Yes, 'tis I

I'm still here. I'm just busy doing things. Secret things that you can't know about.

Fine, actually I'm re-doing my bedroom. Now here's a nice picture of Mr. Egyptian Penis Man:


Mr. Egyptian Penis Man says "Look busy"
I say "Never drive a car that has one wheel falling off it"

UPDATED: CRAP!

NOW WITH PICTURES! AT THE END!! SCROLL DOWN!!! QUICK!!!!
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I have too many collections.

I have a collection of 50's diner ware (matched, flawless, full service for 6! THATS RIGHT BITCHES!)
I have a collection of metal Tonka trucks and cars
I have a collection of eggs
I have a collection of things which are spherical (round rocks, globes, old bocci balls, slag...)
I have a collection of old pop bottles
I have a collection of paper ephemera
I have a collection of 60's era underground comix
I have a collection of mid-century modern display pottery
I have a collection of dead animal parts
I have a collection of glass measuring cups
I have a collection of vintage kitchen utensils

The only collection I have displayed in its entirety is the pop bottle collection. The rest are in storage, either in part (eggs, display pottery, animal heads) or in whole (all the rest of the stuff I haven't mentioned.)

My husband got me started collecting purely by chance, way back in 1986, when I mentioned that I needed a measuring cup for the kitchen. He brought me home a depression-era glass mug-style cup. "Aw," I thought, "how nice."

60 measuring cups later......some of which I still have....and use....

A need for an eggbeater (still in use) brought a 1942 Foley with a green handle into the house. Similarly, when our coffeemaker tanked, we picked up a 1935 Pyrex glass percolator (still have two of them, guts included.) Of course, by now we were both hooked. At one point I had every single item in this collectors catalogue:

(...well shit, I sold it and I don't recall the name. Had to get temptation completely out of my path. Anyway, it was a pretty comprehensive book.)

...and some that they'd never heard of. Including hand-made ones. 25 different egg beaters. 17 different pancake flippers. Tasting spoons-5. Choppers-5. Cake knives-4. Tinned milk openers-7 (including one given away as a premium by a funeral home. WTF?) Sub-collections included advertsing premiums, red handles, green handles, yellow handles, Foley, Formay, black composition ware....

In the meantime I had branched out into collecting antique working kitchen appliances, Bakelite, vintage crocheted hot mats, vintage Fire King and Pyrex (curse you Martha Stewart for making latter so desirable that it got priced out of my reach, you bitch!) and I had the Biker halfway talked into doing an entire 1940's kitchen.

Because I was working in rental properties I had my choice of any style of vintage appliance or accoutrement I wanted just for the asking. And they ALL WORKED. Condenser-top refrigerators, gas ranges, you name it- anything my demented little heart desired. Wringer washers? Check! Enamel double-sink with attached drainer? Yup. Light fixtures, fans, hardware, counters, trim....fricken' towel bars, even. LIGHT SWITCHES.

Bear in mind that at the time, we lived in a MOBILE HOME.

I finally woke up one day right before my daughter was going to have a birthday party and looked around at a kitchen that was almost entirely encrusted in vintage kitchen tools and asked myself "Self, why are you nuts?" I sold it all. Well fine, most of it. At least didn't lose money, but still. The habit remains, and I still find myself looking without even meaning to.

Same with the pottery. I found a lovely ikebana piece and it fit so nicely in with my decor. Then I found another, and it complimented the first one, and it was only .10 so how could I NOT buy it, right? And so on, and so on, and....yeah.

The dead animal parts collection is just strange on a couple of different levels. Once again, my husband started it. He presented me with a deer skull with antlers intact, and I displayed it, and then one of his buddies brought me a badger skull, and another guy brought me a coyote jawbone, then my daughter found an entire coyote skull...a crow in a tree dropped a squirrel skull right at my feet one day while I was gardening....the neighbors cat drug a rabbit into my shed and the bugs did the rest. I figure when the Universe wants you to collect something, you'd better heed it.

The problem is, I live in a small house. I really don't mean to accumulate all this crap either; its just once you develop an 'eye' for something, you see it everywhere. Like when you buy a certain make of car and suddenly it seems like the entire world owns the same one. And if you're me and you have the scrounge-bargain gene, you see it everywhere, for DIRT FRICKEN' CHEAP.
Whats a little Muk to do?

...Get buried in crap like the goddam DiAmato brothers if she doesn't watch out.

Anyway, I am seriously thinking about selling the mid-century modern pottery. Here's some pictures. You can enlarge them and enjoy the dust and smudges! The only one with any kind of a flaw is the tall white vase, and it has a chip on the base. Which you can't see in these pictures. So, yeah.




Anyone interested? I've got some sweet stuff. Gimme a dingle.

The Watchmen

Visually, The Watchmen ranks right at the top, with Dark Crystal. 300 runs a distant second. It is photographically true to the artists work. It reaches further by being absolutely, painstakingly true to the original story and writing style as well. This is no loose adaptation, and furthermore it works exactly because of these things. The two-story scale of the theatre version can barely contain it.


I'm pretty inured to screen violence, yet parts of this had me absolutely revulsed. It's not the graphic gore-which there is in plenty-it's that its not treated incidentally. You are meant to pay attention to it. Its meant to be ugly and squalid and disgusting and petty and cruel. And it is.


