Cerulean Vole: Flying Kill Terror of Bang!

This is not me. It is a cute lil' fat Indian, which kind of describes me, but it is not me. Sorry.

Someone bought this in Seaside, Oregon back in the 1920's. I'm not making the connection between a coastal town in Oregon and the Cherokee, or why anyone would have bought a souvenir of what at that time was a bunch of scroungy loggers and some fishing boats sinking into the mud; but onward...








Remember when the Health Department lady would come visit your class in grade school with a great big huge toothbrush and set of these choppers and proceed to demonstrate The Correct Way to Brush? I was busy thinking " Oh damn, I must own those!"
I do now.




What the-? Hey, leave shit alone.
No it's not valium.
Really.
Listen, it's not valium.

Ok fine, it is valium.






Are you hungry?
Oh, sure you are. It's no trouble, really.
Honestly. I'll make a sandwich.
No, it's no trouble at all, I mean it.

HAVE A FUCKING SANDWICH.





I found Rinty here at a storage unit sale. This was a tv lamp..it had lost its cord, though, and the moon-shaped piece of glass behind the dorg. But at one time, screw in a lighbulb, and voila! The ghost of Scooby Doo.
I remember people actually believing in these and using them.
I am REALLY OLD.






I can't cook a really great meal without the supervision of my buddy the Magnetic Dashboard Shriner. When he got lonely, I gave him a Plastic Dugong to keep him company. He used to have a girlfriend, the Cheap Red Magnetic Porcelain Naughty Naked Lady, but she keeps diving off behind the stove.





LOOK INTO MY EEEEEEEEEEEYES.
You cannot defyyyyyy my wiiiiill.
You must obeeeeeeeeey.
Regis Phiiiiiiiilbin must father your chiiiiiiiildren.







Sorry, were you thirsty?
We only have a little pop.

OH HA! IS SO MY LAUGHING HUMOR!
GET IT? A LITTLE POP!
IS LAUGHING MY FACE!

ahem.




This is all that remains of a collection I used to have of antique kitchenware. I had hundreds of items at one time. One day I looked around and thought to myself 'why am I nuts?' so I sold it.


















Well ok fine, this is left too.
But it works!
And theres a tomato on it.
Tomatoes rule.








Fine, yes, this too.

Would you like another sandwich?
Too bad.










Vital message space does not go to waste here at rancho FirstNations, as you can see.

"Eggs! Eggs! I love eggs! Oh hurry, hurry Mr. Egg Man, give me my eggs! I'm hongry!"






When the guy would come to refill the cigarette machines, back in the day, sometimes he'd drop off a premium. Here's one from a gas station.

I don't think they would let a real smoking dog hang around a gas station, do you?
That would be stupid.



Here are two more smokin' dogs.
This one is my girlie woof, Jett.
She is a GOOD GIRL. Yes, she IS.
GOOD GIRL JETT.
Without her we would be COMPLETELY AT THE MERCY of women pushing strollers and guatamalans playing soccer.
WHEW. We are SAFE.



This is my boy dog, Opie.
He is my TATER PIGGIE. He is also totally shocked that I took his picture.
He has just come in from tatoing around in the yard.
If the yard is not periodically tatoed in, it gets untatoey, and he has to go out and tato it up again.
Yeah, I'm a retard.


You know who else is retarded?
The person who thought it would be a really good idea to carpet a damn kitchen.



That was just some of the incredibly marvellous and fabulously valuable collectables from my kitchen.
Wow. It was exciting, wasn't it?
I know my little heart is going pitty pat.
Next time we will tour the outbuildings.
Or maybe the grocery store.
Now go away.

inbred

This is my first 100% BLOGGING INTERNET POST FOR BLOGGERS WHO BLOG ON THE INTERNET.
Being my Random and Poorly Connected observations on new media, because if all the other kids jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge I SO would too.

Ms. Betty's Utility Room made a comment about oldschool diary type blogging and the concept -and the phrase- ran 'round my darlings faster than pasta d'oglio through a colostomy patient. "Hm," is what I thought. This is what I did: I took a gallop 'round the WWW to re-introduce myself to the tenor of the virtual times. Lo and behold, I discovered that NOW is so bloody immanent, among the technosceti, that it's 'then' before the author hits 'post'.

I HEREBY DECLARE 'OLD FASHIONED DIARY BLOGGING' TO BE THE NEW BLACK.

As soon as I hit 'post', it'll be so last week.

What will this mean to you and me?
Absolutely nothing.

The impact of new media on people socially, from what I've seen, is not very evident here in rural Whatcom County. It is primarily a leisure entertainment medium for folks here anyway. People may be more cognizant of things like yiffing and whatnot but they certainly don't discuss it over coffee at Dutch Mothers. They take it as seriously as they take anything else they encounter in media, which is 'not very'. Like the Jerry Springer show. It isn't very nice.

It's impact on business is real, though. Around here it's common to see grungy old farmers driving their tractors while yakking away into a cell phone, and those same sitting in the Dutch Treat cafe, eating their appel pannekoekken, wearing wooden damn shoes and tapping at their wireless laptops as they monitor their investments. Honest to God, I shit thee not. The internet means speed and speed is money in the agriculture business. One thing a dutch farmer is not is stupid. Thats why we still have so many successful family farms here as opposed to the rest of the United States. Ain't that a trip?

Speaking generally, where there is meat community involvement, there is less interaction with any type of media. Outsiders around here resort to the net (IF they have access; some idealist groups forbid it) for a sense of community unconstrained by personal history. Online you get to be a new you, but none of your status, accomplishments or creations follow you offline. Offline you still have zits and smell and everyone still remembers when you peed yourself in first grade. All you have is a very detailed fantasy life with a killer 'random' option. What can you do when the electricity is OFF is still a very real measure of success here. How many saleable game objects you have doesn't mean jack shit while you're watching the doors and windows freeze over and trying to keep the fireplace going...or keep your log truck on the road, or keep the cows milked when it's 20f.

It certainly brings the migrant kids and the poor kids into the library, though, and thats always good. The library is free. During the day you cannot get online. Each terminal has a bunch of kids huddled around it playing games or doing homeschool work. And the ones who have to wait their turn? Read. All these kids are red hot, self-taught technogeeks who are (and I'll make a leap and say they're growing up pre-radicalized by) coming along on the margins of society. They are going to be the ones running things in ten years. Fuck YEAH.

The internet was supposed to create a new human.
Yes, well. It was supposed to create a paperless society by the year 2001, too. I don't see any new humans (although I might not know one if I saw one. If you are a new human, do the 'comments' thing and let me know will you. We'll chat.)
Now posthuman? I really like the idea of 'posthuman', even though it sounds kind of...prosthetic. I know one person who claims to be posthuman. But no new humans yet. Meat constants continue to define the paradigm.

Crap; I used the word 'paradigm'. Someone stop me NOW.

and again UPDATED: Emerald Green Mammoth Global Freezing Plan

Question time!

