I'm sitting here at 8:30 pm and my Biker is making a country sausage gravy to take for a breakfast potluck at work. He's using organic boar sausage and making the cream gravy base from scratch, whisking the milk and flour and spices about behind me here in the kitchen and making the place smell like heaven.
As I've said before, this man is a genius of flavor. We can confidently hold our own against most restaurants serving American home cooking and better most of them; but its his ability to divine the source of the flavors and knowing how to bring them into the mix that makes what we cook here so goddamn excellent.
It's 9:pm and the sauce is finished. The Biker is in bed. The sauce will mature overnight and tomorrow morning when he serves this at work he's going to have straight men begging to suck his
*ahem*
begging for the recipe. 20 minutes spent, scratch to done. Sausage browned with onion, cream sauce thickened, corrected and finished. Simple and absolutely SUBLIME.
Another guy is making southern style beaten biscuits, and this gravy will go over top of that, with eggs on the side.
You WISH you could be there, bitches.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Monday, April 14, 2008
If Pither can do it then so can I
In this corner, God of rant REG PITHER !
Well informed! As far as I know, anyway;
he writes about British stuff. Sounds good.
Pissed off anyway.
....um.... Heavily medicated!
Waaaaay heavily medicated!
Um....has a corndog!
I swore that I wouldn't turn this into a relevant topics blog* but dammit some things just gotta get said.
1. Researchers are claiming that they have found the reason the Titanic went down: substandard rivets.
Folks, the Titanic hit an iceberg the size of the Balkans. At that point the quality of the rivets became moot. Get over it already. It sank. It's over. Move on.
2. Was there a US-government based conspiracy to assassinate JFK?
Yes, and J. Edgar Hoover masterminded it. In fact, J. Edgar Hoover ran this country for 48 solid years. He is currently serving eternity in Hell as Satans buttplug.
3. Was there another shooter on the grassy knoll?
Your momma was on the grassy knoll. With J. Edgar Hoover.
4. Was Marilyn Monroe killed by the FBI?
No. Kennedy played hide the salami with every woman who crossed his line of vision. Some of them were married to his political cronies and some of them were the girlfriends of mobsters for heavens' sake. He wasn't exactly scrupulous - OR careful. So out of all the women he ever nailed why kill the one who posed NO THREAT WHATSOEVER TO HIS REPUTATION? (Enhanced it, in fact. The leader of the free world was 'entitled' to bonk Monroe. It was a man's world back then and they're still going 'har-de-har-har' about it the same way they did when Clinton nailed Lewinsky. Please.) Is anyone dumb enough to believe that he laid up in bed with her and gave her a bunch of ICBM fire-codes or something? She was Marilyn Monroe! They weren't talking! The poor woman accidentally did herself with booze and pills. Please just leave in her grave already.
5. Was Princess Di killed by the British Government because she was making squishy squishy with a sand minority?
Princess Di should have been knocked upside the chops for even coming within a city block of Dodi 'Greasy Lowlife' Fayyed, but she was killed in a drunk driving accident. Shit happens. Nobody killed Chuck 'Cardboard Applicator' Windsor and look what he's been...*ahem* up.
To.
6. Did Bush steal the election?
He got Christmas presents that year, didn't he? Well, there ya go. Do you think he would have got any Christmas presents if Santa Claus thought he'd stolen the election?
See, now you're just starting to piss me off.
Did your mother huff Regular or Ethyl? Did she drop you a lot? Have you spent the last 30 years of your life wearing a helmet and eating sugar out of the bag? Jesus CHRISTgrab a CLUE.
7. Should Northern California, Oregon, Washington, Montana and Idaho secede from the Union and set up a sovereign nation of their own and call it Ecotopia?
Yes. If y'all hadn't been so busy selling Oregon to the Japanese and mating in public discotecques like a herd of Aquanet-glazed mink with the music all going WHUMPA WHUMPA WHUMPA WHUMPA you would have realized that Ernest Callenbach was a prophet inspired by GOD, and done the right thing. Well, like any prophet Ol' Ernie wasn't honored in his native land, and now his native land is overrun with trash-ass lowland Southern Californians and effete failed New Yorkers who won't be satisfied until this place is just as big a shit-up wasteland as the toxic sewers they left in their wake. You had no excuse. The technology existed. Disney preserved Walt's brain in a jar so they could hook it up to a motherboard and route their payroll department through it; well, you shoulda done the exact same thing with Tom McCall.
We could have mounted it in a Dalek-type thing with a toilet plunger on the front and he could have rolled around and been in parades and levitated and shit. We'd all be living in an 
environmentally pristine, socially enlightened country instead of a place that the rest of the nation considers an inexhaustable grab-bag of natural resources where picturesque Native Americans roam through the forest primeval bapping each other with little sticks and Laura Ingalls Wilder kicks the shit out of gas station attendants and pees in their soup. Tom wouldn't have put up with that shit!! OO! You don't want to pay a reasonable market price for timber? You don't care if our native salmon are getting ground up in the Bonneville hydroelectric dam just so you can leave the Hubble space telescope on all night long and spy on naked broads in Iowa? Is the mean ol' president gonna get pissed off? Is he gonna send some black helicopters? SEND THE MOTHERFUCKERS! OOOOO, IM FRIGHTENED! OOOOO, WHERE DID THESE MYSTERIOUS UNMARKED HELICOPTERS COME FROM! OOOOO, MAYBE I OUGHT TO USE MY DALEK DEATH RAY ON THE HELICOPTERS! HUH? WHADDYOU THINK, BITCH? And he would win!!!! Then we'd all be happy walking through our old growth forests breathing our clean air and drinking our nice espresso behind our nice safe wall and everyone would say 'Thank you, thank you, Tom McCall, you saved us!'
And there would be a big party and you would be invited!
But you'd have to go home after.
_________________________
*which is a total lie and not even true. if i felt like it i could do a whole post with just the letter e: eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee OH MY GOD I'M OUTTA CONTROL PEOPLE! OH NOES!
SOMEBODY STOP ME!
...See? Theres nothing anyone can do about it. I'm drunk on power, baby.
Well informed! As far as I know, anyway;
he writes about British stuff. Sounds good.
Pissed off anyway.
IN this corner: DANGER MUK!
....um.... Heavily medicated!
Um....has a corndog!
_______________________________
I swore that I wouldn't turn this into a relevant topics blog* but dammit some things just gotta get said.
1. Researchers are claiming that they have found the reason the Titanic went down: substandard rivets.
Folks, the Titanic hit an iceberg the size of the Balkans. At that point the quality of the rivets became moot. Get over it already. It sank. It's over. Move on.
2. Was there a US-government based conspiracy to assassinate JFK?
Yes, and J. Edgar Hoover masterminded it. In fact, J. Edgar Hoover ran this country for 48 solid years. He is currently serving eternity in Hell as Satans buttplug.
3. Was there another shooter on the grassy knoll?
Your momma was on the grassy knoll. With J. Edgar Hoover.
4. Was Marilyn Monroe killed by the FBI?
No. Kennedy played hide the salami with every woman who crossed his line of vision. Some of them were married to his political cronies and some of them were the girlfriends of mobsters for heavens' sake. He wasn't exactly scrupulous - OR careful. So out of all the women he ever nailed why kill the one who posed NO THREAT WHATSOEVER TO HIS REPUTATION? (Enhanced it, in fact. The leader of the free world was 'entitled' to bonk Monroe. It was a man's world back then and they're still going 'har-de-har-har' about it the same way they did when Clinton nailed Lewinsky. Please.) Is anyone dumb enough to believe that he laid up in bed with her and gave her a bunch of ICBM fire-codes or something? She was Marilyn Monroe! They weren't talking! The poor woman accidentally did herself with booze and pills. Please just leave in her grave already.
5. Was Princess Di killed by the British Government because she was making squishy squishy with a sand minority?
Princess Di should have been knocked upside the chops for even coming within a city block of Dodi 'Greasy Lowlife' Fayyed, but she was killed in a drunk driving accident. Shit happens. Nobody killed Chuck 'Cardboard Applicator' Windsor and look what he's been...*ahem* up.
To.
6. Did Bush steal the election?
He got Christmas presents that year, didn't he? Well, there ya go. Do you think he would have got any Christmas presents if Santa Claus thought he'd stolen the election?
See, now you're just starting to piss me off.
Did your mother huff Regular or Ethyl? Did she drop you a lot? Have you spent the last 30 years of your life wearing a helmet and eating sugar out of the bag? Jesus CHRISTgrab a CLUE.
7. Should Northern California, Oregon, Washington, Montana and Idaho secede from the Union and set up a sovereign nation of their own and call it Ecotopia?
Yes. If y'all hadn't been so busy selling Oregon to the Japanese and mating in public discotecques like a herd of Aquanet-glazed mink with the music all going WHUMPA WHUMPA WHUMPA WHUMPA you would have realized that Ernest Callenbach was a prophet inspired by GOD, and done the right thing. Well, like any prophet Ol' Ernie wasn't honored in his native land, and now his native land is overrun with trash-ass lowland Southern Californians and effete failed New Yorkers who won't be satisfied until this place is just as big a shit-up wasteland as the toxic sewers they left in their wake. You had no excuse. The technology existed. Disney preserved Walt's brain in a jar so they could hook it up to a motherboard and route their payroll department through it; well, you shoulda done the exact same thing with Tom McCall.
We could have mounted it in a Dalek-type thing with a toilet plunger on the front and he could have rolled around and been in parades and levitated and shit. We'd all be living in an 
environmentally pristine, socially enlightened country instead of a place that the rest of the nation considers an inexhaustable grab-bag of natural resources where picturesque Native Americans roam through the forest primeval bapping each other with little sticks and Laura Ingalls Wilder kicks the shit out of gas station attendants and pees in their soup. Tom wouldn't have put up with that shit!! OO! You don't want to pay a reasonable market price for timber? You don't care if our native salmon are getting ground up in the Bonneville hydroelectric dam just so you can leave the Hubble space telescope on all night long and spy on naked broads in Iowa? Is the mean ol' president gonna get pissed off? Is he gonna send some black helicopters? SEND THE MOTHERFUCKERS! OOOOO, IM FRIGHTENED! OOOOO, WHERE DID THESE MYSTERIOUS UNMARKED HELICOPTERS COME FROM! OOOOO, MAYBE I OUGHT TO USE MY DALEK DEATH RAY ON THE HELICOPTERS! HUH? WHADDYOU THINK, BITCH? And he would win!!!! Then we'd all be happy walking through our old growth forests breathing our clean air and drinking our nice espresso behind our nice safe wall and everyone would say 'Thank you, thank you, Tom McCall, you saved us!'And there would be a big party and you would be invited!
But you'd have to go home after.
_________________________
*which is a total lie and not even true. if i felt like it i could do a whole post with just the letter e: eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee OH MY GOD I'M OUTTA CONTROL PEOPLE! OH NOES!
SOMEBODY STOP ME!
...See? Theres nothing anyone can do about it. I'm drunk on power, baby.
Friday, April 11, 2008
UPDATED: 12 blocks wide, 3 miles long - the Riviera of the Willamette Valley
...yeah, this place again.
_______________________
Down towards the end of our building was the Death Dumpster.
Unlike Blood Dumpster,
which features an Episcopalian in a wheelchair, the Death Dumpster was an industrial sized trash container for the use of the tenants of our building.
The problem was, it wasn't a locked receptacle and it was on the intersection of two alleys; a perfect stop and drop for people with things they had to get rid of in a hurry. Like dead bodies and murder weapons. About twice a month someone would give me the word-"Somethings in there. I ain't fuckin' with it."
I don't think there was a week that went by that the police weren't standing on a stack of milk crates poking around in the thing with a broken broom handle. A couple of times the coroners' wagon came, and that end of the building was cordoned off. A few hours later the tape came down and it was back to the usual wacky hijinks and madcap hilarity.
Every dumpster in the area was 'swap -n- shop'. There were always a few milk crates nearby to stand on, and sometimes an old garden rake too. Re-usable items were
stacked alongside the container. Furniture, wiring, prosthetic arms; anything you can imagine. It never remained for more than a few hours.
Early in the morning you would hear the divers would come by with their shopping carts. A lot of them wore a magnet around their neck or tied to their belt loop on a string so they could test metal for aluminum. You'd see a guy throw a couple of crates into a pile, jump into the dumpster and thrash around with the rake for a few moments, and then emerge with a burlap sack or a backpack filled with refundable cans and bottles. Those would go into the cart and they'd rattle off down the alley to the next one.
Fat Mark made a little extra money on the side selling dreg bottles out of the back door of the Union Jack. How this worked was, desperate winos would pay him to take away a case of empty liquor bottles so they could suck the last drops of whatever might have collected in the bottom. Meanwhile Mark didn't have to buck it up into the truck, and the owner didn't have to store it or haul it off to the recyclers. Everyone came away happy.
Aluminum pop cans were the big prize, though. The law was, if you sold recyclable containers of any kind you had to store the empties and return them - and that was a health hazard and a huge pain in the ass for business owners. But street people loved aluminum pop cans and they were more than happy to take them away. Aluminum was light,
compactable, and recycled at a higher price than glass did. They made money, and you didn't lose any.
Back then you could actually live fairly comfortably off recycling aluminum. In our area there were a couple of teams of guys who drove around in pickup trucks all night long collecting. They hit everyplace-rail yards, building sites, offices, machine shops, the post office, supermarkets, mom and pop stores, factories, house parties -but they would NOT touch a dumpster. That was icky, apparently (meanwhile they drove around with roaches and rats and nasty old backwash pop spilling out of the gate every time they took a corner.) These were people you stayed the fuck away from. They took their recycling SERIOUSLY. One guy would jump out and collect, while the driver stood in the bed and guarded the load with a shotgun.
I worked at the motel next door, and I ran my own pop can situation. I had an alcoholic buddy* named Duffy who would always meet me by the back breezeway, and I'd hand off a garbage sack full of cans to him every day. In return, he'd flip me a pack of cigarettes he'd shoplifted (which I wasn't supposed to realize), and none of the street guys every gave me any shit. Basically, I was his pet girl.
Another thing I did was let one of the local businesswomen stand on my porch. That doesn't sound like much, but the way the laws were then, if the woman was on private property and had permission to be there, the police couldn't pick them up in sweeps. I was friends with a woman whose street name was Sunshine, and in exchange for standing on my porch (not tricking, now...simply standing on my porch and bullshitting for a couple of minutes) she'd buy cigarettes for me, and keep my name clean when people asked her what was up with my shit.
And this worked.
I was living in the worst part of town by myself, and I was never fucked over by the locals once. I was never solicited once. I was never robbed once. I could walk to the store with money in my pocket, and I could do it wearing a tank top. I lived in the only unit that was never broken into the whole time I was there. Good thing, too, because its not like I would have had any recourse to the law.
The cops would come stifflegging like Doberman dogs down our alley about once a week, two by two. Apparently my sitting out on my porch talking to people was a highly suspicious activity. They'd come put their foot up on my step, and give me the word, like we know who you talk to and we've got our eye on you and shit.
And I gave them the word back: 'You do that. Come at me. The door's right here. See what you find.' Give my screen door a little tap with my foot.
