With Friends Like Me You Don't Need Bill Collectors

I came across my former hideout on the "Big W" -- and to my shock and surprise... well, coming across it was my shock and surprise! I hadn't written anything since February? Could that be? It very well could be, and February 2008!!!

The fact that not a single person reminded me of my absence gives me a pretty good idea of how many loyal readers I have. Oh, well. At least I know I'm not personally responsible for the waste of time otherwise wasted elsewhere.

And how long has it been since I've been to the gym? Is that why when I lean over to put on my sandals something gets in the way, and it's not...

Enough of this. Like you need this. You've stayed away this long. Go back to your online Jenga.

Bally Total Ripoff

I have refrained from writing anymore about my gym because it just sounds like complaining. It sounds like complaining because it is. No one has patience for that, not even me. But apparently I was the only one who didn't know when you went in to a gym for one of those "free trial memberships" they turn you over to the car salesmen who manage to rope you into a two year contract you can't get out of without a lawyer. I knew I was being swindled, but I guess I didn’t care-- though I’m not sure why I didn't care. I guess that's why they’re car salesmen. Because they can sell you something you know you'll be paying for even after you don't have it anymore. In my case it was that swimming pool. I wanted to swim! He said, "No one's ever in the pool." I guess that was the truth if you didn't count all those swimmers, and the dozen or so Russian ladies who are ALWAYS in the pool, and the fraternity splash parties.

Still, I was optimistic. When I saw the guy eating the sandwich and loaf of bread in the shower, I was thinking things would go well. And if the pool was busy and the hot tub was being cleaned (and you were GLAD it was being cleaned) you could always go in the sauna. Except the sauna was colder than the room outside the sauna. That simple observation is usually a good sign that something is wrong. A sauna may be a lot of things, and come in a lot of varieties, but one constant is that it's supposed to be hot. If you can store meat in it, that's usually a bad sign.

Anyway, I've moved now. I'm still paying for the gym, but I have the option to chose one here in Mount Erie, where I've moved to. We'll see. I haven't found one with a pool yet, but seeing how the transit system here is good-- I mean it has to be-- up and down the mountain, endlessly-- I'll keep looking, when I'm not looking for a job that is.

What do I (heart) more than the geese?

I just have to say: I (heart) Pep-O's with all my love!

More Geese

I was riding my bike to the office in the semi-darkness by the lake and about five geese flew in and landed next to me, way less shy then usual, but also not honking aggressively. I went right by them, inches away, and they looked at me, and I said, "My friends, the geese!" They smiled, as geese will do when in a small group like that.

Just then, I saw a young man and women out running, and I nodded to them, smiled, and said "hi"-- a little embarrassed that they had just caught me talking to the geese. They didn't smile, however, or even change expressions, looking straight ahead, focused on whatever goal it was they were intent on. Overcoming pain perhaps? It seems like most runners are really into pain, and I get the idea that is has something to do with being able to steel themselves for bloodthirsty conquest in the corporate environment. I'm generalizing, of course, put I really feel like runners should at least try to LOOK like they're having more fun.

Of course this is Milwaukee, where strangers don't smile at strangers, and there is a clear delineation between work and fun. Work is what you do at the office and fun is what you do at the bar after work. Maybe I'm being too harsh-- maybe those people were just shocked to see a man riding a bike at six a.m. with Jesus hair and an Amish beard talking to the geese. (I'm just kidding! I don't have an Amish beard!)

God help me that I don't have to get a temp office job in Milwaukee! It was bad enough in Portland-- where they seem to have invented the phrase, "Have at it." But here, I can only imagine the horrors! The humorless office managers named Pat (woman) and Chad (man), starting work at 7 am! (It's a lot different writing this at 7 am then going to an office where everyone has arrived punctually with Starbucks cups, and someone has been assigned to bring in two dozen donuts from Pic'n'Sav.)

Oh my god, I'm having a nightmare and I'm not even sleeping! I said GOD twice, and I'm not even a religious man (despite the Jesus-hair). Will they make me wear a Green Bay Packers jersey on casual Friday, with a the number "4" on it? How can everyone be #4? What if I was to wear a Mark Chmura jersey and ask my co-workers how old their daughters are? Would any of them think that was funny?

To end on a positive note, it's a beautiful morning, and I got out before most of the Monday traffic. A crazy old guy who was fishing by the art museum said hi to me!

I (heart) the Geeses!

First of all, that "heart" in those things ( ) means LOVE. Written in this way (heart) it represents a heart symbol. I don't know how to make the symbol, or if it's possible on this program, so I'm writing it this way. If it were to be a heart symbol, however, it would mean LOVE, and not "heart" as some people seem to think (as with that kind of recent crap movie, what was it called, "I (heart) Wackabees" or something. They used a heart symbol, which was nice, but everyone VERBALLY said "heart" instead of "love." You don't see one of those bumper stickers with the dogs and say "I HEART Springer Spaniels" do you? You say "love!" So I don't know why, with this movie, they started saying "heart" when it was supposed to be "love."

That said, I also have to add, it gets me really angry when people complain about the Canadian Geese shitting everywhere. (I'm assuming these are Canadian geese, I'm no expert.) They do leave rather large turds about, but they are big birds, look at them! And it's not like WE (humans) don't shit. We've got this big, beautiful lake on our shore, here in Milwaukee, and we can't swim in it! Why? Because WE SHIT IN IT!

That said, I just want to say how much I love the geese! There are like a million of them hanging out in Veteran's Park right now... this huge expanse of green grass, and great hoards of these HUGE, crazy looking geese everywhere! It's like, if you can imagine this, a giant field populated with hundreds of cats!

My Life is a Roast!

