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10/7/04 Less Than Zero
Hey I was going to wait and do this maybe this weekend, but I've gotten a shit pot full of responses on the last one, it's a toss up over who's more interested in my Dad's next recipe, and who's more concerned about whether we've been stung to death by wasps yet, so I'll get this out tonight, I don't have anything better to do. I did (have something better to do, that is), I was supposed to go down to Al's tonight, but something came up- okay, it was car trouble, but I'm one of those superstitious sorts who believes that if you don't talk about something maybe it'll go away, so that's all I'm saying- so I'm back at the house now. I'll go down to Al's tomorrow on what was going to be an off night, after the work out in Nitro. Joe's probably going, "goddamn it Bill, ease up, I just got the captures for the last one up on the site", that's okay buddy, you just do what you can, when you can. Stopped at his house on the way, or so I thought at the time, to Al's, Joe was off today and all he got done was cut the grass, wash the windows, fix the fan in the attic, and get the Retro Queen out of the water and all scrubbed down. In the same time frame, I watched an old movie, jerked off twice, and drank seven beers (which was all I had). Oh yeah, and took a shower and brushed my teeth. Then I drank one of Joe's beers while I watched him scrub his boat. Grasshopper and the ant, indeed. So- The saga of the wasp nest is still unfolding. Tom was out the other day, I showed it to him, he was duly impressed. T: My god. You guys keep messing with that thing and you're gonna get
killed. I hadn't heard my Dad say much about it for a couple days, so when he was out of the room I mentioned it to my Mom. B: He seems to have stopped obsessing about that damn wasp nest. I told him Joe said he had some super killer wasp spray he got from somewhere, you mix it up in a pump sprayer, that should do the trick, if he'd just hold off I'd get it and we'd settle up with the wasps. (They're actually yellow jackets, but he keeps calling them wasps, so I do). Well, I may have saved the house, at the cost of my sanity. Every time I've seen him since then- "You get that wasp spray from Joe?" "No." Five minutes later- "When are you going to get that wasp spray from Joe?" "I don't know, next time I'm down there." Five minutes later. "Why don't you go down now and get that wasp spray from Joe." "Cos I'm watching the damn ball game, I'll go later. Leave me alone." I get ready to go home. "Are you going- " "NO!" I really do need to get that wasp spray from Joe. My Dad's still a cooking machine, I'm positive he's gotten himself a new cook book, I'm equally as convinced it's called "Cook Yourself Crazy". B: What is this? My Dad's also always been a civic minded nut, he helped out with Junior Achievers for years, we were in the mall many years ago and this absolutely gorgeous young woman comes up and greets my Dad warmly, gives him a big hug. They chat for a minute, she leaves- B: Who was THAT? He's also been in the Lions Club since like '69, always took that shit seriously, maybe too seriously, I hated when they were having those light bulb sales- D: How many light bulbs you need? -and their glasses drive, forget it- D: Lemme have those glasses. God have mercy. And you all know he still teaches that defensive driving course for seniors that scares the living hell out of me, and it should do the same to you. This is all to preface my Dad helping out at the Cross Lanes Community Fair at AJ last Saturday, he was in charge of the Lion's Club eye booth, he'd give you an eye test, the one where you read the letters off the chart- B: What do you do if they pass? He was also running the glaucoma testing machine. B: You mean the one where the thing actually touches your eyeball to
measure the pressure? Well, I did stop by for a while that morning on my way home from Al's and am I damn glad I did. My Dad's sitting there all proud and professional, giving out those eye tests, he was so damn full of himself he was about to bust. D: You here for an eye test? This Indian family, three generations of 'em, come by and want their eyes checked. Now, I can give you the dialogue, but no words can convey the looks on my Dad's face as this scenario progressed Indian father, in heavily accented English: Please to be checking the
eyes of the mother. My Dad finally understands him, sits this little old lady down on the stool. D: Okay, read the third line from the bottom. She just looks at him, blankly. My Dad repeats his instructions a couple times. Little old Indian lady continues to just look at him. B: I think maybe she needs her ears checked first. He again tells her to read the third line from the bottom, to the same non response. Finally, Indian dad speaks up- IF: She does not speak English So he tells her, and she does. I don't understand a damn thing she says, and I'm sure my Dad doesn't either, not being versed in the alphabet as read in Hindi. If indeed that's what she said, it may have been "fuck this old man, and his damn chart too". D: Okay, she's done. Grandma hops off the stool. IF: Okay, now please to be checking the eyes of little boy. This cute little bugger, all big eyes and grins, hops up onto the stool. My Dad, with this, "You're not gonna catch me twice" expression on his face, asks- D: