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4/20/06 Long Ago And Worlds Apart
Hey I'm back, and I got yer strange gods right HERE, reporting as I am from Hotel Albania, we been without phone service out here since last Saturday, so if you've been trying to call, SORRY, fuck, NOTHING in this place fucking works- (YEAH, LIKE YOU) -kiss my sculpted ass, we finally got my Dad's old telephone bud Ron over here and together he and I- and wasn't that fun, shades of "The Good Son", only Ron isn't my Dad, still, he starts out wanting to talk tech speak at me, I had to set him straight, "Look, I can drill holes, pull wire, and drop tools on your fucking head, beyond that you're on your own"- after about three hours of misery for us both we got service restored, sort of, ended up hot wiring some shit to the outside box cos we couldn't figure out the damn wires inside the house and I got NO damn patience when it comes to that kind of thing, Ron didn't really want to but I talked him into it- I had a drill in my hand- so if Cross Lanes burns down tonight you'll know why. Got one phone (out of three) and this computer line going, close enough for rock and roll, let's load and go . . I normally find talk about the weather excruciating, but Lord it was a beautiful day. I'm more of a fall guy, pun intentional, but spring has it's charms. I've really been enjoying waking up to the spring smell coming through my windows in the morning, even though once I get up life sucks, after we finished working on the phones this afternoon I went out and lay down in the front yard for almost a hour, very relaxing, in fact I think I fell asleep for a bit, my face down in the grass, sucking in that sweet, green smell. (I PREFER TO BE FACE DOWN IN OTHER THINGS. FAIRY.) Pretty much. Compared to you, anyway. My parents continue to drive me more and more insane with each passing day- what, you were expecting a miracle?- I know part of it is me as well, I argue way too much with my Dad, I KNOW there's no point to to it, I'm taking him and my Mom to Ohio a few weekends back to spend the night- Dad: When I get back tomorrow, I want to go out in the garage and check
out that trolling motor. Now here would be the point- if not sooner- when a reasonable person would have said, you're right, silly me, you never did sell that trolling motor, what was I thinking, and let it drop. Bill's take on reasonable being- B: Yes you DID, you crazy ass fuck! I was standing right there when you
sold it, I asked "what the hell are you selling the trolling motor
for", and you said "none of your damn business, mister",
and I said, "yes it is my business, I was gonna"- I let it go till we get to Lori's, my Mom's already gone in the house and I'm helping my Dad in- B: You believe what you want in that crazy ass head of yours. But
there's no trolling motor out in that garage Now I realize that arguing with and baiting a sick and genuinely brain damaged old man makes me look like both a idiot and a prick, but there's just something about it being my Dad . . . he could say "Left" and by God, even if they were going to cut my tongue out for it, I'd have to say, "Right, mother fucker. Right". And he's exactly the same way regarding me. Ah, the love between a father and son, it's a beautiful thing. Some of you may even think I'm kidding. Jesus Christ. I just went upstairs to ask my Mom the name of the guy who bought the trolling motor, cos I couldn't remember Jack Ball's (pretty great) name ("Hi, I'm Jack Ball"), and my Dad heard me- D: I NEVER SOLD ANY TROLLING MOTOR! So I guess I'm gonna be sorry. He's been watching WAY too much TV lately, I brought him home from therapy the other afternoon- the whatever it was with Debbie the receptionist has fizzled and died, big tits or no I just can't feign interest in any more talk about motorcycles, Jesus, does she never do anything else? Not so's you'd know it from her conversation- and my Mom asked him how it went, he goes, "I return, my flower, a changed bee". He talks to the TV even more that he used to, one character asked another on- something, I was just passing through, "Have you ever been big game hunting?", my Dad, goes, totally deadpan- Dad: Yeah, I went sperm whale hunting one time. A big one jumped out from behind a bush and I shot it. Jesus. Then the next day we're watching Sports Center and Joe Frazier comes on, poor Joe looking rough, weathered and aged, the years have not been kind to Mr. Frazier since I saw him last, someone asked him if he still sings, Joe goes, "Yeah, I