A Guy Walks Into A Store

Have you ever tried to pay for something in a store that has four registers but only one clerk working and one register open and one person ahead of you in line, (whose look appears to be cobbled together from the Appalachian Hipster Memaw Collection, from the spiky grey haircut, with multiple earrings in each ear, to the capri jeans, from the Full Throttle Saloon t-shirt, to the ankle tattoo they picked up in Sturgis), and she has a stack of 'sale' items and a fistful of coupons, who is rifling through their purse the size of carry-on luggage while chattering non-stop to the clerk to let her know when the total price gets to $50., while also talking to herself about her missing debit card, that is always in the same place and how weird it is she can't find it right now, because she always finds it and this means that perhaps something else is going on, exactly what she doesn't say, but talks about in ominous tones and whatever it is, appears to be nefarious in nature, while still talking to the clerk to let her know when the total gets to $50., and at this point she is now chin deep in the detritus that is her life, somehow managing to touch everything in the bag except what it is she is looking for, (old receipts, unfilled prescriptions, a fork, a sponge, mexican stamps and a diaphragm, but no debit card.) and the clerk has been trying to get her attention to let her know that she is indeed at $50., and then go ahead and add this, she says, 'I'm not sure if we have this, but if we do can we return it? The clerk says, 'just keep your receipt', which obviously won't be a problem for her, and says, I'll go ahead and pay cash then, 'I've got a fifty in here', she yelps firmly and definitively, while grabbing a handful of bills, none of which is a fifty, then hands the guy a $5. bill, and turns to you and says 'sorry', but you don't reply right away because you know she doesn't mean it, and that this is business as usual with her, and that the behavior she is exhibiting, from a distance, might appear to be ditsy, quirky or more generously absentminded, but when viewed up close it becomes obvious almost immediately that whatever is going on is nothing new and had longed ago lapsed into actual dementia, so you just say 'Uh huh.', and meanwhile the clerk is holding the $5. bill trying to figure out what to do with it, and she looks up from the deep recesses of her mania and says, 'Go ahead and take it out of the $50.', and the clerk rightly points out that he is in fact holding a $5. bill, and she says, 'Oh, I saw the 5...', letting us fill in the rest of the sentence, and automatically goes into another speech about how she just put the $50. in her purse and always keeps it in the same place and start's to wonder out loud about a list of suspects and a possible plot, and starts to hand the clerk a bunch of bills, the sum total of which does not add up to $50., and suddenly blurts out, 'Here's my debit card!, that's weird because I always put in the same place, can I use my debit card instead?', and the clerk says yes, and she says, if I need to return something will that be o.k.?, just keep your receipt says the clerk, then she slowly packs everything up and eventually leaves the store and then the clerk turns to you and says, 'Sorry about the wait?'

Yeah, me too.

Bad Cargo

She is not a real person, technically human

lifelike but lifeless

who has taken the form of a one-armed fake lesbian.

Tragically, born without a spine or soul

She/it mimics the posture of a living creature, mastering

the art of hollow conversation.

An empty vessel lacking humanity

She/it takes comfort in the background

devoid of character

not content to let other people live.

A blank slate who gives no reflection

sedentary and expanding by the moment

hidden behind acres of dead flesh

vacant and waiting.

Questions For Rafe

Rafe sat down with a local paper and answerered some questions.

My name is: Rafe or Mahatma.

I am: A man.

I live in: My imagination.

I always: Urinate when i wake up.

I never: Wet the bed.

I am most proud of: Not wetting the bed.

I read: Books.

I watch: T.V.

My family includes: Other people.

My favorite food is: Head cheese or chicken fingers.

I love: Nudity.

In teachers I most appreciate: A passing grade.

Person I most admire is: Anyone who admires me.

I dream of: Nudity.

I believe in: Nudity.

I work: Sometimes.

I sleep: with my cat.

My worst habit is: Sleeping with my cat.

My best quality is: Being me.

If I ruled the world I would: Rule the world.

On a desert island I would want: A nude woman or a cat.

I play: With myself.

One thing that makes me happy: Playing with myself.

One thing that makes me sad: Not having someone else to play with.

