Buddy the Mitch & Black Helicopters

The roll of film I got developed yesterday was likely the biggest lump of crap one could imagine, though the first ten came out fine, the remaining good one are of the helicopters, only later in the evening. Most of the shots were simply too dark, yet I took them outside. Maybe the shading reflected my brain at the time. What got cut away by my fucking stupid right hand spasming, I was going to say that my logic gateways slowly snapped together, though I had one weird experience on the 87th Street bus, it was like my left eye was filled with TheraTears and things were too close and too far at the same time. I presume I wasn't moving, that it was something knitting inside the pulp in my head. I went downtown to have lunch with Greg Louden, and I was pretty much the old me, or as good as I get, when I woke up this morning. After, I mailed a package at the post office, then wandered the section of the Loop I knew from when I worked at the corner of Monroe and LaSalle. Went into Reckless Records and bought a CD of Merle Haggard for a buck ninety-nine. Walked around like I was living like a fugitive, hopped on the el, lucked out and got the one bus that curves down 87th and drops me at my corner, by the Jordan Baptist Church. I know tomorrow will be a slide downward, I expect that, but right now its like I have oil in my veins and my concentration is secure. Signing off.

Don't Hit Four

Well, I had a nice post going. Then my right thumb hit the 4 on my calculator portion of the keyboard and everything went all to hell. Start again tomorrow night, just back from the readings, need to get up early for lunch with Greg. Its cold out. Helicopters have the week off.

Pain Grin Again

I hope this works tonight, I tried it yesterday, but that's the way the mop flops, baby. (OK, the video will not post, so here are still shots from purgatory.) I'm reading PAIN GRIN on YouTube, just to do it. 100 seconds each. PAIN GRIN is a chapbook illustrated by Harry Fassl, rest his soul. The actually idea comes from a line from "Suicide Is Painless", the theme from Robert Altman's M*A*S*H. The sword of time will pierce our skin, it doesn't hurt when it begins, but as it works its way on in, the pain grows stronger, watch it grin. Gang, I still feel like shit. No getting around it, but at least I'm back to the dog-paddling with my nose above water. I bite that piece of skin between your thumb and forefinger. I revel in the sight of two fingers typing, though it makes my back feel like there is are shovels under my shoulder blades and the bastard who created me is pressing down on both shovels, like my bones and tendons are graveyard dirt.

My hair is growing out, but it curls in the back. This is because my head flops back so often that the skin in my neck folds. I've checked on that and I can feel where the hair would normally lay straight. When I was younger, my Frankenstein head would swivel to the right, and I never realized how hideous I looked until I saw videos of panels I was on at a convention in Nashville, 1991. Now it falls straight back, I feel like one of those monkeys on a plastic stand, remember those? You press the bottom of the stand and the various monkey parts move around, you can see the strings that connect the body move. Arms wide, head back cursing his creator. No, wait. That's me. I'd rather be a Frankenstein string puppet. Press the bottom and the arms move like the Monster Me is trying to wave away the flames of the fiends by torchlight. And the only way to do that is for the Monster Me to jump into that water that doesn't ice over in winter. Bubbly Creek, my salvation. Sleep with the rendered flesh a century old. Or I could just stomp the string puppet to pieces. More lines from M*A*S*H, these a bit butchered. A wise man once requested me, to answer questions that are deep, is this to be or not to be, and I replied oh why ask me? I suppose that's me grimacing the words as I stare at the ceiling uncontrollably, string monkey Monster Me popping in and out and up, entertainment for the coming decade. Somebody please stomp on the puppet.

Resurfacing

Hey, guess what? I am able to afford my meds again, the price dropped a bit. No more $29.00 a week for 7 tablets. I did pretty good staying above water for the last ten days or so. Radio silence over here as I thought about the past and how Buddy handled things with that noose out in Victorville. For right now, I'm on the alternate Earth where I'm hardly hurting at all and my long thoughts are on the up and up. Also, on this alternate Earth, they never tore down Jimmy Wong's Cantonese food, as you can see in the above photo. On this Earth, its a goddamn parking lot.

Winter in Streator, Early 1960s

I have had this photo on my bulletin board for several years now, after finding it in a box of other shots. That's my dad and I know it's Streator, because there is Stan the Big Hairy Deal guy's house across the way. I miss the old square frame photos, but this is one that didn't have a date stamped on the side. From the cars, I'd say early 60s at the latest, because we had a '57 cobalt blue Bell-Air when I was a baby, but that was gone before 1960 was done with. The car on the other side of my dad perhaps belonged to my Auntie Irene and Uncle Bill, but Bill ran a body shop from behind their house on Hall Street, and it might easily have been a paying customer's jalopy. I've written of Streator before, how we had little money and so all the family converging in Streator made for a cheap weekend. All-nite poker, the kids sleeping on end tables and dresser drawers, me outlasting the bunch by watching Godzilla movies broadcast from some station in Bloomington. All the adults smoked, the house smelled like the body shop, and beneath it all was the smell of glue and paint for my oldest cousin's Big Daddy Roth models. I am assuming my dad has just come back from Safarcjeks over on Illinois Street with a carton of Pall Malls. He stopped smoking in 1969, by the way. Not really a mystery photo, just one that is unique because it doesn't match up with any one other photo from the bunch.

Curt Swan's Superman

My nieces were over this evening, so I will tell you the story of the night of the Mighty Dog tomorrow. For now, enjoy this page of Curt Swan profile sketches, although several near the bottom seem dubious at best.

Synchronisity in Space & Ashes

One of those weird little disconnects, where your brain takes a second to catch up. A couple of weeks back, I mentioned my friend who hung himself out in remote Victorville, California. Well, every day I check out Astronomy Photo of The Day, the last few have been shots of the Geminid meteor showers. Many of the photos posted you can find at TWAN (The World at Night), and if you checking out the night skies is your bag, check TWAN out, as you'll see posts from around the world. On December 14th, my friend's cremation viewing took place. The photo above, out of all the photos that could have popped up at APOD, was one taken by Wally Pacholka that same night, in Victorville, California. I am in no way making anything of this other than the crazy odd collision in the otherwise barrenness that is anything east of San Berdoo.