Without the small handfull of pills I take every day, I would be dead in 2 months, on the outside. Dead as a brick. Gone.

Of course, that ain't gonna happen. Come Armageddon, when the Canadians start pouring across the border brandishing their gouda, you better believe I'll have already taken up my rifle and loaded my truck up down at the local pharmacy. (Oh for heavens' sake, yes, I'm premenstrual.)

Then I got thinking about what I'd do come the revolution. Seems like you'd want to stockpile gasoline, guns, ammunition and any and all kinds of drugs you could get your hands on, right? That's what the 'new money' would be. I might be thinking in 1970's terms, of course, which is the last time I in indulged in this kind of speculation (one of those real 'deep' stoner conversations, you know.) Maybe these days the list has changed.

Has it?

oo, i just thought of one....yeast.

to make booze with.

what, me farm? *snerk* yeah.

one of the three things which nice people never discuss in company

All this happened 27 years ago this month.

Ok. So it's 1977 and it's August. Elvis the king, resting on his throne, is wondering why he's so tired and out of breath all the time. Me, I am 17 years old and the only unmarried non-virgin in a five mile radius.

I am at a religious family retreat that my mother has quite matter-of-factly blackmailed me into attending ( which circumstances are worth several cringe-inducing posts in theyownselves. ) Nice place, lots of trees, and not jack shit to do.

I hit the bookcase in the main lodge and started ripping through the collection. I'll read anything. They had a lot of anything.
'Hansi, the Girl Who Loved the Swastika'...I think you were required to own an edition of that if you were Born Again in the 70's...'Crossroads Collected Stories of Inspiration'...'The Billy Graham Story'...'Christy'-hoo, that was a ball of fire...'Intra Muros', a strange, self-published little book about a womans' visit to heaven that was also making the rounds at the time...and one slender volume on medieval art.

'A Meditation on Grunewalds' Crucifixion' is my best memory of the title. I'm almost certain the author was a Jesuit scholar. What this book was doing in amongst the lightweight 'Charismatic Catholic' selections I have no idea. I mean, this thing had footnotes. And despite it's somewhat lugubrious tone it made me very happy.

The type of religion being peddled on our social level was a religion of fluffy, happy niceness, where nice happy people had clean, nice houses and worshipped the Lord with upraised hands, a religion that sincerely believed that 'God never gives you any burden which you are incapable of carrying.' A religion so useless that when it happened that someone was handed a burden they couldn't seem to lift it simply went unacknowledged.

Now remember, these were Born-Again Catholics. So add to that the good ol' Catholic 'if you're not miserable you're sinning' mindset.

And yet none of it explaining how, say, infants born inside-out, for example, could have been expected by God to bear that kind of condition, or could have been 'not right with the Lord', but I digress.

I found more to admire in that book that in anything I had learned in catechism up to that point in my life.

I honestly think that Grunewald was inspired, offering up that view of the Passion . He had painted it to be used as part of an altarpiece*, for a monastery devoted to caring for people dying of ergotism, of plague, of cancer, of infection. He showed them a Christ that had suffered exactly what they had suffered, in all its appalling detail. A human Christ consumed with pain and dying, not already passed into nothing more than an anatomy study. Most importantly, in those pre-Vatican II days, the priest who served the mass had to look that Christ in the eye every every time he went to open the altarpiece. The same priest who later went in and ministered to people suffering identically, who looked similar.

So Christians did see torment. They did acknowlege the insupportable. They did think. At least
two of them had; and I had the proof in my hands.

Until that point my only comfort, or my only 'faith in faith' if you will, had been found in writings by Jews who had survived the Holocaust. Catholics romaticize suffering because life is supposed to suck at best so you work with what you get. Charismatics in practice completely denied it because life was supposed to be perfect 100% of the time and anything else meant you were on the Cannonball Express to Hell. The Jews said, 'This happened. It sucked. God was with me then and is with me now and I struggle to understand. "

It impressed me on a secular level as well. I would have never read it had I not been so utterly starved for intellectual stimulation at the time. I had never read an advanced work of nonfiction. I struggled to understand and I wished I had a dictionary, and I wanted MORE IMMEDIATELY.

In the meantime I was trapped on a ten acre tract in the middle of the mountains with a bunch of people convinced that God wanted them to go out in the woods for two weeks and act like retards. No chance of getting laid, I quickly found out.

No 17 year old wants to be anywhere with a parent anyway; it's excruciating. Now add the sheer embarrassment of watching a bunch of Catholics trying to 1. enjoy themselves, and 2. experience 'ecstatic' religiousity with no cultural referents. If I'd heard the phrase 'you shouldn't be so NEGATIVE' one more time I was going to ram a goddamn owl up someone's ass. So I dummied up and watched these (goofy fucking white people) secretaries and Taco Bell managers raise their hands and praise the Lord, throw away their medications and cast out demons and speak in tongues and perform healings and interpret prophecy and read from the 'Living Bible' and fall on the floor and knock over chairs 'fainting in the Spirit' and have to get stitches. Yes, really.
The Charismatic Movement was not pretty.

I was told that the reason for my dissatisfaction lay in being too worldly. I listened to rock and roll (that old devil!) and read too many secular books and, it was hinted, probably was not as smart as I thought I was, so maybe I'd be better off if I just stopped pretending to be better than everyone else and start joining in.

And you know, I tried. It was not in me. I hated myself, and I mentally apologised to God every inch of the way.

So in a very sideways and backwards kind of manner, I actually did increase my understanding of religion during the course of that retreat. I came out of there understanding that religion was ridiculous. I came out of there having seen what belief could be, what it could encompass, and I left knowing there was nothing worth having from these grinning dipshits singing "I've got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart"

And yes, I gotta say, I owe it all to Jesus. That's why I think about converting to Judaism...something which, were it not for the fact that I am bone agnostic, I would do tomorrow.
That makes sense if you're me.



with thanks to Minka and DaNator for the hotmail how-to.

*should I explain this? here goes: think of one of those old-fashioned dressers with a folding mirror attached
to the top. Replace the folding mirror with the 'altarpiece', a painting on a decoratively cut piece of wood that usually had folding doors attached on each side, and every surface decorated. Replace the dresser with a sort of lectern or small console table to be used as the altar proper. The whole thing was meant to be used for serving Mass in a chapel or a small space. The painting part was removeable so you could carry it from place to place and make an instant 'church' . The table half could then be used for something else, which is why most of them got lost over time and only the altarpieces remain.
That said, some altarpieces were huge things, made for permanent installation in a church. Some were only one panel . Some were very complicated and had many folding panels with detachable angels and statues and things to decorate it. Some were tiny and meant to be carried in a pocket, and those are called 'devotionals' . Bear this in mind the next time you go shopping for medieval art.

the 'IT' girl

I got tagged! Ms. DaNator nailed me with this one. Find her rockin', bitty-friendly bestiary here at
http://danator.blogspot.com/

Would SOMEONE please tell me how to do links so they come up as a blue word underlined?



1. One book you have read more than once:

One? Oh Christ. Just re-read 'Watership Down'. Better than ever.

