Talk About Good!
I was invited to a 4th of July Barbeque at my friends, Rich and Jerry. Jerry barbequed ribs and chicken, Rich made an outrageous potato salad, Ray made some dynamite macaroni and cheese, and I made sweet corn & toasted walnut risotto.
Now, I loves me some good risotto, and this was just about as good as I've ever had. This serves anywhere from six to eight people.
Sweet Corn & Toasted Walnut Risotto
1/2 to 1 cup of chopped walnuts
1 large onion, chopped
2 large cloves of garlic, minced
1 large shallot, chopped
2 cups Arborio rice
1 cup white wine
3 cans chicken broth, heated
5 ears of sweet corn
1-1/2 sticks butter
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
1/4 cup chopped parsley
1/2 cup chopped green onions
1/4 cup chopped tarragon
You begin my toasting about 1 cup of walnuts. Toasting them really does bring out the flavor. Put them aside until you finish the dish. They're the last thing you add.
Next, cut the corn off the cob and scrape the juice out of the cob. Not put the corn to one side.
In a large skillet, melt one stick of butter on low heat so you don't burn it, and then turn the heat up and add the chopped onion. Cook for five to ten minutes and then add the chopped garlic and shallot. Cook for another five minutes. Add the rice and cook with the onion and garlic for about five minutes. Now add the white wine and cook until most of it is absorbed.
Begin to add the hot chicken broth, one can at a time, slowly, letting most of it be absorbed by the rice. This should take about 15 minutes. After adding the last can of broth, add the corn and cook until most of the liquid is absorbed. Add the last of the butter and the parmesan cheese and when well well absorbed, turn off the fire and add the walnuts. The chopped parsley, the green onions and the tarragon are sprinkled over the top before serving.
Talk about good!
Sunday, July 05, 2009
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Le donne al volante + imbranate di youtube - woman drive!
I'm not saying it's true, I'm just showing the facts.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
I'm coming back to Blogger. This was my original blogging home. I moved in Typepad in May of 2004. At the time, Typepad was offering features not available to Blogger. That's all changed. Blogger has become much more finessable.
For the next month or so, I'll double post, here and there. After the first month, I'll stop posting at Typepad and leave a re-direct message. I'll leave that up for a month or two, and then stop paying them the $4.95 a month. That gives me two to three months to migrate my archives over here.
Thanks for stopping by. Please feel free to leave a comment or suggestion regarding the impending migration.
For the next month or so, I'll double post, here and there. After the first month, I'll stop posting at Typepad and leave a re-direct message. I'll leave that up for a month or two, and then stop paying them the $4.95 a month. That gives me two to three months to migrate my archives over here.
Thanks for stopping by. Please feel free to leave a comment or suggestion regarding the impending migration.
Tuesday, May 04, 2004
Saying Good-bye to Hero
"But the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.'' Ralph Waldo Emerson A passage underlined in a book belonging to Pat Tillman.
Yesterday, a lot of people who knew Pat Tillman and a lot of people who would like to have known Pat, paid tribute to him in San Jose. Gwen Knapp covered the service for the San Francisco Chronicle.
Just when we thought we had a pure and simple hero, a millionaire athlete who gave up wealth and fame to become the ideal patriot, to make the ultimate sacrifice, his friends and family complicated everything. They turned Pat Tillman into a human being Monday, showing us what was really lost during that ambush in Afghanistan, insisting that we question every assumption we've made since he died an icon on April 22.
[Snip.]
Tillman's youngest brother, Rich, wore a rumpled white T-shirt, no jacket, no tie, no collar, and immediately swore into the microphone. He hadn't written anything, he said, and with the starkest honesty, he asked mourners to hold their spiritual bromides.
"Pat isn't with God,'' he said. "He's fucking dead. He wasn't religious. So thank you for your thoughts, but he's fucking dead.''
His brother-in-law and close friend, Alex Garwood, described how Tillman handled his duties when he became godfather to Garwood's son. He came to the ceremony dressed as a woman. Not as a religious commentary. He was doing a balancing act.
"We had two godfathers, no godmother,'' Garwood explained. And what NFL player turned Army Ranger wouldn't don drag to make that math work?
Who on earth was this guy?
[Snip.]
"He talked about gays,'' Lyle Setencich, the former ASU assistant said. "He asked me, 'Could you coach gays?' " Setencich told Tillman yes. He could, and he had. He repeated that at the memorial service, televised on ESPN, in front of the sports world, showing another side of a coach, another side of an American hero.
I wish there were a million more like you, Pat. I would like to have known you better and for a lot longer.
[This is double posted, here and on my new web address here.]
