Everything Exactly As It Happened

Wish You Were Here

2009-03-28T17:34:00.000-07:00

This is what the world looks like for Ray Speen these days. This is what happens when you spend all your time at The Liquid Hideout. Can it really be since MAY that I wrote anything. It would be nice if "The LH" went wireless, but for now we'll just have to settle for rotgut tequila specials every evening happy hour (from noon until midnight - that's some happy hour!) And no there isn't a bathtub at The Liquid Hideout, though it would also be an improvement. This place is a hole of the grandest degree, but it's the best and only place in "The Point" worth leaving your buggy, moldy, airless, reeking room for. The only question is who will win the race to the bottom, Ray Speen or The Economy?

So Much For The Union

2008-05-26T09:05:00.000-07:00

Everyone says the economy is bad, but what does that mean, really? Is that along the lines of: we have to suspend all civil liberties in order to protect us from the terrorists, and we have to attack Iraq because they have weapons of mass destruction? I moved to Union Point because of the strong tradition of labor rights and organization here. What I've found is that the Unions have been, for the most part, dismantled, and I'm facing a new world of work, with longer hours, lower pay, and no breaks. I guess that's what I get for all my years pursuing little but liver damage, while things changed around me as they inevitably will. The rich will get richer and the poor poorer, and the middle-class will disappear, then we'll have a revolution, and things will get even worse for everyone, then better for awhile, then slowly worse again. The only question is how fast, and will I be able to afford to live through all of this, and if so, will I be drinking Southern Host or huffing tar cleaner? Will I get my liver replaced or will I have to carry it around with me in a shopping cart? If they replace it, will the new one come from victim of the revolution, or will I get David Crosby's old one?

Liquid Hideout

2008-03-01T07:36:00.000-08:00

To my delight, I have found, in my new home town, Union Point, a bar called "Liquid Hideout"!!! As many of you may have known, I used to spend most of my waking hours, and many not very awake ones, when I wasn't at the Bally Total Suckass, at a bar called LIQUID HIDEOUT in South Milwaukee. Especially after Lloyd's Luncheonette closed their doors forever. I have no idea if this place is a chain or not. I really don't think so. That would be crazy, right? Anyway, what a stroke of luck! Anyway, that is where you can find me, on a stool, or sometimes, two stools (not that often on three stools, but occasionally) near the beet pickled hard boiled eggs, far from the video poker, looking at the help wanted classifieds, and wondering if my phone, at home and lonesome, is ringing off the hook, or was accidentally left off the hook.

I Have Moved!

2008-01-28T09:50:00.000-08:00

Thanks to the hundreds, indeed thousands* of you who expressed concern about the lack of postings on this particular online journal. Sometimes the truth is a difficult thing to write about, and this case it isn't, but rather, the truth is just to boring.

The truth is, I moved to a different town and have started a new life here. Some people say that moving is one of the most stressful things you can do. I don't know about that, but I have found it this time to be about as hard as making my way across a vast desert with two broken legs carrying a huge trunk full of a lifetime of "to do" lists.

But now I am here, in my new home, Union Point. So far things are going okay, except for nagging illness, bugbites, my health insurance getting cancelled, and no jobs. But I faced worse before. And, I keep telling myself, people all over the place have it MUCH worse than me. I don't know WHY I have to keep telling myself that, it's something that I should just KNOW. But, you know, I'm basically a moron, so...

More adventures soon!

*actually, 27

The War on Drugs

2007-08-28T12:00:00.000-07:00

That was a movie, right? No... That was the war on Roses. What does anyone have agiant roses, I wonder? If war on drugs was really a war, which it isnt. Why do I persist? I presist a lot more in the summer than the winter. It must be the humidity. Wild Irish Rose is not Irish. NOt close to Irish. And who is this Richard? I have to aks for him. Myabe Keith Richards Tripple Peach. I used to be in a band called Triple Peach. People thought we were fond of ice cream. We had a song called Hop on Pop, after the kid's book. It just occuredd to me if that book was called Hop on Mom, it would have been a banned book! You drink a lot, even for an Irishman, someone said. Not to me. I'm not an alcoholic, I'm just from Ohio, I liek to say. And then I hurl.