I recently made extra keys to my apartment for a couple of people who were to feed my fish and water my PLANTS while I was away at Burning Man. I have a simple lock that uses those most common of all keys, the K keys with the three holes, you know. No trouble EVER getting keys made. So I went to Brady Street Hardware, got two made, it's 50 percent more expensive than it used to be, but everything goes up right? --except pay. I kept the receipt, just because ONCE, long ago, I got a key made and it didn't work. So I got home-- and the keys didn't work. The next day I went back and told them... they asked if I wanted my money back. If they had asked if I wanted my TIME back I would have said yes! Indeed! But no, I still needed keys that worked. So they made two more—AND… they still didn't work!

Meanwhile, I bought a TAPE GUN at OfficeMax-- the brand was DUCK (as in duck/t tape, get it?)-- which I know is a huge luxury, but I tape up a box now and then, and I hate using clear mailing tape without a tape gun, okay? So I took that home, put tape on it-- it didn’t work. It just folded the tape on itself, jammed-- completely worthless. So I thought, maybe it's the tape, so I got a different kind. It still didn't work.

SO then I went to a lock shop and had THEM make the keys. More keys than I needed, but what could I do. I needed them. I asked the lock guy why BSH keys might not work. He said there is a different kind of key maker-- perhaps newer?-- that is like a cartridge or something-- and those keys sometimes don't work. I guess that's why the price went up. Anyway, I went home and these keys worked.

Then I took the tape gun back to OfficeMax and said, It doesn't work. A guy working there pointed to one he had been using, or trying to, and said, I know! I hate those things! He gave me a refund. That was easy. But I still have no tape gun.

And I still had two faulty house keys. I took them back to BSH. I figured-- third time-- three strikes and you’re out? Or third time's a charm. Which would it be? I got the keys made again, took them home, and... they worked! So now I have two extra keys, about fifty thousand dollars in credit card debt, imaginary fish, no friends, an ulcer, and several hours less to live on planet Earth.

Summerfest!

What's that smell emanating from the east side of Milwaukee? Is it the tiny little fish dying, Lake Michigan turning into one giant half empty sardine can next to a dumpster? Or is the raw sewage that gets flushed directly into the lake? Or is it a condo builders convention? It could be any of those, but no! It's the Summerfest lineup!

Here are some highlights! Steely Dan. REO Speedwagon. Blue Oyster Cult. Foreigner. Styx. Lindsey Buckingham. George Thorogood. Roger Waters. Heart. Bon Jovi. Bob Weir and RatDog. Peter Frampton. And my very favorite: "All Four Original Members of Asia!"

It is, in the form of entertainment, like one enormous nightmare of the past not going away. But it's awesome. There are a LOT of bands, that's one thing for sure. And a lot I have never heard of. And I'm sure that the ones I’ve never heard of ARE ALL kickass!

I only wish they didn't have this thing so near my job, so when I'm trying to get home I'm not getting bombarded by beer bottles and fratboy type people from the suburbs yelling at me from pickup trucks, calling me a stupid hippie, and a bike riding fag, when the bands they just went to see were people who used to indeed be hippies. I don't know why they don't have this thing in some vacant field along the interstate-- it would be easier for everyone. Instead they have to ruin what could be a perfectly nice park by the lake. Well, I guess it's less distance for all that cheap beer piss to travel. I guess the lake level typically raises several inches by the end of this event.

Bike To Work Week or some such bullshit

It's National Bike to Work Week, or some kind of nonsense thing-- like what does that really mean? In my experience, if anything, it means, if you're on a bike, people in cars give you more shit than usual.

In my short and almost totally on the bike path route to work today, here is what I encountered:

The usual four way stop confusion. Are people in Wisconsin just dumb, or are they just dumber, now, everywhere? Four way stop signs seem to really throw people off. There is one really simple thing to remember: whoever gets there first has the right of way! Whether it's a car, a bike, or a pedestrian!

Here is what happens frequently to me. A car will get to a four way stop, and seeing me riding up on my bike, either assuming I'm going to not stop at all, or just to be polite, will not go, and wait for me to go. See, the problem with this is, there is a HUGE percentage of cars who will run the stop sign, or just barely stop. If you're on a bike you HAVE to stop or get run over sooner or later. Next, of the people that stop, I can't assume that they are going to wait for me. If I aggressively proceed, there is a huge percentage of people in cars that will do one of the following things: seethe in anger until they get to a wife or kid to beat; honk angrily, yell, and roar off at full speed; follow me closely yelling obscenities and threatening to kick my ass; shoot at me from the car window. So, really, it's a complicated mess. It is really best to just follow the traffic rules as best you can. I find that the “whoever gets there first has the right of way” thing to be pretty easy to comprehend.

Next, when I got to the ramp from the bike trail up to Oakland Avenue, the top of the trail was closed off for repaving. Of all the weeks of the year to close off something like that, this is an odd one, but I won't over-think that. (Oh, another thing that made me think of is how there are a lot of bike lanes in Milwaukee now, but often they will just end abruptly. It's like, here's your bike lane, aren't we generous? Then suddenly, fuck you! No more bike lane!

The last thing, I'm almost to the office, on the street, going kind of fast to make a green light, and then this woman decides to walk across against the light, while looking at me the whole time. Looking at me in a way that says, you won't dare hit me, I'm crossing the goddamn street. You sometimes see people do that with cars, but not often because they will get killed. But people assume that bikes will stop for you, or I don't know what. It's odd. I get the impression that bikes really make people angry. I have no idea why. If they would ride a bike ever, they would see that it is CARS that make it really difficult for bikes. You have to ride defensively all the time, and even then you are always being confronted with really difficult and stupid situations. A world without cars would be SO EASY, SO PLEASANT to ride a bike in, but it is so far from that to be almost unimaginable.

The Answers to Your Questions

Here is where I've been hiding out:

Hello Milwaukee, Love New York

The more computer savvy among you will click on that.

