Recently while continuing with my research into the viability of weasel power I discovered an early proponent was none other than Nikola Tesla. He was introduced to the concept by his cousin, Rodney, who was a carny and sideshow performer. During Rodney's travels with the carnival he was forced by necessity to make do as best he could. He was a card shark, fortune teller, barker, and occasionally was said to fill in for the exotic dancers, but only when absolutely necessary. His light build and youthful complexion allowed him to do a reasonable attempt at a fan dance. With gas lamps turned down low he captured the hearts of many an unsuspecting farm hand or tradesman.
When the first hand cranked movie projectors appeared Rodney saw this as a stepping stone to a better life. He predicted that the "moving picture will change the carnival world as we know it today and our children's children's fathers' will no longer gaze upon the true human figure for titillation but will view one created by the illusion of the moving picture."
He invested in several projectors and using a homemade camera created short "specialty moving picture plays" which consisted of his interruptions of the fan dance and a simple story of seduction of the dancer by a cooper who has followed "her" to her caravan.
With the popularity of his films he no longer could waste his time cranking his own projector. He needed a way to power them lest he be forced into to hiring young "carny crankers." During an after hours poker game Rodney cleaned out a troupe of traveling little people known, "The Many Merry Mini Midgets of Mannheim." When they couldn't back their markers they began offering Rodney most of their professional equipment to stave off an ugly beating at the hands of Rodney who not only could dance like a woman but settled scores more often than not with fisticuffs. Finally the titles to everything but the clothes on their backs were turned over to Rodney. Upon inspection of a 3 wagon show, costumes, equipment etc, Rodney found he now owned the entire cast of the Midgets of Mannheim's weasel circus.
Never having dealt with least weasels Rodney was soon surprised and elated at what you could do with your own weasel. The lithe furry creatures are incredibly intelligent and this weasel circus was so well drained that 3 of the bulls could actually brew a decent cup of tea and serve toast squares as well. Rodney ignored the toast squares which they held between their teeth to serve while standing on their hind legs,but enjoyed a delicious if somewhat weak cup of tea.
Now owning nearly 75 highly trained weasels he first considered teaching them the fan dance. After meeting with an early form of focus group it was decided that erotic weasels would most likely be a limited draw to a small, but dedicated audience. Had the weasels been able to sing while they played their instruments the act might catch on but only in the bigger cities where bookings were always tougher. You had to have a show that was truly unique.
Rodney finally made the decision to attempt to use the weasels to create hands free projection. After a week of experimentation Rodney had created a very workable system of wheels and pulleys and and belts and clothes pins and weasels running in circles. It was a success and Rodney is credited with having the first all weasel powered erotic moving picture palace.
While visiting his cousin Rodney shared his designs and drawings and suggested to Nikola that there might be a future in weasel power. There was mention made of storing the power generated by the weasel. A weasel battery if you will.
Designs were drawn for personal weasel power generating devices known "box o' weasel energy." Records show that Tesla was intrigued. Although consistent documentation is lacking, there are casual references in several personal letters. It is thought that Tesla was able to create artificial lightning with a massive 3-story generator powered by specially bred weasels from Rodney's stock.
These experiments took place during his Colorado days. Anecdotal evidence from a limited number of scholars believe the "great Colorado laboratory fire" was caused by an over generation of power fueled by amphetamine addicted weasels. No one will ever know because shortly after the fire that roasted every last least weasel prompting an infestation by cats seeking weasel meat morsels which they love and have a primitive affinity for, concerns by city fathers began circulating. Just what was going on? Several of Rodney' experimental weasel stag films had found their way into the hands of local clergy. Locals gathered to eliminate the hyper felines and beat most to death with sticks and brooms. Tesla left the area shortly after.
This suggest the possible possibility of plausible sustainable weasel power exists. If Tesla's weasel notes could be found naysayers might be forced to give this option a second glance.
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Thursday, June 3, 2010
I want to publish a poem
During the month of April(National Poetry Month) my running buddy, the Skeeter, and I challenged one another to write a poem a day. Challenged is too aggressive a word. We cajoled one another to create focused work in an art form I am admittedly not the best at. Skeets on the other hand has been writing songs and poems since as long as I've known him. For me it was an act of actually working to write something. I didn't want to just dash off a dirty limerick, once driving back to Topeka from Texas with El Skeetman, Markle Farns, and my brother, Cockroach we entertained ourselves in between games of Mattel elecronic football, Markle told the girls at Soap Creek he was doing a test marketing for Mattel, with suggestive limericks. It was less than 10 degrees outside and maybe 38 in my Toyota. The road from Graford to Topeka was one lane and slow. Luckilly it wasn't bright sunshine or all of us would be wearing dark glasses to enhance the telling of the tale.
