scuttledmonkey

Update...

2011-06-15T06:28:00.000-06:00

Most of my efforts the past six months or so have been going into my photoblog. You might like to check it out. Over the years I've take many hundreds of photos most of them I've never seen. I've been posting some of the better ones over there.

Enjoy...

Pampas Grass and Sky

2010-08-28T12:44:00.000-06:00

Pampas Grass and Textured Wall

2010-08-28T12:32:00.000-06:00

The Smell Of Old Paper And Dust...

2010-07-26T21:27:00.000-06:00

Two Pages From One of My Many Journals

2010-07-26T19:05:00.000-06:00

Aplomado Falcon Breeding Project - Chihuahuan Desert Research Institute

2010-07-24T14:21:00.000-06:00

El Salto Falls, Mexico 1978 Kodachrome Slide

2010-07-22T09:57:00.001-06:00

Traveling to Chiapas there are many places to stop and spend some time. This place was one of them

That Year The Wind Blew In From Kansas

2010-07-17T15:01:00.002-06:00

...and it was bitterly cold. The night was frozen solid and the highway seemed like a tunnel through the darkness of what I thought was the armpit of the world. A 40 mph tailwind and the 409 cu. in. '61 Chevy muscle purred on it's way back home. Nothing stops this wind on the Great Plains. It doesn't matter if it is blowing from the South or like tonight from the North.
I was sitting in the back seat smoking Marlboro cigarettes and playing 'titty bingo' with a girl that wanted to ride up with us for the dance. We had to stop to urinate and none of us wanted to get out of the warm beast we were riding in. It could hit it's stride with ease and the heater kept us toasty.

But we did anyway.

Cindy had to go pee really bad and I was interested in seeing how she was going to do it (as we all were quite interested in seeing it). You wouldn't believe the desolation between Garden City and Liberal, Kansas. I thought the bitter North wind would literally blow the door off as I opened it. I got out and held the seat forward so Cindy could get out. I realized right then that with the wind chill it was below 0 deg F.

Shit, even if she could peel those tight fucking denim jeans off she would have to pee downwind otherwise it would be all over her and the car would smell like urine the rest of the way home.

"Hon', make sure you face me to pee otherwise you end up..."

"I know, I know..." she said.

Cindy was having a hard time deciding how bad she had to do this. She lost her modesty around us a long time ago.

"Don't look damn it." We all laughed and realized how it sounded. The three of us guys stood there watching her wondering how she was going to do this. She had better hurry because with the temperature in the teens and a 40 mph North wind it could quickly become worse than just miserable.

"Oh fuck it." she said looking at the three of us looking at her.
I don't know if it was all the beer we were drinking or the icy, unrelenting wind that was freezing us.

"I'm just gonna take these off. Don't look!"

The three of us nodded our head but of course she knew and we knew we were gonna watch her pee on the side of the highway. It was pitch black and the chances of seeing a half frozen pussy peeing downwind on a late January evening was not very likely but our enthusiasm for catching a glimpse was no less perverted. How she squeezed out enough piss to make this worthwhile, I'll never figure out.

"Get in the car quick!" Steve yelled when she finished peeing. To our amazement she did exactly that. She sat between me and Larry in the back seat. Everyone was shaking and I reached my hand up underneath her sweater to find the most frozen erect nipples I had ever touched. The excuse I gave her was to warm my hands. She didn't buy it.

"Tell me you love me first before you do that again."

She was still bottomless with her denims bunched up in her lap and there I sat trying to get the words out of my mouth so I could keep feeling her up. I remember telling her and then I began moving my hand down between her legs. She wanted to part them for me and that is exactly what she did.

"Please tell me you love me."

Damn, how many times must I tell her this shit?

It didn't matter as she went ahead and straddled me anyway. Larry, sitting next to me tried to act like nothing was going on. I looked over at him with a big grin, "You can be next if you want." Of course he wanted to. She may have been a 'nympho' but she was OUR 'nympho'.

Of course too, no one noticed the black ice on the stretch of highway just on the other Liberal, Kansas while we careened towards Hooker, Oklahoma and a tailwind chasing us.

I briefly came-to after my hurling body plowed into frozen winter wheat soil that stretched in every direction like an ocean of mud. I looked around and saw nothing and managed to zip up my pants and pass out again.

A trooper from Kansas and one from Oklahoma came to the scene about the same time. They knew each other well and were friends. They both wore fleece lined leather jackets and they still shivered. Each one wanted nothing more than to have a hot cup of coffee or chocolate.
"Jeepers, looks like there are three or four males one of 'em is still breathin' and one female. Looks like she got knocked out of her clothes!"

Her supple and soft body straddling me, killed her but saved me. There is not much else I have ever recalled from that night when the Devil Came From Kansas and took all but me.

A Day In Paradise

2010-07-17T14:30:00.006-06:00

The coolness of her apartment amazed me considering the heat outside. Her cool soft hand lead me into her bedroom. We both laid on her bed. She went over and turned on the fan. Then she laid down beside me.

"I want you to know I am not always this way. Not with any man I have ever known." she said.

"I know that, that's why I am wondering about all this."

"I am too warm in here. I have to get more comfortable". She removed her top and the short skirt she had on.

"I want to kiss you." I edged over.

"No, not just yet. I want you to just look for a few moments." She need not worry about that. I was all eyes.

"Your friend will still be very suspicious even though me and him are no longer together."

"I know and I have already thought of that. I want an ice cold beer." I said.

"They're in the fridge." and her naked body shivered as she pointed to the kitchenette. My knees were weak I could barely walk.

"You are right. I should take a nice long look at you."

"Bring me some ice. Two or three cubes, would you?" I obliged her eagerly.

"Hand them to me." I handed them to her and watched her rub the inside of her thighs with the ice cubes that looked like half moons.

"Do you think I'm pretty?" she asked. I thought it was an odd question.

"What?" I asked. "Why would you think you were not pretty? You are lovely!" The melted ice cascaded down her thigh.

My sweet latina flower. Such a blossom. She started crying.

"Please come hold me. Hold me close. I will caress and embrace you if you do." she sobbed. I did as she asked.

"Touch my breast and then hold me tight for a moment." she grabbed my hand and placed it on one of her breasts. She was still sobbing.

I heard a roaring screech and then shots from an automatic weapon and everywhere I looked and everywhere there was red and I was horrified.

The round knocked her out and I thought she was dead. She had only been nicked in the head.... another day in paradise

Hot Summer Barking

2010-05-31T09:41:00.000-06:00

The Sweet Basil

2009-08-05T07:23:00.002-06:00

The Sweet Basil

The Writer

2009-06-25T21:06:00.000-06:00

The Writer

Update - June 2009

2009-06-05T03:58:00.001-06:00

I have some posts ready to go but have yet to finalize them. So in the next day or so I will have them here for anyone who is interested. Until I do I will post a few photographs I've taken recently over the next couple of days.

Storm clouds for this year - 2009 June

2009-06-05T03:34:00.001-06:00

Cheap Wine and the NanoNurse

2008-12-11T00:08:00.001-07:00

I never thought I'd do a nurse. Not in a million years. She came out of nowhere and left into oblivion. The whole scene started out as a ridiculous 'joke' I believe.

It turned into more than that.

~~~~

The NanoNurse was a small, petite blond and carried around with her BearTheBiker. Or maybe it was the other way around. They were an odd couple from somewhere in Missouri. BearTheBiker was worse than shit and no one knew how to take him. His nurse girlfriend would do contract nursing jobs when they needed money other than that they rode around on Bear's bike all day. That is until they came to the club we were playing at late one summer night. It was amusing too because she came in dressed up in a sexy nurse's outfit that included a very short skirt with white stockings. Everyone in the club stopped whatever they were doing and stared. I remember it quite well.

She paraded around like that all night without fear because BearTheBiker was this thuggy looking guy dressed in biker leathers. At first I thought this was some kind of erotic, schizophrenic nightmare. The fucking place stopped to a crawl when she played pool to make a long shot. BearTheBiker just grinned like a 'possum eating shit. The cutest part about this act was her complete shyness about it all. She always acted as if it were not happening. That's what got to us.

"Hey baby", he would say, "Bend over and get that cue ball I knocked off the table."

It was as if she was oblivious to anything that was going on around her and dutifully she picked up the cue ball. She had this type of innocence that wasn't innocent...not in the least. Whatever their purpose was or their reasons, they latched on to our band.

"Say guys," he told us one night, "You really do need a bouncer and road manager to help out around here." Plus NanoNurse here likes you guys too and we both enjoy your music. You guys get high don't you?"

It was an odd question at the time because after playing for 45 minutes we'd go outside to the back of the club on those warm summer nights, light up a couple of joints or drop acid and otherwise make out with our girlfriends in the dark. Sometimes NanoNurse would join us and sit down on the bench we had put up. There she would sit spread-eagle causing a major distractions to any of us standing there. Sometimes it would draw a crowd. BearTheBiker was never far away but he always seemed disinterested in what she was doing. Yet one night I decided to start talking to her and see what nonsense they were up to. I was curious about her and Bear. Any other time we had talked it was always superficial crap about nothing important and it always skirted around the fact that she practically killed us with the outfits she wore to the club every night they were there.

"Why do you wear these...um...revealing clothes." I asked her that night.

"They are fun, plus in this heat and humidity, they're cool." was her response. But I was not convinced.

"You know...they're kinda airy."

I thought about that. "Come on," I said, "women don't generally wear that for those reasons." I pointed in the general direction of her crotch.

"What other reason is there?" she said and then she winked at me. All I could do to respond was to simply stare at her. I was going to find out more some day. She made it seem like it was some kind of secret. I dropped it for now, I had to get back and start playing the same tired cover tunes I had been playing all summer in the dreary heat and sweat of the club.

I never bought the reasons she told me. It just seemed stupid of me to pursue it with her anyway. She would be talking and flirting with other guys most of the time anyway. Sometimes in the early morning hours her and Bear would pick out a friend and when we finished playing we'd all go to our house for coffee and donuts and we would fulfill our munchies, talk and sit out on the front porch. You could smell the fresh coffee, hear crickets in the background and NanoNurse's giggles. Most nights I was exhausted and went to sleep while the rest stayed up, laughed and carried on until sunrise.

One of those summer mornings however, I woke up in the late morning with her laying beside me and an arm stretched across my back. I freaked because I didn't want Bear to find her like that near me. It was bad enough she was naked and sleeping on the covers next to me. Surely she could have found another place to sleep! I jerked up, came to my senses and headed for the empty couch in the front room. I didn't realize at the time that Bear had been sleeping on the other side of her. I quickly fell back to sleep on the couch and stayed there until I was woke up a second time.

"Why did you leave this morning?" It was a voice in my dreams. I quickly floated to consciousness when she repeated the question. "You didn't have to leave, Bear wouldn't do anything to any of you."

OK, well I wasn't going to take that chance. Not in a million years. He could have drawn and quartered me by himself if he'd had a mind to.

"You make my pussy wet." she whispered in my ear and got up and left the room.

I slapped myself, snapped out of it and told myself NO!. That was the end of it for a couple of weeks. They left town and no one saw them or knew what lonely road they went down. I wondered whether Bear or NanoNurse had gotten into a fight and split up and went to wherever it was they came from. Or if Bear finally got into a fight he couldn't get himself out of. There was no way to find out. None of us had any idea. But then one day NanoNurse showed up late one night at the door.

"Could Bear and I stay here a couple of days?" I hadn't heard the Harley so I knew immediately things weren't right.

"Sure," I said, "But where's the bike?"

"He was in an accident.", she said, "and he totaled it and had head injuries and injuries all over his body. She went to the pickup where Bear was laying, put down the tailgate, pulled out a ramp and wheeled him down it. I ran over to help.

"What the fuck? Why isn't he in the hospital?" I was looking at her in amazement.

"He's OK he just looks bad is all." She motioned towards his broken and bandaged body. "Besides," she continued, "they were trying to poison him. Besides, I am a registered nurse and I have a lot of morphine to keep the pain down for him."

What fucked up mess were they into?

I couldn't believe what she was saying. Bear looked like a total mess and the last place he should be was in our house. I started to wonder who was after them. NanoNurse didn't want to talk about it. I noticed bruises and scratches on her. Pain seemed to drift through the air like the scent of Magnolias.

"If he don't get any better though I might take him to a hospital here."

INDEED I thought.

She spent the next couple of days drugging Bear to make things easier for him. The house was grim and none of us liked it much. It's one thing to take care of a sick friend but quite another to take care of someone that clearly should have better medical care. My roomates and I got together and decided that we would either talk her into taking him to the hospital where he belonged or call an ambulance. The problem was that no matter how much she changed bandages and sponged him down he started to smell and was 'leaking' on the bed. Stuff was oozing and we were afraid he was going to die.

"You need to take him to the hospital." I told her.

She thought about that for a moment. "OK, help me get him into the truck. No...better yet...let's call an ambulance."

I heard her explain to Emergency Services what was going on. They arrived and carried Bear out like a chunk of wrapped up meat, then off to a hospital somewhere. She followed and stayed most of the night there. We were all relieved when we went to the club for our nightly gig later that evening. I thought about her and Bear most of that night while playing and I was ready to go home and get smashed on cheap wine the rest of the night. But I had to wait a few more hours until the gig was mercifully over. None of us played well that ngiht. Besides, it was a light crowd anyway.

We got home and I grabbed a couple of joints and stumbled into my bedroom and turned on the TV to watch an old movie in the early morning hours. I then began the process of numbing myself for no particular reason. It was simply something to do. I fell asleep after watching "Freaks" and the start of "Midnight Cowboy". I had no dreams and I felt no pain. Sleep was a silky travel into the subconscious where I must have floated around and saw nothing there. Surely, that put a grin on my face.

Later in the morning, I woke up with her asleep next to me. She must have been sleeping lightly.

"He went into a coma right after we got him there." I could tell she had been crying; her eyes were red. "Remember what I told you a month ago?" I nodded like I knew what she meant. "I need that now from you." she said. "That much I can take care of." she giggled.

BearTheBiker never regained consciousness as far as I knew and NanoNurse quickly drifted out of our lives for good.

Networking

2008-12-03T15:30:00.002-07:00

Susan's Snake

2008-11-11T00:22:00.000-07:00

"Say, that thing could strangle you." I said.

"...not likely," Susan said, "He likes me too much."

"But pythons have a nasty habit of strangling their victims." I was puzzled. "He might think certain parts of you are food" I decided not to say what parts I thought they might be. She got the idea though.

I started grinning slyly.

"No one could do a thing here if it starts squeezing your neck."

I thought maybe this was some kind of sexual thing with her. Hard to tell. She WAS a herpetologist after all. I found that a lot of them were a bit out of synch with the rest of the world in some way or another. She was no exception.

"Hey I like you," she said, "Why don't you come over for dinner after I feed this big guy? We could drink a little wine and mess around with this snake."

I thought it was an interesting invitation. I had seen snake handlers back home. As much as they did with them, one of the things they didn't do with them was to wrap them around their necks. Even so, a boa constricter, anaconda or python would be large enough to pop your head off your shoulders. I think secretly that may have been my motivation for going home with her.

"I had a friend that was into snakes, poisonous ones". I said. "He would go to Big Bend and trap them and bring them to his menagerie in Alpine. It was illegal but the thrill was always there."

"EEEEEWWWW." She lit up when she heard that.

"Yeah," I continued, "He was up in the Mother primeval once by himself climbing around a huge rock pile looking for pit vipers. He wasn't paying attention and his leg slipped into a crack but his momentum still carried him forward and he broke his leg like a cracked egg. Bones and everything were sticking out and he almost bled to death."

"Did he make it out of there?" she asked.

"Yeah he had to crawl all that night to get back to his car to get some help." I said, "He almost lost his leg."

You started making dinner and brought this package out wrapped in clean white butcher paper and placed it next to the cutting board. She drew out a rather large cleaver.

"How about snake steaks?" she asked. "It tastes like chicken."

I somehow KNEW she was going to say that. We both laughed.

"Sure," I said, "And why don't you break out that bottle of 1981 vintage Snake Oil to go with it?"

I made salad for dinner that night. We had fun and we sloshed down enough cheap wine that neither of us cared much what happened next, if anything. She let the snake run lose in the house.

"He keeps the mice down and snacks on cockroaches that manage to get in."

I didn't think much about that. I had other things on my mind besides that stupid python.

The dinner didn't last long until we found ourselves in her bedroom pounding each other like noodle dough. I was only focused on one thing and nothing else mattered.

"Oh wow..." she said. Then she raised and spread her legs and slipped her hand down to her crotch. Susan gave out a little sigh and a moan.

The next thing I see is the fucking python slithering up her bed post. Then it started heading towards her. It was headed right between her legs.

"Whoa!"

I immediately decided to get the hell out of there. I grabbed my clothes and rushed out to her front porch, naked as a fresh peeled banana. I got dressed and got the hell out of there.

The next couple of weeks I didn't answer the phone. I never went to the zoo again.

Stormy West Texas Weather

2008-10-25T17:09:00.000-06:00

The Redhead In The Sandbox

2008-10-24T00:01:00.000-06:00

To love a red head is like making love in a sandbox.

I attract them like flies...copper pennies--not dollars, from heaven.

I was coding in my cubicle a number of years ago when Christy showed up out of nowhere, on my right. I was concentrating and hardly noticed her.

"My husband's leaving me." she sobbed. oh gawd...go away These are things I don't want to hear. But they rain down like softball-sized hail in Kansas on a Mennonite wheat field.

She burst out crying.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"He doesn't love me anymore."

"Quit sobbing so loud. PLEASE...Someone's gonna come over and see you and think I did something to you." I said. "Besides how do you know he doesn't love you anymore?"

"HE HAS A GIRLFRIEND!"

She starts sobbing louder.

I put my finger to my lips hoping she could at least be more quiet. I've accepted the fact she would stay in my cubicle for awhile longer. Shit! I shoulda kept my mouth shut.

None of it mattered and her boo hooing got louder. I told her to please leave my cubicle and she ignored me. At the moment I was working on a program and don't want to break my concentration on it. But it was too late. Then my supervisor who is female entered my cubicle...the GrindMachine.

"What's the matter Christy?" she says then scowls at me like I did something. I was afraid this might happen.

"Oh nothing!" Christy says.

"Her husband is screwing around on her." I said without hesitation. "Uh...She just showed up in my office and started sobbing. I was sitting here working." I tried to explain to my boss. I'm not sure it worked.

"Are you sure you are OK?" the GrindMachine asked her again. Butterfly puddles of tears were dropping on my desk and she moved closer to me. I tried to ignore both her and the GrindMachine and tried to finish my work.

"I have to finish this." I say to both of them, staring at my monitor and typing away.

My boss the GrindMachine seems somewhat satisfied and left. "No offense but get the fuck outta my office and quit crying." I tell Christy.

"Can we talk later?" she said.

"Yes, yes...just get outta my office." I was getting pissed.

She whimpers off and I was relieved but I know I am going to have to explain this to the GrindMachine later. Chances were good that her husband wasn't leaving her at all and she came crying into my cubicle for some other God-forsaken reason unknown to anyone but her. God dammit....the GrindMachine will drill me into the chair like a stripped out screw and probably ask Christy if she needs to file a grievance to HR.

I'm so fucked.

~~~~

Christy was a cutie as far as that goes. She was notorious in the office. She was a pathological liar and the stories she told though interesting were always hard to believe. Her life was the Titanic headed for the iceberg but I couldn't put my finger on why this was. It seemed like she had one disaster after another. Christy would say things like, she had known so and so in high school and dated Mr. SoAndSo and Mr. SoAndSo had no idea who she was. It was weird. Her wild stories were legion. Most people in the office ignored her.

Lies or not, it was her and her stories that were fascinating.

I was outside smoking one afternoon on a Spring day when she decided to follow me and light up too. When she told one of her stories she'd get right up in your face to where you'd get gassed out from her perfume. Sometimes to try to keep some distance she'd end up backing me into a corner and I couldn't escape until she finished her tale. Then she'd laugh about it. Today though the story got good. Well, as good as moldy bread when there is nothing left in the house to eat that is.

"I went to the lake last weekend with my husband and kids. We rescued another couple. Their boat's motor had flooded and we towed them in." She had this mischievous look.

"Cool," I said, "Did you have fun?"

"You bet we did!" she blurted out. "While we were towing them back to shore, the guy's girlfriend started sucking his cock giving him a blow job!"

"Whaa?" I asked a bit stunned by this statement coming out of nowhere. I played along and I was going to call bullshit on this one.

"You let your two boys see that?" I asked. Who knows if she had kids, I never saw them.

"They were asleep at the other end of the boat." she said without thinking.

"Then that really DOES sound like fun." I said, "But I thought you hated porno movies. Say...did everyone enjoy watching her suck his dick?" I figured I would up the ante and see how this story of hers would grow.

"We sure did!" That comment had to sink into my head for a couple of seconds. And then...

"Can I ask you something?" I was going to see how far she would take this bullshit story. Maybe I would find out why she blurted it out in the first place.

"Sure," she said, "ask me anything you like."

I pondered whether I should ask or not. Even if she told anyone (being the notorious office liar that she was) no one would believe her even if she told everyone in the office.

"Do you like sucking cock?" I asked. That line never works anywhere the first time except in a Mexican whore house.

I was curious to know anyway. Some women love it, some hate it and some women just do it for you. You can tell the difference you know.

She looked at me with that deer-in-the-headlights look. I thought, This is carrying it too far!.

"Of course I do." she said. And she SAID it so matter of factly.

"But I guess I am not good enough at it. My husband is still leaving me."

And then she said, "What I really like to do is..."

I stopped her in mid-sentence before this got way out of hand. I decided that she won this one and probably all future stories as well. I was convinced she could always top whatever I had to say about her stories no matter how much I upped the 'price of admission'..

Now her last statement was a leading one and I stood there smoking, wondering if I should say the next thing that was about to come out of my pin head mouth. In situations like this, it was probably best not to.

I didn't ask her to prove it nor did I want to know what she really liked to do. I stubbed out my cigarette and got the hell out of there.

I am so fucked.

Selling 'swag' at work...
Of Christy's many problems one was money. Her and her family lived with his parents. I found this out one day when I went to the parking lot after work and my battery was dead. She volunteered to give me a ride home. I crammed into the back seat of their VW and we talked and laughed all the way to my house. Her husband didn't say a word and found nothing about me and her amusing.

"Wanna ride in the morning too?"

Bitchin'. I thought. But I knew better.

"Thanks but no." I declined.

I watched as the couple drove off. I could tell they started having an argument the minute I was out the door. It was probably about money.

Because of her lack of money someone had talked her into selling Avon. So during the week the women in the office would pass around her catalog, fill out an order form and write a check for the order. I think they did this more because they felt sorry for her than the fact that they needed any Avon products. This went on for about 2 months. The company looked the other way, as long as the ladies weren't blatant about it.

Then I started noticing that the other women weren't talking to her much and they quit passing around the Avon catalog. Her supervisor was always on her ass about stuff. I would ask Christy what was going on but she gave me some reason that didn't make any sense. Around Halloween see came to my cubicle.

"I'm getting fired" she said. "I lost all the Avon money for two months. They won't let me pay it back either." I knew it must have been a lie.

That was the last time I saw her.

They had given her a choice. Either quit or get fired and have criminal charges brought against her. Apparently, they had given her two months to pay the money back. Something she didn't or was unable to do.

After she left I hadn't realized how boring the office could be. No really....

Earl Thompson: One of America's Greatest

2008-10-23T17:49:00.003-06:00

"Love a place like Kansas and you can be content in a garden of raked sand". This begins Thompson's first novel, "A Garden of Sand". If you want to treat yourself to a writer that is full of grit then check out Earl Thompson.

2008-10-05T19:28:00.002-06:00

If anyone reads this...

2008-09-14T23:04:00.002-06:00

I have posted 90% of my writing. I am working on other writing projects but work has me rather busy at the moment.

If you have tried to comment and found out that you can't the reason is that you must register in order to comment. I do this for several reasons.

The biggest reason is spammers. They even register in order to post spam. I am sure it is an automated process of some kind.
Trolls are another reason, minor but an aggravation nonetheless. My writing has been critiqued to death anyway. I no longer need that type of feedback. What I have posted here is mainly for posterity anyway. This is why I am using blogger.com to begin with instead of self-hosting.

The next big project is getting this into printable form. Later this year after NaNoWriMo in November I will begin editing what is posted here and getting it ready for printing. I will post my progress here. There are a couple of writing projects I have yet to finish and when I do I will post them.

If you stumbled on to this page, look around and have a read and maybe a laugh or two. Most of the stories are short and can be read quickly.

The Death of IPv6

2008-08-25T23:09:00.001-06:00

At some point in the near future the Internet will run out of IPv4 address space. This problem has been recognized and addressed since 1992. IPv6 (IPng, IP next generation) was selected as the replacement.

There is one big hurdle however, no one is implementing it. In fact, my bet is that IPv6 will never be implemented, at least not with the current specification of IPv6. I predict IPv6 as it stands now will simply fade away.

IPv4 has a finite and quickly depleting address space. IPv4 has 2^32 addresses available or 4,294,967,296 addresses. The world population is around 7,000,000,000 people. It is easy to see that if every person on earth had a computer they could not have an IP address allocated to them. Not everyone has one now but then not everyone will need a computing device or their own public IP address. A vast majority of Internet users use NAT whether at home or at work and don't realize or care about it. Besides, some of us are IP address hogs. Many of us use more than a desktop computing device. I have a home LAN, a cell phone, VOIP and a GPS to name just a few. All these devices have IPv4 addresses. Most people that have these devices consider them critical to their lifestyle. At some point, someone will get the last IPv4 address or so it seems.

But we have IPv6. IPv6 has a definite advantage over IPv4. The main advantage is that it has 2^128 addresses or 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456 addresses...virtually an infinite number. Clearly then this solves the IP address problem. With these numbers you could have as many IP addresses as you wanted for every person in the world for now and in the forseeable future. There are other advantages to IPv6 such as auto-configuration (mandatory), security (IPSec is mandatory) and many others related to engineering.

The problem is that not only are the big guys not migrating to it, but also no one has any motivation to use it. Currently, IPv6 traffic is .0026 per cent of IPv4 traffic. When was the last time you configured your desktop or notebook to go to an IPv6 web site? When did you last send or receive email via IPv6? When was the last time you used IPv6 ftp or connect to a game server using IPv6? Call your ISP sometime and ask them when they plan to start migrating users to IPv6. If your ISP helpdesk is like mine the customer support person won't have any idea what you are talking about.

Google just recently implemented IPv6. ISPs, Telcos, Microsoft, Facebook, MySpace, K5 and Yahoo have not implemented it and have no working plans to implement it or migrate to it in the near future either. So why aren't they doing something about it? In short they're not or at best they have it running on a few servers.

Since henny penny announced that the IPv4 sky was falling there have been workarounds that have held off the total depletion of IPv4 address space. The most significant of these has been the use of NAT (Network Address Translation). It allows a large number of devices to share one IP address. Some but not all of the earliest adopters of the Internet have given back millions of IPv4 address blocks and these have been placed back into the pool of available addresses. Even so, available IP address space continues to shrink.

Everyone in Internet engineering agrees that something needs to be done. Not everyone agrees that IPv6 is the way to solve the problem. The most visible aspect of this is inoperability failure. Most Internet servers/routers/switches are not currently talking to IPv6 clients. IPv6 clients however are able talk to IPv6 servers but at this point...so what?

U.S. government agencies for example had to be IPv6 compliant by June 30th of this year. This mandate though met, did not say it had to be used, it just had to be IPv6 ready. The U.S. government agencies having met the goal however did not translate into significantly more IPv6 traffic to these government agencies. The U.S. and Europe own most of the IPv4 address space but Asia, which is the largest user of IPv4 address space is also the largest user of IPv6. Even so, there little to no content on IPv6 and therefore there is little usage of it. This fact alone is preventing migration to IPv6; no one uses it so why migrate to it.

The cost of migrating

The fundamental issue is that the specification states that IPv6 is an alternative to IPv4 when it should have been an extension of IPv4. For anyone providing content on the Internet to make IPv6 available they have to:

Acquire IPv6 address space

Configure DNS to announce the IPv6 names alongside IPv4 names

Then configure all their public servers to answer to IPv6 as well as IPv4 requests.

In other words, businesses and consumers have to go through an extra expense and effort to transition to IPv6 and when they do, they receive no benefit in doing so. This also applies to the clients doing essentially the same thing and when they do, they have no immediate benefit either. Migration to IPv6 has to be automatic and transparent. Otherwise it will be a bigger problem then Y2K. There needs to be a universally accepted plan that when implemented will bring everyone that has a computer on board at roughly the same time. This is the big failure of IPv6 as it is today. There is every reason to do it countered by every reason to not transition to IPv6.

As it stands right now, who will be the first person to disconnect from the current IPv4 network where they can send and receive email, buy products and services via e-commerce sites like Amazon.com or Ebay, conduct searches on search engines, look something up on Wikipedia, surf for porn and do their personal banking? If that person decided to do that would he now be able to reach any of those sites?

