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6/5/09 Crazy And Full Of Roosters
Hey Got a rare afternoon start going today, though I'm sure I won't be done before midnight. Got the day off from the yard and I feel like doing something, just not anything that's going to strain my aching brain, and when I feel like that you guys get a newsletter. Tried to recapture the past yesterday, always a mistake. I've been off work all week- the scrapyard's been closed, I didn't get let go, more's the pity- and hadn't slept since Monday about noon, which meant as of yesterday at noon it had been around 48 hours. This was just Bill's insomnia- we'll talk more about it later- not anything speed fueled cos those days are done. Done, I say. I've talked in here before about some great super tired/alcohol induced buzzes I got into back in the day, I guarantee you fatigue is a drug all its own, heavy drinking after being up for days produces this really relaxing trance/trip type effect- sometimes. Sometimes you just pass out. And then sometimes there's a third option, as I found out yesterday. Went to Kroger yesterday noon and bought ten 24 oz. Labatts- didn't plan on drinking that many, just bought them cos they were there. I had high hopes for the day as I was already seeing those sort of gauzy black things out of the corner of my eyes that being ultra-tired brings. (THE ANGEL OF DEATH?) Sort of looks like him, now that you mention it. Had a bunch of new magazines and a great comic comp- Supermen, The First Wave Of Comic Book Heroes 1936-1941, just great stuff, already surreal as fuck without any buzz- so I was ready to go. So I drank a big can of Labatts. And another. And another and another . . . No trippy buzz. No passing out, even. No nothing. What the fuck? Drank all ten of those Labatts by 8 pm, the more I drank the less tired I got, I honestly have no clue how that could happen. Never really felt all that buzzed up although ask me something specific about yesterday afternoon and I can't tell you, I know I read the Shock Cinema and part of Supermen but have no memory of either. Did finally go to sleep around 11 pm, slept through till 11 this morning, save for around 5 am when I got up and swallowed a handfull of motrin for my throbbing head. So . . . so much for that. What else has Bill been up to? Sarah's graduation, left here at 4 am as promised, or threatened, last issue, got to Baltimore and picked up Rachie around 10 am, stuck my head under a faucet at the house for about fifteen minutes cos I was already starting to drag a bit, left and got to the hotel in Clifton NJ about 2:30. Traffic was shitty but not any worse than I'd anticipated. Hey, I can drive fast and reckless with the best of them- (NO FUCKING SHIT) -I just don't necessarily like to. Tried to get a nap in the room till dinner, futile hope with my Mom watching soaps and then Sportcenter at stun volume. We then (we being Bill, Mom, Rachel, Sarah, Rob, Loretta, Paul, Mrs. Hurley and Loretta's sister Caroline) went to eat at this Italian place. For one price ($33 a person with tip) the table was served family style all you can eat your choice of two appetizers (we got sausage and peppers and bruschetta), two salads (house and Caeser) two pasta dishes (chicken and spinach cannoli and lasagna with meat sauce) two main dishes (chicken marsala and beef bruschole- doesn't look right to me either but that's how it was spelled on the menu) and two desserts (strawberry cheesecake and berry tiramisu). It was one of the best fucking meals I've ever had in my life. Everything was uniformly excellent, but the pasta was just insanely good, that lasagna was six inches tall at least, the bruschole came on a bed of white beans and noodles, they were out of regular tiramisu which is why we tried the berry, it was killer good as well, just some good, good eats. Good eats. There were good vibes all around the table which made it that much more pleasant, in fact they were so good I was prompted to ask Loretta if she knew what day it was. Not expecting much I was gobsmacked when she then not once but twice made reference to what a great time she'd had on our wedding night, the second of which got Paul all red faced and flustered. Ha. Thing is, it WAS a great time and I'm glad she's at the point where she can remember it as such, instead of pissing all over our entire 25 years together like she used to do. Sarah's graduation the next morning was not at the Meadowlamds arena, but at the Izod center, the hockey/basketball arena across from it. The place was packed and it took three hours for all 2,500 (not 10,000 as I first heard) graduates to get their diplomas. I'd be lying if I said I didn't get a lump in my throat watching little Sarah get her degree- and in that far future time, if there's still life on earth, I'm sure I'll be similarly moved when me and my cyborg love puppet jet in from Venus to attend Rachel's graduation. The trip was all good till we try to leave the Izod center parking lot, and these folks who were nice enough inside turn into total dicks inside their cars. It took us half an hour to get out of the lot, Rachel raving and swearing the whole time from the passenger seat at the assholes who kept trying to cut us off (which got me a poke in the back from my Mom and a "You taught her that!"