Somehow that brings us back to the first of several poems I plan to post. I present them for what they are. About this first one, Richard Brautigan was one of my favorite writers when I was younger. His stories and poetry were things I could understand. He said a lot with few words. The news of his passing, alone in a field, next to a tree saddened me. When he was happy...he was a blast to read and think about
for richard brautigan
last night after decades of dormancy
I found myself dreaming of Babylon
there were 2 outs, 2 strikes, 3 odd balls with the score tied
in what might be the last at bat of the game
just as suddenly I pulled the car to the shoulder of the road
awash with the colours of the rainbow
and at the very least spritzed with a sheen of oil on wet black hole asphalt
flashing lights of neon tolled loudly
sizzle-ping, sizzle-ping
TONIGHT ONLY, ALL-NUDE, ELVIS WRESTLING
over and over and over again
brought to you by the Tri-County Kiwanis & Sheriff's Posse
most proceeds go directly to offset costs of future
fund raising
on our backs, hidden from the world
in a copse(thank you Count No Count) of trees deliberately planted by the city
with a secret candy coated center
no visitors after ten p.m.
curfew strictly enforced by too few
undisturbed
on my right is an obsession never to be realized
but dreamed of often
on my left
her best friend and confidant
who for me will someday be that
and more.
That now, nearly forty years then,
not one of us knew even a smidgin of what...
our lives would grant us
what was ahead
lay in store
cliche after cliche
built upon over used images and
then some and excetera
anymore than we could have counted
the number of stars overhead
even if,
we weren't higher than kids should be on a school night
I turned to her best friend and kissed her chastely on the tip of her nose
I turned to her
and did the same
in that, the single best moment of a lifetime
I found myself dreaming of Babylon
and the ball swoofed by me, strike three
I saw it all in super super slo-mo replay vision
I still think if I could have just turned slightly and let it hit me
got to first
but Babylon was calling
and I wanted to count the stars until we got it right
Somehow that brings us back to the first of several poems I plan to post. I present them for what they are. About this first one, Richard Brautigan was one of my favorite writers when I was younger. His stories and poetry were things I could understand. He said a lot with few words. The news of his passing, alone in a field, next to a tree saddened me. When he was happy...he was a blast to read and think about
for richard brautigan
last night after decades of dormancy
I found myself dreaming of Babylon
there were 2 outs, 2 strikes, 3 odd balls with the score tied
in what might be the last at bat of the game
just as suddenly I pulled the car to the shoulder of the road
awash with the colours of the rainbow
and at the very least spritzed with a sheen of oil on wet black hole asphalt
flashing lights of neon tolled loudly
sizzle-ping, sizzle-ping
TONIGHT ONLY, ALL-NUDE, ELVIS WRESTLING
over and over and over again
brought to you by the Tri-County Kiwanis & Sheriff's Posse
most proceeds go directly to offset costs of future
fund raising
on our backs, hidden from the world
in a copse(thank you Count No Count) of trees deliberately planted by the city
with a secret candy coated center
no visitors after ten p.m.
curfew strictly enforced by too few
undisturbed
on my right is an obsession never to be realized
but dreamed of often
on my left
her best friend and confidant
who for me will someday be that
and more.
That now, nearly forty years then,
not one of us knew even a smidgin of what...
our lives would grant us
what was ahead
lay in store
cliche after cliche
built upon over used images and
then some and excetera
anymore than we could have counted
the number of stars overhead
even if,
we weren't higher than kids should be on a school night
I turned to her best friend and kissed her chastely on the tip of her nose
I turned to her
and did the same
in that, the single best moment of a lifetime
I found myself dreaming of Babylon
and the ball swoofed by me, strike three
I saw it all in super super slo-mo replay vision
I still think if I could have just turned slightly and let it hit me
got to first
but Babylon was calling
and I wanted to count the stars until we got it right
Friday, May 21, 2010
soon, very soon
"To harness the power of the weasel is to see our nation's dependence on fossil fuels decline" - Dr. Randall Barrett Wallace-Jones
Is weasel power the key to surviving the next century? With the recent events in the Gulf it must now be given serious consideration. If we can reduce the strain on a coal based grid using alternative forms of "critter-based power" even the smallest amount, the cost of the research out weighs most other considerations. My work proves this to be a possibility. The challenge is getting those in charge to listen.
A positive development as recently official representatives of your government graced my doorstep. Claiming to be law enforcement officers they reeked of "Energy Dept." careerist hack. After snooping about for what I can only assume was my research notes they read some papers about attempted presidential communication or some other nonsense and left me to my studies. Luckily they did not request to see the bomb shelter. My research is safe. As my lights flicker I'm reminded of the remarks of Pope Ludicrous IV, "even the least of least weasel yearns for his kibble and we yearn the lessons of righteousness."
