What a wild and wooly weekend (sarcasm)! Except for two hours Saturday afternoon, I sat on my ass at the house. The two hours of reprieve came when we went to the market along the river and then to downtown JC where I got the mill pic and the one above. It felt good just to shoot! We planned to go to Jonesborough yesterday evening but the missus was in a bad mood because trees were blocking the satellite signal; no TV Criminal Minds dramas induces doom and gloom and I duck for cover. Ashley is back to normal, the bleeding she incurred Friday tapered off over the weekend and we are not yet g.grandparents. The little feller isn’t due until around July 25, but most wise heads and sages are saying it will come early. His name is to be Samuel Seaton Bishop. Seaton???
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I missed an opportunity to meet Mark and Tammy and Mike; I feared that if they traveled over the hill, we would be called to hospital with Ash. I am truly sorry my friends; next opportunity–come hell or high water–we shall meet if you still want to; I surely do. I was just thinking; I’ve never been to Florida. Mark can come over at anytime. A trip for us to his house would go through North Wilkesboro, NC; it is the area my Phillips ancestors left around 1796 to come to The Promised Land.
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I took time away from my hectic schedule to do some more writing last evening; I created about 450 almost fully edited words. The Paradise Club story is partly biographical set in a typical time when I was younger and a little more foolish and will probably have 4,000+ words when finished; it now stands at 2,900 and many of them are two or more syllables!
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Have a Tuesday!
No plans for this holiday weekend but hope to get away on Sunday or Monday for a picnic somewhere around Watauga Lake; the moderately high elevation keeps the air temperature from being overly hot and it can be very comfortable amongst the big trees. All I need to do is find a shady spot that is crutch accessible.
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I am trying to make the transition from being a story teller to a story writer; it isn’t as easy as it may sound. Yesterday I put more than two thousand words to virtual paper as I wrote my little tale of boys night out. That is probably an hour’s worth of work for a half-ass typist, but it was just over four hours work for me, a one-fingered pecker. I also try to edit as I go. I trashed my outline and basically began all over except for what I posted on this blog Wednesday. I was typing the story as I thought of it; not too easy for a one-track mind but I was never good with outlines. Past what I wrote on the 25th, most of the remainder is dialogue. All I need now is a decent finish which I already have on my mind, and a rousing beginning to get the reader interested. I still have to set up the bar fight, but that should be fairly easy. I will sit on it for a few days and go over it again, trying to iron out the worst wrinkles. Sooner or later I will say enough and post what I consider as a finished story, although I will never be completely happy with it. Even if no one else cares for it; I will be as proud of it as if I had laid a golden egg called the Pulitzer.
Nohow, here is a bit of the dialogue; it begins with Slim speaking:
“How do you know it was the old woman instead of one of the girls?”
“Hells bells! I know because I found her ass when I went looking for my wallet! Jeez!”
“You found her ass?” I used my most incredulous tone of voice.
“Aw shit, Slim.” His tone was pleading. “The old girl was wearing one of those fake rubber asses; I felt it when I was dancing with her back in the bar.”
Zeke was becoming a bit calmer and asked for another smoke. My head was throbbing in every direction and the body aches were becoming almost unbearable, but I couldn’t quit on the man; inquisition is good for the soul and I wanted his soul laying bare on the seat between us.
He gave me a sideways look as I handed him the cigarette.
“Okay; when I went back after my billfold, I lit my lighter and saw her ass laying on the floor beside the bed.”
Before I could mull that over and ask another question he blurted “She had rubber tits, too.”
If not for the pain wracking my poor body, I would surely have burst out with laughter; his admission was just too freaking sweet.
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I am not trying to be sexist nor am I putting down little old ladies in the story. If there was not some truth to the tale, I probably would not tell it; many things are what they are. I once owned a black truck with chrome wheels. During my electrician and tramping years my nickname was “Slim”. I used to work on powerhouse construction. I once saw a bar similar to the one I described. In a bar, I indeed saw and old woman much like the one I invented and she indeed took a friend of mine to her room for a romp; he was 33 years old and she was in her late 60′s … at least. I lived in many boarding houses. I once did have the dry heaves so bad that I passed out.