2. One book you would want on a desert island:

'The Big Waterproof Self-Propelled Book of Fold Your Own Oceangoing Watercraft'

3. One book that made you laugh:

'Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady' made me laugh until I started burping. Florence King's best.

4. One book that made you cry:

'The Dog Who Wouldn't Be', Farley Mowat. Anything where the dog dies, forget it. I'm done for. I haven't read the last chapter of that book in years, not since the first time.

5. One book you wish you had written:

The thought has never occurred to me. How about 'one author you wish you could write like'? That I can do. Ursula K. LeGuin. That woman has it all: brevity and talent, imagination, style, and content.

6. One book you wish had never been written:

'Malleus Maleficarum'. One of the most evil things ever written. I felt like I had to wash my hands after the first chapter.

7. One book you are currently reading:

'Thirteen and a Day'. It's a cultural study of American-style Bar and Bat Mitzvuot. On the one hand, the author's biases are firmly in place and nothing's gonna change them, dammit. On the other, it's quite an interesting tour of different varieties of modern Judaism.

8. One book you have been meaning to read:

Everything my bloggy buddies have mentioned. I need to cull over my comments for book suggestions and then hit the library with the list.

9. One Book That Changed Your Life:

'A Meditation on Gruenwalds' Crucifixion'. A straight up Catholic meditation by a scholar of medieval art . It explores, nearly inch by inch, a very unusual, deeply disturbing painting of the Crucifixion, and does so within the context of Medieval Catholicism. An amazing, enthralling, emotional insight. This book was partially responsible for fanning my interest in art history. I was impressed at the time that the author would have taken such a bizarre (to modern eyes) and gruesome painting as his subject. Not your usual sanitized Christianity. And at the time, I was so very grateful for that as well. Actually, I'm going to do a post about that, so thank you, Ms. DaNator!


10. Now Tag 5 bloggers:
I don't tag. I throw my memey breadcrumbs out on the pond and then wait for the bloggy ducks to gather. Then bomb them with pine cones.

quaint vignettes from my charming rural idyll

Well, I hate having diabetes.
On the other hand, I get a kick out of the blood pokey dealies and the little monitor and keeping a record. If clinical depression and asthma had been this structured I would have been MUCH better at them. As it is, I only had to return to the eating habits of my hippiehood and voila! Normal-nay, fucking excellent numbers! Lost weight-5 lbs is weight-and I feel better.
Of course, eating like this will do very little to reduce the virtual Matterhorn of Red Meat in my freezer. See, and here I thought I was being all frugal and shit stocking up when I hit the sales, when what I was actually doing was accreting a BEEFY DEATHBERG.

Animals are stupid 1.
Driving down the road two nights ago. It's dark, you know, it's rural, I'm following the base of the foothills, so there's forest....and up ahead in the distance my headlights catch the twin eye-reflections of an animal in the center of the road. I slow down. I am smart like that. Hitting shit can just fuck with your whole day; especially given that out here there is the very real possibility that the animal in question could be REALLY BIG. Like a big stoner, or a cow, or a black bear, or a bull elk BIG.
It turns out to be a skunk. Medium sized, about as big as a housecat. And this skunk is right on the center line of the road, too. Playing with something with it's front paws. Just like a cat will play with a bug.
Yes. There is a wild animal, a wily wild beast of the woods, which is supposed to be all cunning and crafty and sly? Dicking with a bug in the middle of the road, in the middle of the night, IN THE HEADLIGHTS OF AN ONCOMING CAR.
I slowed down and went waaaaaaay around it. It ignored me.
Having anal glands filled with the animal equivalent of napalm saved his cocky little ass this time, that and the fact that I drive a compact car. Little bastard is going to try that with a gravel truck one night and leave nothing but a grease spot on the road.

Animals are stupid 2.
My girl dog, Jett, desperately hates bees. Any kind of bee. Flies, she can snatch out of midair like a sniper. Bees she will chase and bark at and attempt to bite, or crush under her paws. Not a good plan as, being a dog, she spends most of her time barefoot. She will stand in the middle of the rug looking frantic with one paw buzzing and I will have to get a piece of tissue and dig a hornet out from between her toes, again, where it has been stinging and buzzing frantically.
Bumblebees she hates the worst. To her a bumblebee is a big, flying mouse and all mice and mouselike balls of furry evil must die, die die. She will close her jaws on a bumblebee, and the bumble will sting her, of course. Opens her mouth in shock, bee flies away, lands on a clover, and the dumbass BITES IT AGAIN. The first time I realized this was happening the poor thing came trotting up to me with her skinny little Lab-type face swollen up like a chow dog. When I opened her mouth to find out what the odd noise was, two huge bumblebees flew away. And I had to grab her collar to keep her from chasing them. The goofturd must have been stung in the face more than 50 times or more in her life. Hasn't learned a thing.

The Yellow Jaguar's Evil Hand Closes In

Note: special last minute amendment.

Suggested by another Brit.

My administration seems to be turning into a puppet regime even before I assume the post.

Per Arabellas and Rockmothers' request I have decided to throw my hat in the ring for consideration as the City of Sumas' new Mayor. My campaign motto is:

I have no idea what I'm doing
But hell, you're used to that.

My platform has three planks (they used to make us say shit like that in debate.)

Plank 1- is to be located near the city compost heap. It is made of white pine. It is 6 ft. long. Be careful when playing on or around the plank. The plank is splintery. Do not play with plank after having consumed alcoholic beverages. Always wear appropriate safety gear when playing on or near the plank. Do not tease or molest the plank. Do not use if allergic to peanuts.

Plank 2-More nudity.

Plank 3- What ever I make up.

Proposed amendments to the city charter:
-More nudity.
-The official Deity of Sumas will be John Cleese. Churches not accepting the Cleesian Liturgy will be taunted a second time.
-Children out after dark bouncing basket balls on my sidewalk will be set adrift on an ice floe.
-As will Junkies out talking loudly and/or acting like dipshits on my sidewalk after dark
-As will drunk people out in the field behind my home having loud, stupid arguements after dark. Unless they speak clearly and at least one of them is hooting and crying, when it then becomes free late night comedy entertainment and gives me a an excuse to blast people with the hose, which is something I live for.
-The Wicked Witch of the West hat will be the Official Hat of Sumas.
-All the stupid ugly grafted cherry trees planted along Cherry street will be cut down and replaced with Pin Oaks. The street will be renamed 'Big, Uncircumcised Boulevard'.
-No,ha ha! Is my joking! No, the street will be renamed 'Sumas Avenue' and the street that's now named 'Sumas Avenue' will be renamed 'Michael'.
- El Nopal will be moved into the abandoned titty bar and the owner will thereafter will pay no rent and no taxes FOR LIFE. The former two mayors will be installed as his pretty potty pals and will wipe his ass and give it a little kiss on each cheek every time he 'votes Republican'.
-The Offical Pretty Potty Pal uniform will consist of a pair of 'Hello Kitty' underpanties worn on the outside of the slacks.
-My dog Opie will be Generalisimo City Development Coordinator for Life. God knows he'll turn in just as stellar a performance as the dumbass in there now. He will be in charge of the Sacred Bonking Rock of Justice and wear one of those little leather aviator dog hats, the ones with the little goggles, so he looks like a WWII pilot which would be so cute.
-The sites of formerNSA spy poles will be surrendered to the Current Administration and the land used for roadside shrines to Venus Williams' Sweet Thick Ass.