Is weasel power the key to surviving the next century? With the recent events in the Gulf it must now be given serious consideration. If we can reduce the strain on a coal based grid using alternative forms of "critter-based power" even the smallest amount, the cost of the research out weighs most other considerations. My work proves this to be a possibility. The challenge is getting those in charge to listen.
A positive development as recently official representatives of your government graced my doorstep. Claiming to be law enforcement officers they reeked of "Energy Dept." careerist hack. After snooping about for what I can only assume was my research notes they read some papers about attempted presidential communication or some other nonsense and left me to my studies. Luckily they did not request to see the bomb shelter. My research is safe. As my lights flicker I'm reminded of the remarks of Pope Ludicrous IV, "even the least of least weasel yearns for his kibble and we yearn the lessons of righteousness."
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
long time no see
I must apologize for the lack of posts and creativity. Let's just say my duties as the the assistant to the assistant cart monkey in charge kept me busy to such an extent I let the creative nature of life slide by.
As some may know it is, has been, National Poetry Month during April. The Skeeter and I made a deal to compose a poem a day. I am no poet. Getting ready to celebrate the month on our school's website I reread many of my favorite poems from ages ago. It rekindled an interest of sorts.
The Skeeter has been a poet and song-smith as long as I've known him so his end of our bargain has gone quite smoothly. Mine, well....
Here is the first one I'm not afraid to share.
AFTERTHOUGHT: Next year during April we should get everyone we know to write and share a poem a day. That's a cool idea.
spring 1969
flint hills burning
thick smoke tasting of last years grazing
the cattle fattened
where great herds of bison roamed
mere generations prior
a setting sun turns the horizon to
an aurora borealis of high-stepping flames, a smoldering fence from hell
leaving nothing but black and smoke and a single tree, survivor of the ages
the night sky reflected from scattered pools of water
worth driving south all the way from Topeka
on a Thursday night after school
without even thinking
you wanna go see some fire
eighty plus, no seat belts, windows open
the scents of spring, cigars and gasoline
and passing diesels
W-B-A-P coming through
clear as if you were in Possum Kingdom
I still remember the year Clayton Delaney died...
once asked to describe the smell
the only thing to come to mind was
history, maybe it smells just like
the great plains firestorms of the past
history
later parked at a high spot on the shoulder
near empty loading pens
turnpike traffic slows thinking we are in a bind
my father waves them on
silent
never sure what's he's seeing as he stares
leaning, elbows on the hood of the pickup
me not really tall enough to mimic his movements
he sips his beer from the cooler in the front seat
a Cragmont cola tastes as good as coke and cheaper
close enough to feel the heat
hear the crackle as stubble makes way for new spring grasses
and that black pasture that with each step
raises small clouds of ash and soot and prairie dust
aromatic incense perfuming the air
if I were forced to pick one smell for the rest of my life
it would be the flint hills burning
he rolls a cigarette, Prince Albert, like his father did
a new habit started last fall
when his father passed
my blackened sneakers
not a problem, mom will never know
before her weekend pass we'll wash them
our secret
after smoking, it is time to load up
drive south to a rest area
where they will mark our turnpike ticket
my father will save thirty-five cents
drinking my turnpike malt we head north into the dark night
illuminated by
flint hills burning
As some may know it is, has been, National Poetry Month during April. The Skeeter and I made a deal to compose a poem a day. I am no poet. Getting ready to celebrate the month on our school's website I reread many of my favorite poems from ages ago. It rekindled an interest of sorts.
The Skeeter has been a poet and song-smith as long as I've known him so his end of our bargain has gone quite smoothly. Mine, well....
Here is the first one I'm not afraid to share.
AFTERTHOUGHT: Next year during April we should get everyone we know to write and share a poem a day. That's a cool idea.
spring 1969
flint hills burning
thick smoke tasting of last years grazing
the cattle fattened
where great herds of bison roamed
mere generations prior
a setting sun turns the horizon to
an aurora borealis of high-stepping flames, a smoldering fence from hell
leaving nothing but black and smoke and a single tree, survivor of the ages
the night sky reflected from scattered pools of water
worth driving south all the way from Topeka
on a Thursday night after school
without even thinking
you wanna go see some fire
eighty plus, no seat belts, windows open
the scents of spring, cigars and gasoline
and passing diesels
W-B-A-P coming through
clear as if you were in Possum Kingdom
I still remember the year Clayton Delaney died...