still sing, whatcha wanna hear?" and again, completely straight faced- Dad: Sing "Old Black Joe". I'm on the fucking floor I'm watching way too much of that damn idiot box myself, but it's hard when it's on ALL THE FUCKING TIME here not to pick shit up just by osmosis, just today my Mom was dozing on the couch, she wakes up and asks my Dad what she missed on her "story", he says, "Gloria just dropped a bombshell. She's pregnant" "Gloria?" my Mom goes, cos Gloria's this older lady, "No," I tell her, "Gloria's not pregnant, Laurens' pregnant, by Tom (lucky bastard, cos Lauren's fucking hot) and she just told Gloria about it, and Gloria's sweating that Tom is gonna rat her out for putting some kind of acid shit in the Jabot face cream, and . . . I am so embarrassed". And I am. So . . . didn't hit mail call earlier, not a lot in it of late, sort of a fallow period, did get one from a hurt feelinged friend due to my comments about psychology last issue, let me clarify, I have a number of friends in the psych and mental health fields, as well as a few in the legal business, just because I think their chosen professions are festering sumps in no way affects my esteem for these people as individuals. Everybody's gotta do somethin'- (EXCEPT YOU) -lighten up already, so if you wanna be a psychologist or lawyer or whatever, I think it's a genuinely fucked up choice, but be a good one is all I can say. Rachel came in last weekend, and it was a very good visit for a couple reasons. First, of course, is that I got to see my baby for the first time since fucking CHRISTMAS, I've been sincerely unhappy about her distant and diffident affect since then, our recent infrequent phone conversations pretty much consisting of Bill trying to engage his youngest child in an exchange of ideas and information, and her responding with monosyllabic noises and an occasional discernable "yeah" or "no". Discouraging? Yeah, you might say. But we had a good visit, she brought her friend Stephanie, who seems like a nice kid, in with her, we ate TONS in the short time they were here, also watched The Cave Friday night, it was horrible, another in the long, LONG line of films that drive me crazy thinking what I could have done with the money they spent making this piece of shit. Went down for TV Saturday morning, Rachel starts calling spots to Steph during the matches- "they're doing the universal spot, so called because-", then when Bret blew a spot in our match- I said as I shot him off, take a LEFT ARM clothesline, cos he's a kid- graduated with Tommy- and a lot of these kids don’t know dick about old school, i.e. real school, they're too busy watching that "sports entertainment" mutation bullshit, sure as fuck, even after the call he feeds to the right, so we end up crashing together in the middle of the ring, he got the worst of that, brother, Rachel saw it and told Steph "Uh oh, Bret blew that clothesline, now Daddy's gonna kick him real hard". And, on cue, I did. Twice. Later that night we were downstairs, the girls were playing video games and I was "relaxing", Rachel saw the PBR and spontaneously broke into the PBR song. What'll you have? Ha. And I was worried about losing my little girl. She can call wrestling spots on the fly and sing beer commercial jingles- who says she's forgotten her Daddy, and I never raised that kid right? The visit was also good because, as noted in here previously, I've been missing Loretta a lot for some reason this spring, and seeing her sure as fuck put paid to those feelings. She dropped Rachel and Steph off all forced friendly toward yours truly cos she needed me to sign some papers regarding an old insurance policy on the Carriage Way house that back in the day I was told, a) had been cancelled when we divorced, and b) had no cash redemption value, neither of which happened to be true. Imagine that. She actually tried to get me to sign the papers without reading them, cos I'm sure she was expecting a shit storm, especially when I said "I don't sign anything without reading it, even with people I trust", but other than acknowledging that I knew I should get some of the money from the policy, but didn't want it, wouldn't have it, I gave her no shit over it at all. But it was a real good wake up call to the kind of person she is and has been for a very long time, and there ain't no point in missing that. Also, she's still doesn’t look very good. She hasn't gained any more weight since the big gain a few years ago, but she sure hasn't lost any either, and she insists on still