Secret Headquarters

2007-07-23T15:39:00.000-07:00

I apologize for making myself scarce lately, but I've been spending most
of my time at LIQUID HIDEOUT, my new favorite Wisconsin phenomenon.

My Vocaton

2007-07-16T12:22:00.000-07:00

I just got an annual checkup at the doctor, something I do once every ten years or so, and to my surprise, health care is now like going to a cafeteria where you walk along and look at the various food options, with the prices on them, and pick out what you want and what you can afford. It turns out I can no longer afford the colonoscopy, the complete blood work, or that deal where the doctor hits your knee with a little hammer. I miss that one!

One bit of advice my doctor did give me was to start drinking again. In fact he asked me if I wanted to go out drinking with HIM! No, that's not true. I'm just practicing my lying. I'm not very good. Anyway, he is a she, and she didn't-- IN SO MANY WORDS-- suggest that I start drinking again. But when I reviewed, in my mind, later, everything she said, it was quite obvious to me, when I read between the lines, that she was suggesting that I start drinking again. If there is anything I'm good at, it's reading between the lines.

Okay. So I'm not so good at reading between the lines! But I'm pretty good at writing between the lines. It's what I do.

The Wagon is Without Gaurdrails

2007-06-08T15:13:00.001-07:00

I just got this new New Yorker and opened right to this ad for Glenlivet NADURRA Scotch, which suddenly looks awfully attractive to me. Maybe the mag ad dept was working overtime with ME in mind, but the lighting, the way the light is coming through this slightly cloudy bottle of old Scotch (I guess it's not filtered like most whiskey, which is kind of exciting). Or maybe it's the way the bottle is sitting on what looks like a ratty old brown carpet-- what's that all about?!

Anyway, it's 16 years old, and some quick calculations lead me to believe it was made in like 1991, or before-- it's been aging that long. Which led me to think, maybe it would be okay for me to drink as long as what I drink was make before I quit drinking! (1993) There is some real diabolical logic in that, huh? Okay, I've got to turn the page, my mouth is watering! Oh, it's that fucking Palahniuk guy on the next page, one of "THE ORIGINATORS" (brought to you by The Glenlivet). Whew! I've quickly come to my senses. For now.

It Is All My Fault

2007-04-16T14:17:00.000-07:00

Everyone is pissed at me for last week, and I don't blame them, I guess. I was selfish. See, the older I get, and the closer I get to FORTY, the more time it seems to take me to do everything and to get the day to day things done even. So I'm way behind in my work, which includes my "work," my W.O.R.K., my work work, and even the stuff I don't really have to do but WANT to which kind of takes up more time than anything else it seems.

So to me, spring on its way is just a reminder of how behind I am. It always seems like the endless winter is a good time to catch up with things because it's ENDLESS-- so where does that leave you when you're on the verge of spring and still not caught up and realizing for that reason you DREAD spring?

So what I did was I sat down with God, who by the way does have a beard, and Mother Nature, who, don't ask me if she was wearing a bra, I was really nervous about this meeting. We sat down like honest businesspeople and I asked them, I pleaded with them for another week of winter so I would at least have the chance to catch up. And they said OK! It was that easy

I thought, then, about asking for a few other things, but I didn't want to push my luck.

So that's why the extra week of winter. I'm sorry, I really am! And I know this sounds like I'm making it up, but I swear to God, it's true!

A Painfully Difficult Confession

2007-03-30T16:05:00.000-07:00

I have a confession to make: I am addicted to child pornography! It doesn't come to my house in anonymous brown wrappers, or on the internet (I don't even have the internet at my house), but from the public library on DVD in the form of the first season of the television show "Veronica Mars." Okay, I know this is not a laughing matter, and I don't mean to joke about what can be a very serious problem, but I didn't know how else to get into this difficult, for me, to talk about, subject.