This movie is a lot of things...visually wonderful, exciting, intense-but it is not a 'fun' film. I thought it was almost as emotionally exhausting as Das Boot was. ( and at 2 hrs and some-odd minutes running time your ass ends up almost as numb afterwards.) This film makes a very caustic, mature statement about idealism vs. reality. It's R rated for a reason. Another large, blue, uncircumcized reason is waving around randomly on Dr. Manhattan for most of the movie. And then theres some hot costumed superhero sex too. So its not exactly a total bummer.

Go see it NOW. And go see it while it's still playing on the big screen. It's worth whatever you have to pay. It really is that good.

The Re-Store!!

Let's all go on a field trip to the local architectural salvage place! It'll be fun! Those of you allergic to bargains and terminal cool may stay on the bus. Here's a can of CoolWhip and some Wet Wipes. Let's all remember our manners and share.

If it weren't for the ReStore my kitchen would be a barren wasteland, like parts of Elton Johns head. As it stands, thanks to the ReStore, we no longer have to stack our pots and pans on elderly bald pop stars.

They don't only sell kitchen components, of course. Here's a nice bathroom sink from back in the dim and distant...
...I had one just like it at the place on 9th and Pine. It was so unpredictable that it had its own room, as did the bathtub. The toilet was so difficult it was in another part of the apartment entirely.

What was that extra bulge in front for? To keep you from falling off, I always figured. And look, the price has been reduced!

Behold: the mighty EXPULSO. Even after all these years it's a name that inspires confidence. You know the mighty EXPULSO is ready and willing to handle whatever you can throw at it. Bring it, bitch.

Of course should you host a long weekend full of frat boys and takeout Thai food the Restore has a solution for that too:


The whole place is filled with random strange works of...art...just like this, in odd corners. Some of it is made by the various volunteers who staff the place, and some of it is 'found'
If you and the Wallendas are experiencing one of those slow patches during a visit, here's something you could do to keep them amused! And no, its not for sale. I've asked. They said no. I was shattered.


Looking for a knob? You no longer have to go all the way to Dorset and knock on Beasts door. The ReStore has a hardware section!


Another random display challenges us to ponder the source of our water.

and one persons answer.


At one point in time one of the volunteers must have been from the UK. See, this is so typical. Like I'm not going to get it, right? Like they can hippity hop off and think 'Woo, I'm so clever and British! Those Americans have no idea what that means!" but see, I do; I just don't care so HA HA ON YOU.

This thing has been perched high above the paint and fasteners section for over 20 years.

I'm pretty sure that if you look at it for too long the pet mosquito leaps down and buries its probiscis in your brain.

This was on the back of some old cabinets. Man, if I could find linoleum like that I'd rip up the floor in my kitchen with my teeth!!! Is that not cooler than shit?



Bad 70's downmarket furniture store accessory #45: Glutea Maxitude


Which should serve as a nice lead-in to our 'WTF' category.
Seriously, what the FUCK?


No, now, lets move in a little closer and examine this thing. The more you look at it the more disturbing it becomes.

You see what I mean? Huh?

You see? You see what I mean? What the hell is this thing? I've thought of three possibilities:

1. A chiropractic or surgical device, possibly used for spinal injuries or setting leg breaks.
2. A device used for assembling and dressing store window mannequins
3. A device used for STRAIGHTENING OUT DEAD PEOPLE and keeping them that way while you wired them into place.

Anyway, I want one.

I also want one of these.

I've had one of these in almost every place I ever rented in Portland. They all worked flawlessly, you could break them down into easily washable pieces, and...

...they had this cool enamel cover that gave you extra counter space and kept the javelinas out of your stovetop. If we had NG hooked up I would donate my electric stove and install this sapsucker in a New York minute. I took a lot of really good meals off these things.


This is their trophy case. Its all weird things they found inside donations. Brandish the dried penis of an Alaskan Tigerbat three times in front of your screen to enlarge the image. Or click.

Now, wasn't that fun? Sure it was. Really, it was. Yes I know the man yelled at you. Yes I know Voices kept staring at you and it was creepy. It was fun because I said it was, ok? Now hurry up and get back on the bus before the cyborgs ask to check our ID implants.

You are all WONDERFUL.

I'm taking a break for awhile, probably about a week. We lost the Playboy of the Western World four days ago (we're checking all our pockets and the dryer) and right now the Biker and I are going to hang out in the real world and get things situated.

You can save your condolences; they aren't necessary. This was a good thing, and while we're all sad, we're relieved too. The Playboy had just come through a very difficult couple of months. It had been just one thing after another, and on top of it all he was recovering from a horribly painful bout of the shingles. All of that had stressed his system past what it could tolerate. After a couple of weeks in the hospital he'd been released into interim care. He was in his favorite facility where everyone knew him and loved him - in fact I'd had members of the staff say to me 'You know, don't take this the wrong way but I can't wait for him to be here full time!'
He was doing well, running around visiting and gambling and gossiping and whatnot. That morning the nurse gave him a haircut. When she was done she told him he was beautiful, and he looked in the mirror, agreed, and said "Let the party begin!" And a few minutes later someone walked past his room and found him sitting in his wheelchair. He had just slipped away to the party.

Those were his last words.

Isn't that something?

Isn't that the most amazing thing?

Right now, all the angels are singing 'It's Raining Men'

Probably racist and definitely not cheerful.