once asked to describe the smell
the only thing to come to mind was
history, maybe it smells just like
the great plains firestorms of the past
history
later parked at a high spot on the shoulder
near empty loading pens
turnpike traffic slows thinking we are in a bind
my father waves them on
silent
never sure what's he's seeing as he stares
leaning, elbows on the hood of the pickup
me not really tall enough to mimic his movements
he sips his beer from the cooler in the front seat
a Cragmont cola tastes as good as coke and cheaper
close enough to feel the heat
hear the crackle as stubble makes way for new spring grasses
and that black pasture that with each step
raises small clouds of ash and soot and prairie dust
aromatic incense perfuming the air
if I were forced to pick one smell for the rest of my life
it would be the flint hills burning
he rolls a cigarette, Prince Albert, like his father did
a new habit started last fall
when his father passed
my blackened sneakers
not a problem, mom will never know
before her weekend pass we'll wash them
our secret
after smoking, it is time to load up
drive south to a rest area
where they will mark our turnpike ticket
my father will save thirty-five cents
drinking my turnpike malt we head north into the dark night
illuminated by
flint hills burning
Monday, December 7, 2009
The Story of the Christmas Potato
The Story of the Christmas Potato
Okay, December is here and so is the time to throw the holiday spud. Once again I'm on a mission to spread the custom far and wide. I guess this blog isn't the best way as nobody reads it. I'll not give up trying to let people know the joy that only comes with tossing and not hitting cars. One of the best things about moving into town is that there are lights everywhere. For me that is pretty neat. The kids are sort of bemused that we didn't spend bucks and bucks so we would have lights up to snuff and like the neighbors. Maybe next year.
I've already gotten reports from Manhattan, Riley county, Kansas where Marc Stratton and Sharlene Hunt's sister(gosh, I wish I could remember which one works with Marc) threw last Friday. As soon as our tree is decorated we will get a basket ready and keep some in the car to throw when the need arises. Down on 4th Ave there are some very nice displays and just around the corner in a window on !0th st. there for all to see is "a major award". Very nice. Read the story, throw some spuds and don't hit the cars. Remember every bit of Kinney Isaacs' story of the Christmas Potato is true. He is still the best imaginary best friend a guy ever had.
http://web.mac.com/rkoogar/the_life_of_riley/Welcome.html
I've tried and tried to post the story here with all of the illustrations and I can't make it work. That's the problem with being stupid. So, I guess if you are interested you can use the link.
I will keep trying.
Okay, December is here and so is the time to throw the holiday spud. Once again I'm on a mission to spread the custom far and wide. I guess this blog isn't the best way as nobody reads it. I'll not give up trying to let people know the joy that only comes with tossing and not hitting cars. One of the best things about moving into town is that there are lights everywhere. For me that is pretty neat. The kids are sort of bemused that we didn't spend bucks and bucks so we would have lights up to snuff and like the neighbors. Maybe next year.
I've already gotten reports from Manhattan, Riley county, Kansas where Marc Stratton and Sharlene Hunt's sister(gosh, I wish I could remember which one works with Marc) threw last Friday. As soon as our tree is decorated we will get a basket ready and keep some in the car to throw when the need arises. Down on 4th Ave there are some very nice displays and just around the corner in a window on !0th st. there for all to see is "a major award". Very nice. Read the story, throw some spuds and don't hit the cars. Remember every bit of Kinney Isaacs' story of the Christmas Potato is true. He is still the best imaginary best friend a guy ever had.
http://web.mac.com/rkoogar/the_life_of_riley/Welcome.html
I've tried and tried to post the story here with all of the illustrations and I can't make it work. That's the problem with being stupid. So, I guess if you are interested you can use the link.
I will keep trying.
Friday, December 4, 2009
Hot lava and the devil's love
A thought occurs to me. While reading stuff over at the spud site, catching all the typo's and misspellings now that I can't fix them(still no word on being able to access the 100 buck a year account) I reread a thought Haidee had some time a few years back. Just how self absorbed does one have to be to think people want to make an effort to read the stuff you post on a blog? About as much as me I guess.
Honestly, I don't think about anyone reading my stuff. Part of me wants friends to read as it is a way to share stories and such w/o having to type it several times. I like typing. I find it soothing. When I type this stuff I can pretend I'm one of my idols like Cormac McCarthy and not bother with punctuation and a style manual. Art in his case just darn lazy in mine. I like getting the stories out of my head. Lots of stuff was written long ago and I never showed anybody. Whether I should or shouldn't have doesn't matter to me.
Here's the cool thing. I can. That's it. No more, no less. I have the ability to put my stuff out where anybody who wants to can look.
Before this moment in history if there was a budding writer, musician, or artist that wanted to share the work they worked so hard on, it didn't always get to happen. I look back at the energy Crager and I put into screenplays...people won' get to see the movies, not necessarily just because they weren't any good, we just didn't have the means. Technology allows this, it allowed Los Matatvacas, it allows anyone with Internet access to get their work out there. In a world were those that have want to separate themselves as much as they can from us that don't, technology gives all of us a smidgen of equality. Geez, what would Woody Guthrie have done if he'd had access to a web site. Talk about roll on buddy and this land is our land.
So, I'm going to post away. When the mood hits me I will hit the keys and see what shows up.
Still just tickles the crud out of me to see the words show up legibly in front of me.