Body of Christ

Okay, this is some crazy shit, so prepare yourself. I was at the Bally Total Fitness yesterday, and I went into the shower (group shower room with eight shower heads) and there was this total hippie guy, long hair and a beard (he looked a lot like ME, but short), standing under the running water, while EATING a sandwich and a partial loaf of bread! Now you KNOW I'm not making this up-- because it's too weird! I mean, it would be one thing if he was just eating a sandwich in the shower, but he was also holding, in the same hand, this big hunk of what looked like some kind of multi-grain, fresh, hippie bread. It was like he was eating a sandwich with a BREAD CHASER!

Now at first this made me mad, just because it's kind of disgusting, and also, since I can't eat wheat, I am just not very tolerant of it even under normal conditions. But then I thought about it for awhile, and I said to myself, this guy is a total fucking artist! He's the ULTIMATE hippie! I mean eating the classic hippie food, bread, in the shower. I had to admire him. I try and I try to be the biggest hippie I can be, but this guy just KICKED MY ASS.

You know, I should have talked to him, tried to get to know him, but no. I mean, that kind of scared me, if you want to know the truth. Because what he was doing made no sense whatsoever. And as much as I might admire that, it also scares me, and okay... so I'm a pussy!

SPRI

On my return to the gym, back in the stretching room, I noticed that the ball that came rolling for me the other day had the letters "SPRI" on it. I am assuming that this is the name of the manufacturer of the ball, but what does it mean?

It made me a little sad, actually, because it made me think about "Spree" and how he's at the other gym, and I won't see him anymore.

Anyway, I have spent the rest of the day trying to think of what those letters stand for! The first thing I came up with is "Springfield, Rhode Island." Becaue doesn't every state have a Springfield? Not Rhode Island, apparently. Oh well, I'll keep trying.

Number 6

I was at the gym this morning, in this strange room, stretching (it's strange because it used to be a racquetball or handball court, so it has a really tall ceiling and a really tiny door)-- it's the "stretching room"-- lying on my back, looking up at the ceiling, far away. All of a sudden, this huge rubber ball came rolling over by me. I guess someone was using it for exercise or stretching, and it got away from them. It really started me. For a minute I felt like I was in that TV show, "The Prisoner."

I'm Not Gay!

I know that I have long hair, but that's kind of a throwback to the hippie days. I know I used to hate hippies, but now I'm down with them. But the long hair doesn't mean that I'm a transvestite or transexual, or cross-dresser or anything. I know I spend a lot of time at the gym, but that doesn't mean I'm gay. Even though the Village People had that song YMCA. They had a song In The Navy, too, and less than half the guys in the Navy, I would guess, are gay. I used to wear a little eyeliner, but that was because I played in punk rock bands and and that's just what we did. I know I'm not doing much for my case here. If I was gay, I would certainly just say so, right? You can ask my ex-girlfriends if I'm gay. No, wait, maybe you better not.

B.T.F...

...stands for... Bring the firepower? Better to forget? Bacon, tofu, and fava beans? None of the above. It's Bally Total Fitness. I joined there, not three months after quitting at the YMCA. I have my reasons, none of them good. Mostly, though, I found out they have a pool, with open swim times (all the time, the whole time they're open!) and it's cheaper than the Y, and this particular branch is only three blocks from my house.

Nothing against the Y. I quit there because I just got tired of it, and also because the best thing there was the running track, but my knees have gotten so I just can't run at all. I'm giving up running for good. That's okay, it's just another thing to say good-bye to.

So I was figuring that I would exercise by walking, which I do every day anyway, and also by doing sit-ups and push-ups every day. If I was in solitary confinement in a six foot square cell, I would do sit-ups and push-ups to stay in shape. The thing is, I'm not in such a cell. In the wide open, wild, free open prairie where I live, sit-ups and push-ups are torture, the worst things ever, almost, nearly as bad as trying to write a synopsis or sitting in a bar with techno music playing.

But because my newly found Orson Welles proportion girth, due to the Pick’n’Save now selling frozen rice crust pizza, and the Gluten-free Trading Post carrying wheat free maple donuts, and Frito pie, and Salmon on a stick at the new market down here (I'm not kidding) and El Rey tamales, well, I realized I would have to either lose weight or have to buy new pants. And buying new pants means having James Franklin's mom buy me 501 jeans in San Bernardino and mailing them here, because they don't sell 501 jeans in the state of Wisconsin.

I never thought I would go to ANY kind of health club ever, and now I've gone to two different ones in the same town! It kind of freaks me out, actually, but I make it easier on myself by thinking of the lyrics of that Tommy Roe song, "Jack and Jill." "Health clubs are overcrowded with young men..." Of course there is also a line about mini-skirts in that songs. What's next? Maybe I'll buy a car! Will it be a sports car, a hot rod, a Cadillac, or a Jeep?

Super Bowl

Okay, I made a quick stop at the "Metro Mart" for half and half on my way to the office. I like that name, for a product, Half and Half, what else has a name like that? But I don't like being addicted to it. Every new years I make a resolution to only drink black coffee, but that lasts like a month, two weeks, and then it's back to cream, milk, whatever. This year I didn't even make the attempt. I don't know, maybe THAT'S progress.

So, in this particular store they have hidden the quarts of milk all the way into a tight closet size corner for some reason, like it's condoms or something, or Robitussin. Nearly every time I go there I have to wait for someone picking out their damn quart of half and half, checking all the dates, you know. On this morning, there is like NO ONE else in the grocery store, but there's a woman in this phone booth size cubby hole, picking up one after another quart, looking at it, while talking on her cell phone. Maybe checking with her husband, reading the dates to him, seeing if he approves. I stood and waited for her. Then another guy came up and didn't have the patience to wait for her so he pushed in, grabbed a quart. The woman realized that TWO people were waiting for her and scurried away like a cockroach, if you can imagine a cockroach talking on a cell phone. THEN the MAN started looking at EVERY quart, lifting up his sunglasses, while I waited. I very nearly, then, pushed his head through the glass cooler door. I don't know why, maybe it's these dreams I've been having. But I contained myself, grabbed a quart, and marched to the cash register where another woman was buying a pint of orange juice with a credit card.