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Mark, Tammy, and Mike … Peace and Happiness to bless your reunion.
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Jola … I hope you make it back to Warsaw and the family safe and sound.
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Have a memorable Holiday weekend, everyone.
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It was a mistake. Mr. Camping had the right date and time, he says, but it was a spiritual rapture that took place and not the physical uplifting that people expected. He has now set the date of the physical rapture and the ending of the world for October 21, 2011. I wonder why Camping took his wife and holed up in a motel room this past weekend after he realized he was once again mistaken about the dates. BTW, his 2009 federal income tax papers say his ministry had $104 million dollars in assets. Today, many of his faithful believers are penniless. He also proclaims that he will not liquidate and give away his worldly possessions before the end of the universe comes. Praise the Lord.
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While getting stuck in traffic and cavorting with England’s Queen Elizabeth is always good politics and diplomacy, President Obama is missing some good photo ops over here; hundreds of Americans dieing from tornadoes and he would look like a great leader standing in the midst of the carnage with shirt sleeves rolled up just as if he was going to jump in and clear debris and save lives. Look at what similar disasters did for W. who is now on the speech circuit and making millions from the still faithful.
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All quiet on the home front; Carolyn is at hairdresser, JJ is mowing somewhere, and I am alone; life is good.
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Happy Wednesday!
Carolyn has gone to take someone to the plasma place to sell blood; all she gets done is run for other people. Since I can no longer drive; it is all left to her. Well, maybe she can sell a pint while there or pick a fresh one for me; my corpsucles seem torpid lately.
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The new tramping days story is hitting its stride; should be finished up in a day or so. It will be longer than the one I posted Thursday last so I don’t know if I will post it here or on Brasstacks for a few days. I hope some of you find it a bit amusing.
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I really feel badly for the folk in Joplin, Missouri … for god’s sake; I forgot how to spell Missouri! Thank you Google. After seeing the destruction from the short-lived tornadoes we had here, I can just imagine what the people are going through.
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Got no photo nor time to look for videos today. For I who am about to write, I salute me!
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Oh my; Tuesday again. Have a good one.
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New York truck driver hauls family 3,000 miles to California to be near the new age prophet for the rapture event. Retired couple give away all their belongings and find themselves destitute when the Rapture doesn't happen. When does religion become a fanatical cult and who should be held responsible? The truck driver was disappointed, but would do it again; after all, it is God's will that every nut case in the country finds him and thousands of others like him so gullible.
I have a prediction of my own; no, I have a promise of my own: I promise each person on the face of the globe that there will be no Rapture in your lifetime or the lifetimes on your children and grandchildren. Electronic funds transfers accepted for my ministry along with Social Security and other retirement deposits made directly into my bank account. God bless America!
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Have a Sunday, y'all.
