Welcome To My World
H/T to Jonathan Maus
“How are YOU doing?”
Are you tired of reading/hearing about the Cornhole Virus? Me too. Jeezus I am sick of it.
But I’m not sick. Thank you, powers that be.
So how am *I* doing?
It’s business as usual, mostly…
BREAKING NEWS!
RUNAWAY RASCALLY RABBIT CAPTURED
“Kiss my puffy cotton ass!”
Portland OR- After five weeks on the run, a political prisoner from a Chinese restaurant has been captured and identified.
Hop Sing, non-binary rabbit and symbol of freedom and oppression downtown, had been living a quiet, Hannibal Lecter-like lifestyle in the rear of a downtown Portland convenience store. While appearing peaceful, he/she is thought to have killed several cockroaches and other nefarious insects. Without bodies, no charges will be filed at this time.
Hop Sing had been living under the aliases Lord Bunbun and Hoss N. Pfeffer, maintaining a one-room cage in the back of the convenience store. By all accounts, he/she was an unobtrusive, peaceful neighbor who kept to him/herself. Sing is believed to be a member of the Orange Tang Resistance. When first captured, Sing was heard yelling, “They want you to believe I am orange chicken! IT’S LIES! ALL LIES!” While it hasn’t been proven, Sing believes the Chinese want to execute him, and has said he will die before surrendering.
There was also some confusion regarding Sing’s mentioning of The Great Carrot God. He’s spoken of an orange-colored deity who delivered prosperity and carrots in the middle of the night. He’s believed to be referring either to his wildlife attorney/cartoon spokesperson @CosmicCharlie97, or Sing was delusional from listening to Master P’s nonstop Republican talk radio.
The following is a Q&A from the press conference, edited for brevity:
Q: “How was Hop Sing finally captured?”
@CC97: “A rather expensive live trap, baited with carrots.”
Q: “Did he go peacefully?”
“I want a lawyer.”
@CC97: “Sing put up quite a struggle at first. His booking photo looks rough, and he scraped his nose up pretty good trying to escape. It should be noted, and I say this with great pride, he beat the trap three times before finally being caught.”
Q: “It’s been said you may have aided and abetted his time on the run. Do you have a response?”
@CC97: “As a friend to the defendant, I was torn between doing the right thing, and what is right for my friend. By offering a safe place to stay, and sustenance, Hop Sing was able to live a little before going away. I, at no time, let him loose, or sabotaged the trap. It is believed that while the humans were assembling the cage, he read the instructions… Yes?”
Q: “Is it true that while marshals were escorting him away, Chinese representatives were watching?”
@CC97: Yes, they were there. They only observed. He’s survived the Chinese Kitchen, and Sing will NOT be extradited back.”
Q: “Where will be be going?”
@CC97: “Hop Sing has been sentenced to life at Chinchilla, the Delta Park penal colony and golf course. It’s a minimum security setup, and co-ed. Once Hop Sing discovers social behaviors, this will seem a lot less like a life sentence. I wish my friend well, and hope he bags a bunny for me.”
* * * * * *
Thank you Hoss, Bun Bun, Hop Sing. For the past six weeks you’ve been my service animal and little frenn. I wish you could stay, but the health department doesn’t understand our relationship, and if I can ever have you declared my service animal, I will come to Chinchilla Park and find you. (It won’t be hard with those nose-scars. The ladies are gonna be all over ya.) And the stories!
“Man, you wouldn’t believe the shit humans do when they’re indoors. I can show you how to roll a joint one-handed. And you know what they really use Brillo for…?”
Shut Up And Sit Down
I wrote this as a guest post on a fellow-blogger’s site. It was an honor to guest-pilot From The Driver’s Side. Thank you, Deke! Keep on rollin’…
Back when I was a teenager, pondering my future options, I’d contemplated becoming a bus driver.
I loved to drive, and was good with people. One little catch: I also loved the devil’s lettuce, my “girlfriend Maryjane.” Since government agencies frown on their drivers firing up before a shift, my career as a twenty-ton land-yacht captain would have to wait for more ‘normal’ times. We’re still waiting for that clear patch on the ol’ drug test.
In the meantime, I’ve been known to drive a cash register at a convenience store in the heart of beautiful downtown Portland. It’s a lot like driving a bus, people-wise. Babysitting, massaging bosses’ egos, etc. You have your nice ones, your sweet ones, your strange ones. And your scary ones. At least at my job I don’t have to drive them home.