Pissed off? Pissed off? Packs of matches spontaneously burst into flame. Streetlights began exploding one by one. Oh fuck yes; I was pissed off.
In my entire life I've never put a needle in my arm, never turned a trick, never gone on the books, never shit where I eat. Never. But you can't have skid row lowlifes see you walk away after some little bitch faces you up like that; that won't do.** So the police went to my building manager and my boss and 'warned' them about me. I 'consorted with known criminals'.
Everyone howled. My boss bought me a drink! Jesus Christ, ya fucking morons, this is Burnside! You can't help but! Every other goddamn person here is a known criminal!
But to this day? That still ices the fuck out of me.
It gave me an interesting new perspective on things. I'd always been neutral about cops up until that point. When I saw how they were doing people down there, though, I changed some views.
It didn't matter if you never imagined committing a crime. It didn't matter if you ran a business or owned property; God help your ass if they looked at you twice. God help your ass if you were any other color than white, or someplace doing anything but what they figured you should. Due process, Miranda, BULLSHIT. The people who lived there said "This ain't America. This is Burnside. Down here you ain't even in America." Above or below a certain street, the police could do anything they wanted, and they did. That is the absolute honest truth. I saw it. It was disgusting.
Truthfully? To me it seemed like the police were enforcing poverty. You were presumed guilty for where you lived and treated accordingly - like an undeserving criminal piece of shit. "Your car got stolen? Your house got broke into? Too fucking bad. What did you expect, living here?" It was incredible. But I think I have a point, too, in a way at least. When's the last time the police came strolling through your nice suburban neighborhood and put their foot on your step and said we're just waiting for you to set foot out of line?***
____________________________________
Nobody lived in that part of town without a reason. Everyone referred to it as 'down here'. Down Here extended from the banks of the Willamette river up to about 12th back then. This was not the ghetto. This was Skid Row.
There, that's my big admission. I lived on Skid Row. For a year and a half. Gasp! Clutch the pearls!
People would ask me why. At first I'd tell them it was because it beat the hell out of the alternative.**** The sad truth of the matter was, it did. I was treated better, I was safer on Skid Row, than I was in the home I grew up in. How fucked up is that?
After awhile I just got tired of people trying to figure out what my 'problem' was. I started spreading my own rumors, whatever goofyass thing came to mind at the moment, and let the theories run wild. At least it was more interesting than the truth; which was, I had no idea what my problem was. All I knew was that even after the childhood drama was left in the dust, something kept knocking me back and it was out of my control. It would keep me in bed for days at a time, unable to walk from the door to the street or use the phone, forget things, transpose things, make me blank out in the middle of conversations, miss entire hours or days, make me lose jobs, lose friends, keep me awake for days at a time, or make me sleep for 20 hours at a stretch, drag me down into hell at a moments notice and keep me there for months at a time, and I had no idea what it was or how to fix it.
Anyway, there I was. Clean as snow. I lived in a shitty apartment and ate Top Ramen and tried to earn a living working a straight job. A lot of my neighbors did the same: you'd be surprised how many people on Skid Row work two and three jobs and never touch a controlled substance.
A lot of my neighbors lived in abandoned cars and broken down campers and caves in the middle of blackberry patches, and operated completely outside the money economy too. I'll tell you something true: a lot of those people living rough worked harder than I did, and they worked longer hours. Scrapping metal, busking, returning bottles
and cans, scouting around for things to re-sell or trade; they busted ass. And I'll tell you something else: a lot of the people who lived rough were not insane and did not do crimes. They viewed themselves as nobility. They were living completely outside the system by their own rules, and that meant that they won.
Interesting, huh.
I'm not saying that we ran in and out of each others homes, or trusted or admired one another, but we treated each other like neighbors, at least.
That isn't to say that the working poor were in the majority; we weren't. We were vastly outnumbered by junkies, the mentally ill, the career criminals, and the feral. They had their own thing; they went their own way. I'd give a pack of matches to anyone that asked, but I'd walk to the other side of the street to avoid a junkie. General consensus. Even the raving batshit neighbor lady avoided them. A junkie would cut your throat and lick the knife. They were the walking dead.
_______________________________
Look real hard in the upper right.
...See where it says 'Death chair'? Ok then.
The longer I lived there, the more 'street' I was becoming. Not that I was all 'bad'; Jesus no. I had 'mark' written all over me and my safety was as much a matter of luck as it was treating people right. It's just that my values were beginning to slip and I was beginning to get comfortable in a type of life that I didn't want to live. it was squalid, depressing and degraded and you were paranoid all the time. It felt familiar. It felt a lot like home. And 'home' was what I was trying to avoid.
The thing that made me take a new look at myself was when one of the men in my building died.
He was just an old guy. Nobody knew him or knew anything about him. He lived there, and then one day the coroners wagon came and they loaded him out.
And deliberately left his front door open.
One of the Pillsbury Sideshow Fetii was talking to the driver. I heard the driver tell him "We're all done in there now. Wait till we roll, though, but yeah; it's OK to go in."
The meat wagon rolled off. As I sat there, every door in the building opened up and people began heading down the alley towards the now-vacant apartment.
I turned back toward my screen door and told my girlfriend "You gotta come see this. You won't believe it."
People were going in and out of the open door carrying stuff.
They were looting the apartment.
The Pillsbury Sideshow Fetus grinned up at me as he passed by carrying an electric coffeepot. "You better hurry! All the good stuffs' gonna be gone! Come on!"
My girlfriend looked at me and said "Are you gonna?"
"Hell, why not?' I replied. "I'll go down and take a look at the death apartment; sure."
It was like a garage sale. I went inside and pushed my way through the people opening drawers, checking the mattress, looking inside the cupboards and raiding food out of the refrigerator. "Anybody like microwave popcorn?" called someone from the kitchen. "He's got some."
There was a round table and a loop-backed chair in the corner of the front room, and the telephone was still lying there off the hook.
"That's where they found him. Had a massive heart attack calling 911" said the building manager as he walked by. "You need a chair?" He laughed.
I looked.
Well shit. I did need a chair, in fact. I sauntered over and looked down at the chair, looked at the table, put the phone back on the hook. A couple of people took the phone off the table, put it on the floor and carried the table away as I stood there. Then someone else stepped over, said "You need this phone?" then unplugged it from the wall and carried it away when I shook my head.
So I picked up the chair and carried it out.
My girlfriend was appalled.
"Oh come on. It's not like he had the plague or anything; he died of a heart attack," I said. "It's just a chair. We needed one for the kitchen."
"Yeah, but you looted it," she said. "And you're going to put it in our kitchen. A chair that a guy died in."
The building manager walked past helping one of the tenants carry a mattress.
I got some bleach and a rag and I washed off ever single inch of that chair, underneath, the bottoms of the feet, everyplace. But I never did get over feeling really, really strange about what kind of things I didn't really care about any more.
So what did I do?
I got my shit together!
I took up with a guy who belonged to a cult and married him!
Yeah, shit.
___________________________________
...and the update was, I quit being all cute and added the word 'girl' to 'friend' there. May as well be straight up.
*That was actually how they referred to themselves, and they were very particular about it too. An alcoholic drank hard liquor and would work for his money. A wino was a passed-out bum who shit himself up and begged for change.
**No, I don't know what I was thinking either. It sure impressed my neighbors, though. But to this day I remember them putting their foot up on my step and it just enrages me, and I'd probably do the same stupid thing.
***obviously this question isn't being directed at either MJ or Knudson.
****That's why I got along with Sunshine. When I told her that, she got exactly what I meant. She never ragged me to 'go home'.
_______________________
Down towards the end of our building was the Death Dumpster.
Unlike Blood Dumpster,
which features an Episcopalian in a wheelchair, the Death Dumpster was an industrial sized trash container for the use of the tenants of our building.The problem was, it wasn't a locked receptacle and it was on the intersection of two alleys; a perfect stop and drop for people with things they had to get rid of in a hurry. Like dead bodies and murder weapons. About twice a month someone would give me the word-"Somethings in there. I ain't fuckin' with it."
I don't think there was a week that went by that the police weren't standing on a stack of milk crates poking around in the thing with a broken broom handle. A couple of times the coroners' wagon came, and that end of the building was cordoned off. A few hours later the tape came down and it was back to the usual wacky hijinks and madcap hilarity.
Every dumpster in the area was 'swap -n- shop'. There were always a few milk crates nearby to stand on, and sometimes an old garden rake too. Re-usable items were
stacked alongside the container. Furniture, wiring, prosthetic arms; anything you can imagine. It never remained for more than a few hours.Early in the morning you would hear the divers would come by with their shopping carts. A lot of them wore a magnet around their neck or tied to their belt loop on a string so they could test metal for aluminum. You'd see a guy throw a couple of crates into a pile, jump into the dumpster and thrash around with the rake for a few moments, and then emerge with a burlap sack or a backpack filled with refundable cans and bottles. Those would go into the cart and they'd rattle off down the alley to the next one.
Fat Mark made a little extra money on the side selling dreg bottles out of the back door of the Union Jack. How this worked was, desperate winos would pay him to take away a case of empty liquor bottles so they could suck the last drops of whatever might have collected in the bottom. Meanwhile Mark didn't have to buck it up into the truck, and the owner didn't have to store it or haul it off to the recyclers. Everyone came away happy.
Aluminum pop cans were the big prize, though. The law was, if you sold recyclable containers of any kind you had to store the empties and return them - and that was a health hazard and a huge pain in the ass for business owners. But street people loved aluminum pop cans and they were more than happy to take them away. Aluminum was light,
compactable, and recycled at a higher price than glass did. They made money, and you didn't lose any.Back then you could actually live fairly comfortably off recycling aluminum. In our area there were a couple of teams of guys who drove around in pickup trucks all night long collecting. They hit everyplace-rail yards, building sites, offices, machine shops, the post office, supermarkets, mom and pop stores, factories, house parties -but they would NOT touch a dumpster. That was icky, apparently (meanwhile they drove around with roaches and rats and nasty old backwash pop spilling out of the gate every time they took a corner.) These were people you stayed the fuck away from. They took their recycling SERIOUSLY. One guy would jump out and collect, while the driver stood in the bed and guarded the load with a shotgun.
I worked at the motel next door, and I ran my own pop can situation. I had an alcoholic buddy* named Duffy who would always meet me by the back breezeway, and I'd hand off a garbage sack full of cans to him every day. In return, he'd flip me a pack of cigarettes he'd shoplifted (which I wasn't supposed to realize), and none of the street guys every gave me any shit. Basically, I was his pet girl.
Another thing I did was let one of the local businesswomen stand on my porch. That doesn't sound like much, but the way the laws were then, if the woman was on private property and had permission to be there, the police couldn't pick them up in sweeps. I was friends with a woman whose street name was Sunshine, and in exchange for standing on my porch (not tricking, now...simply standing on my porch and bullshitting for a couple of minutes) she'd buy cigarettes for me, and keep my name clean when people asked her what was up with my shit.
And this worked.
I was living in the worst part of town by myself, and I was never fucked over by the locals once. I was never solicited once. I was never robbed once. I could walk to the store with money in my pocket, and I could do it wearing a tank top. I lived in the only unit that was never broken into the whole time I was there. Good thing, too, because its not like I would have had any recourse to the law.
The cops would come stifflegging like Doberman dogs down our alley about once a week, two by two. Apparently my sitting out on my porch talking to people was a highly suspicious activity. They'd come put their foot up on my step, and give me the word, like we know who you talk to and we've got our eye on you and shit.
And I gave them the word back: 'You do that. Come at me. The door's right here. See what you find.' Give my screen door a little tap with my foot.
Pissed off? Pissed off? Packs of matches spontaneously burst into flame. Streetlights began exploding one by one. Oh fuck yes; I was pissed off.
In my entire life I've never put a needle in my arm, never turned a trick, never gone on the books, never shit where I eat. Never. But you can't have skid row lowlifes see you walk away after some little bitch faces you up like that; that won't do.** So the police went to my building manager and my boss and 'warned' them about me. I 'consorted with known criminals'.
Everyone howled. My boss bought me a drink! Jesus Christ, ya fucking morons, this is Burnside! You can't help but! Every other goddamn person here is a known criminal!
But to this day? That still ices the fuck out of me.
It gave me an interesting new perspective on things. I'd always been neutral about cops up until that point. When I saw how they were doing people down there, though, I changed some views.
It didn't matter if you never imagined committing a crime. It didn't matter if you ran a business or owned property; God help your ass if they looked at you twice. God help your ass if you were any other color than white, or someplace doing anything but what they figured you should. Due process, Miranda, BULLSHIT. The people who lived there said "This ain't America. This is Burnside. Down here you ain't even in America." Above or below a certain street, the police could do anything they wanted, and they did. That is the absolute honest truth. I saw it. It was disgusting.
Truthfully? To me it seemed like the police were enforcing poverty. You were presumed guilty for where you lived and treated accordingly - like an undeserving criminal piece of shit. "Your car got stolen? Your house got broke into? Too fucking bad. What did you expect, living here?" It was incredible. But I think I have a point, too, in a way at least. When's the last time the police came strolling through your nice suburban neighborhood and put their foot on your step and said we're just waiting for you to set foot out of line?***
____________________________________
Nobody lived in that part of town without a reason. Everyone referred to it as 'down here'. Down Here extended from the banks of the Willamette river up to about 12th back then. This was not the ghetto. This was Skid Row.
There, that's my big admission. I lived on Skid Row. For a year and a half. Gasp! Clutch the pearls!
People would ask me why. At first I'd tell them it was because it beat the hell out of the alternative.**** The sad truth of the matter was, it did. I was treated better, I was safer on Skid Row, than I was in the home I grew up in. How fucked up is that?
After awhile I just got tired of people trying to figure out what my 'problem' was. I started spreading my own rumors, whatever goofyass thing came to mind at the moment, and let the theories run wild. At least it was more interesting than the truth; which was, I had no idea what my problem was. All I knew was that even after the childhood drama was left in the dust, something kept knocking me back and it was out of my control. It would keep me in bed for days at a time, unable to walk from the door to the street or use the phone, forget things, transpose things, make me blank out in the middle of conversations, miss entire hours or days, make me lose jobs, lose friends, keep me awake for days at a time, or make me sleep for 20 hours at a stretch, drag me down into hell at a moments notice and keep me there for months at a time, and I had no idea what it was or how to fix it.
Anyway, there I was. Clean as snow. I lived in a shitty apartment and ate Top Ramen and tried to earn a living working a straight job. A lot of my neighbors did the same: you'd be surprised how many people on Skid Row work two and three jobs and never touch a controlled substance.
A lot of my neighbors lived in abandoned cars and broken down campers and caves in the middle of blackberry patches, and operated completely outside the money economy too. I'll tell you something true: a lot of those people living rough worked harder than I did, and they worked longer hours. Scrapping metal, busking, returning bottles
and cans, scouting around for things to re-sell or trade; they busted ass. And I'll tell you something else: a lot of the people who lived rough were not insane and did not do crimes. They viewed themselves as nobility. They were living completely outside the system by their own rules, and that meant that they won.Interesting, huh.