-All city council meetings will hereafter be run according to the ritual proceedure of the IOOF because it is fancy and there is marching. Aand everyone gets to wear medals and Napoleon hats. And there is a secret handshake too. But only I get to carry a sword.

-All Border Patrol facilities within the boundaries of Sumas will be surrendered to the Current Administration and turned into Happy Havens for Homeless Marijuana and Naked Men (Cute Ones with Nice Asses.)

SPECIAL LAST-MINUTE AMENDMENT...The municipal rodeo showgrounds will be re-purposed as the site of the annual International 'Beast 500' Nekkid Hoovering Races. Only I will call it 'Vaccuuming Races' because this IS America for cripes' sakes and nobody will know what I'm talking about if i say 'Hoovering'. Except maybe some people will think I am talking about J. Edgar Hoover and come expecting to see a bunch of balding paunchy men dressed in tutu's running a relay, which would be kind of cool, I guess.

fortunate son

Fortunate Son, Walter Mosely.
I've read other things by Mr. Mosely. His most popular titles reside on the mystery shelf and concern one E.Z. Rawlins, a school janitor who does a little freelance private eye work, set in the South of the 1940's. The shade of Zora Neal Huston haunts them. They're good books, damned good, but this one is amazing.

Now I'm having problems trying to describe this book. I will admit right up front that I'm biting off way more than I can chew. The best I can do for you here is to describe my experience of reading it. I'm afraid that doesn't make for much of a book review. It does mean that Mosely is a better writer than I have the ability to quantify.
This is a miraculous piece of writing.


First of all, I cannot tell you with complete assurance who the central characters are. Could be three of them. There are probably two; there might be only one. That one could very possibly be the author, and by that I mean the unseen writer, not Walter Mosely the personality. It's very like Indonesian shadow puppets in this way: we are not on the side where the shadows act out the story, but the other side, the one which frankly admits the presence of the puppeteers without even the apology of dark clothing.

On the surface this is a story of brothers parted and reunited and the lives they lived in the interim. Life is not terribly kind to these two men. We aren't spared anything. And if that was the only level upon which the story existed it would be enough. The recounting holds you hostage. Touch it and it rings; it sounds that true. And that holds true for every man and woman who walks across the stage as well.

Mosely draws his charactors without visible effort. Each person stands out exactly like the subjects of a Diane Arbus photograph do: very stark, very detailed, more real in black and white than color could make them, but at that same distance from us as well. Mosely makes no appeals on behalf of, or in opposition to any one player. He simply places them onto the table one at a time.

The dominance of Fate is central. Now normally this is something I have a big problem with in a book, believing as I do in self determination. Fact remains that none of these characters are the captain of their own ship, not completely. Fortune and love are irresistable and dispassionate, overwhelming forces in these peoples' lives...but they neither save or condemn the people driven by them. This isn't Bronte. And for me, that saves the narrative. Mosely moves the pieces around the board with complete impassivity. It's chilling, and it takes your breath away.

In the end I simply can't tell you that it 'meant' any one thing conclusively, or if it meant any one thing at all, other than 'some people had some things happen to them and it turned out so'. That could very well be the case; in fact I strongly suspect that it is.
And that is rather repellent.
And rather wonderful, too.
Because after all, Mosely knew what the outcome would be from the start.
God damn, this man can WRITE.

TRAILERPARK OF THE GODS

This would be Venus. She was supposed to have arisen from the ocean, born from 'sea foam'.
Where did the foam in the sea come from?
Well, there was this huge fight between this giant guy and his giant father in Heaven and one thing lead to another, and someones giant severed dick ended up in the bay.
Surprised, to say the least, at being parted suddenly from its' owner and dropped into ice-cold water, it squitted and flapped. As would you....thus, 'sea foam': a euphemism for 'jizz and bloody guck frothed up by a giant severed dick flapping and spazzing around in the ocean'.




Little did she realize that she would practically had to lock herself in the friggin' bathroom in order to get five minutes alone. The poor woman was destined to spend the remainder of her days surrounded by extraneous nudes and semi-nudes. Worse, they all suffered terribly from an infestation of flying babies so they spent a lot of time running around and whacking at them with a broom.







One day there was a terrible midair flying baby collision with Venus caught right in the middle.



Her contact lenses fell out and in the ensuing mad scramble they were crushed underfoot.
Due to the lack of qualified optometrists in the Golden Age it was decided that she would be married off to a seeing eye husband.






There were problems from the start.









"You are as pretty as a whole bunch of shiny socket wrenches."



"Um......................ok then."





Time did not improve matters.







"What do I spy wiv my liddo eye? Could it be someones....coochy?

"Yes. For the hundredth time today, its my damn coochy. Would you please go read a book?"








At her wits' end, Venus secretly placed an ad in the Olympian Auto Trader and Personal Classifieds:
"Gorgeous twenty-something female, zaftig, fun loving, kids, not very married, seeks discreet man for sexy fun. You are: hwp, physically attractive, s/ok, d/ok, rs/ok, std/ok, kids/ok, previous felony convictions/ok. You have a passion for the romantic. Must be very open minded and not put off by the possibility of being wet on by flying babies. reply GRE35 463337."






Venus soon realized that she should have filled in some of the 'background information' blanks a little more completely.




"Hey there little fellow, you know what? Your mommy is my aunt! That's right! Her and my father had the same father! ...Well, at least part of the same father. So you're my cousin! Cool, huh?"











Next she tried singles night at the off-leash park.




"Sweetie, go play on the swing, ok? Go on now!"
"Hey mister! Can I pet your dog?"
"Honey, mommy said go play on the swing!"
"Are you going to party with mommy?"
"Honey, now do as mommy said..."
"Are you my new uncle?"
"GO PLAY ON THE SWING NOW."






Before too long the first boyfriend got wind of the second boyfriend.



"I told him to fix the box spring! He was only checking the- Hey! Really! I asked him to fix the-Hey! He was just, he wasn't hiding! Oh my God! He had to go under the bed to fix the box spring! Really! Are you listening to me?"









And the husband got wind of the first boyfriend.



" Ya see? Ya see? The guy didn't even take off his hat!"
"Wow, he sure didn't! Damn! Didnt even take off the hat! Ther it is, right on toppa his head! Yep, theres his hat! Wow. didn't even have time to take the damn hat off. Wow."








Now divorced and destitute, Venus was forced to apply for Welfare. Fortunately the allowance for dependants was quite generous in her case.
A thoroughly depressed Venus started hitting happy hour down at the local country and western bar.


