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.