I'm not saying that we ran in and out of each others homes, or trusted or admired one another, but we treated each other like neighbors, at least.
That isn't to say that the working poor were in the majority; we weren't. We were vastly outnumbered by junkies, the mentally ill, the career criminals, and the feral. They had their own thing; they went their own way. I'd give a pack of matches to anyone that asked, but I'd walk to the other side of the street to avoid a junkie. General consensus. Even the raving batshit neighbor lady avoided them. A junkie would cut your throat and lick the knife. They were the walking dead.
_______________________________
Look real hard in the upper right.
...See where it says 'Death chair'? Ok then.
The longer I lived there, the more 'street' I was becoming. Not that I was all 'bad'; Jesus no. I had 'mark' written all over me and my safety was as much a matter of luck as it was treating people right. It's just that my values were beginning to slip and I was beginning to get comfortable in a type of life that I didn't want to live. it was squalid, depressing and degraded and you were paranoid all the time. It felt familiar. It felt a lot like home. And 'home' was what I was trying to avoid.
The thing that made me take a new look at myself was when one of the men in my building died.
He was just an old guy. Nobody knew him or knew anything about him. He lived there, and then one day the coroners wagon came and they loaded him out.
And deliberately left his front door open.
One of the Pillsbury Sideshow Fetii was talking to the driver. I heard the driver tell him "We're all done in there now. Wait till we roll, though, but yeah; it's OK to go in."
The meat wagon rolled off. As I sat there, every door in the building opened up and people began heading down the alley towards the now-vacant apartment.
I turned back toward my screen door and told my girlfriend "You gotta come see this. You won't believe it."
People were going in and out of the open door carrying stuff.
They were looting the apartment.
The Pillsbury Sideshow Fetus grinned up at me as he passed by carrying an electric coffeepot. "You better hurry! All the good stuffs' gonna be gone! Come on!"
My girlfriend looked at me and said "Are you gonna?"
"Hell, why not?' I replied. "I'll go down and take a look at the death apartment; sure."
It was like a garage sale. I went inside and pushed my way through the people opening drawers, checking the mattress, looking inside the cupboards and raiding food out of the refrigerator. "Anybody like microwave popcorn?" called someone from the kitchen. "He's got some."
There was a round table and a loop-backed chair in the corner of the front room, and the telephone was still lying there off the hook.
"That's where they found him. Had a massive heart attack calling 911" said the building manager as he walked by. "You need a chair?" He laughed.
I looked.
Well shit. I did need a chair, in fact. I sauntered over and looked down at the chair, looked at the table, put the phone back on the hook. A couple of people took the phone off the table, put it on the floor and carried the table away as I stood there. Then someone else stepped over, said "You need this phone?" then unplugged it from the wall and carried it away when I shook my head.
So I picked up the chair and carried it out.
My girlfriend was appalled.
"Oh come on. It's not like he had the plague or anything; he died of a heart attack," I said. "It's just a chair. We needed one for the kitchen."
"Yeah, but you looted it," she said. "And you're going to put it in our kitchen. A chair that a guy died in."
The building manager walked past helping one of the tenants carry a mattress.
I got some bleach and a rag and I washed off ever single inch of that chair, underneath, the bottoms of the feet, everyplace. But I never did get over feeling really, really strange about what kind of things I didn't really care about any more.
So what did I do?
I got my shit together!
I took up with a guy who belonged to a cult and married him!
Yeah, shit.
___________________________________
...and the update was, I quit being all cute and added the word 'girl' to 'friend' there. May as well be straight up.
*That was actually how they referred to themselves, and they were very particular about it too. An alcoholic drank hard liquor and would work for his money. A wino was a passed-out bum who shit himself up and begged for change.
**No, I don't know what I was thinking either. It sure impressed my neighbors, though. But to this day I remember them putting their foot up on my step and it just enrages me, and I'd probably do the same stupid thing.
***obviously this question isn't being directed at either MJ or Knudson.
****That's why I got along with Sunshine. When I told her that, she got exactly what I meant. She never ragged me to 'go home'.
Walking around like a nut in the dark
One of the symptoms of clinical depression is an inability to sleep for an extended period of time. Up until I started on Prozac, then, unless I was seriously exhausted, I got four hours at a stretch, tops. Most of the time I had something to read nearby and I passed the time that way, but other times I was so restless and my brain was racing so fast that I had to get out and move.
I started midnight rambling when I was eight years old. During the summer my parents would let me sleep outside in the back yard sometimes. As soon as I could hear snoring coming from the house I was out the back gate and off.
For some reason I was fearless in the dark. I went places that I had NO BUSINESS going and would never have dreamed of visiting during the daytime. God only knows what the police would have said, but I was never hassled once.
The rambling, and that luck, continued up into my adult years. The only problems I ever had with anybody, I had in daylight. Once night fell, the town was mine.
Portland was an incredible place to ramble. The disconnected mixture of modern buildings with old carpenter gothic residences, mature trees and bare paved lots, derelict neighborhoods and haphazardly placed masses of urban infrastructure was already exactly like a dream landscape. It was sleep walking with your eyes open.
I ran into very, very few people out walking at night. Any homeless person you saw was so far gone and close to death that they didn't bother to hide up for the night any more. The few working girls left out at that hour were usually haggard and dope sick. When they asked for a cigarette that's all they meant. They'd pay you a quarter.
I carried a claw hammer anyway.
I could not stay away from abandoned buildings. And I discovered a strange and interesting thing: there wasn't a row of identical houses or businesses that could hide its secret from me, because you could pick the abandoned ones out at night by smell; an exhalation of old paper and leaves and dirt and damp. You could literally feel it on your skin as you walked into it, an invisible chilly stream with definite boundaries, and you could follow it easily to its source.
I'd squeeze between chained doors and peer inside old ice warehouses. I'd try doorknobs and step though empty window frames, stand in the moonlight coming down through rotted shingle roofs and rafters and read the old newspapers peeling off the walls.
______________________________
The amount of wild animal life in downtown Portland was a thing that never ceased to amaze me. I liked to walk out and stand in the center of the Burnside bridge, or the Hawthorne, smoking a cigarette and watching the water. Bear in mind that this is the literal, geographical center of downtown Portland, too; yet not a single car would pass you for minutes at a stretch. And in the quiet you could hear horned owls call to each other from one side of the river to the other, up and down it's length, in turns...north and southeast, south and northwest.
Although Oregon had a huge problem with feral dogs at the time I never ran into trouble. Brave tame dogs would bark as you passed their fences, but dogs about town would sidetrot down the center line of the street and give you a couple of wags and a grin as they passed, maybe say 'wuf' in a conversational way.
Back then-and it probably holds true today-it wasn't uncommon to see a doe and fawn ambling down the middle of a residential street, or 23rd and Burnside for that matter. Raccoons tightrope-walked the sagging ridges of abandoned meat packing plants, feral cats slept in the engine compartments of parked cars. Skunks left eerily human, infant-sized footprints in the dew that kept alive a persistent urban myth about 'little people'. Down by the river in the steel yards, the masts of cranes and old towing rigs and logging booms, draped with rags of old morning glory, were hunting posts for barn owls who stretched their wings and flicked them as you passed. There was a kind of bat, one the size of a peregrine falcon, that hunted from building to building over the lighted intersection on 5th and Morrison, soaring like a miniature pterodactyl, long translucent wings stretched across a rack of skeletal fingers, small head turning inquisitively as it called and listened.
___________________
Portland was a large town that had expanded and engulfed many smaller ones, like any city does, I guess. A modern neighborhood development would be built up around the remains of the cities old horse-drawn trolley barns, the old wood buildings swaying and bellying, the vented cupolas laying on the ground. In the middle of the grimmest industrial district you would run into half a block of empty old Carpenter Gothic homes with scalloped shingles and wooden lace. Often you'd find a small section of abandoned shops...one or two blocks of false fronted buildings with weed maples growing out of the sandstone foundation blocks, plank siding painted with advertising for Bull Durham Tobacco, Liptons Tea or Fischers Mills, the corner gingerbread decorations wadded with old robins' nests. The coved shop entrances each held a windblown drift of dirt, accumulated leaves and trash. I would sit on the ledge out of the breeze and light a smoke, lift the old leaves and papers and find small frogs fast asleep like little square cut emeralds, or tiny fat salamanders black and shiny as patent leather.
And not a sound. Not a soul. Not a single car.
_______________________________
One evening just after the sun went down behind the tall buildings, when the sky was still violet and orange I was walking through an abandoned neighborhood, enjoying the incredible heavy perfume of the old cabbage roses that wanded out out over the sidewalk. I'd stop occasionally and peer through rusty spear tipped fences at the old Victorian residences, walls of blind wooden bay windows sagging into the grass, roofless Queen Anne tower houses through which swallows circled and drifted like schooling fish in the gloom. I always walked along with a sense of something cool waiting just up ahead. Mysterious statues listing in the fireweed, unexpected garden flowers emerging beneath overgrown trees. Once I saw a whitetail deer standing on a sagging porch, sniffing the places where someone last laid their hand, on the railing or the post or the door.
I stopped in the bay entrance of an old shop and lit a smoke. The flare of the match lit up the interior for a second. I could just make out what I took to be old scenery flats or lobby cards or advertising of some kind ranged along the walls inside.
Well well well.
Now I'm not a thief, but I also knew without even pausing to think about it that I'd be coming back with more than a clawhammer to do a little nocturnal antique collecting.
I tried the door and looked up at the transom window, sat back down and finished my smoke.
While I sat there the last sunrays came out from between some concrete warehouses and lit the interior of the shop behind me.
It wasn't lobby cards leaning against the walls; it was stretched canvasses.
It was a huge empty space, bare wood floors, with the old mercantile counters and shelves still intact along the walls, a couple of old, peculiar chairs here and there, the original gas fixtures still protruding from the walls. There were easels and tables in the back and jars all over the floor full of paint brushes and palette knives, buckets of varnish and thinner.
And the most amazing painting.
It was a huge, very lifelike painting of a very familiar man in a business suit, with details that revealed themselves by degrees and made you stop and re-examine the whole while you tried to believe what you were looking at. The composition came straight out of Medieval Christian iconography, and the execution was extremely sophisticated. Imagine a Dali, if Dali had studied with Jan van Eyck.
It was one of the oddest moments I've ever had in my life, standing there in the coming evening in the middle of an abandoned Victorian street, looking at the last thing I'd ever expected to see.
As I was walking away it suddenly occurred who the familiar-looking man in the painting was. The governor. Well, the dead governor, anyway-of Oregon.
The next time I saw it was in the Oregon Journal, headlined 'Controversial Tom McCall Painting* To Be Put On Public Display'-something along those lines. People were having a cow that their tax dollars had paid for 'psychedelic hippie art'.
I felt kind of proud. Way to go, art dude!
It almost made up for the fact that it hadn't been a stack of old movie posters.
___________________________
*and here it is!
http://www.orgov.org/McCallbeach.jpg
this obviously does not do the thing justice, but you can see that its not exactly your typical state portrait, either. the real thing is almost lifesized, and the colors really glow.
I started midnight rambling when I was eight years old. During the summer my parents would let me sleep outside in the back yard sometimes. As soon as I could hear snoring coming from the house I was out the back gate and off.
For some reason I was fearless in the dark. I went places that I had NO BUSINESS going and would never have dreamed of visiting during the daytime. God only knows what the police would have said, but I was never hassled once.
The rambling, and that luck, continued up into my adult years. The only problems I ever had with anybody, I had in daylight. Once night fell, the town was mine.
Portland was an incredible place to ramble. The disconnected mixture of modern buildings with old carpenter gothic residences, mature trees and bare paved lots, derelict neighborhoods and haphazardly placed masses of urban infrastructure was already exactly like a dream landscape. It was sleep walking with your eyes open.
I ran into very, very few people out walking at night. Any homeless person you saw was so far gone and close to death that they didn't bother to hide up for the night any more. The few working girls left out at that hour were usually haggard and dope sick. When they asked for a cigarette that's all they meant. They'd pay you a quarter.
I carried a claw hammer anyway.
I could not stay away from abandoned buildings. And I discovered a strange and interesting thing: there wasn't a row of identical houses or businesses that could hide its secret from me, because you could pick the abandoned ones out at night by smell; an exhalation of old paper and leaves and dirt and damp. You could literally feel it on your skin as you walked into it, an invisible chilly stream with definite boundaries, and you could follow it easily to its source.
I'd squeeze between chained doors and peer inside old ice warehouses. I'd try doorknobs and step though empty window frames, stand in the moonlight coming down through rotted shingle roofs and rafters and read the old newspapers peeling off the walls.
______________________________
The amount of wild animal life in downtown Portland was a thing that never ceased to amaze me. I liked to walk out and stand in the center of the Burnside bridge, or the Hawthorne, smoking a cigarette and watching the water. Bear in mind that this is the literal, geographical center of downtown Portland, too; yet not a single car would pass you for minutes at a stretch. And in the quiet you could hear horned owls call to each other from one side of the river to the other, up and down it's length, in turns...north and southeast, south and northwest.
Although Oregon had a huge problem with feral dogs at the time I never ran into trouble. Brave tame dogs would bark as you passed their fences, but dogs about town would sidetrot down the center line of the street and give you a couple of wags and a grin as they passed, maybe say 'wuf' in a conversational way.
Back then-and it probably holds true today-it wasn't uncommon to see a doe and fawn ambling down the middle of a residential street, or 23rd and Burnside for that matter. Raccoons tightrope-walked the sagging ridges of abandoned meat packing plants, feral cats slept in the engine compartments of parked cars. Skunks left eerily human, infant-sized footprints in the dew that kept alive a persistent urban myth about 'little people'. Down by the river in the steel yards, the masts of cranes and old towing rigs and logging booms, draped with rags of old morning glory, were hunting posts for barn owls who stretched their wings and flicked them as you passed. There was a kind of bat, one the size of a peregrine falcon, that hunted from building to building over the lighted intersection on 5th and Morrison, soaring like a miniature pterodactyl, long translucent wings stretched across a rack of skeletal fingers, small head turning inquisitively as it called and listened.
___________________
Portland was a large town that had expanded and engulfed many smaller ones, like any city does, I guess. A modern neighborhood development would be built up around the remains of the cities old horse-drawn trolley barns, the old wood buildings swaying and bellying, the vented cupolas laying on the ground. In the middle of the grimmest industrial district you would run into half a block of empty old Carpenter Gothic homes with scalloped shingles and wooden lace. Often you'd find a small section of abandoned shops...one or two blocks of false fronted buildings with weed maples growing out of the sandstone foundation blocks, plank siding painted with advertising for Bull Durham Tobacco, Liptons Tea or Fischers Mills, the corner gingerbread decorations wadded with old robins' nests. The coved shop entrances each held a windblown drift of dirt, accumulated leaves and trash. I would sit on the ledge out of the breeze and light a smoke, lift the old leaves and papers and find small frogs fast asleep like little square cut emeralds, or tiny fat salamanders black and shiny as patent leather.
And not a sound. Not a soul. Not a single car.