"Come on, honey. lets go back inside now. "
"Shh. whuzzat?"
"Oh come on...Buy momma another Lone Star."
"Aw fuck; a siren. Ya wanna hand me them chickens baby? Daddy's gotta boogie."



All too often her nights ended in the 'Luv-R's Sweet' at the Budget Travel-Inn.

"Wow, you know, this is my favorite room...what a great bed, too..you think this a pillow top? Gee, its nice! I'll bet it's a Sealy. I love those Sealy mattresses, don't you?"

"Um, yeah...you ever....uh...done it on the floor? Because I've, uh, always wanted to do it, you know, on the floor...?"





She tried hanging around the video arcade at the mall under the mistaken assumption that a younger man might be just what the doctor ordered.

"Beep! Beep!"
" Would you please-"
"Beep beep! Hooooonk!"
"Now come on-'
"Beep! HOOONK! Beep!"

It wasn't.




"Iiiiiii'm gonna honk it!"
"Now, no you aren't! Now come on!"
"Yes I am! I'm gonna honk it!
"No, you aren't gonna honk it! Be serious! Give me a kiss."
"Uh oh! Here comes Mr. Hand!"







No matter how many limber-limbed, famous-footed* snipper-whappers she dated.



"Ooooooweeeeeoooowaaaaaaark...Hello! Hello? SOS! This is Ice Station Zebra! Can anybody hear me? Ssssss..."












...just plugging along, all those young, young men, trying and trying...







" Now ok, fine, we're in the treehouse. Now what did you want to show m-"

"MEEP! MEEEEP!"














"See my new puppy? Say hi to the nice lady, Sparky! Sparky says, 'Wow, lady, you sure got a nice pair of ti-"

"Um, ok. thats good."







....until finally she realized that there is such a thing as 'too young'.




Reacting violently and passionately to her plight as is a goddess' wont she flung herself headlong into the DARK SIDE OF PHYSICAL PASSION.






"Oh come on, let me! You know you want it!"
"Ew get OFF me! Come on now!"
"Come on! I wont hurtcha! Lemme blow some big ol' wet farts all over that ass! Fbbbbbbpt! Come on baby! Turn around! Apppppbbbbtt! Thbbbbbbt!'"


Early forays into kink were dissappointing.








Later ventures provoked nothing but dismay.


" Oh my beloved...I have been waiting for you my whole life. You are my everything. My moon. My stars. My..."
"..My foot."
"And I shall name it 'Footy-wooty'."
"Well that's just great. Listen, asshole, I shaved for you, ok? And the face is up this way."


















And she ended up with a really, really, really, really, really bad case of crabs.










Things were getting desparate. What good was it being 'Goddess of Love' if you couldn't find any?


High up on his throne atop Mt. Olympus, the Baby Jesus saw her plight and took pity. He flew down to have a word with her. She chased him off with a broom. He returned in his secret identity as the Holy Infant of Prague which set her mind at ease. (It is difficult to tell one flying baby from another, and even more difficult to keep ones expensive upholstery looking brand new in the midst of a flock of them.)


He sat her down and they had a nice heart to heart.
" Listen, it's like the Whitney Houston song. 'The greatest love of all' is to love yourself first. No, wait; Whitney might not be the best example. Lets use another. Aretha Franklin! All right! R E S P E C T! There we go. Respect! You have to respect yourself."
"Oh sweetheart, I think that was Otis Clay."
"No, Aretha Franklin recorded 'Respect' back in the...wait."
"Are you thinking of Etta James?"
"Aretha Franklin did 'Respect'; now I remember that clearly. 'R E S P E C T, find out what it means to me! I'm sure thats Aretha."
"I get your message, Infant of Prague. It's not worth going through a pair of diapers about."





And Venus took this advice to heart. Using drachmas she would have otherwise spent on cover charges and burning sex lube she started a home hostess business:
'Aphrodite's Arts: fine designer accents for the sensuous home'
She soon became known all over the heavens as the "Queen of the Hot-chkey Tchotchkes"





Her newfound financial independance engendered a newfound self-respect in her heart as well.

"OWGODDAMMITWOWOWOWOW!"
"WELL THATS WHAT YOU GET! 'Pull my finger' is NOT FOREPLAY! Capische?"

Yes, she'd found a whole new attitude when it came to men. No longer was she a plaything, tagging along begging a man for scraps of love and attention. Now she was in charge.





" Heeeeere comes Miss Hand! Uh Oh! Beep! Beeepbeep beeeeeep! Honk honk! Beep beep! Beeeeeep beepbeepbeep!"













And to celebrate, she went out and bought herself a brand new fancy hat.






Money probably better spent on new contact lenses.

Still, life was good now... in the TRAILERPARK OF THE GODS.













I just stuck this here because I liked the picture.



* Oh come on. Tell me you DON'T know that the foot sticking out on the left there is the Stomping Foot of Reknown from the opening sequence of each 'Monty Python' episode. Because it is.

1%

The Yummy Biker and I have quite a collection of EasyRider magazines...not only the pathetic ones from the 'Eighties on, but the oh Jesus, zits and tits, low-rent EasyRiders, starting at issue #2. (Anyone out there have an ish #1 they'd like to part with? Even if its 'Riders UK, let me know in the comments and we'll do the email thing.)

This magazine had its' moments, and some moments were pure class, but it was never cool the way, say, underground comix were cool. EasyRiders was cool the way sleazy sideshow crap is cool...because it was fuck-you tasteless. For the times and the place it was pretty extreme. Sagging boobs, aging snatch, whiskey and beer, quaaludes, sodomy, needle tracks, white trash-sister humping-stuff. All the iron was Ameripean, all the women were nymphomaniacs and all the men were balldragging studs, of course.

Now all this romance existed primarily in the minds of two staffers- Spider, and 'Bandit' aka K. Randall Ball. The two of them also did about half of the writing in the early issues. Yes, Virginia, that includes the letters. (No! No! you mean to tell me that THE LETTERS IN EASYRIDERS WERE FAKED????? I know somebody who got their letter published in WordMonger though! My uncle! When he was in prison! etc.) To be fair, by the late 'Seventies much of the content came from outside submissions. Now, were those writers actual bike people?

Hmm. Are bears catholic? Does the pope shit in the woods?

Anyway, nobody cared. As far as the readership were concerned, this magazine defined THE SCENE. Bike people ate it up whole, without question, like it was candy. Really disgusting shit flavored candy with funky hairs and cockroach parts stuck all in it. Ate. It. Up.
I know I did.
Yep.

Of course, I was 17 and I had NO GODDAMN SENSE.*

We cycle these vintage issues through our throne room reading rack about once every year or so and surprisingly they just get better with age.
In an Ed Wood kind of way.