When I was about 21 my adopted mom told me my birthmothers name. She also told me that she resembled Keely Smith, was about 15, and 'looked like some kind of Indian'.

That's my ethnic heritage in six words.

If you've hit my archives or been here awhile you know what kind of a life I had growing up, so it shouldn't come as any surprise that very, very early on I'd made the determination that I was going to have to do things on my own. And I did. I am about the alonest person you'll ever meet. I don't even have a race. Shit, I don't even have a pretend family of origin any more. The place I belong is 'not belonging'. And it actually doesn't suck.

It never meant anything to me one way or the other for years, being a member of the Somekindas. And then there was the fact too, that given my mothers limited and racist judgment, anyone darker than piggy pink who didn't have a 'fro probably looked like a Somekinda to her. I could be Sicilian.

You have to learn ethnicity. I learned mine from riding the #3 bus up Burnside seeing Indians passed out on the sidewalk. That was what I learned about Native Americans.

I wasn't one of these people. I don't even look like one of them. I look white. I know I look white because that's the first thing that everyone says when the find out that I'm not. The only thing remotely native about me is the faint hint of an epicanthic fold over my eyes. I could pull my hair back into a ponytail and wear a wolf sweatshirt and the only thing I'd look like would be an idiot with a ponytail in a wolf sweatshirt.

So I'm here on the brink of my 50's and I'm reading 'The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian' as a part of a county-wide library project. The idea is to meet in discussion groups at the end of the month and share our impressions. I'm not going to do that. I genuinely do not want to hear what a bunch of unemployed white ladies have to say about this book. I know what I think of this story: It's amazing and it broke my heart. Alexie is one of the best writers I've ever read. I can feel every page.

There isn't a single thing in it that I can relate to as a Native American. Not one. Not even if I knew for sure that I was Native American.

I wish I knew, and I hope I never find out. I need a fucking sandwich.

Blue Moose Calls Softly Compel The Cheese

More snaps-n-pix madness here at Paul!

This time dear old Nations has gone undercover at the Lynden Christian Thrift Store with her trusty digital and found a virtual Alladins' Cave filled with the lost treasure of the White People!

Actually it was four banana boxes full of old lp's.



Now is that a clever title or what? Come on now. Thats clever. Sure it is. Get it? You're a believer, right, but your ass is all flabby and you have those wibbly wobbly things all up under your arms so you want to get in shape, or, in other words,'firm up', right? So you can be a 'firm believer'? See? See what they did there?

Tell you what, my old Barbie dolls had more 'toe. No really. Remember? Barbie had the faintest little crease (I know, what kind of a big perv even looks at poor Barbies 'area', I know, I know, mea fricken culpa, I was a perverted little kid, yes yes yes.)

I think these dairy princesses reproduce by exercising until something falls off; and then it divides and pulsates and throws off spores until it turns into a Bratz doll.


God, really, we need to chat. Whats with this thing on my wifes' head? And don't tell me its a mystery; I can already see that. I tell you what; it's is putting a strain on my ability to believe in a benevolent Deity.



...No, you certainly do NOT need to understand. That's why they call it 'Blind Faith'. Which I own. I do not recall Jimmy Swaggart being part of the lineup. Ginger Baker, Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, Rick Grech....yes. Something is REALLY OFF HERE. I need to stop thinking about it too.



This is really really disturbing, and therefore eminently worth clicking on to enlarge and examine.
I read the liner notes, and sure enough, Bride of Chuckie there is the one that does the singing on this album, as if the look of terror and resignation on the face of the cement deer weren't clue enough.
I have a terrible feeling that this manic little homonunculus is going to be featuring prominently in my dreams at some point in the future. And that the nice lady in the background there? will have her hand up little Marcy's butt the whole time.

Red Gerbil Extreme Getaway!

Snaps and Pix day here at Paul!

Let's see what's on the ol' chip, shall we?

Sometimes you'll be driving down the road and messages appear out of the fog.

And sometimes, answers.

It was a sign. No, I mean really, it was a sign. Furthermore the timing was eerily apt. Should I continue at my present breakneck pace or was it time to slow down? I snapped another picture to be sure.
DEAL WITH THIS. THIS WAS TOTALLY CHANCE. ARE YOU ALL TINGLY? BECAUSE I AM.
Clearly, God scoffs at posted speed limits! This is practically a divine mandate here!

Nothing I have ever endured as a melanin-challenged Native American can match the sorrow on this noble natives' pale face. Imagine his life if you can. Surrounded by a virtual bird ghetto, his head emitting some kind of...an emission, chest-television permanently tuned to the blue screen of death, standing next to the road in all kinds of weather, wearing an orange miniskirt with a big huge 'W' on it and his butt cheeks hanging out (butt cheeks which, as a result of nuclear testing in the late 60's, are located in front instead of in back.)


Primeval father-god of the Teletubbies? Postmodern totem? Any way you look at it this shit is just TRAGIC.


Breakfast food gone wrong.
Time: yesterday afternoon
Place: Squalicum Parkway, Bellingham, Washington

I called Blockbuster Video and no, they had no recently-released pancake films that they were promoting. This leaves us with a giant pancake in a miniskirt holding down a corner on the most notorious stroll in Bellingham.

Yes, I blame society.

When I describe Washington State as 'blue' I ain't just whistling Dixie, chicks. We are inclusive to a fault and tolerant as the day is long.