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I once had a friend named Friend; at least I will call him that to protect the innocent. Friend was a good man, never met a stranger, and would give anyone the shirt off his back. Friend was very much the salt of the earth type. I didn't know Friend but for just a few years, however during those years, we became as close as chums could be. Friend and his lovely wife and sweet child moved from another state to East Tennessee to work and that is where I met him; he and I were employed at the same place in the same department. Friend, like the rest of our circle of acquaintances, liked to drink beer. He also liked Mexican food, the hotter the better. We all know that when sufficient beer is mixed with plenty of spicy food inside the human gut, explosive gas discharges usually occur. Friend was no exception to the laws of nature, in fact, he practiced those laws with a determined fervor. Mr. and Mrs. Friend bought a house not too far from where they worked; a pleasant brick rancher a little larger than the norm but all-in-all, about like most of us owned back then. The house had a full basement, unfinished, but with a good concrete floor and a high ceiling, and Friend bought the home with the purpose of sometime putting in a pool table. Until a pool table could be had, he settled on a table tennis platform; more commonly known as a ping-pong table. We had many hours of fun at Friends house, listening to music, drinking beer, and playing ping-pong. Friend like nachos; simple nachos made with Doritos covered with bean dip, some American or cheddar cheese, and a slice of jalapeno pepper and baked in the oven. He or Mrs. Friend made pans of them at a time and we all loved them. One mid-night after I got off from work, a bunch of us were together at Friend's doing our regular thing of ping-pong, talking back and forth about this and that, eating Friend's nachos, drinking beer, and being what we considered as "cool". None of our ladies were present; civilized people were in bed doing their nightly things, but if Mrs. Friend and child Friend could sleep through the racket, they must have been drugged. During the merriment, Friend hurriedly left us, heading up the stairs; there was no bathroom at that time in the basement. Upstairs were two bathrooms as best as I remember, one in what would normally have been the master bedroom and one on down the hall. Friend kept the master bedroom as a guest room and he and Mrs. Friend slept at the other end of the house. Friend was in somewhat of a hurry that night as he climbed the several steps toward relief; the beer and nachos were working their magic. We heard the somewhat loud fan in the guest bathroom come on, and a few minutes later we heard one of his glorious farts that rattle floors and walls and cause galvanized nails to instantly rust. Have you ever heard a loud outboard boat motor being tested in a barrel of water; that gurgling rattle that puts every loose object within ten feet into a vibrating frenzy? Friend must have had twin motors running that night. The ping-pong game ceased, the music was muted, and all talking stopped. We looked at each other with awe and wonder. The bathroom was almost directly over our heads, and the plastic drain pipe fed over us to the wall nearest the table and down it and finally exiting through the floor to the outside world. When Friend flushed the toilet, we heard the most disturbing noise yet. It began with a thump, and the thumps kept getting closer together and louder as they approached us, sounding like a piece of wall stud flopping over and over as it was pushed through the waste conduit by the rushing water; plap-flop; plap-plap flop. The "thing" finally hit the elbow of the pipe with a heartier than ever thunk and we heard no more from it except a muted thud as it turned through the final elbow beneath the solid floor toward the city sewer system. We all looked at each other and shook our heads in amazement as I started toward the steps to go up and see if Friend lived through the defecation of anything so sinister sounding. Just as I started up, the top door opened and Friend came nonchalantly down. As he neared the bottom step, we all eyeballed him to see if everything was there and someone asked him if he had flushed a beer bottle down the loo. When he said he hadn't, we all stood and gave him a round of well deserved applause and back-pats. Apparently when he finished his business and flushed the commode, the noise from the tank, plus that of water running in the sink when he washed his hands, and the loud exhaust fan kept him from hearing the turd from hell slapping its way to freedom along the walls of the pipe. He grinned and said it was only a tiny poot, figuring the wall rattling fart was why we were paying him homage. He didn't quite believe us as we told him what we witnessed with our ears. The party quickly broke up after that—there was nothing could happen to top that event—with everyone heading for their homes and beds and loving wives.
This is a true story but is not a great story; it just had to be told.
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Have a great weekend.
The Saturday Rapture is getting curiouser and curiouser. The thing that I get most pleasure from is the fact that so many God fearing professed Christians don’t have a clue as to what the Rapture really is and what it means; many have never heard of it outside of a movie title. A lot of the ones whom have heard of it think of it as the end of the world and day of judgement. The Bible is so confusing when speaking of the Rapture, the second coming of Christ, his final reign on earth, Judgement Day, and the fate of the earth. I don’t believe there is a man alive who can read the verses and passages and come to positive conclusions about any of it, except that it will happen.
Being a non-believer, all of it is moot; I ain’t going anywhere. I haven’t had the easiest life imaginable, but it hasn’t been so bad that I want to give it up for a thousands of years old promise; I will fight tooth and nail to stay put even if I feel myself trying to become airborne come Saturday or any other day; I don’t fly!