FROM THE WALLS: NOTES FROM LOCKED DOWN BROTHERS AND SISTERSMOUNT UP, LADIES! For one massive Aryan warrior" I'm 24, 5'9", 170 lbs,. and built to last! Free in three years, and seeking the pale, lusting flesh of an Aryan slam pig. No other forms of inferior scum need reply. Xxxxxxx Xxxx Box 1xx, So. Walpole, MA 02071

TENNESSEE "WHITE" HEADED PECKERWOOD: Slammed down in the blue grass. I'm 37, 5'6", and 175 lbs. of all-beef Tennessee pride. Would like to kick it with some of you fine "white" soft-tails. Steve "Hardluck" Wallace, #xxxxxx-ek, Dorm 1xxx Eastern Kentucky Corr. Complex, Box xxx, West Liberty, KY xxxxx

ITTY-BITTY-TITTY-LOVER down in a gator country prison, looking for a sweet or sour slut for life. I'm 38, 6'1", 250 lbs., have tats and operating Pan. Due out in '94. Write: Dennis "McNasty" McCarthy, xxxxxx-xx hamilton Corr. Institution, P.O. Box xxxx, Vasper, FL xxxxx

Now I wonder if any of these gentlemen ever found what they were looking for via the medium of these ads. Certainly the prospect of being somebody's' slam pig would rouse the tender feelings in any womans' soul.

MIRACULOUS MUTHA TELLS ALL!
Soup Kitchen
Listen up, bitch, because I've ben thinkin' about it, and I've got some plans for you and me. First, I want to give you an enema with a whole can of Campbell's Beef Chunky Style soup. Second, I want you to squat over my face and wrap your purple tongue around the scabs on my rock-hard crank. Third, when I'm about to blast a nut down your throat, I want to spread the crack of your flea-infested ass and have ya let loose with the Chunky Beef while screamin' at the top of your lungs "I've lost my baby! I've lost my baby!"
So what's the deal, bitch? Is is a date or what?
Wargasm
Walpole, Mass.

Hark; the iniminable literary voice of the notorious K. Randall Ball aka 'Bandit'.
Despite my best efforts, I could not convince Wyndham Triffid that Bandits' obvious talents rated him a place on the Triffid vacation reading list, and to this day I feel that was an unfair snub. Any fool can see the sheer magic which seeps from every lax, varicose orifice of Mr. Ball's prose. Well, you can.

INDIAN RITUAL: A SECOND-GENERATION BIKER PLUCKS A NEW FEATHER FOR THE FAMILY BONNET
(intro to article) Ya ever notice how some bros seem to have all the luck when it comes to finding restorable classic scoots? Me, I can't find my own asshole in the dark with both hands and a flashlight, much less hit a jackpot cache like this leg-wettin '47 Chief. But when ya get down to the actual factuals, as my uncle Zeke useta say, luck don't count for squat in this game. Instead, the cats who unearth these spoked gems from America's motor lode owe their "luck" to serious, unrelenting perseverance..." and it continues.

On and on.

Here's a selection of Biker Mama Poetry. The original was illustrated** evocatively with a tender hand, a keen eye and a prosthetic foot by one Clark Calhoun, a man who knows his way around a womans' ass in a pair of cut offs:
THE BITCH ( I swear to you I am not making this up.)
She stands at the walls
and silently smiles.
She's packed a
hundred thousand
miles.
Seen 'em rise
and seen 'em fall,
the Bitch has fuckin' seen it all.
Packed behind some righteous bros,
laid 'em down
and let 'em go.
Polished chrome
throughout the night.
Dared some bitch
to pick a fight.
Ran for beers
and opened cans.
Did it all
to please that man.
Sewed the patches,
cooked his meals.
And dummied up
about the bills.
She loves every
moment living wild,
on the road,
Harley-style.
Jenny

And really, isn't that what its all about?

If I read of, or hear of, another oldschool biker lamenting how 'his bros' have been co-opted by the straight world I will flat fucking vomit. Those dipshits embraced the stereotype. Now they're crying about all the lames. Oh wah, the middle-management castrati are out riding SuperGlides, playing biker with their HOG rockers, wanting to buy some of that oldschool brand of BADASS. Well what the fuck did the fools expect; with all that lame shit out there defining the experience?

Adding further insult to injury, the preceding selections were not from EasyRider magazine proper, but what it became post-Guccione as it tottered along weakly, still dressed in its as-yet-unwashed 1971 bell bottoms: Biker Magazine.

Circa 1993.








* Although even then, I must admit to my credit, I figured it was bullshit. But hand it to 'em; they had the best rank jokes going, plus they showed full frontal.
Why yes, I have been a sick woman for a VERY long time indeed.
**oh how i wish i could get it to print.

you must watch, little alex; you have no choice, you see...

UPDATE: for a specific example, brilliantly written by the lovely and gracious Tim Footman:
http://culturalsnow.blogspot.com/
post of august 8 2006

One afternoon back in 1991 I turned on the television set.

I saw Regis Philbin and Kathy Lee Gifford.

I yanked the plug out of the wall by the cord and didn't turn the television back on for six years.

The Stainless Steel Amazon will confirm this. She was there.
I did not do it for ideological reasons. I didn't do it for parenting reasons. She could watch whatever she wanted to at her friends' homes, there was no restriction at all. And we certainly didn't deprive ourselves of the holy glow of the crt*...we rented LOTS of movies, most of which were light entertaining crap.
But they were crap we chose.

The few times I tried to explain my reasons to people I got some completely uncomprehending looks. And it's really very simple...there is already too much 'average' in the world.

It kind of creeps me out that other people find that opinion so odd. It's like it's unAmerican or something.
"How can you not like television? "
I can not like it because after awhile a steady diet of anything gets old and a steady diet of bland gets old quick. That's how. Fuck, I felt like my brain was being homogenized.

There were contributing factors, of course.

At the time I was extremely angered by the discovery that in order to get any truth about Desert Storm I had to tune in to the Canadian coverage of the war. We were being told NOTHING. What we were being fed was so sanitized that it was wasted time.

I was also fed up to the teeth of having shit pimped at me every 2.5 minutes. Thirty-one years of having shit pimped at me, at that point.

Thirdly I was simply tired of the constant sound of scams and lies. At that time in my life I was face-first in the middle of scams and lies; hell, I knew lots of real people who could do it better! And if they weren't allowed in my house any more, why should this shit be any different?

I've mellowed a lot. Now, if there is something scheduled about Egypt or Iceman or historic events or archaeology, I happily plan to view. I can visit someones' home now and be sociable while the television plays in the background. This did not used to be the case. (I used to pretend to go to the bathroom and then stay in there a long time. People probably thought I had weevils or something.) I can tolerate television without taking its' stupidity quite so personally. For a limited amount of time.

Regis Philbin is still on my shit list, though.






*'VIDEODROME' was a documentary.
shhhh. that's a secret. don't tell ANYONE.

just cut around the bad spots and use lots of dressing

saturday UPDATE: The playboy has bagged 1. the cable guy. I flat busted them and had to pretend I didn't have a clue. Also 2. The woman who rents out the PENTHOUSE APARTMENT has signified that she would in no way be adverse to his attentions.
THATS IN THE FIRST TWO DAYS IN HIS NEW DIGS, FOLKS.