Yes, even if you're a British dyke and you aren't real picky how either adjective is spelled.

Of course now that I look at it again I wonder if it might be some kind of message: STOP DIKE BRITT! Or : BRITT DIKE STOP! You could take it a number of ways I guess. 'If you're british and a dike, stop' is a possible interpretation, as is 'Stop, dike britt' which could be like destiny telling you to pause for a moment in the midst of your dikey brittness. Actually, you need to go bug someone else about this because I have no friggin' idea what it means. Quit bothering me. Seriously. Can't you go play? Is your room clean? Maybe you should go ask your mom for something to do.

funk!

I have a really, really sensitive nose, at least when my sense of smell happens to be working. Most of the time it isn't. (Weirdly, this effects my memory.) When it is, I rival a pedigreed trufflehound. I can tell if something I'm cooking has been salted or not. I can tell where any given cloakroom is by the smell of all that concentrated detergent and hairspray and smoke and aftershave. I can smell peoples' individual scents before they enter a room. And that's creepy. I don't like it a bit, particularly after discovering the fact that smell is particulate. Bad enough I can identify you in complete darkness, but to know that I'm huffing actual matter shed by God only knows what...regions... No.

Still, its a cross I bear. Without warning. This makes it worse, like a sneak attack. One minute I'll be wandering around in an absentminded fog and breathing will be the involuntary, unconscious activity that it's meant to be....another moment and suddenly I WILL KNOW what brand of douche the woman on the escalator ahead of me uses. Or if she...does. Yeah.
No really, it's honestly that bad. Ignorance really is bliss, kids.

If I'm in a public place and my nose suddenly decides to work I instinctively switch to breathing through my mouth, which is always attractive. I don't know why this makes it any better; I'm still sucking in funk chunks. I guess not being instantly aware of their probable source is a comfort. Huffing ass frag is one thing... KNOWING it's ass frag is another thing entirely.
An assy thing.

Assy things were plentiful in the hospitality trade, as you might imagine. I dreaded Monday mornings for just this reason. I would walk in to a recently vacated room, a room that had been closed tight for at least two solid days while the guests drank, smoked and performed carnal acts of slappity squittiness on each other. Sometimes it was all I could do not to give notice. Motel rooms are typically tiny and stuffy to begin with. That compounded with the rank, porklike human smell of skin and hair and sweat, the body-temperature humidity, knowing you were inhaling other peoples' exhale, stirring up their buttflakes and dick particles when you stripped the bed, shuffling up clouds of foot frag as you vaccuumed...it was not propriate. Or beautiful. At all. You tried not to think about it.
Particularly because you still had the bathroom left to do.
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I used to do a lot of amyl nitrate during vocational training class. Me and my buddy would roll in already baked, and then run back to the darkroom and take a couple rips just to get into a 'graphic arts' frame of mind. We'd sneet a few more for the road during break. Beside giving you an excellent sweeping headrush, amyl, and the combination of various noxious darkroom chemicals, would effectively kill your sense of smell for about 15-30 minutes. Once we discovered that our intake doubled, since we used it pre-emptively for those times when we knew we'd have to deal with Meg, our instructor.

I have no idea what kind of medical condition this woman had, but her breath smelled like boiling cat urine. The most ammoniac, venomous piss stench imaginable, like a bus shelter full of winos. The fact that it was definitely her breath made it even more disturbing. It made you wonder what she....ate.

Her office was a small glassed - in cubicle and it had absorbed that pee-breath smell deep into its very subatomic structure. Opening the door was like taking the lid off a diaper hamper. That held true whether she was in there or not.

During class she'd come around and appraise everyone's work on the light table. The atmosphere back in that area was already pretty thick; light tables, adhesives and teenagers give off a lot of heat. Every time she'd lean in to speak to me, my eyes would literally begin to water and sting. It was beyond belief! You could taste it! You could practically see it shimmering like paint thinner fumes, scorching your sinuses, bleaching all the color out of your eyebrows. It was just horrifying.

Me and my buddy went through an entire 8 gram perfume bottle of amyl during that quarter. That in combination with the chemical darkroom stew we were already breathing probably destroyed a whole lot of vital brain cells, which may go a long way toward explaining why I am the way I am now. Or not.

Quaint vignettes from my charming rural idyll

We've hit that stretch of 'false spring' we get up in these parts. Certain signs: bulbs breaking dormancy with frostbitten noses, eagles sitting their nests, and FirstNations ass-up next to the road pitching and bitching. I nabbed back some shrubs and trees, tore out a bunch of old dead stems and seedheads, and walked around shaking my head and squinting at things. Still, it COUNTS. I made a mess. It's gardening.

I'm going to finish up all my late winter pruning, stack that up, and then get into some serious compost turning action, weather permitting. I cannot wait to stick a pitchfork into that stuff and see what happened over winter. I had an amazing amount of breakdown this season, about 2/3 less mass than what I started out with. Usually it's about 1/2. I think its because of the extreme weather we've had; that, and all the visitors, like crows and ravens and raccoons and mice and hippies and whatnot.

I look forward to the first turning of the year. I really get a kick out of seeing who's been in there and the traces they've left behind...tunnels, seed caches, tiny round nests, flask-shaped hibernaculums lined with clematis fluff, and occasional mortal remains. I'm particularly curious to see if maybe I have an extra large number of angleworms in the heap because of the flooding we had during the winter.