- figures) it took Paul over an hour and he'd started out right behind me, he asked later "How'd you get out so fast?", "Cos I started driving like those motherfuckers", I did something I've never done in my life and deliberately ran someone off the road, instead of being nice this bitch literally tries to ram us to get in front of us, Rachel goes "Daddy, don't you DARE let her in," no worries there Rach, I held fast and Miss Bitch goes into the gravel. (FUCK HER) Damn straight, fuck her. Fuck all of 'em. Now that Sarah's gone next time I go to New Jersey will be never. I hate them damn people. Saturday before last Bill, Mark M., Chris and Ron took a road trip to Parkersburg to see the DF in action, we went in Mark's vagina- excuse me, van-gina although I fail to see the distiction, stopped first at the comic book store in Kanawha City, nice place and Cheryl who runs it seems sweet and flakey- (YOU MAKE HER SOUND LIKE PASTRY) -we then picked up a six pack of Stella Artois for the three non-drivers to drink on the ride up, a nice non-filling beer for someone who has to wrestle later that day. Looked for this gun shop in Parkersburg but couldn't find it, went by a Smoker Friendly and Chris and I got a couple Don Tomas Allegros (Handmade in Honduras) for later, went to this okay beer store, and then this really good beer store in Marietta (seems like a nice little town, first time I've been), I bought a six pack of Stone Ruination IPA (which is long gone) and a four pack of Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA which I'm saving for the next MC. Set me back $27 for ten beers and it was worth every penny. This place also has a restaurant/bar attached so we all had a cold one before heading to the matches, Bill got an IPA, can't remember which one (this memory loss thing is killing me, swear), then we went to the Pavilion where the DeathStars were defending the MWA tag belts against The Hillbillies, JT Hogg and Jo Jo Little. I don't know what it is about guys doing the hillbilly gimmick, why they all have to be fat, Hogg runs over 400 pounds, Jo Jo only around 250- but he's 5'5". Nothing you can do with guys that size except beat on 'em (one of the reasons I was okay with having a few beers before the match, I knew there'd be little to no actual wrestling involved) so we pounded on Jo Jo for about ten minutes- JT was too damn big to even get in the ring once he got out on the apron- and then pinned his sorry ass. Worked the crowd into a froth again, all the regulars were there- Sunshine, Hideous Half Wit, Racoon Mullet- as Chris noted, "Those people really hate you". Yeah, they do, far beyond the usual booing the bad guy thing, these folks think its real, and they genuinely do hate DFZ and Jock. A bunch of them again tried to get into the locker room to fight us after the matches, Jock went out to run them off- stupid, like I told him later, we work the marks, we don't let the marks work us, when Jock turned his back one of them shoved him so he hit the guy, the cops were called- again- just another fun night in the biz. We then went to the Northside Tavern, they do their own microbrews, got a pitcher of Red- something, it wasn't bad, then headed back to Charleston, drinking- fuck me, I'm dying here- I think it was Two Headed Ale, ice cold out of Chris's cooler and shooting the shit, best drive back from Parkersburg after the matches ever. When we got back to Chris's house it was pretty late but everyone else got their second wind (I was still on my first) so while Mark watched Quantum Of Solace the rest of us drank beer on Chris's deck- I was drinking the Ruination IPA- and Chris and I smoked our Allegros. We lit up as the movie was coming on, and they were still burning when the movie went off. Now that's a cigar. Man, that was a good, good day. Before heading on, to sort of bounce back to the missed mail bag (cos I forgot it earlier) got asked a while back if we have birds nesting in our mailbox again this year. Well, back around February I asked my Mom where the new mailbox was. For answer I got about ten minutes of bitching about how I should have put it up last year, I'm too lazy for words, bla fucking bla, bitch bitch bitch. And, typically, she never does answer my question, when she was done I still had no idea where she'd hidden the new mailbox. Couple days later . . . Mom: I thought you said you were putting up the new mailbox. And yeah, you can make a case for Bill being petty and pissy here but you know what? I am petty and pissy. Couple weeks later the new mailbox magically appears on the post. I'm guessing Tim put it up but I don't know for sure, and I'm sure I don't care. So, no bird nest stories