"But the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.'' Ralph Waldo Emerson A passage underlined in a book belonging to Pat Tillman.
Yesterday, a lot of people who knew Pat Tillman and a lot of people who would like to have known Pat, paid tribute to him in San Jose. Gwen Knapp covered the service for the San Francisco Chronicle.
Just when we thought we had a pure and simple hero, a millionaire athlete who gave up wealth and fame to become the ideal patriot, to make the ultimate sacrifice, his friends and family complicated everything. They turned Pat Tillman into a human being Monday, showing us what was really lost during that ambush in Afghanistan, insisting that we question every assumption we've made since he died an icon on April 22.
[Snip.]
Tillman's youngest brother, Rich, wore a rumpled white T-shirt, no jacket, no tie, no collar, and immediately swore into the microphone. He hadn't written anything, he said, and with the starkest honesty, he asked mourners to hold their spiritual bromides.
"Pat isn't with God,'' he said. "He's fucking dead. He wasn't religious. So thank you for your thoughts, but he's fucking dead.''
His brother-in-law and close friend, Alex Garwood, described how Tillman handled his duties when he became godfather to Garwood's son. He came to the ceremony dressed as a woman. Not as a religious commentary. He was doing a balancing act.
"We had two godfathers, no godmother,'' Garwood explained. And what NFL player turned Army Ranger wouldn't don drag to make that math work?
Who on earth was this guy?
[Snip.]
"He talked about gays,'' Lyle Setencich, the former ASU assistant said. "He asked me, 'Could you coach gays?' " Setencich told Tillman yes. He could, and he had. He repeated that at the memorial service, televised on ESPN, in front of the sports world, showing another side of a coach, another side of an American hero.
I wish there were a million more like you, Pat. I would like to have known you better and for a lot longer.
[This is double posted, here and on my new web address here.]
Sunday, May 02, 2004
Last Year at this time
I was curious as to what was going on in my mind a year ago at this time. La plus ca change, la plus ca meme.
I was curious as to what was going on in my mind a year ago at this time. La plus ca change, la plus ca meme.
Misspellings
How fast do you type? I type somewhere around 100 wpm. Oh, sure I can do gusts up to about 125, but sustained speed seldom exceeds 100. Why do I type that fast? Well, that's a longer story.
I had nine weeks of typing my senior year. I wanted to go home early, but this was back in the days when you did what you were told to do (I graduated in 1965). So, forbidden to go home, I took typing. I did all right, but I developed a nervous tic, sort of. I started ghost typing instead of just drumming my fingers. Practice is practice, though and over time, I became a very fast typist.
The very first day I was in the Army, they had us all lined up and trying their best to scare the shit out of us more than we already were. We were about to be dismissed when the c.o., a captain whose name was never important to me for some reason, asked if there were any questions. I held up my hand. "What's your question, soldier?" He barked. They never spoke normally, for some reason. "Sir," says I, "Is this where I tell you I can type faster than you can speak?" Never let a comedian know that you think he's funny. The captain, tightly controlling the urge to giggle, if captains giggle, shot a quick side glance to my drill sergeant who rolled his eyes to keep from smiling, firmly replied, "No, that's later." It did come later, too. My MOS (military occupational speciality) was 93B or Speed Typist. (That number may not be right, it's been too long ago and my DD-214 is at the office, but the Speed Typist is the translation.) My weapon for the two years I was in the army was a typewriter.
What I am not, however, is an accurate typist. Oh, sure, I could take the easy way out and use Spell Check, but half the time I forget and just make the post without adequately proofing it. Spell check is great for finding those words you consistently mispell and your eye never notices, because it's just impressed into your mind wrongly. Bachelor is one of those words for me. I have always added a "t". I know better but cannot break my fingers of the habit of adding that t.
While reading my Sitemeter log, I noticed a hit coming from a Google search page where someone had searched for "confirmed batchelors" and Ms. Google says, "Don't you mean confirmed bachelors? Yeah, maybe they did, but the very first hit was an old posting by yours truly here hinting about being Gay by calling myself a "confirmed batchelor." That's a bit embarrassing, but we all have a favorite or two massecrations of the language. I just made up that word, but I work with lawyers, so making up new words out of old ones comes naturally now.
Okay. Nap time.
How fast do you type? I type somewhere around 100 wpm. Oh, sure I can do gusts up to about 125, but sustained speed seldom exceeds 100. Why do I type that fast? Well, that's a longer story.
I had nine weeks of typing my senior year. I wanted to go home early, but this was back in the days when you did what you were told to do (I graduated in 1965). So, forbidden to go home, I took typing. I did all right, but I developed a nervous tic, sort of. I started ghost typing instead of just drumming my fingers. Practice is practice, though and over time, I became a very fast typist.