Today's tidbit came from my driving around with expired tags and inspection stickers. The notion of a stipend or a big bag of money dropping from the sky has helped me in times of desperation to imagine how I'd prioritize things if I needed to. The obese lady is based on fact and some of the dialog as well. That's it. I'd never be able to create a phrase as great as hot lava and the devil's love no matter how hard I tried.
Hot lava and the devil's love...
I hate women, not all women, just the ones I can't stand. That isn't even really true. They make me angry. My wife, I didn't hate her until she didn't love me and decided the cool hip thing to do was run away with a history teacher. It wasn't even a hot buff coach slash history teacher that cared more about coaching than knowing that freedom riders existed before he was born and changed our society. It was a widowed history teacher about our age who had been hired during her first year as a principal. The paranoid me always thought Chet's hiring was just one aspect of a wide ranging adulterous conspiracy designed to leave me devastated and alone. The rational me never quite understood why it happened. Looking back I have been convinced that it was all my fault and that Melody was blameless only falling for the sweater wearing bald history teacher because of my lack of attention and his quick wit.
The me that is typing hates women. Again, not actually true, but as I'm typing it is a good thing Melody isn't over here filling my ears with her woes about Chet and his wandering eye. You soiled the bed so to speak, now lie in it. She does that some. Not the lie in bed, the complaining. Not a lot and not every time we see each other. Friends tell me, why do you put up with that, tell her to leave you alone. Why should you help her sort out a less than healthy relationship with the man who stole her from you, why? She's my wife, was my wife, whatever. When she was my wife she was as good a friend as you could get up until the sleeping with a subordinate which could get you fired if anyone had known about it before you switched buildings and spouses. What do you do?
Melody is why I can't really hate women. She was the one that proved to me you really can love women. She would marry me. Something I hadn't been able to convince anyone to do in 30 years. She was not my first love and hopefully won't be my last. She was easily in the top 5 more than likely top 3. Even now she's a pretty good friend. I'll help anyway I can. Not money, but everything else. Money is what got us into this mess. Melody continues to claim it was nothing I did that drove her away. She wasn't even driven away. It was just that Chet... and that's when I tell her, spare me.
I work but I don't have a career. I have a job that I do that I enjoy and that pays me enough to support myself. Melody was a teacher when I met her. After we'd been married three years she decided she wanted to be a principal. It would mean good things for us.It seemed like a good idea to me. The extra money would be nice. Summers would be long for a few years. There would be much late night studying but with that I could help. Melody wanted things, flashy pretty things that cost money a new job would pay for. We could have had them I guess. I could have freed up some of my stipend and put the money into circulation. I took care of the checkbook.I could have moved some money without her knowing. I was afraid. I was afraid of the questions about the origins of the money and why had I been able to live such a materialistically satisfying life with the job I had.
I get a stipend once a month for some work I do, did for the government. Pursuant to a legally binding agreement, that is just about as much as I can say about the stipend without jeopardising my receiving it. Let's just say it was a good thing not a bad thing and we really didn't need the money or honestly any money, as the stipend was guaranteed to take care of me until I no longer needed taking care of. For those and maybe other reasons I couldn't tell Melody about the stipend and she had to assume I'd make about 11 bucks an hour the rest of my life. In time, I'd planned to win a lottery or inherit money from an uncle I'd never met. The savings account containing the stipend funds could then be made public, we would have cash, and nobody need know it would still be coming in at the same ridicules rate. Sometimes legally binding agreements can be a good thing.
Melody was fast tracked through the administrator program and assigned a school much more quickly than we had expected. With the first paycheck she decided we needed a new car. When Chet had been assigned to her school he'd made a good impression. He was certified to teach history, math, and wood-shop. When his wife had passed, her estate had allowed him to just go to school for several years. He didn't need the job just as I didn't need mine. They had been a childless couple which left him with no responsibilities. Chet decided he wanted to be a teacher after watching a particularly moving, very special episode of Leave it to Beaver. Teaching was an experiment to him. He'd try it and see what developed. What developed was an affair, which caused a divorce, which the details of I don't want to talk about. It's done, it's over. I don't want to worry about it. I can live off my stipend and my alimony payment.
Yep, that's right. I think it a small price to pay for the school board not knowing just when a relationship started. Chet was reassigned his second year to another campus where his amazing skills were better suited. If I'm not mistaken he would be able to teach English, math, wood-shop, and nurse the babies of the high school mothers who used the campus daycare. After all, Chet is such an amazing man. After his transfer I found out about the two of them. Not sure if it is the easy way or the hard way. Melody just came out with it in a blurted ramble at supper one night. She'd already spoken to a lawyer and had everything figured out. I'd lose nothing but a wife. I got to keep everything else. I'm not sure if that was a bargain but it was what it was and what I got. Looking back if we'd known what rap was I could have recorded her speech and spliced it over music innumerable times and had just as healthy a career as any one of a dozen posthumous rappers.