this year, sorry. One more Mom story. Had to run her all the fuck over Tuesday- doctor (X 2), Lincare, grocery store (again X 2), bank, Lowe's, Cracker Barrel so she could make a meal of a couple blackberry cobblers- why her blood sugar level isn't in the thousands is beyond me. So we're in Lincare, second stop of the day, the lady there asks her something and instead of answering it my Mom, like she so often does, starts going on unprompted about her day- been here, gotta still go here and here, my son's taking me, on and on, so the lady goes, "Well, he sounds like a good son" and my Mom totally out of the blue goes "He's a Death Falcon." What the hell? The lady gives my Mom this hilarious, baffled "WHAT did you just say?" look, goes, "Uhm, okay" I'm almost on the floor laughing, I mean it is funny as shit but it's also truly bizarre. She gets crazier by the damn day, I swear. What else? How about Bill's insomnia? Even with all the drinking, I'm not sleeping worth a damn right now. If I started putting sleepless nights in STATS- not sure what symbol I'd use, maybe a tipped over bed, no wait, I'm already using that for something else- I'm sure I'd have a sheet full. Not really sure why- (ARE YOU WORRIED THAT THIS PLANET WE'RE STUCK ON IS RAPIDLY SPIRALLING DOWNWARD TOWARD A DECADENT AND COMPLACENT GLOBAL CULTURE DOOMED BY ITS OWN HEDONISTIC SELF-ABSORPTION AND SELF-INDULGENCE?) No. What the fuck's that to us? (IS IT YOUR MOM?) She's a hell of a lot more responsibility than I'd like, which would be none, but I've had her lodged up my ass for almost four years now, that's nothing new. (IS IT YOUR KNEES?) They were actually feeling better until a couple days ago. (ARE YOU WORRIED ABOUT YOUR FINANCIAL FUTURE?) Hell no. If I run out of money in some future time, either A, I'll find someone to take care of me or B, I'll take care of myself. It costs exactly nothing to step in front of a bus. See, I'm not overtly worried about anything, and I'm not in any more physical pain than usual. I just can't fucking sleep. The other morning just after daybreak- and you know, perception is a crazy thing, get me up that early and I'll be screaming, stay up that late and it's a whole 'nother story- I went out on the front porch and read a while, it was very serene, at one point I almost felt like the old black guy from Song Of The South, I looked up and two squirrels and this big ass rabbit were hopping across the yard toward me, they got really close, the rabbit coming all the way up onto the bottom porch stair, then a few minutes later these two sparrows fly up on the porch, one lands at my feet and the other almost on my arm before landing on the hanging planter right by my head- (THEY WERE PROBABLY ALL COMING TO ATTACK US AND GOT COLD FEET) Probably. Even so it was very pleasant out there, too much so in fact. That nice cool air and peaceful early morning atmosphere was really making me want to go for a run. It's been years, but my knees had kind of settled down so I said what the fuck, the three little words that have caused me far more trouble than any others. (EVEN MORE THAN 'STICK 'EM UP') We didn't get caught that time, so yes. And that was actually four words, cos I said "Stick 'em up, motherfuckers." To continue . . . it's a tenth of a mile down to the end of the street, down and back five times is a mile so I figured I'd do that, and did, at the end of it I was feeling so good I did it again. Felt excellent after the second mile, worked up a nice sweat, got the old blood moving, could have gone more but figured I'd better not push it. Wouldn't have mattered. I came in and immediately put the ice packs on my knees (and watched Curious George on PBS, he sure does give The Man In The Yellow Hat a time, doesn't he?) my knees were still swollen like canteloupes by that afternoon. I don't care though, that run felt wonderful. "Raoul Walsh's idea of a tender love scene is to burn down a whorehouse." Jack Warner What's Bill been reading? Well, since last issue, couple horror novels, okay one by Ramsey Campbell (I think he's much better at short stories) and The Rising by Brian Keene which flat out sucked, just TERRIBLE writing, imagine my surprise to find out it won the Stoker Award, fucking whatever- no sour grapes here, just more proof of how out of sync with the rest of the world Bill truly is-Aces High about WW II Pacific airmen, some decent mysteries, Chinatown Angel and Borderline and Mean Streets, also Spade and Archer by Joe Gores, very good, cos Sam Spade says things like "I got hootched up like a bat last night", and threatens to pop guys in the beezer. Also Film Crazy, interviews with a bunch of old Hollywood types, couple New Avengers/Secret Invasion comps that were incomprehensible, a really good Fantastic Four- The End, with Alan Davis' superb art- and Batman and Son, which was okay. Also whatever I read yesterday, which I don't remember and will have to re-read. Since Leno no longer does Headlines maybe I should start. Or not. Still, for