3/1/04

Heard You Missed Me

Heard you missed me, well I'm back

Hey

The above quote by Sly Stone, about as slimy a piece of shit as ever crawled a stage (but all hail "I Want To Take You Higher", absolutely), I loved the two line review in Creem of the same titled album. "Heard your record. You ain't back." Funny magazine, Creem, miss it a lot, like so many other things from that era.

After the longest lapse in this whatever it is's history, you can decide if I'm back, cos I'm not totally sure, myself.

I've actually laid eyes on quite a few of you direct receivers in the 19 days since The White Newsletter, but you e-folk have bombarded me, if about a dozen e-mails constitute a bombardment, this past week with questions about my health and whereabouts. Well, here I is.

What's Bill been up to? Well, first, since I mentioned e-mail, let me address one here off the bat, I said a while back that New York was the second most overrated city in the world, after Paris, which it fucking is. I didn't say it sucked, or any of that other shit, I said it was OVERRATED, you fucking numbnuts Soto (I also said send your hate mail to someone who gives a shit, but you didn't catch that part either, you observant fuck), but since you've gone and pissed me off- "King Kong knew what he was doin'/When he left that town in fucking ruins". So there. Fuck you, fuck New York, fuck your accents, fuck your attitudes, fuck your goddamn Yankees, fuck all of it. Get the picture now?

I admit I'm somewhat persnickety when it comes to people not getting it right when I say it right- a constant source of fun and amusement during my married years- but Bill is my name, semantics is my game. I took a semantics course at Fairmont and totally wrecked the curve, got 550 out of a total of 500 points- I did the extra credit stuff as well, being the goddamn show off that I am. The professor for that class was a gem, this big storky Irish guy, Teehan was his name (he never said what his game was, and I didn't ask), he used to shoot around the classroom like he was electrified, just like crazy Miss Oren from WAY back in issue #2, you could almost hear him crackle, ZIP, he'd be at one end of the room, ZAP, he's at the other- what the fuck he might have been like if he'd been teaching something exciting boggles the fucking mind- and he never called on anyone by name, he'd just ask a question and then lunge forward, stabbing a quivering finger at whoever he expected to answer.

All well and good except when it came to Ron. Ron was the most obviously blind guy I've ever seen in my life. He wore these big oversized sunglasses, but they still didn't cover up the scars and discolored flesh around his glaringly empty eye sockets. I have no idea what happened to Ron, but it hadn't been good. He was an English major also and over the two years I went to Fairmont he sat at the front in many a class I was in, head woggling around in that Stevie Wonder blind guy motion, tape player taping away to the professor's lectures. Every now and then a tape would end in mid-lecture and he'd fumble around trying to get a new one in, people would sort of look around self consciously, I used to get up and help him switch tapes all the time, he didn't have that, "No, I'll do it myself" attitude at all, he would always thank me, I used to think, "How the fuck does he STUDY- go back and listen to 60 hours of lectures?", not very well I'd say, cos the second year I was there he said something to me about being on academic probation, said he wanted to be a teacher someday and you could see he had as much chance at that as he did of being a fucking diamond cutter. Thinking about Ron used to tug at my heart a lot, and I've said a prayer for the guy every day for the past 25 years- and if you think that's hypocritical after all my anti-religious ranting in this thing, I've never said one time that I don't believe. I've just said I don't believe what you believe.

Anyway, one day the inevitable happened. Teehan lunges at Ron and shoves a finger in his oblivious face. No response from Ron. Teehan rares back and points again, harder. Still no response. The class is falling off their chairs at this point, Teehan is totally without a clue, he backs up to get a running start, comes FLYING across the room, all sweaty and teeth clenched, flings his pointing finger just inches from Ron's nose- it looked like he was trying to turn Ron into a toad or something- and Ron still just sits there. The class is in hysterics, Teehan has practically herniated himself to no avail, and I hate like hell that the bell rang then, because I honestly think Teehan would have eventually exploded.

And gosh, while we're on the Fairmont English professor thing, I'll tell another story. The head of the English Department when I was there was this fey sort of fellow, used to be into unicorns for fucks sake and write "Unicorn Poems"- his term - by the bucket full, this hellish "corn, horn, born, lorn morn" doggerel, he'd read them in class sometimes and the ass kissers would applaud and I'd fucking gag, I'm not a Fruedian at all, but a fairy guy into unicorns doesn't take a goddamn scientist to figure out, Byers was his name (and again I don't know his game- but I could probably guess), he looked a lot like Alton Brown on the Food Network, same fading hairline, tall scrawny build with thick glasses, but what hair he had left was blond and curly, he had this hot damn wife, don't ask me how, or even why, to continue this reference thing so you can see her, she looked a lot like Yvette Mimeaux circa The Time Machine.

