interior of the 'fridge for sheep. So far, no sheep.
It's starting to creep me out a little.

ps: fine. heres my haircut.

Blue Electric Eel The Evil Hands Glisten!

........and THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is what happens when you try and cure a cold with beer.
update: hey whinger, why can't i post comments on your blog?
Might anybody want a Lane expandable walnut dining table, seats six, expands to seat 10? Origional finish, purchased in 1946 or so?
How about a walnut hutch, modern style, also Lane?
Three formal sets of china?
Untold partial sets of formal crystal, from aperetif to premium brandy?
Lord JESUS.

Moving all the stuff the Stainless Steel Amazon had here into her new house has left a lot of space here at rancho FirstNations, but unfortunately it is a sucking kind of space, and it is desparately seeking to suck in the above, and more. The above is only a fraction of what the Playboy of the Western World is leaving behind when he moves, and while it is quality stuff, we hate it. To be brutally honest.

I am like Hendrix (X, OOO). I want to live an a serenely modern space with abstract art, a plinth or three scattered about, maybe a Calder rug. OO, fuck yeah a Calder rug; and severe danish modern everything else and big nubby nappy handwoven silk and linen and a huge honkin Paul Klee taking up one wall. (brutally wrenches self away from this fantasy.)

So of course what do I have now; a house full of garage sale crap. Well, not really crap, good stuff actually; I used to pick for antique dealers on the side and I ran into some sweet stuff. But thats just the point: I have a lot of sweet stuff. Too much sweet stuff; thats why I don't pick any more. I like too many things. Just, not any of my father in laws things, unfortunately.

We will soon be holding the GARAGE SALE OF THE FREAKING CENTURY.

The pre-sale secret policemens other garage sale will be the event of the season. We are already contacting people, favorite relatives and closest personal friends of the Playboy. Staid German Catholics, descendants of the first settlers all, will mingle shoulder to handbag with the wicked and notorious gay cognosceti of Whatcom County, up to and including the self-described 'big fat fairy', uncrowned queen of porn himself, the owner of (only gay oriented porn store in the county) and the Playboy's lifelong friend.

Ever wondered what happens to hardcore subculture people when they get old? This is what happens: they dress a little more conservatively than they did in their youth and they are no longer as strident publicly, having made their point already. But they are still BONE EXTREME. Even with lovely table manners, driving midsized sedans. They make us young freaks look plain puny. It's breathtaking. It's magnificent. I now know exactly what I want to be like when I get old.

sick and tired WARNING: contains dickensian childhood interlude

Well I'll be dipped. I'm sick.
No, not like that, you bad potty person. Ok, well, fine, like that too, but what I mean is, I have germs.
No, not those type of ....never mind. Just-onward, ok?
In all the recent activity I plumb missed the fact that I have a rip-roaring cold going. Yeah! No kidding! I just thought I was having really bad allergy symptoms, so I loaded up on the Sudafed and forged ahead. Yesterday morning is when I began to suspect something more might be going on, when the chills and fever situation began. But everyone else around me has been sniveling and sneezing and bitching and moaning too, so it just seemed like same shit different day in that matrix.
___________________________________

Now that we have the deciding factors in the Playboy of the Western World situation buttoned up I cannot help but return again and again to how this all stands in stark contrast to how my grandmothers care was handled.
And being roughly the same age as my parents were when they dealt with that situation I understand it even less.
All of these people were in their mid forties . Not stupid inexperienced kids acting on impulse.
There was no lack of money. No issues of diminished capacity. No physical debility, no lack of options, no unforseen circumstances that dictated their decisions.
No excuse.
I went to therapy for this. I spent five years, two times a week, never missing a session, dealing with this shit, and I dealt with it head on, as is my style. And the big events, I moved past them.
But now when I consider it in the abstract, as someone my grandsons' age, stuck for the next eighteen years with people that steeped in emotional illness and hate-orI think of the group of them deciding the fate of a helpless, sick old woman...in a family that despised women, that misused them in every way imaginable...it's straight out of a purple, lurid horror-thriller.
And it was. It really was.
Can you understand that? IT REALLY WAS THAT BAD. It wasn't just me not understanding or taking things wrong or whatever excuse.
Not even in the abstract.
Theres no way you can look at what went on and come up with any explaination for it other than the perpetrators were simply warped, evil people who got a great deal of satisfaction from being warped and evil.
You think I don't believe in good and evil? I believe in it even more now than I ever did when I was a devout Catholic.
What they did, they decided to do. They thought about. They planned.
How in the fuck do I ever get clean?