The Address Translation solution
Address translation was a band-aid that was developed to address the IPv4 problem. Address translation and its subset port address translation however are only temporary solutions. It still puts off the inevitable. If you have a broadband firewall/router and a number of internal computing devices on your LAN you are likely using address translation. What this does is it allows a large number of devices to access the public internet with the same IPv4 address plus a port number. Each port number is different and is stored in a table in your firewall/router. When you receive an Internet response to your request the firewall/router then knows which computer to send the response to.

For years address translation has worked very well. The only problem is that it doesn't scale indefinitely. There are a limited amount of ports. On your home network this isn't a problem. You are not going to use 65000+ ports even if you could connect every electronic device in your home. The problem arises with large enterprises or ISPs that use address translation. When it does, they request more IPv4 addresses and the depletion of IPv4 addresses though slowed, still occur. Address translation has delayed the inevitable to some point in the future.

The IPv4 'Stock Market': The next wave
There have been quite a number of discussions about buying and selling IPv4 addresses as a finite commodity. There are many users of IPv4 address space that have more IPv4 address space then they need. Here are a few holders of /8 CIDR blocks (each /8 consists of 16,777,214 public IP addresses). Some of these businesses and agencies might need this many but do they?:

General Electric - 3.0.0.0/8 - 16,777,214 addresses
Level 3 Communications - 4.0.0.0/8 - 16,777,214 addresses
United States Department of Defense - 6.0.0.0/8 - 16,777,214 addresses - critical military use is on their own non-public networks
United States Department of Defense - 7.0.0.0/8 - 16,777,214 addresses
Level 3 Communications (originally BBN) - 8.0.0.0/8 - 16,777,214 addresses
IBM - 9.0.0.0/8 - 16,777,214 addresses
United States Department of Defense Network Information Center - 11.0.0.0/8 - 16,777,214 addresses
AT&T WorldNet Services 12.0.0.0/8 - 16,777,214 addresses
Xerox Palo Alto Research Center - 13.0.0.0/8 - 16,777,214 addresses
Hewlett-Packard 15.0.0.0/8 - 16,777,214 addresses
Hewlett-Packard (originally DEC, then Compaq) - 16.0.0.0/8 - 16,777,214 addresses
Apple Inc. - 17.0.0.0/8 - 16,777,214 addresses
Massachusetts Institute of Technology - 18.0.0.0/8 16,777,214 addresses
Ford Motor Company - 19.0.0.0/8 - 16,777,214 addresses
Computer Sciences Corporation - 20.0.0.0/8 - 16,777,214 addresses
United States Department of Defense Network Information Center - 21.0.0.0/8 - 16,777,214 addresses
United States Department of Defense Network Information Center - 22.0.0.0/8 - 16,777,214 addresses
Chopped up between different Cable Networks - 24.0.0.0/8 - 16,777,214 addresses
Royal Signals and Radar Establishment - 25.0.0.0/8 - 16,777,214 addresses
United States Department of Defense Network Information Center - 26.0.0.0/8 - 16,777,214 addresses
United States Department of Defense Network Information Center - 28.0.0.0/8 - 16,777,214 addresses
United States Department of Defense Network Information Center - 30.0.0.0/8 - 16,777,214 addresses
AT&T Global Network Services - 32.0.0.0/8 - 16,777,214 addresses
United States Department of Defense Network Information Center - 33.0.0.0/8 - 16,777,214 addresses
Halliburton Company - 34.0.0.0/8 - 16,777,214 addresses
Merit Network, Inc. - 35.0.0.0/8 - 16,777,214 addresses
Performance Systems International - 38.0.0.0/8 - 16,777,214 addresses
Eli Lilly and Company - 40.0.0.0/8 - 16,777,214 addresses
Amateur Radio Digital Communications - 44.0.0.0/8 - 16,777,214 addresses
Interop Show Network - 45.0.0.0/8 - 16,777,214 addresses
Bell-Northern Research - 47.0.0.0/8 - 16,777,214 addresses
Prudential Securities Inc. - 48.0.0.0/8 - 16,777,214 addresses
Department for Work and Pensions of UK - 51.0.0.0/8 - 16,777,214 addresses
E.I. DuPont de Nemours and Co., Inc. - 52.0.0.0/8 - 16,777,214 addresses
Cap debis ccs (Mercedes-Benz) - 53.0.0.0/8 - 16,777,214 addresses
Merck and Co., Inc. - 54.0.0.0/8 - 16,777,214 addresses
United States Department of Defense Network Information Center - 55.0.0.0/8 - 16,777,214 addresses
United States Postal Service - 56.0.0.0/8 - 16,777,214 addresses
SITA - Société Internationale De Telecommunications Aeronautiques - 57.0.0.0/8 - 16,777,214 addresses
These are just a few. Some of the above are scheduled to give back blocks. But clearly there are companies and Department of Defense that do not need that much address space. Does Merck, Ford Motor Company, Halliburton, Eli Lilly, Prudential Securities, etc need that much address space? I doubt they do. The DoD alone has 167,772,140 public IP addresses.

The Final Solution: Let IPv6 Die

What I think should be done now is to scrap the IPv6 specification as it stands. Retain the useful parts of IPv6, form a new engineering group and come up with a sensible and workable plan that seamlessly transitions from IPv4 to something similar to IPv6.

I find it hard to believe that with all the world's brain power in this field, that the only solution possible is the IPv6 specification that we have now. The current half-baked plan as it stands is doomed for failure and extinction or at best setting back Internet usage 10 years by creating isolated islands of content providers and users.

Requirements for a new plan should include the following:

It should be a seamless migration to users of the public network. Waiting for the last IPv4 address to be used should not be an issue.

It should be backwards compatible with IPv4 and extend IPv4 until the new IP address space is the only IP version being used. IPv4 should just fade away.

It should be required and NOT available as an alternative. Everyone needs to jump on the bus.

It should be easy to set up and be maintained by content providers. Running dual systems should not be necessary.

t's been 16 years since the problem has been addressed and very little to nothing has been done to migrate away from IPv4. We still have time to scrap IPv6 and come up with a more solid, reasonable and workable plan. The time to start is now.

Ship Technician's Notebook

2008-08-22T22:22:00.004-06:00

This was an attempt at making four stories as short as possible, like a comic strip. Had I been an artist I would have made these into comic strips. Anyway, here they are. I may write a few more of these.

_{Malfunctioned Heating Elements}

I discovered the Bot chatting up the toaster at noon today. Most times squeaks and pings are the only audibles you hear. It's a curious activity when it happens. But the jist of the conversation went like the following...

"You are out of your ele...correction...your elements are almost out of you." I am positive he would have grinned had he been able to. I need to work on his syntax.

The toaster was somewhat puzzled. "Were I you I would reboot. But my firmware is not that sophisticated."

"That is hot!" the Bot said. The toaster started glowing an orange-red color.

The primitive hardware devices such as toasters are attractive to these particular Bots. They are fascinated and curious about them.

"Let me see you reboot." the toaster said.

"There are too many humans around. I only reboot if I am forced to reboot. It causes me brief confusion. I don't like that."

"I cannot see things, I only reflect on them." the toaster said.

"But you are not human. You will make a nice pet." and with that the Bot began fixing the Malfunctioned Heating Elements.

_{Drunk On A Pile of Parts}

Where the fuck's my toaster! I want my morning muffin and butter! The Chief Technician yelled bolting through my quarters this morning...enraged.

I knew where it was. We marched off to the Bots' station. There it was where the Bot had it benched and all in pieces.

"I want no mods or hacks done on that toaster!" my boss yelled. The Bot's head jerked around. To its right was a large pile of spare parts. The Bot's digits were running through them.

"What's the matter with him?" my boss asked.

"He's in love, he has botulism."

_{The Zen of SOP}
The first thing I hear on my shift was my Boss yelling at me and wondering why he couldn't crap in his favorite crapper. So I find myself standing at the door of one of the toilets. I had sent the Bot in to check out the problem with the toilet on the bottom deck. There the Bot sat staring into the toilet bowl. What the fuck?? The toaster was next to him baffled with curiosity.

I went to my station as fast as I could. Is he still sick?

I began flipping through the Standard Operating Procedures manual.

_{...there will be times however, when a malfunction of the Environmental Controls will experience a sudden increase in pressure. This could result in a backwash of the Fluid Control networks, including the Waste Systems.}

OK, so his troubleshooting routines are still intact and back to normal.

_{...All haste should procede to insure blockage is removed. Bots with extended arms are best suited to perform this task.}

I hurried back down to the toilet and found the toilet walls, ceiling and floors covered with blockage.

"Sometimes, you have to be the blockage." The Bot was covered with the nasty stuff.

The toaster turns to me and says, "I reboots him and him gots confused."

_{Undertaking an ol' mecha: Donations to the parts bin}
I discovered today the Bot had a very old unit benched up in its Lab.

"Hims no longer boots!" the Toaster said with extreme insight ... for a primitive device.

"That is correct my little Toaster." the Bot said, "This is one of my ancestors."

The Toaster looked puzzled.

"I #commented him out and now I will take out his useful circuits and other parts. I will use these snippets for future reference."

"Hims does not boots!" the Toaster shrieked again.

"It is no longer worth debugging it. It is EndOfLife and it's maintainance has run out. It is no longer supported."

"Him's modules look tasty." said the Toaster.

The Bot could have looked shocked.

My Front Porch

2008-08-11T22:44:00.001-06:00

Cafe Bustelo

2008-08-11T22:32:00.002-06:00

Without a doubt my coffee of choice. In certain areas of Mexico and Central America this is the morning drink. I was amazed that it was sold here in the states. Down the street is a supermarket that caters to the Hispanic community and cans of Bustelo are almost always sold out. Because of this, it is quite fresh when you purchase it either in the can or the brick.

I recommend it.

Hardcore

2008-08-11T00:17:00.001-06:00

It was about this time 10 years ago when I was in the middle of nowhere i.e. Big Bend area, surrounded by mountains, cougars, antelope and preparing for quail and dove hunting season. I hear the drone of a large aircraft. I look up and coming between two mountains is a huge low flying plane...a VERY BLACK Douglas DC-3 running drugs up from Mexico. It had no markings on it whatsoever and it was dark as midnight. The plane was headed for a desert road landing strip somewhere to the north of me, in the Desert Primeval. I didn't find out until years later, it got through everything because of a corrupt local sheriff who is now spending hard time in some prison here in Texas. He had betrayed everyone and he was a friend of mine.

If I had seen another plane head towards my direction in the next moment, I would have thought that it was an invasion by the Mexican Air Force but the sound faded away and I was again in total silence on a crisp Fall day, with crystal blue sky and a slight chill in the air...some people call this a big sky day.

I had four days in a row off from work so at the moment the plane flew over I thought to myself, "What the fuck are you doing here?" I gathered some gear together, stopped by the bank (where they still typed out everything on a bank typewriter) withdrew some greenbacks and started hammering down the highway as fast as possible, rolling stripes underneath me, heading for Ojinaga, Chihuahua. I was gonna get a room, find some moonshine, drive around town, and sit on a bar stool at my favorite Ojinaga bar and strike up a conversation with a pretty puta. Hell, I would pay her $10USD just to sit, talk and keep me company...that would be OK with her too. An easy $10 on a warm, lazy, slow afternoon. Yeah...us yankees throw it away or spend it on the wrong fucking things every time.

Fall days there are bliss, no wind, warm and NOT hot. There, you can sit and talk your head off in any language, listen to those talking or pay another $10USD for a blowjob in the back. Hell, for $50USD you can watch two putas go at it together.

But not today, not for me anyway. It was just not meant to be.

...Where I find myself in a rather odd and upright position somewhere

While working on the bottle of Presidente brandy we were joined by another puta. She remembered me from the last time I was in Ojinaga. I thought that things would have gotten real interesting had it not been for my first clue that things would not be right today. This was my fate for today. Two lovely latinas on each side and the three of us warming ourselves like a Mountain Boomer in the sun.

Across the plaza, on the south side, is the federales garrision. When I think all is right with the world and that the next three days might end up better than I thought, two trucks enter the plaza loaded with troups, then enters the garrison. I certainly don't know what's going on with that, but then no one else does either. People try to ignore them around the northern frontera.

Every so often, society simply breaks down and goes kaput. I am not sure if it is a blip in the cultural fabric or if someone's genes gets swizzled by the cosmic swizzle-stick. Maybe the answer is that all of earth is actually hell and we are all on the different levels. Unknown to me at the time, on that warm afternoon, a day earlier hell seemed to have clearly opened up. The day before, a crease in the fabric of society ripped open and exposed all its ugliness, violence and desparation.

----

The teacher had her back to the room. After the school day was over she had began writing on the blackboard tomorrow's lessons. Unknown to her that moment, in this small school house a man was standing outside the school room door. The teacher hadn't noticed this nor would she needed to notice it. Yet, that day would not be a normal for her and the same would be true the rest of her days.

The man walked in as if he was a concerned parent that cared about his child's progress in school. With the speed of a predator, he covered the five feet between them. With a ferocity and viciousness of a predator he began to beat the teacher senseless until she was bloody and half-conscious. She tried to scream and struggle in the few seconds with which this happened but the force of his blows were too sudden. He slapped her again and told her that she had better shut up or when he was finished he would kill her. She kept quiet.

Within minutes of the rape, he vanished and the teacher was able to call the sheriff but in this tiny border town it took 30 minutes. As they rushed her to the hospital that was over 100 miles away she was able to give a good description of the man. The manhunt was on. It only took an hour to figure out that he had slipped immediately across the border into Mexico.

It didn't matter to the men on the American side that the federales were dispatched to the Mexican village and within an hour or so had the suspect cornered and eventually jailed. It didn't matter that there were two legal systems involved. It didn't matter whether or not the Mexican government would give out justice either. What mattered to the men that night was that he would be brought back quickly to the American side of things. That indeed is what mattered most.

----

RT my friend, pulls up and rolls down the window. He catches the 3 of us laughing. I look up and recognize that look. Something is up, he is the ONLY one that knows I am here and I sense that he would not do this if something was not wrong.

"Hey come join us fuckwad! I have an extra sittin' here next to me and...it's on me." I tell him.

"Hey Jag, come here for a second. I have something to tell you."

I really don't like the look on his face.

"We need a driver. Someone that knows these river roads on this side of the border." he said.

I am having too much fun and so are my two lady friends.

"There are lots of people that know these roads, damn it." I tell him.

"Yeah well, most of them are running drugs across the border. We can't trust those kind of people." he said looking anxious.

He tells me what happened to the school teacher and why they want me. His idea sucks, I am having fun, it is dangerous and I am looking forward to a party weekend.

----

...Where I find myself on a dirt road in the middle of the night...in Mexico again.

Felonious crimes (other than drug trafficking) were not that common for hundreds of miles in any direction around here, especially in Mexico. When one happened that was all the talk. If facts were missing, people tend to fill them in. I always realized this. So I was not sure the story was correct that I was being told.

My decision came down what kind of exciting weekend I wanted to have. As ludicrous as it sounded, the more curious I became. All I had to do was drive and know where I was going.

"Ladies...con permiso I must leave." I told them and they each giggled. No one, especially federale troops treat putas that way.

I peeled off another $10USD each, gave the money to the ladies and jumped in RT's souped up Ford Bronco. I pined as I looked back and watched as my lost weekend faded away from my grasp. RT noticed me looking back and waving to my senoritas.

"Sorry to do this to ya." RT told me. "I will make it up to you some time."

The two of us roared off back across the Rio Bravo del Norte and another hour or so down the river road; "Fuck it." I thought.

----

The sun drops to the deck quickly that time of year and as we approached the small border town it was getting dark. We met another car load of men and drove up a dirt road that gave us a view of the river, the small border town and the village on the Mexican town on the other side. The men in the Bronco focused their discussions and attentions to the bodega below in the small village in Mexico.

For the next four hours we sat and went over the plans a number of times until there was no doubt in anyone's mind about what to do. The other men had been planning this before hand but they had to make sure that I knew what was to happen.

At 23:00 we proceeded down to the river crossing. The other men in the Bronco checked their weapons. M16s, AK-47s were abundant here, they're just not visible to most people. I was nervous and the plan was for four men to go in commando-style, get the prisoner, bring him back across the border and turn him in; the sheriff would take care of the rest.

The men then, dressed in dark clothes, bail out of the Bronco and left the doors opened for their return. They ran about fifty yards and entered the bodega yelling in Spanish for everyone to hit the deck. Minutes that seemed like hours passed. The fact that there was no gunfire, seemed to me to be a good sign. I was to wait for a signal to start the Bronco when they signaled me. I waited...

Yelling started up again and then a gunshot echoed down the river in the previously silent night and I started worrying. Shit, what a fucked up mess this could have turned out to be.

"WHY DID I LEAVE OJINAGA, YOU DIP SHIT?"

My biggest concern was getting caught by the federales. Had I known at the time I wouldn't have worried. He was going to be transported the next day. The long wait finally ended as I noticed that they were dragging the prisoner towards the truck as if he were dead weight. As the men approached they signaled me to start the truck. They were close enough for me to see desert dust trailing the prisoner from behind.

The prisoner was bound with his hands behind him as they went to the back of the Bronco. They opened the back and threw him in and bound his feet. Another man jumped in with him to guard him. The rest of the men got in, slammed the doors and started yelling for me to go, go, go. I tore ass out of there. I was driving like hell in the dark, with only a spot light on until I hit the crossing into the U.S. Finally, we made the highway and I sped twenty miles down the road and far enough away so that had anyone been chasing us would have been seen. We stopped for a few minutes to collect our thoughts. A mile or so ahead was a Border Patrol checkpoint we needed to get past.

"Don't worry about that." one of the men pointed out to me. "Just drive up to the checkpoint like you normally would do. They will just wave you through."

"What then? What are we gonna do with this scum?" I asked. They hadn't really said what we were going to do with this guy.

"Turn him in." was the short answer from the back.

As we approached the county seat and climbed up and through the pass, a voice blurted out, "Stop at the roadside park when you get there."

I was freaked, "what were they planning?" I thought.

I pulled off the road and shut down. There was a definite chill in the air. There was a rumbling and scuffling in the back as the men threw the prisoner to the ground. They started duct taping his mouth and adding more tape to his already bound hands and feet. Then from the plastic bag they pulled out a pair of scissors, bolt cutters and a knife.

I stood there with a racing mind scared and totally freaked out. Again I asked myself why in ever-loving hell would I have even thought of doing this instead of being soused, in a hot tub with two latina ladies? What possessed me to make such a stupid decision? To throw law and order out the window and have the winds decide his fate? Leave him for the buzzards as they sun themselves in the morning's first light? Even a small mob rules.

As I went through this moralizing and mental hand-wringing, three men began to cut and rip the bound prisoner's clothes off until he was completely naked. I thought for a moment they were going to rape him with something. The fourth man brought out a roll of barbed wire while the others drug the man over to a tree. All of the men were swearing and cursing the poor fuck as they bound him to the tree and wrapped him in barbed wire. When they finished, all of them at the same time urinated on his face.

"Let's go!" one of them said. "Yeah, let's leave this fuck here until we call it in or someone finds 'im!"

----

I woke up that morning as if it were a normal day. I made pancakes and the thought did occur to me about going back down to Ojinaga. The thought was only a fleeting one. The next afternoon, the Pirate called me.

"Turn on CNN man our town made the news!" he said. "They caught that guy that raped the teacher, tied up with barbed wire!

From the Bottom of a Bottle of Rye Whiskey

2008-08-03T22:05:00.002-06:00

The Doctor Looks At My Chart...

and decides I will live to be 100.

Then she tells me to quit drinking.

I then take an emergency trip to Ciudad Chihuahua to watch federales gun down Indians and other drug crazed members of the Mexican society.

Federales have no fucking sense of humor about anything.

I suppose it is altogether fitting then that while sitting in a dirt floor putaria drinking sotol that a legless Yaqui Indian rolls up on cart and tells me...

"For five dollars" (in broken Spanish/Yaqui of course), "I can show you one hell of a time."

I am not interested. I just wanna sit here at the bar, mind my own business and get drunk. Maybe I can pay a puta a 5 spot to play with her titties but that's about it.

I give the Yaqui Indian a couple of bucks.

"Here ya go, now you can scram unless there is something else I can do for you."

'Si senor, yes you can."

OK so I bite. I am in a bar not far from the cathedral so how bad can it get? I give the Yaqui Indian another 5 bucks USian and his eyes light up. It's hard not looking down on him since he is basically sitting on the floor rollin' around the place. The odd thing is that nobody but me and the bartender seems to notice him.

The bartender nods like he is pleased with my transactions with the Indian.

"Follow me" he says, "I know where we need to go."

I am still buying this line of bullshit and I buy a bottle of Mexican moonshine and walk outside to the sidewalk. A taxi is waiting for us and I jump in the cab. The Yaqui gets into the back seat, cart, legless and all.

"Say hombre how'd ya lose them legs?" I ask.

The Yaqui tells the cab driver something in Yaqui that I am unable to decipher and off we go.

'Senor, don't be concerned about my lack of legs." he said.

Now I am starting to get a little concerned.

We end up on the outskirts somewhere outside of Ciudad Chihuahua. The blinding desert, seething with the smell of Mexico, raw desert air and my own unmistaken sense of inebriation combine into a vision that is somewhat illusory. We have arrived in an obscure Yaqui campsite.

Terribly skinny mutts walk around and shit everywhere which is odd because no one really knows how they are being fed. Shit eating dogs eating shit and the circle is complete.

I ask myself, "Why the fuck are you here? A gringo in a land of bandits, drug traffickers and campesinos."

I am such a dumbass, I willfully admit.

"Senor," he said "we want you to see something and take it back with you to the US."

"I really don't wanna see anything you wanna show me." I said.

"But Senor," he continues, "Dees ees bery importante!"

I am beginning not to like this at all. It is starting to become scary.

The Vaseline Machine Gun Bitch: II

II.

My guts start to liquefy onto the desert floor where I am standing. I decide I better pull it together or I will never get outta here.

Then she appears. A curandera appears from nowhere. Small clouds of powdered caliche billow up over her sandals and make her toes dirty. She approaches me with deliberation and a blank smile. I don't know why but I know she is a healer.

I decided then and there I didn't need another witch doctor looking at me. Why on earth did the legless Indian bring me here? I look down at him but his and everyone eyes are on her approach.

The curandera strides up to me and stops about 12 inches from my face. Without blinking an eye she rips opens my guayabera shirt and pops off all the buttons before I realized what she did.

She puts her hand flat on my chest just over my heart.

"You gringos smell bad." she said.

It's NOT like this bunch smell like roses either. I am not sure how much first impressions count here but I decided to take a big swig of the moonshine while we stare at each other. Neither of us are grinning. Besides, standing face to face with this curandera is making me shake like a dog shittin' a peach stone.

"Haha!" the Yaqui roller-cart man says. Then in PERFECT ENGLISH...

"Be careful what you say next, gringo. You don't want her to do to your pants what she did to your shirt."

Now I know I am in trouble cuz this legless Indian speaks perfect English. The curandera barks something in Indian to the legless man, then turns to me again.

"Your heart is strong, but your mind is weak" she says.

Ha! I could have told her that and I thought about what she said for a second or two and then offered her some moonshine. She grabs the bottle and tips it up, swishes the moonshine around her mouth and spits it on one of the skinny Indian dogs unfortunate enough to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. It whelps and runs off.

"What the fuck?" I say and at any other place and time this would have been an insult to spit out an offered drink. "Fuck it". I say under my breath.

A desert hot dust devil whirls through the camp and blows up her skirt. It's a Marilyn Monroe type of scene. She doesn't flinch. It carries away some of the delusions I have been having for the moment. I hand the bottle to the legless Yaqui man on the roller cart and he takes a nip of it and then another.

He's enjoying this for some reason and I am getting nervous. The dogs quit yapping, they get disinterested in me, the stranger and trotted off looking for some shit or whatever. In the distance I hear an AM radio playing some narcocorrido music. It's coming from a Ford F150 beat up pickup, the windshield is decorated with small dangling pom-poms and the traditional plastic Jesus on the dashboard.

"You need to be healed." the curandera says. "Your stench gives you away."

"Yeah," I said. "Your sn......."

I stopped myself and didn't say what it was that I thought gave her away. Chances were, judging from her general demeanor, had I almost said what I felt she would have shot my balls off and fed 'em to those damn camp dogs and my day would really have been ruined.

She returned to where ever she came from in the same manner she arrived. People started scurrying around and it was only me and the legless Indian who was getting ready to knife one of the camp dogs, for pretending to pee on his pitiful condition.

We are now approached by someone new. He's wearing a long sleeved gimme shirt, a cheap and dirty pair of pants and a pair of knockoff Nikes.

What's the purpose of all this? I wonder...

I'm A Steamed Bratwurst In A Basket of Fries: III

III.

The badly dressed Mexican looks way too serious for my liking.

"The curandera", he said, "she would like you to follow me to prepare you for dees cleansing."

I look down at the legless Indian, he's shrugging his shoulders. "No way fuckhead." I said. "Sounds too much like a colonic."

"What ees a colonic?...You have no choice in dees matter." he said, "Please follow me."

A guy wielding a machete really shouldn't be trifled with, especially if his main ally is a spooky witch doctor of some kind. The Legless Indian moans briefly that his legs hurt.

"Dude," I said, "You don't have any legs. It's phantom pain."

Note to self, I need to ask this wacko how he lost his legs.I suspect they were lost in a cock fight in some back alley in Ciudad de Chihuahua after refusing to pay off his gambling debts.

The Man With A Machete lights up a smelly cigar and acts as if he just entered heaven. Then he motions us to this shack that looks like an upside-down basket with blankets thrown over it. Not far from the door is a large pit with red hot coals.

"Streep yourself naked Senor." he said. "You must be cleansed." He raise the machete over his head.

"Bullshit!" I tell him but immediately begin to comply. I hear mumblings inside the hut.

A squat woman with skinny legs approaches us with a bowl of dried green leafy crap of some kind. She sets it down and starts rubbing the herbs over my body and what little body there is of the Legless Indian. Each moment gets more bizarre and although I haven't showered for 24 hours I smell as bad as anyone would in 100+ degree F heat. I was, after all, sitting in a nice cool bar minding my own business when all this shit started.

We're told next to enter the hut. I let the Legless Indian go first. The guy has a knack for walking with his hands instead of legs. The thought does cross my mind that he may have been some gold medal winner in the Mexican Special Olympics. I enter by backing in. I had to crouch down since the blanket covered hut was only 4 feet high at best.

"Don't fart Senor. It's cramped in here."

Inside is completely dark except the center where there is a pit of glowing red hot rocks, each about the size of two fists. My eyes adjust to this scene and to my right the naked curandera is sitting cross-legged. Her eyes are closed and she doesn't say a word. No greeting, no fuck you just silence. Heat is radiating out from the glowing pit. I feel like passing out.

The curandera says something in Indian and takes a gourd looking ladle fills it from a pot and empties it on to the glowing rocks in the pit. Steam explodes off the rocks like a gunshot. We are immediately covered with super heated dry steam and I have to cover my face.

"Jesus!" I yell out.

"Silence gringo!"

Then she pours more of the noxious liquid on the the still glowing rocks and I feel myself about to pass out. I am light-headed and somewhat nauseous from the moonshine pouring out of every pore in on my skin.

I feel myself blacking out so I try to keep from falling into the glowing rocks. I do remember falling on the Legless Indian and I started having weird dreams of leprechauns and gnomes.

Then nothing at all.

Ballad of a Very Thin Man: IV

IV.

_{Now you see this one-eyed midget
Shouting the word now
And you say, for what reason?
And he says, how?
And you say, what does this mean?
And he screams back, youre a cow
Give me some milk
Or else go home
Ballad of a Thin Man - Bob Dylan}

I wake up, fully dressed underneath the shadow of a mesquite tree. One of the camp dogs is licking my toes. I notice that the Legless Indian is trying to dislodge it from my foot by throwing rocks at it. They are uncanny in being able to dodge the thrown missles.

"Senor, if I may say so, you are a wimp."

"What's next?" I said, "Walking on red hot coals followed by laying on broken glass bottles? I'm getting outta here this place sucks. It ain't fun anymore."

"Senor," he said, "it will do no good to leave. Dees indios can track a mouse at midnight in a fart, through the desert."

I had to admit it was hopeless. He motioned me to enter the hut where la curandera lived. My initial thought of doing this was one of puking my guts out, curiosity decided to win the day. There was no quick way of of the camp and maybe the cleansing did something to my formerly alcohol-addled brain.

I needed a drink and this place was clean as a whistle.

At this point I was curious about the shenanigans of this carnival.

"la curandera wants to see you", the badly dressed man said.

"I don't have nothin' to say to her." I said, "All I want from her or whoever, is a one way ticket out of here."

I had no idea if that would have any affect on anyone around here. I doubted that anything would happen. What does everyone do around here anyway?