wearing jeans too small for her. I'm not against tight jeans per se, I knew someone a few years ago who wore her jeans so tight she looked like she had a coat of denim paint on her ass, which was fine by me, cos she had a really nice ass, there was a day when Loretta looked damn good in tight jeans. But them days are gone, and again, thanks for the reminder, Loretta. Sarah still has her boyfriend Evan, so I didn't scare him off last issue, she's says he's a nice boy and good to her, hey, that's all I ask. She spent Easter weekend with Evan and his family, I'm very glad. Al continues to improve physically following his brush with death, but his mind remains wrecked, we had to turn the gas off to the stove cos he got up in the middle of the night and damn near set the house ablaze trying to dry a piss soaked pair of drawers over an open flame- you ever smelled burning, old man piss soaked underwear? You don't want to, either. In a similar vein, we stopped at Rite Aid on our way back from the doctor Tuesday, Al stayed in the car while I dropped off his prescriptions, I'm not in there five minutes, hell, probably not even two, but I come back out to find Al standing in the middle of the Rite Aid parking lot taking a piss, and some lady from the projects across the street pretty damn offended by it, and letting us know at the top of her lungs. Bill: What are you doing, Al? In "The Blizzards Are Buying Stock In The Daily Mail" column, another one of the tribe hit the front page (of a back section), this time Joe's sister Mary was in the DM the other day. I confess to not reading the article- I pretty much just skim the paper hoping to some fine day come across photos of naked women, and dinosaurs fighting giant crabs- and then toss it, news, who needs it, they just make that shit up anyway, unlike what you read in here- but I know Mary is a Financial Aid person at State, head one in fact, and there was a student in the photo with her, and the caption was something like "Mary Blizzard offers money to budding young genius to come to State to learn how to build a fucking time machine for Bill Bitner". Pretty cool, and thanks, Mary. I'll get the rest of my stuff out of your house someday. What day? Depends on that time machine, doesn't it? That reminds me- something's always reminding me of something, I know- I did get a letter since last issue commenting on my remark about how much I love my boys, although you used the word I hate second most in the world, after- (WORK?) -no, "blog", and that second word would be "posse". Do people even say "posse" anymore? Well, I guess they must, cos you did. No, dear, they're not my posse, they're my Rat Pack.
So I'm Frank, Chris can be Dino, Ron has Sammy Davis Jr. written all over him- I mean that literally, ask him to take his shirt off sometime, you'll see. Doug can be Peter Lawford, and Joe, Joey Bishop. Hey, don't blame me, blame Frank. Joe and I met Kat at The Sound Factory last Tuesday for her birthday, fuck, it was like the glory days, I came home with a bunch of phone numbers on bar napkins- Joe was just standing there basking it it, your boy's still got it, doesn't he brother?- and I wasn't even trying. Okay, for one I was trying, the rest I just got. I may have found the next Falconette- actually, I got a couple offers, it was crazy, but there was only one person I asked, the rest just volunteered. The one I was actively recruiting confessed to being intrigued, but hesitant. I get that a lot. Hope she goes for it, cos she's cute, and a nurse, and God knows a Falconette with medical training could be damn handy- (I WANT ONE OF THOSE SPECIAL NURSES, WITH THE LIVE TITS). Live tits? (YEAH, YOU KNOW, THE KIND THAT WORK). I have no . . . you mean a wet nurse? (YES! I WANT A WET NURSE.) Lord help us. Moving right along . . . Ask the angels, who they're calling What's Bill been listening to? Still more SSSLB CDs, Radio Ethiopia and Wave by the Patti Smith Group. It took me quite a while to warm up to Patti, she wrote for Creem, and they were all her buds so they talked her up big, back in the day I thought she was a pretentious bitch of marginal talent, at best. I still think she's pretentious, but I've come around to acknowledging her good stuff is pretty fucking good, and all of her albums have some good stuff on them, although for all the hype about her "poetry", the entire set of lyrics for the best song on Wave (after the sexy- although I think it's about drugs- "Dancing Barefoot") go "Bop bop bop bop bop/5-4-3-2-wave". So go figure.