Top Tens of 2006!

(in no particular order)

Music

Abe Amico “Amico Amigo Amoco”
My Astrodome “My Astrodome”
Nora Burks “Live At The Shaffer”
Shantay Hunt “Tell Me Your Thoughts”
Baronet “God Save Your Name Here”
Kimberly Steiner “No”
Collateral “Hopefully”
Neddie Chamberlain “We'll See Something Concrete”
DBMS “in the not so distant future”
Da Xavier “My Rotte”


Movies

Hope This Is It
Doll McCormick
He Was Looking Forward To A Fish Dinner As Well
My Palmcive
Fwd: Information
Sharing Is Caring
The My Metamorphosis
Bureau Off Canyon
Any Ideas?
Chateau


Books

As Waistcoat On Utterance by Penny P. Blevins
Looking Good by Anastasia Williams
Is This Is? by Owen Sanchez
Forwent by Lauralee Sanders
Timing Couldn’t Be Better To Build A Position by James Keen
Whatcha Think by Chuck Melton and Vernon Meyer
Ashlee Abel/Able by Bean K. Hadrian
Rbeverage by Jesu Burda
Of Presence by Augustus Fisher
Printmake by Howard Medeiros


My Undying Love Goes Out To…

Aubrey Allen
Malcolm Ferguson
Lawrence
Steve R. Rosado
Nita Danielseon
Chan Lawson
Dakota Perry
Micheal Owens
Lora Kelly
Elisabeth A.


Companies or Products

Larae Mills * Crafting Socks
Marquita * Pocket Cocktails
Sun Jan * Wheat-free crackers
Luis the Weaver * Wakeup and Message Service
Kendall Monroe * Garage
Ursula Cummings * Consultation
Market Movers and Shakers * Kitchenware
Madeline Arnold * Hosiery
You Free * Meditation Center
Are Do Spent * Tax Services


Television

Ratliff
After You Stop
Trenton Nights
Riotous Patience
The Joel Edwards Show
Undying Radiate
Lucille Drew His It
Porn Effects
How’s Life?
May Occur With Any Of These Medicines


Restaurants

Heath Bar
Aguilar
Slot
Hey! Fever
Gerrymander
Reyna
Interests
Boyd’s
A Bone To Pick
Thomas


Podcasts

Craftz
Season Ticket Exemplary
Bunny Allen
These Some of Ways Intuition About Purpose
Sean Barron
Give Me UR Thoughts
And Pitch!
Donaldson H. Sidney “Marrow”
Probably Distribu...
Artie Said That He's Got With Pat


Downloads

by tyranny at wert
concurrence
Seymour Janet
Tybalt K.
Denny Bauer
demeanor
The readers would find that kind of bizarre…
Brigitte Bryant
Freddie Pryor Rudolf
Tia Wiley


Ringtones

himself because he heard that...
don't go it alone
Re: Swamped, huh
Gotta sec
Know this is private
Harrison
Dear friend, as I would advise
Rutledge
Need more info
Mabel

Phenomenon

I'm going to get around to my new year's resolutions, right after my top ten lists for 2006, hopefully before February, but right now I just want to say that writing the word "incrementally" in my notebook, for some reason, made me sneeze!

Hangover on Every Tree!

Apparently Christmas Eve is a big party holiday in Milwaukee, judging by all the vomit and broken glass on the sidewalks Monday morning. Maybe just a warm-up for New Year's Eve... oh, and I just heard that they rescheduled the Packers and Bears game for that very EVENING, as if there wasn't going to be enough beer sold! Then the Badger's play on New Year's Day. I'd say the best strategy might be to not start drinking until the Packer's game STARTS, and then stay drunk THROUGH the Badger's game the next day. The winner will face the winner of the methamphetamine brain damaged deer hunters vs. deer hunters with dementia death match in the Kohler Coliseum in February.

I went to see Apocalypto on Christmas Day, hoping to start a new tradition, and indeed, the green of the forest along with the blood decorated bodies, topped with bleeding, throbbing just removed hearts, made for a festive color scheme. I was really hoping that the extreme, graphic nature of the violence would make up for the clichéd action and story and make me physically ill, but I'm afraid that I was already desensitized by the nachos I made the mistake of buying to hold me over until post movie Paul's Omega. They consisted of a very rattley plastic bag of tortilla chips and a plastic tub of warm, runny, orange cheese substance, which ran all over my hands, my coat, my pants, the seat next to me, and the little kid in the family next to me. As long as it was hot it was edible, I guess, which is, I guess, back to the movie, why they started cooking animal flesh in the first place. Anyway, in the head to head grossness contest, the nacho cheese spread beat out the wild pig testicles… sorry!

Mia Farrow

I’m sitting at the counter of The Plaza where it is entirely too hot—everywhere I go in the Midwest it’s too hot—when they aren’t cranking up the air conditioning they crank up the heat. It’s too hot everywhere. I can’t even spend a half hour in the Main library, it’s always so hot, and airless. What’s with these Midwest people and their heat? I thought we were supposed to be a bunch of farmers and Germans, up early milking the cows, all that. How did we get to be a bunch of grandmas in rest homes—85 degrees, with blankets over us. I think it’s because people no longer have any circulation because they drive everywhere. The typical person in the Midwest doesn’t walk more than one block at a time (ample parking!) and then not every day. I’m wearing long pants and a long sleeve shirt of some cotton material, but I’m sweating like a pig! That’s why I always put on a liberal amount of patchouli—it blends well with the sweat and body odor—at least as far as I'm concerned! And the ladies seem to like it.