This is a TV show that has been apparently aired on "the WB" whatever that is, and now "the CW" whatever that is. That is another world we won't get into. It's a mystery show about some high school kids in a 90210-like California coast town. Veronica is a detective, and like Nancy Drew she is an only child and lives with her father. Nancy's mother was dead and her father a lawyer. Veronica's father is a private investigator, and her mother has disappeared. This is one of the mysteries she's trying to solve, though the big one is who murdered her best friend. Several new mysteries present themselves in each episode, and she's often doing about four things at once. And, of course, all the mysteries are related.

Not meaning to downplay the very real pain very real child pornography has caused many, I still want to pursue that analogy, just because when I think of pornography I don't only think of nudity and sex, but violence and exploitation. It could be that kids aren't allowed to see a naked body in a movie, but can see a body being torn apart by a weapon. It makes no sense, but I don’t want to get into that. I don’t really think Veronica Mars is pornography, but on paper it's pretty hard core. Here are high school kids that drink, smoke, do drugs, and have sex (just like real high school kids do-- I don't know how they show this on TV, but I'm not worrying about that)-- and even worse, these kids have very adult senses of humor (intelligent, quick, and vicious-- and the degree of reality there is just a matter of degree).

If you look at it simply on the level of victimization, Veronica has got to be one of the all-time record holders: as an underage girl in high school, and this is just in season one, she has been dumped by her peers, had her best friend murdered, she was drugged and raped at a party, her father was run out of his job as sheriff, her mother left town, her father is then seeing her new best friend's mother, and there are very real questions to who her real father might be-- there is the possibility that she might be the illegitimate daughter of her former boyfriend's dad. That's right-- that would mean she had been sleeping with her brother!

How does she deal with all this? She is clever and ruthless, hard-edged and funny. The best senses of humor come from the worst pain. You can't help but like her. Yes-- at first I was annoyed, but I got hooked. Okay, maybe it was the mystery element that hooked me. I read movie scripts from time to time, as a vocation and a profession, and I have found that a good mystery will help get me past the most shallow characters, bad dialogue, and terrible topical humor you can imagine. I mean, you have to look no further than the criminals (currently holding the government of our country hostage) who are using a fictional mystery-- weapons of mass destruction-- to attempt to make palpable the hijacking and destruction of an entire country for corporate financial gains. But back to Veronica Mars-- the mystery gets you hooked, but then the characters, just like the people you know, start to endear themselves to you in spite of their annoying traits.

But finally, the thing that really got to me with this show (okay, I'm still dying to find out what happened) is that it became emotionally complex, and in many different ways. There are the questions of family-- who is family, where does loyalty lie-- how important is blood, and how important is devotion? Then there are questions of "the truth"-- can it ever be known, really, and the relation of politics, public relations, and money to the truth. And then most of all, the questions of responsibility. Veronica discovers, as a survival technique, her talent for ruthlessness and revenge. That is her way of coping, and she's good at it. But at some point she realizes that her actions affect people in ways she hadn't intended-- that there is always a ripple effect, especially with extreme measures and extreme results. Sometimes in helping someone she is hurting someone else more, someone she had not intended to hurt.

I can't imagine what is going to happen in the second season, because Veronica, as a precocious high school kid, is already becoming more adult than most adults do in an entire lifetime. I am half expecting to see her end up in a monastery, or high up on a mountain, in self-imposed isolation, waiting for a student, perhaps, who can take on the entire world.

The Wonders of the Human Mind

2007-02-28T15:18:00.000-08:00

For absolutely no reason at all this morning I suddenly found myself singing, "Yikes! Stripes! Beechnut fruit stripe gum!" --over and over and over...

Fucked Up Valentine

2007-02-14T12:35:00.000-08:00

In a way, I guess, it's appropriate. If you're going to break up with someone, WHY NOT on Valentine's day? After all, it's a ridiculous, stupid holiday based on guilt and with really no reason to exist than boost sales at certain worthless retail businesses, the same as Christmas. And seeing how I used to be an FTD pimp myself, maybe I had this coming.