Not two years later, I'm sitting in my basement typing this. I still do my job. I'm up to nearly 15 bucks an hour but it doesn't matter. I can quit whenever I'm bored. Maybe I'll remarry. Unlikely as in my line of work it isn't that often females see you as a good catch. Usually they tend to look the other way as if they've caught me picking at my nose. Cat Man said that was the best way to avoid the cops, picking your nose, as nobody wants to hold their vision on someone with a finger at work. Once when Melody and I were stuck in Christmas shopping traffic we both turned in a moment of cosmic synchronicity to catch the obese lady in the car next to us pull a holiday treasure from her nose, look at it, and then eat it. Our combined screams turned to laugh 'till you vomit laughter and on to become one of the most treasured and oft retold moments of our life together. Could be that says something about our marriage.
Another time at a restaurant while we outlined plans for a vacation in Oklahoma(relationship observation number 2) an unusual family was seated next to us. The parents were older with two children. One child sat quietly and read a book. The other seemed to have something wrong with him. I'm not one to judge, actually I am, but the kid just wasn't right. You could tell by the things he blurted out, his inability to sit still and the constant redirection of his parents. Also he was named Hobart. To me, branding a kid with that name damns him to a life of ridicule, taunting, and a disadvantage with peers from day one. It is rough enough to be nuts and then to be called Hobart. I can only hope it was a family name and not something two parents stewed over baby name books days to find. However, I feel certain the proud parents were overly excited when congratulating themselves on finding such a wonderfully chic name for a baby.
Hobart became progressively more agitated as his family waited on "Hi, I'm Heather" to bring the appetizer. The mother attempted to engage Hobart in conversation while waiting for his cheese sticks with blue cheese not red. Never bring me red. Red is bad. Red means bad things like bloody death and bones. Firetrucks are red because ladders go up to heaven and down to hell. I must have blue cheese not red. Red stands for the devil. I don't like the devil. The devil can get you and on and on and on and on until I found out the devil could shake you inside out into a bag of bloody skeleton bones that wants blue cheese not red.
I came very close to asking the staff to seat us at another table. I'd always liked red with my cheese sticks. Suddenly without warning Hobart slammed his fists on the table sending his jolly kids' cup flying off into space and causing the silverware to ring like a glen of fairy bells. The diners in our section turned as one even while trying to ignore the disturbance at the table next to us. When all eyes were transfixed his way in the unusual momentary restaurant silence Hobart blurted, "I hate women. Girls are just filled with hot lava and the devil's love."
That thought hung in the silence, frozen, floating long enough for the entire room to absorb the impact.
Maybe, Hobart wasn't so crazy after all.
Honestly, I don't think about anyone reading my stuff. Part of me wants friends to read as it is a way to share stories and such w/o having to type it several times. I like typing. I find it soothing. When I type this stuff I can pretend I'm one of my idols like Cormac McCarthy and not bother with punctuation and a style manual. Art in his case just darn lazy in mine. I like getting the stories out of my head. Lots of stuff was written long ago and I never showed anybody. Whether I should or shouldn't have doesn't matter to me.
Here's the cool thing. I can. That's it. No more, no less. I have the ability to put my stuff out where anybody who wants to can look.
Before this moment in history if there was a budding writer, musician, or artist that wanted to share the work they worked so hard on, it didn't always get to happen. I look back at the energy Crager and I put into screenplays...people won' get to see the movies, not necessarily just because they weren't any good, we just didn't have the means. Technology allows this, it allowed Los Matatvacas, it allows anyone with Internet access to get their work out there. In a world were those that have want to separate themselves as much as they can from us that don't, technology gives all of us a smidgen of equality. Geez, what would Woody Guthrie have done if he'd had access to a web site. Talk about roll on buddy and this land is our land.
So, I'm going to post away. When the mood hits me I will hit the keys and see what shows up.
Still just tickles the crud out of me to see the words show up legibly in front of me.
Today's tidbit came from my driving around with expired tags and inspection stickers. The notion of a stipend or a big bag of money dropping from the sky has helped me in times of desperation to imagine how I'd prioritize things if I needed to. The obese lady is based on fact and some of the dialog as well. That's it. I'd never be able to create a phrase as great as hot lava and the devil's love no matter how hard I tried.
Hot lava and the devil's love...
I hate women, not all women, just the ones I can't stand. That isn't even really true. They make me angry. My wife, I didn't hate her until she didn't love me and decided the cool hip thing to do was run away with a history teacher. It wasn't even a hot buff coach slash history teacher that cared more about coaching than knowing that freedom riders existed before he was born and changed our society. It was a widowed history teacher about our age who had been hired during her first year as a principal. The paranoid me always thought Chet's hiring was just one aspect of a wide ranging adulterous conspiracy designed to leave me devastated and alone. The rational me never quite understood why it happened. Looking back I have been convinced that it was all my fault and that Melody was blameless only falling for the sweater wearing bald history teacher because of my lack of attention and his quick wit.
