The sun had recently taken its place in the morning sky. The waves rose blue & sky high & pounded mightily into the shore. I’ve never seen waves so tall — a phenomena not lost on the surfers who plied them.

To my left, away from the beach, mountains covered in lush green jungle darted up toward the sky. The mountains are part of the world’s largest urban wildlife preserve. The house where I stayed was nestled in those hillsides, a mile from the beach, up a winding canyon road. At night I would perch on the house’s balcony, the twin peaks of Pedra da Gávea and Pedra Bonita towering above, and marvel at the quiet in the forest that engulfed us; surrounded though we were by one of Earth’s great metropolises.

I’m not much of a runner. I do it whenever I can muster the get up-&-go — but most days, no get up. Not go. And when I do get up, I don’t go far. Oh and I run pretty slow.

Something about my surroundings that morning bid me to pick up the pace. I broke into what amounted at best to a pretty pathetic sprint. It felt good though. I wasn’t giving it my all, maybe, but I gave it more than usual. I ran hard for a few dozen yards, then slowed. But the Voice in my brain would have no part. It screamed. GO!

I ran harder, all the way to the end of the beach, where I paused to take in the scenery. In front of me a majestic cliff crashed into the sea. The waves roared. The sand glistened. The jungle-covered mountains..I was surrounded by an embarrassment of riches, which in that moment felt oddly unsatisfying.

I am a big fan of stunning natural beauty. Yet in the midst of it all, i was overcome by a powerful hankering for some genuine urban grit.

That voice in my head — the one that screamed GO! — wakes me up every morning at daybreak. Sometimes it says something, like “run Mike E, run!” Most days it wakes me silently. I don’t know how it gets my eyes to open. But I know what it wants me to do. Run. Even though I am far more inclined to go to sleep, than wake up, at daybreak. And once awakened more inclined to sit there & not do anything. Wake up and run? You got the wrong guy. I’m the guy who used to stay up all night so I could throw eggs at joggers in the morning!

Yet this voice — despite its relentlessness — it is friendly in tone. Perhaps it wants what’s best for me. One could go so far as to call it a Guide, or an ally. Nevertheless, when it wakes me at daybreak — it feels like my enemy.

It is, for good or ill, an easily disposed of enemy. Most days the voice is readily silenced by a few more hours of sleep. I even smile smugly, sometimes, in a snotty, “can’t make me!” kind of way. But then I feel out of sorts, when I wake up. Like I’m in the wrong place at the right time, already — before I even get out of bed.

I knew I was in the right place at the right time, when I woke up in Rio and saw a streak of dawn’s light in the sky. I don’t wake up in Rio every morning & there are only so many hours in the day. I leaped into my running shoes & bolted a mile downhill to the ocean. Ran to the other end of the beach. And felt out of place in the midst of all that early morning beauty.

Something was missing; something I hankered for wasn’t there.

“Look!” Said the Voice. “Grit.”

My head turned and my eyes rested on the hillside that rose to my left.

Rocinha.

I had seen it before, from a distance, at night. The favela, or Brazilian slum, appeared more brightly lit than the affluent Sao Conrado neighborhood it towers above. More vibrant & alive. By day Rocinha was a colorful mis-mash of many thousands of dwellings crammed precariously onto a steep hillside.

My local friends had assured me that the favela was dangerous — somewhere I should not go. I ran toward it as fast as my skinny legs carried me.

It is true that Rocinha is controlled by gangs of machine-gun wielding drug bandits. I saw a different side of the neighborhood, at 7:30 that morning. I ran uphill, against the human current, while thousands of adults & kids walked down on their way to work & school.

Rocinha is bisected by one main road — Estrada Das Gavea — which climbs the hill in a series of steep switchbacks. Most of the favela has no street access; it is reachable by a labyrinth of alleys and stairways. I stuck to the Estrada, on my first visit, running in the street as hundreds of blaring-horn motorcycle taxis — the local’s preferred mode of transport — cranked by.

I didn’t need the voice in my head to make me go — this time I wanted to run. I did slow down, a couple times, figured I deserved a break, but it seemed to take more energy to walk than to run. So I pretty much hauled it the whole way up.

