Grabass

Seeing a woman play Grabass makes me feel better about talking about it. Plus it's nice to know that women go for a nice little game of Grabass too. God knows I was on the other end of many a game of Grabass back in the day, and turnabout is fair play. 

 This image is from an episode of the TV show Northern Exposure that aired in the early-90s. I suppose you could still do this on TV today, with a woman as the grabber and not the grabee, but I seriously doubt you could do it the other way around.

 With all the snowflakes floating around these days I'm sure some people would call me sexist, an asshole (which I really couldn't deny) and maybe even accuse me of assault just for talking about this, but things were a little different back then, and we were into it. I was involved in several games of Grabass. I'm not proud of it but I can't change history. Still, as crass as it is it takes a bit of skill to be a good Grabass player. The lady here has excellent technique. It's clear she's played a game or two of Grabass in her day, and quite possibly in real life too, and not just "As Seen on TV." And hey, girls do it too.

 I was pretty good at Grabass because I have long skinny arms, and an inch or two of extra reach goes a long way in Grabass. The idea is similar to when you tap someone on their shoulder behind their back or whatever and get them to look the other way. The difference is that with the shoulder tap the perp usually sticks around for the "Gotcha" moment, while in Grabass you don't want to get caught. By the time the grabee realizes that their ass has been grabbed, first looks the wrong way and then starts looking around the room for the perp, you want to be as far away as possible, or be casually engaged in a conversation or whatever. 

 What you want to do is walk normally until you're even with the victim or a little past, as shown in the image above, and at the last second you lean back, extend your arm down and behind you, and give that ass a squeeze. She went a little low on that grab. We wouldn't do that. It was strictly cheeks only. Hey, at least we tried to show respect. I have to say that this sister here had a perfect scenario for Grabass. Dude was looking completely the other way and was leaning over to boot. I can't blame her. Heck I might have grabbed that ass myself. That's too great of a Grabass target to resist. 

 So, being quick, slick and an asshole were the only skills you really needed. There wasn't any official scoring in the game but I guess it could be a point for a successful grab without getting caught, three points if someone else got blamed and five if they got slapped. In order to get the extra points you'd want to be walking in front of someone, so by the time the grabee realizes they've been grabbed, someone else is closer to them than you are. You obviously don't want either of them to see you. If you got caught you were pretty much sidelined for the rest of the night, or until a new crowd came in. 

 There was another game that was similar to Grabass but a bit more sophisticated. It didn't have a name that I remember but I'll call it Chalkass. If you were in a hurry you'd sprinkle baby powder on your hand, or better yet shave down some blue pool-cue chalk and cover your hand in that. It worked best when the room was crowded but it was a bigger challenge when it wasn't. You'd select a victim and then pretend to bump into them..."Oops, excuse me. I'm so sorry," and then quickly but firmly press your hand against the cheek of your choice. Then you wash your hands and see how long it takes for them to realize they have a handprint on their butt. 

 The risk/reward factor was higher than in Grabass. It's one thing to have your ass grabbed but it's quite another to have a blue handprint on it. I may have done it once or twice but I mostly stuck to Grabass. I vividly remember many a night though of seeing innocent women walking around with handprints on their rears. I always got a grin out of it. I'm pretty sure our friend Eric started it and it was mostly played at a bar called the Nick. You could play Chalkass at a party if they happened to have a pool table, but you could play Grabass anywhere. 

 I first played Grabass when I went to California to visit my friend George from California. There was a pair of twin guys who lived on his street. They stayed wasted literally 24/7. I mean passing out in the gutter and shit. They had long hair and beards and they mostly wore army jackets. They drank all day and ingested whatever they could get their hands on. Their nickname was the Skids, after Skid Row, and that was pretty harsh. They were great for getting bonus points in Grabass. 

 They were like this wastoid brother comedy team or something. They actually weren't bad guys at all, and they weren't mean drunks or anything like that. They were sitting ducks for getting blamed in Grabass. They always sort of naturally lagged behind, so all you had to do was walk just past your victim, grab that ass, and when she'd turn around the Skids would be standing right there, reeking of beer and pot, and easy to blame for most anything. They never saw us grabbing ass and they never caught on. I was out there for a month and we did it to them all the time. I kinda feel bad, but they certainly couldn't feel any pain when they got slapped, and frankly I think they enjoyed any attention from the opposite sex. 

 I know what that's like, although I can't blame it on lagging behind a grabber in a game of Grabass. I did it to myself, and speaking of asinine bar tricks I might as well tell this tender story while I'm here. I remember a couple of times...well, I vaguely remember, and much of what I remember was told to me by friends the next day, apparently I got so drunk that I went around to every woman in the place, and BTW I suck at pickup lines and all that, and I held my hands out about two feet apart and said "Baby, I got a dick this big!" I got laughed at, ignored, slapped several times and rightly so, but eventually one sister said "I wanna see it" and off we went, so I suppose being a complete drunken asshole has its perks once in a while. 

 Well that's the Grabass story. We were young, moronic assholes but we did have some laughs. I can still picture blue handprints on the derrieres of some sisters in tight jeans or black miniskirts. The images in my head are suitable for mentally framing. I'm an asshole. I admit it. But it's not my fault. I'd never have brought it up if I hadn't seen sister do it. I can't help it. I'm a snowflake. I was triggered.

 

 

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Tattoo of the Day

 

Signs in the Heavens? 8: Great Balls of Fire

Is the sky falling? No, but Chicken Little could be excused for thinking so. What has been falling a lot lately though is stars...shooting stars. Meteors to be exact, and in this case we're talking about fireball meteors. Chicken Little is a fellow sky-watcher, and would surely have noticed the uptick in fireballs by now. 

 Yesterday there were fifty (50) fireballs spotted in a 24-hour period worldwide. That's not a record. The most I've seen is 63 in one day there's probably been more than that. BTW I did want to mention that, if I have this right, about four days ago an asteroid came within about 6,000 miles of Earth.

 That's known as a "cosmic close shave." Seriously, that's close. It wasn't even discovered until two days after it flew by. The reason these asteroids can't be seen until they're right up on us, or have gone past, is because they're coming from behind the Sun, and can't be tracked visually or with radar or IR. But back to fireballs. 

 When I first starting talking to people in the chat on the meteor page on YouTube (livemeteors.com) in 2015, and started learning tons of new things, I learned that Earth was on the outskirts of a huge debris field in space, and that it would be getting much more dense as we went further into it, and that meteor sightings would go up exponentially. That's what's happening now. Since I'm into this stuff I've been talking about it for about five years.  

 Over the last decade meteor sightings, and especially fireball meteors, have risen fairly steadily, with a sharp spike over the last year or so, just as predicted. Fifty fireballs in one day has been unheard-of in our lifetime. Speak of the Devil, a notification just came up for a live stream about fireballs. I'll be back...

 Well, that was mostly talking about the same stuff, but a new article just came in. I'm telling you...the skies are crowded. Recently a meteorite crashed through the roof of a man's home in Indonesia. He dug it out of his garden, still warm. It was a rare type of meteorite, and it sold to a collector in the UK for 1.4-million pounds. I was thinking that was around $2-million US, but it's a bit less. Last time I checked the dollar was still around a buck-fifty a quid, but it's gone down to around $1.32. Huh.

 My sources have been saying for years that not only were meteors going to increase but that more of them would start making it to Earth's surface, and here we go. A few have started major forest fires, although those stories aren't publicized. The people with the badass telescopes know what's coming. Next year will be something called the Jupiter Collision, where the first of three clusters of debris in our path will slam into Jupiter. Those clusters will be in our neighborhood by 2024. You have to dig a bit to find this stuff out, but since I'm a sky-guy it's what I do. This information isn't promoted to the public of course because it would cause panic. 

 Last year there were three comets at once visible from Earth, for the first time in recorded history. It was hoped that two of them might get really bright and put on a show, but they were torn apart by the Sun's gravity and petered out. With comets and asteroids comes more debris, and more meteors. My guys called it years ago. I still run into people who've never seen a shooting star. If you happen to be one of them, just stop and look up on a clear night and wait a bit. Any night in the next several years should be fine.

This is a graphic representation of a meteor that came by about three weeks ago. This shows that it exploded in the atmosphere and released a lot of energy. The center horizontal line represents the meteor. The length of the line represents the duration (how long it was visible) and the extra lines show energy levels. 

 A typical meteor that lasted less than a second would be indicated by a dot or a very short line, like the red dot and the two blue dots in the center to the right, which actually show the meteor sputtering out. This meteor was intensely-bright for about one second, then very bright for another two seconds and then gave one last little flash and a couple of chirps and then faded out. It's the amount of energy released when it exploded that's the deal. It would've been a good one to see. 