(MR. POT PAGING MR. KETTLE, MR. POT PAGING-) Shut UP, already. MMM is nothing but sixty four minutes of four channels of guitar feedback. It was seen as a huge "fuck you, world", which it was, and which is a terribly cool thing to do, no matter how big a dick I think little Louie might be, when it came out back in '75, it got horrific reviews, branded as unlistenable, it damn near wrecked Reed's career- and I love it. Seriously, it soothes me, and that's a good thing. I used to have about 8 minutes of it on a cassette and Loretta would never let me play it when she was around, said it made her feel "itchy", but for me it has the opposite effect, I find it soporific in the extreme. I'll play it next Movie Club and you guys tell me what you think. Okay- no Granddad Vs. The Angel- that needs a NL all its own- but how 'bout we travel back about a year and pick up on The Scourge Of Africa for this issue's story time? Good, cos that's what we're gonna do. You can go back to last year and reread the earlier stuff, but to refresh, we left off with Bill just returned to The Black Scorpion, heart sick and testicle sore after a truly crushing "Nyet" from the shit sexy Natalia. To close out that night before we move on, things went sour fairly quickly after I rejoined Doug, and not all because of my sorry mental (and gonadal) state. For one, Doug had been, purely cos he's a genuinely nice guy, buying lots of drinks for the locals while I'd been getting myself frustrated, so he, and by extension once I got back, his buddy Bill, were seen as easy marks to pay for a round- which went in the crapper right away when the bartender brought drinks for our table- I didn't know a soul sitting at it, they were all guys who'd latched onto Doug- as well as the table next to ours, and stuck out his hand to me, and I gave him 5000 TS- enough for my drink and Doug's with a decent tip. He wasn't happy, kept trying to tell me I'd ordered for everyone, and needed to pay up, I kept telling him all he was gonna get from me was the back of my fucking hand if he didn't get out of my face. Doug paid for the rest of the drinks, over my fucking protests. I don't mind being friendly, I don't like being taken advantage of. Fuckers, it still pisses me off. We should've busted some goddamn heads is what we should have done. (YOU WERE OUTNUMBERED WHAT, A HUNDRED TO ONE?)
Also, as it had gotten later, the pimps and prostitutes had moved in and started working the crowd, and as we were the only white faces there, and automatically perceived as having money, they were fucking swarming us. It even wore on good natured Doug, some pimp maggot kept trying to sell me this child, I know it ain't the same as over here, but I was winding up all the same, Doug got me by the elbow and said, "Let's go" and we wisely left the Black Scorpion before any harm befell anyone, even those who deserved it. Sunday, May 22 We get up early, the Russians up earlier still and they were already gone, SHIT. I was still foolishly thinking of trying to pitch some more woo at Natalia over breakfast, alas, the story of my motherfucking life, when it come to romance at least. After our standard breakfast- omelets, toast, fruit, lots of hot tea- we drive out into the Serengeti. I'm not going to try to describe it, watch the DVDs, but it was a moving experience, truly- to make our first stop late morning at this Massai village. We're wanting to film some scenes for the movie here, so I have to get into DFZ gear before I enter the village. That's a trip, they're all doing their "Here come the tourists" dance and this guy in all black commando togs and a wrestling mask shows up, they all stop and do double, and sometimes triple takes, funny. We film some good stuff, DFZ doing the Massai battle dance with all the "warriors"- its easy, you just jump up and down, hell, Joe, YOU could do it - film some stuff in one of the huts, then went to the school and had all these cute as a button little kids chanting "DFZ! DFZ!" I fucking loved it. This one guy, who latched onto me as my personal guide and bosom companion, was a cocky little fucker. Ellie, (our cook, you remember) didn’t seem to like the Massai too well- they're known for being a bit haughty toward Africans of other tribes- Julius (our driver) didn't like 'em either, I found out another reason why they didn't care for the Massai later, as will you, anyway, they didn't seem to like this kid in particular, his "I'm the shit" attitude was wearing on our guys, bad, till Ellie said to me "Ask him how many cows he has" and big boy Massai's arrogance melted a bit. Apparently these aren't "real" Massai, they're the equivalent of reservation Indians who make their living off the tourist trade, real Massai measure their wealth, as well as their virility, by the number of cattle they own, and these guys own none. Mike also wanted to get some film of me and this kid- I say kid, he was like 24, and probably the biggest, physically, guy we saw there- locked up, and in a couple other wrestling poses. The little shit tried to get cute, till DFZ spun him around and put him in a cross face chicken wing- "The more you squirm, the more it's gonna hurt". As we were leaving he asked me if he could get some copies of the photos of him we'd taken. DFZ: How would we send them to you? Neither rain nor snow nor elephant stampede . . . DFZ. Okay . . . what's your name? So I get