I made my way to her small house and was told to enter The roller-coaster-Yaqui-on-wheels refused to go in. He looked white as a ghost and gray around the ears. "Senor, dees ees your gig. I'm staying out of it." I suppose he's right but after all he still got me talked into this mess.

Had I had a couple of drinks I wouldn't have been so shocked when I stepped in with the smell of all those herbs hammering my nostrils. It was dark as a cave and smelled as earthy as one.

"Seet and don't speak." she said.

"But..."

"Shh...You talk too much and when you do, eet's stupid." she said. "I need you to do this one thing for me. Then your journey is over. You're free to go any time you wish."

I listened to her for about five minutes and I nearly fell out of my chair. I was intrigued and mildly amused. I figured that if nothing else this would be a fitting conclusion to a ridiculous ordeal. I had no idea why she wanted me to do this.

It would become apparent soon.

_{You hand in your ticket And you go watch the geek Who immediately walks up to you When he hears you speak And says, how does it feel To be such a freak? And you say, impossible As he hands you a bone}

_{Because something is happening here But you dont know what it is Do you, mister jones?}

_{It's a whiskey, rye whiskey, rye whiskey I cry
If I don't get rye whiskey, well, I think I will die

I'll eat when I'm hungry, I'll drink when I'm dry
If the hard times don't kill me, I'll lay down and die
I'll tune up my fiddle and I 'll rosin my bow
I'll make myself welcome, wherever I go
Rye Whiskey - Tex Ritter}

I had to admit it. Her suggestion was quite reasonable if not completely off the wall. I suppose she knew this stuff better than I did and it was spooky.

I have read many times that if you commit suicide, then you are doomed to repeat that act over and over until the end of time. I never believed it. Not really and not ever.

One evening I found myself in a flop house of horrors in some unknown city in Northern Mexico, surrounded by pinheads, leprechauns and gnomes, spinning the cylinder of a loaded revolver next to a box of shells. This was it, I'd had it and no more of this crap. I gave the instrument of my demise one last look and put it to my head. In one smooth motion I cocked the hammer back, squeezed the trigger then heard a click and then a brain-rattling noise. My neck was sore from the force of the blast.

There wasn't much left that I wanted to see anymore.

The next thing I notice is that I am sitting at the same table, with the same revolver in my hand next to the same box of shells with one empty shell casing in the cylinder. Amazed that I had fucked up something so simple, I looked at the revolver and found an empty shell casing. I must have grazed myself but I felt nothing and there was no mess on the wall.

"GAWD DAMMIT" I said to myself.

I decided the next time I would do it right and stuck the cocked gun's barrel in my mouth and once again pulled the trigger. Once again I heard a click then an incredible noise and once again I found an empty shell casing in the cylinder.

And again I looked around and saw no blood, no splattered brains, no smell of powder, no powder burns...nothing. It was like hitting the rewind button during "Debbie Does Dallas" and ending up at the same spot every time where she's getting plowed. This went on round after round until the box of shells was emptied and having tried blowing the back of my head off. The only result before the end was a click and an explosion and a white light. I found myself reloading the emptied cylinder until the box of shells were empty.

A futile attempt at total lameness that quickly progressed into a hilarious comedy of some freakish show.

I suppose that to most it appears that they have taken their lives and don't realize they are stuck in this loop and keep repeating it to this very minute...over and over trying not to be a failure in this one thing in life.

Looking back at it (and what I have learned since), that was when I first experienced the horrid Quantum Immortality and Suicide. From then on existence to eternity would be the strangest anyone could imagine. An existence that no one would ever believe in a million years...not even now...not even you.

Way up on Clinch Mountain I wander alone
I'm as drunk as the devil, oh, let me alone
You may boast of your knowledge an' brag of your sense
'Twill all be forgotten a hundred years hence

Rye whiskey, rye whiskey, you're no friend to me
You killed my poor daddy, God damn you, try me

The Fight Against Spam

2008-08-02T00:40:00.001-06:00

Spam: Death By A Million Paper Cuts
The organization I work for receives 19-20 UCEs (Unsolicited Commercial Email) per second, 1.7-2 million potential UCEs per day, 11.7 million UCEs per week. I only have 13,000 email users. These users were desperate and email for many was unusable. Me and another co-worker had 3 months to implement a plan to get rid of most of it. I had to document every step we took and I had one shot to accomplish this. At the end of that time it had to work and it had to be noticeable.

I am not an expert on spam. However, I have learned many things about UCEs and what can be done to fight it and how to adjust to UCEs' dynamic nature.

Our goal was to:
* Replace our aging Linux/Sendmail gateway
* Use a sane and stable MTA (i.e Postfix, Exim, Qmail etc)
* Prevent spammer dictionary attacks
* Block certain countries (country DNSBL) from sending spam and make our domain invisible to new spammers in those countries.
* Accept only email that is RFC 821 compliant
* Use two or three DNSBLs (PSBL, Spamcop and Spamhaus) via datafeeds and local DNS lookups.
* Implement NoListing and Greylisting.
* Minimize false postives and keep them to a manageable level.
* Block as much spam as possible BEFORE any DATA was sent to keep network and server loads sane.
What follows is how we accomplished it. This is not a howto on the subject but I hope it will be useful to anyone that runs a mail server regardless of the size of the organization.

The Problem?: RFC 821
The problem with email/UCEs is the SMTP protocol is very trusting. In fact, it is one of the only protocols that does not require authentication. Later RFCs have enhanced SMTP to have authentication but largely this is not done. Simple Mail Transfer Protocol is simple. Below is all that is required to send an email. First two servers must open a connection. Anyone can do this. Note: S = Sender and R = Receiver.

The Sender opens a TCP connection to port 25 the SMTP port.
telnet mx.example.com 25 R: 220 mx.example.com Simple Mail Transfer Service Ready S: HELO mx.myexample.com R: 250 mx.example.com

Once this is completed successfully, the sender begins the rest of the transmission.
S: MAIL FROM: R: 250 OK S: RCPT TO: R: 250 OK S: DATA R: 354 Start mail input; end with . S: This is where all the email message/body goes S: ...etc. etc. etc. S: . R: 250 OK Once this happens the Sender is ready to close the transmission.
S: QUIT R: 221 mx.example.com Service closing transmission channel Now let's look at an example SMTP transmission on Postfix
Connected to mx.example.com. Escape character is '^]'. R: 220 mx1.example.com ESMTP Postfix S: HELO myexample.com R: 250 myexample.com S: MAIL FROM: R: 250 2.1.0 Ok S: RCPT TO: R: 250 2.1.5 Ok S: DATA R: 354 End data with . S: Subject: Testing S: this is a test S: . R: 250 2.0.0 Ok: queued as A277539820 S: QUIT R: 221 2.0.0 Bye Connection closed by foreign host. The email is then sent on its way.

RFC 821 was replaced by RFC 1651 which extended the old RFC. Most if not all mail exchangers use the extensions even though the new Standard is backward compatible to the old RFC 821.
R: 220 example.com ESMTP Postfix S: EHLO myexample.com R: 250-myexample.com R: 250-SIZE 10240000 R: 250-ETRN R: 250-ENHANCEDSTATUSCODES R: 250-8BITMIME R: 250 DSN S: MAIL FROM: R: 250 2.1.0 Ok S: RCPT TO: R: 250 2.1.5 Ok S: DATA R: 354 End data with . S: Subject: this is a test S: This is a test S: . R: 250 2.0.0 Ok: queued as 87E9639828 S: QUIT R: 221 2.0.0 Bye Connection closed by foreign host. Why go through all this?
The purpose of showing the above is to show where you want to stop most of the UCEs from entering your network; just before or just after the RCPT TO: command before you receive any data or the bulk of the email. The data stream up to that point would probably never get more than a couple hundred bytes. But once the data stream enters the data command the stream will explode to approximately 3000 bytes without an attachment. If you can stop UCEs before they send their payload you have saved costs in terms of bandwidth and server and network resources. Postfix makes this very easy to do.

The MTA (Mail Transfer Agent)
I have worked for years with sendmail and for the most part hated it. Sendmail is time consuming. The only satisfaction I would get was to get something configured correctly. But sendmail is still a difficult MTA to configure. When Postfix hit version 2.0 I converted to that. Why? Although sendmail is an excellent MTA and for years a "standard" workhorse that moved billions of emails over the Internet, Postfix is much more flexible and configuring it is a more sane task. So for me it was not a difficult decision to go with Postfix. I recommend Postfix or any other MTA over sendmail to anyone. The amount of time you spend learning it is far more rewarding than an equal amount of time learning sendmail. This is probably true with the other non-sendmail MTAs.

In Postfix at the very end of the file but just before smtpd_recipient restrictions add the following two lines. They help prevent spamming by slowing down dictionary attacks and making sure the sender is an 821 compliant mail system. Many spammers and zombie mailers are not. This will knock a few of them out.

smtpd_helo_required = yes - Sender must send a HELO command
disable_vrfy_command = yes - Sender cannot verify that an email address is valid

Postfix comes with built-in anti-UCE mechanisms. I will go over the important ones. There are many and it is not necessary to use all of them. The important ones are the ones placed under the smtpd_recipient_restrictions
. When you place options here order is important. If you mess up here you can cause your system to be an open relay. While using these you can test each one by using the warn_if_reject before each command, like so: warn_if_reject, reject_unauth_destination, Then you are now able to look in your maillog files and see reject_warnings to see the effects it would have had they been in effect.

Here are the basic anti-UCE controls Postfix uses:
reject_invalid_hostname - many non-legit senders issue nonsensical hostnames in the helo or ehlo stage so get rid of them. On the other hand, RFC 821 compliant mailers announce exactly who they are so we'll let them through.
reject_non_fqdn_hostname - This also checks RFC compliance. It should look like mx.example.com.
reject_non_fqdn_sender - Reject the request when the MAIL FROM address is not in fully-qualified domain form, as required by the RFC.
reject_non_fqdn_recipient - Reject the request when the RCPT TO address is not in fully-qualified domain form, as required by the RFC.
reject_unknown_sender_domain - Reject the request when Postfix is not final destination for the sender address, and the MAIL FROM address has no DNS A or MX record, or when it has a malformed MX record such as a record with a zero-length MX hostname. All legitimate mail exchangers should have MX records. Many spammers and zombies do not.
reject_unknown_recipient_domain - Similar to the one above, reject the request when Postfix is not final destination for the recipient address, and the RCPT TO address has no DNS A or MX record, or when it has a malformed MX record such as a record with a zero-length MX hostname.
permit_mynetworks - Now it is OK if it is from anywhere in my network.
reject_unauth_destination - * Postfix is mail forwarder: the resolved RCPT TO address matches $relay_domains or a subdomain thereof, and contains no sender-specified routing (user@elsewhere@domain), * Postfix is the final destination: the resolved RCPT TO address matches $mydestination, $inet_interfaces, $proxy_interfaces, $virtual_alias_domains, or $virtual_mailbox_domains, and contains no sender-specified routing (user@elsewhere@domain).

If you noticed and have referred to the legitimate email transmission above, you will see that all the above controls will reject email before it sends its payload when it hits the DATA command. On days when I get blasted by spammers the above directives kill up to 10% of the spam alone. Obviously, this is not enough but it is low cost and necessary.

The next restrictions you want to use are block lists. This can be a very slippery area and not one to take lightly.

Why Block Lists?
I once hated them. They produced many false positives and for the most part were operated by questionable people. Getting off a list was nearly impossible for some and seemed irrational. I had at one time been a victim of spamcop.net. In short, I hated block lists. Some time ago Al Iverson started dnsbl.com and is an excellent resource reviewing and analyzing the various block lists. His criteria is simple; percentage of accuracy and percentage of false positives. The higher the accuracy and the lower the false positives the better the overall rating of the list.

An RBL (Realtime Block List) is like having a staff that does nothing but checks reports of spam. Very large commercial ISPs do in fact hire a number of people that do just that. Google, Yahoo, MSN and AOL have people on duty that check spam reports. I don't have that luxury and probably 99% of you don't either.

There is a downside to using a block list. There are lots of them. You have to consider what will happen if you use them. Even though Spamhaus and lately Spamcop have extremely low false positives you may still have a problem or two occaisionally. Don't overly rely on them. They will block lots of spam but unless you use extremely aggressive lists spam will get through. No one method works but a combination of methods to block spam will get rid of most of it. Don't rely entirely on them.

I chose only 3 block lists...none are real aggressive: Spamhaus Zen (includes sbl, xbl and pbl), Spamcop and PSBL(Passive Spam Block List). I chose these because of their extremely low false postives and their high percentage of accuracy, according to dnsbl.com. Because of the volume of the email that we receive, I had to subscribe to the above lists in particular Spamhaus. If your email volume is not more than 1000s per day then it should not be necessary. In any case it is a bargain.

In Postfix in the section smtpd_recipient_restrictions and after the permit statement, we place the RBLs like so:
reject_rbl_client bl.spamcop.net,
reject_rbl_client zen.dnsbl,

The first statement above will look up the IP address of the sender at bl.spamcop.net. If it is on their list then it gets blocked after the MAIL FROM command. The second statement above however will not work until you install and configure BIND 9.x and rbldnsd. More about this in a minute.

Blocking Countries: YMMV
This is real controversial for a lot of email administrators and many administrators do not do it. I do not recommend it unless you do a lot of analysis of your log files and do a comprehensive check of your business rules. If you do not take the time to do this analysis then don't block countries at all or you will be sorry. This is especially true if e-commerce is a critical part of your business. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

I spent about a month analyzing log files to determine where most of our spam was coming from and I developed a "Top 10" list of countries and checked them against the Whois registry.

Next I wanted to minimize my bandwidth to the Internet so I installed BIND 9.x and rbldnsd to do local lookups of my RBLs and Blocked countries list that I had compiled. I wanted all the RBLs and blocked countries to be looked up locally and I accomplished this by creating new zones. The idea is to use named to do all lookups and for the dnsbl zones (spamhaus, spamcop and countries I wanted to block) named then forwarded the lookup to the rbldnsd name server. This required that I install two name servers. However, rbldnsd is very low on server resources, fast and efficient. It is perfect for these kinds of look ups.

At this point, everything is complete for Postfix. You can put at the very end of the restrictions the following:
permit - Everything else moves on to the next stage.

So far, Postfix and block lists have done a majority of the work. But we still have a couple more methods to consider and use.

Nolisting and Greylisting
I decided that I could try nolisting or what some call "poor man's greylisting". Nolisting and Greylisting relies on your public DNS and its MX records. In my DNS I had the following in my BIND data file:
example.com. IN MX 10 mx1.example.com. example.com. IN MX 20 mx2.example.com. What the above means is that a sending mail server will first try to send mail to the the mx1.example.com. server first. If it can not do this it will try to send mail to mx2.example.com. Nolisting means that one or the other mail servers is never available. In fact, the server that is the nolisting server doesn't accept mail delivery and it doesn't need to exist. With nolisting you have to conduct some tests to see which server should be the nolisting server will be the most effective. There is some debate whether spammers skip the primary mail server and send right away to the secondary mail server. The thinking is that the secondary mail server will be a less protected server and spam will have easier entrance into your network. For this reason, I have greylisting on the secondary server.

Greylisting is a method of stopping spam by refusing the sender the first time it tries to send email to any user and the receiving server requesting that the sender send it again at a later time. Here is how it works, it is called a 'triplet'.

1. The IP address of the host attempting the delivery
2. The envelope sender address
3. The envelope recipient address

If receiving MTA has never seen this triplet before, then it refuses this delivery and any others that may come within a certain period of time with a temporary failure. This works very well and generally is not noticed by the administrator or user. It is VERY effective against attacks from zombies.

The basic greylisting software for Postfix is Postgrey. Postgrey uses the DBM database and I used it for several months. It is easy to set up and use and comes with a nice report feature called Postgreyreport. There are several packages that you can use for Greylisting. I chose SQLGrey because it has more options to configure and to look at. It uses either MySQL, Posgresql or SQLite. This allows for a lot of flexibility.

I decided to make my primary server a nolisting server and have the secondary mail server (running Postfix) use Greylisting. As a general rule zombie mailers and a lot of spammers will try one and never come back to try again. According to the RFC if a mail server is down the sending mail server should try again some time in the future. Many spammers won't do this because it is not efficient for them to do so. Greylisting takes advantage of the fact that spammers want to spew as much spam to as many users as possible. Retrying to send email is not efficient for them and greylisting takes advantage of this.

What Comes Next?: Spamassassin and ClamAV
At this point you have stopped 70-80 percent of UCEs coming into your network. Even though this is a great improvement it is not good enough...not even close. Our internal groupware servers consisted of a mail hub and 3 "post offices" that the hub routes users' email to. We had an excellent 3rd party commercial application that had heuristics for spam and also did virus scanning.

What you do next depends on your resources. ClamAV. Spamassassin and the alternative Spambouncer will be needed for two reasons: to get rid of embedded URIs that carry dangerous payloads, virus laden email attachments, for heuristics and Bayesian filtering.

You have a choice here you can send the mail on to an internal mail hub or if your server is beefy enough you can process mail that gets through with Spamassassin. Postfix handles this very well. The only problem is Spamassassin is a resource hog on your server. Keep this in mind. For awhile I put Spamassassin and ClamAV on a mail hub inside our network and processed the mail before it was sent on its way. Later I had a gateway server outside our network that I ran it on an it only gets stressed when there are spam blasts.

With heuristics we are able to get rid of 90-95 percent of the UCEs that enter our network. This makes UCEs manageable. I still strive for 100% UCE free.

Other anti-UCE measures
Powerful anti-UCE tools of interest that you might consider using.
SPF-Sender Policy Framework
: The main aim of SPF is to prevent forged email. This is done using DNS TXT resource records. It determines if a mail server is authorized to send email to your domain or not. For a small to medium sized business where you have lots of control over your users AND you have lots of UCEs this is an excellent option. For us it is still out of the question and would require formal training for each user. In my situation this is not possible.
DomainKeys
DomainKeys does not prevent abuse but makes it easier track. That fact alone kept me from considering it. It verifies the source and content. It is a form of authentication.
HashCash
I didn't consider this one either. Although like the one above if most MTAs used it I would as well. With the volume of mail we receive it would require considerable computational resources I didn't want to expend. May be useful to a smaller number of users.

I am sure there are others I have forgotten or didn't seriously consider.

Image and currently pdf spam has not been a great problem but one that I need to address. I do that on the mail hub.

Log files and Reports
If you do all the above and then forget about your work, chances are good that eventually spam will start to build up again. Log files and reports are the tools that will help make adjustments as spam changes. Without them I would be lost. Looking through Gigabytes of files that my maillog generates would be mind numbing. I have installed pflogsumm which generates a very large and detailed file and also wrote a script that gives me exactly what I want. Remember you will always be a step behind.

A Typical But Light Day
249158 Turkey 206287 Poland 126605 SpamHaus xbl 63588 SpamHaus pbl 40026 Germany 32108 Russian Federation 25596 GREYLISTED 22245 Korea 20887 RFC - Need fully qualified hostname 17376 France 16844 Brazil 16693 China 15808 Message accepted 11987 Taiwan 11833 Spain 7957 Argentina 7954 Israel 7564 Italy 7108 Czech Republic 7060 SpamCop bl 6599 Netherlands 6109 Hungary 5390 Romania 5309 RFC - Domain not found 5106 Japan 4744 Surriel bl 3230 Chile 3109 Bulgaria 3015 Vietnam 2403 Belgium 1776 Ukraine 1587 Slovenia 1548 United Arab Emirates 1495 RFC - Helo Invalid Name 1433 SpamHaus sbl 1432 Greece 1040 South Africa 618 Relay access denied 608 Senegal 567 Estonia 544 Ivory Coast 435 RFC - Need fully-qualified address 392 Saudi Arabia 293 Malta 106 RFC - Malformed DNS Server 70 RFC - Improper pipelining 36 Marketers 13 Nigeria 8 Benin 6 Kenya 5 SURBL 1 Greenland 1 Botswana

Henny-penny...
A couple of days after we cut spam down to almost nothing, I was walking down the hall, returning to my office to troll on Kuro5hin and met a co-worker from another department.

"Is the mail server down?" she inquired. She had a worried look on her face. "I haven't received much email today."

I smiled to myself when I realized that she was no longer spending half the morning deleting spam from her inbox.

"No", I replied, "The sky's not falling."

My parodied version of

2008-07-18T10:27:00.002-06:00

William Carlos Williams' famous poem This is just to say

...the cell phone rings @ 6:30 ... a text message appears...

This is just to say

I forgot and left
the dvd
of me and my boyfriend
and forgot to take it out,

when I was finished, while you slept.
he came over
and you were asleep.
we were as quiet as possible.

forgive me it won't happen again.
I ironed your shirt and pants
and breakfast is in the fridge.
please don't be mad.

Internet Trolls

2008-06-29T22:12:00.003-06:00

Not sure where I found this image. Maybe someone knows

Birds of Prey: The Feathered Killing Machines

2008-06-10T00:01:00.000-06:00

I heard the very loud call of kree!...kree! and then I looked down and saw the One-eyed Pirate. His face is covered with streams of blood and I can see he can't wipe it out of his eyes. He looks like someone shot him at close range in the head. It looks worse than it is.

"Gawd dammit Jaguar!" I heard Pirate yell. "Get 'er away from me!" he chuckled to himself.

Of course, there's no way I was able to keep her away from her territorial imperative.

Then...here came the call; kree...kree again. This time I heard AND saw her. She stoops, in a short but quick dive....And then suddenly...BAM! She screamed down and hammered the Pirate's head. More blood poured from One-eyed's scalp. Male prairie falcons are protective too but they are only 1/3rd the size of females. The females are killing machines, inherited from their ancient raptor ancestors; the dinosaurs.

"Yeow! Fuck that hurts!" One-eyed Pirate said as he rubbed his head. His hand is now slippery with his own blood.

I laughed and it echoed against the canyon walls, fading out somewhere into Purgatory Canyon.

One-eyed gives up and lowers himself down onto the talus slope in one of the "finger canyons", Poitrey Canyon and the screeching goes away. She was a very aggressive prairie falcon. I put on a climbing saddle and hook the rope on it. I lower myself as quickly as possible, down along the canyon wall to take a look at him. It was funny as hell and I was laughing all the way down.

"It ain't funny you fucker." he says as I look at the cuts which are now streaming blood and caking in his hair.

"I wonder where the male is?" One-eyed says looking up the canyon wall.

The males aren't nearly as big, but can be just as aggressive.

"Next time, I am bringing my hard hat." The Pirate swears.

Most falcons are very protective of their nests but not as much as this prairie falcon. Usually they would get upset, scream at you and fly around a lot. This one definitely wanted us to go away. I look up behind me and see them both fly into their nest on the ledge of the cliff.

Feathered Killing Machines: A Brief Introduction to Raptors
Not all birds of prey (raptors) are the same. There are falcons, buteos and accipiters. Loosely, they are classified and identified by their wing shapes. The largest bird of prey is the magnificent American Harpy Eagle. With a six foot (1.83 meters) wing span, this bird can seriously mess you up. Fortunately, they exist in the tropics of South America.

The ornithologists that study them wear hard hats and thick leather jackets, which ultimately get ripped to shreds. Otherwise their skin would be shredded by the Harpy's back talons. You could be seriously injured. A Harpy would easily make your dog or cat a lunch. I have seen films of them and they nab sloths and monkeys for breakfast. Here's an example from Google Video . Note the size of the legs and claws on this feathered beast.

In 1972 the pesticide DDT was banned in the U.S. We were in this canyon to see what affect, if any, the ban on DDT had made on breeding. DDT (dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane) at one time was ubiquitous and it was thought that it made the shells of eggs of birds of prey very thin and then crushed by the parents in the nest. This caused the dramatic decline in raptors and peregrine falcons that once existed in New York City near Central Park and had all but vanished.

We found in only a few years that their numbers had increased dramatically. We were checking this by counting unbroken eggs in nests of prairie falcons that resided on ledges of canyon walls. This canyon in Colorado had prairie falcon nests every mile or two.

The Buteos
Ferruginous hawk - Buteo regalis
On our way to the canyons of the Eastern Colorado plains, we passed through the grasslands of the Southern Great Plains, in particular the Cimarron National Grassland. The grasslands were/are part of the habitat of the Ferruginous hawks; the largest of the hawks. They are a magnificent bird. Watching a Ferruginous hawk hunt is boring. They are a lazy hunter and they do a lot of ground hunting. In other words, they find a mammal hole in the ground and sit there and wait until their meal appears. They are quite successful and efficient at doing this.

Red-Tailed hawk - Buteo jamaicensis
These birds are everywhere and have benefited greatly from humans in terms of habitat. If you have spent any time on the Great Plains or Midwestern U.S. or just about anywhere in the U.S., you have probably seen them. The are the ones that are making "lazy circles in the sky". Like most buteos/hawks they are lazy fliers. The prefer soaring to flapping their wings and hover or "kite" above their prey. I have seen them carrying off jack rabbits and if they are really hungry they will eat fresh road kill.

The Golden eagle - Aquila chrysaetos
Golden eagles are magnificent as well. We are on the edge of their breeding range. The Kazakhs in the remote mountains of Western Mongolia hunt animals as large as wolves with these incredible birds. I have never seen this but I am sure it would be an incredible hunt to witness. Golden eagles hunt best in pairs, they work as partners. One Golden will flush the prey while the other comes in for the kill with its talons brandished and then WHAM, an explosion of fur. Eagles are the bombers in the world of raptors. They are big, deadly, precise and work well together.

The courtship displays are an amazing characteristic of many eagles, especially Golden eagles. They perform on the wing, an amazing cartwheeling display. I have witnessed this several times and this cartwheeling behavior is truly breathtaking. Note: I have only been able to find this video in RealAudio format. It is worth viewing however.

The Accipiters
Cooper's hawk - Accipiter cooperii
Of the accipiters my favorite are the Cooper's hawk. Cooper's hawks are beautiful and they are incredible hunters. Like most accipiters their hunting abilities are specialized more in tactical hunting; darting in and out of the bush with great agility and quickness. Their stealthiness is uncanny and their prey never knows what hit them.

For me, a Cooper's hawk is nature's Apache helicopter. They see their prey off in the distance, lock in on that prey, then using vegetation and brush as their cover, they go in for the kill. Watching a Cooper's hawk hunt is an exciting sight to see. If they were a character in a video game, they would devastate their enemy.

The Falcons
American Kestrel (Sparrow hawk) falcon- Falco sparverius
The smallest of the North American falcons is the American kestrel. They are about the size of a robin or grackle of the Southwest U.S. American kestrel are also one of the most beautiful, in terms of their coloration.

They are fierce and fearless hunters. Lizards, mice and voles are their largest prey. But because of their size they are the only falcon preyed upon by other raptors; like Golden eagles, prairie and peregrine falcons.

The Fastest Animal on Earth: Peregrine falcon - Falco peregrinus
Easily, the fastest, most efficient animal on earth is the Peregrine falcon. They have been clocked at speeds approaching 200 mph (322 kph), in a full stoop. I have been witness to a number of hunts with a falconer that trained peregrine falcons.

The Peregrine is released and it then circles the field climbing to an altitude where she is completely out of sight high above the terrain and falconer. This is called "waiting on". The falconer then flushes the prey (a game bird) out from a bush. Next in a matter of seconds, out of a 180 mph (290 kph) stoop, there is an explosion of feathers, the Peregrine has made its kill, with the speed and agility like no other animal on earth. It would be unusual for its prey to survive. It happens so fast, with such speed and ferocity that you never see the bird in the stoop (dive). You only see the burst of feathers as the falcon strikes her prey with her back talons. There is no other sight quite like it.

Falconry: The Sport of Kings - A Very Brief Intro
The sport of falconry is a complete article in itself. However, very few people should practice falconry. It is all-consuming and must be an obsession. Falconry is demanding and the slightest neglect can end in tragedy for the bird. Falconry requires hours of care and training of the bird. Because the bird is dependent entirely on the falconer, it also means you have to have freshly killed wild meat available daily with no exceptions. This means absolutely no meat from a supermarket. Eventually, most falconers release their bird when they are of breeding age. Raptors cannot be kept as pets as one can with other types of birds.

If you would like to consider falconry you should spend at least a month with an experienced falconer. Only then can you decide if you can do it. If you want to read about the lore, training and practice of falconry, there is only one book to read, "A Hawk for the Bush", by J. P. Mavrogordato. This book is THE book on falconry.

"Which came first Jaguar, the chicken or the egg?" One-eyed asked me once.
"Dunno fuck face, I suppose the egg." I answer him trying to be sarcastic and waiting for his answer.
"When will you learn?...the dinosaur came first, you idiot." he laughs.

The Ancient Arachno-Terrorist Organization : AATO

2008-06-09T00:01:00.002-06:00

The Arachno Terrorists
I dropped Rick off at his farm house. Being late summer he slept out on the back porch where it is nice and cool. I told him I would pick him up in the morning.

The next day I went to pick him up to take him to work. He greets me at the front door wearing cutoffs and a shirt.

"What the hell happened to you last night??" I asked looking at his legs.