 

 This type of meteor isn't uncommon lately, and they've tracked much bigger and longer-duration ones, but still it's impressive, and the numbers on these have gone up. I don't know the exact figures but where a decade ago you might see maybe a dozen a day, nowadays there's a hundred or more. This one would've still been impressive without all the energy released. Lots of them come in every hour that look just like the center line without the extra energy bands. This meteor exploded with a nice boom and put out a decent shockwave. 

 It wasn't as powerful as the one that exploded over Russia in 2013 (I think), but you wouldn't have wanted to be too close to this one. They say that this is just a warmup, and the real show is yet to come. So far they've been right. Now we have another meteor crashing into a house. Interestingly the only time a meteor has been recorded actually striking someone happened back in the 50s in Sylacauga, where both Jim Nabors and my dad grew up. My grandmother remembered it well. For over half a century she was a local telephone operator and she knew everybody in town. She knew the woman personally and she remembered all the phone chatter after it happened. It's a small world. 

A longtime YouTube friend of mine just put up a vid about the famous Leonid meteor shower of 1833 that I always talk about, and I can't resist putting up another woodcut from that event. Most of the images from that event are woodcuts, and they're spectacular.

 I especially like this one with snow on the ground. If it were possible to go inside a painting and visit for a while it'd be this one for me. I saw the Leonids in 1975 or possibly '74, and I've never seen another meteor shower anything like it. Still it was nothing like this. Some people freaked-out thinking it was the end of the world, and understandably so. I'm glad the engraver kept a steady hand. A few of my guys say we might see something like this again within the next few years. Stay tuned. This is one of my areas of interest.

 I started this post a few days ago and things keep happening. I found out today that on Friday the 13th an asteroid passed within 250 miles of Earth. I had to double-check the thumbnail because I thought I'd read it wrong. It was supposed to pass by at around 48,000 miles, which is still close in cosmic terms, but this is about as close as it gets. It's the closest flyby on record in fact. It's about 40' long, and I'm assuming it's in an orbit that will send it back our way in a few years. I haven't looked into this particular asteroid yet, but if by chance you want to look into it yourself you can find it on spaceweather.com. How the discrepancy in distance happened I haven't heard but it's shocking. Usually with the ones they can track they're right on the money with distance. They've got it down to a science (SCIENCE). 

 My guys also say that they're trying to keep news like this under wraps, again not to cause panic, and that could possibly explain the difference in 48,000 miles and 250. Maybe they didn't want to come out and say "Hey, y'all...an asteroid as big as a semi is going to pass us at less than the distance from Atlanta to Pensacola, but don't worry about it." BTW I took a guess at two cities that were about 250 miles apart and I guessed these. The actual distance is 283.3 miles as the crow flies, so I was pretty dang close. Anyway news gets out, and plenty of civilians have the equipment to track these things, just like the big boys. 

 

 Oddly enough I haven't seen a single meteor this year. If it holds up it'll be the first year since I was about three years old that I haven't seen one. Maybe it's the calm before the storm...who knows? Speaking of storms, one guy says that what's upcoming won't be meteor showers but meteor storms. We'll see I guess. He hasn't been wrong yet. It's getting busy up yonder. Stay tuned, and heads-up. 

 

 

Kindred Spirit

I don't know who this woman is or where this was taken but she and I are kindred spirits. She's talking about how her grandfather would take her and her siblings out to look at the sky, and he'd teach them about the stars and constellations. The same thing happened to me with my parents, who took my sister and me out on the lawn to watch meteor showers when I was around four, and by around kindergarten I'd become a sky-watcher. It's a source of endless fascination, but you have to spend a little time on it to really see anything, or even know what to look for. This lady gets it.

 It took YouTube, specifically a site that tracks meteors, to make me realize how many others like me there are out there. Over the years I've only had a handful of friends who enjoy looking at the sky as much as I do, but I met a lot of people who are way more into it than I am. One guy built his own observatory. He built a structure with a door and cut a big hole in the roof. He took a big dog house with a window in the top, cut a matching hole in the bottom and mounted it on wheels that fit into a track he mounted around the hole, so it could swivel 360-drgrees, and installed a telescope inside. That made my day.

 Meeting so many people who are into the sky has been a real blessing. There's something about these people that I can't put my finger on, but I've known some of them for up to five years, and they all seem like really good folks. For people who have their heads in the clouds as it were, they also have a pretty good grip on things happening on the ground, and for the most part they aren't baffled by the bullshit like so many others. Looking into the sky, especially at night, really puts things into perspective. Like music, cooking and a couple of other things, looking at the sky is one of my "Zen" things, and it's very conducive to pondering on stuff. 

 I don't suppose I'll ever get to meet this sister, at least not in this life, but she's one of me and I like her. I wouldn't mind sharing a blanket and watching a meteor shower with her, and hearing all about her grandfather. I bet I'd have liked him. I'm just glad to know there are more like me. Eyes to the sky. 

Flying in Airplanes

I love to fly in airplanes. My dad loved airplanes and finally got his pilot's license at around age 75 maybe, and I picked up a love of flying from him. I've flown in actual stunt planes that were doing wicked stunts when I was 11, and I also flew several times in gliders, where you get towed up several-thousand feet by a towplane and then released, and you continue to climb on thermals, or updrafts of warm air, just like a bird. Those are stories in themselves, but here I'm only going to talk about flying on conventional airlines. 

 I haven't flown in years, and these all took place way back in the day when you could still smoke on airplanes, which made some of these stories possible I suppose. My first flight was near the end of high school. I saw an ad for a music store in Washington, DC in a magazine that looked too good to be true, so I called them. Sure enough they were getting ready to stock the new 2002 cymbals by Paiste. They only had so much shelf space so they were selling off all their remaining stock of Formula 602 cymbals for $2 an inch. You might not understand how insanely cheap that was, even at the time, but you can say that it would make 602 freaks cry. 

 You could get a 20" Ride cymbal for example, that probably sold for around $150 or so back then for $40. A $300 pair of hi-hats was $56 and an 11" Splash was $22. I made enough money selling the cymbals to cover my flight and give me a few free cymbals. My friend's girlfriend was going to school there. She lived in a dorm but it was coed and she said I could stay with her. She was really straight and was down on everything but alcohol. She didn't even like pot. She was picking me up at the airport and I didn't want to show up too high.

 Still it was my first flight on a commercial airline so I decided to commemorate the occasion by tripping. I had a couple of hits for the flight there and the flight back. The plan was to time it so I'd still be high on the flight but I'd be mostly come down by the time I was to meet my buddy's girlfriend Catherine. The flight was departing around 6am. I didn't want to leave my car at the airport so I got a kind friend named Steg, who owed me a fave or two, to drop me off at the airport and pick me up late that night. 

 He dropped me off at the airport around midnight. He hung out for a bit and then went home to bed. I had a book, some magazines and a bowl. I read, walked around the empty airport, smoked a bowl or two and dropped the acid around 3am. Again things were very different back then. You could smoke in public and there weren't cameras every 25'. It was no big deal. I had to first fly to Atlanta on a DC-10, with an hour layover, and then fly a 747 or whatever it was to DC. 

 I was less than three hours into it and tripping pretty heavily when I boarded the DC-10. Since it was an early flight it was mostly businessmen. I sat between two of them who were intent of having a conversation, sometimes involving me, for the short flight to Atlanta. I wasn't really in the mood for conversation but I did alright. I had an oh-shit moment when I looked out the window. I was sitting over the wing and I noticed that it was moving up and down a considerable amount in relation to the fuselage, and all the only thing holding the wings on was a row of bolts. 

 For a minute I was thinking stuff like "How old are those bolts? How many stress cycles have they been through? Are they worth a shit to begin with? The wings could separate and fold up and the plane could drop like a rock...shiiiiiit." I quickly put it out of my head and I really enjoyed the rest of the flight, businessmen and all.

 I guess everybody who flies gets those brief moments occasionally, but tripping, a thought like that could really do a number on your head if you let it. You need a somewhat strong mind to trip to begin with, but doing it on an airplane is something I'm guessing very few people, even heads, would ever think about doing. It's intense.

 I was still tripping pretty good on the flight from Atlanta to DC. I don't remember much except that it was a lot smoother than the DC-10, and when the stewardess brought breakfast, my scrambled eggs were moving. I managed to eat them, with toast, bacon and coffee, and it was pretty good. The plan was for Catherine to pick me up at the airport and drop me off at the music store to pick out the cymbals and arrange to have them shipped, and then do some sightseeing. I was going to get her a nice dinner for helping me out, and then I'd take a Redeye back to Alabama.

 We had a nice afternoon and a great dinner at a restaurant right by the river. We went back to her dorm room to grab my stuff. She had something to do before we left for the airport...whatever it was it took her a long time, and we were pushing it a bit when we left. There was a wreck or something that delayed us even more, and by the time I got to the airport, gave Catherine a hug and a kiss, and went running through the airport holding my bags and leaping and jumping like OJ, I missed my flight by five minutes. 