This is inlaw week at Rancho FirstNations, I swear. Today we formally moved the Playboy of the Western World into his new apartment. Actually Mayflowers Movers moved him and he and I and one of his fans got in their way. I felt kinda bad for the guys. There you had an older gentleman with a walker who wants to follow you from room to room and tell you the history of all his belongings as you are trying to manhandle them into a large truck, a buxom redskin marshalling everyone around with no very real clue as to what goes and what stays pointing imperiously at piles of trashbags, and Bubba the elderly hippie queen wafting about shouting 'Willie, come SIT DOWN!' while eyeing the smaller 'objets' at arms length over the top of his half-glasses wistfully.

Then the whole circus moved from the four bedroom house to the one-bedroom-and-kitchenette apartment, where pretty much the same activity commenced but in reverse and on a much smaller scale, resembling the 'stateroom scene' in 'A Night at the Opera.'Yes, we were actually clambering over furniture and getting caught in the legs of the walker; it was - meh; it was pretty much a day in the life; actually. It was awfully close quarters. (One of those movers was smelling SO fine. I wouldn't allow the Yummy Biker out of the house wearing that cologne, thats for sure. Not unescorted.) Gotta hand it to them; despite all the 'help' they got it done in two hours and not one single casualty.

The poor movers had to hustle everything up directly through the center of the place using the passenger elevator. (Of COURSE the freight elevator was down.) The lobby filled with residents all discussing the new fish and taking a nice long look at his swag. Oh, the oxygen machines were pumping overtime! Many a pair of Depends' were filled at the sight of all that Mediterranian brass and Haitiian ironwood going past! And they didn't even see the Man Ray photograph. I did. It was nekkid.

We had barely begun to unpack and already two little widows had come in and introduced themselves. I earned myself a shot in the head for pointing out 'Gee! Looks like you're going to get a lot of play here, huh?" rather loudly. Zotz, right in the head. "Yes and thats EXACTLY what I need!" he rejoined.

Later on we sent out for gyros and baklavas and he got the television hooked up. When I left he was watching a soap opera, full blast, standing in front of the screen peering intently at the action, which at this point in the proceedings consisted of "Oh! Anthony! Oh, oh God, yes! Oh, oh, oh yes, Anthony!" Hell, I left the door open. All the way down to the third floor 'Oh, Anthony! oh darling, yes darling, oh, oh..' rode with me.
Oh yes, the Leopold is in for a shakeup.

...And yes, I inherited all the used vegetables.

Henshin Disabled!? The Hakaida Great Revolt!

Oh yay! Oh hoo-fucking rah! The inlaws are coming over!
At least they called first. They usually don't. Yippee-skippee.
This would be the Yummy Bikers' stepfather and natural mother. Yes, this is the man his mother married and divorced three separate times.
Oh, he is a pip.
He is also a deaf pip. Deaf as a post. So not only is he surly and completely lacking in respect for anything with tits, he shouts 'Huh? What?' all the time. Of course, it is your fault for talking too softly.
They own a Caddilac the size of a small office building that neither of them can figure out how to operate properly. This makes taking long drives with them a special treat...and they always insist on doing all the driving.
My mother in law, who shall hereafter be known as Party Girl, will drag me outside every 20 minutes to sneak a cigarette which she is completely convinced nobody but me realizes she is smoking.
Later we will go to lunch and when the server arives and asks if anyone wants anything to drink everyone will get all tense and uncomfortable and cut their eyes at each other and pretend not to look at her. Whereupon she will either sheepishly deny wanting a drink and then pout and whine for the rest of the meal, or defiantly order a drink...whereupon her husband (who shall hereafter be known as Captain Shithead) will pout and whine for the rest of the meal.
Yay!
YAY!
YAY!

Yes! Oh you BET I feel sorry for myself! Yes! I hate having to socialize with anybody! If God had meant for me to socialize he would have made me a pleasant person who gives a happy chunk of wacky crap.
I don't.
I don't care how R and S are doing. I know S is a bulemic. I know S is a compulsive housekeeper. I know R can't hold a job. I know R and S have a marriage you consider peculiar. Oh my yes, now THERES the pot calling the kettle disfunctional.

Neither do I care about R2 and D. I know you think D is too fat. I know you think D is a lousy mother. I know you think D is a lousy housekeeper. I know you think R2 and D have a lousy marriage (see above) I know you think their kids married beneath them.
I KNOW. I KNOW. I KNOW.


I also know you want to be here just about as much as I want you here.


Thank God, later on I get to go play with my grandson.



UPDATE;
I am now the proud owner of a 1/4 head of cabbage thats turning black and a 1/2 head of lettuce thats turning into liquid, a tomato with a bad spot and 15 pounds of freezer burnt halibut.
Sigh.

the first word in methane is 'me', baby.

A lake of methane was just discovered on Titan; one of Saturns' moons.

In the name of the native Titanians and native peoples everywhere, I hereby christen this lake 'Lake Paul'.



hey wow! did you hear?
A methane lake on Titan is named after my blog!
I am so proud.

goodbye, refries, goodbye

In case you missed it, go here: http://www.hendrixcat.com/
thats her new url, so update your blogroll (do as i say, not as i do...yeah, yeah.)

Well, I have diabetes. Barely, but there ya go.
I don't doubt it for a moment. I was expecting this. The way I've been eating for the last 20 years? Shit, yes.
I do not regret one single moment.
No I don't.

What will I miss most?
Mostly, I will miss not having to worry.

I tell you what, though, I am not going to go around all penitential eating fucking ry-krisps and smacking myself in the head with a board. Food is a celebration and I damn well intend to see that it stays that way.

I'm going to have to learn a whole new repetoire of staple recipes. After all, the ones I have in my head now are what got me to this place! Does anybody have any suggestions for diabetic cookbooks? Particularly with Mexican and Italian recipes? Is there such a thing as a diabetes cookbook put out by a master chef? Jesus, if there is, let me know. I don't care if it's complicated; I can do complicated.

I got myself into this place; I'll damn well get myself out of it.


Because of the heat, I had to take the clippers and shave my poor girldog the other day. Poor wooly sheepie! She has Labrador retriever blood back there in the woodpile someplace so she has an undercoat like felt and a long topcoat to boot. I swear I don't know how one small animal could have so much hair. It was appalling! Now she feels better, though. Looks smaller, too. Lots smaller. And guess what; I'm not done yet. Oh yeah, I'm gonna be her BEST FRIEND.

We are gradually getting the Playboy of the Western World moved in to his new place. Thank God the man was not a packrat. Still, there are a lot of small things that he thought were special, and they are all sitting here in my house now, *sigh* waiting to be boxed up, and eventually donated.
Now goddammit, this is sad. I don't like any of it. Neither does the Yummy Biker. None of it is particularly valuable either, but it's not exactly crap...what it is, mainly, are trinkets he picked up in Greece, or things he saved from when his mothers house caught on fire years ago. Mismatched cups and saucers, figurines, glasses, things like that. I hate boxing it up and then having to lie to him about where the stuff is. But we will.*
Fortunately all his buddies have been given first crack at the large furnishings. Have at, gentlemen! When we finally throw open the doors to the relatives they're going to be rather puzzled by all the empty carpet. I DO hope someone gets shitty with me; I've been spoiling for a fight. Probably won't happen.