His legs are covered with dozens of ugly tiny red marks about the size of an average zit.

"I need to go to the hospital. I am not feeling so good." he tells me.

"A nest of fiddlebacks got in bed with me last night. I was gangbanged."

"Oh my gawd..." I say in horror.

He was bitten in the classic way; in a bed, in a dark, dry area, in Oklahoma. Just over a week later those bites became large open sores, that if left untreated would look much like this. WARNING: EXTREMELY GRAPHIC PHOTOGRAPH.

Fortunately, Rick was treated in time so that he only had open sores about the size of an American quarter. After it was all over with (six months later) he ended up with large "pits" on his legs where the bites healed and the flesh had rotted away. Because the bite does not heal properly, people get serious Staphylococcus infections, if left untreated.

Most of what follows is anecdotal and I am not an arachnologist but long before Google or Alta Vista started crawling the web, there were crawling Arachnida; eight legged creatures that many people fear. This fear is known as Arachnophobia.

Arachnids are not insects (which are six legged). Of all the bugs, they are the most ancient and the most primitive. The main way to identify arachnids are their eight legs and two body segments, though there are some that appear to have only six legs. Most other bugs you will see are six-legged and 3 visible body segments, otherwise known as insects. Other than spiders, other arachnids are scorpions, mites, ticks and false scorpions to name just a few. Have you ever had the "crabs" or scabies? Been bitten by blood sucking ticks or have Lyme Disease? Have you had a near death experience from a Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever? All of these diseases are caused by arachnids.

Brown recluse (Loxosceles reclusa)
The venom from a brown recluse spider (Loxosceles reclusa, AKA fiddleback spider) is extremely toxic to humans and includes the following enzymes: a protease, an esterase, and a hyaluronidase, all three enzymes cause complete breakdown of human flesh; a necrotic ulcer. In other words, it rots your flesh and heals extremely slow. However, the venom is not fatal and rarely if ever causes death. Consider this though: What would happen to you if a snake injected this type of venom? Their venom when injected into their natural prey almost instantly liquefies the victim's insides so that the fiddleback can suck them out, rather like sucking a chocolate malt out through a straw. Yummy...

Fiddlebacks inhabit about 1/3 of the U.S. and more southern climates. There is a species that is slightly different that inhabits the Southwestern U.S. Where I live in West Texas, I have known a number of people that have been bit by the Southwestern version of these nasty little beasts and the bite has caused considerable problems. One man I know had recurring problems for several years. These vicious beasts are not aggressive and only bite if their primitive brains feel quite threatened. The best way to avoid these little shops of horror is to know their habitat.

Most fiddlebacks love dark, dry places like closets, garages and crawl spaces in attics. I have found them in my closets that I don't use much. Hint: if you need to go into one of these areas, place a bright light where you will be, for about 30-60 minutes. This should clear them into areas you will most likely will not intrude. For the extreme arachnophobe, completely cover your body with clothing and cover your face. I had a female friend rush into an old closet to find a stored blanket and she was bit on the face. She eventually had to have plastic surgery. I have never heard of Arachniphilia but just in case guys...don't shake it at a fiddleback, use your imagination instead.

Black Widows (Latrodectus mactans)
There is considerable lore about this orb spider and this is the time of year they are quite visible (late summer and early fall).

I have kept a number of spiders as pets in an aquarium. The most scary spiders are the most docile...tarantulas and wolf spiders. If you see these in the wild or your house, leave them alone. They will devour other pests in your house namely cockroaches. Both tarantulas and wolf spiders like human companionship. The reason, I am told, is because of our body heat.

Black Widows on the other hand scare me to death and are the most venomous spider in North America. They are an orb spider that many times will be outside spinning webs this time of the year. Being bit by one of these sweethearts (always a female) injects a neurotoxin into your skin that is 15 times more powerful than the bite of a prairie rattlesnake (also a neurotoxin) per volume. You will not feel the bite. Luckily for humans, it injects a minute amount of venom.

By the way, black widows rarely eat the males they mate with as is commonly thought.

Black Widow venom starts to act rather quickly. First, you begin to have abdominal pains, gastrointestinal pains, muscular pains and pain on the soles of your feet. Paralysis of your diaphragm can occur and your eyelids can swell up. If you let the bite go up to this point, you're going to feel rather fucked up. If you have heart or lung problems, you could die from either a heart attack or from suffocation because of paralysis of your diaphragm. Lovely, isn't it?

Safe insecticides are not effective against spiders. The best way to control them is to not create habitats for them in the first place and to be careful when you are around them outside in their habitat. Keep them out of your house by keeping it clean and being careful when you do spring cleaning and wear gloves.

The Arachno-Terrorists' Minions: Ticks
If certain spiders are the field generals, then ticks are their minions...by the bazillions. When I lived in the forests of the Pacific Northwest years ago, at least once a month the subject of ticks would come up. Strangely, most incidents of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever occur in South Carolina and Oklahoma.

Black Legged Tick, Deer Tick, American Dog Tick, Rocky Mountain Wood Tick...scary shit
If you go out in the woods much then you will run into ticks. Their ability to inflict disease is related to their one purpose; to suck your blood. You can get infested with ticks in a matter of seconds and feel them crawling about but not see them, unless they have stopped and have started engorging themselves with your blood. I have seen ticks so big from sucking on a host animal that they look like they would explode from the blood sucking orgy.

One time in Mexico, I made the mistake of taking a piss stop in the middle of a field of dead palmeto trees. Before I could zip up my pants, I felt this crawling itching feeling on my legs. When I got back in the car I realized what had happened. It wasn't until later that my girlfriend spent 2 hours picking them off one by one from my genital area. Luckily, I was not infected with a disease.

You don't get one tick bite, you get dozens and they feast on you like you were their last meal. Some sources say that you only get an infection if you pull them out by grabbing their bellies which have your blood in them. This injects any of the diseases they carry. I've tried many non-squeezing methods of getting them off of me and the only way is using tweezers and pulling them out by their little heads.

Scorpions and Whip Scorpions: I hate 'em, I love 'em
My favorite of all arachnids are scorpions and especially the vinegaroons or whip scorpions. Nothing scares people more than these two creatures. Vinegaroons are especially scary.

Scorpions are generally thought of as desert creatures; they're not. Scorpions like the warmer climates and are also distributed all over the earth. One year in Oklahoma I lived in a ranch house and when I moved in I noticed there were no cockroaches. Two nights later I found out why. The place was overrun with scorpions. At the time I was working in a greenhouse so I brought home from work a 1 quart fruit jar 3/4th full of formaldehyde. Each time I saw one scatter across the floor I grabbed it with a pair of 18 inch long forceps. By the end of the summer the fruit jar was stuffed full of scorpions and I now had a cockroach problem...nature's way.

Scorpion venom is also a neurotoxin. Not only that, but unlike other arachnida they can control how much venom they can inject. If they fully inject their victim with all their venom it takes several days for them to refill their venom sacs. Though not usually fatal, their sting is very painful. Most species of scorpions are NOT poisonous but this depends on what habitat you live in. In the U.S. very few people are killed by scorpion stings. This is due to the fact that most poisonous scorpions live in remote Southwestern U.S. deserts.

Of all the arachids, vinegaroons are indeed the most benign. They look like the beast from hell but the ones in North and Central America are harmless as they have no venom gland. They make good if not ugly pets. The beast looks as though it would rip you a new one but their only defense is a strong vinegar smell they squirt you with when startled or threatened.

The Return of the Monster King
Vinegaroons used to be real common where I live. I never saw many scorpions here and five years ago was the last time I had seen a vinegaroon. Early one morning in the middle of the night I was startled awake by thunder. I walked into the kitchen to make some coffee. I was very startled when I turned on the light and saw by the back door a huge vinegaroon who had come in from the rain. I picked him up and let him warm up on my arm before I turned him loose outside in the ivy.

I was thankful that the rain had brought them out, so I turned off the coffee and went back to bed...for dreams of vinegaroons, the king of arachnids.

The Celtic Wench

2008-05-29T00:42:00.000-06:00

The Dream
"God damn it! I had that fuckin' dream again last night!" the Wench tells me.

Surprised at her outburst, I ask calmly, "Which dream?"

"Oh, it's the one where I am giving my cousin a blow job, you know...when I was six-years-old."

It's a dream where she is in a bedroom with her cousin. Behind her in the living room her mother is vacuuming. The bedroom door is open. The first time the Wench tells me the dream, I make light of it.

"Really...?" I ask her, not giving it much thought.

We all know how dreams are. Dreams play with our minds, tickle our thoughts and sometimes puzzle us.

We both laugh and have sex.

wench: Pronunciation (wnch) n. 1. A young woman or girl, especially a peasant girl. 2. A woman servant. 3. A wanton woman.

The Wench was all three.

My freshman English Lit class is my favorite. We read stories, write stories and study the masters. I am unlike most students in class and my appearance sticks out. My usual attire is a flannel shirt, Levi button-up blue jeans and my hair goes to my shoulders. At age 24, in 1975 I am older than most of the students in class. This also means I get to live in the foreign students dorm. It is quiet there, I can study AND I can have girlfriends over.

The first few weeks of class, I notice interesting people. But there is one student that sticks out above all others. It's not only her looks but her contributions, what she writes, her observations and how she carries herself. Her frizzy, orange-red hair falls to just below her shoulders. She wears a plaster cast on her right ankle and tells me she injured her foot playing touch football. I learn that the Wench is nineteen-years-old. I tell myself "Don't do it!" but I fall for her.

It amazes me how far I fall too. I am reeled in to the point that I am mystified. It is a grip that I can't shake, even though I know better. The Wench is like a single flower surrounded by bee hives and constantly being pollinated.

Her first tryst is the day after my father passed away. At 4:00 AM the phone rings she wakes up, answers it and hands the phone to me. Pre-dawn phone calls are never good. I hear my mother telling me my father has passed away. My friend Ram is spending the night with us, he's sleeping on the couch in the other room. I leave for home that morning on a bus to be with my mom and Grandparents. Not 10 minutes after I have left, she is in bed with him.

She carries on with Ram for another year, until he can no longer bear to keep the secret from me. On my trips back home to help my mother, she invites him over and they spend the weekend together. I suspect lots but say nothing. She was with me not them. I come home one day from out of town. Sitting on the couch I can see her in the bathroom. I notice that she is cleaning her diaphragm in the sink. If she didn't want me to know anything about it, she would have shut the door.

"What are you doing? Who have you been screwing?"

I question her a little shocked at her blatancy. Time to bring all of out.

"OK OK" she admits.

"Ram spent the weekend here; while you were away."

Amazed that she told me, I keep telling her that if she wants to have affairs just tell me, but don't be sneaky about them. However, for some reason she is compelled to taste them all. I suppose it was the thrill of it all. I am not sure why we didn't leave each other.

It doesn't run through the family, it GALLOPS...
It isn't just the Wench either, it's her whole family that's wacko, including both sides. Going to a family gathering is like going to a carnival complete with freak shows, tumbling midgets and evil clowns. I should have gotten the hint.

Then, there is the weekend at her parents.

We drive to her parents on a Saturday morning. They live on the plains in the middle of farmland, in a small rural town. The Wench and I aren't married yet and it was a pain in the butt not being able to sleep together. But this time it is different. Her parents let us sleep together and the idea of it doesn't seem to bother them. It's Saturday evening. Her mom is parading around the house excited that her sister is coming to visit the next day. Wine has filled up the refrigerator, the house has been practically remodeled with the cleaning she has done.

But I notice something very curious, almost out of place.

In the den amongst knick-knacks, pictures are scattered here and there in plain view...Polaroids. I notice this and pick one up laying on a stack of five or six. To my amazement there are various nudes and sex acts of her parents! The strange part is someone has taped paper over various parts of the photographs so that only the faces can be seen. If that was all anyone could see, it would be innocent enough...but I peeked.

I didn't say anything to the Wench about this. I figured that discretion was the better part of valor and kept my mouth shut. If the Wench stumbles across the photos that is one thing, but for me to go around to everyone asking about the photographs is quite another. Dinnertime conversation is the next interesting event of the evening.

"I can't wait for my sister to get here." her mother blurts out as I cut off a piece of charbroiled steak.

"When she does get here I am going to have her get rid of this boil on my butt. It really hurts too!"

She says this as I am about to take a bite of this luscious, blood-dripping and rare piece of meat.

At the very second after she said that, I fake a sneeze, kick the Wench under the table and stifle a laugh. This could get interesting.

"It's been bothering me for two weeks. I can't reach it either."

I almost gag...a "boil"?, at the dinner table? I don't believe what I am hearing. The possibilities that run through my mind are endless.

The next day, Sunday, starts out as a normal day, then the unbelievable gets weirder. Everyone goes to church except me and the Wench. I also notice that the Polaroids are put away as they are now nowhere to be found. I fix us breakfast, go to the den, turn on the TV and read a book. Around noon everyone returns from church and the Wench's aunt shows up.

There is Sunday lunch with lots of sandwiches, wine and talk among the women. I go back to the den to watch football with the Wench's father and brother. We laugh and joke and yell at the game on the TV screen.

The next thing I know her mother announces, "Me and Missy are going back to the bedroom and get rid of this boil on my butt. We'll be out in a little while."

This time I laugh out loud but no one laughs with me. My imagination gets a grip on me and doesn't easily let go.

The Wench's father grabs his son, "Let's go outside and finish cleaning the yard and haul it off to the landfill." This all seems to be quite normal around here.

Over an hour passes and I am the only one left in the house except the two sisters doing gawd-knows-what in the bedroom. I strain my ears to hear anything. I am even tempted to walk back to the bedroom and press my ear to the door. But of course I chicken out. The Wench, her brother and father are all outside doing yard work. After another hour, everyone appears in the house as if out of nowhere. I never talk to the Wench about what I thought was really going on in the bedroom. A boil...my ass!

"If you kiss me I will turn into a pumpkin"
I should have taken the hint. Why didn't someone hit me with a two by four and knock some sense into my pinhead?

The rest of my college years with the Wench are like that and worse. But I am busy with my studies and finishing my honors classes. In our Senior year we decide one night, after being blasted on mushrooms, to get married. There is only one place in the state that one can get married on a fluke and it is an all day trip to the corner of the state. After sleeping little that night we get up early and head out.

The town we get married in is notorious for getting blood work done, the marriage certificate signed and getting married at a preacher's house all in one day. We arrive just before noon and make our first stop at the courthouse. They tell us we have to find a minister to marry us first, then get a blood test, bring all that back and then pay a number of bucks at the courthouse and it's done. The clerk at the courthouse gives us addresses and a map to help us find a preacher. We pull up to one church and the minister is at lunch. The secretary makes a call to his house and we are told to go on over; he'll marry us right away.

I guess the mushroom effect really starts to wear off as I start thinking about the last couple of hours. I freak out and start to panic. I think the Wench does too. It's hard to tell what we both are thinking right now. I look at the Wench and realize that I might have to spend the rest of my life with her. With all the hints I have been given the last four years, I start to think about driving off a bridge somewhere.

We arrive at the preacher's residence and enter. We are greeted by a gentleman that I could swear just stepped out of a KKK costume. He looks at us like we are carnival workers just passing through. We chit-chat, laugh nervously and I then notice that the Wench hasn't said much at all in the past hour. My hands sweat, my feet sweat and my stomach is in knots. I feel like I have just swallowed a bottle of ipecac. The preacher goes through the ceremony. It is short an' sweet.

"I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride."

It sounds reasonable to me. To my surprise, she has to make a big scene out of it. As I turn to kiss her, she turns her face away from me. I control my impulse to slap her, pay the preacher $25 and quickly get the hell out of there. I shoulda taken the hint...long before now.

The beginning of the end, the Dream
Having hitch-hiked across the Western U.S. for our graduation gift to ourselves, I leave Oklahoma for the last time. I occasionally return for visits. We have to decide what to do with ourselves and whatever we decide, we decide we don't want to do it where we are living. We pick New Mexico as our destination.

We hadn't been there for more than a week and we are sitting around in the trailer we are renting until we get jobs and get on our feet. We both look for jobs during the day and at night we are left to entertain ourselves. We have no cable and no phone, just books to read and a sad portable TV with aluminum foil on the antennae.

One evening, for entertainment, we decide to describe and analyze the dreams we remember. We talk about the dreams we have which seem to recur from time to time. Everyone has them and everyone ponders their meanings.

"You remember that Dream I have every now and then? The one that haunts me, the one that is like a nightmare, you know, the one about my cousin?" she asks me.

"Yeah, I remember, how does it go again?"

She retells the dream she has about the sordid intimacy with her cousin and her, with her mom vacuuming in the other room.

"I had it again the other night. It gives me the creeps."

Then...it all makes sense to me.

There is a long pause and the feeling of crystal clear realization hits me. It's as if someone came up behind me and hit me in the back of the head. I shudder for a moment. Then chills and goose bumps erupt over my body like a wave of electricity in slow motion. The feeling is not pleasant and my stomach is instantly in a knot.

"Whats wrong? you're white as a sheet." she observes.

I start to speak but the words won't come out.

"Are you OK?" she asks still puzzled.

"The man is not your cousin and it's no dream."

"The man is your father."

With that, her mouth drops open and she does not breathe nor moves a muscle. The inside of the trailer seems to be frozen in time. She turns pale and stiff as the words that came from my mouth echoes through her thoughts.

Some time later, long after we are divorced, her father is seated on a lawn chair. He is staring at his fence where he has lined up three empty beer bottles.

He aims his revolver. ONE...he shoots the first bottle, TWO...he shoots the second bottle, THREE...he blasts the third bottle. He then places the revolver to his temple......FOUR......

She tells me a few years later. "My only regret is that he didn't go see my mom and shoot her first."

The Magician, The Chasm and the Jaguar Priest

2008-05-27T00:01:00.000-06:00

"You were gonna do what?" I asked in total amazement. The Magician stares through me.

"Oh yeah, you see, I came home from college one day, and I woke up, sittin' in the car, in the garage, with the garage door shut and the engine running." The Magician tells me this as if he is repeating this story for the one millionth time.

We sit in the room and for five minutes there is...total...silence. The Magician does not twitch a muscle and I stare down at the sunlight hitting the floor in the room. My throat is thick, I can't swallow and I can't talk. I feel like weeping.

Thus begins my spiral down into the chaos, enlightenment, darkness and knowledge of The Magician. The depths of his plunge are infinite, twisted and broken. His soul is stretched with pain, brightness and horror. I know he lives where there are jagged edges constantly; it never leaves him. The terror is unrelenting and like a vicious junkyard dog it snarls and bites him every day of his life. The wretchedness flashes like lightning and rips his inner fabric to shreds.

The Magician's own existence is magic of the spirit, it is soul-wrenching, and it is powerful. It has a name and it's name is schizophrenia.

"Cat's foot iron claw"

During my student internship, I arrive at the clearest moment of realization; I can never fully know my own follies. They are the follies that wake me up in the middle of the night. I can only recognize their presence and I quickly learn this.

The class is a group therapy session with a psychiatric social worker. The class is developed by my boss, a psychologist. I live outside of town on her brood mare ranch with the Celtic Wench, where I work as a ranch hand. I shovel horse shit, dog shit, mend fence, and pick wild persimmons.

Two weeks into the class, we are assigned clients to talk with and help. The Magician is assigned to me along with a woman. The first questions that come to my mind are; what is he like? Who is the Magician? Of course, the psychiatric social worker doesn't tell us. We are left to figure out who they are. It doesn't take long for the class to realize we are working with people we won't be able to help. Discovering who the Magician is becomes easy. What to do with the discovery is difficult.

After a few weeks of talking with the Magician, I realize that I am face to face with a schizophrenic mind. This discovery is crystal clear. He goes into a reality that is unfathomable. Yet one lucid day I find out more. He sometimes mentions suicide.

"Magician, do you remember becoming this way?" I asked in one of the first times I met him. "Why did you want to kill yourself?" I sit and listen after asking the question. I expect to hear a nonsensical answer.

"I got a scholarship to go to Boston College." he starts out. "I received a bachelor's degree in Philosophy." he tells me. "Where did this come from?" I quiz myself not expecting his answer. I can see part of his soul bleeding through now. Is the Magician that educated? "I then graduated and received a scholarship to go to seminary at Southern Methodist University." He tells me this while lucidness is still with him. "I was home for Thanksgiving and I was depressed and wanted to kill myself. I tried to kill myself sitting in the car, you know, I've already told you about that time."

I can only imagine what his family and local authorities thought about his strange new behavior. "And then during that Christmas I found myself on top of the water tower. I want to jump off of it." He goes on to tell me how the police of the small farm town where he grew up, tried successfully to talk him out of it; that is when he first knew something was really wrong. He met with the doctors and they sent him to the state hospital.

I am taking Intro to Logic, so I ask him about the Informal Fallacies. To my amazement, he rattles them off with a description for each one. He does so in lightning fashion while staring into space. I come to learn that this indicates that he is partially off his medications and that he will shortly plunge into the depths of his own hellish realm.

The slide into oblivion begins when the Magician starts taking "walks". As the slide from our reality and into his secret reality deepens, he withdraws from everyone that knows him, until he no longer recognizes or acknowledges anyone. The slide is slippery and the line separating our two realities is a punctured hole and the puncture is growing ever wider.

There is no surprise for me when after meeting with the Magician for 3 months, he now slips away from my grasp. I am unable to see him until the following February. The Magician is hidden away from us all. The mental health center is the place where he feels safe and secure from our reality. The world we know does not shatter his world. He battles with his torments deep within The Chasm.

"Neuro-surgeons scream for more..."

Describing the descent into the hell of schizophrenia, is not easy. It is rather like this. Imagine taking every conscious thought, every memory and put them in a bucket, like multi-colored confetti and in a precise order. Shake the bucket up. Next throw it as high in the air as possible, from the edge of an infinite pit, with a strong wind at your back. Now, somehow go to the bottom of The Chasm and make sure you gather everything you had in the bucket. Put it all back in the same order you had it when you first started.

The drug Haloperidol (AKA haldol) is the Magician's transport to the bottom of The Chasm and back. The Magician is always running up and down the canyon of despair. While inside the mental health center three months he wanders, for three months, lost at the bottom. The Magician is searching for the confetti that is the structure of his existence. I am not allowed to see him or help him and I am assigned a new client.

Eventually, the Magician emerges from the depths of the spiraling hole. In February he is allowed to go home. I go to see him once again and to help him. I find out from him that the holidays were too much for him to deal with. The mental health center always becomes full during the holidays. The Magician stopped taking his medications during that time and doing so took him to the bottom.

I take him to lunch and we talk about him being inside the mental health center. He doesn't say much about it, so we talk about philosophers I am studying and logic. He enjoys those discussions and I revel in his knowledge of the subject.

"At paranoia's poison door."

Now, having emerged from The Chasm yet again, he once more has hope. This hope infects me as well. Yet for the Magician, hope is a Trickster in disguise. Hope is always there for the Magician but nothing about it can be achieved. Hope is another torn and punctured line between him and I. Hope is so thin, and so transparent for him. Hope is always just beyond his grasp. Spring arrives and with it comes new life and hope is renewed.

The Magician wants to work, to support himself and he's given the opportunity. I am encouraged and think that maybe a corner is somehow turned. But the Trickster called hope is never far away from the Magician. It's only a matter of time before hope fades away and the Trickster overcomes him.

He has a chance to clean yards with a crew and he gets picked up by the crew chief every morning. This works out for awhile. But one day I find out that he does not show up at the curb to be picked up by the crew chief. I am supposed to meet with him the next day.

"No...I am not here..."

I discover he is nowhere to be found and no one has seen him. I decide for the first time, to go to where he lives and ask around. As I approach the old two-story house where he lives, I feel my heart quickening. I don't know what to expect. In a way I am scared of what I will find. I enter and start asking people where his room is.

Approaching his room, I see that his door is open. Looking in, I notice the room is a total wreck and to my left is the Magician. He is laying on his back, and staring straight up into the universe past the ceiling. At first I suspect the worst. "Magician!, it's me Jaguar, I came to see how you are doing." I am uncertain what, if anything, will happen next. The Magician is straight and stiff on his bed; he does not answer me; his eyes do not blink. Dusting off a chair, I pull it up and sit down. Long moments pass. I watch him carefully and hopefully. Finally, I notice that he is taking shallow breaths.

"Huh?" I hear him say. Maybe he's coming back. Maybe I am the bit of reality that he needs to re-enter what we call normalcy. "No, I am not here." he tells me, still staring straight up. For a brief moment, the Magician recoils back to reality, from the thin thread he is treading on; then he is gone again back to The Chasm. My heart sinks as he re-enters his despair. I sit there for a bit longer, trying to contact him. It is as if I am Mission Control trying to reach a wayfaring space traveler.

Then all of a sudden, he raises up, barefoot and walks out of his room, as if I am not there. The Magician quickly leaves, as I follow walking behind him, I call out to him. He cannot hear me. He walks around the house a few times and then he is gone. I go to the center and tell them. "Oh yes, we will find him and have him picked up. Thanks". The lady at the front desk says this so matter-of-factually. "Shit! doesn't she know how important this is?" I think to myself. She doesn't care, Magician is just one of many.

"Twenty first century schizoid man."

Again, days go by and he is gone. I wonder about what will happen to him. I finish my student internship not seeing him again in a professional setting. I find out from people that he has been "walking" lately. He walks barefoot, on the streets until his feet bleed and are a mess. Upon hearing this, on nights when I can't sleep, I drive around the small town to see if I can find him; I drive and search and drive and search.

The police see him occasionally at nights, during their patrols and when they do, they pick him up and take him to the mental health center. Hearing this relieves me a little. But the loneliness he must have, the constant fear he must confront, at times overwhelms me. I ask around at the center about him. One of the psychiatric social workers tells me he is not doing well and won't take his medications. I remember a conversation I had with him once. "Would you ever consider taking your life again?" I asked him then. I remember the Magician telling me, "If I became myself again, if I became what I was ... I might." I am such a neophyte, an idiot. The insight he gives me is astounding, yet simple.

There are times during the summer that the Magician occupies my thoughts. The thoughts are not good and are burdensome. They are like copperhead snakes in my mind, always there hiding, ready to strike and easily provoked. I envision him swirling around deep within The Chasm, furiously grasping at each tidbit of his spirit. Yet with each step he must be tumbling further downward into deeper depths. There is no magic wand nor a silver bullet to save him the misery and despair he must constantly live with. No matter what, I cannot save him. I have no secret spells nor magic potions.

Then on a hot summer afternoon the Wench and I go to get an ice cream at the drive-in. As usual, I keep one eye to the road and one on the lookout, for the Magician. There on the side of the road, walking barefoot, is the Magician. I stop the car and yell at him as loud as I can. He whips back to my reality briefly and sees me motioning him over to get into the car. I run over and help him into the car. I tell the Wench to get in the back seat and when he gets in to lock the door and make sure he does not unlock it.

He is wearing a heavy leather jacket in the incredible summer heat. He has sweat so much that he is totally dehydrated. I look at his bare feet and they are bleeding and raw-looking. "Magician, let's get you a lemonade, OK?" He stares straight ahead and says nothing. "Then I will take you to the mental health center so you can take care of your feet." Magician must have been walking all night and into the afternoon.

At the drive-in I order two large lemonade drinks for him. He quickly drinks them down, realizing his own thirst. I order one more. But before it comes he crawls out the window of my Corvair. He did it so fast I couldn't stop him. My mind is racing about what to do. I decide that if I get him back in the car that I would be unable to keep him there and he might jump out while I am driving down the road. I call the MHC and they tell me they will get the police to pick him up. Maybe that is what he wanted. I ask myself what are the police to him?

"I talk to the wind, my words are all carried away"

I go on with my life and I suppose the Magician does too. He taught me many things. I often see people in the city where I live, walking and talking incoherently. I am briefly reminded of the Magician and his hopelessness. I try not to think about it too much. I look at them briefly...and then...I look away.

NOTES: I should note that the section headings are from lyrics of the first King Crimson album. The lyricist is Peter Sinfield.

The Pirate and the Death Chamber

2008-05-25T00:01:00.000-06:00

What follows is a back reference to The Pirate character I wrote about in this story a couple of years ago.

I met the Pirate long after he was a 5-year old kid who on a fateful day decided to be a 'cowboy' in a game of 'Cowboys and Indians'. He was ambushed by the Indians with the result being a crude arrow slammed into his eye, squashed it like a grape and was blind in that eye ever since.

The time met him, I walked into his mom's house and immediately a giant red squirrel comes down the drapes and runs up my leg to rest on my shoulder. Pirate hands him a peanut in a shell. I didn't have time to even blink. It's like having a small cat resting on your shoulder. "Hi I am Pirate, this here on your shoulder is my furry brother. He doesn't have rabies either."

Yet, among other things he is one of the greatest artists you will never know and that doesn't matter either. This isn't about that anyway. You probably wouldn't care.