But I didn’t SEE it coming, that's the sad thing. We've been together for seven years now, and things have been going well. SO I thought. As Lou Reed says...

Oh, fuck Lou Reed.

Okay, what happened, I got off my third shift job at the Suicide Hotline to come home and find that she had completely moved out. I mean everything, including the cat and things that were mine. I'm exaggerating, she didn’t take that much that was mine, except for the Revere-ware.

She left a brilliant note, short, but to the vicious, horrible point. I'll reproduce it here...

No, fuck that.

Not that I'm trying to protect her anonymity or anything, but becaue it's a really GREAT letter, and I don't want to share it. It's for me. The clear-mindedness of it, and the viciousness, and the serial killer coldness just makes me love her more than ever.

And the best thing is that she left this HUGE box of chocolates, probably something she bought at Walgreen's that would go on sale tomorrow for a dollar because the expiration date is LAST Valentine's day and they are full of worms. Even better, I looked at the ingredients and it's chocolate with crunchy shit it, which is made of, yes... WHEAT! Which, as you know, is poison to me. Not to mention that she knows I quit eating chocolate because it gives me migraines. The only thing better could be if I had a deadly peanut allergy or something, because there are peanuts in it too!

Maybe I'll send her flowers. But, really, I don't hate her that much. At least not yet. Maybe I need to give this time to sink in.

I have nothing against flowers, in fact I LOVE flowers, it's just what flowers have become. You send someone flowers because someone has died, or because you are guilty about something, or because if you DON'T you'll be in the doghouse. You send someone flowers to say you're sorry, because you fucked up massively, and you are asking for one more chance. And you send someone flowers to say "It's your funeral." And you send someone flowers because you are saying, "I'm above all that. Maybe I don't forgive you, and I can never forgive you, but here's some goddamned flowers!"

I'm not going to send flowers. I'm just going to get over it. In about three years, is my best guess.

Laundry Mishap

2007-02-09T13:51:00.000-08:00

Another laundry day, another breakfast at Brady Street Pharmacy, another mishap, another problem, another another another. I put in my wash, went over to BSP for two eggs, over, burnt beyond all recognition (translates as over easy here), bacon, sausage, Canadian bacon, country ham, sausage gravy, no biscuits, no toast, bananas and milk, butterscotch sundae. I can't button the top button of my jeans, I wonder why. I don't mean now, after eating all that. I mean lately.

After breakfast, which included coffee, and a couple of cigarettes, courtesy the IAB, I went back to the laundromat. While leaning over the washer, scooping my clean (kind of, you know...) clothes into the rolling basket, I suddenly HURLED my breakfast right on the clean clothes. Rather than getting upset, I put the now quite soiled clothes right back in the washer, added more soap and seven quarters, and changed the settings from "white" to "bright colors."

From my notebook 12/31/06

2007-01-15T15:08:00.000-08:00

I used to keep a dream notebook—well, I still do—but lately I haven’t been writing in it, primarily because the dreams are so horrifying, and I’ve found that if I don’t write them down I forget them faster. But anyway, today I had the unique experience of having a nightmare, waking up, going back to sleep for less than an hour, having a worse one, then after getting up for awhile, and being careful not to doze off AGAIN, momentarily dozing off to continue a nightmare from much earlier (or from another day!). As usual, I cant even talk about these dreams, because the horror was so acute—and I’m a fool for even mentioning it now—but one thing just occurred to me—that part of one of the dreams was about someone getting robbed, and then hearing that the robbers took (along with the usual valuable stuff) their Danny O’Day ventriloquist dummy!