Come to think of it, that's a pretty nice statement about the family, isn't it?





*The Yummy Bikers' mother had rather regrettable tastes in her younger years. Her worst judgment, beside marrying the same man three times and a gay man the fourth, was the purchase of the infamous Chicken Dishes. You'd honestly hesitate to put food on them. They're glazed this really odd, mustard-diaper color that's speckled with gnats or pepper or birdshot or something...and smack in the center of each is a huge picture of what can only be described as a gravely psychotic chicken. Each one hefts approximately the same as a boat anchor. She passed them on to us. Gee, thanks. And she always asks about them. "Do you still have those dishes?" and we nod and smile real big. "Well, are you ever gonna use them?" Not even on a dare, honey. We have them stored safely away from young children and the nervous, waiting to be thrown into Bellingham Bay the instant you go to your reward. In fact I may arrange for the hospital to call me. Until then, they're packed away, and we lie.

context

Next in the wildly popular 'Muk In Her Native Habitat' series, we explore the quaint riverside village of Sumas, the place our little Muk calls home.
Welcome to Sumas, everyone!
















...uh, yeah. *Ahem.*


Here is the entirety of the downtown core, this street here, looking north with that 'Welcome to Sumas' sign at my back. Twelve tiny little blocks.
Down at the very end, if you look hard, you can see a faint, faint sort of reddish bar that crosses the street? That's the Canadian border.

















Lets take a drive down Main Street, shall we?
OK!
Now here is your typical city block in the downtown core. Both buildings date from the 1920's, both buildings are standing slap ass vacant. Lets stop the bus! Everyone out for a Kodak moment!

















Here is an abandoned titty bar. This is a huge place, too; it goes waaay back there.















Yes, City Hall is housed in a metal utility building. So is the police station. And yes, you're looking at both of them.















Another abandoned building! Right across the alley not 15 feet from the entrance to the police station, it was understandably not the fun filled, whoopin', hollerin' free for all fightin' old west kinda place its name seems to promise. No, in fact, it was a hangout for recent immigrants from Russia and the Ukraine; all 20 of them. Ride 'em, comrade! The white banner proclaims 'this business for sale-agricultural trades considered'. Yes, that's right. The guy who owns a BAR on an international border crossing wants to trade it for a FARM. I'm not sure what this says about the Sumas economy, but it doesn't seem....good.

















Meet Lone Jack. Jack is alone because Jack has been having some proctological issues recently.
What's in the pan, Jack?
No. Don't tell me.
Want to know why I live here? Because of the people. What kind of people? The type of people who would start an international shipping business, house it in an old burlesque theatre with this morphodite squatting out in front...and leave him there. And name the business the only name possible out of all possible names in the universe.
Ladies and Gentlemen, it is with the greatest of pleasure that I give you....
"Ship Happens"
















Youth community service. Get chipping, you little bastards! Hahahahahaha! This is how we school 'em! Put 'em to work chipping yellow paint off the curbs in the hot sun! Stick 'em right out in front of the police station so we can keep an eye on 'em too! That's right!
When I came by five minutes later, Buckwheat on the left was still in the exact same position, pinin' for the fjords.
















Ten years ago there were 23 empty businesses along the main drag. Today there are still ten, not counting empty single offices.
If any town needed a reason to support business, Sumas IS that town.
This would be the business.
This right here is the BEST MEXICAN FOOD IN THE UNIVERSE. The service is superb, the people are great...
So why not lets' us City Hall moo-rons perpetuate a tacit policy of harassment? Why not look the other way while the local police put roadkill in their doorway and on their employees' cars? Why not have them raided just before every major civic event so they have to close down? After all, it's the only restaurant in town that hires people long term, AND stays open seven days a week. AFTER ALL, THEY'RE MEXICANS!! Why not? WHY NOT I ASK YOU?? WHY DON'T LETS JUST BUG THE FUCK OUTTA THEM UNTIL THEY PACK UP AND MOVE TO ANOTHER TOWN AND LEAVE ONE MORE ABANDONED BUSINESS ON THE MAIN DRAG??? WHY NOT PUT 23 LOCAL PEOPLE OUT OF WORK??? WHY NOT FORFEIT THOSE TAX DOLLARS? HAHAHAAHAAHAAHAAHA!!!! GREAT IDEA!!!!!
















First patron of the day.
This old geezer comes buzzing up at the turn of the lock every morning. They 86'd him for being just generally disgusting about three months ago. What he does now is come in early. He sits in the bar, mumbling, occasionally yelling, pissing himself and bothering the staff until they get some customers; then they cut him off and he wheels away, wearing his knitted toque and his grey wool overcoat, shouting at cars.
















Now lets veer off the main drag and amble through the neiborhood.
On our way out to drop off our biodegradable yard waste we find this National Security spy pole, the silver post at the center of the picture with the little goggles at the top.
I see you!
Of course, they see me, too.
Yeah! See this? It's the fat chick! FUCK YOU GEORGE BUSH! CANADA IS NOT THE ENEMY!
















THIS is the community compost pile. See the sign? That's how you tell. It says 'Compost Pile'. It is for the community. To put compost in. On. Whatever.
















Lush, cool and beautiful.

















Here's a bed and breakfast. Although it's in the center of the neiborhood, it backs on a river, and is at the end of a street which backs on a cornfield. Hell, I'd stay here and I live three blocks away.
















The Sumas River running through the center of town. No deer today, sorry to say. Yes, this is what passes for a river here..that barely visible trickle. Dumbass Washingtonians can't tell a river from a crick.
















Oh crap. A trout jumped and I tried to catch it swimming away but I didn't even get a ripple. Anyway, this is the river. See? Water.
Note that I am standing on a bridge on the main east-west thoroughfare through town at high noon, holding a camera with my ass draped over the guardrail.
Um...
Nah. Make of the preceeding sentence what you will. It just might be true.

















I mean, come on. This is the worst place in town. Of course I live next door to it. But you can't even see it!
Betcha they see me, though.
Oh crap! She's taking a picture! Quick! Hide the illudium q32 space modulator!















This is the entirety of town looking east to west, from city limits sign to city limits sign...or at least the low hill in the background there where the 'City Limit' sign is.
What town? I don' see no steenkin' town.













You see what I mean? As soon as you leave the main business center the place is beautiful. People sit out on their front lawns and have conversations. The kids say 'hi' to you. The dogs wag. Yes, everyone is in your shit, but I'm in their shit too so it evens out.
But to drive through the business center of town, you'd think 'Jesus Christ, keep on going; what a goddamn dump".

I may shoot a copy of this via email to the mayors office.

On second thought, maybe not...

Hmmmmmmmmmm.