He was always inviting students over to his house to hang out on a personal level, Jeff Morrison, who Joe will remember, was telling me about the time he went over, Mrs. Byers kept walking through the room where they were drinking (cheap) wine, wearing this see through nightie type thing and winding Jeff up, apparently deliberately, while Byers got his smirking kicks.

Byers never invited me to one of these individual hang outs for some reason, but late in the year I got this generic English major invite to this soiree at his house, which I was going to blow off, but Jeff M informed me there were always free drinks to be had at these things, so I went. It was on a Sunday afternoon, I asked Loretta to accompany me, but she declined. I went, the drinks sucked, some kind of Cold Duck/Champale garbage psuedo wine fountain, but it was free, and it would buzz your ass, and those were the days, so I stayed and guzzled (and guzzled) and got good and buzzed UP, after a while Byers slunk up behind me and Jeff while we were checking out his better half- she WAS quite pretty- and oozed at me, "So, you'd like to sleep with my wife?"

I said, "You mean, like, again?" and found out, not for the first time, and certainly not the last, that some people JUST CAN'T TAKE A JOKE. But the sleazy fuck started it.

Enough of Fairmont.

Okay, what else. Been to some houses lately, Doug and Rosa's, shit, way back a few weeks, where I conveniently showed up about the time they were sitting down to eat, hung out, threw big chunks of sharpened heavy metal at (and in my case, sometimes over) this wooden target Doug has set up in their backyard- my favorite were the torpedoes, these metal cylinders sharpened on both ends, started to say something stupid like, "Wonder if one of them would fit into my wrestling pants?", but, OF COURSE IT WOULD.

Also went down to Jean and Tad's, again for dinner, Martha was there (but not at the DF's match last Saturday, what, did you have a premonition or something?), she, being a good guest, brought some wine, Pantera, a red barbery, which I've never heard of as a type of wine (apes and pirates, sure, spelled a little different). Me being a good me, I drank some. As noted on multiple occasions, I'll never be a wine head, but Martha consistently picks stuff that a non-wine guy like me can appreciate and enjoy.

And on a drinking note, Bill's drinking some Labatt's Blue- about the cheapest of the good beers, or what I call good, going on a couple hours sleep earlier this morning, plan on getting plowed under for the first time in some time. In the mood. And I'm not talking your Farmer Jones kind of plowed, I'm talking your 9 million acre megacorporate super jumbo sized plowed. They'll have to get me out of bed in the morning with a spatula. Or a forklift.

Watched "Deep Rising" again the other night, all the way through this time, cos I caught Famke Janssen in it early so I kept watching, I have an absolute thing for her, it seems. Nothing astonishing there, I have things (or a thing) for many, but there's something about Famke that really gets to me. I think she's totally fucking beautiful in a very real way, if that makes any sense. I divide fantasy women- cos obviously she and I will never meet, mores the pity- into recreational sex and relationship, and she's one of the very, very few that when I think about being with her it's not the wham bam, "wait, my leg's caught in the chandelier" stuff, it's in the context of making love as part of an ongoing thing. Go figure. She's also Dutch, and the Dutch girls were far and away the best looking girls I ran into during the much noted Summer Offensive of 1972.

The movie still sucks, hard.

As does "Ghosts Of Mars" which came on right after. Another very attractive female lead, Natasha Hentstridge, and a very serviceable plot device, wasted by John Carpenter's typical ham fisted numbskullery, the dumb fuck. In fact, the movie is actually called "John Carpenter's Ghost's Of Mars." What a pathetic git he is, like Stephen King's or Danielle Steel's "Whatever", putting the auteur's (and I use that term very loosely, improperly, even) name in the title gives me the peedoodle. And I can't accept pudgy little Ice-Cube as an action hero, and never will. Word.

I've only gotten through the B's in my March DirecTV (I hate 'em) guide, but check out "Beware My Lovely" with the great Robert Ryan, 3/6 at 8 am on TCM, "Boondock Saints" on USA 3/16 at 11 am, and a real blast from my past, "Bring 'Em Back Alive" 3/11 at 6 am- you better believe I'm setting my alarm, or more likely, just staying up for it, it's a "documentary" by the infamous Jack Buck from '32, where he filmed all of these staged animal fights to the (real) death, and you get to find out who would win in a fight between a crocodile and a python, among about a dozen others. Fantastically non-pc, its' been banned from TV for ages, don't know how they got it back on, but when I was a kid they used to show it all the time, we'd watch it and then go outside and fight all afternoon.