By the time I reached the top, I’d begun to understand what the Voice is all about. It is about what I want ultimately — even when I don’t see it that way. In this case it was about the endorphins — them little doohickies in my brain that reward me for running at dawn. Reward me the old fashioned way — by getting me High. As a loon! With a tremendous view of my new favorite town to boot.

So I did what any self-respecting buzz junkie would do. I grabbed a motorcycle taxi down the hill — like a backwards ski-mountain chairlift — and ran to the top again.

Vroom.

I Dunno If They Fags Or What
Shake A Nigga Down
& Grabbing His Nuts
>>NWA

I heard the NYPD van before I saw it. I was walking home from the 6 train, same way I always do, when the *Beep BEEP* warning of a commercial vehicle backing up rang down Watson Ave. I turned my head back & noticed the police van making a 3-point reverse U turn a block behind me.

“Here we go.” I thought.

But what the hell? I did not care. I knew who they thought I was — and I knew damn well they had the wrong guy.

Searching My Pants
Looking Fo’ The Product
Thinkin Every White Boy
Is Buying Narcotics!

At the moment I live in the Soundview neighborhood of Bronx, NY. Watson Avenue, the street I walk home on every day from the 6 train, is described by Wikipedia as “One of the most violent open-air drug markets in America.”

That ain’t true. Not that my neighborhood is free of violent crime. Here’s the most recent stats available:

Location Precinct 43
Week start date September 7, 2009
Week end date September 13, 2009
Precinct Precinct 43
Murders 0
Rapes 0
Robberies 6
Felony assaults 12
Burglaries 8
Grand larcenies 12
Grand larcenies (auto) 6

There are more crimes some weeks, less others. After 3 weeks in the neighborhood, my personal experience is that if I mind my own business I’ll make it home safely from the 6 train — and I (predictably) come home very late some nights.

Not to say that I’ll never get jumped for my loot. That is life in the big city. On the rare occasions that I have enough money to rob, I leave all but the bare minimum at home. No big deal.

But the incontestable fact of the matter is that Watson Avenue in Soundview, Bronx in not an “open air drug market.” Sorry Wikipedia — I would know.

First off: I know damn well what an Open Air Drug Market is. Think of the number of years I spent on Grateful Dead & Phish tour. Right? That was where we jollily cruised the parking lots before the concerts with our pockets loaded with Whatevers, looking for that certain kind of someone — we called ‘em Custiez — who wanted to buy.

Nuff said on that score. The point here is that I know exactly what a good Custie looks like — and up here in the Bronx, that’s me.

Maybe there is drug activity in the neighborhood. Sure wouldn’t surprise me. But — based on the solid fact that I have never been approached on the street (despite that I’ve occasionally wished I would be) — whatever business happens here clearly goes down behind closed doors.

Not an open air drug market, by definition.

That said: I do totally live in the ‘Hood. Gritty as fuck in these parts. Soundview has the highest concentration of public housing in New York City; I am surrounded by 20-story high housing Projects. I do get looked at twice sometimes. I am almost certainly the only white person in my neighborhood. But my interactions thus far with locals have been entirely positive. I have not been threatened, menaced or generally fucked with at any time in any way. By anyone.

Until the other afternoon — by four assholes from the NYPD.

The police van parked a half-block ahead of me, right in front of the bodega on Watson by the Bronxdale houses. I knew they were waiting for me, but when I walked by & the said “Hey You!” I just kept walking — on general principals. They said Hey You again. I thought about keeping on my way, but why bother? Like I said: they had the wrong guy.

The cop in the passenger seat asked me for ID. Forget about protesting, do as They say. No, it may not be legally proper for them to ask for your Papers while you innocently walk down the street. I might be a dumb country bumpkin from Vermont but I know better. This is the New York City Police Department. What difference do Laws make?

Oops, my bad. Turns out it is completely legal to stop and frisk — and they exercise that legal right 500,000+ times per year. Mind you 88% of the people they stop & frisk are innocent & let go on their way — like me.