Frank the MG's mailing address, kind of complicated, ending with "Kiloki Village". Then he asks- F: Can you call me when you send the photos? And he did indeed have a cell phone, and he gave me the number. Incredible. The world really is coming to an end soon, it has to. A few miles down the road from the village, Ellie was moved to comment on his dislike for the Massai, I thought it was a tribal rivalry thing, nah, turns out the Massai still practice female circumcision, aka genital mutilation, aka a truly cruel and barbaric crime against women, Ellie and Julius were both vehemently against the practice, a very enlightened attitude, I must say. As well as adding that if I'd known that when I'd had our boy Frank in the chicken wing we may have had a little discussion about what constitutes mutilation, he and I. More amazing scenery till we make camp that evening. I've had a bad case of what I was calling Africa stomach all day, where you have the sensation that any second you’re going to explosively shit in your pants, but you never actually do, in fact, when you do try to produce a bowel movement, you can't. Camp is kind of creepy, all these boards nailed to the trees reading DO NOT LEAVE CAMP AREA, ANIMALS WILL ATTACT HUMAN BEING! and we've already been told once we're in our tents for the night we really shouldn't leave them for any reason before morning, so I head off to this cinder block building at the back of the camp, the latrine, to see if I can get some relief, cos I know me, and sure as shit if I don't get squared away now I'll have to go in the middle of the night, and wind up fist fighting mad hyenas and werejackals and everything else just to void my damn loose but strangely locked up bowels. The latrine is a one holer, literally, just a concrete floor with a hole in the middle if it. Even though it's twilight outside it's dark as fuck in here. I take my flashlight- never go to African without one, same with tweezers- and inspect the floor carefully, and especially down in the hole. I'm not at all afraid of snakes, but a lot of them mother fuckers over here are poison, all I need is to squat over the damn shitter and have some fucking cobra, or Gaboon viper or something, launch up outta there and bite me on my dangling balls. Satisfied the hole contains nothing but feces I assume the position- and there being no reading material handy, to pass the time, start to shine my light around the inside of the latrine, including up toward the ceiling. Bill: HOLY FUCKING- There was a bat up there somewhere, and my light had disturbed him. Woke him up, or pissed him off maybe, I don't know, all I know is he starts flying around in there with me, and this place ain't big enough for the both of us. We're not talking some piss ant fleidermaus here, this is a goddamn dog with wings. It is the biggest mother fucking bat in the universe. I don’t have any hair, so I'm not worried about him getting tangled up in there and laying his eggs and making me crazy, and nature boy here knows that all the big bats are fruit eaters, so I'm not worried about him swooping down and ripping off my face, but this IS a latrine, he could get inspired by the setting and drop a royal sized poop right on my head, and he does seem to be pretty agitated, flapping around, banging off the corrugated metal ceiling, and making this bizarre "oot, oot" noise, I'm starting to think I'm trapped in there with a flying monkey, who fucking needs THAT, Jesus, I just wanted to TAKE A SHIT- Well, that at least was taken care of, having a big animal flying around your head in a dark and confined space is very conducive to driving the shit right out of you. I vacate the latrine and head back to camp. Doug: What were you yelling there a while ago? I spread my arms as wide as they'd go. He ad Julius exchanged looks, and laughed. E: Bat don' get that big, mon. So he and I walk back to the latrine, I give Ellie my flashlight, he goes into the latrine- E: Come on bat, where you- WHOOOOOAAAA! Ellie comes flying out of the latrine like he's the one with wings.
That night's not over, but this one is. My old man says success is the measure Later Bill
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Ahead
the dim blur of an alien land 
We
talked about this some at Cold Spot back in the fall after moving Bill,
and I think it's a good analogy. I, of course, would be Frank, yes, in
part because I'm a hot tempered, hard drinking crooner- you ever heard me
sing "It Was A Very Good Year"?- but also because the role of
Chairman of the fucking Board just fits me best. It's like when me and
Chris are watching movies in his Enterprise chairs, even though they're
his chairs, and it's his house, I'm still Captain Kirk and he's Spock, cos
it’s what fits, me the pompous egotistical fuck chasing after all the
space pussy, Chris the calm, collected killing machine wiping out all my
many enemies with his space karate.
Also
listening to a double CD with all 3 Nazz albums on it, some excellent
stuff on here if you're a Todd Rundgren fan, and I am, I also got Metal
Machine Music by Lou Reed. Lou's another guy I never thought much of
personally, not that I ever met him, which is probably a good thing for
his smart mouthed little ass, but in interviews I always found him a total
shit, cruel and egotistical and way, WAY too impressed with himself-
Rorke's
Drift, motherfucker.
Julius:
What wrong!