this issue, "Cornhole Tournament To Benefit Girl's Basketball Team" from the Daily Mail one day last week. Say what, and where do I sign up? Their definition of cornhole and mine must be two different things. As for M Is for Monster I have the approval copy in my hand as I speak, it came yesterday. It looks fucking GREAT, need to give it a read to make sure it's all good, shouldn't be many, if any, mistakes as Joe and I both proofed it a billion times, just need to make sure it all printed right. So it should be available on-line in a week or so. Not sure when my Booksurge copies will get here. Not in time for the WV Writers Conference next weekend (did I tell you I was teaching a class there with Danny? Cos I am, too fucking cool) and I definitely need some for then- already got over a dozen pre-sales from attendees, and I should be able to move a lot more than that when I get there- so Danny was going to have this guy at State print some for me. Well, he's kind of cranky (the print guy) and he had some questions about the cover specs so I e-mailed Joe to e-mail this guy the specs and I cracked on the cranky guy a bit in my e-mail to Joe. Can you see this coming? I didn't. Joe forwards my e-mail to him to the print guy with the specs, he reads where I cracked on him- I didn't think it was that bad, really- and so now print guy is mad at me and won't print the book, won't even talk to me. And now Danny's mad at me cos the print guy is mad at him as well. Fuck me RUNNING, this whole thing has turned into yet another "How the fuck did THIS happen?' affair. Danny's in Martinsburg this weekend, when he gets back I'm gonna put the pressure on him to put the pressure on print guy- cos dammit, I need those books. What's Bill been listening to? Haven't bought anything new in ages, again gone sort of sour on you.tube, so I decided yesterday to listen to all my CDs in order. Since the first song on the first CD was "You're Gonna Miss Me" by the 13th Floor Elevators it all sort of went downhill after that. Didn't get that far, listened to the great Elevators (3 CDs), AC/DC (2) and the Adolescents comp, 26 pretty good slices of SoCal punk circa '81/'82, with one excellent song, "Kids Of The Black Hole". Listening to now? The blood pound in my brain. What's Bill drinking? Currently, Triple X (go figure) antioxidant vitamin water, you gotta watch cos a lot of them are ripoffs- (THERE'S A WORD I HAVEN'T HEARD SINCE 1974) -you weren't alive in 1974- (THE FUCK I WASN'T. I JUST WASN'T OFFICIAL) -you have a point there. Getting back to vitamin waters, a lot of them are way too sweet, pricey and high calorie, I only buy the ten calorie ones when they're on sale 10 for $10. This one isn't bad. As for what Bill's been drinking since last issue, beer. Lots and lots of beer. And a bottle of 1800 tequila and a bottle of Beefeater gin. It's all good. In DFZ news, got a busy month- I am trying to cut back, but it's summer- somewhere around 8-9 matches this month. Also have a new trainee, Johnny Boy himself, should be fun- (ABOUT THAT SHOOTING US IN THE THROAT THING . . . ) -exactly. As I said, should be fun. In fact I'll be seeing him this Saturday at Brainwrap Mike's wedding, I think we'll start his training there, I'll show him the Wedding Cake Driver, that always goes over big- (IT ALWAYS GETS US ARRESTED) -I'd call that going over big, wouldn't you? (TOUCHE) I've been promisng more Bill and his Dad the past few issues and I've recieved quite a few e-mails from folks recently complaining about how they get to the end of the NL only to find Bill has punked out, "too tired" or what ever, and there's no Bill and his Dad. Well, no punking out tonght, boys and girls. I was going to write about Bill and his Dad and their boat, and I will, but first, to go back even further, Bill And His Dad Take A Plane- And Train- Trip. Summer of '65 my Dad and I go down to Rock Hill to bring my Grandma back to stay with us for the summer. The summer drives down in those days were just brutal, no air conditioning in the cars, no Interstates or even bypasses, we had to drive- at a crawl- through both hell hot DC and Richmond to get to my aunt's in Danville, where we always stopped for the night- hell it took us eight hours to get there- then we had to go through Charlotte to get to Rock Hill, another four hour drive. For reasons I can't remember, or more likely just wasn't privy to, my Mom was not going to go with us, so my Dad and I are going to fly down and bring my non-flying granny back on the train. Seemed like a good idea at the time. We get on this old, even for the time, prop plane for the flight down to Charlotte, where Aline's husband Andy (RIP, he was a good soul) is going to pick us up and take us to my Grandma's. It's not a big plane, two seats, center aisle, two seats. This was my first time flying so my Dad put me in the aisle seat so I wouldn't "go flip crazy"- his words- if looking out the window at height proved to be too much for Bill's never guaranteed sanity.