But legal or no — that was fucking bullshit.

I handed the cop my ID. Before he even asked me a question the other 3 cops were out of the van. And without saying a word, they lifted up my shirt and groped their hands inside the waistline of my pants.

Like NWA said..

They asked me where I was coming from. Truth was I had been in Harlem, eating lunch at Manna’s Soul Food kitchen — the bomb. I told them so. Main point I kept trying to make was that — despite what my Vermont drivers license suggested — I live in the god damn neighborhood.

The one cop kept asking me Wadaya got wadaya got? I mean he asked me like 10 times. Kept saying nothing, nothing — totally true. I was just walking home. Totally true. He kept asking, again and again. Finally told him it didn’t matter how many times he asked me, the honest answer was gonna be the same.

Now. If I was back in Vermont — totally clean, going about my legal business — I would have raised fucking hell. But this is the NYPD. And when they fuck with you you can eat shit & fuck off — if you’re lucky.

Retarded thing was when — 10 minutes into the frisk — they asked me why I looked so nervous. After they lifted my shirt up & groped down my pants. Whatever.

I told them I was nervous because I was surrounded by cops getting “shook down” while I walked home.

That’s what we call it when cops search you back home.

When I said that they got strangely defensive, insisted they weren’t Shaking Me Down. Talking about it with a friend afterward, I realized that in New York City when a cop “shakes you down” it means they’re roughing you up for a Payoff.

Now. The cops weren’t doing that. I might add, albeit altogether slanderously, that they knew too well what a “shakedown” was. But whatever. My mistake.

Point is I was innocent — and they were assholes, who would never have been there if I had needed them.

I also know that my experience — however violating — is a too regular occurrence for people who live in neighborhoods like soundview. However: Since I live in this neighborhood myself due to my own economic disadvantage, I feel perfectly righteous about joining the long-harassed locals by saying:

Fuck the Police!

I’ts been too long a time that he’s been away.

We, at this very moment are doing what we would normally do,

with the correct stimulation at hand, and the desire to write.

This was a while ago, even before he started this blog,

even before  I started to draw seriously.

We wrote late into the night, and then into the next day,

and then into the next night, and so on and so forth.

We’re doing that now.

My friend moved away to the big city,

some time ago,  leaving this town with a wound.

But then others have left as well, havn’t they.

Some return. Much to the satisfaction of the cadre.

I have friends I havn’t seen in years now.

It would be nice to see them again.

Some are in Hawaii, some in Oregon, or someother such place.

Some are where I know not.

All roads lead to Brattleboro.

That’s what they say.

Brattleboro Vermont, home to tweakers, vegetarians, nudists,

and an incredible assortment of individuals.

Trapeeze artists, regular artists, glass blowers, corn holers,

cow tippers, frizbee flippers.

We have hoboes that return to Bratt this time of year,

a dirty green black combination,

that must be by embracing soot.

The Morris Dancers return to Brattleboro, every Memorial Day, like the swallows returning to Cappistrano.

A bunch of dandies they are, singing sailing song, drinking to excess at McNeill’s,

then go out, get the street closed down sothey can dance their little dance,

with their jangly bells, and little white hankerchiefs. They do indeed look silly.

There are some funny laws, or should I say non-laws,

such as nudity. Some kids last summer or prehaps the summer before started hanging around Harmony Parking Lot.

Soon, old wrinkled farts were soon spotted prancing about in thier bestest birthday suits.

If you want to, you can still walk nude here but it will cost you 100 bucks.

Dr. Phil came here to see if there were any marketable aspects that he could elicit.

What a dope. Hollywood doesnt apply to Bratt.

We are immune.

We have the oldest mental hospital in the country,

it’s called the Brattleboro Retreat.

It seem that they open the doors late at night to let some of them out,

cause we here do have a seriousproblem with people that just dont seem to

understand the concept of reality. The water in The Connecticut River has been known to run north on occasion,

I have witnessed that myself just last year. Damnest thing.

In Brattleboro, around the turn of the 20th century they had here The Water Cure.

Several establishments that proclaimed that our water, out of some specific wells could cure all manner of ailments.