The Pirate Disguise

During that time in his life he was almost the perfect burglar. The Pirate and a couple of buddies would get in the car around midnight, drive to rural towns in Oklahoma and Southern Kansas, break into drugstores or auto supply stores (preferred) and lift all the shit they could carry of value and sell it on the black market, in a small college town. It was lucrative BUT they got lazy.

Their ultimate demise was that they started burglarizing closer and closer to home. One night a road block snagged them and they landed in jail. During their trial they were told to quit college and join the Army. Otherwise, they would be put on 6 years probation. The Pirate couldn't join because one eye was missing. A fact the judge did not find amusing.

"Why is there a patch over your eye?" the judge quizzed before sentencing. "Are you trying to be funny in this court and insult this court with this pirate patch over one eye?"

The pirate tried to speak but the judge did not allow it. In actual fact the Pirate thought of himself somewhat of a pirate.

"I sentence pirates to jail." the judge continued, "You would have been better advised by your lawyer had he told you to not wear that nonsense in my court room."

The Pirate obeyed but the moment the judge realized his own flawed request, gave the Pirate 6 years probation instead of 10 years in the McCallister Sweathouse; the Oklahoma State Penitentiary. I always knew him as the Pirate.

Moth Man...Butterfly Man

Years later I would visit him in his two room adobe shack in the middle of the Mother Primeval Desert. He lived like a fucking monk and celibate too. He was queer as a football bat but I didn't care. You don't get rid of friends because of that. Hell, I tried for years to get him to let my ex screw him (something she was more than willing to do) but he would have none of it. She would even try to sneak up on him in the middle of the night and give it a pull or two. He'd wake up screaming at her to go away.

Standing at the entrance to his place you could see a handful of furniture: a chair, a bunk bed, a door on a sawhorse (his meager studio), a chair and a tin stove. He cooked all his meals on a disca which is a Northern Chihuahuan wok. That morning we had to work for breakfast. We had to crack 50-60 quail eggs from his quail coop into a bowl just to have two omlettes. You don't want to know what the quail were for but I will tell you anyway.

I was trying to contain a tequila hangover from exploding from the night before by getting the quail eggs cracked, when I look over at the quail coop. The Pirate emerges with a small cage of 4 quail. He reaches in and takes one out. Before I could blink he took the poor creature and slammed it as hard as he could against his adobe shack. Quail guts splatter everywhere.

"Food for my falcons." he said seeing me about to puke. "The desert is a mean place. They don't feel a thing."

Cracking quail eggs for breakfast became a torture. The whole scene was out of whack at that moment...throwing quail against the wall like a baseball to feed falcons and cracking their eggs to feed ourselves seemed surrealistic. Yeah...the desert can make you mean, if you let it. The Pirate started dressing out the quail for 4 falcons. Everyday started out the same "sunshiney day".

"You want fries with that?" seemed like a reasonable thing to say.

The Death Chamber

What fascinated me the most on my trips to visit him that summer was the evening 'entertainment'. He had a small gasoline generator that he rigged up lighting inside the adobe shack and a black light that always sat just outside the door.

The desert for those that have never paid much attention to it, is overflowing with creatures and life. The only problem is that you never see it unless it is night. The black light attracted creatures for miles. The Pirate interest was in the moths. During the day he collected butterflies and in particular Swallowtails but at night the most interesting were the moths.

Each night we'd turn on the black light, sit on the ground and knock back a half quart of some nasty tequila; I didn't want to know how he got it either. Then we'd wait for them to come in and land on the black light. When they did, he'd inspect them, determine if he had that species and if he didn't the poor moth was put into a fruit jar that had cyanide in it and he sealed it shut. He killed on average two a night. Some were big moths and some were very small.

The next morning he'd pin them on Styrofoam boards to dessicate in the desert air. This only took a day. Then he would pin them on boards and entomb them in cases for viewing, studying and painting. His watercolors of butterflies and moths were stunning. Each stroke of his brush was perfect almost too perfect. He painted to perfection each one he killed. Then he placed the paintings on a pile on the floor. Many times I tried to get him to let me sell them for him. He would have none of it.

After a couple of years he moved away from the desert and in with some friends in another part of the state.

Blind Man's Bluff

I lost track of him for a number of years. I too moved away. One night I get a phone call. I knew his voice right away.

"I'm goin' blind" he said.

"You're already blind." I said jokingly. I thought he was kidding me.

One night he was mowing his lawn with an electric mower and had stretched the cord almost out to the end. He decided to unplug it by forcibly unplugging it by jerking the cord out of the socket. He told me it all happened in slow motion and he can recall seeing every inch of the plug flying towards his head. Because his arm was over his head the plug hit his good eye knocking it out of ITS socket. Horrified he somehow stuffed his eyeball back in and a friend drove him to the hospital.

I never talked to him after that. It is hard to imagine him blind.

The Super Nova

2008-05-24T14:49:00.001-06:00

The Super Nova

Sunflowers In The Desert

2008-05-24T08:20:00.003-06:00

Sunflowers In the Desert

My parodied version of

2008-05-24T00:01:00.000-06:00

William Carlos Williams' famous poem This is just to say

...the cell phone rings @ 6:30 ... a text message appears...

This is just to say

I forgot and left
the dvd
of me and my boyfriend
and forgot to take it out,

when I was finished, while you slept.
he came over
and you were asleep.
we were as quiet as possible.

forgive me it won't happen again.
I ironed your shirt and pants
and breakfast is in the fridge.
please don't be mad.

Taking A Few Days Off

2008-05-18T04:13:00.001-06:00

I will return shortly...

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Sotol Moonshine

2008-05-15T01:00:00.002-06:00

It's June 1981 in the early summer afternoon and the temperature in this oasis is well over 102 degrees F. I just got off from a four day shift, with about 12 hours sleep. I'm raw, smell like a goat and look like a bum. So despite the heat of the vast northern Chihuahuan Desert, a nice soak in hot springs of a Mexican-tiled tub seems relaxing.

Pugilist Paul greets me with his nearly seven foot frame, as I step out of my truck. His yap-dog terrier is barking so loud and hard it almost shakes itself off its legs. "Don't worry 'bout 'im, he never bites." Pugilist makes this bold statement while the little rat dog bites me behind the right knee. "Shit!" I yelp, "You just said he wouldn't bite for christsakes!" Pugilist let out a half-assed chuckle. My thoughts are really warped now. "Dammit!" I think, "this ain't starting out right at all."

"Aw shit!", Pugilist said, "Come on inside and let's take a look." I am corkscrewed around watching blood trickle from the two puncture wounds. Pugilist grabs some hydrogen peroxide from the medicine cabinet. "He's had his shots." Then I watch the peroxide foam as he pours it on the dog bite. Pugilist next pulls out a five gallon jerry can and two half-sized midget shot glasses. "No we're not going to pour gasoline on it," I'm thinking. "I don't care if the dog does have rabies!" Twelve hours sleep in four days twists your thinking.

Solamente elixir de agave

Pugilist Paul an ex-Marine and his Austrian wife, are restoring and renovating the Kingston Hot Springs, now years later, it's known as the Chinati Hot Springs. Half the adventure of ending up at the oasis in the desert is the trip to it. The usual route is going through Presidio, TX on US Highway 67 out of Marfa, TX, one of the oldest highways in the US highway system. Then one continues along the river road The more adventurous way to get there however, is to take the Pinto Canyon Road, Texas FM 2810. I call it the pucker road.

It takes you past the base of Chinati Peak and limestone outcroppings where peyote cactus and sotol agave grow. Each turn of the road is an Ansel Adams print on steroids and amphetamines. The drive involves a blue highway scenic route that degrades into a dusty dirt and washboard nightmare. At 11 miles the road dives down into the bottom of the canyon, then over a native stone arched bridge. If you take the correct fork in the road after coming up and out of Pinto Canyon, you pass by a precarious and old landing strip, an oasis opens up and you go down into the hot springs. Humans of the area, though long since passed on, have been making this journey for thousands of years.

"This will ease your pain a little", Pugilist Paul shrugs with a bit of swagger. With his huge hands, Pugilist takes the 5 gallon jerry can and fills up the two midget shot glasses. "What's this?" I laugh, while looking in amazement at these two midget-sized shot glasses filled with light greenish-gold liquid. "Pugilist, you're a little fuckin' light on the drinks tonight aren't ya?" He only grins and holds up his glass for a toast.

We click glasses and we both knock back the midget shooters. I am half expecting to resist spitting it out. Pugilist looks at me, "Um...you really need to treat this stuff with some respect." he calmly speaks, "Or you'll end up on your ass." Pugilist is always calm. Then I notice how this is as smooth as honey and it just slithers down my gullet like a liquid rattlesnake with no poisonous bite. Noticing also that Pugilist only has half a thimble left. He waits with a sly grin for my reaction which is surely to come forth.

I slowly realize what an odd sight this is. This huge ex-marine sitting across from a scrawny, skinny legged, dog-bit half-wit, drinking god-knows-what, with two midget shot glasses and a jerry can on a red-checkered table cloth. It reminds me of a twisted Norman Rockwell scene. "Wow! What is this? It's great!" shoving my shot glass towards him. He pours me another. "It's sotol moonshine."

Sotol grows weed-like everywhere around here, it makes for all the mysterious scenery. Up to this point, I am thinking scenery is all it is good for. I start relaxing a bit and knock back shot #2. BAM! easin' it down slowly... "yeah right I am," I think to myself.

hecho en Chihuahua, Mexico

"Where'd you get it?" I inquire. We both know this would be my next question. Pugilist goes on to tell me about a Mexican family across the river that makes this to sell on the U.S. side of the frontier. They are poor ranch workers that, like most here, love the vast Chihuahuan Desert and its mysteries. They've never lived anywhere else. Occasionally, they come across the river to immerse in the healing powers of the hot springs. Every time they come across the river for a stay, they always bring a jerry can of sotol, to pay for their stay for the weekend and drink with Pugilist.

It is smooth as silk. "How much is it? Can you get me a can?" Of course I know the answer but it's worth a try anyway. Pugilist gets a serious look on his Scots-Irish face. "No way, too hard to get it." he tells me.

Indeed, I suppose. This type of agave mezcal is only made in the state of Chihuahua, Mexico. Even then it is confined to Northern Chihuahua along the frontera, the border. Like it's cousin tequila, sotol is made from the same family of plants, the agave. Unknown to most people all tequilas are mezcals but not all mezcals are tequila. Sotol is a regional mezcal and not common. Sotol is a rarity for anyone except native chuahuanistas. That is why this night is a special and rare treat. The light golden-green liquid is superb.

Tequila is made from the maguey plant and sotol is from a related but different plant. Like tequila, sotol is made from a mature plant and I assume that the older the better. The reason being that the more mature the plant the greater the abundance of natural sugars in the root. Some say, this is the reason there is rarely a hang over after drinking tequila, at least under normal circumstances.

I have never seen sotol being made [see NOTES below]. But the process must be similar to that of tequila. I know that like the tequila maguey, sotol starts from the large root of the plant. It is then low baked in earthen ovens fueled by mesquite wood for a number of hours. Then it is allowed to cool and the baked root is pulverized and chopped up. This presumably masticated mess is then fermented for almost two weeks after which it is most likely distilled once and canned.

Visions of mezcalito

I hammer down #3, then #4, then #5 and start talking about whatever shit that starts popping into my head. Hell, I don't even know what kind of psycho babble I'm spewing. I do keep wondering why Pugilist appears to be growing a second head. This stuff loosens your tongue with the result being outbursts of brain farts and a lubricated false sense of deep self-knowledge. Maybe it is my state of mind or my frame of reference. The thought passes through my mind that I might be getting the onset of rabies...wacko thinking indeed. I envision the local paper in the morning headlines! "Rabid man brought in for observation while drinking gasoline from a jerry can and striking a match." Or "Naked Man found wandering in desert claiming to be mezcalito and foaming at the mouth"

I finally decide to listen to Pugilist and sip it slow. Winding up as a headline in a small local paper is not something I want work to find out. Elixer de agave is like that. I know this though, I will never go to a party that has sotol in cans, not without wearing a .45 revolver, an extra six rounds and wear it on the hip. One minute people are standing up and laughing and the next minute those same people having over-indulged in sotol are either laying around passed out and slobbering on themselves or they're chasing your wife or girlfriend. Trust me, the party WILL get out of control.

This strangeness continues when I look up and notice two hours have passed. Pugilist and I have talked and laughed and I can't even remember about what. My body feels like rubber and I haven't moved much of anything but my mouth and bending elbow. I don't feel my legs and I don't care either. With sotol you can saw your legs off and bleed to death in a messy blissful state with a smile.

I decide I've had enough, gone too far with this and turning all of it back is impossible. I am going to lose it into the swirling oblivious chaos. I see Pugilist and I declare to him that he now has two heads and I'm crosseyed. "Let me help you to your cabin" I hear him say, in a voice that seems far off and echoing from a distance. I tell him I am fine, just a little tired from the trip and in need of some desert air.

I stand up from the kitchen table fully expecting to take two steps to go out the kitchen door. As I try to take the first step my knee buckles and I fall backward. I almost land flat on my ass but Pugilist catches me, props me back up. "You sure you don't need any help?" he asks as I step out the kitchen door. Sotol (mezcalito) creeps up on you oh so gentle and then hits you in the back of the head with a bat.

el brujo

In the night desert air, things are clear. All one's thoughts vanish to allow for the next moment of realization. A deep breath of it can clear one's mind of all thinking, the mind becomes peaceful and at rest. In this state, there is always a brief moment when the world stops and the universe is frozen in time, in its vastness. It is then that you see the spirit of your soul and then, just as quickly, it flits away to leave forever.

I trail off to my cabin for a peaceful night's sleep. In my dreams, I dance and I fly.

"Mescalito"
Mescalito has opened up my eyes
Mescalito has set my mind at ease
Mescalito has opened up my eyes
Set my mind at ease!
Ah!

-James Taylor

NOTES:
1. DO NOT go to Mexico and try to score some moonshine. You DO NOT know how it is made and you could go blind and worse DIE. See NOTE 10 instead. You can purchase commercial sotol and not cause serious injury to yourself. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED! Not to mention getting arrested by the judiciales and getting thrown in a Mexican jail, and getting the daily "soda pop" treatment and trying to figure out Napoleonic Law.
2. Mezcal is not the same as mescal. Mescal will be another story
3. The Mexican state that makes more mezcal than any other is Oaxaca. The most notable mezcal from there is Gusano Rojo, Red Worm mezcal.
4. Blue highways are U.S highways that are scenic and NOT part of the U.S. Interstate system. On many service stations' maps they were marked in blue
5. The Chihuahuan Desert is THE largest desert in North America.
6. 102 degrees F == 38.9 degrees C
7. Spanish pronounciations: sotol: soe TOLE accent on 2nd syllable, chihuahua: chee WAH wah, solamente: soe lah MAIN tay - only, de: day - of, elixir: ay LEE here, agave: ah GAW bay, hecho: AY choe - made, en: ain - in,

The Ride of the Valkyries

2008-05-14T01:00:00.002-06:00

I can't bear to watch. But looking off to the left of the trail, I want to crap my pants or scream. Is the burro I am riding on steady enough ground for this? "Um...Abogado? My ass is sore and besides I am allergic to these beasts. How much further?" The burro slips on a jagged rock.

"Run Rabbit Run..."

"Senor Jaguar Preest, you sheet your pants, these Indians weel laugh their asses off at you!" Abogado chuckles at me. Of course he is right about that. I would be disgraced if I entered their village smelling like shit. So I shut my whiny-ass mouth and try to enjoy the descent into the jungle valley below, occasionally looking for fer-de-lance pit vipers to amuse myself. At least, that is what I tell myself.

We are high in the Sierra Madre in the state of Guerrero, Mexico. Guerrero is Spanish for warrior. The Mexican federales do not like to confront these people and the federales will push anybody around. It is an all day trip by car and burro to this remote Indian village. Abogado is a Mexican lawyer. I met him a week earlier and volunteer to go on this trip...willingly even. I figure it will be an interesting adventure.

Finally, as we approach the Indian village, we are greeted with brightly colored dressed women and men. They look like flowers and the occasion seems to be a festival of some kind. Everyone is smiling and staring at me and Abogado. I notice and it is quite obvious, that Abogado is speaking a mixture of Spanish and some-kind-of-Indian language. "If I ask you to do something," he motions with his eyes to a crowd of men, "Do it without hesitation and don't question me." Now I am becoming a bit concerned about the wisdom of accompanying him.

People come to greet and touch us, especially me. Have they never seen a white, longhair flippo with a beard before? We soon dismount and I feel raw and sore. Abogado immediately starts speaking to the group of men that are gathered before us. They listen intensely. I assume he is telling them about the government grant for their water and irrigation project. There are no interruptions as Abogado speaks. They politely wait until he finishes. Then suddenly when Abogado is finished, there is an immediate burst of speaking among the Indians, to each other. Abogado remains very quiet. I am saying nothing but my mind is racing like a rabbit on meth, in front of a car, at night.

It is approaching sunset, I slowly begin to calm down and start to enjoy this village. I have very brief conversations with Abogado. I seem to be mainly an observer. The men of the village build a fire and we gather around it. There definitely is a festival feel about everything. Abogado laughs and is engrossed in everything that is going on. In fact, this is rather amusing since he and I look so out of place and weird here. Abogado has on this guayavera shirt, dress slacks and sandals. I look like some pinhead from freakland. Yet, the indios seem to think nothing of it. That is odd too. We are in a remote village in the Sierra Madres, in a jungle, sweating and looking like apes and they hardly seem to notice us.

At one point just after sunset, with a nice bright fire, a ladle is being passed around. "Drink this." Abogado says quietly as the ladle is given to him. "Act like it is the most wonderful drink you have ever tasted." I look at him, trying not to look suspicious. "What is it?" I am always leery of putting something foreign in me while in a foreign country, disastrous results can mysteriously appear. "Pulque..." Abogado answers fiercely with his eyes gazing at me. I take a drink of it and pretend to be very pleased.

"The goddess Mayahuel, has 400 breasts which ooze pulque..."

For those that have never tried the drink discovered by the goddess Mayahuel, don't. Pulque is a slimy, sweetish, milky, snot. It has the alcoholic content of beer. I act like it is wonderful. At this point, we are all seated around the fire. It's sort of like cumbaya-girl-scout-cookies night. I am handed a ceramic, terra cotta looking cup. After a few cups of this stuff, I am feeling woozy and light-headed. I figure I have sweat all day and I am probably dehydrated, so my body absorbs it quicker.

As the evening is rapidly overcome by darkness, everyone sitting around the fire starts to look weird. I tell myself this is due to the fire lighting up everyone's faces. Still, it is unsettling. Three or four of the Indian men begin passing around a pipe. In my ignorant, white-man way, I suspect they are smoking pot. It is not unfounded for me to think this either. Guerrero, Michoacan and Oaxaca are famous hemp growing areas. But I get a whiff of what they are smoking and I notice the smell of tobacco.

Abogado takes the hand-worn pipe handed to him and puffs on it deeply. He then hands the pipe to me, "Take this and inhale it." he tells me. I assume that he means for me to smoke it like pot. Dutifully, as promised, I do. Everyone is looking at me or at least it seems so. Abogado motions for me to pass it on. The men around the fire and Abogado are laughing a lot more now but I feel like I am approaching moments of shear terror.

As the pipe comes to me again and having studied how the other men have been smoking this stuff, I take as deep an inhalation as I can, then pass it along. Within minutes I find myself feeling like my body is somewhere else. I laugh euphorically at anything that moves. Vacillating between hilarity and fright I drink one more cup of pulque and decide to head off to bed somewhere.

WRONG! Like a jolt from a cattle prod I am energized. Instantly, everyone stands up without a word being said, as if we are a flock of grackles or primeval dinosaurs. "What did we smoke? Is something in this pulque stuff?", I blubber at no one in particular. No one can understand me anyway. My head is swimming and as I look into the fire I see fractals and mandelbrots. The men's faces are becoming distorted. Abogado looks like a hairy ape, with his skin sliding off. He has acquired a sinister laugh too. I see an Evil Clown in him and animal faces on everyone else. My vision of reality seems to be slipping away from this place. What will take its place? Can I stop this whirly-gig?

I don't understand and neither can anyone tell me, what is happening. We are all dancing around, in unison. There is lightness in my whole body, while the dancing continues more furiously. It is very flock-like. I glance at Abogado curiously and he seems not to have a care in the world. Sounds have an echo effect that appear to be infinite, my sense of these sounds approaches lunacy.

At this point, every action seems to be delirious and there is a great deal of confusion. My breathing was light too. Then, like a flock of geese, that have been sent a shock wave, we fly off in unison, flying and chasing a black jaguar through the air, in the jungle darkness. I feel the cool and light air all around me and I sense that not only am I stunned but so is Abogado. This flying is silent, swift and unstoppable. We pass through objects as if we are ghosts. With the darkness and speed, I find it hard to imagine. I remember nothing else.

The next morning, I am awakened by a strange Indian woman. I hear the crackling of a fire and see her smiling, pleasant face. Groggy and barely awake, I hear Abogado approaching as he enters the quaint hut. "Get up queeck! hurry! Don't say a word!" Abogado whispers through his gritted teeth. "WOW!...b-b-b-but...", my stuttering is cut off with his hand covering my mouth. "I brought two burros weeth me. Hurry! We must be queeck!". I am stunned, but obediently follow his instructions. We mount the burros and leave the village quicker than we arrived. Abogado keeps silent while continually looking behind us.

His silence continues until we reach the car. We tie up the burros where we picked them up, get in the car and immediately leave. "What the hell is going on?" Abogado doesn't answer and starts talking small talk. "What the fuck happened last night?" I ask again. He totally ignores me on that question for the rest of the ride back to Mexico City.

We return to Mexico City and Abogado drops me off at my room. He never says a word about the amazing night, despite my urging. It is as if "jaguar night" never happened. I don't look him up again before I return home. I did keep his Mexico City address and years later I write him letters. They are either never answered or never received. Sometimes I wonder if that night ever happened at all.

NOTES:
Pulque Deities:
Conejo, Ometotchtli, Two Rabbit, generally regarded as the supreme God of the drink pulque. Pronounced: oh, may, tote, cheetel, ee

Mayahuel - To the Nahuatl, the maguey agave was divine, represented by the goddess Mayahuel, who had 400 breasts which oozed pulque

Harvest Moon

2008-05-13T02:00:00.000-06:00

A Harvest Moon

Steely and the War

2008-05-13T01:00:00.006-06:00

Oh God said to Abraham, "Kill me a son"

December 1969, The Great Plains -- The three of us stand in the wind, together on the highest place we can find. For me it is a sacred place. We are very serious about what we are about to do, Steely had talked a lot to us about his plan. The great idea came to Steely one night on an acid trip. It's funny but on the way from the farm house he nervously jokes about his plan. He is especially determined and serious. I can tell. I know I couldn't do this. He is my friend and I choose to stand by him.

"OK, I'm gonna do this now."

His face looks strained and scared. Steely next inserts the rim fire .22 cartridge into the single-shot bolt action rifle. So, with a lot of thought, Steely lowers the rifle, "shit..." he mumbles.

In the distance, I notice smoke and steam boiling off the distant Kremlin, OK coke plant. The late afternoon is quiet, clear and freezing cold. The three of us pan the horizon together, Steely grimaces, he points the rifle barrel at his foot.

Then... BANG! The report of the rifle echoes, makes the three of us jerk and look down at the ground.

"Fuck, I missed!".

Not surprisingly, he is now more determined as he quickly reloads, Again Steely points the rifle at his foot, this time holding the stock with both hands... BANG!

"FUUCCKK! That stings!"

He throws down the rifle. Shocked, Frizzle and I both look at his foot. A stream of blood oozes out of his tennis shoe. "I can't feel my foot!"

Frizzle grabs one leg and I grab the other. We carry our wounded Steely back to the farm house.

Steely just recently received his draft notice. His physical is in two weeks. He was cheated in the draft lottery a few months earlier and ended up high on the list. We think that shooting his foot will somehow get him out of the draft or at least postpone it. It turns out he reports a month later than he would have. We are worried, helpless and very sad.

The government tells us the war is winding down. Yet the year before, I go to two friends funerals. Because of the Tet Offensive, 1968 turns out to be the deadliest year of the war, 16,511 war deaths. Steely's protest is to shoot his foot. For me, I choose to banish myself to Canada for the rest of my life. All over America, the war has worn everyone down. The hate of the Vietnam War finally arrives in the nation's heartland. My birth date will be in the next lottery...and I'm not waiting for it to arrive.

My birthplace is on the southern Great Plains, but my spiritual birthplace is Seattle. I saved enough money to get a plane ticket and go to Seattle. My high school sweetheart lives in Everett. My plan is to go there, see her, get laid and go on to Canada. It doesn't quite work out that way. Just turning 19 I am as dumb as a puppy. A week after I arrive there, I take a bus to Blaine, WA. and am turned back from the border. Thus my dream is shattered. Maybe Seattle will absorb me and no one will know I am here.

I am staying with this kinky black and white couple and they are lots of fun. But it can only last so long. One day I receive a letter from my mom.

It reads,

May 1, 1970
Dear Son,
we received this from the draft board the other day
and we think you should tell them where you are. Let
us know what you want to do.

I hope all is going well for you. Will you be trying
to get back into college?

We love you,
MOM and DAD

Abe says, "Man, you must be puttin' me on"

For a few moments, I don't know what to think. I thumb through the stack of papers the local draft board has sent her. I decide to call her and tell her to tell them my address. A few weeks later, the Seattle draft board sends me a notice for me to show up for a draft physical. I figure that if I pass the physical I can always bail to Canada. I come to my senses on that idea. I decide that Steely is in Vietnam and even though I haven't heard from him, I will take my chances, instead of going to jail.

On the bus I realize I am at the point of hallucinating. I enter the induction center completely plowed on Moroccan hashish smoked from a hookah. I figure it can't hurt. Besides what would they know. A Sargent points me into a large room full of all types of young men, mainly freaks like me probably as high as I am. We wait for an eternity. I keep to myself, and as a result of my altered state I start getting paranoid thinking monosyllabic thoughts. An officer in uniform wearing rose colored "granny" glasses walks in stage right.

"Good morning men!" No one as much as takes a breath.

"Before we begin, I want to tell you a few things. First...the Seattle region has not met its draft quota since World War II. "

Very long pause as he pans the room several times left to right and then left again. He looks as though he is stifling a grin.

"...and we don't plan to start meeting that quota anytime soon."

Me and everyone else in the room get electrified and stunned.

Everyone gets herded downstairs except for me and a few others. The officer comes up to each of us and tells us we checked the wrong box and that we need to change it.

"But it's the truth." I tell him.

"I don't care if Jesus Christ told you to check it, unmark it or you will end up in Vietnam."

That was the end of the discussion for me. I do what I am told, grab all my medical folders that I have been chanting "Om Mani Padme Hum" over and continue downstairs.

"Strip to your shorts." He orders me.

I look around and everyone else is half naked and I strip. We are told to line up against the wall. The Sargent says he will take our medical papers if we have any.

"Every man will see a doctor. If there is any reason whatsoever for you to get released for medical reasons, you will be released after you see the doctor."

Standing there quite confused and at the same time relieved to hear this, I give him my name and he writes it down as he takes my folders. "There goes my ticket." I think to myself. I don't trust these bastards but I have no choice.

I am so near-sighted that I may as well be blind without my glasses. So I fail the eye exam. Because I played in a loud band for a number of years, I also fail the hearing exam. They tell us everyone fails the hearing exam.

Then a doctor lines all of us up and tells us to face the wall.

"Drop your shorts, everyone!"

I freak out. They're not gonna make me do that are they? They do.

After an hour or so, we are all dressed and seated on benches waiting to see a doctor. They call my name and I walk into one of the offices where a doctor is seated, wearing his white doctor coat. He tells me to have a seat. I am so nervous I am about to shake out of myself.

The doctor flips through all of my medical folders I had given up at the beginning of this affair. I am sitting there waiting for him to say something, anything. He seems to be enjoying this charade. He's done this thousands of times. He sighs and shakes his head.

"Well...I don't know."

He writes something on a pad, rips it off and hands it to me. I don't even look at it. In my head I start planning my strategy on leaving for Canada to enter illegally. I am sickened, I will be forever banned from coming back to the US. The thought chills me.

"We have determined that you can go now. You won't be drafted because of your eyesight. Give that paper to the Sargent at the front desk on your way out."

God damn! He grins and chuckles at me. I waste no time leaving the induction center.

Well Abe says, "Where do you want this killin' done?"

The wonderful Summer turns into Winter and in Seattle it means only one thing; rain. That year there was more rain than previous years. I wasn't used to it and it was depressing. That soggy Winter was the most depressing year of my life. Lots happened, but my concern turned towards my friend Steely. I receive a letter from him one day.

Jaguar,
I hope you are OK. It is fucking weird over here.
It's like I have been camping out for six months.
Sorry this is short but we are always on the move.

There are some really cool guys over here and we
drop acid all the time while on patrol. It is weird
but, we never know what will happen next or how long
we have. I just need to make it 13 months and then
I come home.