After any spell of cold or rainy weather the compost heap will have a zone of giant freaky long angleworms, chased up out of the deep soil by the rising water table, knotted up in big tangles like spaghetti all around the edges . If I'm careful I can transfer them in handfuls without waking them up too much right into the soft soil of my raised beds and cover them over. Once they wake up they're amazingly fast, strong and agile. They go through my heavy clay soil like mining equipment and leave tunnels as big around as my index finger. These are some buff damn worms. They can beat up your angleworms. Seriously. I try not to piss them off.

Anyone else that gets uncovered has to take their chances, though. The robins always line up on the fence impatient for me to finish and watch me while I turn the heap, giving me one-eyed glares with their heads thrust forward in a grouchy manner. When I get done I watch them from the kitchen window going back and forth from the fence to the heap, flinging chunks of compost out into the yard in their greed, getting chubbier and chubbier as they feast on all the slug eggs and redworms and centipedes and potato bugs I've turned up.

This year I have to take out a couple of trees...a Bradford pear and a Leyland cypress. The Bradford is simply a nuisance. We bought it as an ornamental. It was supposed to be male. It wasn't supposed to fruit. After a few years of throwing a single pear, if that, it suddenly decided to blast out bushels and bushels of fruit like a mad thing, much to the delight of every hornet, crow and raccoon in the neighborhood. Time for you to die, Bradford pear.

The Leyland simply got away from me. And take that as a warning, kids: cupressus leylandii grows like a mad motherfucker. I had been nabbing it back pretty faithfully, keeping it low and stout, but then I left it go for a year. That was all it took. Now instead of a nice short, trim, full tree I have a tall wandy nuisance that's shading out my magnolia stellata. I have to jump on it too before it gets too big for me to handle myself, thus begging the intervention of the Yummy Biker, who does NOT belong in the garden because he makes my plants very sad. (Plus he has cooties and boy germs.) Besides, this gives me an excuse to use my chainsaw, and I'M BY GOD GOING TO USE MY CHAINSAW.

...my chainsaw! MINE!!!!!

Seriously, can you think of a better way to bring in the new gardening season than by using loud destructive equipment to kill a perfectly healthy tree? I can't. It's gonna be awesome!

Moneyless in Seattle

Being on Welfare wasn't as bad as you might think it would be. Yeah, there was a lot of paperwork, but nothing worse than what you'd run into during a typical day at school. Some of the people were less than polite, but that's life in general; no problem. I guess the worst parts were the long, interminable waits in the DSHS office, sitting on the sticky chairs, watching the 'challenged' couples making out in the corner while feral children ran batshit around the room with their hair full of bugs. None of which is a treat, but imagine sitting in the middle of same with two black eyes, holding a helpless infant in your arms. Yeah, that I could have done without.

Anywho, the actual day-to-day living was remarkably free of worry. I could count on having money to pay the bills when they came due every month. I got the best medical care I have ever received in my life. I never needed for anything related to caring for my child...food, medical care, supplies, diapers, you name it. I was able to make a budget for the first time since moving out of my parents house and not have to worry about someone going on a big self-pity jag at the end of the month when bills were due, smacking me around, grabbing the checkbook and dashing out to purchase, say, a dartboard.

LENGTHY DIGRESSION FOLLOWS:
And not just any dartboard; a competition-quality dartboard. Because all the other guys where he worked could play darts and he couldn't, see, and it took inches off his dick or something, so this meant he had to go buy the most expensive dartboard available and specialty darts RIGHT NOW and practice so he wouldn't be embarrassed. (and in doing so take out the entire wall around the sonofabitch for about a foot around and lose us our cleaning deposit...because we were renting at the time....) OO, or then there was the time we ABSOLUTELY NEEDED A BANG-OLUFFSEN STEREO and I got slapped around because I pointed out the fact that we were a month behind on the rent and our only means of transportation (a benelli road racing motorcycle, just what the urban couple with a kid on the way needs, parts scarcer than hens teeth and made of platinum when you did find them; another MUST HAVE RIGHT NOW purchase) had just shit the bed. Again. Or then there was the time we ABSOLUTELY HAD TO GO LOOK AT A SMALL PLANE for sale in Enumclaw...even though by this time we had to take the bus to get there because were living in an attic, our 4wd (...guess why we had that?) was being reposessed, and we were both 'employed' by a cult that 'paid' in past life regression sessions, but that he deserved because he also worked at a print shop and earned a paycheck (ostensibly for standing next to a machine with his hand resting on it for 8 hours, when he wasn't screwing the secretary) and my pregnant ass did not. Then he decided that he needed an emerald tree boa. Want to hear about the emerald tree boa? A week after not buying the small plane we're out at some goddamn sporting goods store in Bumfuck Egypt looking at bamboo flyfishing pole blanks (because everone who is dirt poor and in debt and who lives in the middle of the city and has no transportation and works for a cult that pays in past life regressions and has a baby on the way NEEDS TO MAKE THEIR OWN FLYFISHING ROD -which I might add, is NOT the cheapest hobby in the world but one that absolutely had to be pursued) and while we were there we happened to wander in to a pet store where there was an emerald tree boa. SUDDENLY WE HAD TO OWN AN EMERALD TREE BOA.

So yes, being on welfare was a significant step up compared to that shit.