They are gone now, but are they really?

I lived in an apartment building right on top of one of these water cures, on Elliot St.

That’s right downtown for people not from around these parts.

In any case, I belive they left some unfinished buisness in my building.

There were happenings in that building that you would just not belive.

Just ask Dexterity, Absinthe Eve or prehaps Xela, and they would tell you gentle reader,

that some of the goings on in that building would make you think the place was haunted.

Oh sure, I may have over imbibed on ocaision, remaining so thoroughly fucked up that I might have hallucinated some of it.

Then again, this is Brattleboro, and many unnatural things  tend to happen here.

 It is good to see my friend again. 

I have another friend that moved away,

all the way to that other coast.

He returned to visit a year and a half ago,

and just before he left, as we were sitting around my drawing table, I turned to reach for something,

and having turned back I saw a white rock {coral}. It had, as  they all do,  in my rock collection,   natural holes right through them.

I had had on another stone, removed it and put the new one on. I still have it on. It’s never been off.

Thank you my friend.

I have a website with a few of  my more recent drawings on it. It ‘s www.drawntomyart.com      

Hello to all my old friends out there. I miss you all.

PS  Make sure you give Mike e a ration of shit for not writing this himself.

a spaceship & a

Wookie!

go to the school of hard knocks

but tonight i’m playin hooky.

cause that’s

the way you do It

don’t jump the turnstile

i walk right through it

just slip in the side

clyde

slip in the side door

& move & move &

move upon the dance floor

i found jesus christ

back @ Eugene ‘ninety 4

told me to Quit My JOB

& go on Mike E’s Day Off Tour

cause that’s the way you do it

don’t jump the turnstile I

walk right through it

truckin

I’m gone insane

shit

i’m more addicted than jane

get high wit a little help from

TNT Bang!

& when i say “i’m ok” you know

they LoOk at me kinda strange

I know

I know

I can’t stop twitching

But that’s because my rhymes are BITCHIN

boss said mike e

Your fired!

I says Fuck You

I’m RETIRED!!

cause that’s the way you do it

don’t jump the

turnstile

! !  !  ! !

We were somewhere near

Pluto

when the drugs began to take hold

rolling w/the Top Down

in this spaceship i stole

move ova ova ova

Move Over LonO!

one man gathers

what another man Folds

cause that’s the Way You Do It

i got an open container of make believe

no that ain’t workin

that’s the way you do it!

Buy the ticket? Why botha!!

we Takes The Ride for free.

38 or 39? Plumb could not recall.

Like, lemme see. I was born in 1971. So. ’71 to ’81 is 10 years.  ’81 to ’91 is 20. Turned 30 in 2001. Right? Double-check. ’71, ’81, ’91. Right! 10, 20, 30. Now the tricky part.

Turned 31 in 2002. 32 in ’03. OK. But wait! I thought to myself. Took a moment to reminisce about birthdays past. I was homeless — not unusually — on my 30th birthday. That particular winter I actually lived in the restaurant where I also occasionally washed dishes.

Why not? The beer was free after all the other employees went home. And the fact is that dishwashers never get fired — even when the dishwasher has to sleep in the restaurant because he has nowhere else to go.

Even when the dishwashers, after a long night of drug use, emerge into the restaurant’s dining room on Sunday morning & literally scare away the Brunch Customers — even then they don’t fire the dishwasher. Because if they do then someone else will have to wash the dishes — and no one else wants to.

Oh shit hold on. I lost count. Turned 20 in ’91. 30 in ’01. 31 in ’02. 32 in ’03. Etc & so on.

Well you get the idea — I’m too old to care how old I really am. But I always get curious, with regards to the current tally, around my birthday — and today I was pleasantly surprised to realize that I’m only 38.

I ran into a snag at the bank the other day.

Actually the snag began in my wallet. There wasn’t enough money there. Actually there was none. Therein lay the Snag. But it quickly devolved into a systemic snag that threatened the existence of my entire personal banking system.