The very first day I was in the Army, they had us all lined up and trying their best to scare the shit out of us more than we already were. We were about to be dismissed when the c.o., a captain whose name was never important to me for some reason, asked if there were any questions. I held up my hand. "What's your question, soldier?" He barked. They never spoke normally, for some reason. "Sir," says I, "Is this where I tell you I can type faster than you can speak?" Never let a comedian know that you think he's funny. The captain, tightly controlling the urge to giggle, if captains giggle, shot a quick side glance to my drill sergeant who rolled his eyes to keep from smiling, firmly replied, "No, that's later." It did come later, too. My MOS (military occupational speciality) was 93B or Speed Typist. (That number may not be right, it's been too long ago and my DD-214 is at the office, but the Speed Typist is the translation.) My weapon for the two years I was in the army was a typewriter.
What I am not, however, is an accurate typist. Oh, sure, I could take the easy way out and use Spell Check, but half the time I forget and just make the post without adequately proofing it. Spell check is great for finding those words you consistently mispell and your eye never notices, because it's just impressed into your mind wrongly. Bachelor is one of those words for me. I have always added a "t". I know better but cannot break my fingers of the habit of adding that t.
While reading my Sitemeter log, I noticed a hit coming from a Google search page where someone had searched for "confirmed batchelors" and Ms. Google says, "Don't you mean confirmed bachelors? Yeah, maybe they did, but the very first hit was an old posting by yours truly here hinting about being Gay by calling myself a "confirmed batchelor." That's a bit embarrassing, but we all have a favorite or two massecrations of the language. I just made up that word, but I work with lawyers, so making up new words out of old ones comes naturally now.
Okay. Nap time.
Best Referral Yet
I like to check periodically to see where my readers are from and figure out how they got here. This morning I noticed a search engine name new to me called the After Hours Zone. It's an adult porno site, near as I can tell. Someone searched for "small tits nude gallery" and my webpage was #45 on their list. As proud as I am for the hit, I have no idea why my blog came up. Dear reader from the After Hours Zone, were you surprised by what you found on my blog?
[UPDATE: The link to my blog was deleted from the search results. I didn't think they could do that, but they did. It's just as well. There is no small tits nude gallery on this blog.]
Addendum to Saturday. I promised this cute little dykling from Scotland that I would put on me kilt and take a picture and put it up on my blog. She's real curious to see what a Scottish cowboy looks like. I convinced her that Houston was a Scottish name and to prove it, I had my own kilt. I stretched the tale a little, but heck, that's just my nature. Someone asked me which tartan I wear, since Bridges isn't an obvious Scottish name, y'know? I replied that I wore the royal Stuart tartan because a queen is a queen is a queen! My new friend's name was King and she's from the west coast of Scotland, near Glasgow. "What kind of a Scottish name is King," I asked. She was so cute. In her sweet brogue she replied, "Well, we used to be MacGregor's, but at one time in Scottish history, twas legal to kill a MacGregor on sight." Good point. Twas a pleasure meeting you, Aileen. Her second middle name was Fiona which is as popular in Scotland as Ashley is here.
Did you know that in Germany you have to choose your child's name from an approved list? It's true. I remember reading that in a story once where a couple wanted to name their child Che. The authorities would have nothing of it. This subject came up again last night at wine tasting. Jeff, Scott's friend from h is college days (who lives here bytheway), was about to leave for L.A. where his wife hospitalized wife was about to deliver their first child, a boy. We asked if he and his wife had named the little feller yet, and he said no, then asked for suggestions. Although Wolfgang was suggested, it was quickly discarded despite the fact that its one of the more popular names in Germany and Austria. (I don't know about Switzerland.) Andres thought it might mean something like "Wolf path" since wolf is wolf in German, and gang is like a passageway. Anyone know otherwise, let me know in the Comments. Our group decided the baby should be named Cardinal. This is in part because Jeff's last name is Sims. Get it, cardinal sims? I didn't at first, either. Maybe it was the wine, but last night it seemed funny.
Aileen, the picture's coming. I promise.
I like to check periodically to see where my readers are from and figure out how they got here. This morning I noticed a search engine name new to me called the After Hours Zone. It's an adult porno site, near as I can tell. Someone searched for "small tits nude gallery" and my webpage was #45 on their list. As proud as I am for the hit, I have no idea why my blog came up. Dear reader from the After Hours Zone, were you surprised by what you found on my blog?
[UPDATE: The link to my blog was deleted from the search results. I didn't think they could do that, but they did. It's just as well. There is no small tits nude gallery on this blog.]