The me that is typing hates women. Again, not actually true, but as I'm typing it is a good thing Melody isn't over here filling my ears with her woes about Chet and his wandering eye. You soiled the bed so to speak, now lie in it. She does that some. Not the lie in bed, the complaining. Not a lot and not every time we see each other. Friends tell me, why do you put up with that, tell her to leave you alone. Why should you help her sort out a less than healthy relationship with the man who stole her from you, why? She's my wife, was my wife, whatever. When she was my wife she was as good a friend as you could get up until the sleeping with a subordinate which could get you fired if anyone had known about it before you switched buildings and spouses. What do you do?
Melody is why I can't really hate women. She was the one that proved to me you really can love women. She would marry me. Something I hadn't been able to convince anyone to do in 30 years. She was not my first love and hopefully won't be my last. She was easily in the top 5 more than likely top 3. Even now she's a pretty good friend. I'll help anyway I can. Not money, but everything else. Money is what got us into this mess. Melody continues to claim it was nothing I did that drove her away. She wasn't even driven away. It was just that Chet... and that's when I tell her, spare me.
I work but I don't have a career. I have a job that I do that I enjoy and that pays me enough to support myself. Melody was a teacher when I met her. After we'd been married three years she decided she wanted to be a principal. It would mean good things for us.It seemed like a good idea to me. The extra money would be nice. Summers would be long for a few years. There would be much late night studying but with that I could help. Melody wanted things, flashy pretty things that cost money a new job would pay for. We could have had them I guess. I could have freed up some of my stipend and put the money into circulation. I took care of the checkbook.I could have moved some money without her knowing. I was afraid. I was afraid of the questions about the origins of the money and why had I been able to live such a materialistically satisfying life with the job I had.
I get a stipend once a month for some work I do, did for the government. Pursuant to a legally binding agreement, that is just about as much as I can say about the stipend without jeopardising my receiving it. Let's just say it was a good thing not a bad thing and we really didn't need the money or honestly any money, as the stipend was guaranteed to take care of me until I no longer needed taking care of. For those and maybe other reasons I couldn't tell Melody about the stipend and she had to assume I'd make about 11 bucks an hour the rest of my life. In time, I'd planned to win a lottery or inherit money from an uncle I'd never met. The savings account containing the stipend funds could then be made public, we would have cash, and nobody need know it would still be coming in at the same ridicules rate. Sometimes legally binding agreements can be a good thing.
Melody was fast tracked through the administrator program and assigned a school much more quickly than we had expected. With the first paycheck she decided we needed a new car. When Chet had been assigned to her school he'd made a good impression. He was certified to teach history, math, and wood-shop. When his wife had passed, her estate had allowed him to just go to school for several years. He didn't need the job just as I didn't need mine. They had been a childless couple which left him with no responsibilities. Chet decided he wanted to be a teacher after watching a particularly moving, very special episode of Leave it to Beaver. Teaching was an experiment to him. He'd try it and see what developed. What developed was an affair, which caused a divorce, which the details of I don't want to talk about. It's done, it's over. I don't want to worry about it. I can live off my stipend and my alimony payment.
Yep, that's right. I think it a small price to pay for the school board not knowing just when a relationship started. Chet was reassigned his second year to another campus where his amazing skills were better suited. If I'm not mistaken he would be able to teach English, math, wood-shop, and nurse the babies of the high school mothers who used the campus daycare. After all, Chet is such an amazing man. After his transfer I found out about the two of them. Not sure if it is the easy way or the hard way. Melody just came out with it in a blurted ramble at supper one night. She'd already spoken to a lawyer and had everything figured out. I'd lose nothing but a wife. I got to keep everything else. I'm not sure if that was a bargain but it was what it was and what I got. Looking back if we'd known what rap was I could have recorded her speech and spliced it over music innumerable times and had just as healthy a career as any one of a dozen posthumous rappers.
Not two years later, I'm sitting in my basement typing this. I still do my job. I'm up to nearly 15 bucks an hour but it doesn't matter. I can quit whenever I'm bored. Maybe I'll remarry. Unlikely as in my line of work it isn't that often females see you as a good catch. Usually they tend to look the other way as if they've caught me picking at my nose. Cat Man said that was the best way to avoid the cops, picking your nose, as nobody wants to hold their vision on someone with a finger at work. Once when Melody and I were stuck in Christmas shopping traffic we both turned in a moment of cosmic synchronicity to catch the obese lady in the car next to us pull a holiday treasure from her nose, look at it, and then eat it. Our combined screams turned to laugh 'till you vomit laughter and on to become one of the most treasured and oft retold moments of our life together. Could be that says something about our marriage.