Trouble was: Rent. I mentioned a couple posts back that after I paid rent this month I would have no money for food. That was true. People who know me well know that when I say “I’m broke” well – I’m not fucking around. Broke to me does not mean I have only such-&-such small amount of cash laying about.

When I say I’m Broke it means that my ass is so broke it’s about to fall off.

That’s how it was after I paid rent last week. Now. My housemate/landlord is a cool enough cat; I could have shorted him $25 on the rent & paid it next week. But rent paid on time – longtime readers surely understand – is a matter of prickly importance to me. I don’t want to ask if I can be $25 short on the rent. I want to pay my rent In Full within days of when it’s due – and that’s that.

And that left me inadvertently short on the Basics. I had a grand total of $2 dollars in the bank. I needed $5 to ride the Metro; incontestably needed to get from Here to There and the charge was $5. I had $2. So I ran my debit card through the machine at the Metro station & VOILA!! The transaction was approved.

Well now. I thought to myself. If they’ll let me overdraw my checking account to buy a Metro ticket – if they’re into that kind of thing – well the fact was I was also short the $7 I needed for a pack of smokes. And come to think of it I was pretty hungry.

I went to 7-11 & bought smokes. Transaction Approved. Sandwich shop? Transaction Approved. It wasn’t exactly a Spending Spree. I dropped $26 bucks of money I did not have – money I knew for a fact did not have. A deliberate act to be sure. But I needed stuff I couldn’t afford & Bank of America let me buy it.

$26 grand total worth of Durable Goods.

Couple days later I looked online to check my account balance. Those $26 worth of purchases blossomed into a bank account that was suddenly $200 overdrawn. $200!! A $35 dollar fee was levied on each of the 3 overdrafts. Plus some random $10 dollar bullshit for a number of failed attempts by the bank to cover the overdrafts from my empty savings account. Does that even add up to $200? Bank of America says so. And as far as they are concerned that’s final.

I’d need to cough up the $200 to keep my bank account in good standing.

Begged the question: Why Bother?

My instinct was to go ahead & close my Bank Of America account & open another one at a different bank that would start me off with a zero balance. Why not?

Far as I was concerned I did not owe Bank Of America a damn thing. For what? Overdraft fees? Give me a fucking break.

Bank Of America recently bought Merrill Lynch. Fair enough. Banks buy each other. Trouble with that deal was that Bank Of America could not afford to buy Merrill Lynch. They did not have enough money in the bank.

They fucked up.

So…did Bank Of America get charged some gargantuan Overdraft Fee for initiating a transaction their ledger couldn’t cover?

Oh no.

When Bank Of America overdrew their account they were not penalized but instead rewarded with a $45 billion handout of taxpayer – and I now have a job so that is my – money. Well. Dontcha think I plain obviously needed a little Bailout cash when I was too broke to buy a subway ride, a pack of smokes & some food? Maybe from Bank Of America even – hell I would have gladly paid a few pennies in interest — all in the spirit of thawing the credit markets & getting the world’s economy moving again.

But no.

I held on to my uncashed paycheck for a few days trying to decide what to do. On the one hand I felt no moral obligation to cover my electronic debt with Bank Of America. I wished more than once in fact that I’d bought a carton of cigarettes & maybe a bottle of Bulleit Bourbon while I was at it. Why not? You don’t want to just burn a major financial institution – you wanna burn them with a little bit of Style.

On the other hand: Until very recently I had never paid a bill in my life. And there were times when that hurt me. For example: I could be a triple PhD by now were it not for the fact that I defaulted on my student loan back in 1994. Until it is paid I can not go to college; a waste of my considerable talents.

I wrestled with these quandaries. In the end though my decision was based on pure laziness; I did not care to bother with the rigmarole of opening a new bank account. It was easier — though it offended all my best instincts — to just go on & deposit my $350 paycheck & take the $200 bite.

And exact my revenge right here on this blog, for all the world to see – by telling Bank Of America to fuck off.

Yo Bank Of America: Fuck Off!

Yeah. That oughta learn ‘em!

Well that’s where I live.

The town is called Takoma Park, Maryland. It’s not a bad town I suppose — but Bad is a relative term when it comes to describing towns around here.