 Since we were late she was going to wait a while to make sure I caught the flight in time, so I went back and got in her car. I was going to get a room somewhere but she said it'd be fine to stay with her. I knew my buddy might think we'd cooked something up, but it made the most sense and I wanted the company. Ordinarily it wouldn't be a problem to stay the night, and I'd forgotten for a moment, but I'd already dropped the other two hits for the flight home, and I'd really be getting off in about 15 minutes. "Shit." I knew that for the next several hours I'd have to pretend not to be tripping my balls off. It wouldn't have been the end of the world if she'd found out but it wouldn't have been a positive thing. I didn't even want her to know I was smoking pot, much less that I'd just taken some acid. 

 She'd planned to hit a few parties on campus, which was the last fucking thing on Earth I was in the mood for. Any other time it'd have been fine, but when tripping that hard it's best to be out in the woods somewhere, or on an airplane, where I'd planned to be. Great...I'll be meeting 150 people I don't know, and I can't let Catherine or anyone else know that I'M TRIPPING MY EVERLOVING BALLS OFF. I really didn't have much choice, so off we went. I was hoping that the lights at these parties weren't too bright, because my pupils were as big as dinner plates. 

I actually did fine. I tried to relax and just talk normally and try to ignore the fact that they all had cartoon faces and shit, and it went smoothly. It's a bit of a blur but I'll never forget one thing I saw as long as I live. It should've been in a movie. There was a party on maybe the 7th floor of a frat building. We had to climb up a central staircase that was carpeted and had fancy wooden railings. At the bottom was a hand-laid tile floor. It's one thing to stand on a railing and look seven floors down a spiraling staircase when you're sober, but tripping is another story. Luckily I don't have Vertigo or fear of heights, and it was mesmerizing to look down. 

 I wasn't paying attention to anything but the corkscrew staircase going down seemingly to infinity, and I was trying to look as long as I could without it seeming unnatural, when a kid walked up next to me and leaned over the railing. He was sick. Very sick. He threw up and I had a bird's-eye view of the trail of vomit going all the way down and splashing the tile floor seven floors below. I don't know why that's all I can remember about the first part of the evening except to say that it was certainly graphic, and could've been a scene in Animal House all day long. Plus it took a lot of brain power to act like I wasn't tripping, and it didn't leave much for memory. It was just the usual frat shit anyway. Been there, done that. 

 Luckily, soon after the amazing technicolor yawn I convinced her to leave and go do some nighttime sightseeing, even though it was cold as fuck. We walked along the river and had to hang onto each other to stay warm. After climbing up and down all those stairs and hitting that bitter-ass wind and cold I made it through the geeky phase of the trip and I was settling in and really enjoying it. We had a late dinner in this amazing place and went back to her dorm at around 1am.

 She got into a thin nightgown and started talking shit regarding sleeping in the same bed but I thought about my buddy and I just couldn't oblige, so I pretended to be asleep, although it took several hours to actually fall asleep. She was a sweetheart, and hot as a firecracker and available, but I couldn't act on it. With the sisters I passed up alone, for reasons of "brohood," sometimes I feel like walking around with a sign on my back that says "Kick me."

 I slept maybe three hours and awoke with a start almost. I felt like something was different, and maybe with all that cold it had snowed. We didn't catch any news of it coming, but I looked out the window and sure enough it had snowed over a foot. It was the first real snow there so it was pure and white. I ran out and flopped down in it. Like a typical douchebag I made a snow angel, and girlfriend took a photo. I wish I could see it now. We played in the snow for a bit and had breakfast and then played in the snow some more. Like me she was from the South and not used to much snow, and she'd only been there a few months so she was enjoying it too. 

 I talked about this years ago but the flight home that night was spectacular, and I was so glad I'd been delayed a day or I'd have missed one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen in my life. A big storm had dumped snow from Canada to Tennessee. The skies were mostly clear all the way back to Alabama and there was a full Moon. It was late in November and there were lots of Christmas lights everywhere. The plane took off and flew around the metro area an a fairly steep bank, and I got to the the Monument and stuff from above, with over a foot of snow, and with Christmas lights everywhere. It then straightened out and headed south. 

 The view was breathtaking. It was maybe 10:30 and most people were either snoozing or reading. I wanted to go around waking everybody up to see it, but it was just for me. The snow started out at about 14" in the DC area and Virginia, then dropped to about 6-8" down to Tennessee and ended with a few flurries here. I could see the ground clearly, and the moonlight radiated off the snow. I could see every lake, river and stream. When we'd fly over a city or town there'd be clusters of Christmas lights, some reflected in the snow. To see Christmas lights from that perspective was like being in a flying Christmas card. I'll never forget how beautiful it was.

 My next flight, right after high school, was to San Francisco. I was going to visit my buddy George from California. The flight there wasn't anything special. I smoked as many bowls as I could before I boarded the plane but nothing major. The flight home was a different story. The plan was to stay a month, and then George was going to fly back to Alabama and live with me for a while. We were going to become a drum/percussion team, which would've been unique, and it happened in a parallel universe I'm sure.

 It was the flight back to Bama that was the party. George had a couple of rare motorcycles he'd been trying to sell for two months. On the morning of the Saturday we were leaving California they both sold to different buyers. George was flush with cash so we went on a last-minute shopping spree. We got three different kinds of weed and then hit the music store. George bought a Talking Drum and a couple other things. The flight left San Francisco around 10pm. We packed the Talking Drum and some other hand drums and percussion items into a big suitcase and took it onboard the plane, just in case there happened to be a jam, and we ended up creating a party.

 The flight wasn't very crowded. Most people were still awake. People were generally a bit friendlier and more engaging back then and we'd started a conversation while we were still on the tarmac. When we leveled-off we pulled out a couple of drums and started playing. Oh, but first we went into one of the restrooms, which was dubbed Party Station 1, and smoked a few bowls.

 We left the pipe in there for anyone who wanted to join in, and there was a steady stream of traffic to and from Party Station 1. I can still picture this one stewardess who'd wink at me when I'd come back from the restroom. Finally I winked back and nodded toward PS1. She went in for a minute or two to freshen-up as it were. Times were a little different back then.

 We had so much fun playing drums and pretty soon people were switching seats and had formed a circle, more or less. A couple of people wanted to sleep so they moved to the rear of the plane and we didn't bother anyone. We handed out the rest of the percussion instruments and everybody started jamming along. We played the whole way until the plane started to descend.

 Everybody had a blast and were hugging each other and stuff. That's what music's all about. It was a Drum Circle before they were hip, and probably one of the few held on an airliner. I don't reckon you could pull it off these days and that's a shame. That was a treat and I bet a few people who were on that flight still talk about it. 

 My next flight was just a short hop from Atlanta to B'ham. I've told this story before but it's hilarious, and I have to include it here anyway. My pal Rusty and I had moved a lady and all of her stuff to Atlanta, and after a week there she flew us back home. It was a morning flight and again mostly businessmen. I knew we'd basically be going up and coming back down in half an hour, and I wanted to be altered for the flight, so I hit the restroom with my Proto Pipe. 

 Let's just say that it wasn't exactly Party Station 2. I fired up the bowl before the plane left the ground, and my dumb-ass didn't consider the fact that the plane had to be in flight and depressurized for the smoke to get sucked out through the vent like it did while in flight. The vent fan was on but it wasn't drawing yet. I lit the bowl and took a huge hit and to my horror, instead of being sucked out the vent the smoke curled up to the ceiling and back down to the floor. Here I was with a freshly-lit bowl, and the tiny space was filling up quickly with smoke. It was another oh-shit moment. Do they make Hallmark cards for those?

 Once I realized my plight on the flight I figured I couldn't get any more busted, so I finished smoking the entire bowl. Fuck it. After I finished smoking the bowl it was like a Rock concert in there...or at least one from the 70s. I could picture what was going to happen when I walked out, like a scene in a movie, which it definitely could've been. I opened the door and a thick cloud of pot smoke preceded me down the isle. You couldn't have done it better with special-effects. 

 The smoke was thick and it basically clung to my body as it billowed out a few rows in front of me. If there was any doubt who the smoker was that day it vanished, because the cloud of smoke was staying right with me. It was like the character of Pigpen from the Charlie Brown cartoon. He carried his own dust cloud around with him. As I took the long walk back to my seat, row after row of newspapers dropped in well-choreographed fashion as the businessmen smelled smoke as it passed by and looked up to see who the perp was. It's funny now but it wasn't then.

 I went back to my seat and sat down next to Rusty. The pot cloud followed me. Rusty didn't want to even acknowledge that he knew me for the rest of the flight. A funny thing about pot is that if you get stoned, and then find yourself in a situation where it's really not a good idea to be stoned, like talking to the cops or whatever, the effects are magnified greatly and you feel ten times as stoned. It happens every time. I was sitting on a plane, trying to disappear into my seat, and I'd just filled up the cabin with pot smoke, and everyone knew it was me. Ha, no worries there.