Addendum to Saturday. I promised this cute little dykling from Scotland that I would put on me kilt and take a picture and put it up on my blog. She's real curious to see what a Scottish cowboy looks like. I convinced her that Houston was a Scottish name and to prove it, I had my own kilt. I stretched the tale a little, but heck, that's just my nature. Someone asked me which tartan I wear, since Bridges isn't an obvious Scottish name, y'know? I replied that I wore the royal Stuart tartan because a queen is a queen is a queen! My new friend's name was King and she's from the west coast of Scotland, near Glasgow. "What kind of a Scottish name is King," I asked. She was so cute. In her sweet brogue she replied, "Well, we used to be MacGregor's, but at one time in Scottish history, twas legal to kill a MacGregor on sight." Good point. Twas a pleasure meeting you, Aileen. Her second middle name was Fiona which is as popular in Scotland as Ashley is here.
Did you know that in Germany you have to choose your child's name from an approved list? It's true. I remember reading that in a story once where a couple wanted to name their child Che. The authorities would have nothing of it. This subject came up again last night at wine tasting. Jeff, Scott's friend from h is college days (who lives here bytheway), was about to leave for L.A. where his wife hospitalized wife was about to deliver their first child, a boy. We asked if he and his wife had named the little feller yet, and he said no, then asked for suggestions. Although Wolfgang was suggested, it was quickly discarded despite the fact that its one of the more popular names in Germany and Austria. (I don't know about Switzerland.) Andres thought it might mean something like "Wolf path" since wolf is wolf in German, and gang is like a passageway. Anyone know otherwise, let me know in the Comments. Our group decided the baby should be named Cardinal. This is in part because Jeff's last name is Sims. Get it, cardinal sims? I didn't at first, either. Maybe it was the wine, but last night it seemed funny.
Aileen, the picture's coming. I promise.
Week-ends
I went to a couple of parties Saturday in San Francisco. The first was a backyard picnic which was billed a celebration of Spring. The real reason was for Brian's friends to say goodbye to Angie, Brian's girlfriend for the past several months. Angie's moving to Boston. Brian's heartsick in his own affable way. I adore Brian. He's smart, incredibly goodlooking, sensitive, great sense of humor and has a collection of friends who are just like him. Like most parties in San Francisco, there were at least five nationalities at the party, three different racial groups, all variations of sexuality, with conversations in English, French and German.
I arrived with a small British flag in observance of Loyalist Day that everyone in the blogosphere was talking about on Friday. My grandmother's people, the Ashworths, were notorious loyalists in South Carolina during the American Revolution. Oddly enough no one had ever heard of Loyalist Day. I'm sure I read it correctly to be Saturday, May 1. Oh well. Oh, and it was also Derby Day so we had plenty of mint juleps.
Later, my friend Katie had a zinfandel tasting at her house. Our regular group consists of Katie, her cousin Scott and his wife Laura, Gil and Amy, and Terry and Yolanda. Last night, we were joined by Jeff, a classmate of Scott's at Columbia, Monica, a law school chum of Katie's, and Andres, a quiet young man from Berlin. Lovely evening.
I'm not a true connoiseur of wine, although I have a nice collection in my cellar. That's real easy to do in California when you live next to the wine country. Wine tasting is a favorite pasttime out here. It usually involves a nice drive in the country, visits to half a dozen tasting rooms, and a nice picnic lunch at one of the wineries.
Today I'm reading and doing some writing. I also intend to have a nice long nap. Tonight a group of us are going to see Josh Kornbluth's Red Diaper Baby.
I love week-ends.
I went to a couple of parties Saturday in San Francisco. The first was a backyard picnic which was billed a celebration of Spring. The real reason was for Brian's friends to say goodbye to Angie, Brian's girlfriend for the past several months. Angie's moving to Boston. Brian's heartsick in his own affable way. I adore Brian. He's smart, incredibly goodlooking, sensitive, great sense of humor and has a collection of friends who are just like him. Like most parties in San Francisco, there were at least five nationalities at the party, three different racial groups, all variations of sexuality, with conversations in English, French and German.
I arrived with a small British flag in observance of Loyalist Day that everyone in the blogosphere was talking about on Friday. My grandmother's people, the Ashworths, were notorious loyalists in South Carolina during the American Revolution. Oddly enough no one had ever heard of Loyalist Day. I'm sure I read it correctly to be Saturday, May 1. Oh well. Oh, and it was also Derby Day so we had plenty of mint juleps.
Later, my friend Katie had a zinfandel tasting at her house. Our regular group consists of Katie, her cousin Scott and his wife Laura, Gil and Amy, and Terry and Yolanda. Last night, we were joined by Jeff, a classmate of Scott's at Columbia, Monica, a law school chum of Katie's, and Andres, a quiet young man from Berlin. Lovely evening.