Let me tell you: There are some bad suburban towns strewn about our nation’s capitol. I work part-time in one of them; in a town called Gaithersburg. I know the town is called Gaithersburg because the bus I ride there goes under a highway overpass with a big sign hung on it that says Welcome To Gaithersburg. Otherwise there would be no way to know whether I worked in Gaithersburg, or neighboring Durwood, or neighboring Germantown. They look exactly the same. One long strip mall gone off in all 4 directions for endless miles. Where the strip malls end the endless rows of McMansions begin; endless rows of McMansions broken only by the occasional abandoned field full of half built mcMansions.

And then another half-out of business strip mall.

I call that part of Maryland the McWasteland.

Takoma Park is a bit better. It is DC’s original bedroom community, built back when it was fashionable for every house in a neighborhood to not look the same. My house is one mile from the DC city line. A 20-minute walk to the Metro. From there it’s 10 minutes to Union Station — a 10-minute walk from there to the US Capitol.

I live in a well-located spot.

The town has an enlightened element. There is a food co op; an independently owned coffee shop (no Starbucks); and until very recently a slew of “Impeach Them Both!” signs propped up on many front lawns.

While Takoma Park is charged leftward politically, it is far from proletariat. No working class heroes where I live — only me.

I was at a Phil Lesh concert last fall. Chatting it up over beer with some dude during set break, talking about the old days. Dude asked me where I lived.

“Takoma Park.” I answered.

“Oh.” My new friend rolled his eyes & goes, “Well la te fucking dah!”

Takoma Park, it turns out, is a notoriously well heeled community.

Consider that 3 houses on my street went up for sale in the past few months; the worst few months to sell a home since the Great Depression. Yet all 3 sold within weeks for the asking price. Housing bust? Recession? Shit — I build houses in Takoma Park for a living.

The town has its’ attributes, however flimsy. Fuck it. I live here now. Done worse; a thought which rarely escapes me.

But where is a jerk like me supposed to go after work for a drink?

Well. Why not pop into the Local, as it were, whatever bar is closest? Like I used to do back home. Even though I was homeless there half my life…it’ll always be Back Home to me. Or not? Well. They say you Can’t Go Home Again. Maybe so? But you can always go to the Bar.

Tell you a story about that Bar back home.

Once on Saturday afternoon years ago I rustled up a couple cute chicks to bring to the Bar with me. It was too early to drink, they complained, but I peer pressured them with great of skill & ease & waltzed into the Bar thus accompanied.

The bartender’s name was Saturday Steve. Sat. Steve has worked at the Bar every Saturday I think since the advent of liquor.

Saturday Steve at the Bar is a Friend Of Mine; best bartender west of Pluto.

“Ladies!” He exclaimed.

We sauntered to the bar.  Sattty Steve added, with smart-ass nonchalance,   “Um hey, ah,” He stammers & feigns like he can barely remember my name, “Oh right — Mike E — didn’t even see you come in.”

“You lie.” I demanded. “You looked straight at me & what you saw made you fall down!”

Steve grinned widely.

“You got it like that some days Mike E.”

You know right at that moment — yeah hay. It was good to be Mike E.

Saturday Steve pointed one finger skyward & shot up his eyebrow inquisitively.

Then Saturday Steve pointed his finger down.

Thus he posed the Question. Had I pointed down in response he would have cheerily poured me a beer.

I half-shrugged my shoulder. Disinterestedly strained one eye & grimaced slightly.

Eh.

Steve smiled luciferally & pointed his finger up again.

Oh Yeah? He wanted to know.

I pointed my own finger skyward & nodded buoyantly. Oh Yeah Buddy! I caught his eye & winked once with each of mine; one wink for each girl next to me.

I held up 3 fingers.

“3 Mike E Ritas it is!” Steve responded snappily.

He whipped them up in tequila-laced pint glasses & served us moments later. And though he knew I was doubtlessly penniless Satty Steve waved both my lady friends’ money away – as if to say don’t be ridiculous.

“These are on Mike e.”

Where else does that happen besides your hometown Bar?