 I had visions of the FBI waiting for me on the ground and things like that. Nah, it really wasn't that bad. I didn't expect to be arrested but I could have been. I relaxed and enjoyed the enhanced effects of the buzz. A few people were pissed though, and I felt bad about that. It's no joke when I say that everyone on the plane knew I was responsible for the odor of burning rope that permeated the plane. When the stewardess brought my breakfast she literally dropped it on my tray. Message received, loud and clear. Oh well. I couldn't do much about it, and I already knew it would make a funny story one day.

 I also flew to Colorado with about 15 friends to see three Dead shows at Red Rocks, but there's not much to report since we were saving our energy for the shows. We all got really stoned before we got on the plane of course, but there weren't any psychedelics involved. It was fun being on a plane with a bunch of friends, and we were fired-up. It was the same bunch of us who always hung out anyway, usually at the crazy restaurant, and we'd be sitting around talking and we'd forget we were on a plane.

 It was pretty much the same story coming back, except that we were a little tired, and basking in the afterglow of coming down from acid, not getting much sleep, being a little sunburned and seeing three great shows. I think we were all a little more aware that we were in the air on the flight back. Most of those people are still friends to this day. It was much nicer being on an airplane with 15 friends than sitting between two businessmen having a conversation while I'm tripping my nurtz off. 

 It's been a long time since I've flown anywhere, at least on a commercial airliner. I flew in my dad's plane a few times but that's about it. I have a funny feeling I'll never fly again but maybe I'm wrong. Of course none of the above things could have happened these days, at least in the last two decades or so, and young people would have a hard time believing they could happen. To say that times have changed is putting it mildly. Well, that's my stoned flight log. It was fun. The skies were a lot friendlier.

 

Signs in the Heavens? 7

I've said before that one Bible verse that has stood out in my mind since I was a little kid in Sunday School was the one that talks about how one day we'd start seeing "signs in the heavens." It was around that time that I became a sky-watcher for life, so they went together nicely. As a lifelong sky-watcher, while I can't say whether or not all the things that have been happening in the sky over the last few years could be called "signs," what I can say with certainty is that the majority of these things have never been seen in the sky before, at least not in our lifetimes. That's fact.

 On December 21st this year there will be a "Grand Conjunction" between Jupiter and Saturn. They'll be within .01 degree of each other. It will be the closest they've been since 1623, and it will create the brightest "star" in the sky since the Star of Bethlehem. How about that? If by some chance these things really are signs in the heavens, it could then be said this this one is also a sign from heaven, and for good measure a sign about heaven. 

 Nah, it couldn't be. The Bible is just a fairy tale, right? Whether it's a "sign" or not I can't say, but it should be impressive. The 21st is also the Winter Solstice. Interestingly there's a possible tie-in to the Mayan-Calendar thing. Many people interpreted the Mayan Calendar to say that the world was supposed to "end" on December 21st of 2012, although I think it could have simply signaled the end of an era, but I don't know. 

 The Mayan Calendar was lined up with the Julian calendar to arrive at the date of 12/21/2012. Since it was created the world adopted the Gregorian Calendar, which is 11 days shorter. I may have that backward but the idea is the same. Since the change those 11 days have added up to exactly eight years, so some think that this December 21st is the date that the Mayans originally meant. Whether there's anything to it or not the math adds up. Will it be the end of the world? I don't think so but you never know. Will it be the Second Coming? Probably not but who knows? If it happens to be the night that Jesus returns to Earth, then bring it. I'm good to go. I just hope it's clear on the 21st. I can't wait. Heads-up.
 

Quote of the Day

"I support population control." - "Dr." Bill Gates, in a 1996 article in George Magazine. WAKE UP.
 

Cosmic Coincidence #67,443,666: Da Mark o' da Beast Agin

Be careful what you wish for. That's what some would say, especially in this case. I dig it. I was actually going to do a post in the "Completely Useless Information" series in this blog, or at least start it. I play this sometimes if I've got a video up that's mostly talking. It doesn't distract from the dialog. I also happen to love numbers, so the post took a sidetrack. 

 I was grabbing a screenshot for the post, and since I also happen to love numbers I thought it would be funny if the score contained one of my favorite numbers- 666 somewhere in it, or maybe just a 66...anywhere in the ballpark. To me the number 666 means exactly what it says in the Good Book. It's the Number of the Beast and also the Number of a Man: six-hundred, threescore and six. It represents Satan.

 It's still one of my favorite numbers. My favorite number is 13. I really do love quite a few other numbers...1, 2, 3, 6, 7 ,8, 9, 11, 33, 44, 66, 88, 888 and so on all the way up to the wondrous and never-ending number of Pi. Boy is that a doozie or what. Still 13 is it for me, but 666 is a great number. It's a hearty number. It has alliteration, repetition and great rhythm. It comes in threes. But like the number 13, many people avoid it whenever possible and some are outright afraid of it. 

 I forgot the story of how the number 13 got to be bad luck or whatever it is, but of course 666 has biblical connotations. As we know many multi-story buildings omitted the 13th floor altogether. The elevators would go from floor 12 to 14. It was like it didn't exist. I thought it was hilarious even as a kid. Naturally I loved the band "13th Floor Elevators" for the name alone. Luckily they were pretty good. 

 I'd give the edge to 666 for having more impact than the number 13, but you never know. It does represent evil and not bad luck, and to some people that's worse. On the other hand many people are embracing the number 666. Over the last ten years or so it's been starring on a wide variety of t-shirts, as one example. The number 666 has been on t-shirts forever but it's always been used as a part of another thing, like a band logo or a Satanic theme, but lately it's been appearing solo...shirts with a giant 666 on the front and nothing else. They might mention Aleister Crowley or Anton Lavey or Church of Satan or whatever in small print here or there but 666 is usually the only thing on the shirt. And there's a lot of them. In fact I wish I had a dollar for every 666 t-shirt they've printed so far. It'd be a bit more than $666. 

 Some people wear them simply as a fashion statement and don't believe in the Devil any more than the Man in the Moon, but many people do, and they're showing which side they're on. Maybe they aren't even into numbers and don't particularly favor 666 over other numbers, just what it stands for. I love the number 666. Does that mean I worship Satan? Hardly. My guy's the other guy. Big G. In fact although I really do love the number 666 I'm basically scoffing at it. Numbers don't scare me anyway. They shouldn't scare anyone else either really, although in many cases they do. There are of course lots of people who take numbers a hell of a lot more seriously than I do. To me 666 represents Satan, Satanism, pure evil and Hell itself, but since I don't fear the Devil I don't fear his area code either. Respect yes, fear no. 

 The number 666 sometimes frightens people who aren't particularly "religious" and don't believe in God or Satan. As one example there are lots of stories about people getting license-plates with 666 as the number, and all the horrible things that happened to those cars and their drivers- wrecks, thefts, injuries and even deaths. Of course those things happen to people with any number and without even thinking about it for one second people will say it's just a coincidence, and that's understandable, but it's perfectly clear the people who went through all the bad stuff don't think so, and almost all of them didn't consider themselves to be particularly "religious." 

 Sure one or two things can be coincidence, but there comes a point where just by the sheer number of "coincidences" that the whole thing ceases to be considered a coincidence. There's a name for it that I can't remember but oddsmakers in Vegas will actually book things based on the number of "coincidences" there are, relating to the same thing. It's the same as when you take the odds of something happening or not happening. BTW you can bet on almost anything you could imagine. Real bookies take real bets on much, much more than just sports.

 I don't know what it is but say there's a million-to-one chance you'll die from being struck by lightning, or slipping on wet cat shit and hitting your head and dying, or knockin' them boots with that sister you met in the food line last week...seriously, when the number, or the odds against one gets big enough it's considered to be zero, even though mathematically there's an infinitesimal chance. Oddsmakers wouldn't take that bet, even though normally a bet against high odds wins for the house most of the time, at a certain point they pass.

 Having said all that I'll say that I'm not saying at all that this is anything but a coincidence, plus it's a singleton (a single occurrence). What I am saying is that it was mighty interesting and amusing and a bit weird...coincidence or not. For nothing else than my appreciation for 666 and my own amusement I decided that it'd be funny if I was somewhat close to a score of 66,000, + or - 500 or so. It was no big deal and I was only going to give it one try but I thought I'd try to take a screenshot when I got as close to 66,000 as I could, like 66,750 or whatever, and I'd be lucky to hit that first try, just for the heck of it. What a dork, right? 