But I do have to get to work, a 100-block journey I have not yet been forced to walk. Thanks to TriMet, I get delivered within a mile or so of my targets every day.
They used to call the bus-pass the Passport to Adventure. For me, it still is.
A Big Stink
It’s Friday night, and I have an hour for lunch.
It’s the night before the Rose Parade, and I’m surprised no one is tenting up in front of the store. Usually there’s a line of tents along both sides of the Avenue, but construction on one side of the street has made our sidewalk a “pedestrian use area.” (Duh.) That means you can’t block the sidewalk. I walk past the outdoor tables in front of the bar, saying hi to half the occupants. The doorman, Gary, looks like Mr Natural on steroids and has the demeanor of a prison guard until you get to know him. “Ready for the shitshow?” I ask.
“Oh yeah.” I looked at his hands, and saw the special ceramic-enhanced finger gloves. One-punchers. Yep, he’s ready.
I hopped the MAX to 10th Avenue, and transferred to the streetcar, my destination the Psycho Safeway on Jefferson. As I boarded, I noticed a scent building. Someone on the previous MAX had smelled like a catbox, but this was different, worse. A woman in her sixties, wearing pajamas, was holding a strap on the streetcar, wrinkling her nose. Oh no, the poor dear has had an accident. But at least she had a diaper on.
Or not.
Someone told the streetcar driver, who turned off the vehicle, locked its doors, and walked through, looking over, under and at everything and everyone. I stood up, at once proving it wasn’t me and checking that I hadn’t sat in something that made it me.
As I sat back down, wishing we could just go instead of sitting there marinating in the scent, a man walked to the back of the streetcar, muttering, “It’s me. Sorry. It’s me.” He was one of the folks transferring from MAX, and apparently the MAX’s catbox odor source.
“Well, don’t come near me with your stinky shit!” the older woman told him in no uncertain terms. She was probably also reassured that she wasn’t the source of the stink she was making such a big stink about. She deboarded, unable to take any more.
So did Mister Itsme. They were exchanging insults and apologies accordingly.
He was a middle-aged white guy, short hair that looked fashionably spiked until I realized it was from the grease in his hair. He smelled like a full diaper of catshit that had gotten wet. He was off, and we were rolling, but GOD DAMN.
I could still smell it after leaving Psycho Safeway, and it was a full fifteen minutes before cat piss wasn’t the only thing I smelled. I chose to walk back to work. I might be a few minutes late, but it’d get the smell out.
As I rounded the last corner, heading past the residential hotel, I saw one of the tenants expel a large puff of smoke or vapor. Impressive! He’s a loudmouth who looks like Jon Lovitz and whines about Master P’s high prices, to the point of being kicked out of the store for his incessant bitching. As I got closer, the other tenants were pointing at him. The smoke was still coming. Another smoker, this one holding a cigarette, walked over to Mister Lovitz and grabbed his sweatshirt by the back and pulled it over his head, leaving him bald-headed and belly-flapping on the sidewalk in the middle of the afternoon. Someone was stomping on his shirt, and everyone was laughing. I heard Lovitz say, “I was wondering what happened to that cigarette?”
At least three people were singing ‘Burning Down The House’. That made the whole walk and lunch excursion worth it. My laugh faded as I came around the final bend and there it was: The endlessly lined Avenue, covered with tents like social genital warts.
Welcome to Downtown.
The Seven-Year Itch
“Hello, my name is Charlie and I’m an alcoholic.” And a drug-addict and all-around man-about-town.
I’ve been quiet lately, not feeling like sharing, or much of anything, really. Was dealing with depression issues for a bit, but like in my teens, eventually it evaporated. Depressed about what? Nothing more than the pressures and general shame of life. In the midst of the downtime, I’ve had some fun. It’s just that the fun evaporates as well, leaving me to my own empty (yet way-too-busy) thoughts.
My friends have been there for me. I drop in on Dr T. Dizzy and kitty Naomi are stalwart companions, giving me smiles and support. At work, Igor has risen to the top of the milk jug like fine cream, positioning himself to become manager-apparent. Doing such, we spend lots of time working together. I’d rather teach my boss what I want than have to make them figure it out.
And then there’s Wednesday, my day on the road. Mizelle and Lily show up about 9 AM, smiling and bringing sunshine on the rainiest days. I get up about 6 or 7 AM, putter and get my head ready for driving. Lately there’s been nothing to prep my head with, which leaves me in a weird limbo…
The Redhead’s Rolling Rock Review
I look forward to Wednesdays. Mizelle and Lily come down from the mountain, and I chauffeur them all over the metro area. One of the perks is the music. The Ford Explorer has a CD player as well as AM/FM, and it gets put to use.