Does HE speak English? The little boy stares intently at the chart, but doesn't say a word. B: Nobody asked me, but I think they're all fucking deaf. He asks again, to no response. I would give a million dollars to have a photo of my Dad's face at this point. D: Okay, why isn't he reading the third line from the bottom? I would give two million dollars to have a photo of my Dad's face at this point. I am quite literally on the floor, in what my Dad later informed me was "high-sterics". My Dad swallows hard, and- D: He needs to see the eye doctor too. I was dearly hoping for a third act, but Mr. Indian Dad must've figured he was already in for two eye doctor appointments, maybe he'd better quit while he was ahead. They wander off to some other booth, I get up off of the floor, I also wish you could've seen the glowering dirty looks my Dad was giving me, they broke me up all over again. He hollers loud enough for everyone in the building to hear- D: How come whenever you're around I have nothing but TROUBLE! I don't know, but the poor man really does have a point. On to other things. Watching TV with Al the other night, Iron Chef, it comes on after I've given him his sleeping pill so he's normally pretty subdued while it's on, usually goes on up to bed when it's about half over. It's some big ass crab battle and those Japs are just brutalizing these crabs, chopping their living legs off, and ripping their carapaces open to drain out all this crab goo that they say is best from a live crab, which is something only the Japanese would know, and Al remarks, "Now I know why they call 'em Iron Chefs, they don't have any feelings", which is a pretty trenchant observation. Later, during a commercial, I flip over to Futurama and be damned, they're doing their Iron Chef parody episode. Al looks up from his crossword puzzle book and goes "Goddamn! They've all turned into cartoons!" Before I can explain I changed the channel he just shrugs, goes, "Well, it happens" and goes back to his crossword puzzle. We should all be on the same meds as Al. Took Al back to the doctor Monday, Doc wouldn't give him something more powerful to make him sleep, said I could double up on one he already had. Whatever. Al was wanting some beer- for a person who swears he doesn't drink, Al likes his damn beer, so we met Robby at the VFW there in Guyandotte, they go there a lot, I usually pass cos drinking at the VFW is a pretty sad evening, it being full of nothing but a bunch of broke down old fucks, male and female, and the occasional prostitute who'll wander in and quite brazenly work the room. One time on a whim I asked this one when she got to me, "How much?" She quotes a figure about ten times more than she could possibly be worth, I said, "Not for me, him" and jerked a thumb at Al, who I thought was paying no attention. She quotes a much higher figure, and it's hardly out of her mouth when Al hollers "Sold!" and it was all I could damn do to get him out of there without the damn prostitute, and he was mad at me all night. What I get for being a smart ass, I guess. Monday night, Robby's there hitting on some roller derby queen, 250 if she was an ounce and shoulders bigger than mine, Al's telling the wall some mumble fuck story about life during the depression, I'm sitting there nursing a draft and thinking, "Bill Bitner, this is your life". I'd moved down a couple seats, this skinny old geezer limps in and sits down beside me. We start talking, turns out he was a Marine, who landed on both Iwo Jima and Okinawa back in WW II- Robby, who knows everyone in Huntington, confirmed geezer's story, not like I doubted it, that he was a legit war hero, came back with a bunch of medals. Fucking hell, forget the medals, just that he'd survived Iwo AND Okinawa impresses the hell out of me. I told him it'd be a pleasure to buy him a drink, that's about the best I can do for our service men past or present, but not the best that can be done for them, you better fucking believe. I figured he'd get a shot and a beer, or something equally manly. He got this berry flavored wine cooler, and then poured it over ice, once again going to show that you never can tell. Maybe that's all his stomach can handle now, damn, I may've been looking at my future, if I have one. Got bitched at by a couple readers for choking out poor little David in the last issue, you know what, fuck you, sincerely. You weren't there, "poor little David" was possessed by the fucking devil, he'd already tried to genuinely kill George- what, he thought that huge ass rock was gonna tickle?- and I think I showed amazing restraint by letting up on the choke when he went out. I saw in the paper the other day where one of my former Abraxas kids was involved in the murder of a fellow inmate at Mount Olive penitentiary, which brings to 10 the number of kids I accepted for that program who've gone on to kill someone. About half of them it was a total surprise- HIM?