Not around here. Takoma Park idiotically has no bar — this town sucks dog shit for breakfast.

Flimsy attributes obliterated. A town with no bar is like a stolen Cadillac convertible with no swimming pool to drive it into — senseless.

What kind of town has no bar? They are by law allowed to sell beer, wine & spirits here. A couple of food businesses do. But no business is dedicated solely to the craft of drunks & drink.

The free market system fails grimly yet again.

I’d ask: do these people not drink? But the question is stupid. Of course many of them — thousands — do. But where?

I’m required to leave this city of 20,000, where I live & work, and go find a bar in a neighboring town; where no one knows your name. It’s dehumanizing. AND metro service stops 2 hours before the bars close. That is downright inhumane.

And horrific for the local economy! A neighboring municipality pockets a nickel coin every time a Takoma Park resident buys beverages at one of their bars. In a moderately busy bar those nickels could bloom  into a yearly quarter-mil shoveled into town coffers. Booze is recession resistant. Bars employ people. Stimulate the freaking economy. HELLO??

Even a Sober Person could see that — and Sober People are stupid!

But this thing runs deeper than economics. It’s a human thing.  Sometimes you wanna go where everybody knows your name! Somewhere faithful & FUN & forgiving & above all close to home. It is our reward; to fill our highest human need for Community; exercise our constitutionally enshrined Right to Pursue  Happiness;  for freedom’s sake Let Freedom Ring..

Pop in for a few after work! Do it for God & Country. Never forget that Our Forefathers fought & died for  our right to have a neighborhood bar.

Viva the Troops!

Viva!!

And if Takoma Park will not honor their sacrifice by opening a bar, well…

See ya!!

The town is uninhabitable. Now if I could only afford to leave…

For various reasons, I’ve not had a computer since May ’08. Put in historical perspective: the last time I had a computer Hillary Clinton was locked in a scrappy, to-the wire battle against Barack Obama. Though it looked good for Obama, no one at that point knew for certain who the Democrat’s nominee – let alone the next President — would be.

Just sayin it has been awhile.

So. Things worked out pretty well. For America? Well. We could have a worse President; beyond that the Results aren’t in.

Sure doesn’t look good though. 50,000 Americans lost their jobs — today. Some half-million homes have been foreclosed on this month. Another fat cat no doubt lost his shirt on Wall Street just moments ago.

But I’m doing alright.

A week from today I will empty out my bank account — yep, got one — to pay to live in this sweet room I rent in the basement of what I accurately describe as a downright palatial home. I can not afford to buy beer this week because the damn rent is almost due. After I pay the rent…it’ll be about another week before I can afford to buy food. But you know what? Fuck it.

Welcome to Planet Earth; so it goes.

Now. I could sit here and bitch about how my job does not pay me enough to afford to buy food and beer and pay the rent all at the same time. I could. I can. And let me assure you: I Do. But not today.

I’m in no mood to bitch today. I just got me a new lap top computer, see? Well not a new one precisely. But a 100% functional get-the-job done used rig. Makes the guy who can’t even afford to buy a 6-pack feel like not bitching, you feel me? It is cause for celebration.

Do you realize: there are 211 posts on this blog. Many were written at the Bar. Some in the chair I often slept in in a friend’s studio apartment. Often I would put the finishing touches on a post as I sat on the curb outside the bar, hours after it closed, just before dawn, picking up a loose wifi signal and in a mad hurry to finish up before my laptop — and I — ran out of battery Juice.

I’ve written blog posts in all kinds of fucked up places & from all kinds of fucked up states of mental disrepair. But this is the very first blog post I’ve written from the comfort of my own home.

To make matters better I just found 3 cold beers I altogether inadvertantly neglected to quaff during my last bender.

Cheers.

OK. I’ll bitch a little — I wish there was some leftover bourbon!

Anyway. There’s lot’s to tell. About how I got from There to Here and what I’ve done since. Above all there are people to Thank; people who literally saved my life. But I don’t have time to explain everything right this second. Plus I figure the best way to say thank you is to do what I do best: rip out a funny story.