Okay—so I won’t seem like I’m trying to be all mysterious and everything, and just making all this up—one of the dreams—not the worst of them, though, was just one of those about someone trying to kill me. In this case, it’s a young, jock guy, he’s up on some structure—it’s the inside of a building, like a train station—but it’s—as usual with my dreams—an invented, new location—not something I can identify from the real world—this guy has some ridiculous military rifle that has rocket launchers on it and scopes and lots of hi-tech shit—but he’s just trying to simply SHOOT me as I run out. I get away, but then into a place where I’ve never been—but is somehow familiar—like an apartment or suite of rooms—very cheap locks on the doors—I even lock TWO of them—but still he’s coming—and then things just get WORSE. I know when you write it out like this it doesn’t sound so bad—because it just makes you think of a MOVIE where this would be happening—and with my hero’s ingenuity I would set up a HUMAN MOUSETRAP and get the dude—or else find a convenient handgun floating around and suddenly (though I’ve never shot a gun) I’d be an expert marksman and shoot him before he could shot me (or perhaps John Wayne would, hiding in the shadows). But NO, this dream is really much more along the lines of a movie like Gus Van Sant’s ELEPHANT. But even worse than that. The fortunate thing is being able to WAKE UP! And then to forget. Often I have horrifying dreams and once I wake up I’m not even that disturbed by them, just happy that I’m awake and the dream was a dream. Well, this morning, when I dozed off AGAIN, I had that weird continuation dream from?—when?—who knows—sometime earlier—or maybe not—maybe it’s just dream déjà vu—annoying—this one was bout me smashing all the windows of the cars in the driveway parking area of where I live—I had smashed the car windows sometime earlier in that earlier dream—now I was facing the consequences.

New Years Rezolujotns

2006-12-28T15:18:00.000-08:00

Every year I resist that whole resolution thing, and then, of course, go ahead and compose a set of earnest, heartfelt ways to improve my life and hopefully even those around me—not showing it to anyone, of course, so I won't have to hear about it—after failing miserably.

But this year, I've decided, something a little bit different is in order. I'm going to change EVERYTHING about my life. I mean everything. Even the little things, and the things no one will notice, and things that don't need changing. I suppose, in some cases, it will be a change for the worse.

But it will be different. That is the important thing. Different.

12/12/06

2006-12-12T16:58:00.000-08:00

I'm at The Plaza Cafe where it's too hot as usual. I imagine it's a combination of these out-of-control steam heat radiators and the grill—of course it is hot. I came here impulsively—on my way to the office, early—impulsively—a rain-soaked morning—though not raining, yet—it will be!

The date, December 12, strikes me as a significant one, though it probably isn't—no more significant than all the others one might feel that way about for no reason—I mean personally. I could look at old notebooks, old calendars (which I keep). I could do that as sort of a project—go back and look at December Twelves as far back as I have notebooks and journals and calendars—see if there really is any significance. But I don't think I will. Thus, this is a new project, started, ended, all in this paragraph!

How much time I've saved myself! Though, now, thinking about it, I suddenly suspect that something is up! What if I looked at the past December Twelves and realized that on EACH ONE I had the idea of looking back on past December Twelves and seeing what I did—but in each case I decided against it! How would I ever find out? And how would I ever escape from this cycle?

We Had A Talk

2006-11-09T13:03:00.000-08:00

The extent of my political involvement is to vote, talk to my co-workers and friends about issues, and donate a small amount of money (more than I can afford!) here and there, but as I didn't get out and volunteer and work countless hours, like so many people, to defeat the Wisconsin anti-gay marriage amendment, I feel like I shouldn't even complain here in my own journal. But since I am so freaked out about it, I'm going to say something briefly. I guess I live in a rather sheltered world, among reasonable, intelligent people, and so I couldn't even imagine the majority of people in Wisconsin voting for something so obviously insane and hateful. I figured it would just be those guys who yell "Fuck you" at me out of the window of their pickup truck while I'm on my bicycle, just before they speed off to the highway ramp. But to quote George W. Bush (the first and last time I'll ever do that) "Show's you how much I know."