- the other half it was a foregone conclusion, everyone said when he walked out the door- "That kid's gonna kill someone some day", one of the latter murdered a prostitute two fucking days after his discharge, in a fight over some crack, this little shitbag was so bad and already well known by the judicial system, he got life without the possibility of parole at eighteen. I think they should've hung his fucking ass, myself. Loretta, back in the days when she gave a shit, used to worry about me transporting these kids, cos a lot of them were genuinely bad news, but in five years and hundreds of kids, I had problems with exactly two. Both of them big kids, well bigger than me, and both of them had designs on my car as an escape vehicle, "Just give me the keys and you won't get hurt" kind of thing, and I told both of 'em, "If you think you can get 'em, take your best shot, but I'm telling you right now, if you try it, I'm gonna fucking kill you" and I meant every damn word. They both decided not to try it, and I can't say I'm sorry about the one, he went on to successfully finish the program and then into the Marines, the other ran away back to New York, where he was from, a short time after admission, where a short time after that, he killed some lady in a car jacking. HIM, I wish I'd pounded into fucking grape jelly. Abraxas had a staff member get his brains beaten out, literally, by a couple kids a few months before I started, he never did fully recover, his explanation of how it happened was that he was basically afraid to defend himself for fear of getting in trouble over hitting kids. I told Lee and Denny both when they hired me, "I will go to jail for fucking manslaughter before I let one of these little cocksuckers hurt me" and they were perfectly fine with that, though like I said, thankfully, it never came close to that. The only kid I ever laid a hand on my whole five years there was this one little shit thought he'd sucker punch his probation officer at a staffing, I was close enough to hook his arm when he swung, took him down and restrained him with a cross face chicken wing, which hurts like a motherfucker, fuck that passive restraint shit, he cried like a goddamn baby, first time I let him up he comes up, "I'm gonna sue your ass, blah blah, woof woof", so I took him back down and chicken winged him again, "Sue this, you little fucking douche bag". I also banged his head on the floor a couple times when I thought no one was looking. Second time I let him up he didn't say a word, his PO revoked him on the spot and off he went to Salem, and I guess he decided against suing, cos I never heard any more about it. Oh yeah, his PO was a woman. A pregnant woman. Jason sent me a photo of his side of the wedding party, I'm sending it to Joe to include in here. Something, I think it was a naked girl with some beer, distracted me and Jason while they were taking this photo. And we're all wearing our ties crooked like that on purpose.
Like everything else in this damn world, it seems, Food Network is going down hill, all their new shows being about how to throw a damn party- like I need help with that- or how to renovate your damn kitchen, or some such nonsense, save that shit for the fix 'em up channels that I never watch, I just want to watch people cooking, it relaxes me, and, edgy fucker that I am, I'm all about being relaxed. Now they got something coming up, Rachael Ray, Starfucker, or something like that, where she chases around after celebrities to, I guess, see what they eat. Unless it's someone like, say, Angelina Jolie, or Charisma Carpenter, and they're eating me, I do not give a flying fuck, get back in the damn kitchen, woman. And I'm just about done with the Cross Lanes Kroger. Between the surly help and the half stocked shelves- I went in there for seven sale items the other day, six out of the seven weren't even on the damn shelves. Fuck that. Me, Joe, Charlie, Impetuous and Anita all went down to Nitro this past Tuesday to see my absolute favorite wrestler of all time, Abdullah the Butcher. It was kind of sad, he's just so damn old now he can hardly do anything- he did carve up Necrobutcher's head, first with a broken bottle, then his trademark fork, but it wasn't nearly as great as I'd hoped it would be, and the rest of the card was surprisingly, disappointingly weak. Impetuous said she didn't feel like she got her $10 worth, and I agree, or I would if I hadn't gotten in on a free comp ticket. However, I hope she feels she got her money's worth out of the evening, cos we went to the Cold Spot in Cross Lanes before and after the matches, and I for one had a very good time. So good, in fact, I'll say it twice. I had a very good time. Fluid from my nose Started to call this issue "Echoes Round My Bones" after the above lines, I was messing around in some boxes of old stuff, I still have maybe half a dozen of them from where I just dumped all my shit unceremoniously into these old computer paper boxes I had, when I moved out of MY FUCKING HOUSE, and I've never gotten around to going through them cos it both depresses and pisses me off, but since I was already in a mood last Saturday after coming home from AJ, cold, rainy day, already all beered up by mid-afternoon, talked to Sarah on the phone where she and Rachel and Satan and Gandhi, her fucking family unit whether she wants to accept it or not, it sure as shit isn't me, sitting out here in the middle of nowhere by my damn fucking self pitying self, they were on their way back from Elmira, NY, where Sarah was checking out the Elmira College campus, it's one of the places she's considering going to school in the fall, and that pretty much got right up my ass as well, fucking sideways. I got in the closet for something and saw the boxes and pulled a couple out cos I knew it couldn't wreck my mood