ritzy-schnitzy

Well, the Playboy of the Western World is IN!!!
My biker took him down today to pick out a place, and he decided on a one bedroom apartment on the fifth floor with a full kitchen.
This is SO VERY uncharacteristic...I fully expected him to choose some cheap ass little closet of a room facing an airshaft or something and instead he goes for the gusto! Right on!
I simply cannot describe the happiness and the relief I feel knowing that he will be taken care of in style for the remainder of his days, eating good food, having his cleaning taken care of, being chauffeured around town...
Oh, that reminds me.
We now own a rare edition Porsche, fully restored.
The Porsche belonged to the Playboy; it was his Tail Gunner for 20 years. As long as he's alive the biker plans to use it to usher him around in. That car is his pride and joy and just because he can't drive it any more doesn't mean that he can't ride around in it and profile.
Does this not rock? My family is safe and taken care of.
_________________________________
Lately I have been making the commute every morning to the Stainless Steel Amazons' new place to babysit the Goonybird while she settles in. Poor kid; she has projects at work and finals at school, all in the same three-week timeframe that she had to move out of her old place on the hill. And that was a giant pain in the ass; dealing with Mr. Tiny Weenie the landlord and his wife Mrs. Suffering Martyr, who decided on the spur of the moment yesterday to fly up from California and show the place that evening. Gosh, thanks for the advance notice, bitch! Appreciate it all to hell! So we flew on over there yesterday, after she had pulled a full day of classes and work, and did a blitz clean on the motherfucker.
Guess who called an hour later drunk as a whore and changed her plans?
I hope someone flies her plane into a big steaming pile of SAVAGE REPUBLICANS.
_____________________________________
Whoever owned the property my daughter just moved into evidently never heard of them there newfangled inventions, the lawnmower and the weedwhacker. No wonder the deer thought it was Platos' Retreat; it was so overgrown they may as well have been in the middle of the wilderness. Fortunate for me, though. I love nothing better than taking a neglected patch of green and making it into a showplace. So while the Goonybird wanders around in the Goonybird-high grass watching ants I reclaim the place from the forest.
Fuckin you want to talk about blacberry vines.
Jesus Christ on a red bicycle.
The things are over the top of the house where it faces on the uphill slope. It's like unearthing Pompeii. I found the old deck; someone removed it from the house and hove it into the stickerbushes. Which grew up through it and nailed it securely to the ground. I found their blue coffee mug too. And 100$ worth of their old dead landscape plants that they neglected, and the spare bits of sheetrock from the remodel, and some pvc pipe, and...yeah. All covered by evil thorny wands six feet long and arched over higher than short little me can reach. What makes it really bad is that blackberry has a mounding habit; new canes loop up and then die back at first frost, then next years growth loops up over those dead canes, die back, and so on and so forth, year after year. So for every live cane I take out I remove twelve dead ones, thorns intact. What you end up doing is coring out the old stuff, chopping it up with a limbing shears and then hooking it out with a rake. That leaves a hollow igloo of new growth overhead. Then you lop those at ground level, hook a potato rake into the canes up overhead, and then pulling the whole mass inside out...hopefully making the wands flop away from you. Doesn't always work like that. I am well perforated this evening.
I spent some very unhappy childhood hours battling these evil things. In Oregon, Himalayan Blackberry is an uncontrollable monster, three times the pest it is here in Washington because the growing conditions are so ideal. Any cleared land that isn't kept clear comes overgrown with blackberry before the year is out. We used to take them out as a (resentful, uncooperative, drunken, bitching at the top of everyones lungs, crying, fighting, driving off in a huff) family effort and every year someone would get taken to the emergency room to have a finger or a toe reattached, an eye bandaged, or a gash sewn up. These things made you MAD after awhile. Pretty soon the whole bunch of us would be battling away grimly, slashing away for all we were worth. I remember my grandmother using her silver paper shears.
Back then you didn't cut them down and haul them off; that would spread them like a plague. The canes were cut down, chopped up with hatchets, meat cleavers, axes, rose shears, loppers, k-bars, butcher knives, whatever came to hand- and then gasoline poured over the whole plot and set alight. And that was just about enough to keep them down for ONE YEAR.
Ah, but now, now it is just me.
Me versus the blackberries.
I have time, and I have the drive. And this time they aren't EVER coming back. Know why?
I also have ROUNDUP.