My absolute favorite thing about Welfare was food stamps. I don't know how they do it these days, but back when they gave you sheaves of what looked like Monopoly money, all colorful and fake looking, just screaming to anyone who cared to look 'hey, I'm indigent!' Of course, you got over the stigma real quick when everyone else in line was buying their groceries using stamps too....and you had a baby to feed.

Since I was fortunate enough to be poor in downtown Seattle, I had access to what were possibly the best ingredients available on the West Coast, and that at the beginning of the 'Pacific Rim Cuisine' movement as well. Even ghetto little corner markets carried things like craft brewed beers and frozen quail. Soon I was shopping at the foggy break of day at the Pike Street Market, expresso in hand, baby in frontpack, bumping elbows with world-class chefs and food managers, buying duck, goose, salmon, wildcrafted chanterelles, you name it. ON FOOD STAMPS. It was awesome!

Now, I might have bought upmarket, but I was a single woman with a child who made my own everything. This meant that at the end of any given month I had a full freezer and a whole stack of funny money left over, stuff that could ONLY be used to purchase food. Since you can only buy so much duck, and you can only fit so much food into a freezer, this was when you started 'cracking stamps.'

Anything that cost less than a dollar was changed back to you in coin, at par. (This is why you can go in to any quickie mart here in the Northwest and find boxes of apples, onions and potatoes next to the checkout stand.) You could actually make money cracking stamps, since their face value was some percentage less than real cash, so some dedicated cheaters would get their stamps at the beginning of the month and crack the whole stack. You came out money ahead, and it was all real coin money you could spend on ANYTHING YOU WANTED....plus, you ended up with a whole bunch of stuff like single onions and potatoes and turkey tails lying around, so you could make stew, too.

I completely let down welfare queens everywhere. I should have cracked my stamps and then run out and bought a whole bunch of malt liquor and a couple of rocks, right? Nope. My coin went to cab fare.
Yes, it's sad. I know.

I hated riding public transportation with a baby. Public transportation is NOT CLEAN. That, and I hated riding mass transit anyway because I am a freak magnet. I am. If there is someone within a city block of me wearing a tinfoil hat, they will be irresistably drawn in by my freak magnetron and end up in the seat right next to me talking about how the CIA implanted a tracking device in their penis that shoots out radio frequencies whenever they masturbate.
Oh yes.
The final straw was when I was riding the bus just looking out the window, caught a motion and turned and found a filthy freaky drunk slowly stroking my sleeping baby's head. I was nice. I told him to please stop. This earned me getting my shit called a fucking whore for the rest of the bus ride, and then Mayor McFreak followed me off the bus and called me a fucking whore all the way down the street too. So yes, whenever possible, I preferred to take a cab.

I like cabbies. Every single one I ever met was a man with a plan, a total scamming motherfucker, and a smartass. They were pretty good to me at a time when I really needed the break...helping me with my groceries, taking me the shortest routes and then waiving half the fare, showing me around town and telling me where things were, and just being friendly, decent and real. In a different reality, with a better driving record, I could totally get into driving hack, and God help pedestrians everywhere; right, so I guess it all worked out for the best. To this day I will take a cab if it is at all possible or necessary.

I was driving around shopping yesterday with the 'all-growed-up' version of the baby I was packing around back then, musing back on how different things are. Some things haven't changed, though. We're still shopping together. I guess thats pretty cool.

Oh good gravy Marie enough of that already.

Here. Look at this instead.


Kinda brightens you whole day, doesn't it?

Release the Hounds

By the end of next week I will have sent my first story to be published by an actual 'we will give you money' type publishing outfit!

I expect nothing. I have no illusions about my skill or my chances. Aw FUCK no. But just doing this is a rush and a half! And I figure I'm going to keep on doing it if only to learn a lot, first hand, about what not to do and how not to do it...and what the fuck, right, I'll be learning it free, and firsthand! THIS MAJOR BIGTIME TOTALLY KICKS MAJOR ASS MAJORLY!!!!!

Back when I was still doing visual art as a primary medium I found it was pretty easy to get shown and even to sell. I'm not talking about anything huge here, but just that if you do it, chances are that someone else will notice. I've done business cards, concert posters, an album cover, tons of automotive art, tattoo designs, portraits, cartoons, just all kinds of shit, and been paid for it too. It was no big deal. No formal training, no portfolio, no nothing. I just put it out there and did it.

I'm hoping it turns out to be the same way with writing...that the big, huge 'thing' that I've put up there about it's being difficult and frightening and only for such and what kind of qualified people is just that....a thing.

Cross your fingers. AND IF ANYONE HAS ANY PRACTICAL ADVICE ABOUT THE BUSINESS END OF THINGS WOULD YOU PLEASE PASS IT THE FUCK ALONG TO A BITCH?

Legalize it

Oh my God lets all jump up and run around in circles flapping and tweaking because Michael Phelps smokes dope! Lordy lordy shit oh dear!

my man phelps sparking off

Yeah, who'da thunk it...an athlete smoking dope. What IS the world coming to. Not even his top sponsors give a fuck.

Look at him. Please. If I thought it would give me a middle body like that I'd smoke a hell of a lot more of it than I do now. Unfortunately it gives me a middle body like Jello Pig.



Right about now the best thing that could happen for this fucked up economy is the legalization of marijuana. Its time. It is really, really time. Slap a tax stamp on that shit like they do cigarettes and watch the dollars roll on in. Now lets look at Mark Spitz.