Still Life with Woodpecker

Going Going Gone

They are dropping like flies. It's hard to keep track. It's getting harder and harder just to keep up. Just as you're grieving another loss, somebody else dies. Timing is everything people! A phenomenon we've previously covered in the case of Michael Jackson/Farrah Fawcett. (See previous post- Dearly Departed) You'd think the famous would know better. Then in short order Walter Cronkite, Ed McMahon, Don Hewitt (60 Minutes) Robert Novak (Technically, he is the undead), Ted Kennedy!, Larry Gelbart (Comedy writer- the movie Tootsie among other things.) Jody Powell (Carter Administration) all died recently. When you bunch them up like this someone's going to get lost in the mix. Normally you would like to space these things out a little more, give us, as a nation, more time to properly mourn their death, tape the specials and in some cases, arrange the parade. (Walter Cronkite and Ted Kennedy get a parade, Don Hewitt doesn't, Ed McMahon get's a sandwich named after him, and Robert Novak, (A cadaverous, ill-tempered man at best) get's a particularly invasive medical procedure named after him, heretofore known as the "Full Novak." Rectal probe? No, it's a "Full Novak.") Now it's just out of control, Jim Carroll (Basketball Diaries, Jim Carroll Band, one of my all time favorites.) Henry Gibson (Laugh In, the movie Nashville), Patrick Swayze, Mary Travers!, it's getting to the point where you have to start picking and choosing your top celebrity deaths. When Heath Ledger died, it was all about Heath and that's the way it should be. We got to give ourselves completely to his passing, and, luckily he had some movies coming out. That really helped, that way he wasn't completely dead yet. Plus, he deservedly, won a posthumous Oscar. That's better than a parade.

Timing is everything. When Princess Diana died, Mother Teresa had the supreme misfortune to die only 6 days later. Who got the short end of that stick? At the time it was all Princess Diana all the time, which I was fine with. It was horrible and tragic, and nobody should have to die like that. But Mother Teresa got totally lost in the shuffle, at the time you would hear people say, "Oh yeah, I almost forgot, Mother Teresa died!" That's not right. She deserved a whole lot better than to be a footnote in history after a lifetime of service. Did Elton John sing at her Funeral? The Pope didn't even show. That's cold. Mother Teresa got the Full Novak.

Fowl Behavior - Gimme Shelter

I don't blame the the chickens for what happened. Anymore. It's taken years, but thanks to the benefit of hindsight, sobriety and eating a lot of chicken, (a lot of chicken), I can see now that it wasn't personal. They were just doing what chickens do. Which in this particular case happened to be, attacking a poor defenseless child from behind, in a systematic and unprovoked act of pure chicken rage. Or maybe it was just for sport, which makes it even worse. It was like Altamont and the chickens were the Hells Angels. It was Lord of the Flies with chickens. It was Dances with Wolves and I was the buffalo... Actually a better analogy would be the riot at Attica (Prison) in 1971. It would've been right around the same time and also in New York State. I was at Green Chimneys School at the time. Which was a boarding school for children with behavioral problems. I was there from the summer of 1966 to 1973, when I graduated. It was a farm, and the animals were used to help with teaching responsibility and helping children with their emotional growth. Have you ever seen a guy on Death Row with a kitten? He couldn't be sweeter, it was like that, but with kids and chickens. The prisoners were rioting over prison conditions, what the hell were the chickens bitching about? They were taken care of, it wasn't a factory farm, we weren't eating them. Besides, we were basically in the same boat. I was a child and I was sent away from home, we were all doing time. Of course, the students weren't kept in cages, but the place was surrounded by an electric fence. So it was pretty shortsighted for the chickens to blame me for their predicament. Of course this is all in retrospect, at the time I was real pissed at the chickens. My unfocused childhood rage suddenly had a focus. I didn't take it out on the chickens, I had been there long enough and was brought up right, to already know that hurting poor defenseless animals was horrible and wrong and I had no desire to do that. I started to act out in other ways though, my smoking and drinking escalated, I was shoplifting more, and my attitude and outlook on life just got worse. It wasn't great to begin with, (If you get sent away from home at the age of eight with behavioral problems, an attitude adjustment is in order).

It took over 30 years, sadly, close to 40, but I no longer blame the chickens for that broken relationship, that lost parking spot or changes in the weather (I told you it was an unfocused rage.) I eventually stopped drinking, drugging and stealing. It is no longer me against the rest of the world, and today I can eat chicken for all the right reasons. They taste good.

Drunk Dancer

I was in Kroger today and a woman I have never seen before walked by me and said, "It's the dancing man from Gerstles!" (Gerstles is a bar/club) A couple of things, I have never been to Gerstles and I don't dance. For that that matter I don't drink either. Even when I did drink, I didn't dance. Unless you count seizures. In which case, I ruled the dance floor. She has me confused with some other drunk dancer. Although, her voice did sound kind of familiar.