where the deer and the antelope play

The Stainless Steel Amazon has moved into a lovely house. Charming, well placed, full of light, on the lake.
One of the advantages of living in this part of the world is that the countryside retains a certain wildness despite most efforts to tame it; so that you have large forest ruminants and ungulates and raptors wandering through the scene lending things a certain Jurrassic jay nay say kwan.
My daughter has deer.
Deer who tiptoe through the misty grass, dipping their pretty heads to feed...taking giant monster dumps all over the lawn..looking in through the front windows like Gladys Kravitz with a runny nose...indulging in grunting, jerking interludes of bovine passion standing on the front deck, framed by the picture window, while my grandson hops up and down and says 'See doggie? Fight doggie!'
Deer suck.

ch ch ch changes

So many things happening!
The Stainless Steel Amazon moved into a new place...sweet, two bedrooms, ON THE LAKE, BABY, in a ritzy neiborhood with a yard for the Goonybird. All under her own steam. My daughter, the engineer!!!!!!!!!
The Playboy of the Western World has decided to go into assisted living!
Well, ok, you knew that.
He has chosen a place!
We went and checked the place out, and not only is it up to par, it is fucking
POSH AS FUCK.
He is selling his house!
HIS HOUSE APPRAISED FOR 50 THOUSAND MORE THAN WE EXPECTED IT TO.
OH MY GOD.
Everyone is on the bandwagon, all our ducks are in a row, fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuckity fuck-fuck.
I mean, FUCK.

The place the Playboy has chosen is in the center of town in an old luxury hotel. This is a place that he used to party at when it WAS a luxury hotel. Some years ago it was completely renovated and the origional furnishings and fixtures restored where that was reasonable. My God, this place is , hell, it's just amazing.
IT IS SURGICALLY CLEAN.
THERE ARE NO DROOLY PEOPLE IN THE LOBBY.
THERE IS A BALLROOM. I mean on top of everything else that is nice about the place, they have a ballroom with an immense chandelier, a full stage and orchestra pit, scenery flats, giant mirror ball, parquet floors...they hold events there, open to the public, hell.
They have a GOURMET DINING FACILITY.
The studio apartments are half the fricken size of the house I live in. Full of light. Wheelchair and walker adapted. Scrupulously maintained. 24 hr. staff emt. trained.
The one and two bedroom apartments are over the goddamn top!
He gets to keep most of his crap.
HE GETS MAID SERVICE.
HIS VISITORS ARE NOT MONITORED.
I could go on and on.
Thank god the man made such a fantastic investement. He probably had no idea that things would appreciate the way they have and I cannot wait to tell him!!!!
________________________________________
And now for the not so good news.
The interim facility he is in is a slum. It stinks of piss, the staff are slack and THERE WAS DRIED PISS ON THE MANS FLOOR FOR TWO DAYS.
I have been head of housekeeping in many places, last but not least the motherfucking HILTON HOTEL in Portland. I know when a place is not maintained. I can tell how long things have been sitting and what kind of attention they get when it comes around. This place needs to be reported and I FULLY PLAN ON DOING SO.
Unfortunately, his insurance has placed him here for the duration of his need, so he's stuck there unless the son of a bitchin place gets hit by a meteor.
I went down to the nurses station and got them shaking their tailfeathers, but they took it with ill grace, despite the fact that I bit my tongue and played nice. The last fucking thing I want to hear is a bunch of whining and excuses. Anyone can make a mistake but as soon as the excuses start my radar goes off. Between that and the state of the carpets in the common areas, I already have a pretty accurate picture of what goes on, which aint much. That and the high number of Altzheimers patients tells me that this is a warehouse-oriented facility.