I'm not a true connoiseur of wine, although I have a nice collection in my cellar. That's real easy to do in California when you live next to the wine country. Wine tasting is a favorite pasttime out here. It usually involves a nice drive in the country, visits to half a dozen tasting rooms, and a nice picnic lunch at one of the wineries.
Today I'm reading and doing some writing. I also intend to have a nice long nap. Tonight a group of us are going to see Josh Kornbluth's Red Diaper Baby.
I love week-ends.
Friday, April 30, 2004
Quick Question
So, at 23, John Kerry, fresh back from a nasty war where he was wounded and decorated for bravery, was so angry that he threw away medals that he had come to regard as a whore's payment. Mistake? What, being angry or throwing away momentos of a bad vacation? Kerry's owned up to all that. Has Bush ever acknowledged his specific acts of misbehavior, such as his DUI? Bush is allowed a free pass for everything he did before he quit drinking?
When I got out of the army, I was mad. It took me two or three years to get over my anger, and I didn't even go to Vietnam! I knew bunches of boys who did go, though. Bunches. Most of the regular soldiers I served with my two years in Alaska were fresh from tours of duty in Vietnam. There were a lot of angry young men, many of them broken in spirit and body. Our anger stemmed from the same source, and that was the devaluation of our lives, our ambitions, for the pursuit of a failed war and a failed idea.
Let's set the record straight. Vietnam was a mistake from the gitgo. Waging it a long time did not make it a righteous cause. 58,000 dead did not make it a righteous cause. George W. Bush sure didn't think it was worth anything. I am as proud of my years as a draft resister as I am my years in the army. I have absolute admiration for men like John Kerry who put their lives on the line for their country, even when they knew or suspected that their country was wrong. I have the same equal respect for those young men who quietly moved to Canada. It takes great courage to face an enemy shooting at you, but the choices are simple in that situation. It takes a more sublime form of courage to leave your family and your friends and go and live in a strange land. (No offense, Canada, for the "strange land" remark, eh?)
I'm digressing again. My point is this: why are Kerry's actions at 23 more significant than Bush's actions at 23. Both of them acted like young men of 23. I think we'd all be better served if we talked about the issues: unemployment, runaway health care costs, pollution, stewardship of our environment.
I'm just saying, that's all.
So, at 23, John Kerry, fresh back from a nasty war where he was wounded and decorated for bravery, was so angry that he threw away medals that he had come to regard as a whore's payment. Mistake? What, being angry or throwing away momentos of a bad vacation? Kerry's owned up to all that. Has Bush ever acknowledged his specific acts of misbehavior, such as his DUI? Bush is allowed a free pass for everything he did before he quit drinking?
When I got out of the army, I was mad. It took me two or three years to get over my anger, and I didn't even go to Vietnam! I knew bunches of boys who did go, though. Bunches. Most of the regular soldiers I served with my two years in Alaska were fresh from tours of duty in Vietnam. There were a lot of angry young men, many of them broken in spirit and body. Our anger stemmed from the same source, and that was the devaluation of our lives, our ambitions, for the pursuit of a failed war and a failed idea.
Let's set the record straight. Vietnam was a mistake from the gitgo. Waging it a long time did not make it a righteous cause. 58,000 dead did not make it a righteous cause. George W. Bush sure didn't think it was worth anything. I am as proud of my years as a draft resister as I am my years in the army. I have absolute admiration for men like John Kerry who put their lives on the line for their country, even when they knew or suspected that their country was wrong. I have the same equal respect for those young men who quietly moved to Canada. It takes great courage to face an enemy shooting at you, but the choices are simple in that situation. It takes a more sublime form of courage to leave your family and your friends and go and live in a strange land. (No offense, Canada, for the "strange land" remark, eh?)
I'm digressing again. My point is this: why are Kerry's actions at 23 more significant than Bush's actions at 23. Both of them acted like young men of 23. I think we'd all be better served if we talked about the issues: unemployment, runaway health care costs, pollution, stewardship of our environment.
I'm just saying, that's all.
Thursday, April 29, 2004
Poetry on Fridays
There are many who will not understand Charles Butowski's poetry. This is what he had to say about it:
"My contribution", he wrote in 1974, "was to loosen and simplify poetry, to make it more human... I taught them that you can write a poem the same way you can write a letter, that a poem can even be entertaining, and that there need not be anything necessarily holy about it."
fire station
(for Jane, with love)
we came out of the bar
because we were out of money
but we had a couple of wine bottles
in the room.
it was about 4 in the afternoon
and we passed a fire station
and she started to go
crazy:
"a FIRE STATION! oh, I just love
FIRE engines, they're so red and
all! let's go in!"