 You get bonus jewels if you match more than three of the same kind in a line. I you line up four, one of them turns into an exploding jewel, and if you match it with two or more of the same color it blows up and takes out all the jewels touching it, or 9 including itself. If you match two rows of two with one move you get a jewel that shoots lasers in all directions and wipes out the whole row above and below and to the left and right. If you match five in a straight line you get a jewel that you can swap with any one touching it and it will clear all the same jewels on the board.

 As jewels fall to replace the ones that disappear it can start a chain-reaction where you move one jewel and it's like a house of cards and the jewels keep matching themselves as they fall, and they'll explode and shoot lasers. It can be a clusterfuck of exploding jewels. Usually you can only make one or two matches with one move, but sometimes you might get 7-8 or more in a row. 

 Odds-wise I knew the odds of landing on 66,000 would be very slim but doable, but the odds of hitting 66,600 would be astronomical. There's no way to control how many points you score with one move, or stop it on a certain score. You get X-number of points for matching three or more of the same jewel in a row, and the points increase for each round. In round one you get 100 points for matching three jewels. Often making one match leads to a cascade of one or more extra matches, from moving only one jewel.

  As you probably know if you've ever played matching games, when a line of three or more jewels is connected and disappears from the board, and other jewels fall randomly down from above to take their place. For each additional match made by moving only one jewel the point value doubles, then triples and so forth. With one move you might score 300 points or you might score 3,000. There's no way to come close to getting a particular score or stopping or pausing the game at a certain number. 

 I got a kick out of it when the score was sitting somewhere around 64,500 or whatever, and I made one move and it started a cascade, and when it stopped it was on the number above...66,015. I had to chuckle. You have the first two sixes, and then the third- 0+1+5 = 6. In the most basic form of Numerology, which, contrary to what most churches would tell you isn't evil, any two or more numbers are added together, and if that gives a number of two digits or more, those numbers are added together (reduced I guess) until you get a single number, or a significant number with more than one digit, like 33 for instance. 

 In this case 66,006 could really only be represented by 66,015. One more match would've put it at around 67, 000, give or take. I wanted to get as close as I could to 666 and I nailed it. Isn't that interesting? It's a coincidence but it's my kind of coincidence. THIS HAS BEEN A COINCIDENCE. 

Crazytown/This Bird Has Flown

I don't know if this series of events is yet another Covid casualty or what, but people are losing their minds. Three nights ago at around 10:30 I heard a loud "WHAP...WHAP...WHAP" out behind our apartment building. I thought "Damn...that sounds like somebody chopping down a tree, but it couldn't be." I walked out on the deck to see what was going on and sure enough there was a guy with an ax just wailing on this pine tree. You can see here where he started chopping into it. Mind you this tree is around 40-45 feet tall and the trunk is about a foot thick. I was like "WTF?"

 I said "Hey man, what's going on?" "(unintelligible)." "Dude, seriously, what's going on?" "I'm getting some firewood." "FIREWOOD?" I asked, mystified. "Yeah." "For HERE?" "Yeah." He kept chopping away. "Whoa, whoa, whoa" I said. He kept chopping. "Bro, you mean to tell me you're going to take down this big-ass tree?" "Yep." These units have a small "fireplace" about the size of a toaster oven. They have fake logs and they burn gas only. "Dude, you can't burn wood in these fireplaces." "Oh yeah, I called and they said I could burn wood" he said. That was bullshit.

 "No, man" I said. "These are for gas only." "Nah, they said I could burn wood." He kept chopping. "Whoa, hang on a second man." He stopped. "I don't mean to get in your business, but you can't chop down this tree." "Yeah, I need firewood." "Dude it ain't happening. Not tonight" I said. "Have you thought about which way that tree is going to fall?" "(unintelligible)." "Seriously dude, which way's that tree gonna fall?" "Uh, I don't know" he replied. He didn't know shit about how to cut down a tree anyway, in addition to the lunacy of it all. 

 I realized it was the guy from downstairs. He and his girlfriend and a couple of cool dogs moved in about six months ago. They seemed really nice and we'd stop and talk for a few minutes most of the time but some days I could tell they were pissed, and dude wouldn't even look at me, like he was a different person. She always seemed to be pretty sweet, and always at least smiled at me and said "Hello" back. Anyway I went on to tell him that it would take him until tomorrow afternoon to drop the tree and cut it up, and that it was pine, and green, and that all he'd do was smoke up his apartment, and possibly a few more. "You don't want to burn pine" I said.

 "Is this your counter-cut?" I asked. "Huh?" "Are you gonna just keep wailing on it until it drops?" "I guess so." "Well dude, then you're gonna drop it right on my head, 'cause that's where it's gonna go." You can see in the photo that the cut is facing me. Luckily he listened to me and stopped chopping, and I didn't have to call the cops. Stupid fuck.

 Building a fire is one of only three true skills I have in this world, and I felt compelled to give him a quick lesson in fire-building. "Not to tell you what to do, but you don't want pine, or fresh-cut wood. It won't burn. You need hardwood, and it needs to be aged for a few weeks. Plus I'd check with the front office just one more time about burning wood in your fireplace. Really man." I doubt he even knew what I was talking about, but thank God he listened to me and put down the ax. He actually thanked me and said goodnight and went back inside.

 I couldn't help but at least appreciate the sheer lunacy of it all, and I was certainly glad that a quirky but potentially-dangerous situation was averted. I tossed up all the possible reasons for his actions in my mind. What it just pure cra-cra? Was he trying to prove his manhood to his woman and going all Paul Bunyan on a 40' tree? WTF? Was it desperation? Lack of income? Can't pay the heat bill? C-19 repercussions? I could see all of them for sure but damn...you don't go wailing on a tree, that ain't even your tree to begin with, loud as fuck, at 10:30 at night, and you don't know the first fucking thing about anything related to cutting down a tree or building a fire.

 It did get a little chilly here and just cold enough to turn on the heat, but if he really did need to burn firewood to keep warm and it was an act of desperation, which I kinda doubt, it was over-tempered by a mega-dose of stu...well I hate to use the word "stupidity" so I'll say "lack of information." If that was it then it would seem to confirm one of the first things I talked about when I started blogging over a decade ago, and that was how people are getting dumber by the day, and I thought it was going to become exponential. I rest my case. 

 Why think for yourself when Google can do your thinking for you? Google knows everything. Ha, that's an understatement. Even music...I said a good while back that the lyrics in what I've heard of modern-era Pop music have gotten less and less intelligent over the years, and lo and behold a few years ago someone came up with a computer program that figured the average intelligence of song lyrics. Over the last two decades or so it had gone down by whatever percentage points it was, and basically had dropped all the way down to the level (of comprehension of the meaning of the lyrics) of just above a third-grader, and was still dropping. I absolutely LOVE it when my theories are proven by actual science (SCIENCE). 

 Still it's shocking to know that people don't know shit about shit these days. I was saying that people were so disconnected to even the most basic human skills, and would be helpless without a YouTube video to show them what to do. I was thinking "A guy's trying to take down a fucking 40' pine tree, on someone else's property, at 10:30 in the pm, loud as fuck, chopping shoulder-high like a maniac, and I ain't gonna go try to fuck with a guy half my age and half-again my size, not to mention swinging an ax, WTF?" I'm convinced that there are way too many people in this world who couldn't build a fire with a gallon of gasoline and a blowtorch, or do much of anything else for themselves for that matter. 

 I've said that we were also losing our connection with Nature at an alarming rate, and that would affect us all. The brain literally needs something at least related to Nature...a walk in the woods, a houseplant, looking at the stars or any number of a million other things that are absolutely necessary to ensure that the brain functions properly naturally (see: GABA receptors, etc.).

 To never have any contact with Nature in any form will literally change a brain chemically, and in so many cases meds are used to " " "correct it." " "  The truth is they almost have to be, and that's a shame. And completely unnecessary. But it's just another piece of the puzzle. People know shockingly little about much of anything except their crotches and their cellphones, not that in moderation a bit of them isn't cool. Nature heals us. It informs us and makes us stronger. Hint: if you should ever need someone to get a fire going for you, don't pick Gen-X guy or whatever he is. I'm your man. 

 A few days went by and things settled down, kind of. I hear doors slamming and stuff banging at all hours, but it was relatively quiet until last night. Around 6:00 I heard "WHAM...BLAM...SLAM." It shook the building. I was like "That fucker's crazy and it's time to call the cops." It was seriously-loud, with obvious intent. In other words...fairly serious anger issues. It was unnecessary and I didn't know if he was possibly slamming her into the wall or what. I was about to call the cops but then I heard the woman yelling at him, and thankfully she sounded pissed and not hurt. At least she was alive. 

 I decided to be still for a second, but one more slam or a scream from her and I was dialing. I didn't hear anything else. I decided to sit tight and give him the two strikes, but one more and he was out. The guy was at best a clueless person and at worst a complete psychopath. If he was the latter I really didn't want to have to bring the cops into it, since he'd obviously know it was me, and he was at least crazy enough to try to take down a tree at night. I didn't particularly want to fuck with him, but enough is enough, and I had the phone ready.