I’m looking across the counter and I see that there is a bottle of SKOL vodka sitting on the shelf (below number “11”—the places at the counter are marked with numbers) That’s ODD—I’ve never seen anyone in here drinking vodka.

A woman came in by herself—rare for a diner!—but not rare for this place, really—she’s pretty attractive—she looks like Mia Farrow. She immediately takes off her shirt—she’s a little warm, I guess, and she’s wearing a white turtleneck underneath. (No wonder she’s hot—turtlenecks almost kill me no matter what the weather.) Maybe she’ll keep taking shirts off. I think it would be cool if she would be sitting here in her bra. But no—a guy comes in to join her—they’re meeting here. He’s talking non-stop, now. Though I did hear HER say something about how it’s almost the first day of winter. But it’s surprisingly warm out, though it looks like it should be cold—all overcast and dreary, and it got pretty cold last week. But now it’s warm again, and humid, and all gross and moist.

She didn’t say that. That was me thinking about the weather. She is quiet, now, just nodding. She is listening attentively to the guy talking non-stop She’s a good listener—nodding, interested—then suddenly she gets a call on her cell phone and has to go off and take the call—but at least she leaves the room. She comes back shortly, sits down, and the man takes a breath and gets back into his long oration. Her phone rings again, she looks at it, frowns, and excuses herself again. The man looks really annoyed this time. I wonder if people who are good listeners are good cell phone listeners—I mean, people who you know you can call and they’ll answer. I get a feeling that it’s her kids calling—they are caught up in this and that.

It occurs to me that since the advent of cell phones it’s even WORSE to be a parent than ever before. (I mean, speaking of the drawbacks of parenthood—I know there is the good side!) You can NEVER get away from your kids now. Every time they have a question or a problem, they are going to call, and you HAVE to answer! I know this sounds like I’m a kid hater—it’s not THAT so much—though I HAVE chosen NOT to have kids—that I’ll admit. But what I’m complaining about here is not the kids—it’s just their nature to be impatient and call out to the parents for an answer—it’s the cell phone part of that equation—because cell phones are ADDICTIVE. The instant connection at your fingertips is addictive—your brain starts to transform—think differently (the nature of addiction) so that when you feel the slight twinge of a yearning for connection, you call. And whenever someone else feels that way, they call you (answering is also an addiction). It’s the same a s cigarettes and sugar, candy, food at hand—and TV—and the internet, email, checking your email constantly, looking things up on Google 100 times a day. (Not as a quest for knowledge, but for satisfaction!) The day… it’s quiet, you’re lonely, you feel a strange emptiness, you eat something, or get in your car and drive, the motion making you feel temporarily better, speed—you go somewhere you can spend money—shopping makes you feel better. Buy some cigarettes, smoking makes you feel better, or smoking weed. At least smoking weed tells it like it is. I’m going to go smoke some drugs!

I mean, not me. I’m just sitting here at The Plaza writing this in my notebook. It’s a healthy activity. I’d write more here, too, but I’ve got to get going, over to NODE and check my email.

I promise this is the last thing about grocery shopping I'll ever write!

And no more complaining, either. I'm just really really annoyed, because for awhile everything was really good in my life because my favorite grocery store was also the one three blocks away from my house. But then at about the time they opened the MetroMart, everything turned to shit at this Pick'n'Save. A friend of mine was checking out something, and didn't have her discount card, and she asked the check-out person to use hers, which they would always do before, and the check-out person said they weren't allowed to do that anymore since the store got bought by Roundy's. A new rule.

I don't know anything about Roundy's as a company (actually, I haven't looked into it because I don't WANT to find out something like they're big republican supporters and homophobic racists, or anything that would compel me NOT to shop there, because I don't have a car, and it's convenient). I know they are a HUGE company that owns like 150 grocery stores, and a lot of their Roundy's generic products are in these stores, at pretty good prices. But anyway, the thing I DO know is this grocery store went downhill fast.

I all but stopped shopping there, but I like that they're open at 6am, so I have someplace to walk to early and buy something before I start working on my memoirs. Lately, I've noticed that whenever I use that discount card, the check-out person seems really annoyed. I know that the check-out job must be a crappy job at times, and I don't expect them to be friendly or anything, and I always try to be polite and helpful and smile and everything. But also, those discount card things have always kind of bugged me because it allows the store to post really cheap prices that you don't necessarily get-- you have to have the card-- so I went along with it, and I have one. But why were they now accepting them so begrudgingly?

SO on this particular day I happened to buy a bunch of things that were WAY cheaper with the sale price with the discount card. I then decided to do a little experiment-- I would go through the check-out and not offer my card and see if the check-out person asked for it, like they always used to do. My purchases came to like thirty dollars, and sure enough, she didn’t ask me if I had a discount card. Before paying, I looked at her-- it was early in the morning, sure, but there wasn’t a line. There was barely anyone in the store. I handed her the card, and she entered it, then my bill came to like twenty-five dollars--five dollars less! She looked mildly annoyed. What was going on? I'm not saying that it's some kind of scam, or that it's some policy of Roundy's to try to rip people off. I don't know. All I know is that I'm annoyed. Oh well, I should get off my ass and go a little farther to the privately owned stores anyway. At least then maybe I could get some decent produce.