I followed her on
in. "FIRE ENGINES!" she screamed
wobbling her big
ass.
she was already trying to climb into
one, pulling her skirt up to her
waist, trying to jacknife up into the
seat.
"here, here, lemme help ya!" a fireman ran up.
amother fireman walked up to
me: "our citizens are always welcome,"
he told me.
the other guy was up in the seat with
her. "you got one of those big THINGS?"
she asked him. "oh, hahaha!, I mean one of
those big HELMETS!"
"I've got a big helmet, too" he told
her.
"oh, hahaha!"
"you play cards?" I asked my
fireman. I had 43 cents and nothing but
time.
"come in back," he
said. "of course, we don't gamble.
it's against the
rules."
"I understand," I told
him.
I had run my 43 cents up to a
dollar ninety
when I saw her going upstairs with
her fireman.
"he's gonna show me their sleeping
quarters," she told
me.
"I understand," I told
her.
when her fireman slid down the pole
ten minutes later
I nodded him
over.
"that'll be 5
dollars."
"5 dollars for
that?"
"we wouldn't want a scandal, would
we? we both might lose our
jobs. of course, I'm not
working."
he gave me the
5.
"sit down, you might get it
back."
whatcha playing?"
"blackjack."
"gambling's against the
law."
"anything interesting is, besides,
you see any money on the
table?"
he sat down.
that made 5 of
us.
"how was it Harry?" somebody asked
him.
"not bad, not
bad"
the other guy went on
upstairs.
they were bad players really.
they didn't bother to memorize the
deck. they didn't know whether the
high numbers or low numbers were left. and basically they hit too high,
didn't hold low
enough.
when the other guy came down
he gave me a
five.
"how was it, Marty?"
"not bad. she's got . . . some fine
movements."
"hit me!" I said. "nice clean girl, I
ride it myself."
nobody said
anything.
"any big fires lately?" I
asked.
"naw. nothin'
much."
"you guys need
exercise. hit me
again!"
a big red-headed kid who had been shining an
engine
threw down his rag and
went upstairs.
when he came down he threw me a
five.
when the 4th guy came down I gave him
3 fives for a
twenty.
I don't know how many firemen
were in the building or where they
were. I figured a few had slipped by me
but I was a good
sport.
it was getting dark outside
when the alarm
rang.
they started running around.
guys came sliding down the
pole.
then she came sliding down the
pole. she was good with the
pole. a real woman. nothing but guts
and
ass.
"let's go," I told
her.
she stood there waving goodbye to the
firemen but they didn't seem
much interested
any more.
"let's go back to the
bar," I told
her.
"ooh, you got
money?"
"I found some I didn't know I
had. . ."
we sat at the end of the bar
with whiskey and beer
chaser.
"I sure got a good
sleep."
"sure, baby, you need your
sleep."
"look at that sailor looking at me!
he must think I'm a ...a ..."
"naw, he don't think that. relax, you've got
class. real class. sometimes you remind me of an
opera singer. you know, one of those prima d's.
your class shows all over
you. drink
up."
I ordered 2
more.
"you know, daddy, you're the only man I
LOVE! I mean, really...LOVE! ya
know?"
"sure I know. sometimes I think I am a king
in spite of myself."
"yeah. yeah. that's what I mean, somethin' like
that."
I had to go to the urinal. when I came back
the sailor was sitting in my
seat. she had her leg up against his and
he was talking.
I walked over and got in a dart game with
Harry the Horse and the corner
newsboy.
Charles Bukowski
Poetry takes many forms to many people. To me it's about putting power in the words. Salute, Charles. Special thanks to my friend Mark who has been showering me with Bukowski poems this past week. Would you like one more? Go on, you know you do. Okay, just a short one.
when you're young
a pair of
female
high-heeled shoes
just sitting
alone
in the closet
can fire your
bones;
when you're old
it's just
a pair of shoes
without
anybody
in them
and
just as
well.
Charles Bukowski
Oh, yeah. Cats. Say hi, Beau.
Be at peace, dear friends, be at peace.
There are many who will not understand Charles Butowski's poetry. This is what he had to say about it:
"My contribution", he wrote in 1974, "was to loosen and simplify poetry, to make it more human... I taught them that you can write a poem the same way you can write a letter, that a poem can even be entertaining, and that there need not be anything necessarily holy about it."
fire station
(for Jane, with love)
we came out of the bar
because we were out of money
but we had a couple of wine bottles
in the room.
it was about 4 in the afternoon
and we passed a fire station
and she started to go
crazy:
"a FIRE STATION! oh, I just love
FIRE engines, they're so red and
all! let's go in!"