This was Bill's first stewardess and I was transfixed. I liked the uniform and I LOVED how she filled it out. She couldn't possibly have been as gorgeous as I remember, but she was undeniably hot (I overheard my Dad say as much later to Andy, something like "the kid's a crazy pain in the ass but he knows a looker when he sees one".). I can close my eyes and still see how that white blouse stretched across her oh so full bosom, and her perfect tan calves as she walked the aisle in those heels - God. All I wanted was for this goddess of the air to pay attention to me, so once we'd taken off, the first time she passed my seat- Bill: Can I have something to eat? Staring at her tits, it was the first thing that came to my mind. She gives me this dazzlng smile. Stewardess: I'm sorry sweetheart, we're not serving this flight.
I'm sure I could find you some peanuts- Figuring I'll impress her with my nine year old sophistication- B: Do you have any whiskey? Her smile sort of falters and she gives my Dad a funny look. My Dad gives me a whack. Dad: Stop. She goes to get my Coke. D: Cut it out, you're going to have these people thinking I really give you whiskey. I notice the nosy lady across the aisle is listening in, so I turn to her. B: He doesn't really give me whisky, you know. My Dad whacks me in the back of the head again, hard enough to make my eyes water. B: He also beats me. The stewardess comes back with my Coke and she has me just crazy horny, at nine years old, I know, it's disgusting. B: Can I sit in your lap. She gives my Dad another look B: Shut up, kiddo. He said this in his "I don't give a shit if we're in public, I'm about to whip your ass and you know I'll do it, too" voice, so I tried to settle. The stewardess made it easier by not coming back around that creepy ass whiskey drinking pervert kid for a while. I had an Our Army At War, the only comic I was allowed to read that they had in the airport newstand, been through this before, when Bill Was Crazy, crazy Doc told them not to let me read superhero and horror comics, but war comics were okay. Don't understand that logic at all, didn't then, don't now. Anyway, I'm reading my OAAW, (which were as fantasy filled as anything out there, the redoubtable Sgt. Rock shooting down strafing aircraft with a sidearm, and blowing up tanks with his tommy gun) and it turns out to be the issue with the ill conceived appearance of Viking Prince, an old 50's comics stalwart who has NO business showing up in Bill's war comic (an errantly thrown potato masher frees him from the icy prison he's been frozen in for a thousand years, in case you were wondering). It offended the hell out of Bill's nine year old comics reality sensibilities. I tried to struggle through the comic- it was all I had to read- but when I reached the page where VP knocks a Stuka out of the air WITH HIS SWORD, with a huge cry of disgust I threw the damn thing straight up in the air, startling the hell out of my poor dozing Dad- Dad: Jesus! We eventually get to Charlotte, and then Rock Hill sometime late at night, to get up early the next morning, Andy playing taxi driver once again, to set out on our 14 hour train ride back to DC. Dad: If they got any women working this train I want you to leave
'em the hell alone. My grandma, knowing how easily I get bored, purely out of self defense I'm sure, had bought a whole bunch of funny books- her words- for me to read on the train trip. I was excited as fuck cos I knew she didn't know about Bill's comic restrictions- oh boy, Justice League and Magnus Robot Fighter and . . . ah jeez. She hands me this big stack of like Casper the Friendly Ghost and Little Lulu and shit. I almost started to cry, for real. After a couple hours on the train. Bill: Grandma, I'm bored. So I roamed up and down the train for a while, once I'd scoped 'er out, engine to caboose, I stood on the platform between a couple of the cars and looked down at the track rolling by beneath and almost got hypnotized and fell off the train and under the wheels. My Mom would have lost her mind if she'd known I was wandering around that train unsupervised. After almost falling under the train I figured it was time to head back for my seat. Passing through this one car before ours this sort of attractive older lady- she might have been forty-made the mistake of smiling at me. Bill: Hi. Well, I don't know if he was the conductor or not but some train guy came and took me by the arm and escorted me back to my seat. Dad: What was he doing? Thats what she said, I swear. I don't know what it means, but its stuck with me all these years. Probably a lot longer than this NL will stick with you, but I do the best I can. I realize this is abrupt, but I'm done, got work tomorrow, and a bad headache now. Later Bill
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I
can still remember a couple of years ago 
Once
the stewardess came out to give us the time honored pre-flight
instructions, looking out the window was never an option . . . 