(should be called) Treat or Trick

Halloween, we used to go around at NIGHT in our neighborhood, and anyone who didn’t answer their door would get their windows soaped… does anyone do that anymore? As we got older we advanced to paraffin, instead of soap, and then we would paraffin screens instead of windows—much harder to remove. These days that would be considered vandalism, if not terrorism, and kids would do time. Kids don’t trick or treat at night, anyway, only in the afternoon, with parents. I went trough a neighborhood on Sunday afternoon, not even late, like mid-afternoon, and there were parents driving along in their CARS, the kids running from the car to the house. I guess when I was little there were no crackhouses in our neighborhood, (though there were some pretty questionable, pervy, shady characters) but I’m wondering if in my lifetime someone will FINALLY figure out that SUGAR is kid crack. Probably not. I’m just hearing on the radio right now about this big tobacco lawsuit, and how very recently the tobacco companies were still claiming that nicotine wasn’t addictive, so I doubt that we’re going to see anyone going against the much bigger and more powerful corn syrup mob anytime soon.

I kind of forgot about it being Halloween today, it’s bad when it comes on a Tuesday, people have Halloween parties all weekend, and by today, who cares. Maybe I’ll see some people who are required by their jobs to wear costumes to work, that’s always funny. Anyway, I like getting up early to work on stuff at home, and in the past I’ve often lived near a convenience store or coffee shop, open early in the morning, where I could sometimes walk to for coffee or something to eat to help me get started, rather than going directly from bed to my computer. In the neighborhood I live in now, however, at some point before I lived here, someone had the bright idea to outlaw the sales of cheap wine and 40 ounce bottles of beer, supposedly to keep the “bad elements” from the neighborhood. Without being able to sell those items, convenience stores can’t exist, it would be like not allowing them to sell cigarettes or lottery tickets. So there are no convenience stores in my neighborhood, which is, really, the only thing I don’t like about my neighborhood. So recently I got the idea that I could walk out to the Pick’n’Save, which is only three blocks from my house. When I was little I used to shop at the Pick’N’PAY, with my mom. Things have gotten better: now instead of going to the grocery store and dispensing with a handful of cash, I use a credit card and SAVE.

So my idea is that I can go to the grocery store, not to get coffee, which I’d rather make at home, but something I need anyway (there’s always something) and just walk around in there a minute, look at the bakery section, all the doughnuts. I would love to be able to get donuts in the morning, I love the idea of donuts, but I am gluten-intolerant, can’t eat wheat, can’t eat donuts. And, of course, I’m better off not eating doughnuts, but it’s fun to look at them and smell the bakery and look at the people buying boxes of donuts for their office. So on this particular day, Halloween, I walked around until I had enough, determined that this store is going down the drain. They opened ANOTHER Pick’n’Save, (Called the “Metro Mart”—though they're all owned by Roundy’s) geared for a younger, condo dwelling clientele, only five blocks from here, and this one seems to have been conceded to a “fuck you” attitude, which is weird, because it’s not like it’s any cheaper. If you have a car, you would likely go to a store with more and better choices of food and decent produce, or a store that’s cheaper. Maybe this store is for the people who just always went here, like me, or who are in the immediate neighborhood. Anyway, it’s gotten pretty depressing.

I looked at the donuts, a surprisingly meager display, actually, then got a few things I needed and got in line. About eight a.m., and only two check-out people are working, which wouldn’t be so bad except that there are TONS of people here, some clearly on their way to work, possibly being made late by the long line, cranky, stressed out. Some people only buying a newspaper, some with shopping carts full. Everyone buying cigarettes, for which the check-out person has to walk all the way across the front of the store and get the cigarettes from a glassed-in cigarette area. It’s just a bad scene overall, no one is smiling, everyone miserable. I get up to the check-out, and the woman in front of me gets cigarettes, a lot of Kool-Aid, some other food, and a giant orange pumpkin-head cake. Then she buys a new scratch-off lottery card, which requires instruction from the check-out woman. I am next, hand the check-out woman my discount card which they always act is like a huge imposition at this particular store, then wait for her, she doesn’t check my food though, says, “$7.99.” “What?” I say. She repeats, “$7.99.” I’m confused, she hasn’t even scanned my food yet! What’s going on? Then I notice she had put the pumpkin-head cake in a bag, and rung that up. The woman in front of me forgot her cake! Didn’t pay for it, and despite those little sticks that we put between the items, a massive mix up! “Oh, that’s not mine, I say... That’s the woman’s!” I look out at the parking lot, she’s already long gone. “She’s going to come back for her cake,” I say and laugh, but the check-out woman looks at me like I’m trying to pull off some scam. The people in the long line behind me shift their weight and sigh audibly, I look back at them, the angry, impatient faces. Suddenly I am a criminal! I’m trying to scam a Halloween pumpkin-head orange cake. My plan isn’t working and all I’ve done is inconvenience everyone. The check-out woman angrily scans my food, I pay for it, and leave quickly, before the mob starts hurling broken electronic equipment at me (that’s the new method for “stoning” someone to death, in case you haven’t heard!) I think next time I should make a point of being content to simply walk through the store and observe, smell the bakery, look at the donuts, then slip out, unseen.

Hole Foods

Those who know me well know that there's nothing I'm more excited about than grocery stores so you can imagine my excitement and anxiety at visiting the new Milwaukee Whole Foods as I had heard those stories about people going into one of those places and never leaving. Soylent Green is people! All of that. The other warning is that you can easily be tricked into buying things you don't need that cost a lot of money.

I had a kind of surreal experience right off the bat, driving there in Joe Wong's Matrix, parking in the garage, slightly space age. Then, as I got out of the car, the music started, that familiar synthesizer intro to "Won't Get Fooled Again," which I thought, this is too much, too perfect, people won't even believe this. I went up the escalator, and as I reached the store the first thunderous power chords kicked in and then that song was my soundtrack for what seemed like way longer than the song actually is. The weirdest thing was that a few of the ceiling speakers in the store were slightly out of time with each other, so that you could stand in a certain spot and the song was out of phase, very trippy. That spot just happened to be in the extensive health food section, looking directly out at the even more extensive meat section. I counted at least 25 varieties of link sausage, more, I'm sure than have previously existed.