They have public transportation here in DC. Long-time readers recall a time when a simple bus ride – one I could not afford — may have done me a world of good. Well I can afford to ride the bus now. Hell on good days I can even afford to ride the subway! Not every day is good like that. There have been days since I’ve been in DC when the extra buck for the subway would break me. So I’d bounce from one bus to the next…buses that would always stop at the Metro stations. And I would stare at those bright shiny lights of the Metro longingly, sure wishing I could afford to ride the train.

One major advantage afforded the Metro vs. the bus rider is, well — chicks. On the Metro you are virtually guaranteed to have at least one good looking lady to look at. On the bus, well…not so much. But on the train you got a pretty good shot.

Really she doesn’t even have to be that good looking. Just enough to entertain your thoughts until the next stop.

Yes. I am a subway gawker. But hell I mean — who ain’t? C’mon.

I try to keep a newspaper handy. Just to have something else to look at. Also because I like to keep abreast of the Day’s Events. But mainly because you don’t want to specifically look like a subway gawker when you’re gawking on the subway. You want it to be more a thing where some chick on the subway feels complimented by the fact that you take time out of your busy newspaper reading schedule to gawk — I mean peer — at her.

It’s an Art.

There are Finer Points to the art of the subway gawk. First off: never, ever march right up to the one good looking chick on the train and plop your gawker butt down in the seat next to her’s. Way uncouth dude! Remember: with rarest exception no one is going to take some girl home to do Whatever after you gawk her down on the subway. It just ain’t like that.

She’s just there for the Lookin.

There is one exception to the rule where you don’t sit next to the girl: when there are no single seats available. On a crowded train it is perfectly reasonable to slip onto the seat next to the Hot Chick. I mean who wouldn’t? When it’s either that or plop down next to some dude…

Hell no. Sit with the girl. QUICK! Before some dude beats you to the superior seat.

Funny thing happened one time on a train to Baltimore. It was a Friday evening, rush hour. Crowded train. Not full; lots of empty seats. But — remember that the set-up is with 2 seats side-by-side — no empty 2-seat units. Lots of dudes occupying one of those seats — plenty of empty seats available next to Some Dudes.

And then there’s me, right? Looking for a place to sit. The train was filling up fast.

It was a long train. A double-decker in fact. And on that whole damn long ass double decker train there was a grand total of one empty seat that was not next to some dude.

I knew she was out of my league.

I mean she was hot. Dark skin. Uber Professional. I had no business peeking at her from behind my newspaper — let alone being so presumptuous as to sit next to her — especially when there were plainly empty seats next to some dudes aplenty.

I walked past her more than once looking for some just kinda alright looking chick to sit next to.

There were none. Besides her it was — as we call ‘em back home — a Sausage Party. And it was a whole hour to Baltimore. And the train was filling up quick — if I didn’t grab the superior seat someone else soon would.

I sat beside her — I hoped not too nervously. Nothing to see here. Just some jerk sitting next to you on the train, mam.

I peered deeply into my newspaper — the Wall Street Journal as I recall. Very sophisticated. My country bumpkin ass was freshly showered even.

The train hadn’t yet started to move.

She was seated at the window, I on the aisle.

“Excuse me.” She said.

Then she stood & slid past me & went & sat somewhere else.

Moments later some dude sat beside me in the window seat.

“I will come to a time in my backwards trip when November eleventh, accidentally my birthday, was a sacred day called Armistice Day. When I was a boy, all the people of all the nations which had fought in the First World War were silent during the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of Armistice Day, which was the eleventh day of the eleventh month.

“It was during that minute in nineteen hundred and eighteen, that millions upon millions of human beings stopped butchering one and another. I have talked to old men who were on battlefields during that minute. They have told me in one way or another that the sudden silence was the voice of God. So we still have among us some men who can remember when God spoke clearly to mankind.

“Armistice Day has become Veterans’ Day. Armistice Day was sacred. Veterans’ day is not.

“So I will throw Veterans’ Day over my shoulder. Armistice Day I will keep. I don’t want to throw away any sacred things.

“What else is sacred? Oh, Romeo and Juliet, for instance.

“And all music is.”