 I went for a walk and when I got back sister was rolling out two huge suitcases. I get it now. I'm guessing it was dude slamming those same suitcases hard enough to shake the building, but no telling really. She passed right by me and gave me a very cheery greeting, but she was power-walking. It was definitely the "I'm outta here" walk. She was being extra-nice since she knew I had to have heard the ruckus. I could also tell that she was saying goodbye, but I said "Hey. You doing okay?" It wasn't chit-chat; I really wanted to know. I didn't notice any immediate signs of blood or trauma, and she was sure bookin' out of here. I doubt she's coming back by the look of her exit walk but you never know. 

 For whatever reason it sucks that girlfriend split, but hopefully things will calm down. He's still holding at two strikes. I damn sure hope he doesn't actually try to build a fire in a gas-fed fireplace. Unless they took the fixture out, not to mention telling him he could burn wood, lol, then if he burns wood in the fireplace and by some miracle actually manages to get it going, he could blow his balls off, and possibly take part of the building with them. First whiff of smoke I detect coming up the chimney I'm calling the authorities and running downstairs with a bucket of water. 

 Is this a case of unbelievable stupidity or is he just batshit-crazy or both? It's hard to fathom, even in these way-fucked-up-kind-of-crazy times. I realize we have to recalibrate out Crazometers and our Bullshitometers at least every other day to keep up with all the shit, and the term "crazy" is relative and somewhat in a state of flux these days, but I ran the story by a few folks and crazy won. Judging by how hard the building shook last night and by the general amount of door-slams and shit that went on well before that, I'd say those two are contraindicated. I hope dude calms down. I hope sister finds somebody a little more compatible to settle down with. Who knows...I can't say for sure if it wasn't her slamming all the shit but I seriously doubt it. 

 Well, well...as if on cue I just heard the downstairs door open loudly. Dude is on the phone and he just said "You done fucked-up." Holy moly it's still going on in real time as I'm writing this. Shit. This world has lost its collective mind. I hope dude lets it go and stays calm. He's already got two strikes. 

 There is one other possible scenario, but it's pretty specific. She could be a narcissist, specifically a covert narcissist, and if so she'd be possessed of intense anger, the desire to destroy the person and the relationship, intense hatred, rage, pure evil, the need to harm anything and everything around her, superhuman strength at times and a Jezebel spirit. That could well be the case and if so I truly feel for him. It's more likely that he's to blame, but even if he isn't he'll get blamed for it anyway. That's how narcissism works. 

I'll leave this story with a little poem based on "Norwegian Wood." He slammed lots of shit, then she was gone; this bird had flown. Please, don't build a fire, it's really not good to chop down the woods. 

 

Sorry, No "N"

I was watching a video about funny game-show moments. Some of that stuff is classic, like the legendary episode of the Dating Game, where the question was "Where's the most unusual place you've ever had the desire to make whoopie?" and the woman replied "In the ass." Sorry to those who remember it differently, but she didn't say "That would be the butt, Bob," although that would've been funnier. Even though the word "ass" was bleeped-out you can clearly see her mouthing it. Too much.

 I've never seen anything like this though. I don't know of too many third-graders who couldn't solve this puzzle with this much of the phrase available, but when it was this one guy's turn, he said "Is there an 'N?'" I almost lost it. There was a second of uncomfortable silence, and then Pat Sajak said "Sorry, no 'N.'"

 There were several more seconds of awkward silence. Vanna White froze in place with a blank look on her face. You could almost feel the audience squirming in their seats. There was no descending slide-whistle riff or anything else to indicate a wrong answer, just silence. Incredible. Was the guy a racist? Did he have a major brain-fart? He looked confused so maybe so. Whatever the reason, and without meaning to sound like a racist myself, it totally cracked me up. The damage was done, and technically there was nothing to bleep. I'm surprised they didn't just edit it out but I'm glad they didn't. What's a "Clam Nigger" anyway? Ah, life's little bloopers. These quirky human-interest stories are what make the world go 'round. Again I don't want to sound racist but it really made my day. Thanks. 
 

Haircut of the Day

 

Fear 2020

I've only said a million times that when people think with their emotions rather than their actual brains they make bad decisions, but this takes the cake. In this case the emotion is pure hate. No one could deny that a big chunk of the votes are more about hating Trump than realistically being for Biden or his "policies." Certainly not things like what's best for the country now, and for our children down the road. Speaking of children, Joe can't contain himself around them. 

 This schmuck dad thinks that seeing Joe two inches from his daughter's ear is "cute" but I don't think mom's too sure, as well she shouldn't be. That's straight-up uncool. Does it look like the little girl is enjoying it? How does he get away with that shit and nobody sees a problem?

 His son is "allegedly" a major crackhead, and received millions from a "job" in Russia, or enough crack to supply a rally or two at the Washington Monument. But it's no problem. Most of the info is being scrubbed anyway. I just went looking for a video so I could grab a screenshot, but most of them are gone, and I watched them less than two weeks ago. In fact one of the best channels on YouTube had all his videos removed just in the last few days. Seeing what's censored alone should wake people up, but it doesn't. They convince us it's for our "protection" and we totally buy it.

 But forget all that for a moment. Biden buys into the bullshit that this virus can be shut down by introducing another trillion masks into the environment and the oceans. It's a sin. He thinks that shutting down everything and finishing off the rest of the small businesses, which once again are THE backbone of our economy, will eradicate it. Then again he has trouble finishing a sentence.

 Without saying so of course he wants us to live in fear and hide in our homes, masked-up of course, rather than understanding that while it's very bad it actually kills no more than the regular Flu (Google it, Dylan) if as many, and shutting down the economy again will not only eliminate out lifeblood and foul our planet but kill many, many more than the virus ever could. People are already pushed to the breaking point for the most part. Another lockdown will finish a lot of them off, and that's fact. SUVs in food lines stretching for miles? That's ludicrous. And UNNECESSARY. 

 I'm not a Trumper but at least he has a brain. He was willing to stand up to all the fear and confusion and fight it instead of covering our faces all day and hiding in our homes, but that's what we'll be looking at soon. The rent freezes will expire soon, and that debt hasn't gone away. Millions of people are losing or are about to lose their homes, and they never deserved to be homeless in the first place. 

 They're not druggies or alcoholics or mentally unstable. Their jobs were taken away, under the bullshit notion that a virus that goes wherever it wants can be stopped. It's a joke, and the joke's on us. Millions will be homeless soon. It's a done deal but they just aren't out on the street yet. They'll be hungry and broke and pissed, and rightly so. Do you think they'll just take everything quietly and say "Oh, well...c'est la vie?" I doubt it.  

 Trump is a clown maybe but at least he can see the big picture. But we wanted Joe and apparently we've got him. Say "See ya" to that restaurant where you met your wife. Bid farewell to that hardware store that you went to as a kid. Forget about your favorite bookstore where you could freely browse and maybe share company and a coffee with someone special. Don't worry...there's a Walmart around the corner and you can get everwhat you need.

 Your Amazon orders will be delivered by drones and you'll never have to interact with a real human being ever again. Won't that be nice? Hmmm...Taco Bell or McDonald's for dinner? Say goodbye to movie theaters, auto-parts stores, hippy boutiques, music stores, coffee shops, toy stores, gift shops, restaurants, bars and everything else. Say goodbye to the USA.

 At least we can live in fear and keep cutting off the oxygen to our brains and trashing our immune systems, which is the whole deal to begin with, and hunker down in our homes (or in "containment facilities") until we reach the boiling point, and wait for someone to save us, like maybe a really rich computer guy who thinks he has a medical degree. It's pathetic but it's coming. Few people will even say a word. Fear will win. We will lose. Keep an eye on it for yourself. It's my prediction for the next four years and beyond. I hope I'm wrong. I really do. 

 Economists say that if another major lockdown occurs then we can kiss better than 90% of all small businesses goodbye, and with them ALL of our livelihoods. It's all connected. Most of the trillions that pass through the big corporations each year goes straight to offshore banks. It doesn't bolster our economy worth a piss compared to small businesses. Those people are globalists. They don't give a fuck who's money it is as long as they can control it. Their only allegiance is to themselves and their agendas, not you and me. Both candidates are tools but some tools do more damage than others. Have a nice day while you still can.

Sometimes it's the Little Sister (WARNING: Personal and Explicit- Read at Your Own Risk)

Don't you love it when you think about someone you haven't thought of in a while, and it triggers a nice memory? Ah, sweet memories. Like I've said nostalgia is going to be huge in the next few years. Sometimes those memories are of things that could've gone either way, and you wonder if it was totally by chance or if it was meant to be. In this case I say the latter. 