Anyway, I found a few good deals, the Brown Cow maple yogurt (which should have Ray Speen's picture on the container) that you can't find ANYWHERE, and cheap! That got me into a buying mood, and I went overboard, buying some kind of strange cheese that was just recently invented. They didn't even have a barcode for it, and the cheese lady was baffled. I got a quarter pound, lovingly placed in a little plastic shell, and the price sticker had ANOTHER cheese name on it, so I can't even tell you the name of this cheese, but you can smell it right through the refrigerator door.

I ended up being at the store for hours, checking out the Taqueria, the brick over Pizzeria, the Gelato bar, the Sushi bar, the little tea shop and lounge with free wireless internet whether you want it or not, the ten minute massage, pedicure, Feng-shui center, Green Bay Packers paraphernalia stand, food history Museum, recipe Library, Yoga studio, Lifestyle Enhancement School, Chapel, Chocolate Enrobing Fountain, and complete Sports Bar with wide screen HD TV and frosted mugs. It reminded me of Wall Drug more than anything else. I was a little disappointed at the lack of sleeping accommodations, however, but I put a request in the suggestion box and received an email reply 28 minutes later saying my idea was being carefully considered.

My major complaint is that I was suckered into picking up some impulse buys that I regretted later. While I resisted the organic natural vanilla marshmallow squares, I fell for the organic free-range Vienna sausages which taste just like any other Vienna sausages. And the worst thing was I bought a little 3 and 3/4 ounce jar of Stutgarter Gieshirltle jam, which I'd never seen anywhere before so I couldn't resist, and after I got home (paying with credit card and not being attentive) I saw that it cost FORTY DOLLARS. So, watch yourself with stuff like that.

Friday 13 October 11:20pm

Here’s a statistic: it’s estimated that 150,000 Americans will stay home from work on a Friday the 13th out of superstitious fear. If that got your attention, sorry. I made that up. I mean, I’m sure somebody is staying home. You know, you can just make that stuff up and say it’s true. I just measured my dreads, they’re exactly 13 inches long. I have 13 illegitimate children by 13 different women, and they live in 13 different states. I’ve had 13 nervous breakdowns. It’s 13 degrees outside, and worse, 13 degrees inside. I’m at my office, but they turn the heat off on Friday night because you’re supposed to be in a bar like a normal person. One in 13 Milwaukeeans will drink 13 drinks tonight and end up driving the #13 bus through the pedestrian tunnel.

Most people will say they’re not superstitious, but they actually are, but in some weird way that you’d never expect. I can’t think of any examples right now. You should wear slightly mismatched socks when you get married. You should eat eggs benedict the morning you’re taking your SAT’s. Stuff like that.

What’s fun is introducing new superstitious behavior on people. I won’t let someone answer a phone while a church bell is ringing. I tell my friends that they’ll become impotent if they talk on cell phones while drinking sangria or planter’s punch. Today, I was out at a public building, and I saw someone do the thing that REALLY irritates me: punch the handicapped door open button to open a door rather than just opening the door. I don’t know why, but that really drives me crazy. So I told this person, “You shouldn’t open the door that way, it’s bad luck. People who do that end up with a rare disease that makes their head puff up like a Mylar balloon." You’ve got to tell people stuff that makes no sense-- that really scares them.

Okay, I’ve got to go, I’ve got 40 minutes to get out to the casino. No one is playing anything today, and at midnight everyone goes nuts and starts betting again. The casino, being so appreciative of this, hands out free champagne to everyone! Cheers!

Finally September!

I’m just kidding, I know it’s October 1st. I think it’s funny how I kept thinking it was a month earlier than it was. Someone sent me an email that said, “OK, time goes fast, I get it.” So enough of that. The thing is, I really DID think it was a month earlier than it was. But now I’m pretty much on top of things again, now that cooler weather is here. Plus, I quit smoking pot. I really love October, actually. I think it’s my favorite month of the year.

I went for a long bike ride this morning, barely avoiding the marathon and like 10,000 crazy runners. It’s the biggest marathon in the world, and in fact, the marathon originated here. The original word for marathon and Milwaukee were in fact the same native American word, but each was changed over time, by Germans and Olympians, respectively. I learned this at the Casino, at that little history museum off the lobby.

I rode my bike around the south side today, Bay View, St. Francis, etc. The streets down there just SPARKLE, but not because they’re clean. It’s because there is so much broken glass on them. It’s apparently still a major source of entertainment in that part of town, throwing beer bottles out of car windows. They need a movie theater!

I had a fine breakfast at the Bay View Diner, where my favorite potatoes in town reside. Their home fries (I refuse to say “American fries) with onions are the best in town. Today, I also had the weekend special, a Butters Fetting Omelette. It was smoky, caramelized, reduced, and had three unrelated cheeses bubbling up. Quite a creation. Unfortunately, today was the last day of their experimental new American hybrid fusion menu, and tomorrow at 5 am they are going back to greasy spoon.

EIGHTH WONDER OF THE WORLD!!!

I was riding my bike today on the bike trail, and I saw something for the first time: a woman rollerblading while talking on a cellphone. (I'm sure this is nothing new to those of you in California, but it was the first time I'VE witnessed such a spectacle!)

I'm Through with the YMCA

For all of you (like anyone is reading this!) who are sick of me talking about the YMCA, you won't have to any more because I quit. They raised my monthly fee, and worse, the hot tub is broken, and they don't seem to want to fix it. Not too many people go in the hot tub anyway, certainly no women, because they built it with a big picture window facing the track and the key desk, so when you're in it you kind of feel like an animal at the zoo. People just stare in at you, they can't help it.

But no more hot tub, no more YMCA, after September, and it's already September! I went last night, and this morning, as I made the rounds of the farmer's markets, I realized that I still had my sweaty jockey shorts and socks in my bag, along with my notebook and hat. This kind of disgusted me. I'm tired of being a jock-- what is it worth, anyway, all of this physical fitness stuff?