Folks, I am easily bored with the mundane; I cannot think of anything more mundane than eternal life with no worries and noting to do. Sure, I could probably get by a few years in Heaven before complete insanity set in. Ask yourself, if I go to heaven, what will I be doing; what will I be doing a year from now; what will I be doing a million years from now or for infinity. The depressed people of Johnson City will appear ecstatic compared to the bored minions of heaven.
Why should the streets of heaven be paved with gold; why should the City of Heaven be constructed of gold; what real difference will it make if the roads are made of stone or dirt and the city is built of adobe or timbers? Whatever is there is promised to be perfect. Why does heaven need streets; will the citizens have feet or will they just be spiritual entities? Why need a city at all? Can I have a Mercedes Gull-wing sportster? If any of you decide to make the trip this Saturday, please send me an email and give me some answers; surely they will have smart phones in Paradise.
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Have a Thursday!
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I just found out … the Rapture is this coming Saturday! God, I don’t have a thing to wear and I damn sure don’t want to fly away to heavenly Heaven in my shorts and stinky sneakers. I don’t usually take a shower on Saturdays so do you suppose I can just hang around here until God destroys the world on October 21? Well, I’m off my diet for sure … at least until Sunday … if it comes around. This Rapture confirms my belief that the Mayans were completely irrational when they predicted the end of the world would be next year. No need to buy lottery tickets but why not pick up a few anyway; I darn sure won’t need the money for anything else. Should I brush my teeth? So many questions and so little time!
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Not a lot to write about today; Carolyn is at hairdresser and the house is quiet; at least I think it is peaceful. This tinnitus is do damned loud this morning I can’t hear the phone ring. I need a haircut, the weather is awful, and “Depressed Johnson City” is becoming depressingly famous. I’ve seen parts of the story quoted in a few blogs and newspapers from around the country. I humbly dedicate the photo to my fellow Johnson Citians and I hope they can come out of their funk long enough to see it. It was made by JJ’s friend while at the Knoxville Zoo but he was using my old Canon S3 IS camera so I am grabbing a bit of the thunder. The gorilla definitely appears bored or depressed, the same as 30 percent of his cousins in JC.
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The video is one of my favorite Tom Petty songs. Petty is an excellent song writer and musician; I once saw him do a guitar solo that blew me away; he is as good as anyone and his playing reminds me much of Bruce Springsteen. Tom is also as “laid back” as they come. You folks in Florida have a treasure in him.
Let me run with you tonight
I’ll take you on a moonlight ride
There’s someone I used to see
But she don’t give a damn for me
But let me get to the point, let’s roll another joint
And turn the radio loud, I’m too alone to be proud
You don’t know how it feels
You don’t know how it feels to be me
People come, people go
Some grow young, some grow cold
I woke up in between
A memory and a dream
So let’s get to the point, let’s roll another joint
Let’s head on down the road
There’s somewhere I gotta go
And you don’t know how it feels
You don’t know how it feels to be me
My old man was born to rock
He’s still tryin’ to beat the clock
Think of me what you will
I’ve got a little space to fill
So let’s get to the point, let’s roll another joint
And let’s head on down the road
There’s somewhere I got to go
And you don’t know how it feels
You don’t know how it feels
No, you don’t know how it feels to be me
You don’t know how it feels
You don’t know how it feels
No, you don’t know how it feels to be me
Very chilly and damp; lots of rain last night and drizzling on and off today. I had to turn on the heat this morning and it is the only time I can recall needing to use the furnace this late in May.
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The recovery is on for sure! The Obama administration is confident that we are pulling out of The Depression while more jobs are being lost as manufacturing slumps and new housing construction plummets. The inflation rate is increasing, especially quickly in the food and fuel sectors. Geezers who used up their life saving over the past three or four years trying to buy medicine and food are down to a choice of one or the other and probably not enough of either.