_______________________________
One evening just after the sun went down behind the tall buildings, when the sky was still violet and orange I was walking through an abandoned neighborhood, enjoying the incredible heavy perfume of the old cabbage roses that wanded out out over the sidewalk. I'd stop occasionally and peer through rusty spear tipped fences at the old Victorian residences, walls of blind wooden bay windows sagging into the grass, roofless Queen Anne tower houses through which swallows circled and drifted like schooling fish in the gloom. I always walked along with a sense of something cool waiting just up ahead. Mysterious statues listing in the fireweed, unexpected garden flowers emerging beneath overgrown trees. Once I saw a whitetail deer standing on a sagging porch, sniffing the places where someone last laid their hand, on the railing or the post or the door.
I stopped in the bay entrance of an old shop and lit a smoke. The flare of the match lit up the interior for a second. I could just make out what I took to be old scenery flats or lobby cards or advertising of some kind ranged along the walls inside.
Well well well.
Now I'm not a thief, but I also knew without even pausing to think about it that I'd be coming back with more than a clawhammer to do a little nocturnal antique collecting.
I tried the door and looked up at the transom window, sat back down and finished my smoke.
While I sat there the last sunrays came out from between some concrete warehouses and lit the interior of the shop behind me.
It wasn't lobby cards leaning against the walls; it was stretched canvasses.
It was a huge empty space, bare wood floors, with the old mercantile counters and shelves still intact along the walls, a couple of old, peculiar chairs here and there, the original gas fixtures still protruding from the walls. There were easels and tables in the back and jars all over the floor full of paint brushes and palette knives, buckets of varnish and thinner.
And the most amazing painting.
It was a huge, very lifelike painting of a very familiar man in a business suit, with details that revealed themselves by degrees and made you stop and re-examine the whole while you tried to believe what you were looking at. The composition came straight out of Medieval Christian iconography, and the execution was extremely sophisticated. Imagine a Dali, if Dali had studied with Jan van Eyck.
It was one of the oddest moments I've ever had in my life, standing there in the coming evening in the middle of an abandoned Victorian street, looking at the last thing I'd ever expected to see.
As I was walking away it suddenly occurred who the familiar-looking man in the painting was. The governor. Well, the dead governor, anyway-of Oregon.
The next time I saw it was in the Oregon Journal, headlined 'Controversial Tom McCall Painting* To Be Put On Public Display'-something along those lines. People were having a cow that their tax dollars had paid for 'psychedelic hippie art'.
I felt kind of proud. Way to go, art dude!
It almost made up for the fact that it hadn't been a stack of old movie posters.
___________________________
*and here it is!
http://www.orgov.org/McCallbeach.jpg
this obviously does not do the thing justice, but you can see that its not exactly your typical state portrait, either. the real thing is almost lifesized, and the colors really glow.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
9th and Pine
I had a number of adventures while I was living in the Pine St. rat hole.
Most of these adventures involved the picturesque inhabitants of my building, although the surrounding neighborhood was filled with 'local color' as well (that color being kind of a weird brown with corn stuck in it.) Gosh, where to start?
-One evening I was walking down the sidewalk towards my place, carrying a sack of groceries, humming a little tune, smoking a cigarette. I noticed, a couple of blocks up, someone sitting in a doorway on the stairs. Not uncommon at all on a nice summer evening in Portland. Kind of uncommon in an industrial district, though. Probably a street person.
As I walked closer, several things became clear
1. This was not a street person.
2. Neither was he an employee of the nearby machine shops, because
3. his black Porche Targa was parked nearby, and he was wearing a dress shirt and a tie
4. but no pants
5. and was furiously whacking off.
As I approached he just kept on flailing away. I could actually hear it across the street: whappitywhappityfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfap.
He gave me a friendly smile. "Nice evening, huh?"
I nodded. "Yup. Have a good one."
"Oh, I will," he said.
____________________
I was two doors down from a tavern called The Union Jack. It was just exactly the kind of place you'd expect in that area; doorway nailed and re-nailed with boards and patch steel, black and shiny with old piss. You didn't want to walk too close to the building because unwelcome customers regularly came cannonballing out the doors. This place was so disgusting, so sleazy, in fact, that the owner actually tried to 'class it up' by billing it as a 'biker bar'. It was not a biker bar. It was a derelict bar. But that did not stop its habitues from trying to class themselves up similarly by billing themselves as 'bikers'.
One of these 'bikers' lived in my building and called himself Fat Mark. Well, he was fat; round as a bowling ball in fact. It was clear to everyone but Fat Mark that the closest he had ever come to riding a motorcycle was clothespinning a bunch of playing cards to the spokes of his Schwinn. He made himself a 'cutoff' to hide the 'patch' on his (vinyl ) 'leather' , and ran around talking about his 'hawg'.
The owner of the Union Jack had given Fat Mark a job. Fat Mark claimed he was employed there as a bouncer. And strictly speaking he was; if you walked past the back of the building around 10pm you could see Fat Mark bouncing garbage cans into the back of a pickup truck, or bouncing cases of napkins in through the kitchen entrance while somebody inside screamed 'get a move on you fat fuckin' punk!"
That was not punk as in 'punk rock'.
It was punk as in 'spent six years up in Rocky Butte hanging off someones belt loop '.
Every Friday, when Fat Mark was feeling flush, he used to like to pay a couple of local businesswomen to come up to his place and sex each other down. During this encounter he never did a thing; never even seemed to enjoy it much, according to them. What he was doing, essentially, was buying advertising. He wanted a reputation as a bad man; and most of all he wanted a reputation as a straight man. He figured that if the word out on him was that he went through two women at once then everyone would think 'Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaang!"
The word that went out on him was "Cash Friday means he's ready for plucking without any fucking."
______________________________
-Over a period of a couple of months an extended family of eleven souls took over
the entire streetside end of our building. That they were family was never in question. The whole lot of them looked exactly the same.
What did they look like?
Imagine if you will that the Pillsbury Dough Boy had committed an unspeakable act with Little Poppy, and that the result was a Pillsbury Sideshow Fetus.
Kinda like that. Only not bakers.
There was something so repellent and fascinating about this group that people would stop and look. Dead in their tracks. I saw it happen. Cars would slow down and the passengers would gape out the windows at them. In a neighborhood full of the sordid and the bizarre, these folks turned heads.
When they talked to each other they lapsed into a slurring, baby-pitched singsong. You could nearly understand them, but....not quite. You had to get the hang of it.
They were often clearly excited about things...a bug in the kitchen sink, a commercial they'd seen on television, a red car...it didn't take much. Something would set one of them off, and soon they were all up in each others faces, spit flying, flapping and lolloping like lobotomized elephant seals. "Wow! Did you see that guy in the red car? Yeah, that guy was fast! It was a red car! That guys car was red. Did you see that go by? That was a fast red car with a guy in it! Yeah, he was in that red car!"
For 45 minutes at a stretch.
It was better than television. And when they argued, which was frequently, it was simply not to be missed.
...yeah, well. Ya take your funny where you find it.
A late spring evening in Portland is something you savored. Everyone came out and sat in the yard, and the poorer the neighborhood the more people were out enjoying the air.
The Whateleys* were no exception. They barbecued all spring and summer long, out on their porch by the street, and you'd have thought the circus came to town. People would drive around the block to catch another glimpse. I used to sit out on my rail and smoke, and I frankly watched them almost every single evening.
Two of them would be smooching so loud and enthusiastically that the saliva ran down their faces and stained their shirts. The others would smoke and mill around, occasionally getting right up in each others faces suddenly and exclaiming 'Gnwe gonna have gnot gogs! Gnou wike gnot gogs? Yum! Gnot gogs ah good! I gnove gnot gogs! Gnwe gonna have'em!"
Another would be turning the hot dogs on the grill with tongs. They frequently landed on the porch and rolled off onto the sidewalk. Then he'd hang over the railing and yell at passers-by to hand them back up to him.
One evening a cat slipped out from under their front steps and snagged an errant sausage, that quick.
Holy fucking Pandemoniac Hell broke lose.
Mutants were leaping off the porch and over the railings, hooting and freaking, trying to fit through the plumbing access and getting caught, running up and down the sidewalk, trying to lift the porch up, trying to stop passing cars. The one on the porch with the tongs overturned the barbecue in his excitement, and then hopped around trying to pick up briquettes with his fingers, yelling "Gnammit, gnriqettes! Gne' back heow! " dropping them and flapping and then trying to pick them up again.
One of his buddies down on the sidewalk yelled up 'Gnickem widjo shoes!' Barbecue Guy obliged by kicking the whole red hot pile of them straight into the guys chest.
In this building, in this part of town, if you heard anything out of the ordinary outside, you STAYED THE FUCK INDOORS UNTIL IT STOPPED. Nonetheless, people were now opening up their windows and coming out on their porches to gape in amazement.
A pack ran past where I was sitting on my porch, exclaiming "Da gnat got owah gnot gnog! A gnat got owah ho gnog! Godda go gnach da gnat!"
"He probably went down in the basement," I said.
"Gnasemen! Gne do ina gnasemen!" they exclaimed to each other. "Weh da gnasemen'?"
"It's that big pair of doors around back that looks like a garage," I said.
Soon I could hear a whole host of feet kicking at the padlocked double doors at back of the building. I ran through my apartment and looked out my bathroom window-sure enough, there they were, kicking the doors, beating on it with their fists and shouting. "Gnopen uh! Gnopen da do! Hi' won gnopen! Wha we gon do?"
When I came back outside barbecue guy was hollering down to someone on the sidewalk "Ca oo get doze gniquettes? I needem! Gnose gnriquettes! Hanem up!"
This is when I saw Gnran'ma Whately waddle slowly out of their front door.
You seldom saw her. When you did, it explained a lot. She was bald and her arms and legs were wrapped in ace bandages. She always wore a flowered house dress and it was always shredded and hanging in thin strings in the back. You felt like looking away when you caught sight of her scalp, the flesh of her arms or her chins... translucent white, with clearly visible veins and capillaries, creased with grey waxy accumulations of dried filth. You felt like it, but you couldn't.
Gnran'ma was carrying a dish.
She waddled down the steps and disappeared around the corner.
When she came back, the dish was filled with charred black hot dogs.
She heaved herself back up the steps, leaned over the railing and bellowed "Gni go da gnot gogs! Gni go da gnot gogs! Gome eet! Is' gonna be gon iffen you gon gome ee!"
And the whole group came racing around the sides of the building and down the alley like a herd of mutant sea cucumbers. Straight into the house, slammed the door.
The entire building busted out into hysterics. Junkies, winos, whores, schizophrenics, everyone. We just howled. It was awesome.
__________________________________
*Not their real names, but if you're up on your HPL (and you SHOULD BE) you'll know exactly what I mean by that.
Most of these adventures involved the picturesque inhabitants of my building, although the surrounding neighborhood was filled with 'local color' as well (that color being kind of a weird brown with corn stuck in it.) Gosh, where to start?
-One evening I was walking down the sidewalk towards my place, carrying a sack of groceries, humming a little tune, smoking a cigarette. I noticed, a couple of blocks up, someone sitting in a doorway on the stairs. Not uncommon at all on a nice summer evening in Portland. Kind of uncommon in an industrial district, though. Probably a street person.
As I walked closer, several things became clear
1. This was not a street person.
2. Neither was he an employee of the nearby machine shops, because
3. his black Porche Targa was parked nearby, and he was wearing a dress shirt and a tie
4. but no pants
5. and was furiously whacking off.
As I approached he just kept on flailing away. I could actually hear it across the street: whappitywhappityfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfap.
He gave me a friendly smile. "Nice evening, huh?"
I nodded. "Yup. Have a good one."
"Oh, I will," he said.
____________________
I was two doors down from a tavern called The Union Jack. It was just exactly the kind of place you'd expect in that area; doorway nailed and re-nailed with boards and patch steel, black and shiny with old piss. You didn't want to walk too close to the building because unwelcome customers regularly came cannonballing out the doors. This place was so disgusting, so sleazy, in fact, that the owner actually tried to 'class it up' by billing it as a 'biker bar'. It was not a biker bar. It was a derelict bar. But that did not stop its habitues from trying to class themselves up similarly by billing themselves as 'bikers'.
One of these 'bikers' lived in my building and called himself Fat Mark. Well, he was fat; round as a bowling ball in fact. It was clear to everyone but Fat Mark that the closest he had ever come to riding a motorcycle was clothespinning a bunch of playing cards to the spokes of his Schwinn. He made himself a 'cutoff' to hide the 'patch' on his (vinyl ) 'leather' , and ran around talking about his 'hawg'.
The owner of the Union Jack had given Fat Mark a job. Fat Mark claimed he was employed there as a bouncer. And strictly speaking he was; if you walked past the back of the building around 10pm you could see Fat Mark bouncing garbage cans into the back of a pickup truck, or bouncing cases of napkins in through the kitchen entrance while somebody inside screamed 'get a move on you fat fuckin' punk!"
That was not punk as in 'punk rock'.
It was punk as in 'spent six years up in Rocky Butte hanging off someones belt loop '.
Every Friday, when Fat Mark was feeling flush, he used to like to pay a couple of local businesswomen to come up to his place and sex each other down. During this encounter he never did a thing; never even seemed to enjoy it much, according to them. What he was doing, essentially, was buying advertising. He wanted a reputation as a bad man; and most of all he wanted a reputation as a straight man. He figured that if the word out on him was that he went through two women at once then everyone would think 'Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaang!"
The word that went out on him was "Cash Friday means he's ready for plucking without any fucking."
______________________________
-Over a period of a couple of months an extended family of eleven souls took over
the entire streetside end of our building. That they were family was never in question. The whole lot of them looked exactly the same.What did they look like?
Imagine if you will that the Pillsbury Dough Boy had committed an unspeakable act with Little Poppy, and that the result was a Pillsbury Sideshow Fetus.
Kinda like that. Only not bakers.
There was something so repellent and fascinating about this group that people would stop and look. Dead in their tracks. I saw it happen. Cars would slow down and the passengers would gape out the windows at them. In a neighborhood full of the sordid and the bizarre, these folks turned heads.
When they talked to each other they lapsed into a slurring, baby-pitched singsong. You could nearly understand them, but....not quite. You had to get the hang of it.
They were often clearly excited about things...a bug in the kitchen sink, a commercial they'd seen on television, a red car...it didn't take much. Something would set one of them off, and soon they were all up in each others faces, spit flying, flapping and lolloping like lobotomized elephant seals. "Wow! Did you see that guy in the red car? Yeah, that guy was fast! It was a red car! That guys car was red. Did you see that go by? That was a fast red car with a guy in it! Yeah, he was in that red car!"
For 45 minutes at a stretch.
It was better than television. And when they argued, which was frequently, it was simply not to be missed.
...yeah, well. Ya take your funny where you find it.
A late spring evening in Portland is something you savored. Everyone came out and sat in the yard, and the poorer the neighborhood the more people were out enjoying the air.
The Whateleys* were no exception. They barbecued all spring and summer long, out on their porch by the street, and you'd have thought the circus came to town. People would drive around the block to catch another glimpse. I used to sit out on my rail and smoke, and I frankly watched them almost every single evening.