 A girl I'll call "K" worked with me at the crazy restaurant for several years and she was also my neighbor. She was hot. She had the Scandinavian thing and all that goes with that. She had straight brown hair, beautiful greenish-brown eyes, full lips (no collagen) and the sexiest smile you could ever want to see. Oh, and her body was righteous.

 She didn't have to try to be hot; she couldn't help it, but if she wanted to turn on the jets and flirt with you or start something it was off the charts. We all hung out after work but I hung out with her a lot since she lived across the street. I made a couple of lame attempts to get in her pants but she had her pick of anybody and she generally went for the pretty boys, and I wasn't qualified (thank God). She had a little sister I'll call "T." She still lived at home with their parents but she worked some nights as hostess, and she'd usually spend the night with K rather than drive back home. 

 If we weren't going out after work to see a band or something or if I wasn't playing myself we'd hang out at the restaurant and have a few drinks and whatnot. When T was staying with K she'd usually hang out with us. She might have a glass of wine here or there but she wasn't much of a drinker. She was a little shy and fairly quiet but it was obvious that she was a true sweetheart. She was very smart and funny too. Bonus. 

 She was the kind of woman I like- the kind that requires a second look. K was vivacious and ready for anything and fearless, and her hotness was obvious and up-front, while T was more sweet and mellow and really had the "girl next door" thing going on. There was something so calming about her that it was like a magnetic force or a drug. She didn't have the glamour thing that K had but she didn't have to bear that burden either. I remember looking at her a bit more closely one night after I'd just met her and realizing she was the true beauty of that pair. 

 She had brown, shoulder-length, slightly-curly hair. She had beautiful brown eyes and as sweet a smile as I'd ever seen. It was still a little bit of a "come hither" smile, and maybe even hotter than K's, because it was subtle. You had to work harder to get it. I was surprised that guys weren't all over her like they were K, but really boys at that age are looking for the hot, trashy types for the most part, myself included, and they aren't mature enough to know what true beauty is. Anyway she was very pleasant company.

 One Saturday Chef Dave had a big wingding. It started around noon and went on until the next morning. Early in the evening a bunch of us were in the basement burning some hooter and shooting the breeze. T was sitting next to me and as always her presence and energy were welcomed. We started talking and the next thing I knew everyone else had gone back upstairs. I was really enjoying the conversation and her peaceful vibe.

 We'd never talked that much and I realized that she really had something to say. She was very intelligent and she was cracking me up too. She also had a real sparkle in her eyes and you don't get that every day. Little sis was more of a grownup than I thought. Little did I know...

 Out of the blue she got quiet for a second and then said "Umm...is it okay if I kiss you?" I was taken aback. I don't know how long I sat there frozen like a dummy. It was probably just a second or two but it seemed like an eternity. On the one hand I'm a man and she's a woman, so there's that. She'd just turned 18 about a week earlier, thank God, so that little stigma was out of the way, but I was pushing twice her age. While I obviously recognized her beauty and energy and such, the thought of anything romantic never crossed my mind. I'd dated younger women before no problem but nothing like that. 

 On the other hand there was again the age thing, and I wasn't sure what her inspiration was. I didn't know if she'd liked me from afar or if she was just the little sis who never got kissed, and I didn't want to hurt her feelings or reject her outright, because I liked her as a friend and I liked having her around. I didn't want to hurt her and I didn't want to chase her off by making the wrong decision either way. I didn't know what to do. I said yes. 

 I suppose I puckered-up and leaned toward her. I was expecting a short, cute little smoochie and then we'd go back to the party. Her feelings wouldn't be hurt. No harm, no foul. I was expecting an awkward, token kiss. Luckily I was wrong. Within a millisecond I was enveloped in the sweetest and most passionate kisses I'd ever had, still to this day. I was taken completely by surprise. Maybe I shouldn't have been, but it was like floating on a cloud. 

 I guess that first kiss lasted two or three minutes easily. I couldn't stop or think about stopping. It was almost an out-of-body experience and I wasn't thinking about anything or anyone else. It still amazes me how powerful and unexpected of an experience it was. It's truly rare that your brain can only concentrate on one thing and shut everything else out like that, but I was someplace else. I wish I knew what brain chemicals were at work. It was an incredible high. I'll say yet again that it was more than her incredible kissing skill...it was also her energy, and coming into contact with it was amazing. It was electric. Or at least electromagnetic. BTW that's a fact, Jack. 

 I was sort of jolted back to reality somehow and I broke it off. I needed some air anyway but I literally had to stop and try to go over in my mind what had just happened, and how it got to where it was. I asked myself "Well, how did I get here? Oh yeah. Girl. Kiss. Long kiss. Trip to the Moon on gossamer wings. Holy moly. She's the real deal." We looked at each other and smiled. There was no need for words. We knew what would happen next. It was too good not to continue. We went into another room through a narrow door in the cinderblock wall. It was typical of old basements- packed-dirt floors that had a musty smell. Nobody would see us in there. 

 I couldn't lock lips with her fast enough, and this time we were standing up. I was in a bit of a state of shock or something still, but the only possible option was to surf that wave again. It may sound trite but sometimes you might get one or the other or neither, but she had the perfect blend of sweetness and incredible passion. In no time she'd given me a boner. I didn't want to be indecent and press it against her so I pulled away from her, but she wouldn't have it. She pulled me back against her and she made the issue even bigger. on purpose.

 We got a little handsy with each other but that was no big surprise. Her kisses stayed just as sweet and enticing as ever. I don't know how long we were in that room but it got to the point where we were in the early stages of show-and-tell with our clothes half-off, and either we were going to get right down there on the hard dirt floor and do it 'til the cows came home and get our clothes all dirty, or go against human nature and summon all available willpower and stop kissing, an least for the time being. Fortunately cooler heads prevailed, although it took quite some time thinking about baseball stats and such before I was decent to be in public. 

 She said she was staying with K that night and she could meet me later if it was okay with me and I said oh heck yes it is. There was a massive cherry tree in the courtyard that was big enough to pretty much climb inside of, and we agreed to meet there later. "Later" was still some hours away and it was like a little kid waiting on Christmas. The evening was still young and we didn't want to just bust out of the party and let Nature take its course...I mean we wanted too but we didn't want to be obvious, and there wouldn't be any other people in the courtyard after midnight. Besides it was a fun party. 

 We smoothed each other off and put on our "casual" faces and went upstairs. We mingled but we kept eye contact. That Carly Simon song "Anticipation" was playing on my mental jukebox. Age, schmage. I didn't care at that point. If she was willing to give of herself like that, who was I to say no? She liked me, and I'd become a bigger fan of her's too.

 The next few hours were rough but we made it through. We left early, around 1am. We decided to meet at the cherry tree in an hour. It was a long hour. I got together a couple of quilts and some light munchies and stuff and headed for the courtyard. It was a nice late-Spring night. The sky was clear and the Moon was bright and the cherry tree was in bloom. So was she. 

 I waited under the tree for a few minutes and then I heard some of the softest footsteps I've ever heard. When she ducked under the lower branches I could see that she was barefoot. She was also naked. "I hope you don't mind" she said. "I don't mind" I replied. "It's so nice out...and ...well...I kinda figured that since we almost got naked in that stuffy old basement, we'd end up that way again soon enough." I had to give her that one.

 I liked her style. With some gals it'd be slutty maybe but with her it wasn't at all. I don't exactly know how to explain it but it just seemed like the right thing to do. She went to retrieve her clothes and came back and stood there all naked and smiling. I smiled too. "You like?" "Oh yes, very much I do. C'mere, little sister!" 

 She told me that all during the rest of the party she'd been thinking about kissing me, only naked. I told her it'd crossed my mind too. She said that that was another reason she'd decided to take her clothes off early. "I really felt like you'd be okay with it" she said. "I feel like I can trust you." I told her that seeing her standing in the cherry branches was one of the most beautiful things I'd ever seen. Her shyness was kicking in a bit but she relaxed when she heard that. She knew I meant it. 

 In the interest of proper recordkeeping I'll have to say that her body was pretty much perfect. Not only did she have the edge on pure beauty and personality over her big sis but she smoked her body-wise. Again I sort of felt floaty just looking at her. She lay down facing me and I took ahold of her. She was a perfect fit already and I still had my clothes on. As if on cue she said "I bet you'd be much more comfortable without all those clothes on." "Good point" I said. She helped me out of those silly old cumbersome clothes and I pulled her over to me. It just kept getting better. 

 "I really want to keep kissing you" she said, "but there's a problem." "What's that?" I asked. "Well...I kinda want to try kissing some other places too, but I'm not sure where you'd want me to go." "I could draw you a map" I said. We laughed. My mind was already blown and I was wondering how much better it could get. Alls else I'll say is that she started with my neck and worked her way south, and about twenty minutes later she said "I bet you didn't expect that." I had to agree that indeed I didn't.