He will NEVER stay there again. I will resort to arms.

Scorpion Brown Maddened By The Human Bombs

Occasionally rambling around old literature and art you run into these strange 'B' list legends that nobody's heard of, like Pyramus and Thisbe. Who the fuck; Pyramus? Thisbe?
I thought, well, fine, Pyramus and Thisbe. I'll have a look round the internet and see what falls out da calabash.

This is the first thing that popped up on the search, which I incidentally misspelled.
I have no idea what is going on here.
We have a nicely dressed young lady, wholly unaware of the tornado approaching from the upper right. She seems to have found a transvestite passed out next to her ugly fountain, which a flying baby roosts atop...fly, baby! fly! That thing sprays water out the top every five minutes and it's been four minutes already!
Meanwhile the lady is busy worrying about the transvestite. 'Oh crap' she thinks. 'Are we insured?'





Now this is a sad, little known episide from the life of Benny Hill. Seems he called the local Shriners Lodge to come and install a satellite dish and the poor man was struck by lightning, God evidently offended by the brevity of his tunic. Benny rushed outside in a dexadrine fueled frenzy and stuffed a breadknife through him. 'Manoona!! he shouted, slapping a little bald guy on the head.
I kind of like the pointy hat. But not even the pointy hat was enough to deter God's wrath.
It seldom is.





Ah hell, Thisbe.
You did it again, didn't you.
Your ear's stuck in the crack in the wall.
Dammit, how many times do we have to tell you; if the monkey tells you to do something, its probably not a good idea?











PIGPIIIIIIIIIIILE!



Ok. One tit is hanging out and BLOOD IS SHOOTING OUT OF HER CHEST. She is about to execute a full body block on what to all appearances is a dead guy...and we don't know how dead, either.
The next frame in this cartoon could be kinda gooey.

Time to consult Bullfinch.

All right, I'm back.
So apparently this is the ancient basis for the story of Romeo and Juliette. Shakespeares' version at least had the advantage of having been revised to frame a true story by a master; Bullfinch takes this poor defenseless legend and Victorians it all up till its just hard to read without urping up a little in your mouth. Here is the link. Use a basin. Make sure to wipe up if you splatter: http://www.syc.k12.pa.us/~sms/zart/mythology/bulfinch/fables/bull310.html
The thing that always bugged me about Romeo and Juliet is the same thing that bothered David Merrick...why in the hell didn't they take a couple seconds to MAKE SURE that the other one was dead instead of spazzing out and killing themselves like a couple of dipshits?




At least here Thisbe is giving it the old college try.
With one tit hanging out.*
Always do the stick test. If you poke it with a stick and it moves, it's not dead. But if it doesn't move, try an eye.

These things are important.



This is honestly called 'Pyramis and Thisbe II'. It is the winner of the coveted 'Plumb fucking eludes me' award.

'Jesus CHRIST, what kind of dog is that?'
'A mixed breed, effendi. Get it? It has two heads? Thats a little central asian joke.'
'Your humor arouses me. Let me satiate my uncircumcized lusts upon your heathen hindquarters.'


Here is a kid gooping around with a dead fish.
See? this is what it was like before they invented television. All we had were Legos and salmon. It was HARD.
Hey, it has as much to do with Pyramus and Thisbe as the dog picture did.







So what important lessons do we take away from 'Pyramus and Thisbe'?
1. Flying babies without diapers are a REALLY REALLY BAD IDEA.
2. God never did like Mary Quant
3. Monkeys will tell you stupid things
4. Always carry a pointy stick
5. Radioactive isotopes and dogs do not mix.

...Nope, I don't feel any smarter either.




*and and ugly fountain. and a flying baby.