I couldn't even sleep last night because I was thinking about this so much. Are there really THAT many people who hate gay people THAT much? I know a lot of individuals and groups have said they don't HATE gay people at all, but they don't think they should be allowed to be married. I don't think I even need to comment on something like that. What is marriage all about, anyway? I thought about that for a long time. I have thought about that a lot in the past, because I have been very critical of marriage as an institution, yet I have wanted to respect and support friends and family who decided to get married. If marriage is only about legal status, okay, that's fine, but I don't want anything to do with it at all. And if it's about religion, again, I want nothing to do with it. But in that case, shouldn't Christians be insisting that non-Christians not be able to be married? Maybe they do, in some cases, I don’t know. The people I know who have become married insist that it's about love, and I have to respect that, but when you start to tell people who they can or cannot love, THAT is a problem. If the law tells people they cannot love someone else, at least that expression of love that is marriage, doesn't that make all marriage as expressions of love problematic?

These were the kind of circles I was talking myself in, sleeplessly, until I finally worked myself into a kind of trance. And it was at that point that God spoke to me. This was a very strange, unique experience, nothing like I would have ever imagined "God speaking to me" would be like. God didn't say this was right and that was wrong, or direct me to a church or the Bible. If anything, God calmed me down and helped me to see a more harmonious relationship between emotion, belief, perception, and the intellect. Calling people names and dismissing them outright isn't going to accomplish anything. It's important to respect people I don't agree with as human beings, as difficult as that is sometimes. That's a hard thing for me to accept, as a cold killer, just as God talking to me is hard to accept as a non-Christian. But I wouldn’t call myself a non-believer, not before, and certainly not now. That same sex couples have the right to be in love and thus be married was something I believed, but now it is something I know.

Usually Saturday Morning Is The Only Quiet Time In Milwaukee

2006-09-27T16:14:00.000-07:00

I’m eating breakfast, Albanian sausage, at Megan’s Café in Cudahy. It’s a nice place—a little storefront L-shaped room. I like places like this, but the only bad thing is there is some kind of video game—a guy is constantly playing—but at least it has no sound—and there is a video poker machine—and the worst thing—there is TV with the sound on—and some ridiculous Saturday morning show—at least it’s not as bad as CNN, but almost—it’s a reality TV show for kids—what the fuck!

I was riding here on the bike trail this morning, and it’s 10 am on a Saturday morning, and there's some kind of running event going on, I guess. I come to the turnaround—a couple of guys with an orange cone in the middle of the bike trail, that the runners go around and then back the way they came. But the weird thing is that these guys have a CAR on the bike trail, a gasoline powered generator chugging away, but the loud noise THAT is making is drowned out by LOUD MUSIC blaring though portable PA speakers—some kind of Top 40 contemporary disco bar crap. Why? Isn’t the point of going out on a weekend Saturday morning on the bike and walking trail—through the woods—away from the roads and cars—is to be AWAY from cars and exhaust and noise? Why in the world would you put giant speakers out here blasting music so that it’s like you’re in a bar? You can go to the bar LATER!

WEIRD COINCIDENCE

2006-09-07T10:06:00.000-07:00

I was watching a DVD of THE PRISONER which I got from the library. I haven't seen that show in a long, long time. It's not quite as weirdly magical as I remember, at least the first three episodes, but then I saw something that CHILLED MY BLOOD. In, I think it was, the third episode, I noticed, in his room, above his TV, two little golden lion statues, and they looked EXACTLY THE SAME as the golden lions on that magazine I was writing about yesterday, which I recycled. I wanted to get the magazine to compare them, so when I came into the office I checked the paper recycling bin outside where I dumped my paper when I left last night. But it had been picked up already, so the magazine is gone! But anyway, I’m sure the golden lions are the same! What does that mean?