So anyway, enough of that. No more will I have to WONDER how men in the locker room are unable to throw their used Q-TIPS in the wastebasket. I'm just going to have to find things to complain about somewhere else.

I LOVE AUGUST

The REASON August is my favorite month is because FALL is just around the corner. I am really a CANADIAN at heart. No, I'm not. Anyway, Canadians don't really like the cold weather, or else why would they build all of their cities in the southern part of the country? Anyway, I love autumn, it's my favorite season, back to school, all that.

I tried to take this online test to see if I would be accepted as a citizen of Canada, and I FAILED MISERABLY! It was really pretty sad. My score was "Please stay in the United States where they celebrate idiocy." Which was the next category up from, "You are so worthless you wouldn't be welcome in ANY country." They really tell it like it is on this test!

I left my serape out in the mudroom with the leaking roof and it got moldy. Does anyone know anything about mold removal? I washed it, but it didn't seem to help, it still smelled bad, so I SOAKED IT with patchouli. Now it just smells like mold and patchouli. Help! It's my favorite serape, I don't want to throw it away!

Already July!

I can't believe it's already July! There was more to that finding the cell phone story, more of the story I didn't have the guts to write at the time, but now that nothing has happened, I mean no fallout from the whole episode, I think I could write about it now, but now the moment has passed. OK! I'd write more now, but I've got christmas shopping to take care of. Not really, but that's just about how I feel about now. The next thing is just around the corner, always, the next love affair, the next holiday, the next cocktail, the next accident, the next inspiration, the next turd on the floor, the next salon, the next rhyme, the next drunken garden party, the next Seville orange, the next headache, the next earthy, sprawly, sad pastiche. Oh, God please help me, only you can make a flower grow on the unfertile Omaha Steak box next to the toilet in the filling station men's room of my passing thoughts.

JUNE GOES EVEN FASTER

June is turning out to be a much faster month than May was. It's already half over! Maybe if it didn't take my hair so long to dry I'd have more time for communtiy service. Oh, well.

I walked by the cell phone store in the mall the other day and I thought: "You know, I could just go in there and buy one of those!" It's the first time I've had that thought. I think I can, anyway, is that right? Or do you have to have some special qualifications?

I guess I was thinking about cell phones because I found one the other day on the way home from Jazz in the Park. I wasn't going to JITP, the people who lost the cell phone were. I was on my way home from work. It was surprisingly easy to use. I looked up some recent numbers called, and called those people and left messages that I found the phone. Only one person answered, and he said he didn't know the number who was calling, though of course I had no name to refer to.

Finally I called a number and a picture of a woman's breasts came on the phone when it dialed! A woman answered and said that it was her boyfriend's phone. She said they were at Jazz in the Park, and invited me over. I declined. I told her where I lived, a short walk from the park, and she walked over. When she got near, she called again and I ran out with the phone, still talking in it, hoping my landlord Ellwood wouldn't see me.

We met up on the sidewalk and I gave her the phone, trying not to look at her breasts. She thanked me and again invited me to Jazz in the Park. This time I thought about it for a second. I've received very few invitions anywhere recently, and certainly not by strangers. But I thanked her and declined again. People take portable chairs to Jazz in the Park, and portable tables, and they spread little red and white checked table cloths over the tables and open bottles of red wine. Then they get out wine glasses and bread and cheese and... yikes, too much. And I've heard, this is the truth, that people bring hanging plants and hang them from the trees. No thanks. Not my scene, baby.
RS

THE MONTH of M A Y

It's the fastest month of the year, every year, because I really so much like it, but not this year, because I've been in some kind of a dream state ever since I woke up in A-pril. Really, it's just not funny, being me, and this far out out of it it. like i'm looking ooking down the wrong end of a stethoscope.

Binder Clips

I'm at the office working on this because I had to get away from my wife. I usually work from home, but the office exists, if I need it, to get away from all of the pressures of trying to run a household in this ever more dusty climate. The first thing I realized, once here, was that I had forgotten my cell phone and left it here. I mean, I haven't used it in awhile, and it's here, plugged in. I don't need it at home, because I have a "safe" phone. The next thing I discovered is that someone has been stealing the binder clips, the big ones. I have no idea why. I know that they're good for closing bags of potato chips, and some people may use them for sex, I've heard, but I'm talking about hundreds of binder clips! Maybe the intern is doing some kind of an art project with them. I think she has an art opening or some kind of graduate show this spring, so I'm going and if there are a lot of binder clips used in her art-- busted! I'm trying to finish my work so I can get to the "Y" and hopefully Spree won't be there again getting in my way. What do I have left to do? Oh, just this I guess. This is all I've done all day, besides trying to find a cheap hydroponics kit online. RS

Millions of little chunks.

Quite often at meetings I'd notice this guy with a little cassette recorder, which he kept pretty well hidden, but you know, you're not supposed to do that. You're also not supposed to confront people and accuse them of things, and one of my clinically confirmed conditions is an increasing inclination toward paranoia, so I was just waiting for SOMEONE ELSE to say something to the guy. Maybe people don't remember cassettes... They do? Okay. I'm yelling to my wife in the next room while I type this. She insists in editorializing me, ever since I had an online affair. Which I didn't consider an affair at all... I know, you do. What? Okay, I've got to run out and get some parmasian cheese. I'm not sure how to spell that. Is there a spellcheck on this thing? I think that's close. It's from Parma Italy, right, not Parma Ohio. I know! Of course I'm going to get a CHUNK of it. Not the pre-grated kind, yes, I know, you don't want to put ANTI-CAKING agent on your spaghetti. I can't spell that, either. Obviously I'm not Itallian. Okay, okay, I'm going.

R. Speen

R. Speen