Another time at a restaurant while we outlined plans for a vacation in Oklahoma(relationship observation number 2) an unusual family was seated next to us. The parents were older with two children. One child sat quietly and read a book. The other seemed to have something wrong with him. I'm not one to judge, actually I am, but the kid just wasn't right. You could tell by the things he blurted out, his inability to sit still and the constant redirection of his parents. Also he was named Hobart. To me, branding a kid with that name damns him to a life of ridicule, taunting, and a disadvantage with peers from day one. It is rough enough to be nuts and then to be called Hobart. I can only hope it was a family name and not something two parents stewed over baby name books days to find. However, I feel certain the proud parents were overly excited when congratulating themselves on finding such a wonderfully chic name for a baby.
Hobart became progressively more agitated as his family waited on "Hi, I'm Heather" to bring the appetizer. The mother attempted to engage Hobart in conversation while waiting for his cheese sticks with blue cheese not red. Never bring me red. Red is bad. Red means bad things like bloody death and bones. Firetrucks are red because ladders go up to heaven and down to hell. I must have blue cheese not red. Red stands for the devil. I don't like the devil. The devil can get you and on and on and on and on until I found out the devil could shake you inside out into a bag of bloody skeleton bones that wants blue cheese not red.
I came very close to asking the staff to seat us at another table. I'd always liked red with my cheese sticks. Suddenly without warning Hobart slammed his fists on the table sending his jolly kids' cup flying off into space and causing the silverware to ring like a glen of fairy bells. The diners in our section turned as one even while trying to ignore the disturbance at the table next to us. When all eyes were transfixed his way in the unusual momentary restaurant silence Hobart blurted, "I hate women. Girls are just filled with hot lava and the devil's love."
That thought hung in the silence, frozen, floating long enough for the entire room to absorb the impact.
Maybe, Hobart wasn't so crazy after all.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Important announcement
This just in.....
Here is the address of the Christmas Potato site. Nothing has changed or been corrected in ages because I can't log in and nobody seems to be able to help me or respond to my letters. So...
here's the address:
http://web.mac.com/rkoogar/the_life_of_riley/Welcome.html
Consider the typos and mistakes as little where's waldo's you are trying to find.
There's some good stuff there and it explains all about holiday potato tossing.
Also here is a link to a great page about Truman Capote and his story, "A Christmas Memory."
http://sixthcolumn.typepad.com/duckwalls/2008/12/truman-capote-a.html
More than anything else this story and the Frank Perry filmed based on it made me want to write and create movies. I related to Buddy I guess. Elements of his life fit into my head as part of how I rightly or wrongly perceived mine. My family made fudge instead of fruitcakes although one year dad made some that lasted until we moved from Topeka in '73. As an employee of the federal government he wasn't allowed to to throw them out without filing an environmental impact statement. Okay, that's a lie, but it wouldn't have been a bad idea. Every time I go to Topeka I visit the spot where I disposed of them illegally to see if they have started breaking down and decomposing. Two years ago I could have sworn there was a small spot missing, maybe a loose pecan or piece of candied fruit had been torn away by one of the dead squirrels littering the ground near the spot. The ground is cursed and no successful development has taken place in that area.
Capote's books lend themselves to being read aloud. Not all books do that. Check out the audio file of the book at that link. Got to run. The library just called and they got a Bud Shrake book I've been looking for.
Here is the address of the Christmas Potato site. Nothing has changed or been corrected in ages because I can't log in and nobody seems to be able to help me or respond to my letters. So...
here's the address:
http://web.mac.com/rkoogar/the_life_of_riley/Welcome.html
Consider the typos and mistakes as little where's waldo's you are trying to find.
There's some good stuff there and it explains all about holiday potato tossing.
Also here is a link to a great page about Truman Capote and his story, "A Christmas Memory."
http://sixthcolumn.typepad.com/duckwalls/2008/12/truman-capote-a.html
More than anything else this story and the Frank Perry filmed based on it made me want to write and create movies. I related to Buddy I guess. Elements of his life fit into my head as part of how I rightly or wrongly perceived mine. My family made fudge instead of fruitcakes although one year dad made some that lasted until we moved from Topeka in '73. As an employee of the federal government he wasn't allowed to to throw them out without filing an environmental impact statement. Okay, that's a lie, but it wouldn't have been a bad idea. Every time I go to Topeka I visit the spot where I disposed of them illegally to see if they have started breaking down and decomposing. Two years ago I could have sworn there was a small spot missing, maybe a loose pecan or piece of candied fruit had been torn away by one of the dead squirrels littering the ground near the spot. The ground is cursed and no successful development has taken place in that area.
Capote's books lend themselves to being read aloud. Not all books do that. Check out the audio file of the book at that link. Got to run. The library just called and they got a Bud Shrake book I've been looking for.
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