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The people of Syria are in deep doo-doo while Obama and the rest of the West stick their collective heads in the sands of oil-rich Libya.
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At least Ahnold is getting some.
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Tuesday again … have a good one!
A nice, short article on camera sensor megapixels.
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It was a terrible weekend for doing stuff outdoors, therefore I did nothing indoors so as to keep a zen balance. Supposed to be very chilly the next few days; just Mother Nature letting us know we had better enjoy every minute of our warm sunny days because winter will come sneaking back sooner than we think. Alice and Vanessa went to a Gaither concert; I like Bill Gaither because he is a good singer/songwriter and mixes a lot of humor into his shows; the audience doesn’t get bored when he is at his best. He reminds me a lot of Harold Reid of the Statler Brothers.
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I wish I hadn’t read the article about the citizens of Johnson City being the most depressed people in the country; I just got over my winter blues and now they tell me I should be depressed year around, so I am now so far down in the dumps I cannot see daylight.
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Have a splendiferous Worshday!
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Johnson City has once more sunk to the bottom of health food-chain; an article in today's local paper describes findings that JC is the most depressed city in the USA! Other people are realizing what I've been saying in this blog for years is factual; the only happy people here are wealthy--or at least well heeled--retirees from New Jersey and Florida, along with business crooks, politicians, and big-church preachers who prey on the rest of us. No jobs except in low paying service industries and retail stores, with no prospects for better in the short-range or long-run future. How exciting can a city of 55,000 people be? One-fifth of the population is college students and when they are listed as being depressed, you know my little berg is in deep spiritual and emotional trouble. A New Jersey city has the least depressed folk; I suppose they are happily scheming to retire to JC where they can further ruin the lives of we natives. Welcome to the heart of the Bible Belt! Phooey!
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Wouldn't Newt Gingrich and Donald Trump together make a great ticket for the Republican run to the White House in 2012? Sarah Palin could be Secretary of State, John McCain as defense secretary, the Koch brothers could be Secretary of the Treasury and Secretary of Labor, and Pat Robertson would make a fine Secretary of Homeland Security. Mitt Romney would nicely fit as Secretary of Circuses, Carnivals, and White House Entertainment.
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Have a non-depressed weekend, dear friends.
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Carolyn’s little veggie garden is cruising along; it made it through last night’s thunderstorms with little damage. We had another display of lightning much like the one that was to the southwest of us during tornado night. As I went to bed, there were several nearby strikes and the flashes were continuous for nearly 30 minutes. Even after the electrical energy subsided around us, the rumble of Thor’s hammer striking the iron of heaven’s gates resounded until near dawn as more storms popped up throughout our area. Of course there were heavy winds and downpours of rain mixed in the lot.
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I went to the porch this morning, hoping the pollen had been washed away by the rain, but I wasn’t outside more than a few minutes when my nose and eyes began clogging. Maybe by the weekend the dust will settle.
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The best of Wednesday to all of you!
Neil Young, Crazy Horse, Pearl Jam–Why do I keep fuckin’ up
C. “You wanna pot of beans cooked?”
K. “Suits me.”
10 mins. later …
C. “I put the beans on to cook.”
K. “Good girl.”
20 mins. later I smell gas …
K. (Loudly) “I smell gas; did you light the stove?”
C. (Smartassedly) “I told you I put the beans on to cook!”
C. (Back in kitchen) “I didn’t turn it far enough to light it!”
K. (Very loudly) “Don’t light it!
C. “Why?”
K. “The freakin’ house is full of gas; you’ll blow us up!”
C. “Oh, ok.”
While the house cleared, we ended up sitting on the porch in a storm of pollen; oak trees were blatantly having sex in public! My eyes soon went blurry and the rapid-fire sneezing began. I am now typing this with my nose almost touching the monitor so I can read what I am saying. Allergy drops in my eyes, allergy pills in my belly, nose spray shot up my honker, and a damp neckerchief around my face to help filter some of the insidious yellow poison. Even my tinnitus is on the rampage!