You think this boy here didn't be mokin da doink? Please. He put ALL KINDS OF THINGS in his mouth.

Is this messing with anyone else? Because I remember that swimsuit being a hell of a lot briefer, I truly do...although that could be time and wishful thinking operating on my memory. I also remember that rockin' little happytrail and I see I got that right, at least. God bless the photographer who thought to mist him down lightly with baby oil before this shoot, and God bless You, Mr. Spitz, and your happy trail, wherever you are. Burn one for me. Now we need to look at Michael Phelps again:


Whoever decided to make this picture the Sports Illustrated cover shot needs to be hit with an orange rubber shoe. The only thing I can think of is that they didn't want to intimidate their straight male readership. Seventy-leven gold medals and good looking too, laying there on the coffee table laughing every time you walked by would probably cause terminal pecker shrivel.

I would love to bounce dimes off that. I bet if you got him wasted enough he'd let you, too.

You want to bring back farming in a big way? Legalize it. Acres and acres of bud stretching out toward the purple mountains majesty, full of happy farmers and profoundly stoned bees....tell me that's not a beautiful picture.

Get some overseas money flowing back into the economy? Holland is thinking about repealing its openness policy. There's going to be a lot of disappointed stoners out there if that happens. Vancouver BC already turns a blind eye toward their burgeoning green culture and believe me when I tell you it turns over a stack of cash for them; I've seen it first hand! Shit, I've done it first hand. Stoned people buy things! And then they sit around for the next four hours and laugh at them! Come on!

You want to turn things around for small business? Legalize it! Dope cafes, the snack food industry, the novelty toy market, head shops, tie-dyed clothing manufacturers, beanbag chair makers, they all win! There is no downside. It smells better than cigarettes and it doesn't lead to the kind of horror that alcohol can.

LEGALIZE IT.

Kind of blue

Blues music is as ordinary as a dog. In a lot of cases you're talking about a man and a guitar and a time signature like cold molasses; lyrics cut down to nothing but a single declaration of fact.

The moment I 'got it' is engraved very distinctly in my mind. It was genuinely like falling in love. I don't mean romance, I don't mean the limerance; I'm not talking about an emotion at all. I mean that thing that's bigger than you, that flow and change that rolls through you and brings something new to life. I was about 12 or 13 at the time. Nothing has changed.

Now here in my declining years I'm still stuck with this thing and I carry it like a worry. I like a lot of different kinds of music. I love metal, thrash, rock, funk, Motown, I can sing everything off Goodbye Yellow Brick Road word for word in my sleep, I love the Kronus Quartet, Robert Kyr, Bach, Glenn Gould, Aretha Franklin...my tastes are pretty fucking eclectic. But none of it happens to me the way that blues music does and I do not understand that now any better than when I was in Jr. High.

I know I've been annoying on the subject too. I know I have. And I swore I would not be this kind of person. One CANNOT dictate taste to other people. I KNOW this. It's rude. I remember the first time I read American Splendor... I was so blown away that I wanted to walk up to people on the street and MAKE them read it. Of course, I did not do this. That 'social restraint' mechanism in your head that keeps you from having public arguments with trees and cats and dumpsters and shit kicked in, as it should. I restrained myself, realizing that not everybody wants to have complete strangers come up on them raving and slobbering about Harvey Pekar.

That restraint is completely absent when the subject of John Lee Hooker comes up. 'You need to buy this,' I'll inform some poor fool down the racks from me. Apropos of nothing. Just turn to them and hold up the Rhino compilation like John Brown's bible. 'You see this? You need this. Right here. This is the VOICE OF GOD, DUDE.'
I've done this. Yes I have.

Not to say that I like the blues unconditionally, or that I could stand listening to it all the time either; I mean, come on, right? There are simply times you don't want to hear about how someone wants to lay on the railroad tracks and die. But then again, you can hear that in the context of the blues and it will raise you up in your heart like the St. Matthews Passion being sung in a big church will raise you up, if anyone can get with that.

I have no more in common with someone like Leadbelly now than I did when I was a poo-butt kid. I have no idea what it is about this particular kind of music that is speaking to me so clearly. None whatsoever. But nevertheless it cuts straight through me like I don't even exist. I'd like to be able to apologize if I've offended anybody, but to tell you the truth I'm not sorry because I did it for your own good.

The Red Balcony

this is a description of a real place that I used to go to in Portland back in the '70's. I've been looking for a mention of it or pictures of it and no luck. The whole building is gone now.

__________________________

The Red Balcony was a bar, and like most bars in downtown Portland it had a big mirror and a cute bartender and some old movie posters on the brick walls. What it lacked were the Boston ferns, Nagel prints, and the 'flamingo and palm tree' neon sculpture that would have said 'gay bar'. It was, though.

The first thing you noticed was the height of the ceiling. The walls with their antique molded pilasters seeming to go up and up and up into the gloom until complete darkness obscured their capitals. Sometimes in the evening the sunlight would reflect in off the windows of the skyscrapers and reveal it for a moment; ship lapped fir with flaking paint, blind chipped athenas with acanthus garlands atop the dusty columns.

The bar was mahogany and the top was either zinc or steel; some kind of grey metal that bore the mark of every sharp blow it had ever received. It smelled like money in your hand on a warm day. None of the taps wore a distributors pull. You took the bartenders word that the glass he filled for you was what you had ordered.