And while we're on movies, the on again, off again Death Falcon movie is back on, got a director and cameraman on board, also a producer of all things, a female, I'm supposed to meet with her here in the next week or so to hopefully get things rolling, so you cast members, get out your scripts- no, wait, never mind, she's typing up individual scripts for all of us. Anyway, get ready. What's a producer going to do, you ask? Pay me to be in my own damn movie if I have anything to say about it, that's what.

Listening to? Nuggets II, for about the fifth time while writing one of these, but it's great stuff. And guilty pleasure confession, heard "The Rain, The Park, And Other Things"- horrible title, I've always called it "I Love The Flower Girl"- coming home from my parents, and no, my radio isn't fixed, I hold the radio knob in with one hand and drive with the other- and I love that song. Love it. I love the flower girl . . .

What's Bill been reading? Nothing exceptional, "I Hope I Shall Be Arriving Soon", a short story collection by Phillip K. Dick, it was good, finished that anime book mentioned last issue- it was 660 pages- the autobiographies (with help) of Lou Thesz and Ole Anderson lent to me by fellow wrestler Brian Douglas, pretty interesting, and a book about the band Phish, whom I didn't care for before I read the book, and care for even less now. I guarantee you, spot me D, A, and G, give those idiots in Phish every other chord out there, all the minors, and all the ones with the numbers behind them, I don’t give a shit, all the others, and I'll write you a better song than those overly intellectual fucks could ever dream of. They write the kind of shit that goes on forever, and as soon as it's over you can't remember a thing about it. Fuck 'em, they give me the peedoodle, too.

Also read the new Mojo, good stuff as always, this issue is about acid and acid bands, a subject I can get into, but they've changed the damn format, less pages and new, lousy graphics, so once again I'm pissed, Loretta has gone into this big thing about how I'm crazy because I can't accept or even deal with change, of course I can if it's for the better. She was bitching at me for something fairly recently on the phone and she got on that "you hate change" thing, I said "Bullshit, did I ever once complain about your tits getting bigger?" Shut her right up- till she took off about something else.

And I forgot to mention in last issue when discussing that Three Stooges book, it's thought that the cerebral hemorrhages that killed Curly, Shemp, AND Larry- hard to see coincidence there- were all caused by the abuse their noggins took as part of the act. Jeez.

Speaking of stooges, my Dad went in to have his heart checked, all clear, he's back in rehab, still feeling good, jaunty, in fact. Still singing up a storm, I was out there just today, heard him crooning to himself in the other room, snuck up on him, he was singing, "Onions and gravy, oh yeah, oh yeah, onions and gravy, oh yeah," sounds like an original to me, I started laughing and he stormed off in a huff, so I have no idea how the rest of it goes. He also had a wonderful time at the matches last weekend, he was glad handing so bad my mom was calling him The Ambassador, she said he almost fell out of his chair laughing when Allegra hit SMJS in the head with the trash can lid. I didn't get to see it, myself, since SMJS'd just hit me in the head with the fucking trash can.

My parents are also going on a cruise the beginning of April, so if around then you hear on the news about a cruise ship turning around and coming back halfway through it's voyage, you'll know my Dad wasn't having a good time. Nor was anyone else.

As for the matches last weekend, thanks very much to all of you who showed up, sincerely, I appreciate it. The DF had a shitty match- that makes about 3 or 4 in a row- but I've seen tapes and the card itself was good. I was shitty because number one, I had what Joe unsympathetically, but accurately, called a panic attack when it looked like I was going to lose a shit pot full of money that I don't have- I still don't have next- no that would now be this- months rent, due today, the only consolation is Jack will start out asking for it by discussing the dark side of the moon or something, so I can put him off for ages before he actually says, "Bill, I need the damn rent." Maybe I'll have it by then.

Number 2, all my shitty matches have been since the girls moved to Baltimore, and my heart just hasn't been into them. My heart hasn't been into ANYTHING. I swear to God I think my heart's finally well and truly broken, that their moving was the final kiss of death, the Komodo dragon bite, and here my water buffalo ass has been walking around ever since, dying a little more every day, every day getting a little more detached and numb, until eventually . . .

Overblown and melodramatic? Sure. Accurate? Absolutely. Every day I give less and less of a shit about anything, good or bad. I'm sure my last words will be "Fucking whatever . . . . . . . " And THAT'S NOT ME. But it's me now.