LEADERSHIP SUMMIT

2006-09-06T12:52:00.000-07:00

Okay, I haven't gotten around to talking about the magazine I found at the laundromat. It says: "The Connection" on the cover, almost hidden, and then LAS VEGAS, in a crazy font, and the Leadership Summit 2005, in a red stipe. There's a strange picure of a golden lion and some yellow lightbulbs, some lit, some burned out. There is a table of contents, over the golden lion again, with cryptic chapters like: New Ring Earners, New Platinum Jacket Earners, and Golden App Award Winners, and Did You Win Big? I page through the magazine. Most of it consists of lists of names, and the states they are from, under headings such as: "Top Producers," "Top Recruiters," "Executive Directors," and "Players Club." Again, the golden lion. Okay, the back of the magazine comes with an earnest portrait of a guy from Fayetteville, NC who is quoted under his photo: "My lifestyle has changed a lot because I have time and money freedom! I like the opportunity to help others become successful! That's my life mission!" And then there is a kind of generic photo of a modern office building at night with brightly lit windows, and next to that it says" Profiles of Success." I think the whole thing is some kind of a cult. There is a phone number there where you can order "your" copy. Then there is the address of the person who this magazine was sent to, a small town in Illinois. The name on the mailing label is simply "Lee." It's all pretty creepy. I'm going to just throw this damn thing away!

LUNCHTIME

2006-09-01T16:15:00.000-07:00

I'm at lunch, downtown, midafternoon, and everything is all wrong. Everything feels weird today. I know it's not me. I am not causing that woman at the next table to sit there crying. I'm not imagining it. It's not me. Though I DID wake up on the wrong side of the bed. It wasn't even like I was trying to sleep, when I got up this morning at 5 am, having gone to bed at 10 last night. I was just trying to relax and read, but I couldn't even do that, because even before it got light, the noise started outside, and not just the average noise, but the disturbing, insane noise. First the usual cars and airconditioners, cars racing down the alley, garbage trucks, then the motorcycles, but not just the mufflerless harley's, it's high pitched whine of those racing motorcycles, but where, exactly, are they racing? To work? Then there are the usual morning sirens, but this morning there are more and more, all the different varieties. There must be a big fire somewhere. Then there is the helicopter, it's hovering right up there where I can see it. What's it looking for? I look out and can see the US Bank building, there is no smoke billowing out of the side. But the sirens continue, the helicopter keeps hovering, so I finally get out my little radio. First there is the traffic reports, seven minutes to here, twelve to there. Then I hear sports reports on EVERY area team. Finally the news, and they say there was a fire on the roof of an apartment building downtown. It's not too serious, though, so that's good. I'm glad there are all the firetrucks responding and all that, but what is that helicopter there for? It's not a police helicopter, it's a NEWS helicopter, and they're not there to warn us, or help us in anyway. They are there to get the story, see the burning bodies fall from the building so that they will have exclusive footage on the news, helping their ratings, selling advertising time. The helicopter isn't there to do anything but create entertainment.

I know it's laundry day when...