 That was just an appetizer, and a tasty one at that. She said that I'd always been nice to her and thanked me for wanting to be with her. I asked her if she was kidding and that I'd always enjoyed her company, especially that evening, and that I should be thanking her. "You're welcome!" she said. "I am?" "Of course." "Anywhere?" '"Anywhere!"  she replied. "In you? "In me! Yes, in ME!"

 We stayed under the cherry tree until well past daylight and we didn't get dressed until we heard people walking their dogs nearby. We agreed to make it happen again asap, which turned out to be the very next night. "I'm working tonight and I'll be staying at K's" she said. "I'll see you there" I said. "Give me another kiss please." "But of course." 

 The next night at work I talked to her a lot more than usual and there was no weirdness at all. I hate to say it but with some women you're so fired-up to cop a nut with them that you'd almost hold up a 7-11 to get some, but then when it's over you're not interested in them in the least anymore. You realize that it was probably a mistake and you have nothing in common and she's a freak and all of that. All you wanted to do was get laid. The ol' "Pump 'n' Chuck" as Ashby used to say. I still really wanted to be with her post-nut and I'm pretty sure the feeling was mutual.

 I'd rolled the age thing around in my head the night before and I decided that I'd be careful but that it shouldn't be a deal-breaker. I've always gotten along with people of all ages and I'd never considered it a problem, or color or creed either for that matter. It had been an incredible experience with her the night before and after getting to know her a little better I could tell she wasn't the average young lady. 

 I couldn't help but wonder though where she'd gotten her skills. I knew most of it was something you're born with, but yowsah. K was working that night so I casually mentioned that I thought T was really cool and I was surprised that guys weren't beating down her door. She'd worked there over a year and never got so much as a call from a guy that I knew of.

 "She's been on a few dates but she hasn't found anybody she really likes. I'm pretty positive she's never been with a guy in that way. She tells me everything and she wouldn't hold back that kind of information I don't think." I neglected to fill her in on the previous night's activities. "She just hasn't found the right guy" she continued. "She'll meet someone. She'll be fine." "Good" I said. 

 It was weird that she was so amazing and she'd never really been with a guy. Then I remembered all the sex paperbacks K had in her apartment. She had the Kama Suthra and "How to Please a Man" among others. That had to be it. T had a little time to kill so she must have flipped through the books and picked up a few tips. She was a quick study. Hearing that she'd never had a boyfriend really brought home the innocence thing, but at the same time I knew that she really did like me. "So, you want to meet me at the pool later?" she asked. "Just tell me when" I replied.

 We got to the pool around 1am. She was there first this time. We both had on shorts and t-shirts but she had a bikini on underneath. She took off her t-shirt and shorts, and then after a brief pause she kept going and took off her bikini. "I borrowed it from K. No use in getting it wet, right?" she asked. "Nope" I said. I didn't join her in the skinnydipping right away because I was mesmerized by her body again.

 She swam back and forth on her back and I couldn't take my eyes off of her, or move. When she'd stand up in the pool and lean back and put her arms behind her head to wring out her hair (you know what I mean) it accentuated her gorgeous breasts. I was sitting on the edge in the shallow end and she came walking up to me. She put her hands on my knees and pushed them apart and got up next to me. DOING. 

 She reached into one of the legs of my shorts. She may have just been looking for quarters for the Coke machine but if that was the case then she surely came out with a handful of more than she bargained for. I freed Willy and lost the shorts. She started kissing my kneecaps and worked her way toward my belly button. 

 After a nice bit of that special goodness I asked her to come and lounge with me on a lounge chair, or maybe lounge on me with the lounge chair. I let her bunnies play in my grass and she let me park my car in her garage. It was so sweet...and hot...just like a piece of peppermint candy. It starts out sweet and then gets warm and wet. We left around dawn.

 We saw each other a few more times and it was always amazing. I was starting to think seriously about trying to settle down with her. I'd sown enough wild oats by then and I knew a good thing when I saw it. She was a keeper. She obviously hadn't sown many wild oats, but I could see her being loyal, and K confirmed that. T told her we were seeing each other. She didn't have a problem with it except to tell me that if I ever hurt her she'd hunt me down and kick my ass. 

 She also said that she knew T really liked me, and she'd always said that when she found the right person she'd know it, and she'd only have eyes for them. She said that T always told the truth. "I'm glad to hear that" I said. "I like her too." "I can tell" said K. "Good" I said. Most times when people hook-up at that age it turns out badly for one or both parties, but I also have several friends who married their sweethearts early, and they're still as in love and attracted to each other as on day one. It happens. 

 We always had something to talk about, with or without clothes on. I can't say with total certainty that we'd have stayed together forever but I do think there would've been a very good chance of it. I do know that with the rare couple of other women I found that had anywhere near her angel-sweetness and incredible passion, I never lost my boner for them, literally and figuratively. T was really fun to hang out with and that's critical. We never really brought up the "L" word but had we gone out much more it would've been a done deal in no time. Apparently life had other plans. 

 I don't remember the exact situation but she was offered a really good job. It came out of nowhere. It was a major jump in pay but she'd have to move way out of town and she'd be working six days a week. At first she turned it down, but her parents and even K pressured her to take the job, and she finally did. I didn't say anything to her but I was going to be damn sad to see her go. I was playing music full time too, and I was only home from Sunday afternoon until Wednesday or even Tuesday. We just went our separate ways. 

 I ran into her about a year later when she came to visit sis. We got together for the afternoon and had a great time but something was different. She looked really tired, and the twinkle in her eyes wasn't there as much. She was still beautiful and her sweet and horny self, but something had changed in that year. I got the feeling that maybe she'd hooked up with some guy, and maybe he didn't treat her right. She seemed sad. Maybe I was wrong and I hope I was. She deserves a lot better than that. Not long ago I talked to someone who'd run into K but didn't know anything about T. I do hope she's okay. I was hoping I'd get some news. 

 Here's to you, T. You were amazing. I hope you've been richly blessed and want for nothing. I hope you're happy. If not though, and you're going to be over this way, feel free to give me a shout. I hate that that connection was severed but I'm grateful for it while it was here. Thanks for being one of those "second-look" women, because you are something special. Your kindness, love, energy and downright womanness set the bar pretty high, and I thank you. You have a brain, and truly a heart. You are beautiful. Cheers. 

 

 

 

 

 

Biden

It looks like Joe Biden is going to be prez but it may be a while before we know for sure. I've said before that politics is a football game and I don't get heavily involved most years but this year is different. What I see as the difference in the candidates this year is crucial for not only the next few years but from here on out. 

 Trump wants to keep the country open for business, while Biden wants to shut it all down and make everyone wear masks 24/7. Biden wants us all to live in fear. That's very, very bad. Anyone with half a brain knows that you can't eliminate a virus by killing the economy any more than you could shut down the common cold. 

 It's going to mutate and move back and forth between animals and humans and do all the usual things a virus does, and no amounts of masks, killing off small business or even a vacks can stop it. Wake up people. The backbone of the US economy is small business, not the mega-corporations. If we kill off all that we can forget it, at least from a quality-of-life standpoint. Another shutdown will take out better than 90% of all privately-owned restaurants...forever. I don't want that and neither should anyone else. 

 I think about how this lockdown bullshit is affecting different groups of people. I worked in the crazy for over 15 years and I literally can't imagine my life without the friends I have to this day that I met there. So many people don't have that chance now. I feel badly for people starting out in bands. I can imagine life without all the antics and adventures that happened when I was touring in a band, but my life wouldn't have been nearly as fun without it. They don't have that chance right now. Many people think that at some point, maybe after Dr. Gates spikes us all, that we'll go back to normal. Sorry, Cupcake, ain't gonna happen. That ship has left port. What's gone is gone and it's not coming back. What's left Joe wants to shut down. 

 Did anyone get the memo that MANY more people will die from a shutdown that this virus, while certainly bad, could ever kill? Can anyone still think with their brains instead of their assholes? Alcohol use had gone up by at least 50% and that's alarming. Same for drugs, and that's legal and non-legal. The prescription pads are coming out in droves as doctors write scripts for anxiety meds and such, and we're already the most-medicated nation on Earth. Depression, loss of income, not enough money for food, much less a quality diet, domestic abuse, cabin fever...it's all because of lockdowns. The cure is way worse than the disease. So, what...I'm just being negative? A "fear-monger?" Bullshit. This is REALITY. Wake up!

 However much of a clown Trump comes off as and no matter how much people hate him, at least he has a brain in his head and he knows that a world where only Amazon, Walmart and the giant fast-food chains will survive is going to suck, big-time. He's not living in fear and wanting everyone else to join him. He knows that without small businesses this country can hang it up. He's not letting his emotions (fear) control his brain, but Biden is. Both of them are tools. And clowns. But one of them still has a working brain. If Joe's your guy and he wins, then congrats. I hope you like McDonald's.