at that point, and I might find something in there to entertain myself with, didn't really, just a bunch of old junk for the most part, an old vibrator, all I'm gonna say about that is that it wasn't mine, threw a lot of it away, but I did come across a couple old cassettes. I'm talking old, these even predated getting the 4 track in '87, they were these really crude sound on sound tapes done with two cassette decks, some stuff I never even remembered demo-ing, one of which is where the above, truly bizarre lines, are quoted from, an old, OLD Sabres song, "Necropolis II" ("It's like we're all dead in here") from my "I think I'll just write all the lyrics drunk out of my fucking mind" phase- (YEAH, THAT'S DUE TO END WHEN?) I don't know yet. Inspiration hit that afternoon- (YOU SURE IT WASN'T THE BANDITO HOT DOGS KICKING IN?) No, I'm not, now stop interrupting. After listening to those old tapes, my beery mug looking out the window at the rain, thinking murky, beery thoughts and wishing for about the millionth time I'd built that damn time machine while I still had brains left to do it, well, I was going to have Joe actually BUILD it, I just had the idea, anyway, like I said, inspiration hit, and I came up with a new song. It would've made a good Texas Catheters song if they still, or even ever, existed, it's sort of a country blues called "Drunk, Fucked, And Down On My Luck" ("I'm looking for a revelation/But I'd settle for ejaculation"), I might throw 'er down on the old Infernex here sometime and have Joe affix it to a future one of these. Or, knowing me, I might not. What's Bill listening to? Miss Impetuous lent me Van Morrison's "Blowing Your Mind", which is all his Bang stuff, his first post Them album, and one of my favorites of his, he got too damn jazzy for me as he went along. Also got a bunch of new stuff from CRC- 5 CDs for under $20 including their exorbitant shipping and handling, a really great 2 CD Rascals best of, a Vanilla Fudge best of, which could have been put out on a single, actually, but as it was essentially free, and I do like their version of "You Keep Me Hanging On", I went ahead and got it. Also a best of The Amboy Dukes, which is far and away the best stuff flaming idiot Ted Nugent was ever associated with, some decent to good songs and some really good late 60's, early 70's loud distorto guitar, and a couple more Led Zeppelin CDs to replace the records, LZ II and Houses Of The Holy, even if you don't like LZ- and by the way, if you don't, you're fucking wrong- you've got to admit their stuff SOUNDS great. And while slime bag Jimmy Page tries to say that's all due to him, I promise you, if they didn't have Eddie Kramer engineering their stuff, they wouldn't sound near as good as they do. What's Bill drinking? Well, too goddamn much, for one thing. Beer again tonight, I keep saying I'm going to slack off, cos it's been wet as fucking hell around here since the girls left- and for those of you who said you can't believe they won't be back here until November 13, fucking believe it- but so far it's been all talk. Starting to get the damn gin blossoms again, which hasn't happened since the very worst of the bad old days, so it's not like my body isn't trying to give me a wake up call, I just haven't gotten around to answering it. Kathy sent me a bunch of humorous quotes in regard to drinking, they were all funny but I'll just repeat this one, by Paul Hornung. "When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading." They didn't call you Golden Boy for nothing, Paulie. Chris sent me a very long and well written response to the bourbon/scotch question I posed last issue, which boiled down to, he drank bourbon as a kid, he drinks scotch now that he's old. Let it be noted here, I still drink bourbon. And Dave wanted me, and I guess by extension, you, to know that while he likes scotch, he also likes American whiskey. So noted. While we're on correspondence, got a fan letter the other day, he said- wait, I'm gonna have to go back and find it, cos I want to get this right- okay, he said what he likes about this drivel is that it's written by someone who's "half hard boiled cynic, half lost naif". That was the word. In damn near 48 years on this planet, that's the first time to my knowledge I've ever been called a naif. (WHAT'S IT MEAN? PUSSY?) No, more like- (COS IF IT DOES, YOU'RE THE ONLY PUSSY AROUND HERE). I know that. (YOU'RE THE ONE GOTTA PROP HIS FUCKING ASS UP WITH A BOTTLE. I DON'T NEED THAT SHIT). What's THIS all about? (I GOTTA WORK AGAIN SATURDAY, I'M GETTING SICK AND GODDAMN TIRED OF TRYING TO DO SOMETHING ATHLETIC WITH THESE ALCOHOL SOAKED BONES I'M GIVEN TO WORK WITH. YOU'RE THE ONE WHO'S SOAKING THEM. I'VE NEVER TAKEN A DRINK IN MY FUCKING LIFE). Yeah, well, fair enough. Now as for naif- you done? (FOR NOW). Okay, as for naif- you remember Peter Pan? Remember the Lost Boys? (YEAH). They were naifs. (SO WE'RE LIKE THE LOST BOYS?) I think so. (ONE QUESTION THEN. WHERE'S OUR WENDY?) I wish I knew. (THE WAY YOU ARE, PROBABLY STILL IN JUNIOR HIGH. MAYBE GRADE SCHOOL.) Probably. I'm about ready to call it a night. (ME TOO). People say I got no respect, but Everything means less than zero (TRUER WORDS WERE NEVER SPOKEN). I'm starting to agree with you, big guy. (IT'S ABOUT DAMN TIME). Later Bill
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Lets
talk about the future now 