Knowing better than to mess with another’s presets, I clicked around on the radio until I found presets closest to the stations I was after. Preset One, or Preset Five, and four clicks of the search button going right, got me one of the two classic rock stations in Portland.
KGON, to quote Bob Seger, is still the same. I called it the B.S. station. Bob Seger, Bruce Springsteen, Billy Squier, Buffalo Springfield. But no Black Sabbath, unless you count Paranoid. (Or Iron Man, if the DJ has to take a shit.) KGON does play a lot of Ozzy, but mostly Crazy Train and Mama, I’m Coming Home. Sho’nuff, Mr Crowley was playing when I turned on the radio.
So we click button number five, and push seek four times, to find 105.9 The Brew. Basically KGON with more Def Leppard and less Journey. (I stopped Believin‘ a long fuckin’ time ago.) Bonus: Cort Webber from the old KUFO days is the 10 AM-2 PM DJ, so the on-air interjections are humorous and brainier than usual. It’s comforting to hear a voice on radio that has been there for 30 years. From his intern days on the Bill Prescott Show, to the Cort and Fatboy heyday, Cort’s baritone snarkery is a constant favorite. He’s like Portland’s Walter Cronkite, with more nose hair.
Lily helps with musical selection. I try to explain that Pink Floyd isn’t really anti-education as we rock out to Another Brick In The Wall on the way to school. Pink Floyd gets the loud treatment; it was fun watching Lily’s face react as Welcome To The Machine threw itself around the speakers of the SUV. I reassured her it was supposed to sound that way, and the car wasn’t falling apart.
Time, with all the bells and cuckoo clocks, plays nicely in our terrestrial space ship.
Sadly, most of both channels are a playlist unchanged from 1986. Can we put Steve Miller away already? And Bon Jovi? Fuckin’ king of the earworm. I love AC/DC, but all they ever play is Back in Black and TNT. Put on some Soul Stripper or Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, and watch the volume knob have an orgasm. Judas Priest is touring again, sounding as good as ever. How about a little love? Besides You’ve Got Another Thing Coming? (I noticed they are playing the song Grinder on this tour. It’s radio-safe!)
Ozzy’s duet with Lita Ford is lovely, but I skip songs about suicide when Lily is in the car. We have some deep conversations. I’m not ready for that one yet.
The past few weeks I’ve been bringing CDs, either off my sister’s “drinking pile” or stuff I’d previously burned for road trips. Lily wasn’t as excited about Blue Oyster Cult as I was, but, judging from her facial cues, she really enjoyed my Paul McCartney and Wings homemade greatest hits. We were the band on the run…
After 12-13 hours, I’m ready to let the eardrums rest for another week. I’m keeping my eyes open, in case Sister unearths another great one. My ace in the hole? When Bohemian Rhapsody comes on, and both Lily and Mizelle are in the car, I’m going full-on Pavarotti.
Riding With The Manny-Goat
Explorer’s Spirit Animal
By 9 AM, I am dressed and sitting by the window, waiting for Mizelle and Lily to pull up. Wednesday is road trip day!
“Fuggetaboutit!”
My Dad used to say, “You’d forget your head if it wasn’t fastened on.”
He didn’t mean me specifically. He mostly said that about himself, but I always enjoyed the visual; grabbing someone by the scalp, holding their severed head up a la Kathy Griffin and saying, “Um, dude…?”
Considering my age and how much weed I’ve smoked over the past 42 years, you’d think my brain would leak like a sieve. This is hardly the case. As my brother-in-law used to say, “You’ve got a mind like a steel trap. Rusted shut.”
I’d like to think I fall somewhere in between a mental lint-trap and Niagra Falls. But this week, I saw some glimpses of the doddering old man I may soon become…
Deja Vu All Over again
Country Bumpkin
Mizelle has been using me… as a means of getting her vehicles home to middle-Washington. Work hours and childcare complicate matters, but I am more than willing to help.
It’s like being on vacation!
Dairies and Berries
Mizelle was lighting up my phone. “Hi there!”
“Well, hello sir!” she replied. After exchanging pleasantries, she got down to business. “Want to do me a favor?”
“Sure. Whatcha want?’ Her favors aren’t usually too annoying.
“I’m buying a truck out in Scappoose, and need someone to drive it back. You game?”
“Of course I am!”
And so began my summer vacation.
Dingleberry Gazette 