2006-09-01T15:57:00.000-07:00

It’s laundry day, which comes only once every year or so, so what am I complaining about? It’s early Friday morning, and it’s apocalyptically windy outside, it’s going to thunderstorm, the world is going to end. The sky is dark, and it's very depressing. No one is on the street. I am the only one walking, though about 7000 cars pass me as I walk the six blocks or so to the laundromat. There was one guy out on the street, but actually walking ON the street, not the sidewalk, which is usually a bad sign. He had flipped out. He is holding one fist in the air and chanting in an otherworldly voice that kind of sounds like a Canadian goose. While my wash is going, I stop in the pharmacy for some bananas and milk. I’m eavesdropping on the Italians as usual. It’s really easy because we’re all at the same, big round table. There are usually a dozen or so older Italian guys from the neighborhood, I assume. Usually all men—an occasional woman. Some guys never say a thing. Usually it’s a few guys doing all the talking. There’s a guy telling about his trip to Venice. The one woman says, “You’ve got to write all this down, or you’ll forget it.” I immediately notice that sentiment, I like this woman. Later, she says, “Why do guys always come back from Italy with chains?” I’m not sure exactly what she’s referring to, I wasn’t paying attention. I think they were talking about younger guys. Anyway, I think it’s not that often that people use metaphors at all anymore, is it? Maybe there are some common ones all the time? I’m going to think about it. I’m going to pay attention for metaphors for a couple of days and see if I hear any... then get back to you. I’m going to listen to conversations for a few days. Back at the laundromat, I happy to get away from the smooth jazz of the pharmacy, only to be immediately depressed by the classic rock of the laundromat. I remember how Doug was just saying that every time he’s been at this particular laundromat he’s had to suffer through “A Horse With No Name,” and it makes me realize that if I hear that terrible song today, at least, his comments will neutralize it, but now with that thought in mind I realize that I won’t hear it at all. Instead, it gets stuck in my head, worse than if I’d actually heard it! I keep trying to figure out what that one lien is: “In the desert, you don’t remember no pain, cuz there ain’t no one for to give you no pain.” What the fuck?!? There is a guy in the laundromat with running shorts and a t-shirt and flip-flops. Men think going to the laundromat means that they can wear ANYTHING, the excuse being that it’s laundry day. But that’s not really true anymore, men think they can wear anything anytime anymore, and I’m not excepting myself from this criticism. And especially in the summer. I’m so happy when summer is over so you don’t see men wearing flip-flops out in public anymore. Anyway, this guy is okay, even though he’s wearing the kind of shorts men wear so their dicks will “accidentally” fall out at some point. But the worst thing is that he’s got on a t-shirt that says something on the front as well as the back. On the back there is simple text, two short sentences, the first says either: “Juicy stories.” OR "Juicy Steaks." I can't be sure which it is. Right after that it says, “Set to music.” Which is it, juicy stories, or juicy steaks? I’m trying to look closely to see, but the guy gets all self-conscious and looks over at me suspiciously, so I look away. Hey, if you’re going to wear a t-shirt that says something on it, you’ve got to expect people are going to try to read it, right? Then I hear a Fleetwood Mac song and I go into a depressive tailspin. This is the moment that Fleetwood Mac has finally put me over the edge. It’s not always the same song, but always one from the “Rumors” album, or the one before. I still own both of those, but I’m going to do something symbolically cleansing with them or something, like throw them violently against the wall. I can’t take it anymore. But still, how many times in my life will I have to hear these songs again? Maybe I should count, keep track from this moment on, how many times I hear a song from one of these albums in public. Maybe I should do some heinous act every time I hear one. Not some bad, destructive, or hurtful thing. I don’t believe in that, but something else. It’s can’t be an act of good will or generously, though, because that would like rewarding Fleetwood Mac. Really, it’s nothing against them, it’s the people who keep playing the fucking things. Anyway, that’s a good question. What act could I commit, that had some significance, some good even, but be an act of protest and defiance? I’ll figure something out. No I won't. I’ve got all that going through my mind, well actually the angry version, as I push the buttons for the dryers, walk away, and then after going for a few seconds they inexplicably STOP. Is this planned into their operation? Is there a convention where laundromat owners go to buy dryers, and some sweaty leisure suited slime dryer salesman explains how profits are increased by these dryers that sometimes just turn off for no reason and you have to go push the button again. It’s not just my imagination, either, because it happens EVERY TIME I’m at the laundromat, and with many of the dryers. I’m seething with anger at this point, but still try to enjoy the experience at the laundromat, by reading whatever there is there to read, which I usually do. There is only ONE thing today, it’s a glossy magazine that says: LEADERSHIP SUMMIT on the cover, very strange. Okay this is a whole new subject, I’ll get to this later. Yeah, right, later. I’m carefully folding shit when “Running On Empty” comes on through the inescapable ceiling speakers, and I flip out. I quickly shove all my laundry in my bag, wet still even, wrinkled, unsorted, maybe missing sock mates, and rush out the door, having been effectively pushed over the edge, over the edge, over the edge.

where have I been?

2006-07-25T19:26:00.000-07:00

I don't know... Sometimes I just want forget about all this and go back to when I had a few books and a typewriter, and I even used candles to type by sometimes. Light a candle next to a computer screen and it looks pretty fucking pointless, do you know what I mean?

Everything Exactly As It Happened

2006-04-21T13:38:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my journal! A lot of this will be stuff copied from my notebooks, things I write sitting in diners and cafes. This is all the true shit, everything with no sugarcoating, and nothing left out. Read this at your own risk!
--Randy