Two of them would be smooching so loud and enthusiastically that the saliva ran down their faces and stained their shirts. The others would smoke and mill around, occasionally getting right up in each others faces suddenly and exclaiming 'Gnwe gonna have gnot gogs! Gnou wike gnot gogs? Yum! Gnot gogs ah good! I gnove gnot gogs! Gnwe gonna have'em!"
Another would be turning the hot dogs on the grill with tongs. They frequently landed on the porch and rolled off onto the sidewalk. Then he'd hang over the railing and yell at passers-by to hand them back up to him.
One evening a cat slipped out from under their front steps and snagged an errant sausage, that quick.
Holy fucking Pandemoniac Hell broke lose.
Mutants were leaping off the porch and over the railings, hooting and freaking, trying to fit through the plumbing access and getting caught, running up and down the sidewalk, trying to lift the porch up, trying to stop passing cars. The one on the porch with the tongs overturned the barbecue in his excitement, and then hopped around trying to pick up briquettes with his fingers, yelling "Gnammit, gnriqettes! Gne' back heow! " dropping them and flapping and then trying to pick them up again.
One of his buddies down on the sidewalk yelled up 'Gnickem widjo shoes!' Barbecue Guy obliged by kicking the whole red hot pile of them straight into the guys chest.
In this building, in this part of town, if you heard anything out of the ordinary outside, you STAYED THE FUCK INDOORS UNTIL IT STOPPED. Nonetheless, people were now opening up their windows and coming out on their porches to gape in amazement.
A pack ran past where I was sitting on my porch, exclaiming "Da gnat got owah gnot gnog! A gnat got owah ho gnog! Godda go gnach da gnat!"
"He probably went down in the basement," I said.
"Gnasemen! Gne do ina gnasemen!" they exclaimed to each other. "Weh da gnasemen'?"
"It's that big pair of doors around back that looks like a garage," I said.
Soon I could hear a whole host of feet kicking at the padlocked double doors at back of the building. I ran through my apartment and looked out my bathroom window-sure enough, there they were, kicking the doors, beating on it with their fists and shouting. "Gnopen uh! Gnopen da do! Hi' won gnopen! Wha we gon do?"
When I came back outside barbecue guy was hollering down to someone on the sidewalk "Ca oo get doze gniquettes? I needem! Gnose gnriquettes! Hanem up!"
This is when I saw Gnran'ma Whately waddle slowly out of their front door.
You seldom saw her. When you did, it explained a lot. She was bald and her arms and legs were wrapped in ace bandages. She always wore a flowered house dress and it was always shredded and hanging in thin strings in the back. You felt like looking away when you caught sight of her scalp, the flesh of her arms or her chins... translucent white, with clearly visible veins and capillaries, creased with grey waxy accumulations of dried filth. You felt like it, but you couldn't.
Gnran'ma was carrying a dish.
She waddled down the steps and disappeared around the corner.
When she came back, the dish was filled with charred black hot dogs.
She heaved herself back up the steps, leaned over the railing and bellowed "Gni go da gnot gogs! Gni go da gnot gogs! Gome eet! Is' gonna be gon iffen you gon gome ee!"
And the whole group came racing around the sides of the building and down the alley like a herd of mutant sea cucumbers. Straight into the house, slammed the door.
The entire building busted out into hysterics. Junkies, winos, whores, schizophrenics, everyone. We just howled. It was awesome.
__________________________________
*Not their real names, but if you're up on your HPL (and you SHOULD BE) you'll know exactly what I mean by that.
Monday, April 07, 2008
Cheap rent
...and speaking of crazy old ladies...
_________________
While I was working the three different maid jobs I've mentioned previously, I was living in an absolute rat hole of a place over on the Southside, on 9th and Pine. Don't come swimming across the Atlantic and expect to find it; the place was torn down years ago. And really, I'm shocked it survived upright long enough to meet the wrecking ball; it was in total violation of every health and building code ever devised. Probably several moral ones as well.
Not that it didn't have its own R. Crumb kind of charm. Still, the best thing about the place was that I could afford it. This is the place I moved into when I escaped Meadows family.*
Here is a floor plan:
For the sake of the following, note particularly where it says 'bed alcove' and 'tiny thin wall separating units'. The neighbors' unit was the mirror twin of mine. That means that when we slept at night we were only separated by a barrier 2 inches wide, made of composition board nailed over some lath.
Yeah.
Now I didn't realize this at first. It was summer and I was working hard, and when I wasn't working I was sleeping hard, and anyway the last thing I wanted to do was to get to know anyone in this building. All I wanted to do was money up and get the hell out.
My neighbor, as it turned out, was someone I saw every morning that I took the bus. She was usually rooting through the garbage can next to the bus shelter. She would get right down into the thing, shoulder deep, and work hard, grunting and wrenching. She never took anything out, though.
Now this was Portland, and people were kind; they'd offer her money or their newspaper-but as soon as she looked up they always took a step back, fast.
She must have been in her early sixties. She one of those titanically schizophrenic people who are completely at the mercy of some kind of feral, mindless vigor, like an animal metronomically smashing itself against the bars of its cage. Her hair was burnt a pale canary yellow. Her lipstick was scrubbed on hard in kindergarten stripes all the way across her face, side to side. Rouge made an uneven circle on each cheek, and heavy blue eyeshadow like greasepaint circled each eye. Sometimes she wore false eyelashes. Sometimes they were on her eyelids. I could not tell you what her clothes looked like or anything else about her, because the appearance of her face was so ferociously insane that it eclipsed every other impression. Diane Arbus would have kissed her on the lips.
By the time I realized that she was living next door, though, I'd been in the place for a month. She never made made a peep, and so I never gave her a thought. After all, this was the early 80's so I knew lots of people who wore makeup stranger than hers. Besides, I'd just come from the ninth circle of Hell so I had a whole new scale of 'fucked up behavior' to measure with. So far she hadn't tried to sniff my sheets.
One night, late that fall, I brought home a sleepover guest.
After some drunken, halfhearted fooling around we both gave up, and soon Sleepover Guest was snoring. I was too bombed to sleep, so I laid there and watched the room twirl around and the moon go by.
...another diagram! lucky you!Some time later I realized that I was hearing something scratching, very lightly, very nearby. I slept right over the cellar stairs and God knows what kind of messed up mutated shit was living down there. I assumed that was the source of the noise.
Wrong.
I slowly realized that the sound was coming from right next to my head. And now it was louder.
OK, I thought, so there's some kind of rodent in the wall. Fine. Old buildings have problems.
When it started a cadence, I became a little concerned.
*Scritchscritch, scritchscritch. Scritchscritch, scritchscritch.*
OK, that's kind of ooky.
I laid there and listened to it for awhile.
*Scritchscritch, scritchscritch. Scritchscritch, scritchscritch.*
It got louder.
Was it louder?
Yeah, it was definitely louder.
That was when I heard the first....noise.
Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
Very soft.
Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
I froze for a second, then I relaxed. Oh hell, the neighbors snoring. For shits' sake. Get a grip.
Rrrrrrrrrr.
Rrrrrr.
rrrrRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.
....Well, OK, the neighbor's having a nightmare.
rrrrRRRRRRAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIGGGHHRRRRRRRRR!
I sat straight up in bed and banged my head off the bottom of the staircase. Sonofabitch!
RRRRRAAAAAAAAAGGGGGH!HHHHHHHHHRRRRRRRRAAAIIIIIIIIGH!!
RRRREEEEEEEEEEEERR! RRRRRRRRRAGHRAGH! RAGHRAGH!WWWWAAAA! AAUUUUUGHEEEEEEEE! EEEEERRRRRRAAAUGH!
I found myself standing in the middle of the room staring in horror at the wall. I'd cleared Sleepover Guest like a low hurdle in a steeplechase. He was still dead to the world.
RRRREEEEEEEEEEEERR! RRRRRRRRRAGHRAGH! RAGHRA
Meanwhile Asmodeus Lord of Hell was still giving voice like a puma. I could hear fingernails dragging heavily down the wall on the other side in long measured passes.
rrrrrrRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGGGGGGGGH!
*SCRAAAAAAAAPE*
SSSSSRRRRRRRAAAAGGGGGH!
*SCRAAAAAAPE, SCRAAAAAAAAPE*
My red ass was comprehensively FREAKED. I had no idea what to do. What on earth do you do? Nobody prepares you for this! 'Your New Apartment: What to do when your neighbor becomes a channel for malign entities at 3:am and tries to claw a hole through the wall'... I totally missed that issue of Cosmopolitan! So hugging myself and bouncing and saying "Oh Jesus" over and over again in a tiny little voice with my eyes bugging out was going to have to do.
And let us not forget, I'm still flying three sheets to the wind.
That might be why, when I got the bright idea of banging on the wall with a broom handle, it seemed like a really good idea. As I staggered back in from the kitchen with the broom in my grasp I dimly recall thinking that if the person on the other side truly was having a nightmare then maybe the shit would stop if I woke them up.
I guess I don't need to say that this was a really bad idea.
On the one hand, it did seem to shake something loose next door, because the snarling ceased.
It was replaced with pounding and inarticulate grunting.
*WHAM! WHAMWHAM!* GHAHAGH! HAGNN! MWARR WAUGHWAH RRRAUGH!
*THUMP THUMP THUMP* HAGN NAHFARH! HUH! HUH!
*THUMP WHAM WHAMWHAM WHAM THUMP* RAGHNAGHNAGHAHGHNA!
Well that's just great.
I stood there for awhile. Then I put the broom back beside the refrigerator. I got a candle and a book, sat down, wrapped myself up in a couple of coats and a blanket, and lit a smoke.
After awhile, I kind of got used to it.
So used to it, in fact, that one hour later, when all the plumbing froze solid, shattered and burst, and began falling, and came racketing and banging and clattering down between the walls, and emptied by sections straight into the basement where it clanged and bonged and rebounded off the cement floor, I hardly blinked an eye.
Yep, yep yep.
__________________________
*Not familiar with the name 'Meadows' ? Visit my sidebar and go by the numbers. You'll be so glad you did!
Meridan of Doom: The Violet Seventh Reject!
Remember this poem by Jenny Joseph?
When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple
with a red hat that doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
and satin candles, and say we've no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I am tired
and gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
and run my stick along the public railings
and make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
and pick the flowers in other people's gardens
and learn to spit.
You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
and eat three pounds of sausages at a go
or only bread and pickles for a week
and hoard pens and pencils and beer nuts and things in boxes.
But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
and pay our rent and not swear in the street
and set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.
But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.
Now, that's fine. And really, so are the stated aims of this organization:
http://www.redhatsociety.com/info/WhatDoWeDo.html
Still, this is a poem about women who have never misbehaved, and a society for women who still have a crush on Donny Osmond.
I've been invited to join the Red Hats twice already, and I've declined both times. Neither do I see myself rethinking that decision any time soon: my definition of 'breaking out' does not include sitting in a room full of former office managers all wearing red hats and purple dresses, all of them just old enough to have some really gruesome gynecological disorders to recount, and just enough martoonies on board to recount them in detail. No no no no no.
No.....
When I am an old woman, I shall dye my hair purple
when I get tired of the violet-blue; neither color will suit me anyway.
And I probably won't have a pension, although I shall hardly need one
because I'll be growing ganja up a small canyon in Eastern Washington.
I will still sit down on the pavement when I am tired
I will continue to gobble up samples in shops
and carry an aluminum bat in my car, and clamber up on public railings
and drive too fast, and turn up my music too loud, as I did in my youth.
I shall wear my 'Fuck Off And Die' t-shirt in the rain
and gank cuttings out of other people's gardens
and teach my grandkids to spit.
I already wear terrible shirts over my fat
and eat three pounds of sausages at a go
or only spaghetti and burritos for an entire week.
Plus I hoard pens and pencils and weird shit off the sidewalk.
But now I've got some clothes to tie-dye
later I'll write some porn and go swear in the street
and set a good example for the children.
We might have friends to dinner . Or we might lay around all stoned and naked, eating chili cheese dip and watching subtitled films on the Sundance channel.
But maybe I ought to get started on my new ink?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I show up on my Sportster with my entire left arm covered in tattoos.
When I visit my father in law at the assisted living place I look around and wonder how many of the people around me might have, up until that point, lead lives of unrepentant misbehavior? How many of these folks would really rather not be playing bingo for stuffed toys, or listening to kids from the local grade school warbling Christmas carols? How many of them might have been, say, founding members of the Interstellar Space Brotherhood, or nudists or drug smugglers or street buskers or artists or drag queens or mack daddy kings? Where do the funky people go? You don't spend a whole life being wild and then suddenly wake up one day and decide 'well, I'll go out and subscribe to Readers' Digest magazine, I guess'. Is that dementia? Is that what Altzheimers does? It turns you Republican?
.....Oh sweet fuck; I think I'm onto something here. I've always suspected the typical conservative had a head full of something other than brains and now I know what it is: refined bauxite.
I've always thought that I'd like to spend my twilight years in an old Airstream trailer in my daughters' back yard. I'd have some of those inside-out tire planters, and I'd stick old Barbie doll heads on the fence. In the mornings I'd roam around out in the yard in my ratty pink bathrobe shouting at people on the telephone. Maybe have a few red chickens running around in and out of the house. Grow a bunch of dope out by the street. Every time the police come by to yank it out I'd make a big screaming old lady scene. I am REALLY LOOKING FORWARD to making lots and lots of screaming old lady scenes. There is nothing like a screaming old lady scene. They are always the best ones. I figure its probably because once you hit a certain age you have a lot of really good material stored up and it's all on a hair trigger.
"That's dope? That ain't no fuckin' dope! It just grewed there! What the fuck am I supposta know know about no maryjewanna? I'm a hundred and fifty fuckin' years old! I don't even know what this rash here is on my ankle! Are you accusing me of bein some kinda hippie? I have a rash! I cannot believe you comin up on my property accusing me of being no communist fuckin' hippie! I ain't got no idea how it got there; it musta been something the birds crapped out. Go arrest the goddamn birds! Why in the hell you think I put all them goddamn Barbiedoll heads on that fence! Fuckin Barbie! I hate Mattel! They make them plastic butts for the AK-47s you know! Them and General Electric, man, look what they did to that Paris Hilton! She was chairman of the board of Pepsi at one time! But they sent up them Chinese satellites that got her, and now I got birds shitting out heroin all over my yard! I probably need a camel! This country's just GONE TO HELL! ITS THE CANADIANS! THAT'S WHY I DON'T GO OUT AT NIGHT ANYMORE! DO YOU HEAR ME????
It's a nice fantasy. Of course it presumes that I'll be outliving my Biker and obviously that's not allowed to happen.
Sunday, April 06, 2008
Grinder bread!
Wah, wah wah. Enough of that.
_______________________________
My grinder sandwich bread recipe:
Wet ingredients, all at room temperature:
1 egg
1 cup drained plain whole milk yogurt
(maybe about 1/4 to 1/3 cup lukewarm water-or milk- as needed to make resulting dough sticky. Better to err on the side of too wet now, since flour is easier to incorporate into dough than liquid is.)
dry:
3 cups plain white flour
1 HEAPING tablespoon of yeast granules
1/2 level tsp sugar
1/2 tsp chicken or vegetable bouillon granules. Yes really.