This was not a place you ordered a daiquiri. Napkins, no. Umbrellas, monkeys, picks, toy fish, no. If you found anything other than booze and ice in your glass you picked it out and reminded yourself that alcohol is antiseptic.

There were two slate top pool tables in the front next to the only two windows in the place. Twelve bar stools lined the bar, six on either side of the grab rails. Six tables with four chairs each in the front of the house, then a stage in the middle with a dance floor the size of a postage stamp, and finally a large back room with more tables, the walls lined with booths.

A semicircle of eight brass columns rose in barley twists around the stage to support the floor of a large half-moon balcony. A person seated up there had a view over the entire space and yet remained in constant shadow, unless they sat right against the rail.

A perilous, narrow and distinctly non-code corkscrew stairway lead up to the balcony. Each step you took made the entire structure shudder and creak. Flakes of rust fell down onto whoever was standing in line waiting to use the restrooms below. If you didn't think you could make it, then you'd probably be better off staying downstairs. If you made the climb, then chances were you knew enough to conduct your shit once above just as carefully.

Up above in the balcony everything was red and black, all of it old and stained and smelling of spilled drinks and cigarettes, aftershave and Brasso. Low backed chairs lined the rail overlooking the bar, and more of the same were scattered around, along with padded hassocks and low side tables. Bounding this was a Moorish-styled railing, bellied wrought iron, scaled with ancient paint. The only light was provided by one small candle on each table. No waiters served the balcony.

I used to sit at the bar in the early part of the evening and watch the young boys come in after school and go up the stairs, dark hair and sweet smiles as they glanced your way. You could hear them laughing up there in the shadows, lanky arms and legs, smooth faces up above you in the gloom, holding hands as they sat and leaned along the railing, sharing cigarettes, passing pipes.

and the rest of this is up at UJ.

NEW ONE UP AT UJ

...ok now go down and read the dugong thing. VVV

rerun: Black Lynx Caution the Five Angry Diatom!!!!!

q: What is a dugong?

The dugong is a member of a small group of aquatic mammals known as 'Sirenia'. Other members include the manatee (which is not nearly as fun a word to say as 'dugong' so we'll just pretend that it doesn't exist) and the (now extinct) Stellars' Sea Cow.

...yes, it's two you-know-what-atees. it's my blog and i'm calling them dugongs.


...which was in fact not terribly cow-like; it was more like a big hippo-seal type thing.
Although it would be really cool if it HAD been like an aquatic cow and it gave milk and said 'moo'? and like maybe it had these huge horns that stuck out REALLY FAR and they would stampede and they'd get in cool fights and stuff? and divers could go down and have rodeos and the seaweed would be like tumbleweeds?
Yeah.


Centuries ago, the first Dugong sightings were reported in the logbooks of Spanish sailors who (upon seeing the bald, grey, flippered animals swimming around chewing on seaweed and burping) immediately mistook them for a race of seagoing human women.






This may say more about Spanish femininity than we care to know.



q: Where do dugongs come from?
a: Duh; the ocean.
q: Oh Jesus fine. What is the life cycle of the dugong?
a: Ah. Well then. That's an interesting question.

When a mommy dugong and a daddy dugong love one another very much, they want to share that love with a baby dugong. So the Mommy dugong lies on her back, and the daddy dugong orders one from Ikea.
But ordering from Ikea can take time, and sometimes the quality sucks, so the smart mommy and daddy dugong usually go to the KING OF THE DUGONGS and ask him for one.

...click; it gets bigger. waaaaaaaay bigger.

This is the beginning of a magical, mysterious process that has very seldom been documented on film. Are you paying attention? I said put down the damn ocarina and pay attention. I don't care if it's called a sweet potato in the rural South put the damn thing DOWN.

Opie, King of the Dugongs, goes out to a sacred place far, far back in the woods where small dugong bulbs lay dormant in the soil. At his command, a small gnome-like creature emerges from the grass and begins excavating.


It digs and digs and digs and digs, throwing soil everywhere and getting exceedingly filthy...soil in its ears, soil in its butt crack, soil absolutely everywhere.














...until finally, the first tiny newborn dugong emerges.








Close enough.




q: Is communication with dugongs possible?
Yes! Recent experiments using extra sensory perception have yielded undreamed-of results in the field of dugong-human communication.


Here a diver uses the 'mind meld' technique.


"Can you understand me, fellow earth dweller? Gentle giant of the sea, can you understand me?"







"HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO REPEAT MYSELF HERE. RING RING PICK UP THE CLUE PHONE. LEAVE. ME. THE. FUCK. ALONE."



Q: Do dugongs spy on America and then give all our secrets to hostile foreign powers?
a: Yes.





....plus they sneak up on your when you are swimming and yell "DUGONG!" in your ear real loud and then swim away.

Dugongs SUCK.



q: Do dugongs migrate?

a: During certain times of the year the trans-oceanic currents shift, and with this shift comes a subtle change in the temperature of the sea. ...image of migrating dugongs thanks to KYAHGIRL

This is the signal that the dugongs have been waiting for.
Once a reliable source of medical-grade helium has been found and the deliveries completed, they line up along the shore in the light of the full moon, wait for a favorable wind, and ascend towards the stars.

Aren't you glad that only happens in Florida? Talk about making a mess of your car. I mean that would be RASTY. They're herbivores.