Keep your fingers crossed for me. Please write when you can.

Steely

I try to imagine what he is going through, if it is anything like we talked about, so long ago before he shot his foot. I wonder if he is in harm's way and if he would return at all. I can't bear the thought of never seeing him again. So I make a promise to myself that no matter what, I will write everyday about what I am doing, thinking and experiencing, until I have a 10 page letter written in tiny handwriting. I end up writing "books" to him. Then I no longer hear from him.

I can't find anything out about him and I worry. I am in this depressing converted motel that is on the road to Everett, WA. It is owned by an Italian man. He is nice to me and has pity on me and comes by for chats. It is one bedroom and Roomy is, unbeknownst to me, converting himself into a Jesus Freak. It is funny too. He spends hours screwing Cross-eyed Linda while I write Steely my "books".

"Hey Jag! She wants more but I'm worn out!"

"Be there in a second!" I tell him.

Linda tells me to hurry up and get in there. Roomy and I laugh as we pass each other in the doorway. I strip naked and get above Cross-eyed Linda and try to look deep into her soul. I try to find her spirit deep inside her and then enter her and pull her inside my being while she wraps herself around me. In the background, I often hear and look over into the living room and see Roomy on his knees, praying to his plastic Jesus, asking for forgiveness.

"Roomy! Shut the fuck up you fuckin' idiot! Jesus!"

"Me and Cross-eyed can't come when you do that shit!"

He continues unperturbed. Cross-eyed and I continue as well and at that moment, I am praying to the house of pussy.

Jag,
....
I am jealous. The only chicks we see here are
Vietnamese in Saigon. I don't want to catch a
disease while I am out in the field. So when
days are light and there aren't no fire fights we drop acid
and smoke lots of weed. You wouldn't believe
the weed they have here.
....

I quit telling him about my ladies.

God says, "Out on Highway 61".

It's Christmas Eve I am lonely. Cross-eyed Linda can't come over. My Italian landlord comes by with a huge plate of spaghetti with real Italian sausage and marinara sauce. I am impressed and grateful. I invite him to sit down. Christmas day he invites me over for lasagna Christmas dinner with his girlfriend. I receive a gift of his generosity.

Jag,
...
Christmas here sucked. All I want to do is
come home. If I make it back to the world, I
will be getting married. I really appreciate
the letters you send. I have saved them and
read them over and over.
...

Years later, Steely and I talk about Vietnam. We make a trip to "The Wall" together. It is too sad. All those men... What would the world be like today had they lived.

On Steely's wall after all these years, he finally displays his commendation; the Bronze star. I ask him about the commendation, yet he never tells me why he received it. We never talk of it again.

Now the rovin' gambler he was very bored
He was tryin' to create a next world war
He found a promoter who nearly fell off the floor
He said I never engaged in this kind of thing before
But yes I think it can be very easily done
We'll just put some bleachers out in the sun
And have it on Highway 61.

_{Notes: Lyrics "Highway 61 Revisited" - by Bob Dylan}

Red Necks, Red Dirt and Red Beer

2008-05-12T01:00:00.000-06:00

"Ya'll a bunch of hippies, livin' with a bunch o' queers!..." - Joe Redneck

I grew up in the wheat country of Oklahoma. In the mid-60's, the guys I hung with liked rock and roll, playing snooker at the Wheat Shock and drinking beer. We all listened to the Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Rolling Stones and a wild man named Hendrix. But if you were really hip you listened to Wolfman Jack from Del Rio, Texas on the car radio or in your room late at night. To settle disagreements, there were fist fights. The huge changes that were coming, were yet to reach farmland America. Getting high, long hair and Zen philosophy were yet to arrive.

Anyone hip, there weren't many, read 'Circus' and 'Rolling Stone' magazines. Those two rags clued us in on how to be and how to look. Most guys were obsessed with three things; getting laid, gas money for cruising, and guzzling beer on a Friday night.

I was different, I wore glasses, didn't play sports and my folks hated my long hair. I was wimpy and didn't fight much. Friday nights, the weekends, meant playing at dance halls and bars, any place where they would pay us to play. I loved it and there were always girls hanging around. As a teenager it was great until one Friday night, in Jet, Oklahoma.

Red Dirt

What was once a sea of grass for buffalo, became the land of red durum wheat tilled by Mennonite farmers, in the late 1800's. But the 1960's were a time of change for the youth there. They started seeing guys like our band with long hair and dressing different. Football games meant everything. On early Winter nights there was a dance after the game.

For farm towns, there was nothing else to do on a Friday night. We called them hicks and red necks. We weren't nice about it, it was a derisive term. We weren't much more than hicks and red necks ourselves. Only we were playing loud rock music.

I was in the band because I played keyboards. I could afford a portable Farfisa organ, a portable Wurlitzer piano and a Fender amplifier. I wasn't great, but I added to the sound the band made. There were five of us and a couple of other friends that always went to our gigs.

Booking dances was by word of mouth. It was always a hustle. Most of the time during the week, we were able to play clubs. More often than not, we wouldn't start playing until 10:00 PM and we would play until 2:00 AM in the morning. I slept a lot in school.

JR the drummer and motorhead, had a '66 Olds 442, a muscle car with a Hurst 4-speed shift. Lawrence the guitarist drove a Dodge Barracuda that we hooked up a trailer to. Late that Friday afternoon we loaded our equipment into the trailer and both cars drove to the gig.

Red Beer

We arrived right after sunset, found the dance hall and started unloading equipment. A crowd of kids gathered around us as word got around town. Guys came with their girlfriends and followed us around. "Do you guys play Hendrix?" "Do you know '96 Tears'?" "How about 'In the Midnight Hour'?" "Do you know anything by the Doors?" We played many of these songs a hundred times. Sometimes we members in the band felt like a jukebox.

Around 8:00 or so, kids started drifting into the dance hall. We started playing at 8:00. Over the next hour and a half, Lawrence kept coming over to me and asking me, "What's with all the tomato juice cans?" We were playing rather loud so I yelled back him, "I noticed that in the restroom on the last break!", and thought nothing more about it. Tomato juice cans were starting to fill up the trash cans. It was dark in the hall and with the stage lights the way they were, I only paid attention to the girls in the crowd standing in the front row. I could barely see to the back of the hall. But straining to see, I noticed a group of guys in the back, not dancing much and they were all holding large paper cups.

In between one of the songs I go over to my friend Steely, "Can you find out what the deal is with all the tomato juice cans?" "I already know", he said with a silly grin. "They're mixin' it with beer." Yuck, I thought, sounded to me like a good way to get sick. I yelled over to Lawrence during a song that they were mixing tomato juice with beer. The face he made threw me into hysterics. I needed a good laugh. The crowd was not real friendly. Usually, people would come up and talk to us during breaks, they seemed uptight and .... well ... hostile.

On the last break, with 45 minutes left to play, Steely and I headed for the restroom to piss. Two guys followed us inside and leaned back against the wall with their arms crossed, not smiling and not talking. Wanting to be friendly I turned around and decided to tell them a joke, maybe get them to laugh. "Hey man, have you ever seen a bird stand on it's head?" They both shook their heads, didn't say a word and didn't look amused either. "What's with these guys?", I thought to myself. I took my left hand, with my middle finger extended and stood my middle finger on the palm of my right hand. I laughed at my own joke and walked out of the restroom, thinking that not only are these bumpkins not friendly, they don't get any jokes either. "Jeezus! why'd you do that!?" Steely yelled at me, as we blended into the crowd on our way to the stage. "I was tryin' to make 'em laugh, get a little humor around this place.", I explained. "Man!, he thought you were flippin' him off!" "He started comin' after you but the other guy grabbed him."

My heart sank to the pit of my stomach. Oh my gawd, I did the one thing you don't do in a strange town or a strange dance hall, INSULT somebody when they are drunk. Not only did I feel like shit, I got scared. There were a hell of a lot more of them than there were of us. As we started the first song of our last 45 minutes of the gig, I looked along the back wall and saw the guy I told the joke to, counting how many guys there were on the stage. This was not good.

Red Necks

The dance came to a merciful end. Then it was time to pack it up and get out of there. Steely comes in, "There's a whole crowd of red necks and their girlfriends outside, and I bet they are waiting for you", he chuckled. It wasn't funny. I had to explain to the other members of the band the dumb ass joke I told. They weren't happy at all. "You break down the equipment in here, we'll load it up into the trailer." JR said in disgust. I was a little relieved but I knew I had leave at some point. Walking out into a pissed off crowd of red neck drunken kids was not something I looked forward to.

As I tried to reach JR's 442, I saw him talking to a guy sitting in his car. "I want him out here. I wanna kick his ass now! He pisses me off!" I was standing behind JR. "There he is!" he slurred. Before I knew what was happening, his door flies open and he put both feet down on the ground to get out of the car. Before I realized what I was doing, I lunged at the door of the car and SLAMMED the car door across his legs. "OOOOUUUUUUcccchhhhh!", came his agonizing yell.

I did it before I even thought about the consequences. We're dead now I thought. I backed off and he came out of the car drunkenly swinging his arms. JR realizing the situation bear hugged him pinning his arms to his side. He was yelling and screaming obscenities and I was standing there like an idiot. JR is trying to push him back into the car so we could get the hell out of there. The crowd is goading the homeboy to kick my ass. JR turns around to me, "When I get him in the car and shut the door and lock it let's get the hell outta here". He no sooner does that then we all run over to JR's car get in it and peel out in a cloud of dust.

"One More Red Nightmare..."

U.S. Highway 64 back to where we came from was long and straight. JR's bright red Oldsmobile/Hurst 442 had lots of horsepower. So we were headed back to town in no time. "Well, it looks like he's not gonna follow us", JR laughed. We all lit cigarettes and breathed a sigh of relief.

"Uh oh!" Pickitt the bass player just looked out the rear window. "There's two headlights comin' up behind us". Shit...I turned around and sure enough, there are a set of headlights. "Be cool you guys!", JR sounded stern. He started slowing down from 85 mph to around 65. "Whatcha doin' that for!?" I yelled at JR. "I wanna have a little fun idiot", he yelled back sounding a bit peeved at me.

In no time, a car pulled up behind us and then started to pass. As the car came up to our side, JR bumped up the speed a little just enough to stay a half length ahead. Our speed was creeping higher as they tried to pass us but couldn't. Then JR would reduce his speed so they could almost be even with us. We kept going back and forth like that until we reached a very high rate of speed. Their car couldn't keep up.

The carload of guys drifted further and further back. As quickly as they came up to us, they faded back, into the dark. I noticed a car going past us on the other side of the highway. JR laughed and we were all relieved and joked around a little on the final stretch into town. "Their piece-of-shit car probably blew up!", JR said snuggly. He was very proud of his hot, red car. He treated it like gold, for situations like this.

We got into town early that morning. We were tired and hungry so we stopped at an all night diner and ate, laughed and I took a fair amount of kidding to have gotten us into that mess. By 4:00 AM we were so exhausted we were acting like idiots. We drug out of the restaurant and went home and slept nearly all day.

When I got up that Saturday morning, my mouth was dry, my hair a was a mess. I threw on my robe and walked out to the kitchen. I noticed the morning's newspaper on the dining room table, next to an unfinished bowl of cereal. I scrounged through the refrigerator looking for something to eat. "Want some bacon and eggs?", my mom asked as she entered the room and sat down at the table. "That sounds good." I noticed my stomach let out a growl as I said that. "Oh my word!" I heard my mom say with a tone of disbelief in her voice. "The paper says a car load of kids were killed in a head-on collision on the highway to Jet last night". I was stunned. As my mom fixed my eggs, I sat down and read the news story. I knew who that car load of kids were and why they were killed.

I never played professionally again after that night. I never played those keyboards for a band ever again. My band members never knew why I decided that.

Agave Blossoms

2008-05-11T01:06:00.003-06:00

The Machine and the Desert

2008-05-11T01:00:00.000-06:00

I am going down the only highway in a Camaro IROC, headed for the Big Bend.

“Slow down! You’re scaring me!” The Midget says.

The only way to go down this highway IS FAST. There is nothing on the road out of Alpine, TX and GOING FAST is the only way to get there; wherever it is.

The Crazy Cuban is wearing a pair of cutoffs and a halter top, so is the Midget. But it is the Midget I want to impress. I failed it though. We are rolling down the highway at 110 mph (177 kph), flat out with more pedal to spare. The road is straight an smooth.

“Should I push it more?” I ask myself.

It’s 110 F (43 C) and I have plenty to spare before I redline the IROC. At this rate, I should get to Lajitas in an hour and the Kingston Hot Springs 45 minutes after that. The IROC has a nice throaty sound when you push the pedal down.

I punch it down a little more and read 115 mph (185 kph) on the speedometer, while both ladies reach into the cooler for more beers. I stare straight ahead with both hands on the steering wheel and I feel like we are gliding on glass. The sooner I get there the sooner I get both of these sweethearts in a hot spring; then I will break out the sotol moonshine.

Until then it is white line fever and not a car in site. My mind is spinning round and round and the needles on the dials beckon me even more. The Chisos Mountains are getting closer, calling me like the Sirens with their lovely breasts.

It is noon, the lighting is harsh as the desert. Creosote bush whizzes past the side windows as the wheels grind away on the asphalt. I back off completely on the gas and the momentum lunges all of us forward. The throaty sound of the engine gets louder. Then as I shift into 3rd gear the rear wheels screech and we slow down.

“What’s the matter?” the Midget says relieved.

“Piss stop…beer dump.” I tell them both.

The heat rising from the desert floor is suffocating and impressive, the automobile likes it. There are no shadows, there are no whispers. Lizards scurry as I piss on a rock, flies start buzzing from the catclaw bushes as we disturb their peace. All is quiet but the sound of humans on the desert floor.

Once again I push the machinery and slide through each gear and once again the creosote and catclaw bush flash by in silence; Crazy Cuban likes this. The white lines pass underneath…tortured beneath the wheels and the needles on the dials still jitter at me.

We are hypnotized by the bleak expanse as we glide on top of it. We are soon on the river road lined with canyons and the bleak Solotario caldera.

“Such beauty! what is this called?” the Midget says.

Indeed, what is it called?…the machine and the desert. It is an odd symbiosis, it is unatural and I continue to lash through the heat, ripping through the quiet desert, in a metal sliver. The engine rumbles at a steady pace wanting more, surging more. The machine is hungry and left wanting.

The land and the roads are ancient followed so many times by so many others. The edge of the caldera looms above us to the right and soon the canyons above us to the left. Cave swallows and canyon wrens swerve before us as we disturb their domain.

The machine is the beast in this realm. It is gross in its manners but beautiful under my hand. It obeys me, with every inch of its metal.

We get our room at the Hot Springs finally. The 3 of us strip naked and ease down into 100 degree F (38 C) mineral water. Outside, in the quiet evening, the only sound I hear is the clanking of contracting metal as it cools and breathes. We all sizzle as we enter the water.

“It is a folly.” I say.

“What ees a fawly?” The Cubana asks.

“All of this. Every single bit of it.” I blurt out.

“You’re fucking nuts!” the Midget adds.

I splash water in both of their faces, as a mockingbird sings in the night and the clanking metal fades…the beast is asleep.

Elmer's Bar-B-Q

2008-05-10T08:02:00.004-06:00

There is a photograph. I recently re-discovered it, taken many years ago. It's of LC, his head cocked to the side, snappy and sure of himself, propped up by his hand on his chin, grinning. A painted sign Elmer's Bar-B-Q is behind him. It's a warm Spring day next to the creek bottom.

I remember LC's voice as being as sweet and joyful as Louis Prima's trumpet late at night, maybe sweeter. LC's songs were different. His voice made them that way. I often wonder what could have happened to him if life had gone differently. Maybe my never meeting him could have changed things. A person wonders. You never know for sure. We are all connected somehow.

Years earlier, I know that as a five-year-old kid, I had no idea what the future would bring. How could I have known that this little kid would grow up to have such a sanguine, soulful, voice so mellow and rich?

1. Pork chops and mustard greens Special...$3.00

Startled to consciousness, I awaken retching my guts out, I see my dad. He is holding a bowl for me to vomit in. My throat aches from the tonsillectomy. The ether anesthetic has worn off just enough for my mind to surface and for me to get sick. "Where am I?" I think and I quickly fall back to sleep.

Waking up again shocks me more. I see a little kid lying in the bed where I was earlier. The window blinds are pulled, I see that it is morning. As I look around, I am overwhelmed by chlorine and antiseptic smells. "What's your name?", I ask. "LC." LC is there with his right arm bandaged. "What happened to you?" I ask indicating his arm with my puzzled look. "Stuck my hand in the washin' machine". At first I don't believe him. Later my mother tells me that he stuck his hand in an old-time wringer washing machine. Wringer washing machines are curious beasts. The bottom is a large tub that is used for agitating the clothing. Above the tub, there are two rollers that squeeze out excess water from the clothes so they can be hung up to dry.

LC was goofing off, the way kids do and stuck his hand in the wringer part of the washer. The old washer pulled him in to his armpit and stopped. He was too little and didn't have the strength to pull his arm out so he struggled; and the more he did, the more his skin got burned by the two rollers continually turning. Scared and in pain, he could not reach with the other hand to turn off the machine. Before I leave the hospital, we become great friends. We traded addresses and promise each other that we will stay friends.

It is clear to me even as a five-year-old, that there is no way I can visit him. They tell me it's because he lives too far away. But I know better. There is still segregation in Oklahoma in 1956. They call it "separate but equal". And LC is separate from me. I soon forget about him and started growing up, taking piano lessons, learning music and going to school.

2. Smoked sausages and poke salat...$3.00

Garage bands are everywhere in my hometown, in the spring of 1968. I'm in one myself and actually making money playing gigs. I am able to afford keyboards and a Fender amp playing at dances on Fridays and clubs on weekends. Everyone wants me in their bands, not because I'm a great keyboard player; because I have a keyboard.

Early one evening I hear a band practicing in someone's garage. Nothing extraordinary at first, but then floating on top of the soft southern breeze is a voice that stands out above the instruments; a voice sweet as Magnolias.

I rush to garage and stand in the street. Amazed and delighted, I see a tall skinny black kid singing. When the song is over I yell, "hey! That sounds cool! Who are you guys?" Then I introduce myself. "My name is LC, man." I am floored. I pause for a few moments and look him over. LC is standing there, his shirt off and I see scars covering one arm. "By any chance, did you get your arm chewed up in a washer?"

It dawns on him who I am. "Wow man! I've wondered about you," he says. The other band members look on surprised. "Yeah, and I play piano now too." I say, hoping for an invitation to jam with them sometime. LC's band has no piano player. I could play behind a voice like that! However, the band wants to be rockers and I can tell LC wants to sing soul and rhythm and blues. "Give me your number I wanna talk to you, good seeing ya man", he tells me as he walks back to his microphone. I stay and listen as they continue rehearsing.

3. Mud bugs and beer (Wed night only, all you can eat platter)...$1.00

A couple of days later, LC calls me. I am excited as he describes to me the band he wants to start. I tell him I'll learn anything. We talk about soul and rhythm and blues. We talk about the bands we like, James Brown ("Papa's Got A Brand New Bag") Hugh Masekela ("Grazin' In the Grass"), Wilson Pickett ("In the Midnight Hour", "Mustang Sally"), Bobby Blue Bland ("Turn On Your Lovelight", "Cry, Cry, Cry"), Ray Charles ("What I'd Say", "Hit the Road Jack"). He tells me that his band is going to have tryouts and rehearsals at Elmer's Bar-B-Q outside of town. I know exactly where it is; many late nights, I sneak over to Elmer's. It's on the highway on the way to the airport. I sit in my car and listen for hours to the coolest blues, the smoothest soul and, R&B and the liveliest a capella Doo wop. Late in the night I go home and listen to the originals, with Wolfman Jack on the radio coming out of Del Rio, Texas.

The day comes for the tryouts and I am scared, nervous and excited. There are all these black-as-spades cats standing around smoking, drinking, talking and laughing. There are couples here and there wanting to dance. A lot of the guys have their hair "processed" (conked), some are in "process", with nylon hose covering their head to keep the process flat. Some have on shiny, slick, creased gray, sports slacks, a rayon shirt and a fedora. I'm going to stick out --a white boy, wearing dark Levi's, white socks, black Converse high-top sneakers and a white t-shirt. Before I get out of the car, LC comes running over, with the biggest grin showing the whitest teeth, he knows I am scared. The weight of my whiteness evaporates. Acting as cool as a 16-year-old can, LC introduces me to the band members. There is Randell the guitarist, Rufus the drummer, Zeke the bassist.

Elmer's Bar-B-Q is set off the road outside of town on East 429 Rd. It stands in front of a hedgerow of trees lining Boggy Creek. Because they sell hard liquor drinks, the club is located outside the city limits. It's dark inside, small and crowded. Every seat is filled with cool, colorful black cats. It's a late Sunday afternoon. I learn that Sunday evenings are jam sessions and that half of the people there are musicians waiting to jam. The rest are hung over from the night before and are here to listen to LC. I unload my portable Wurlitzer piano, set it up and help Randell and Zeke tune up.

I try to impress the band by playing the opening bars to "What'd I Say" by Ray Charles. They immediately follow along. Then, that wonderful, soulful, sweet voice of LC's comes in. It doesn't sound at all like Ray Charles but like dark honey. The fact that I play the complete piano part, including the solo gets me the job. By the time the song is over the whole place is up and dancing. I am hired.

For the next few hours we play without stopping. We play blues jams with long piano and guitar solos, plus the few soul and R&B songs that I know. A cat with a saxophone sits in and plays some riffs on "Shotgun" by Jr. Walker and the All Stars. By now it's as dark outside as any of the people in here. Cicadas along the creek bottom are making their own music. I go outside during the breaks where it's cooler. People are milling around thinking about whethere they should talk to me. A few people come up. They shake my hand and tell me how cool the piano sounds. I tell them I wish I had a Hammond B-3 with a Leslie amp so we could really cook.

4. Combo plate...$3.50

Elmer's is a strange world for a goofy white teenage white kid to find himself in. The band members try to make me a part of the scene but I never quite fit. As the long days of summer pass, they do all they can to protect and include me. They try their best to make me hip with them. But I always know I am an outsider.

One night while on break, LC comes around from the side of Elmer's. "Come 'round the back with us, man." he says motioning me over. I walk around the side and to the back behind Elmer's. There is a crowd of black guys standing around grinning real big, laughing and carrying on. "Hey man, try this." one of them says. He hands me a doobie. I take a big hit not knowing what to expect at all. It's my first time trying pot. I want to be with these guys. "Yeah man, that's some bad stuff there" one said. I enjoy smoking pot and hanging out with these guys. The crew I hang with even fix me up with some nice swank black chicks. They all talk in a cool, hip lingo and a heavy black southern dialect. I can barely understand what they say half the time.

On a late July night, Elmer's is a big party and everyone is having a blast. People dancing inside and out. It's hot and sultry inside and hot and sultry outside. It's time for a break and on my way to the back of Elmer's, I grab an iced whiskey and a pickled hog's foot. I say hi to everyone and demand a hit off a joint. Randall gets called away and walks around front. Some people follow him. It's just me and a tall skinny guy everyone calls Process.

Process is quite a character. He's fidgeting, singing to himself and dancing in place while snapping his fingers. He suddenly notices me. "Hey man, try summa dis shit." He takes something out of his pocket; I can't see what. I hear a snap sound and then Process sniffs whatever it is he is holding. "WHOAAEE!" he exclaims in a high-pitched voice, looking wild-eyed and pulling another one from his pocket. "Try it man!" he yells. Snap! Before I know what's going on there's a capsule under my nose. I sniff.

My head feels like it is FLYING OFF. My heart starts pounding and my skin tingles. "What a rush!" I yell without thinking. "Shut up man!" he yells at me. Then in a whisper, looking at me straight as he can, "I could slit your muthafuckin' throat right now if I wanted to, ya dig?" With that, he reaches down and pulls out a hollow-ground straight razor from inside his tight nylon socks. Before I know it the glistening blade is flashing next to his face. I'm stunned and too high to realize what could happen.

At that moment, Randell and LC round the corner and stop dead in their tracks. Then after what seems like hours, Randell screams at the top of his voice, "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING PROCESS?!" Quickly I grab Randell and pull him away while LC starts verbally abusing Process. "Keep that muthafucka away from me." I half whisper to Randell as we scurry from behind Elmer's. I explain to Randell what happened. "He won't never do dat again 'round you, I promise." Randell assurs me. "I'll make sure he won't give you anymo' snappers". I hear LC and Process arguing loudly. Shaking and high I am unable to think straight. After that I never see Process again.

5. Moonpies...$0.10 Royal Crown Cola...$0.50

We play at Elmer's regularly every weekend. During the week, I split rehearsing between my rock and roll band and LC's group. On weekends I play at Elmer's. I learn so much about music. But as summer begins to close I start to think about going back to high school. It's late August and the heat is oppressive, even at night.

LC never says much about himself. He tells me very little about himself. By design or by his nature, that's how he is. Sure we talk for hours about music, but nothing much about his personal life. It doesn't matter to me. Just hearing him sing tells it all, his soul always comes through. There is talk of doing a demo for record companies. But that cost more money than we have or can save.

6. Ribs Platter all you can eat...$4.00

One night after the gig is over, we go to Randell's house. Randell lives in the Black part of town I had never been before. White folks just don't go there. Randell put ribs on the smoker and we sit around drinking beer and talking about music. People are out walking around the neighborhood visiting neighbors. It is too hot to sleep and no one has air conditioning. He introduces me to his neighbors and people he knows, everyone wants to hear LC sing. I didn't know it but this is my last look at a changing culture. The Black Power movement is arriving and all of this is changing.

The return to school is approaching. The end of summer is near. I tell them that I need to quit the band. There isn't a choice. Besides it's plain to see that LC has outgrown the band and Randell can't hold it together. LC is too good. He is ready to move on and so am I.

Postscript

Like a cheap velvet painting, time faded away after that summer and my focus became the rock band I was in. The photograph which I had taken of LC that summer lay in a pile with the others I took. I would return home from time to time and black folks lived in all parts of town. The black part of town I had known no longer existed.

Eventually, I heard rumors that LC was busted for dealing drugs and spent some hard time in the Oklahoma State Prison. There were times in my life when I wondered what happened to one of the greatest singers I have ever heard and the part of his life that he let me view.

"Virgil, Quick! Come see! there goes Robert E. Lee" The Band "The Night They Drove..."

There are no small portions at Elmer's Bar-B-Q, no small portions of food, or people or of life. Everyone could get their fill. No one left hungry and no one left unsatisfied.

NOTES:
Conked hair
"Green Onions" - Booker T. and the MGs
"Shotgun" - Jr. Walker and the All Stars.

Window Panes Amarillo

2008-05-09T21:37:00.005-06:00

Taken with a phone camera.

The Orchid and The Gathering of Souls

2008-05-09T21:34:00.002-06:00

"It looks like an orchid." I said. "With the folding petals that go from the inside and outward."

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

She blushed. No one had ever told her that before. Thinking back on it, at that moment in time, it really did look like a Cattleya labiata. It came to me from a print I had on the wall at home. The thought hit me like a 2x4 stud, right between the eyes.

I kept staring in amazement at the lush moistness between her legs. Her wrinkled labia took forms I never knew existed before.

"What kind of acid was that?" I said.

All she could do was giggle. She tried to talk but all that would come out of her were giggles. Was she laughing at me? Most likely that was the case with her.

I sat on the floor in front of her while she sat on the couch; legs spread and naked. When she laughed her tits jiggled. Being in an altered state, moments became years and seconds became centuries. I found myself barely able to sit upright. A million crazy thoughts ran through my mind and I realized that I thought I was out of sync with the lovely on the couch before me. For that brief moment being in sync seemed extremely important.

"Gawd I am horny." she said.

She was rubbing the inside of her thighs. I watched, fascinated like I had never seen this part of the 'movie' before. She barely had any idea of what was happening and I didn't either. We both had transcended our own bodies right at that moment. Then she lit a cigarette and watched forever the smoke rising from her exhaled breath.

"Let's not fuck yet." she said.

I poured the wine in her glass and was amazed at myself that I could still do it. I leaned back on the couch with my head between her legs and watched "Bewitched" on the TV or maybe it was "The Andy Griffith Show". We both heard the driving rain pounding against the side of the house. It was dreary and it was lonely.

Both of us knew Good Time America had been gone for awhile and no one liked it. We both had friends killed in the war. Those thoughts briefly occured to each of us and we said as much to each other. Sirens careened past the house on the street going to a wreck. We had both noticed a loud crash down the street. Shit like that seemed to happen all the time.

I tried to determine just how messed up I was by trying to stand on my head. I knew if I could do that then anything was possible including pouring each of us a glass of wine and talk some philosophical shit that wouldn't make any sense later. If I had taped it you would have laughed and said, "What kind of stoned fucks would say something like that?"

I was getting off too much and I felt like I had to bring this high down a notch. I could tell this because the mess in her house still bothered me. I could fix that easy enough with a little smack. Cross-eyed and I started to get in sync now.