Stir wet ingredients together.
Dump all dry ingredients into Cuisinart, mix for a couple of seconds (no, you don't need to proof the yeast; this isn't 1866.)
With the Cuisinart OFF, dump wet ingredients into dry. Now whir until the clump of dough begins to clean the sides of the bowl. This takes no more than a couple of seconds. It won't be perfectly mixed; that is not a problem. You'll mix it completely when you knead it.
Shut off machine, ignore the dough in there for 20 minutes.
Dump dough out onto floured counter top and knead for 8 minutes until it is smooth. It will be sticky.
(Remember, flour is really, really reactive to the ambient humidity, so there's always a margin for wiggle in the wet to dry ratio. If the dough is altogether too ridiculously gluey and unmanageable, lightly sprinkle in flour each time you fold and knead for a few strokes, and think about the texture before you add more, until it becomes less gluey. It should still stay somewhat sticky, though. You will have to flour the board and pick dough off your hands every now and then. The important thing is that the dough is smooth; that you cannot feel any lumps or granules in it. Smooth is the important thing and the end product you're going for. At this stage, if you're going to err, err on the side of a little too sticky.)
Put in a covered, room-temperature bowl and let dough rise in a warm place (99-101f) for 1 hour.
Handling the dough lightly, push dough down and form it into a ball in the bowl. Then take it and form it into a long, french-style loaf on a flat, lightly greased baking sheet.
(Try to keep the top free of creases; it won't hurt the bread but they will split apart in the oven. If this can't be done, the bread is still perfectly good and edible; it just isn't magazine perfect. I try to keep it as smooth as I can because we make huge 'grinder' sandwiches with this bread and the intact crust acts as a nice case to hold all the goodies inside. If you do get creases in the top, brush a little warm water into them with a wet paper towel or your fingers and then pinch the edges together; that can glue them. But it isn't vital.)
Let the formed loaf rise for 20 minutes in a warm place.
Bake in 400f oven for 25 minutes, or until nicely browned on top.
Turn out onto a rack and cool.
To make grinder sandwiches: Split the loaf lengthwise. With a fork, lightly scrape out some of the fluff to make a shallow cavity in each half of the bread. Then fill with meatballs, shrimp, cold cuts, lobster salad, whatever you like!
_____________________________________
I made this recipe specifically for grinder sandwiches. The bread has a distinctive flavor, but it doesn't fight with the ingredients, and it has a structure that holds up to sloppy stuff. It's on the heavy side; this isn't an airy, fluffy bread full of cavities like a french loaf.
Now-you could bake this in a regular loaf pan and it turns out fine. Slice it up for sandwiches and toast; its great.
If you wanted to get really rooty zooty, you could add some fresh herbs to this; rosemary and garlic are very nice!
If you want to be all 'gourmet', you can make this dough up to the first rising stage, and then put it in a covered container in a chilly place-like a cold cabinet or the front entry; NOT the refrigerator- overnight. Then bring it back into the warm part of the house, let it warm up to room temp, and THEN put it in a slightly warmer place (99-101f) to rise for 1 hour. This is called 'cold fermentation' and you will be surprised at how much it really does make the bread taste better.
____________________________
People always wonder-where the hell do you rise bread that's warm?
There are such things as 'proofing chambers' that you can buy. It's just a box that gets slightly warm. For about 35.00! Wigga please.
If you have a heating pad that has a good temperature control-i mean, one that doesn't sneak up hotter and hotter over time but stays the same- you could set it on its lowest setting (no higher than 101f!!) and let the covered bowl rest on there.
If you have a deep kitchen sink, you can warm it up with hot water, and then float the covered bowl in a couple of inches of very warm water with a towel over the whole thing. Don't do this if you have cats, though. They cannot stay away from dough rising in a sink full of water for some reason; they tip over the dough and lay on top of the towel and just cause all kinds of trouble.
What I do is I heat up the oven for about three minutes on it's lowest setting, and then turn off the heat, open the door and let it cool back down until I can just place my hand on the wire rack and keep it there comfortably. You pop the covered bowl of dough right in there and shut the door, and it will stay nice and stable. And cat-proof.
If you have a tank style hot water heater, that's another good place...just set the covered bowl on top of it and let it go for an hour. Another good place? On a sunny warm day? Set the bowl on the seat of a car that's parked in the sun.
I made the mistake of rising dough on top of a radiator, and, no. Same goes for in front of the furnace vent. NO.
___________________________
Anyone want some blue columbine? Or some 'Pink Panda' strawberry?
Ooo, I know, how about some iris laevegata? It's white! It only grows up to 51/2 feet tall and only spreads once again its former size each season. And it's roots are really easy to break up if you have a small saw, and a butcher knife. And a shovel. And a dirt fork. And are fat. And jump up and down and cuss.
_______________________________
My grinder sandwich bread recipe:
Wet ingredients, all at room temperature:
1 egg
1 cup drained plain whole milk yogurt
(maybe about 1/4 to 1/3 cup lukewarm water-or milk- as needed to make resulting dough sticky. Better to err on the side of too wet now, since flour is easier to incorporate into dough than liquid is.)
dry:
3 cups plain white flour
1 HEAPING tablespoon of yeast granules
1/2 level tsp sugar
1/2 tsp chicken or vegetable bouillon granules. Yes really.
Stir wet ingredients together.
Dump all dry ingredients into Cuisinart, mix for a couple of seconds (no, you don't need to proof the yeast; this isn't 1866.)
With the Cuisinart OFF, dump wet ingredients into dry. Now whir until the clump of dough begins to clean the sides of the bowl. This takes no more than a couple of seconds. It won't be perfectly mixed; that is not a problem. You'll mix it completely when you knead it.
Shut off machine, ignore the dough in there for 20 minutes.
Dump dough out onto floured counter top and knead for 8 minutes until it is smooth. It will be sticky.
(Remember, flour is really, really reactive to the ambient humidity, so there's always a margin for wiggle in the wet to dry ratio. If the dough is altogether too ridiculously gluey and unmanageable, lightly sprinkle in flour each time you fold and knead for a few strokes, and think about the texture before you add more, until it becomes less gluey. It should still stay somewhat sticky, though. You will have to flour the board and pick dough off your hands every now and then. The important thing is that the dough is smooth; that you cannot feel any lumps or granules in it. Smooth is the important thing and the end product you're going for. At this stage, if you're going to err, err on the side of a little too sticky.)
Put in a covered, room-temperature bowl and let dough rise in a warm place (99-101f) for 1 hour.
Handling the dough lightly, push dough down and form it into a ball in the bowl. Then take it and form it into a long, french-style loaf on a flat, lightly greased baking sheet.
(Try to keep the top free of creases; it won't hurt the bread but they will split apart in the oven. If this can't be done, the bread is still perfectly good and edible; it just isn't magazine perfect. I try to keep it as smooth as I can because we make huge 'grinder' sandwiches with this bread and the intact crust acts as a nice case to hold all the goodies inside. If you do get creases in the top, brush a little warm water into them with a wet paper towel or your fingers and then pinch the edges together; that can glue them. But it isn't vital.)
Let the formed loaf rise for 20 minutes in a warm place.
Bake in 400f oven for 25 minutes, or until nicely browned on top.
Turn out onto a rack and cool.
To make grinder sandwiches: Split the loaf lengthwise. With a fork, lightly scrape out some of the fluff to make a shallow cavity in each half of the bread. Then fill with meatballs, shrimp, cold cuts, lobster salad, whatever you like!
_____________________________________
I made this recipe specifically for grinder sandwiches. The bread has a distinctive flavor, but it doesn't fight with the ingredients, and it has a structure that holds up to sloppy stuff. It's on the heavy side; this isn't an airy, fluffy bread full of cavities like a french loaf.
Now-you could bake this in a regular loaf pan and it turns out fine. Slice it up for sandwiches and toast; its great.
If you wanted to get really rooty zooty, you could add some fresh herbs to this; rosemary and garlic are very nice!
If you want to be all 'gourmet', you can make this dough up to the first rising stage, and then put it in a covered container in a chilly place-like a cold cabinet or the front entry; NOT the refrigerator- overnight. Then bring it back into the warm part of the house, let it warm up to room temp, and THEN put it in a slightly warmer place (99-101f) to rise for 1 hour. This is called 'cold fermentation' and you will be surprised at how much it really does make the bread taste better.
____________________________
People always wonder-where the hell do you rise bread that's warm?
There are such things as 'proofing chambers' that you can buy. It's just a box that gets slightly warm. For about 35.00! Wigga please.
If you have a heating pad that has a good temperature control-i mean, one that doesn't sneak up hotter and hotter over time but stays the same- you could set it on its lowest setting (no higher than 101f!!) and let the covered bowl rest on there.
If you have a deep kitchen sink, you can warm it up with hot water, and then float the covered bowl in a couple of inches of very warm water with a towel over the whole thing. Don't do this if you have cats, though. They cannot stay away from dough rising in a sink full of water for some reason; they tip over the dough and lay on top of the towel and just cause all kinds of trouble.
What I do is I heat up the oven for about three minutes on it's lowest setting, and then turn off the heat, open the door and let it cool back down until I can just place my hand on the wire rack and keep it there comfortably. You pop the covered bowl of dough right in there and shut the door, and it will stay nice and stable. And cat-proof.
If you have a tank style hot water heater, that's another good place...just set the covered bowl on top of it and let it go for an hour. Another good place? On a sunny warm day? Set the bowl on the seat of a car that's parked in the sun.
I made the mistake of rising dough on top of a radiator, and, no. Same goes for in front of the furnace vent. NO.
___________________________
Anyone want some blue columbine? Or some 'Pink Panda' strawberry?
Ooo, I know, how about some iris laevegata? It's white! It only grows up to 51/2 feet tall and only spreads once again its former size each season. And it's roots are really easy to break up if you have a small saw, and a butcher knife. And a shovel. And a dirt fork. And are fat. And jump up and down and cuss.
Thursday, April 03, 2008
No fool like a (really cute) old fool (with rockin' gazongas)
The main problem in living this far out of the way is that your choices are real limited when it comes to health care. Now, living in America means thats going to be a problem anyway, but I also live in a tiny American town that had to advertise internationally to persuade two doctors to come practice here.
Naturally, we didn't end up with anyone who had to turn down offers to teach neurosurgery.
Whenever I've had to choose a new doctor I try and go for the youngest woman on staff. If it comes down to one of those 'feet in the stirrups' type procedures I'd rather have someone who knows their way around the territory doing the exam, for one thing. For another, the younger person knows the newest procedures. Right?
Well, this time I didn't get much of a choice.
I have a couple of chronic conditions that make it necessary to visit the doctors fairly often. A 30-some-odd mile round trip to Bellingham is out of the question in midwinter. A 17 mile round trip to Lynden is just ridiculous. Why? Seems all the practitioners in Lynden are stonewall Christians who belong to these profit driven, drug company-sponsored 'treatment management' programs. On the one hand you get to listen to Dr. Apostles' witness while he does your PAP smear, and on the other you end up getting convinced you need all the expensive drugs and treatments that 'Big Drug Corporation, Ltd.' is pushing. That is a WHOLE 'NOTHER POST. Suffice it to say, that WON'T do.
When we got news of the new practitioners' opening shop here in town there was much rejoicing. Rejoicing tempered with the realization that we were going to be dealing with some 'C' students, mind; this is American medicine after all. But at least it's a foot in the door and close, right?
Well...
Doctor #1 is an elderly gynaecologist who decided, once he'd moved here, that he wanted to be a General Practitioner. Just because. Try something new; what the hey. Never trained for it. Not qualified. The guy spent the last 30 years talking to tuna; suddenly he's magically able to diagnose throat cancer and cataracts and Alzheimers? Sure! Why the fuck not?
This is the same guy who basically tried to kill my Yummy Biker by prescribing him a combination of drugs that even I know is LETHAL.
Prior to that I had to go in and have a talk with ol' Doc Tuna about how reading your patients' goddamn charts beforehand is a good idea? Since-and I could be wrong here; after all I didn't go to medical school like he did (back in the Pleistocene) -a patient with a previously diagnosed sleeping disorder should probably NOT be given medication proven to increase the likelihood of OPERATING MACHINERY, EATING AND DRIVING IN ONES' SLEEP.
The other doctor is a youngish guy....hardcore Christian but not obnoxious about it. He operates independently of the 'treatment management' Mafia, and so I figured why not give him a chance?
The upside of this is that he's a good guy.
The downside of this is that he's a typically overworked American GP who has compounded that whole issue by having six kids AND being a member of Doctors Without Borders.
Kids are good, and I believe in this program, and I admire the guy for being part of it.
What I don't like is the fact that he has a standardized packages of speeches he delivers on any given medical issue, nearly word for word each time. The man isn't seeing individuals; he's seeing conditions.
The guy is right on the verge of burnout.
This past winter was possibly the worst winter for me, health-wise, on record. I spend more time sick than I did well, and I had a nearly constant respiratory infection going. I went through over-the-counter rescue inhalers by the metric shitload. I needed to go out and be active. It's vital that I do so, now that I have diabetes. And I wanted to get out and be active too...but every goddamn time I did the infection came back, or I caught another cold, or got bronchitis, or ran onto a fungal bloom someplace or a cat or some feathers and had a huge allergic reaction. My system was under constant, constant attack and the asthma was just RAGING.
But oh yes, I did go to see my doctor. Three times.
Each time I received the same standardized speech about 'viral infections are untreatable with antibiotics and I should wait and let it run its course and then come in only if it persists'. ('Persist' being the infinitely definable operative term here.)
Now, were I a younger person I would have bought this unquestioningly. As an older person with a medical phobia, I let myself trust that his experience would be recent and that maybe he knew something that I hadn't heard. All the while, what I should have been doing is trusting MYSELF.
I've had this shit since 1966. I KNOW the goddamn difference between a viral infection and the usual crap I get. I have allergic rhinitis, sinusitis, polyps and asthma. I know that the standard cortisone-based treatments for the asthma actually makes the other stuff worse in the long run because steroids suppress the immune system. I KNOW that the only recourse, in my case, given my etiology, is to take the goddamn antibiotics and heal up and then work like hell and get strong. Now that I'm diabetic this only goes double, since inhaled corticosteroids make diabetes WORSE.
So next week I get to go in and tell Mr. 'I Donate My Skills Worldwide for the Greater Glory of Christ' that he's full of shit.
Basically I fucked away an entire winter believing someone else and letting my fear of doctors give me an excuse to listen to the WRONG ADVICE. That's time I will never get back. I screwed the pooch bigtime and I've got nobody to blame, ultimately, but ME.
And then I get to go find a new doctor!!!
YAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!
Naturally, we didn't end up with anyone who had to turn down offers to teach neurosurgery.
Whenever I've had to choose a new doctor I try and go for the youngest woman on staff. If it comes down to one of those 'feet in the stirrups' type procedures I'd rather have someone who knows their way around the territory doing the exam, for one thing. For another, the younger person knows the newest procedures. Right?
Well, this time I didn't get much of a choice.