Before we leave the wrestling- Joe, put some good captures in this if you will, the one that starts off the DVD is a good one, with the DF all hugged up with the Falconettes, lovely girls and good sports they be- all of you be sure to come to the WV Invitational Tag Team Tournament 3/20 in Smithers, there is going to be some genuine talent there, I've gotta get down to the ring in Nitro and work my ass off between now and then or I'm gonna get my ass handed to me, this will be the best wrestling exhibition around here this year, easy- and lastly, Alex Moore is the kind of fan any promoter would pay to have, he almost stole the damn show, he's GREAT. Oh yeah, and Doug, please tell Alex- NO, YOU SHUT UP!

Had a bunch of weird dreams last night/this morning in the sense that they were all so normal- just hanging out, had a dream about going to a party at Joe's, another about babysitting Lori's kids, one about going shopping, stuff like that. Normally, it'd be shopping in Hell.

Still, the last dream I had before getting up was about watching this movie called Dragon Fed Earth, whatever that means, but it kept flashing on the screen, it was in the ballpark of "Reign Of Fire" only infinitely better, dragons vs us, it ended with this big ambush scene, all these dragons swooping down to get these helpless humans- and all of a sudden these camo tarps are pulled aside and there's all this low level AAA, quad .50's and retro dual 40 mm pom poms like on the North Carolina (remember them, Joe) and these way cool rotating tri-barrel 20 mms and they just start blowing the absolute SHIT out of all these fucking dragons, it was great- except now I'm in the movie, and firing away, I've got this piss ant little Russian single 50 like they used to show the VC using in old Viet Nam war footage, there's this big ass dragon coming down on me and I'm laying it in, right into it's chest, it was extremely vivid- as noted many times, I dream vivid as fuck, which is wonderful when I dream about Sable, not so much fun when I dream about Satan- the scales are breaking off its chest and flying away, like scaling a bluegill when I was a kid, but it's obvious I'm not gonna bring it down in time, I'm yelling, "A little help here . . . A LITTLE HELP, HERE" and I look over my shoulder and I'm like 100 yards from everyone else, and no one's looking. Fuck.

I start to run away, but then I figure it'll just get me running away, so I keep shooting and it comes down and smashes into me- it's not trying to eat me, it just wants to kill me- and it's like being hit by a fucking train, I go flying, then rolling, and I can feel myself breaking apart, arms and legs and shit coming off, and then I'm dead, and then I wake up.

And speaking of dead, (I can still segue smooth as fuck) yesterday (2/29) was the 34th anniversary of the passing of my Granddad (and namesake). He was well noted in "They're All Dutch To Me", but I'll tell a little story about him here in his honor, and to close this one out.

As was noted in "TADTM", my Granddad was a genuine stone killer, and as scary a guy as I've ever been around in my life. Naturally, I had to fuck with him. He and my grandmother were visiting one summer, either '66 or '67, he was watching TV and the sight of his big, bald head just got to be too much temptation. I wasn't allowed to have squirt guns- go figure- so I'd secret empty dishwashing detergent bottles, fill them up with water, and use them. I went and got a Joy bottle from out of its hiding place in the basement, and filled it up with water there in the kitchen. Lori comes in while I'm doing this.

L: Whatcha doin'? 
B: I'm gonna squirt Granddaddy in the head.

Her eyes go big.

L: Oh no, Billy, no. He'll kill you. 
B: No he won't. It'll be funny. 
L: No, Billy, don't (starting to whimper) 
B: Sure. You can even help me squeeze the bottle. 
L: No . . . 
B: It'll be funny. Everyone will laugh. (I have never failed to misjudge an audience, ever).

We sneak up behind where my Granddad is calmly watching TV, Lori, trooper that she is- almost done with "Billy, If You've Killed Your Sister!" by the way- grabs hold of the Joy bottle with me, and we give it a good squeeze. Me being me, I haven't gotten the lid screwed back on right, so instead of a little stream of water, the lid pops off, and about a quart of water goes glugging onto my Granddad's unsuspecting head.

For an old bastard, he moved like lightning. "WHO SPIT ON MY HEAD!" he screams, and is instantly out of his seat and coming our way. Lori collapses on the floor shrieking, I'm off and running to beat hell, which is exactly what I was trying to do, and he chases me out of the house and about 6 blocks down the street before he finally runs out of steam.

The sad thing is, he never forgave me, and insisted till the day he died that "that disrespectful little shit" had spit on his head. Yeah, if I'd had the spit glands of a fucking SPERM WHALE, my Dad, after he got done spanking the living hell out of me as per usual, tried to reason with him, showed him the Joy bottle, explained no kid in the universe could spit a quart of water on your head, not even Billy, to no avail. Oh well. He was still my Granddad and I loved him- yeah I know, funny way to show it- and rest in peace, RWB Sr. See you in hell someday, I'm sure.

I'm out of here.

Run from beauty, and beauty will follow

Yeah, right.

Later

Bill