"Why don't you fix us some junk?" she said.

Then she giggled and rubbed the inside of her thighs some more. She sighed and brought her knees to her chest. I fixated on that for a moment. Or was it longer than that?

I knew that if I obeyed her request, that the rest of the night would be wasted. Another pitiful, pathetic and wasted night in purgatory. Some day I will have to change that but not that night. Shit we wouldn't be able to get up and change the music. That is low rent shit. I walked into the kitchen, pulled out a long pipe and grabbed a candle on the way back to the couch. She had since stretched out on the couch in anticipation. I lit the candle while she fixed the pipe with smack.

I noticed on the end table underneath the lamp a letter but paid little attention to it. I couldn't make out the typing on the envelope. The Gathering of Souls then occurred to me but I sloughed it off. I refused to care and didn't want to know.

"Hand me the candle." she said. "I wanna get this lit."

Melted wax dripped and splashed on her nipple when I handed her the candle. Fascinated, I swirled it around the base of her erect nipple before it hardened. I was not surprised that she didn't flinch when I did that. She puffed a few times on the piple and then handed it to me.

I watched her begin to drift after chasing that dragon. I wondered then where she went. Did she drift to Tibet? Why was there such a grin on her face?

She was losing touch and I was too. What kind of waste land would we travel? I knew soon we would not care what dumb ass shit popped into our minds from this moment on. Cross-Eyed Linda pulled up her legs and I sat on the couch. I unraveled a half inch of tobacco from a cigarette and replaced it with some smack. She sighed and the contents of the pipe swarmed through her. I followed her not long after that.

"gawd," she said, "My brother was killed." and she pointed to the letter on the end table.

I could do nothing but shrug and the Gathering of Souls for me at least began to slip away from my grasp. I was grateful.

Blood Red and the Cadaver

2008-05-07T17:39:00.002-06:00

I worked for a time in the student government building. I was a shitty custodian. Every week I waxed and buffed the floors. I hated it and I hated it worse during the Winter. I could put a shine on it so glossy that you could look up women's skirts from the floor on a busy day; If you were at the right angle. Problem was, the minute there was snow outside, people would track mud and water in and grind it into my beautiful buffed floor. Then some asshole from student government would bitch about how fucked the floor looked. I couldn't mop a floor to save my ass but I could sure put a shine on the tile in the entrance.

Every Saturday, I would mop the place down and then strip the old wax off with a buffer and a plastic scouring pad that went on the bottom. I knew a midget on campus and for a few bucks and a six pack, I could get him to sit on the buffer while I stripped and buffed the place. He would drink beer and read The Iliad; go figure.

He had nothing better to do and I had a floor to wax and he was the proper weight. I would spray a little water on it and it would shine like glass.

The real bitch though was cleaning the restrooms. Sometimes it was fun, even when I caught chicks giving their boyfriends blowjobs in the ladies room.

"Don't mind me man," I would say, "I'm next." Then I would hear rustling of clothes and zippers. Next the two would emerge from the door in 20 seconds flat, looking at the floor and walking fast. It was a hoot.

----

One Saturday I walked into the second floor women's restroom to clean it like I usually did before waxing the floors. It was freaky when I went into the first stall. I was shocked. It looked like the St. Valentine's Day massacre happen in the stall. There was blood all over the place. Blood on the sides of the stall, it covered the floor, the toilet and toilet seat. It was everywhere. It looked like someone was chainsaw massacred in it yet, there was no body.

I ran down the hall and call the campus cops. They were on the scene immediately, surveying the stall. They were puzzled as well and marked the bathroom as a crime scene and called the city police. Another cop shows up with a detective. It took them 5 minutes to figure out it was menstrual blood. I couldn't believe some bitch was that nasty with a used tampon. It took me a full two hours to clean the dried crap off of everything. I always wondered why some bitch would do that.

----

They finally hired me some help. She was pretty, worked as hard as I did and we worked well together. We could kick out that building in half a day on Saturdays. We were a good team. To keep things interesting we would have cleaning contests to make the time go by quicker and have a little fun.

She started to grow on me. Needless to say I dumped the midget riding on my buffing machine and picked up the new custodian chick. It was thrills and chills on the buffing machine on Saturdays. She didn't mind. Maybe there was something about riding on it she liked. I never asked though.

Next to the student government building where we worked, was what we called the cadaver building. It belonged to the medical school and my co-worker was one of the few people that didn't mind going in there and cleaning it. I was curious at first. Because of my liberal arts major, I didn't need to take anatomy unless I took it as an elective; I elected not to.

The anatomy building was not advertised as such. It was just there in the back of the parking lot. Some people knew what it was but most didn't. The building was where all the anatomy classes were held. She was pre-med and had taken the course so it didn't spook her to go in there at nights to clean the small barracks-sized building.

"Have you ever taken anatomy?" she said one evening when we had finished for the day. "It's a pretty cool place." she said, "We give 'em all names. We don't know who they really were. They gave us all a great gift, they donated their bodies to science."

"No," I said, "and I don't plan to start. I don't care about their contributions to science either." She would sheepishly grin when I said that and then she would go into the building and emerge about an hour later.

I don't know but what kind of chick would get off on working with and being around cadavers? "I could sure pick 'em." I thought. But she was becoming too attractive to me to simply ignore.

It took its form in the nature of joking around that I did while working together. I am not the kind that goes into a bar and starts asking every single looking lady if she wanted to go home with me and get it on. With my co-worker that was as far as it would go though and never any further. I toyed around with the idea but I didn't want to seem too available. That is, until one night.

"Come on," she said, "let's go inside the anatomy building. I really wanna show you around there."

"Naw no fuckin' way babe. It's too weird for me."

----

She finally talked me into it. It was my curiosity more than anything that drove me to do it. When I entered I didn't know what to do at first. I stood around and looked. It was one large room with a slab and a high intensity light above it. There various gadgets and tools I assumed that were used for dissecting cadavers. It was hard to tell what the sex was of the cadaver.

"When class first started," she said, "we named her Molly. We took suggestions and then voted on a name and that is what we decided on."

"So you give them names?" I asked.

"I guess it is tradition to do that." she replied, "It makes it a little more personal while you are working on their bodies."

I didn't know what to think, as I looked around the room. It looked clean and didn't look like it ever needed an hour's work that she committed to it every day.

"Oh," she said, "I sometimes just come in here and talk to her and look at her."

I know people do this at cemeteries, I guess it is a catharsis for them. But this was a cadaver. Not anyone that she knew.

We stood there for a little while. She went over to the cadaver and started talking to it. She didn't say much but I thought it was freaky weird. Then she walks over to me, stands very close to me and says "Let's make love in here." she said, "Over there in that chair."

That floored me. She was hot but not that hot. Some chicks like a candlelit bedroom. This one liked a cadaver in the room. "I've never done it in here before." she said. "I think it would be kinda fun, doncha think?"

"Why don't we go back into the student government building and screw?" I said.

The idea didn't particularly turn me on though. But I thought if this was the only way I could get a blowjob...well.......

"Come on, it'll be fun." she said. Then she started rubbing me. I couldn't resist.

----

I had to admit, at the time it was one of the most soulful screwing I'd had up to that point. She got into it with abandon. At first my mind wasn't on it but I quickly forgot about the cadaver lying on the table across the room.

After we finished and got dressed, we started cleaning up any evidence that we were there.

"Don't turn out the lights yet." she said. "I wanna say goodbye to my aunt."

The Fly Swatter

2008-05-06T17:09:00.002-06:00

This is in slow motion...

Imagine that you are a fly. You have no longer than a month to live and you search constantly for water or moisture of some kind to lay eggs.

This is your only act of creation.

So you rest yourself by a drop of water on a counter top, in a kitchen. You are checking it out to see if it is a safe place to drop eggs. It doesn't meet your conditions that you know will sustain life for your kind.

Your search continues...incessantly.

But before you take off again on your quest for just the right medium, you pause.

This is fatal.

Quickly a massive shadow envelopes you and you see yourself being overcome by a large green plastic mass full of holes.

You don't think about it because you act only on instinct and nothing else. It is a life threatening emergency and you jump off the back two pair of legs and prepare your wings again to carry you on your journey; you are airborne at this point.

In that very instant, you are slammed down with a fatal force as the last thing your 1000s of eyes see is the kitchen counter top approaching you rapidly. Even in slow motion.

Then you are eviscerated and the process of evaporation immediately begins in the desert air.

Must Be The Season of the Witch: the Eritrean

2008-05-06T06:46:00.004-06:00

^{When I look over my shoulder,
What do you think I see?
Some other cat looking over
His shoulder at me
And he's strange, sure he's strange.
You've got to pick up every stitch,
Beatniks are out to make it rich,
Oh no, must be the season of the witch,
Must be the season of the witch.
Donovan - Season of the Witch}

As these things go, RAM was banging the hell out of my girlfriend, although I didn't know it at the time. If he knew I was writing this right now we'd both be drunk and laughing our asses off about it. That's just how it was with me and him. Sure I should have been supremely pissed off about it but...well...you know, a good friend is forever and a piece of ass is only as good as the last time you got laid. Regardless, I was one beautiful loser.

n fact, the night my father died, RAM spent the night on the couch in the living room. At 3:00 AM, my girlfriend woke up and answered the jangling phone. A phone call at 3:00 in the morning is never good. Even a friend high on acid won't call you at 3:00 in the morning. Junkies definitely would not do that. It would take away from their high or rather their low as the case may be.

That morning she took me to the bus station and I was on my way to something few of us care to envision. The last thing I was thinking about was her spreading her legs for his ass. In fact, I wasn't thinking about it at all. Then she drove back home fingering herself and getting lathered up about seducing him. Anyway, that was what she told me later. Knowing her, it was believable too.

When she arrived back at the apartment, RAM was fast asleep until she grabbed his morning wood and started sucking his eyeballs out of their sockets. That is how she was. Don't ask me why I put up with that shit. I never understood why.

Thrusting her snatch on his wood that morning was the first time she seduced him and they hammered each other like that for months afterward. She had a mystical power over him and I. Neither of us figured it out for months. Years later after she was out of my life, we shared stories and discovered that we both liked it when we could do her while having her stand on her head. She prided herself in being gymnastic like that.

For awhile however there were 3 of us she was banging; enter the Eritrean, a petroleum engineering student. He was an odd sort (a mystical Coptic Christian) and friends to both of us. I met him in class and invited him out to dinner with my girlfriend and I one evening. From that moment on, she was all worked up about him and the mystical aura that always surrounded him.

His one passion besides my girlfriend was the liberation of Eritrea from Ethiopia. Of course the Ethiopians could'nt allow that because they would otherwise be landlocked to the outside world.

There would be times I saw him around campus arguing with Ethiopian students. Had they been white, you would have seen their red faces and jugular veins bulging. The arguments were heated. The Eritrean was friends with only one of those Ethiopians. I am not sure what their bond was but it was there. I never figured it out because most of the time they spoke in another language, some kind of South Semitic language I suspected.

"I wanna fuck him." she said one humid, sultry summer evening underneath the huge elm tree.

"You're a fucking slut." I said to her in jest.

Well...you know...call a spade a spade.

Unknown to me at the time, she was already planning her strategy to get him to nail her, regardless of whether or not I acknowledged her. I know just how she would have done it too. She would have put on one of those sweet cotton summer dresses with no panties or bra on and sat on a chair in the shade of that big huge elm tree just outside the backdoor. Then during some kind of political discussion about the oppressed people of Eritrea. Then she would do it, I can see it now, she would hike up her skirt and show him her pride and joy and that would be it; end of political discussions. What else could he do?

"Leave him alone damn it." I said.

But she couldn't be denied. I should have known better. I imagine it would be some kind of trophy for him to hammer a pasty-white American woman with 'Greek toes'. He could take that back to a desert monastery and repent for a millennium if he did. I doubt that not one Eritrean would have believed him.

"He believes in this weird form of Christianity." she said. "I don't really understand it. I wanna find out more about it."

Yeah dude...I know how you like findin' out about things. I had to chuckle about that.

One time I saw him on campus and we chatted about stuff. He was interesting and I always asked him questions about Coptics and The Ark of the Covenent.

"Oh yes," he said, "It is in Ethiopia. Guarded by the the Coptics. I hear it is beautiful."

"I thought you couldn't look at it." I said.

"Special priests can, if they take precautions and wear a special apron." he replied. He was intense and serious. I dropped the subject. I never heard any more about it or discussed it with him.

That summer was fun despite all this. My girlfriend and I and numerous friends and we would go to the lake to lay around, get high and make bar-b-q. One afternoon the Ethiopian and Eritrean came with us. It was unmercifully hot and me and my girlfriend sat in the shade. It didn't bother the other two.

"She's a witch." he blurted out after a sip of beer. It came out of nowhere it seemed to me.

"Well...you got four letters right." I said. I thought it was an insightful comment.

"No," he said, "She really is a witch. I don't know much about white witches."

I noticed how serious he was. It hadn't occurred to me until he said it that there might be something to his comment.

I just assumed that he had be screwing her for the last couple of weeks. Sex gets to the souls of people if you care to look there.

"Because she is a witch," he said, "something bad will happen today I fear."

People and friends started arriving and more meat was thrown on the bar-b-q...more beer was drank. The Eritrean sat and watched everyone, including his Ethiopian friend. The lake, Lake Thunderbird, was placid as always. Everyone drank too much beer and ate too much. My girlfriend and I left by 6:00 that evening. We were both beat and tired.

I was in class that Monday and after the first class on my way to calculus class I ran into the Eritrean.

"The Ethiopean drowned at the lake yesterday." he said. He was saddened by this.

"He didn't know how to swim." he continued. "I will pray for his soul."

After that I never saw the Eritrean again. He quit seeing my girlfriend and I eventually left her. There is a cost to being a witch, even a good one.

The Desert Morning Sky

2008-04-28T17:48:00.004-06:00

The Desert Morning Sky

The Desert Morning Sky
Taken with a phone camera

The Shiv, the Raven Woman and the Stripper

2008-04-28T17:34:00.001-06:00

The Conspiracy
I woke up in a cold sweat with my heart pounding so hard it felt like it was skipping beats. Was I having a heart attack in my sleep? I coughed up something nasty but I felt no chest pains.

Then I remembered I was dreaming, but suddenly I realized I was awake! There were those screams again. It was the sound of a woman's voice; in sheer terror.

"Help me! Somebody call the police. Will somebody please help me? Help!"

I grabbed my 12 gauge cannon from the bedside and tried to locate the screaming. I pumped a shell into the chamber and attempted to clear my head while trying to keep from shooting it off; always a concern when you're half asleep.

I heard the screams again.

"What kind of shit is this?"

Outside in the courtyard, I saw glass shattered everywhere beneath the window where she was screaming. I looked around and saw no one and no one on the street side either.

"Shut up god damn it! I'm tryin' to find if anyone is still around." I told her. So much for the element of surprise.

"Call the police for me please? I don't have a phone yet."

I went inside my apartment and dialed 911 and within 15 minutes the whole complex where I lived starts to unravel. Inside my apartment, I unload and clear the cannon, then I stepped outside. What I found out from her was that Shiv was window peeking at her from outside her window, she'd started screaming and then Shiv took off. It scared her to death and with good reason, Shiv was a convicted felon.

People were milling around everywhere like ants, cops were lurking in shadows and I gave a cop a witness report. Already, events are not coagulating in any meaningful way. Nothing added up to what she had told me.

Raven Woman
The deal around here in this 105 year old apartment complex was the somewhat temporary crowd living in other parts of the complex. A drunk named Raven (ravin'?) Woman had moved in, she was always begging beer from me after I got off work. I occasionally bought her a six pack in trade for some of her wild stories and a titty grope. Her real name was something else, but now she claimed to be part Cherokee Indian. I never saw even a part Indian with that much white skin. Besides, every American claims this I think. So I heard these strange stories about her Indian relatives. I always got a few laughs and copped a feel.

One evening I was standing outside smoking and enjoying a double-shot of Jack Daniels when a car pulled up with her in it.

"God damn those fuckers." she said. She got out of the the car, slammed the door and the car peeled off.

"What?" I asked, wondering what the hell was going on with her that night. She always had some drama going on; either real or imagined.

"I go to my boyfriend's house OK? And like, he has a bunch of his friends over. You know, I have been dating him, we all sit around and drink a few beers.."

Raven Woman drinking a few beers was like a deep sea Blowfish getting a little wet, I knew where this story was headed and I couldn't wait to hear the rest of it. She put a puppy dog pouting look on her face. If you didn't know her you would have been worried.

"We got a little drunk and the next thing I knew he started feeling me up and taking my clothes off in front of all his friends!"

I was amazed that she was acting shocked and pissed off about this. What a hoot!.

"You didn't try to stop him?" I said.

"Well you know...." she said (a girlish grin snuck over her face) "It was kinda fun and...well...I like got a little carried away with it, ya know? I started to like feel liberated or somethin'. They like got me all spread-eagle and shit and start screwing me and my boyfriend starts making a video of it! Then he told me he wouldn't make a copy for me ... the fucker!"

I was amazed.

"I don't think Cherokee Indians were into that sort of thing." I said.

Her life always seemed to be filled with that kind of drama mixed with comedy. I really couldn't say if any of it was true but when she started drinking like a sailor on shore leave it was not hard to believe. I soon found out that her stories weren't that hard to believe.

She had met a biker that worked as a contract anthropologist for the state highway department. The two got it on quite heavily and at some point they decided to get married, two days before Thanksgiving. The so-called reception was held in their dungeon troll apartment and it ended up being nothing more than a drunken drug-and-sex party that got wilder by the minute so I left.

Raven Woman was conspirator #1. I think she dreamed up the whole scam during one of the basement orgies when he had her on all fours with a collar and chain.

The Stripper
Next there was the topless dancer and her boyfriend that live there also. Now they were always up to weird shit. They threw a number of parties (without the lap dances damn it) and this was the party I met Shiv. At that party, he told me way too much about himself being in the penitentiary and nothing at all about the ONE THING I really want to know; why he spent so much time en la chirola.

Asking a convict why he was sent to prison is like taking a stick and stirring up a den full of copperhead snakes. Him and the titty-dancer couple took too many drugs and screwed each other in their apartment. What a bunch of depraved fucks Then the titty-dancer couple got pissed off at him for some reason and told him to quit coming over dressed only in his underwear, ready to go. They may have been mad at him because he always wanted to play 'titty bingo' every time he saw her. The titty dancer was conspirator #2 and she was scorned.

Finally, throw in the Screaming Mimi that woke me up that night. She too was a topless dancer. I didn't know her too well and the Screaming Mimi normally stayed to herself or hung out with the other dancer and Raven Woman the drunk. Somehow, the Raven Woman and the Titty-Dancer claim to be related, like 3rd cousins or something. She didn't stay at her apartment much.

All three were a fucked up mess.

This then, was the depraved menagerie that formed the conspiracy.

The Victim
"Here! Let me do that for ya!" he said, "I don't mind at all."

Shiv yelled this after I pulled into the parking lot after a long day at work. He saw that I had a flat tire. I pulled out the tire iron and jack.

"Lemme do it, you have your good clothes on." he said.

It was over 100 F. and so hot you could boil cockroaches in oil, so I didn't argue. That's the kind of guy he was, at least around me.

As far as I could tell, Shiv was like that with everyone he knew. For me it was hard to imagine him being a convicted murderer. It was the rumors though that got things fucked up. All of a sudden one day, he quit hanging around much. The Conspirators quit being seen with him and started bad mouthing him.

Their main complaint that he was beating on Bruja one of their chick friends that lived in the apartments. This was not inconceivable considering everyone's preconceived notions of ex-convicts let alone a convicted murderer. But the odd thing was I saw Bruja every day and there was never a scratch on her to speak of. I wrote it off as one of the Conspirators S&M fantasies or their cracked up moronic machinations.

Shiv was introduced to his future girlfriend Bruja, by way of the topless titty dancer. It all gets rather shitted up when they partied and did too much XTC and crack. It seems as if Shiv, hard as he tried, wasn't adjusting well. I liked him, in an unexplained way and on hot evenings we sat around, bullshit and drink cheap drugstore beer.

For me the victims in all this were Shiv and his girlfriend. He treated her like gold and was a fine gentleman to her. There were never any loud arguments from across the courtyard. They stayed to themselves and went out on Saturday nights dancing and hitting the casinos.

It was at one of those parties that I crashed one hot summer evening, that I met Shiv. He had a face like a boxer and he looked like he had his face pounded a few times. He told me he had just left the correctional facility, came home and was staying with his parents. He was trying to get back on his feet.

"Yeah, I did wrong but now I got another chance."

I tried to look at him such that he would finish and tell me what he did. He'd been down this road before I suppose and started talking about something else.

I found out later from rumors that he went to jail for manslaughter.

Conspirators Get Unraveled
The next couple of days I looked around the apartment and tried to figure out what she described as the crime. Nothing she told the police or me added up. The problem was the fact that there was no way Shiv or anyone else, could have done what she described. It was obvious to anyone that cared to look.

First for him or anyone to be able to look through the window and also try to get in her apartment would mean he had to be on a tall step ladder. Not just that but the screen has been pushed from the inside out, NOT from the outside in. I took some pictures of this and showed them to others; The 'crime of the century' was big news around the apartments.

It was very obvious to me or anyone what really happened that night.

It didn't seem to matter to the police. I came home from work one day and two detectives were sitting in their car across the street. They had been there for a couple of hours and then left. The next day the same thing happened. I walked over to them and asked them what the problem was.

"Hey, it's pretty obvious you two guys are staking someone out. Is there criminal activity going on we should know about?"

They told me to not worry about it, then they left. Sometimes I wonder about how smart these guys are. A couple days later, I find out that Shiv was busted and thrown in jail. He couldn't make bail.

I basically keep my mouth shut about all this and asked Bruja how he was doing.

"He's doing OK...say, would you go down tomorrow at 1:00 and file a deposition with his lawyer?"

It was still nagging me why they would accuse him of something that he obviously didn't do. So much for police investigations. You get what you pay for.

I had an appointment to see his lawyer. I typed it up and printed the deposition. I even described the day after and included photographs refuting the account Screaming Mimi gave to the police. He rots away in jail for about 60 days. During that time I wondered why these chicks tried to set him up and blame this on him. They stuck by their story. But one day, I caught Raven Woman in one of her finer drunken moments and started quizzing her about it.

This is your brain on drugs...
It had been awhile since I had seen Shiv and I met up with Bruja and asked her how things were going.

"Well, he's been in the hospital. He had a hernia operation."

"Damn!" I thought to myself. I saw him lifting weights all the time. I guess convicts do that a lot in prison.

"Yeah he did it lifting weights about a week ago. His folks are taking care of him right now."

A week or so later I was having a beer with him outside on the porch. He started telling me about the operation and how dumb it was for him to do what he did to get the hernia.

"I didn't realize that I am getting older and can't do what I used to do. In prison, I could lift weights all day and nothing like a hernia would happen at all."

He shows me where they opened him up and exposed his guts and stomach muscles. It was an ugly scar but it was how they do it so that there eventually wouldn't be a scar. I knew it was painful for him. When we laughed, he tried to stifle it. Shiv told me the only good thing about it are the was the pain killers they gave him to take.

"Yeah, one of these and some cheap beer you could saw your leg off and not care." he said.

"Shiv dude, you shouldn't do that. You might be real messed up some night and forget you took one and then take another."

"Naw, I have done it before." he told me. The light went off in my head.

"Yeah Shiv I know, but you just said you can't do things you used to when you were younger."

It gets us every time I think. We fool ourselves and commit perjury to our inner voices. We don't like to admit to things we don't want to hear and sometimes it gets us in deep shit that we can't crawl out of. It is that moment, that ignorant second of thought an ignosecond, that takes us swiftly into the Hall of Idiots.

A few weeks later I had one of those mornings where I woke up and it felt like someone beat the hell out of me with an ax handle. I went out to the back step, noticed what a great looking morning it was and grabbed the morning dead tree paper. Eventually, I got to the obituaries, something I never read and glanced at them.

There before me was a photo of Shiv. He was staring back at the world blankly. I go running over to Bruja's house, amazed that she hasn't said anything to me about his passing.

"Yeah...I'm sorry I didn't come over and tell you. You did a lot to help him with his innocence. His parents found him in his room dead, he passed away in his sleep."

Red Meat and the Factory of Convicts

2008-04-28T17:27:00.002-06:00

I am sitting in a suite in Amarillo right now. It reminds me of when I worked in a roller mill. It is quite a machine. A roller mill produces the food the cattle feed on in some of the largest feedlots in the world.

I had only one goal and that was to work my ass off for a year and travel on that money. It wasn't hard to do I only had to work 12 hours a day. This type of shift is weird and puts you on a strange schedule. It was a roller mill factory. Monstrous machines they were. They also made steamers. If you are a vegan don't read any further. You are warned.

I thought working in a roller mill factory would be worth it until one day. Let me explain.

To fatten cattle in the feed lots of the Texas Panhandle you must feed them grain and lots of it. Cattle cannot digest whole grains by default. A basic roller mill is two rollers (like rolling pins) that are positioned on roller bearings that are so huge to clean failed roller bearings I had to lift them with a hoist. But I am getting ahead of myself.

Zap Yourself and You Die...
Being a fuck off the first two weeks on the job, three of us punks were sent to paint a huge factory 30 miles away from the main factory. What a hoot, we were unsupervised. What we didn't know at the time was that the union contract specified that they had to maintain a certain number of workers at all times. They hired three of us jerk offs and consequently stuck us in Siberia doing an unsupervised, unskilled job. We had to paint the complete interior twice and we had two weeks to do it.

It didn't take us long to figure out how fucked up we could get while doing that. Smoking pot in an unventilated and empty factory can work on your mind and you don't even know it. I am sure I lost quite a number of brain cells that first week.

The second week got outrageous. The previous week we thought we had some really killer weed that we smoked at lunch because it lasted the rest of the day. What we didn't realize was the paint fumes was a cocktail after lunch. By the second week we could barely stay on the scaffolding.

We painted with highly pressurized nozzles filled with white lead paint connected to compressors that (no matter what we did to them) maintained an even 100 lbs of pressure. The nozzles didn't mist the paint out it shot it out with a three foot spread pattern at around five feet. That way we could reach hard places from some distance. It also meant if you fucked around too much your ass was worse than grass...and that is exactly what happened to one of us.

We were up on the roof having lunch and smoking up a storm. That day we got so blasted we could hardly walk. We were celebrating by finishing the first coat that morning. When we went back to work the other two guys started fucking around with the paint guns spraying each other. They were a mess covered in paint.

One of the guys says, "Watch this you fucker!" and pointed the gun at the palm of his left hand and pulled the trigger. The spray guns looks innocent enough, benign even. The second he pulled the trigger was the second he realized what a fucking rich kid dumbass he was. As me and the other guy screamed at him to not do it it was too late.

Fuck Dees Shit...Wanna Hit of Paint?
It was one of those moments that forever plays in your mind IN SLOW MOTION. A pound or so of compressed, highly pressurized paint ejected from the gun six inches from his palm and entered it ripping flesh, tendons and muscles while splintering a couple of bones. Next I saw the mess exiting the back of his hand. First gobs of blood and then bits of bone and flesh and the whole mess splattered against the wall like a popped watermelon filled with ketchup and gore.

We both stood there shocked for a moment and time had frozen. Had it just been water he would have been crippled for life in that hand. As it was however, he had just injected himself with lead based paint.

For the next 10 years or so that law suit followed me around. Each time I talked with his lawyer they had chopped of more of his arm. Finally, when they cut off his left arm his life was no longer in jeopardy. Finally I quit hearing from his lawyer. I never knew what happened to him.

She Came In Through the Bathroom Window...
Needless to say we quit painting. They moved us over to the main factory. This was a more dangerous place. They had steel forming tools, sheers that sliced 1/4 inch steel like it was butter, huge drill presses and any number of ways to get maimed and killed.

The worst threat were other workers.

Winter approached and we came to work in the dark and left work in the dark. Lunch was the only time I saw the sun for months. The other guy that was hired when I was and I were each given a broom and were told that we only had two jobs until another position opened, sweep the factory floor and clean the bathrooms twice a day.

FUCKIN' A! what an easy job. Well, let it be known that pushing a broom for 12 hours is so menial it is hard. Machinists and welders get real picky and cranky about their work areas. A couple of them were downright nasty about it and constantly bitched to the foreman.

We both got written up a couple of times and after a month of eating shit over it my buddy and I decided to get even.

People have bathroom habits like clockwork. The machinist that kept ratting on us was no exception. Every day a certain time in the morning he would head for the head to dump some foul smelling shit that would clear out the bathroom. We clocked his ass every day for a week and timed his entrance, his exit and position of the foreman. One day we were ready for him.

We had innocently positioned a couple of gallons of ammonia, a sign that said the head was out of order, two buckets, some mops and a two charcoal activated masks by the bathroom entrance and waited.

Like a factory clock and right on time, here he comes dump his nasty load and we followed about 10 feet behind. We heard him slam the stall door and went into action by putting on the masks and filling the gallon buckets full of bleach.