I have a couple of chronic conditions that make it necessary to visit the doctors fairly often. A 30-some-odd mile round trip to Bellingham is out of the question in midwinter. A 17 mile round trip to Lynden is just ridiculous. Why? Seems all the practitioners in Lynden are stonewall Christians who belong to these profit driven, drug company-sponsored 'treatment management' programs. On the one hand you get to listen to Dr. Apostles' witness while he does your PAP smear, and on the other you end up getting convinced you need all the expensive drugs and treatments that 'Big Drug Corporation, Ltd.' is pushing. That is a WHOLE 'NOTHER POST. Suffice it to say, that WON'T do.
When we got news of the new practitioners' opening shop here in town there was much rejoicing. Rejoicing tempered with the realization that we were going to be dealing with some 'C' students, mind; this is American medicine after all. But at least it's a foot in the door and close, right?
Well...
Doctor #1 is an elderly gynaecologist who decided, once he'd moved here, that he wanted to be a General Practitioner. Just because. Try something new; what the hey. Never trained for it. Not qualified. The guy spent the last 30 years talking to tuna; suddenly he's magically able to diagnose throat cancer and cataracts and Alzheimers? Sure! Why the fuck not?
This is the same guy who basically tried to kill my Yummy Biker by prescribing him a combination of drugs that even I know is LETHAL.
Prior to that I had to go in and have a talk with ol' Doc Tuna about how reading your patients' goddamn charts beforehand is a good idea? Since-and I could be wrong here; after all I didn't go to medical school like he did (back in the Pleistocene) -a patient with a previously diagnosed sleeping disorder should probably NOT be given medication proven to increase the likelihood of OPERATING MACHINERY, EATING AND DRIVING IN ONES' SLEEP.
The other doctor is a youngish guy....hardcore Christian but not obnoxious about it. He operates independently of the 'treatment management' Mafia, and so I figured why not give him a chance?
The upside of this is that he's a good guy.
The downside of this is that he's a typically overworked American GP who has compounded that whole issue by having six kids AND being a member of Doctors Without Borders.
Kids are good, and I believe in this program, and I admire the guy for being part of it.
What I don't like is the fact that he has a standardized packages of speeches he delivers on any given medical issue, nearly word for word each time. The man isn't seeing individuals; he's seeing conditions.
The guy is right on the verge of burnout.
This past winter was possibly the worst winter for me, health-wise, on record. I spend more time sick than I did well, and I had a nearly constant respiratory infection going. I went through over-the-counter rescue inhalers by the metric shitload. I needed to go out and be active. It's vital that I do so, now that I have diabetes. And I wanted to get out and be active too...but every goddamn time I did the infection came back, or I caught another cold, or got bronchitis, or ran onto a fungal bloom someplace or a cat or some feathers and had a huge allergic reaction. My system was under constant, constant attack and the asthma was just RAGING.
But oh yes, I did go to see my doctor. Three times.
Each time I received the same standardized speech about 'viral infections are untreatable with antibiotics and I should wait and let it run its course and then come in only if it persists'. ('Persist' being the infinitely definable operative term here.)
Now, were I a younger person I would have bought this unquestioningly. As an older person with a medical phobia, I let myself trust that his experience would be recent and that maybe he knew something that I hadn't heard. All the while, what I should have been doing is trusting MYSELF.
I've had this shit since 1966. I KNOW the goddamn difference between a viral infection and the usual crap I get. I have allergic rhinitis, sinusitis, polyps and asthma. I know that the standard cortisone-based treatments for the asthma actually makes the other stuff worse in the long run because steroids suppress the immune system. I KNOW that the only recourse, in my case, given my etiology, is to take the goddamn antibiotics and heal up and then work like hell and get strong. Now that I'm diabetic this only goes double, since inhaled corticosteroids make diabetes WORSE.
So next week I get to go in and tell Mr. 'I Donate My Skills Worldwide for the Greater Glory of Christ' that he's full of shit.
Basically I fucked away an entire winter believing someone else and letting my fear of doctors give me an excuse to listen to the WRONG ADVICE. That's time I will never get back. I screwed the pooch bigtime and I've got nobody to blame, ultimately, but ME.
And then I get to go find a new doctor!!!
YAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
More quaint freakin' vignettes from my rural idyll, which is still charming.
VINDICATED!!!!
In the past, I have met with a certain amount of opposition when trying to explain why I express myself so colorfully...
To recap:
1. Why do you have such a dang ol potty mouth, Nations you wacky broad you?
Because I'm from Oregon. I fuckin' grew up talking like that. Can't think of a noun? 'Shit' will do nicely as a replacement! As in 'My shit is so fuckin' tired of grownup people complaining about my language."
2. Well, I grew up in Oregon and I have no idea what you're talking about. We never talked that way.
Oh please go fuck yourself. Don't try and be all 'real estate' on me, Portland, you swear like a cat and you twang like a banjo. Makes no difference where you grew up. Milwaukie? Hell yeah. Healy Heights? You too! And Heaven save us from you nasty St. Mary of the Valley private school hoochies; y'all are just VILE.
Well done!
The reason for all this celebration is that there is now DOCUMENTARY PROOF FOR ALL TIME that I'm not making excuses....and it's in the form of a Discovery Channel reality series called 'Axe Men'. It's about loggers. It's filmed up around Vernonia (oh go look it up on google/earth; I ain't your dirty map bitch) and lemme tell you, the 'motherfuckers' be flying thick up in them thar woods. Those boys are flat freestyling.
_______________________________
Remember that trip back to Oregon I just took? Yeah, you'll be hearing a lot more about it too. Anyway, once we'd crossed the state line and were in Oregon, we stopped in Clatskanie (no, now I told you I ain't your goddamn google/earth bitch! go look it up yourownself!) to top up the tank and stretch our legs. Inside the mini mart I walked past a couple of ordinary lumber-type guys, covered in sawdust, waiting in line to buy something out of the hot case.
One says' You talk to him recently?'
The other says 'I aint seen that motherfucker in months.'
And I knew I was back home.
In Washington it would have been "Have you talked to him recently?
The other would say "Iyant seen him in months."
Now I'm going to get a bunch of comments saying "Well, I live in Washington and nobody talks that way. 'Iyant'? What's 'Iyant'? No 'Iyants' here; too many doubleshot lattes have addled your speech centers, grasshopper."
To which I reply "Maaaaaaaan, fuck all y'all. AND the horse you rode in on." Because I'm right, and now I'm moving on to another subject.
____________________________________
Yesterday was my first official day out in the garden overdoing things. Yay! I got the front yard mowed and trimmed, and mowed as much of the back yard as I could without pissing off the ducks or having to don scuba gear. I got my vegetables started a whole month late, took the asparagus hay to the compost area (now nicely rotted down!!!) and eyed the shrubbery critically.
This has become something of an obsession with me now that I have a professional arborist in the family. He carries his clippers (Felco, bypass) in a leather holster for heavens sake. He can prune a tree and talk at the same time, snap snap snap, oh yes, acers have some trouble with botrytis, clip, snap, clip. It's intimidating. I guess probably moreso if you're an acer, though.
Now that I'm back home I'm looking at my poor weeping alder and cringing in shame. Sure, once it leafs out it looks fine, but geeze the awkward cuts. The red osier by the bedroom window is not exactly a triumph of the art either. Because of it's location I've had to damn near pleach it; and really keep after it so it doesn't scrape against the house and freak my shit out in the middle of the night thinking that zombies are trying to claw through the siding. Still, every time I knock it back it does something else objectionable. Just to be difficult. I know it.
Do not even look at my staghorn willow; just do NOT. It is SAD. It is CRYING.
_______________________________
My Magnolia Stellata should bloom forth TODAY. Yesterday I was looking at it while I was sweeping the sidewalk and I thought 'Oh yeah. Give it another couple of hours of sunlight and those buds will open right out." And sure enough:
...I was dead wrong. There you go.
This is such an excellent plant...it can stand up to the Northeaster, and it has a nice structure too. The blossoms are white as swans feathers! Big enough to call attention to themselves; gracefully made yet unusual. It's really obliging; you can train it to any shape you like. The blossoms last for a long time and the wind doesn't tear them off. When they do fall they turn very small and brown; they don't lie there in a big soggy heap, looking all weird like spoiled salad, like the petals of a tulip magnolia do. In the summer it shows a nice leaf and provides lots of gentle shade, and in the fall the leaves turn a magnificent hot yellow. For me this is a 4 seasons plant.
It's taking the place of what I'd originally wanted; some cornus florida (pink flowering dogwood.) Sadly, that goes tits up here as soon as the first Northeaster blows. Although it is weirdly site-specific-it will live and grow happily on the protected south side of a structure, even up in Abbostford. But one hard blast of dry cold does the whole thing in. So if you were to tear down the house or the wall thats protecting it, no matter how mature the tree is; it's days are numbered. Yes, even the hybrids. I know. It's sad.
We have a cornus kousa over the Spud. It came through the winter without even noticing. (Good thing, or I'da had to beat down some Dutch ass.) It had to be hardy; it's sited right in the path of a venturi effect; where the Northeaster comes cracking through and ramps off the corner of my house, which makes the wind gust even faster and adds some turbulence. This same nearly beat my poor armandii clematis to death, but the kousa never even lost a twig.
Come to think of it, I have a fair working knowledge of what works in a cold, windy site. Here's a map of mine:
...and that does not make me your map bitch; it just means I'm helpful. Sometimes.
In the past, I have met with a certain amount of opposition when trying to explain why I express myself so colorfully...
To recap:
1. Why do you have such a dang ol potty mouth, Nations you wacky broad you?
Because I'm from Oregon. I fuckin' grew up talking like that. Can't think of a noun? 'Shit' will do nicely as a replacement! As in 'My shit is so fuckin' tired of grownup people complaining about my language."
2. Well, I grew up in Oregon and I have no idea what you're talking about. We never talked that way.
Oh please go fuck yourself. Don't try and be all 'real estate' on me, Portland, you swear like a cat and you twang like a banjo. Makes no difference where you grew up. Milwaukie? Hell yeah. Healy Heights? You too! And Heaven save us from you nasty St. Mary of the Valley private school hoochies; y'all are just VILE.
Well done!
The reason for all this celebration is that there is now DOCUMENTARY PROOF FOR ALL TIME that I'm not making excuses....and it's in the form of a Discovery Channel reality series called 'Axe Men'. It's about loggers. It's filmed up around Vernonia (oh go look it up on google/earth; I ain't your dirty map bitch) and lemme tell you, the 'motherfuckers' be flying thick up in them thar woods. Those boys are flat freestyling.
_______________________________
Remember that trip back to Oregon I just took? Yeah, you'll be hearing a lot more about it too. Anyway, once we'd crossed the state line and were in Oregon, we stopped in Clatskanie (no, now I told you I ain't your goddamn google/earth bitch! go look it up yourownself!) to top up the tank and stretch our legs. Inside the mini mart I walked past a couple of ordinary lumber-type guys, covered in sawdust, waiting in line to buy something out of the hot case.
One says' You talk to him recently?'
The other says 'I aint seen that motherfucker in months.'
And I knew I was back home.
In Washington it would have been "Have you talked to him recently?
The other would say "Iyant seen him in months."
Now I'm going to get a bunch of comments saying "Well, I live in Washington and nobody talks that way. 'Iyant'? What's 'Iyant'? No 'Iyants' here; too many doubleshot lattes have addled your speech centers, grasshopper."
To which I reply "Maaaaaaaan, fuck all y'all. AND the horse you rode in on." Because I'm right, and now I'm moving on to another subject.
____________________________________
Yesterday was my first official day out in the garden overdoing things. Yay! I got the front yard mowed and trimmed, and mowed as much of the back yard as I could without pissing off the ducks or having to don scuba gear. I got my vegetables started a whole month late, took the asparagus hay to the compost area (now nicely rotted down!!!) and eyed the shrubbery critically.
This has become something of an obsession with me now that I have a professional arborist in the family. He carries his clippers (Felco, bypass) in a leather holster for heavens sake. He can prune a tree and talk at the same time, snap snap snap, oh yes, acers have some trouble with botrytis, clip, snap, clip. It's intimidating. I guess probably moreso if you're an acer, though.
Now that I'm back home I'm looking at my poor weeping alder and cringing in shame. Sure, once it leafs out it looks fine, but geeze the awkward cuts. The red osier by the bedroom window is not exactly a triumph of the art either. Because of it's location I've had to damn near pleach it; and really keep after it so it doesn't scrape against the house and freak my shit out in the middle of the night thinking that zombies are trying to claw through the siding. Still, every time I knock it back it does something else objectionable. Just to be difficult. I know it.
Do not even look at my staghorn willow; just do NOT. It is SAD. It is CRYING.
_______________________________
My Magnolia Stellata should bloom forth TODAY. Yesterday I was looking at it while I was sweeping the sidewalk and I thought 'Oh yeah. Give it another couple of hours of sunlight and those buds will open right out." And sure enough:
...I was dead wrong. There you go.
This is such an excellent plant...it can stand up to the Northeaster, and it has a nice structure too. The blossoms are white as swans feathers! Big enough to call attention to themselves; gracefully made yet unusual. It's really obliging; you can train it to any shape you like. The blossoms last for a long time and the wind doesn't tear them off. When they do fall they turn very small and brown; they don't lie there in a big soggy heap, looking all weird like spoiled salad, like the petals of a tulip magnolia do. In the summer it shows a nice leaf and provides lots of gentle shade, and in the fall the leaves turn a magnificent hot yellow. For me this is a 4 seasons plant.
It's taking the place of what I'd originally wanted; some cornus florida (pink flowering dogwood.) Sadly, that goes tits up here as soon as the first Northeaster blows. Although it is weirdly site-specific-it will live and grow happily on the protected south side of a structure, even up in Abbostford. But one hard blast of dry cold does the whole thing in. So if you were to tear down the house or the wall thats protecting it, no matter how mature the tree is; it's days are numbered. Yes, even the hybrids. I know. It's sad.
We have a cornus kousa over the Spud. It came through the winter without even noticing. (Good thing, or I'da had to beat down some Dutch ass.) It had to be hardy; it's sited right in the path of a venturi effect; where the Northeaster comes cracking through and ramps off the corner of my house, which makes the wind gust even faster and adds some turbulence. This same nearly beat my poor armandii clematis to death, but the kousa never even lost a twig.
Come to think of it, I have a fair working knowledge of what works in a cold, windy site. Here's a map of mine:
...and that does not make me your map bitch; it just means I'm helpful. Sometimes.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
REVEALED!!! The secret of Freemasonry is....
Masonic meatballs!
...and because I realize that not everyone is fortunate enough to live in a country that has normal measurements which make sense, here's your conversion site* down in the footie notes.
This one is worth it, kids.
meatball recipe:
1/2 cup cornstarch mixed with 1/2 cup of plain white flour for dusting, set aside in a bowl. Save what you don't use for dusting, you'll need it for the gravy!
2 lbs ground pork, 2 lbs ground beef. (beef can be extra lean; the pork will make up the fat.)