I followed her on
in. "FIRE ENGINES!" she screamed
wobbling her big
ass.
she was already trying to climb into
one, pulling her skirt up to her
waist, trying to jacknife up into the
seat.
"here, here, lemme help ya!" a fireman ran up.
amother fireman walked up to
me: "our citizens are always welcome,"
he told me.
the other guy was up in the seat with
her. "you got one of those big THINGS?"
she asked him. "oh, hahaha!, I mean one of
those big HELMETS!"
"I've got a big helmet, too" he told
her.
"oh, hahaha!"
"you play cards?" I asked my
fireman. I had 43 cents and nothing but
time.
"come in back," he
said. "of course, we don't gamble.
it's against the
rules."
"I understand," I told
him.
I had run my 43 cents up to a
dollar ninety
when I saw her going upstairs with
her fireman.
"he's gonna show me their sleeping
quarters," she told
me.
"I understand," I told
her.
when her fireman slid down the pole
ten minutes later
I nodded him
over.
"that'll be 5
dollars."
"5 dollars for
that?"
"we wouldn't want a scandal, would
we? we both might lose our
jobs. of course, I'm not
working."
he gave me the
5.
"sit down, you might get it
back."
whatcha playing?"
"blackjack."
"gambling's against the
law."
"anything interesting is, besides,
you see any money on the
table?"
he sat down.
that made 5 of
us.
"how was it Harry?" somebody asked
him.
"not bad, not
bad"
the other guy went on
upstairs.
they were bad players really.
they didn't bother to memorize the
deck. they didn't know whether the
high numbers or low numbers were left. and basically they hit too high,
didn't hold low
enough.
when the other guy came down
he gave me a
five.
"how was it, Marty?"
"not bad. she's got . . . some fine
movements."
"hit me!" I said. "nice clean girl, I
ride it myself."
nobody said
anything.
"any big fires lately?" I
asked.
"naw. nothin'
much."
"you guys need
exercise. hit me
again!"
a big red-headed kid who had been shining an
engine
threw down his rag and
went upstairs.
when he came down he threw me a
five.
when the 4th guy came down I gave him
3 fives for a
twenty.
I don't know how many firemen
were in the building or where they
were. I figured a few had slipped by me
but I was a good
sport.
it was getting dark outside
when the alarm
rang.
they started running around.
guys came sliding down the
pole.
then she came sliding down the
pole. she was good with the
pole. a real woman. nothing but guts
and
ass.
"let's go," I told
her.
she stood there waving goodbye to the
firemen but they didn't seem
much interested
any more.
"let's go back to the
bar," I told
her.
"ooh, you got
money?"
"I found some I didn't know I
had. . ."
we sat at the end of the bar
with whiskey and beer
chaser.
"I sure got a good
sleep."
"sure, baby, you need your
sleep."
"look at that sailor looking at me!
he must think I'm a ...a ..."
"naw, he don't think that. relax, you've got
class. real class. sometimes you remind me of an
opera singer. you know, one of those prima d's.
your class shows all over
you. drink
up."
I ordered 2
more.
"you know, daddy, you're the only man I
LOVE! I mean, really...LOVE! ya
know?"
"sure I know. sometimes I think I am a king
in spite of myself."
"yeah. yeah. that's what I mean, somethin' like
that."
I had to go to the urinal. when I came back
the sailor was sitting in my
seat. she had her leg up against his and
he was talking.
I walked over and got in a dart game with
Harry the Horse and the corner
newsboy.
Charles Bukowski
Poetry takes many forms to many people. To me it's about putting power in the words. Salute, Charles. Special thanks to my friend Mark who has been showering me with Bukowski poems this past week. Would you like one more? Go on, you know you do. Okay, just a short one.
when you're young
a pair of
female
high-heeled shoes
just sitting
alone
in the closet
can fire your
bones;
when you're old
it's just
a pair of shoes
without
anybody
in them
and
just as
well.
Charles Bukowski
Oh, yeah. Cats. Say hi, Beau.
Be at peace, dear friends, be at peace.
Buy me, mommy, buy me!
Sara, my West Virginia blogroll cousin, over at Hillbilly Sophisticate warns us about curio shops that spell it "shoppe" instead of "shop." They might be selling some of these:
Picture courtesy of Jerry of the WVTS Morning Show. By the way, Jerry's looking for a co-host, a female with a sense of humor, which is more than Jerry has. This is what Jerry's worried about:
Do you think that society feels that sex and plush penises are so cute and funny that even children should also enjoy in on the fun? If not, do you think that stores like this should have very visible warnings at the entrance that it contains adult material? Should the store manager inform the employees to ask children to leave the store? Do YOU allow your children to patronize these adult stores? There is a "Record Store" in Kanawah City that sells more adult porn items than anyplace in town. Do your kids buy their "music" there? Should they have an indication at the door that they're "More than just a music store?"