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Have a pollen-free Worsh day, dear ones.
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Sunday is Mother’s day. If your mother is living, be sure to tell her you love her; if she has passed away, be sure to tell her twice that you love her.
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Still in the middle of blackberry winter in East Tennessee, temps should climb back to seasonal over the next week.
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I have five writing projects ongoing; yesterday I began one about a small skirmish that took place in a West Virginia tavern many years ago and I typed 1500 words; that is a lot for a one-fingered pecker like me.
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Crutches: nuisance; invaluable.
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Carolyn tried to plant her radish seeds in a child’s plastic wading pool. She used some king of potting soil that has a lot of tree bark chips in it; needless to say that when it rained hard, the chips and seed all floated and gathered into clumps and now there are two impenetrable forests of seedlings from which she may have been able to salvage four or five radishes. She dumped the whole mess in a flower bed and is thinking about finding some top soil and trying again. I was looking forward to having a cold biscuit with fresh, peppery radishes. Bless her heart.
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Have a good weekend!
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It is supposed to become reasonably warm again sometime this afternoon; I had to turn the heat on this morning. To go with the near freezing outside, the wind is quite brisk and all this has interfered with my porch sitting for several days.----
I have an outline for a new story; the tale will be fairly brief and relate some semi-true instances from my tramping days in West Virginia in the early 70's, however most of it is make-believe.
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Barnes and Noble is set to introduce a slightly larger tablet and e-book reader combination later this month, supposedly a competitor for the iPad. I hope they will reduce the price on the present Nook e-reader.
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Have a thrilling Thursday, my friends.
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Very chilly today; we had some light snow in the mountains overnight. Cold should lower the pollen for a few days; sometimes I feel like taking a spoon and digging crap out of my eyes; if I could make tears I would cry.
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Nothing of import going on right now; hope y’all are well and happy.
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Have a good mid-week crisis, my friends; I am enduring a dandy.
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I slept until nearly 11:00 this morning; crash-slept is more like it. I hadn’t been getting much sleep, so I was due. Since then it has been one of the busiest days of my life on internet, mostly on Megashot trying to do a few critiques. I’m probably making more enemies than anything. Like everything else I attempt, I try to do it right, or at least to the best of my abilities and downloading a pic, doing edits, uploading it, and explaining what I did and why I did it takes me a lot of time. Cyrus and Maggie are much faster than I; I can but try.
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I wonder how many talking head and clueless “experts” CNN and other news agencies have had on the air since President Obama announced that Bin Laden was killed. News is a freaking circus.
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I cannot see that the death of Bin laden is going to change anything; like Mark inferred on his blog, Bin Laden was no longer of interest to anyone except those who wanted to spend millions of dollars looking for him and putting servicemen and women in danger. Well, they caught him and spanked him and terrorism will grow worse, just like it would have if he had lived.
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Hope you had a wonderful Worsh day!
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For three days I've been trying to think of something to write about in the blog and as usual, I have nothing to say. However that fact usually doesn't stay my hand from its appointed rounds of the keyboard. This weekend has been an exception; my mind has drawn blanks even as I've had my hand poised over the keys ready to dispense some fathomable geezer wisdom. Alas (we old folk like to say "alas"), no piercing insights have sparked eureka-type moments in my incredibly shrinking brain.
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I finished reading The Pelican Brief by John Grisham and found it to be suspenseful and fairly fast moving; I will give it 4 stars and consider it a 'must read' for political crime enthusiasts. I liked the book well enough that I bought The Rainmaker also by Grisham. It is written "as it happens" or present tense style, and it starts off sort of slowly making me a bit disappointed in it to begin with. However, the plot is carefully being built, and though I am less than half way through reading it, I have become hooked on this somewhat long novel.
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Can think of nothing else to write; have a good first week of May!