1 cup dry white bread crumbs
1 egg
1/3 to 1/2 cup mayonnaise
nutmeg 1/2 tsp
allspice 1/2 tsp
3 tbls minced shallot
1/2 cup (after cutting) fresh minced parsley
mix this together very very well, and let chill, covered, overnight in fridge.
The next day, form into ping pong-sized balls.
dust with flour, roll between hands while shaking off excess
and then bake on a lightly oiled sheet pan for 20 minutes at 400f.
Once they come out of the oven, let them sit for 20 minutes or so, then dump them into a baking dish large enough to hold them 1 layer deep. You can use two dishes if you have to; it doesn't matter.
Gravy recipe:
4 cups beef stock
1/2 cup lager beer
1 cup milk +the mixture you used to dust the meatballs, whatever there is left of it, to make a slurry with the milk.
1/3 cup plain yogurt
1/2 cup white breadcrumbs, toasted brown VERY IMPORTANT
1/4 cup minced shallot
1/2 cup fresh minced parsley
(optional-a few shakes of ranch dressing sprinkles)
(optional-salt up using powdered chicken bouillon instead of plain salt)
1/3 tsp. white pepper
1/3 tsp. nutmeg
dill spice-be careful
Dump it all in a pot on the cold stovetop and bring it up to 'high' while you stir. Not like a windmill in a high gale, just enough to keep it mixed and off the bottom of the pot.
A word of caution: when you first mix this sauce up it will have a really strange, sourish backbite to it, and you'll think 'Nations, you're nuts.' I am, but not when it comes to this sauce. It tones way down and finishes by being let to cook in for a long time in the oven with the meatballs.
When the sauce kicks, take off the fire and dump it over the meatballs, and make sure you coat each one. (If it seems like its on the watery side, stir in another half-cup of breadcrumbs before you dump it over the meatballs. Better to err on the side of too thick now; you can thin it down with milk or bouillion later before you serve it.)
DO NOT COVER.
Replace the meatballs with the gravy in the oven, and turn the heat down to 275. Yes, 275f.
Hold it there for at least 3 hours.
Yes, really.
If you were to bake this like a standard casserole (at 375 or 400 for 30 minutes) it would turn out tasting completely weird. And don't even think about trying it in a crockpot. No, baking it long and low like this makes everything kind of get all brown and cooked in and good. It's absolutely necessary to developing the flavor. I don't know why this works but it does.
As it bakes it will get cracked and brown on top and look kind of ugly. Check it a couple times to see that it doesn't get too dried out, though; float a little milk on top if it looks like its getting too shallow. I had to about 45 minutes before I took it out.
Before you serve it, mix it all around gently. It will then turn a nice yellowy-gold color.
Now serve it with riced potatoes. Noodles would be great too!
to recap:
mix up meatballs, chill overnight
make meatballs
bake meatballs
make sauce
dump over meatballs
put in slow oven
catch a Mythbusters marathon, crack a few beers, nap
stir
eat
______________________________
*
http://www.wwrecipes.com/convert.htm
...and because I realize that not everyone is fortunate enough to live in a country that has normal measurements which make sense, here's your conversion site* down in the footie notes.
This one is worth it, kids.
meatball recipe:
1/2 cup cornstarch mixed with 1/2 cup of plain white flour for dusting, set aside in a bowl. Save what you don't use for dusting, you'll need it for the gravy!
2 lbs ground pork, 2 lbs ground beef. (beef can be extra lean; the pork will make up the fat.)
1 cup dry white bread crumbs
1 egg
1/3 to 1/2 cup mayonnaise
nutmeg 1/2 tsp
allspice 1/2 tsp
3 tbls minced shallot
1/2 cup (after cutting) fresh minced parsley
mix this together very very well, and let chill, covered, overnight in fridge.
The next day, form into ping pong-sized balls.
dust with flour, roll between hands while shaking off excess
and then bake on a lightly oiled sheet pan for 20 minutes at 400f.
Once they come out of the oven, let them sit for 20 minutes or so, then dump them into a baking dish large enough to hold them 1 layer deep. You can use two dishes if you have to; it doesn't matter.
Gravy recipe:
4 cups beef stock
1/2 cup lager beer
1 cup milk +the mixture you used to dust the meatballs, whatever there is left of it, to make a slurry with the milk.
1/3 cup plain yogurt
1/2 cup white breadcrumbs, toasted brown VERY IMPORTANT
1/4 cup minced shallot
1/2 cup fresh minced parsley
(optional-a few shakes of ranch dressing sprinkles)
(optional-salt up using powdered chicken bouillon instead of plain salt)
1/3 tsp. white pepper
1/3 tsp. nutmeg
dill spice-be careful
Dump it all in a pot on the cold stovetop and bring it up to 'high' while you stir. Not like a windmill in a high gale, just enough to keep it mixed and off the bottom of the pot.
A word of caution: when you first mix this sauce up it will have a really strange, sourish backbite to it, and you'll think 'Nations, you're nuts.' I am, but not when it comes to this sauce. It tones way down and finishes by being let to cook in for a long time in the oven with the meatballs.
When the sauce kicks, take off the fire and dump it over the meatballs, and make sure you coat each one. (If it seems like its on the watery side, stir in another half-cup of breadcrumbs before you dump it over the meatballs. Better to err on the side of too thick now; you can thin it down with milk or bouillion later before you serve it.)
DO NOT COVER.
Replace the meatballs with the gravy in the oven, and turn the heat down to 275. Yes, 275f.
Hold it there for at least 3 hours.
Yes, really.
If you were to bake this like a standard casserole (at 375 or 400 for 30 minutes) it would turn out tasting completely weird. And don't even think about trying it in a crockpot. No, baking it long and low like this makes everything kind of get all brown and cooked in and good. It's absolutely necessary to developing the flavor. I don't know why this works but it does.
As it bakes it will get cracked and brown on top and look kind of ugly. Check it a couple times to see that it doesn't get too dried out, though; float a little milk on top if it looks like its getting too shallow. I had to about 45 minutes before I took it out.
Before you serve it, mix it all around gently. It will then turn a nice yellowy-gold color.
Now serve it with riced potatoes. Noodles would be great too!
to recap:
mix up meatballs, chill overnight
make meatballs
bake meatballs
make sauce
dump over meatballs
put in slow oven
catch a Mythbusters marathon, crack a few beers, nap
stir
eat
______________________________
*
http://www.wwrecipes.com/convert.htm
Saturday, March 29, 2008
quaint vignettes from my charming rural idyll
I have just been informed by my daughter, the Stainless Steel Amazon, that I am too old to both flip people off and climb fences. This rather took me aback. Things like 'age' and 'propriety' don't apply to me; I am the magic exception to the rule. I mean, come on; I'll probably flip off the coroner when he starts the 'Y' incision. That's ingrained behavior for heavens' sake.
I promise, though, that if I break a hip, THEN I'll stop climbing fences. That's the best I can do.
_____________________
This whole subject of getting old was brought painfully home during my visit to Oregon. As I sat and looked at all these glorious young people and listened to the things they were talking about, I suddenly realized that my shit is undeniably middle aged. I went to the bathroom, closed the door, turned on all the lights and took a close look at myself in the mirror.
Yup.
Whats more, I saw myself automatically doing that 'catching yourself ' thing? Where you raise the chin slightly and lift the eyebrows? The ol' 'instant face lift' move you used to bust your mom doing whenever she passed a store window? That one.
Simply excellent. I am now officially someone my age. No matter what I do or how I look, I will forever after always be "__________" (fill in the blank: weird, OK, kinda pretty, etc.) FOR SOMEONE MY AGE.
This is me in my Jimi Hendrix t-shirt sitting on top of a fence flipping y'all off.
__________________
I was making some 'Swedish' meatballs (I totally doubt that the Swedes invented this. It was probably the Freemasons) and the recipe called for 'dill'. Fine; I hucked in some dill, the amount called for.
Holy hot damn did that stuff BLOOM. The whole sauce is like Planet Dill. I can still taste it an hour later, and that's just after taking a tiny nibble off the end of the spoon! I was not aware that dill would attack a person like this. Does it get stronger as it ages or something? Or am I just sensitive to the flavor?
________________________
Yesterday we had 2 inches of snow. Then we had rain. This morning we had frost, ice fog, and now the sun is shining. Everyone is saying 'AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA GLOBAL WARMING WE'RE ALL GONNA DIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE'
...meanwhile, this is pretty much what I remember happening every spring and ever fall in this part of the world for the past 47 years. Am I the only person who remembers the weather from one year to the next? My grandmother even did this and heaven knows she saw her share of climate phenomena in 89 years-still, every time it did something unexpected outside, something unnatural was to blame.
Her generation blamed 'Russian weather satellites.' Oh yes. Sputnik. You bet. It flew around the earth taking spy pictures, but when it got over the United States the Russians could make it shoot out a ray that messed up the weather. She absolutely believed this; in fact, a lot of people her age did, although I have no idea where they got the notion.
We would stand outside and watch the satellites going overhead (They'd announce it on the news; 'At 7pm this evening look north and you will see Telstar pass over!') She'd tell us kids 'Wave to Russia! Kruschev's taking your picture!"
_________________________
Grandma also had some strange notions regarding the end of the world. She knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she would live to see Jesus come again in glory. She would slip this into casual conversation; it wasn't an expression, it was a part of her long-range planning. "I don't know why I bother canning anymore," she'd say, wiping her forehead with her apron ,"Jesus will be here before we even start on these peaches from last year. We need to hurry and eat them before they go to waste. You wont need to eat anything after, you know."
Every time they'd burn off the rye fields the smoke in the atmosphere would cross the moonlight, turning it an eerie purpley-red color. Every year, my grandmother would start telling everyone to get right because this was the beginning of the end. Why? Because the Bible says in Revelations that the moon will turn red right before the end of the world.
The Bible also said that "he will arrive like a thief in the night", which she was certain meant that the end would come at night. Well, makes sense, right? Red moon? The moon comes up at night? And that was that as far as she was concerned.
As far as I was concerned my shit was absolutely freaked out by this whole red moon situation, every year. It scared me to think that some night I'd go to sleep and wake up dead someplace in my pyjamas (probably someplace hot, according to the nuns who taught me that humanity sucks and is uniformly unworthy of salvation and each one of us little six-year-olds were responsible for hammering the nails into Jesus' poor feet etc etc.)
My grandmother knew nothing whatsoever about that crap, though; she was Seventh Day. Her motivation was not to scare anyone; she was simply doing her neighbors a favor, like letting people know that there was supposed to be a big windstorm on its way so put the car in the garage.
For a couple of nights she'd stay up long into the dark, to peek up at the moon as it travelled across the sky, sitting in her rocker by the screen door, reading her bible with a magnifying glass in the lamplight. Every now and then she'd shake some salt onto the screen and knock down the nosy slugs that would climb up and peek in at her. In the middle of the night I could look out the bathroom window and I could see her sitting there, just her and the salty gastropods, waiting calmly for Jesus to stop by, keeping a light on so he wouldn't trip on the steps.
I promise, though, that if I break a hip, THEN I'll stop climbing fences. That's the best I can do.
_____________________
This whole subject of getting old was brought painfully home during my visit to Oregon. As I sat and looked at all these glorious young people and listened to the things they were talking about, I suddenly realized that my shit is undeniably middle aged. I went to the bathroom, closed the door, turned on all the lights and took a close look at myself in the mirror.
Yup.
Whats more, I saw myself automatically doing that 'catching yourself ' thing? Where you raise the chin slightly and lift the eyebrows? The ol' 'instant face lift' move you used to bust your mom doing whenever she passed a store window? That one.
Simply excellent. I am now officially someone my age. No matter what I do or how I look, I will forever after always be "__________" (fill in the blank: weird, OK, kinda pretty, etc.) FOR SOMEONE MY AGE.
This is me in my Jimi Hendrix t-shirt sitting on top of a fence flipping y'all off.
__________________
I was making some 'Swedish' meatballs (I totally doubt that the Swedes invented this. It was probably the Freemasons) and the recipe called for 'dill'. Fine; I hucked in some dill, the amount called for.
Holy hot damn did that stuff BLOOM. The whole sauce is like Planet Dill. I can still taste it an hour later, and that's just after taking a tiny nibble off the end of the spoon! I was not aware that dill would attack a person like this. Does it get stronger as it ages or something? Or am I just sensitive to the flavor?
________________________
Yesterday we had 2 inches of snow. Then we had rain. This morning we had frost, ice fog, and now the sun is shining. Everyone is saying 'AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA GLOBAL WARMING WE'RE ALL GONNA DIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE'
...meanwhile, this is pretty much what I remember happening every spring and ever fall in this part of the world for the past 47 years. Am I the only person who remembers the weather from one year to the next? My grandmother even did this and heaven knows she saw her share of climate phenomena in 89 years-still, every time it did something unexpected outside, something unnatural was to blame.
Her generation blamed 'Russian weather satellites.' Oh yes. Sputnik. You bet. It flew around the earth taking spy pictures, but when it got over the United States the Russians could make it shoot out a ray that messed up the weather. She absolutely believed this; in fact, a lot of people her age did, although I have no idea where they got the notion.
We would stand outside and watch the satellites going overhead (They'd announce it on the news; 'At 7pm this evening look north and you will see Telstar pass over!') She'd tell us kids 'Wave to Russia! Kruschev's taking your picture!"
_________________________
Grandma also had some strange notions regarding the end of the world. She knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she would live to see Jesus come again in glory. She would slip this into casual conversation; it wasn't an expression, it was a part of her long-range planning. "I don't know why I bother canning anymore," she'd say, wiping her forehead with her apron ,"Jesus will be here before we even start on these peaches from last year. We need to hurry and eat them before they go to waste. You wont need to eat anything after, you know."
Every time they'd burn off the rye fields the smoke in the atmosphere would cross the moonlight, turning it an eerie purpley-red color. Every year, my grandmother would start telling everyone to get right because this was the beginning of the end. Why? Because the Bible says in Revelations that the moon will turn red right before the end of the world.
The Bible also said that "he will arrive like a thief in the night", which she was certain meant that the end would come at night. Well, makes sense, right? Red moon? The moon comes up at night? And that was that as far as she was concerned.
As far as I was concerned my shit was absolutely freaked out by this whole red moon situation, every year. It scared me to think that some night I'd go to sleep and wake up dead someplace in my pyjamas (probably someplace hot, according to the nuns who taught me that humanity sucks and is uniformly unworthy of salvation and each one of us little six-year-olds were responsible for hammering the nails into Jesus' poor feet etc etc.)
My grandmother knew nothing whatsoever about that crap, though; she was Seventh Day. Her motivation was not to scare anyone; she was simply doing her neighbors a favor, like letting people know that there was supposed to be a big windstorm on its way so put the car in the garage.
For a couple of nights she'd stay up long into the dark, to peek up at the moon as it travelled across the sky, sitting in her rocker by the screen door, reading her bible with a magnifying glass in the lamplight. Every now and then she'd shake some salt onto the screen and knock down the nosy slugs that would climb up and peek in at her. In the middle of the night I could look out the bathroom window and I could see her sitting there, just her and the salty gastropods, waiting calmly for Jesus to stop by, keeping a light on so he wouldn't trip on the steps.
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