Again, I have NO problem with the store selling whatever trash they want.... but let's at least keep the kids out ok? They'll have enough problems dealing with sexually transmitted diseases down the road.
Lighten up, for chrissaka Jerry. It's a stuffed toy in an adult curio shop, er, I mean shoppe. It's not going to cause a kid to get syphillis just from seeing it and wanting one.
Sara, my West Virginia blogroll cousin, over at Hillbilly Sophisticate warns us about curio shops that spell it "shoppe" instead of "shop." They might be selling some of these:
Picture courtesy of Jerry of the WVTS Morning Show. By the way, Jerry's looking for a co-host, a female with a sense of humor, which is more than Jerry has. This is what Jerry's worried about:
Do you think that society feels that sex and plush penises are so cute and funny that even children should also enjoy in on the fun? If not, do you think that stores like this should have very visible warnings at the entrance that it contains adult material? Should the store manager inform the employees to ask children to leave the store? Do YOU allow your children to patronize these adult stores? There is a "Record Store" in Kanawah City that sells more adult porn items than anyplace in town. Do your kids buy their "music" there? Should they have an indication at the door that they're "More than just a music store?"
Again, I have NO problem with the store selling whatever trash they want.... but let's at least keep the kids out ok? They'll have enough problems dealing with sexually transmitted diseases down the road.
Lighten up, for chrissaka Jerry. It's a stuffed toy in an adult curio shop, er, I mean shoppe. It's not going to cause a kid to get syphillis just from seeing it and wanting one.
Reading the Right
I don't recommend it, but I just did some blogsurfing on the Right hand side of the dial. This is what I've learned. All newspapers are bad and do everything in their power to discredit Bush. Here's what one guy said:
"In my view, the press, especially the Seattle press, would eat up [pictures of the flag-draped coffins] as an opportunity to stir up anti-war sentiment. Some of us have short memories it seems. It was in Vietnam that anti-war elements in the media used the pictures of war dead to incite resistance to the war effort. Unfortunately, there are many here in America who like the Spanish, have no stomach for the sacrifice required to secure peace and freedom." How many things are wrong with this short paragraph?
His next sentence is equally chilling. "As I've said earlier, it's time to take the gloves off. It's time to recognize that we have enemies both foreign and domestic. Hit them hard, hit them fast, and get our boys home."
Then, our old buddy Misha calls Kofi Annan "kaffir anus." Hairy Fish Nuts informs us that kaffir is the Afrikaaner equivalent of the word "nigger." Way to go, Misha. I wonder if Republican wingnut Mulatto Boy likes it when his right-wing pals call anyone a "nigger asshole"?
In response to what someone over at Indymedia said about the death of Pvt. Pat Tillman, this guy had this to say: "The writer of this vile hatred deserves a claw hammer in the head. Seriously, I hope someone beats him to death and sets his corpse on fire." I read some of the Comments but you all know what they're like when they go into a feeding frenzy.
Had enough? You know they're just joshing us, don't you? Dont you?
I don't recommend it, but I just did some blogsurfing on the Right hand side of the dial. This is what I've learned. All newspapers are bad and do everything in their power to discredit Bush. Here's what one guy said:
"In my view, the press, especially the Seattle press, would eat up [pictures of the flag-draped coffins] as an opportunity to stir up anti-war sentiment. Some of us have short memories it seems. It was in Vietnam that anti-war elements in the media used the pictures of war dead to incite resistance to the war effort. Unfortunately, there are many here in America who like the Spanish, have no stomach for the sacrifice required to secure peace and freedom." How many things are wrong with this short paragraph?
His next sentence is equally chilling. "As I've said earlier, it's time to take the gloves off. It's time to recognize that we have enemies both foreign and domestic. Hit them hard, hit them fast, and get our boys home."
Then, our old buddy Misha calls Kofi Annan "kaffir anus." Hairy Fish Nuts informs us that kaffir is the Afrikaaner equivalent of the word "nigger." Way to go, Misha. I wonder if Republican wingnut Mulatto Boy likes it when his right-wing pals call anyone a "nigger asshole"?
In response to what someone over at Indymedia said about the death of Pvt. Pat Tillman, this guy had this to say: "The writer of this vile hatred deserves a claw hammer in the head. Seriously, I hope someone beats him to death and sets his corpse on fire." I read some of the Comments but you all know what they're like when they go into a feeding frenzy.
Had enough? You know they're just joshing us, don't you? Dont you?