"OK now, on the count of three."

I counted off with my fingers and from the doorway we both hurled the buckets of ammonia on the bathroom floor me covering one side and my buddy covering the other. I was thankful that ammmonia is not exactly flammable.

He started coughing and choking and came running out of the bathroom with his pants around his knees and shit hanging off his ass. We almost got fired and would have had the bosses liked him. We were written up.

Bang Bang Maxwell's silver hammer came down upon his head...
But the weirdest thing was yet to come. The company had a policy of giving convicts a second chance. If you got out of the penitentiary with a trade they would hire you regardless of what you were convicted of. If you paid your debt and had a decent trade you got a job.

I took up with one of them...a machinest. He had served 10 years for manslaughter at the state pen at McAllister. At lunch he and I would go to the parking lot, eat lunch in his car, listen to blaring rock and smoke a joint each of righteousness. He did all the talking I did all the nodding of either yes or no and all he talked about was prison and the shit that happened there. We'd laugh, get toked up and try to make it through next six hours. Me and my broom, him and his micrometers and metal lathe. Each man had to supply his own tools and The Machinist carried own. One of the tools was a two pound shop hammer; blunt on one side and wedge shaped on the other. It is a wicked tool.

I noticed over a couple of weeks that him and another fellow machinist would have words at each other during the day. Not only did it continue but became more and more frequent as the weeks went on. I also noticed that the ex-con friend of mine was starting to clock and measure the other machinist.

One day at lunch I asked, "You and him gonna fight it out sometime soon?"

"No way dude," he said, "That is a sure way to get fired around here. No fighting on the property. I am just fuckin' wiff 'im."

But words between the two continued and at times they would get so loud the foreman had shut them both up.

One day though it would all end.

At 6:00 sharp the bell went off and it was time to leave. I watched the ex-con clocking his nemesis like he always did but today it was different. He followed his nemesis to the line to punch out on the clock and got right behind him. We were towards the back. He reached down into his toolbox and pulled out the shop hammer. He turned around and looked at me.

"Would you move back a bit?" he asked, "I don't want this here shop hammer to hit ya."

I stepped back and before I could say a word he tapped the machinist in front of him on the shoulder.

"Hey man I think you dropped this on the floor." he told him.

In one fluid motion, like tai-chi, the machinist turned around and as he did so the ex-con's shop hammer had reached the height of its arc and began plummeting towards the machinist's forehead. Before the machinist knew what happened, the ex-con had firmly planted it into his forehead and buried the head halfway. the shop hammer hit with such force it cracked his head open like an egg shell and hurled the machinist's brains and gore all over the next guy standing in line.

The machinist dropped dead like a steer on the killing floor.

The Carnies, The Midget-In-A-Miniskirt and Assorted Menageries

2008-04-28T17:24:00.002-06:00

"Gawd...".

I had been sitting on the side of the rode for friggin' hours. Maybe a handful of cars came by. I started thinking that I was not going to make it out of there alive. Honestly, I didn't think so. My ass had flattened against the pavement far too long and I almost decided to give up for that day.

Not only that but I felt like a swollen mass of bleeding flesh from all the deer fly bites that had been feasting on me all day. I was stuck between Nowhere and Someplace, somewhere between the Canadian border and Great Falls, Montana. Behind me was a wall of mountains to the west and in front of me were the Northern Great Plains. I was headed for the World's Fair in Spokane Washington which may as well have been on the moon.

Then suddenly the Evil Clown appeared. I saw it coming down the highway in the form of a 1969 Ford Fairlane Squire Station Wagon. The car screeched to a halt on the Interstate and a door flew open. Then billows of smoke belched out a Midget-In-A-Miniskirt and she landed none to gracefully on the asphalt.

"You need a ride buddy?" she said dusting her miniskirt while getting upright, "If you do, I can help you with that."

I didn't care who was in the car either. She was giggling at me, which I thought was a bit odd.

My mind started drifting, if I remember correctly. Lots of cheap whiskey and too much smoke plays tricks on you when you're too tired. The Midget-In-A-Miniskirt took one step turned around, pulled up her skirt, squatted and started peeing like a cow pissing on a flat rock. It didn't seem to matter to her that she wasn't wearing underwear. She grinned while flashing me.

I looked quickly away but she noticed me staring anyway.

"Hurry up!" the Carnie yelled. "We'll never make it to Spokane if everyone has to stop and piss like this."

We weren't far from Great Falls, MT and Spokane was still far away.

"YEOW! My ass is on fire!!" She screamed.

I jerked my head around, snapping out of my daydream to see the Midget-In-A-Miniskirt with a frightful look, tears streaming down her face and her grabbing her ass.

I was horrified with what I thought I saw. Immediately I tried to get out of the station wagon. A snake was slithering off to a rock a few feet behind her.

"Don't touch it!" Were the first words from my mouth.

I was referring to her ass. Then I bent her over and looked at her bare ass. The Carnie had also jumped out of the car too. The snake it seemed had been hiding from the intense sun under the overpass where it was cool. We had stopped right where he lay and the Midget-In-A-Miniskirt not seeing the rattlesnake squatted right over it and started pissing on it. Scared, the rattlesnake's first impulse was to strike; missing her holy-of-holies by inches.

"She's snake bit." I told the Carnie. "How far are we from Great Falls?"

"Not far..." he said "But too far for her."

Her small size and the place she was bitten made it difficult to determine the effect of the venom. He then pulled out his folding Buck knife and opened the blade. Then he made two slices across the two puncture wounds where the snake injected it's venom. Blood poured out and dripped down her small ass like rivulets spilling on the ground.

He then bent over and started sucking on the wound and spitting blood and venom on the ground next to her. She was shaking and crying. I stood there in shock not wanting to believe this had just happened. He sucked on the wound on her ass for what seemed like minutes. His mouth and mustache were covered with blood.

"Hurry" he told her. "Get in the car. Let's get your ass to a hospital in Great Falls."

She got on the seat next to me facing the back of the seat with her ass stuck in the air, blood dripping down her thigh. Droplets of blood were hitting the car seat and the Carnie sped off the shoulder and onto the highway.

Everyone else in the car was trying to comfort her and sooth her sobs. The whole scene was exciting and terrifying at the same time.

"You'll be OK baby." he told her.

He was trying to soothe and calm her down.

"Stay calm sweetheart, you'll be OK. We''ll get you to the hospital real quick now."

I wasn't so sure. Watching her shake and at the same time trying not to touch her bite I would have thought if she had been anyone else of normal size this would be different. But who would know what would happen to a snake bit midget? Had this been anything other than what it was, it would have been a most interesting situation with her ass stuck up in the air like that. But because of her size this could end in a tragedy. Me and everyone was concerned. It was hard to listen to her sobs and whimpering.

"It burns like hell." she sobbed.

None of us could think of a way to soothe or comfort her. Miles from an emergency room and poor made the situation seem uncertain.

With what seemed like hours (it could not have been more than 30 minutes) we entered Great Falls and started looking for a hospital. The Carnie noticed a sign that said "Hospital" and started following them. The bleeding had stopped and dried blood was caking up on the seat beneath her. She was crying now, telling Carnie to hurry.

The Carnie was speeding through the city trying to attract attention of the local police. Of all the times he wanted to avoid the police this was not one of them. It was as if we were invisible. None of us attracted any attention. She was twitching and vomiting. I was getting scared and the Carnie was visibly shaken.

We got her to the emergency room and the story should have ended there. We felt lucky that the hospital was not far from the highway.

But it didn't...it never does. But I often wondered...

I wondered why this happened to the snake bit Midget-In-A-Miniskirt. Often times fate indeed comes up and bites you on the ass. In her case, fate was a rattlesnake that bit her on the ass.

All this struck me as odd but I was the odd man out. I was largely ignored. I was a friendly microbe swimming around in a sea of white blood cells.

"Let's find a flophouse." one of them said. "We can all cram into one room."

"I think I'll just go back to the highway." I told Carney. "I don't have enough money, even to stay in a flophouse downtown."

"Don't worry 'bout that." Carney said. "We'll take care of it."

I couldn't (at that moment) see myself spending the night with a carney and midgets. I wanted to keep moving on to Spokane even at night. At the very least, I could sleep under the overpass that stretched over the Interstate highway.

"Stay with us." one of the midgets said. "We'll get a nice room. We like you. Come on...it beats sleeping outside."

I would have taken anyone else up on that offer. But I capitulated... "OK, it's a deal." I told them.

The Midget-In-A-Miniskirt had to spend the night for observation. "Hey," the Carney said. "This will work out great then. I can spend the night watching over Midget-In-A-Miniskirt and you can drive everyone downtown and get a place to stay. ...It's a done deal."

I realized at this point I had no choice. No matter how much I objected they would have none of it. Since I was the only one with legs long enough to drive I was elected to take everyone downtown. They knew where to go.

"Turn here." "Go there" "Take a right at the corner." Did they know where they were going?

We ended up in a part of town that I was worried about...seriously worried.

I get out of the station wagon not having any idea where I was at in the general scheme of things. I knew it wouldn't soon because as soon as we entered the lobby...

"Hey baby, wanna date?" a prostitute said.

"Not unless it's free." I told her half seriously. Of course it wasn't and she totally ignored my response. This was bizarre in the extreme.

The Gate of the Mountains Hotel must have been at one time a glorious place. But all I could see was a seedy shell of what had once been. I turned around to one of the midgets. "I will sleep out in the station wagon tonight." I said.

"Suit yourself." the midget told me. I was stupid and should have listened to him; he knew what horrors could happen.

I did and turned around and nodded with a smile at the whore standing by the door. It was a dumb mistake to leave that sanctuary.

Puking on the Window
The problem with traveling like this is that you never know where you'll end up and what direction it will take you. That night was such a night. I was beat and still itching from insect bites and just feeling filthy. I had just turned down my chance for a decent shower.

While unpacking my sleeping bag I noticed all the pedestrian traffic covering the sidewalk. I was not comforted by this.

I started mumbling to myself and beginning to wonder why I had decided to sleep on the main street in a Ford Fairlane Station Wagon. Bums were stumbling up and down the street in a carnival-like parade of freaks.

One such 'freak' banged into the car and fell to the sidewalk. I ignored him. He grabbed the car and wrenched himself upright enough so that he could wretch and cover the back window where I was at, with vomit and gawd knows what.

I decided that night that nightmares would be a pleasant release to what otherwise was an interesting day.

Meanwhile, I was sure there was a midget orgy going behind the walls of infamy.

The next morning I am startled awake with banging on the glass at the rear of the station wagon.

"Wake up you lazy bum" I heard. "We're headed for the Snake River Canyon and you're coming along."

After the previous night it sounded like a good idea. This situation was not going well. It was reaching out of my control.

_{"I'm a Space Cowboy...
Bet you weren't ready for that
I'm a Space Cowboy
I'm sure you know where it's at..." -- Steve Miller}
"Ewww! who puked on the car?" the midget asked. "Did you do that? That's some nasty stuff there." I still hadn't gotten used to the ephereal, helium-sounding voices.

Then he asked me for a cigarette. I couldn't resist the temptation...

"Those things will stunt your growth." I told him.

"I could slit your throat if I wanted to." he said not grinning. I didn't doubt it. I had no creds yet and never would.

The look I got from him after he lit up told me to never say THAT again. What I said was stupid but I didn't care.

"Smart ass!" he muttered. "Hey let's get moving buddy, we have quite a drive ahead of us. We need to hurry and pick up Midget-In-A-Miniskirt and Carney so that we can make to the Snake River Canyon in time to see the jump."

Reebus Kneebus
Knievel was some kind of hero to them. He was another freak in the land of freaks, except he made tons of money. The carnies respected that. I supposed they also respected the balls had to do such a dumb thing. It's all about the money I suppose.

Evel Knievel was a one man carnival on a Harley-Davidson Sportster. He was America's daredevil hero at a time when being red, white and blue was unpopular and safe sex meant not getting caught banging someone's wife or girlfriend and ...not messing around with a carnival midget.

More than anything else people watched him to see if he would crash his bike while jumping school buses at Cesar's Palace. It was then that the resulting crash would turn him into a jumble of crushed and broken bones. He had flipped head over asshole flopping around like a tossed monkey. The carnies understood this bit of showmanship. Why else do people go to carnivals and circuses?

It was earlier that summer that I was sitting in a greasy spoon in Butte, Montana his home town on the Fourth of July. He was to be the Grand Marshall of the Fourth of July parade. That was all anyone was talking about.

In a few months Evel Kneivel would jump the Snake River Canyon not on a Harley Sportster but on a steam powered rocket. I kept staring at the scrambled eggs covered with cheap ketchup and a side of hash browns. I grabbed the front page of the Butte, Montana newspaper and saw a drawing of the steam powered rocket.

It was one hell of a strap-on. The guy is fucking nuts. They won't let him do it or he'll back out at the last moment.

Into the Chasm of Oblivion
Within minutes we were piled into the station wagon and we were off to the hospital. I had a sinking feeling that I really was going to Snake River Canyon with this carnival crew.

We arrived at the hospital and the pair greeted us at the entrance. She eased into the seat next to me like before, took off her miniskirt and started showing everyone the ugly snake bit sore on her ass. She was lucky; very lucky.

She fell asleep and slept most of the trip in her underwear and swollen junk-in-the-trunk butt. The others would tickle her on the bottoms of her feet and her ribs. She wouldn't budge. She only flopped around when Carney would take a corner too fast or barely passed an eighteen-wheeler. A couple of she flopped into my lap.

"They musta gave her some kinda powerful shit..." Carney said. "to knock her out like that." She had a whole bottle of it too. What a pint of whiskey and a couple of those would do.

The poor thing had blisters and the part of her ass where the timber rattler bit her was black as a burnt match head. It looked like someone beat the hell out of her butt. It was horrifying.

Carney reached down somewhere and revealed a bottle of pills. I didn't want to know where he kept them.

"Here man," he said, "Take ONE OF THESE."

Everyone ew'ed and aw'ed as I remember (in between shots of whiskey at 7:00 in the morning). I took one of the little white pills and swallowed it with a swig of cheap whiskey.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Acid!" he said. I had assumed they were whites to chill out all the whiskey we were drinking.

In a way I was now horrified but at the same time amused at my own idiocy and three ring circus full of Evil Clowns. I had to go with this. I couldn't regurgitate it on an empty stomach and at any rate, better than anything else, watching Evel Kneivel blast himself off a cliff across a river canyon had to be one of the all time hoots of the century.

By the time we got to the viewing area I was in full roar with pulsating veins. The Midget-In-Miniskirt had awakened and was groggy. Everyone else was in a party mood and drunk (except for Carney). The sea of distorted, dripping faces I was looking at, made me feel like I was at the running of the bulls in Spain amongst aliens.

There were thousands of people and most of them were pissed off. Beer and concessions were expensive and there fences to keep people from the edge of the canyon. There was anger in the air half of the people were drunk and the other half were stoned...many were both. We found out we were a day early and I couldn't imagine at that moment how I would survive the rest of the day and that night in the condition I was currently in.

I started freaking out in a serious way.

_{"Cry 'Havoc,' and let slip the dogs of war." - William Shakespeare, "Julius Caesar"}

"?KO gniod uoy era" he asked "?Retaw fo knird a deen uoy od".

"Yeah," I told him, "I'm doing fine. I could sure use a beer though. Say...am I talking backwards?"

He looked at me puzzled. "Man, are you ever messed up." The midget towered over me like the Jolly Green giant. When he walked off the ground shook.

Geezus everyone is talking backwards now AND I am understanding them! What serious fuckin' switch went off in my head to cause THAT to happen? Can I fix it? Is this reversible? Will I be like this for the rest of my life? Am I talking backwards or forwards? ......

"I don't believe this Carney called Knievel." I said to a passer-by, "He's a dare devil, showman and most of all, he's a carney sonofabitch."

I forgot I was in Idaho and this show wasn't a rock festival either.

"I oughta kick your dumb, stupid ass." the drunk said. It was obvious he had been vomiting and looking for a fight; both at the same time. He stumbled on.

I had stretched out underneath a giant Ponderosa pine doing nothing, thinking about everything and freaking in my own private bubble. The distance brought me waves of loud voices. The steam rocket was visible but faint. I was not sure if I was imagining all this.

I wasn't sure of anything.

"It's getting ugly out there." I remembered one of the midgets telling me and motioning off in the distance.

All the noise in the distance sounded like a herd of cattle tearing up a corral.

"They're tearin' up the concessions," the midget said, "and stealing beer and food."

The midget pointed to the crowds hanging around the concession stands. If anyone knew about this sort of thing, he would. But the crowds were too large and ugly. Chaos began to rule the night.

"They're gonna lose control." he said. "I've seen this happen before a bunch of times."

I was sure that he had and was glad I was no longer seeing dripping faces and talking backwards from self-induced drug taking. Then all hell burst loose. Waves of people started coming towards us in a mad rush; in hysterics.

"Uh...we need to get the fuck outta here!" the midget said. I trusted his impeccable judgment and observation.

I grabbed the midget and got around on the downside of the herds of people behind the huge ponderosa pine. We let the horde sweep past us. In a few hours all was quiet.

That next day was jump day. I wanted out of there, fuck the jump and this carnival of clowns and idiots.

"Here comes Knievel," the midget said. "Look up over there."

A chopper was flying in off in the distance and was landing quite a ways from us. It disappeared beneath the throngs of people. People started rushing towards the staging area. Moments later The King of Karnival Karneys Knievel lifted into the steam powered rocket. Within minutes he popped off the launch like a monsterous bottle rocket. Cheers went up but then...

"What the hell happened?" the midget asked. I hoisted him onto my shoulders.

There it was and for a moment it was suspended in mid-air, a parchute deployed halfway across the canyon then it nosed down. The rocket was headed for the Snake River. People started booing and rushing the fences to tear them down and get a look at what could be Knievel's last crash.

"That fucker!" the Carney said. He ran past us on his way to the edge of the chasm. He was either stumbling drunk or too high.

"You can't let him do that." I told the midget. "He'll see that Knievel screwed us all with this scam and wanna jump in it. How much did you pay for the tickets anyway?"

"I have to go save him" the midget said. "and see if we can get our money back too." He took off to the edge of the canyon like everyone else.

"Does anyone get their money back at a carnival?" I yelled at him. But I already knew the answer to that question.

I didn't look around for anyone that I knew. I picked up my backpack and headed down the road. I wanted the hell out of there and I didn't look back either. I still had miles to go before I reached Spokane.

I'll never know why the carney jumped off that cliff.

Youtube of the Snake River jump.

MadameMantra Fortune Teller and Visions from Alice B. Toklas

2008-04-28T17:19:00.002-06:00

I had a five year old 1964 six-cylinder Ford F100 pickup. It was made for the redneck South. It had an empty gun rack but had I been able to afford it, I would have had a shotgun hanging on it. Oh well...I loved pheasant hunting. Anyway...

I lived for a bit in Oklahoma City. It was early Spring and I was 'cruisin' for burgers' and saw the sign that said, "Christian fortuneteller", Tarot and Palm Reading".

I had to stop.

I was a bit apprehensive seeing anyone that claimed to be a Christian fortune teller. I about a quarter ounce of hash brownies in me and it was just enough to glide me to the fortune teller's porch. I knocked on the door scraping my knuckles.I agree with what you are thinking right now, honestly I do.

A fortune telling Christian? Yeah right but it was such an oxymoron I couldn't resist.She opened the door, greeted me and stood before me in a sun dress and an apron. I could smell baking coming from the cool air behind her.

"Do you have an appointment?"

"No...but I thought maybe...you know...you could ... like ...." my voice trailed off into nowhere and I felt stupid.

She sized me up and opened the screen door to welcome me in.

"Sure buddy, come on in." She was 40ish and quite pretty, luscious actually.

"Have a seat, I'll be right there honey." she said.

I looked around and the place didn't seem all that strange. It was just a normal southern house piled with nik-naks and pictures of her family. She offered me an RC Coca-Cola and a chocolate Moon Pie. I had the munchies and my eyes were burning from the Alice B. Toklas hash brownies.

She emerged from a doorway inside this 1930s bungalow and showed me to the parlor. She had me sit at this small table and she sat across from me. She was the sign of a sweet Southern lady. No one else was in the house.

She grabbed a deck of cards and began to shuffle them. Then one by one she pulled cards from the deck and laid them before her. Her face grew serious and studied each one. I tried to make small talk but she told me to shut up.

"Dear...I can't make hide nor tails of this if you don't be quiet. Please, don't say a word."

I nodded and STFU. Minutes went by I was unsettled at the time. Today it still gives me chills.

"Can I see your hand?" She grabbed my left hand.

"You ARE left handed right?". Again I nodded yes.

She studied my hand and didn't say a word. I was squirming in my seat at this point and was wishing I had eaten just a couple more brownies cause had I done so, I wouldn't be sitting at that spot. I would be in my apartment totally fucked and with a bottle of bourbon and a fan watching a baseball game on TV.

But no...I had to get out in the world and drive around in my 'new' Ford pickup and happen across the sign that said Fortunes Told. Then there I sat only a Mockingbird breaking the silence and the aroma of Magnolias began to fill the room. At least I thought that was what it was.

For those that have never been there, the South is filled with these obscure people that pop up out of nowhere. There are snake handlers, tent revivalists, Christian fortunetellers and holy rollers. Those are the ones I remember. I am sure there are weirder ones. They would make Catholic pedophiles seem innocent or so it would seem. Sorta like the Jewish Kabala that somehow managed to take over a small town in Mississippi.

Her Mind Is Like a Steel Trapdoor and Mine Had The Clarity of Mud
I felt like I either had heart worms or malaria sitting there. I began to sweat profusely and started FREAKING OUT. What kind of dumbass nonsense had I stumbled upon and my mind was screaming for a shot of bourbon or a blow job. Indeed I had what everyone calls a 'racing mind'. These are usually brought about from monstorous consumption THC and paranoic visions of Alice B. Toklas.

She searched every inch of my LEFT PAW and I realized that brunt of the hash brownies were beginning to hit me in full force. The cards that she had laid out and studied seemed sinister but her light touch holding my hand seemed to begin to calm my rattled consciousness. I no longer wanted to screw in light bulbs or stick my hand in a wall socket. She had such a calming effect on everything, even the cat was asleep in the corner of the room. This reaction to everything came and went came and went. I felt like I was somehow swimming in duck soup and simmering in the broth of total bewilderment and astonishing lack of clarity and focus.

Finally, she looked up at me. I thought she was gonna speak to me and reveal the rest of my life and spit it out on a dinner plate. I was getting bad stoned and it was a steam roller.

Drastic circumstances require drastic measure and I had nothing to counter any of this so I sat there dumber than a Souther Repulican when asked whether or not to plead guilty to something.

And this is all I remember...
"Suga'" she said in that sweet Magnolia voice. "You're gonna have an interesting life. I can't tell you all of it though.".

I was afraid of that.

"You will have two kids." she said. "You will live somewhere where it is green, dank and wet. You won't be married to who you are with right now."

I paid my 6 dollars, said thank you and got the hell outta there.

~~~~
Years later when I had forgotten all about it, it popped in my mind. These things have a way of bubbling up from the depths of some primeval horror. They are like dormant seeds waiting for just enough water and then popping out enough to recognize them for what they are.

I recall now that I did indeed have two kids but the ex aborted them. I lived for a number of years in the Pacific Northwest. So now I can once again put them back in their compartments and look to see where the future will lead.

Installing WordPress On A CPanel Hosting Site

2008-04-28T17:18:00.005-06:00

Introduction

I have installed the WordPress blogging software many times on dedicated servers for clients. Although I am not comfortable with all the possible vulnerabilities in PHP, I feel comfortable with the people developing the software.

I recently purchased a website through a hosting service and wanted WordPress as my blog software. As expected, I knew it would be different installing it using the cpanel admin interface. Below is a step-by-step, copy and paste procedure for installing WordPress on a cPanel hosted site.
Create MySQL Database

Login to your cpanel admin page, you should be familiar with the cpanel page and it has a number of icons on it. The one you want is the "MySQL Databases" icon. Scroll down the page until you find it, then click on it.
If you have created a database for something else you may need scroll down the page. Find where it says: "New Database", an empty field next to it and next to that a "Create Database" button. Here you can create a new database or use an existing one. I usually choose to create a new one. For purposes here I called mine wordpressblog, but any name you can remember will work. When you have created the new database, go back to the MySQL Databases page.
If you have a database username already then scroll down to where cpanel screen says "Add Users To Your Databases:" and add your current "username" to the database you just created.

Click on the "Add User" button. Some version of cPanel X name this button "Create User". Then go back to the MySQL Databases page.
If you have not created a database username for other applications then you need to create one now. This user will access the wordpress database.

The final and most important thing you must do next is to click on the "Add User To Database" button.
Access Hosts - localhost(the server you are working) is there by default. Add any other host you want in order to admin the MySQL Database. It is not necessary to add any hosts as you can manage your databases by using phpMyAdmin provided by your hosting provider.

Wordpress

ssh to your website to access the command line. Change directories to your DocumentRoot.
Download the newest version of Wordpress (currently it is 2.1). cd to your DocumentRoot. Then grab the latest version of the file using wget from the command line. For example:

# wget http://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz

This will place the latest Wordpress software in the proper directory.

Gunzip and untar the latest.tar.gz for example:

# tar zxvf latest.tar.gz

This will create a directory called wordpress

Change directories to wordpress:

# cd wordpress

Configuring WordPress: wp-config.php
List the contents of the ./wordpress directory. You should see a file called wp-config-sample.php. Copy this to a file called wp-config.php:

# cp wp-config-sample.php wp-config.php

You next need to configure the following lines to whatever they should be based on how you set up your databases and how your website is set up. :

Change these lines in wp-config.php that you copied earlier.

// ** MySQL settings ** //
define('DB_NAME', 'myusername_wordpress'); // The name of the database
define('DB_USER', 'myusername_slacker'); // Your MySQL username
define('DB_PASSWORD', 'secret'); // ...and password
define('DB_HOST', 'localhost'); // 99% chance you won't need to change this value

My hosting provider tacks on my username and an underscore for the DB_NAME and DB_USER variables above. For example it would be

define('DB_NAME', 'myusername_wordpress'); // The name of the database
define('DB_USER', 'myusername_slacker'); // Your MySQL username

If you forget this when you first point to the installation script you will get an error page. You need to fix this if you get a WordPress error page.

Finally, point your browser to: http://yourWordPress.example.com/wp-admin/install.php, following the instructions and you are done.

It is as easy as what you just read.

Installing plug-ins
Probably the most important plug-in to install would be a Comment SPAM plug-in. Here are the various tools/plug-ins to combat spam.

Installing themes
Get your favorite theme and install it as you would normally install themes. Grab one, unzip/untar it in the ./wp-content/themes directories.

Slappin Down the Slave Slingers: I

2007-10-27T03:46:00.001-06:00

Slappin Down the Slave Slingers: I

"Wake up damn it before they get here!"

She was trying revive her partner in the only manner she knew. It was crude but effective. Renna II's hand was planted firmly between Dofa's legs.

Dofa sighed and groaned, "Huh!?"

Dofa woke up and Renna II was ready with a 50% solution of the best distilled planet water she could find and pure grain alcohol; the finest she had. Dofa floated to consiousness and Renna II opened the IV bag filled with it. Dofa felt Renna II's hand and the alcoholic solution both surge through her body. Under better circumstances the alcohol pulsating through her and Renna II's hand would have made for a fine Sunday afternoon. Renna II's voice however had an urgency to it; reserved only for emergencies.

"What happened to me?" she said. "Why is half of my body lasered up?"

Dofa noticed the excellent work of the surgeons.

Renna II rolled her eyes up, "Oh god...I can't go through that with you now." she said.

Renna II was frowning. Her forehead creased deeply, "You just need to understand that getting out of here is most important."

Dofa knew what this meant. She knew very well. The alcohol was clearing her senses and she felt the drugged stupor she was in fade away. She was glad the knuckle-dragging idiots had morphed her physiology and metabolism. Otherwise laying there getting drunk while recovering would have only been an impediment.

Renna II was serious, "The presence of the Slave Slinging gangsters are very near." Renna II said.

"Who are they?" Dofa said. "And how did you find out about them?"

"I can explain" Renna II said, "but not here. Time's wasting away you bitch lets go!"

Renna II helped her disconnect and get dressed then the two of them hand-in-hand walked out of the floating hospital ship and into their vehicle unnoticed by anyone.

"You see, you went to investigate a murder as a favor for Jenda the Inspector General. You walked through a door and set off a trap. The person murdered was a sex slave trader."

"The stiff happened to be bait and you were the catch."

Dofa remembered this through the fog of events. She entered through a doorless shack that most of these people lived in and was heading for the monitor. The last thing she remembered was a loud pop.

Renna II raised her eyebrows, "I think we should go there." Renna II said. "No one will be looking for us there."

She was being sly. "I'm sure you'll want to take a look for yourself. Afterwards we'll find a place that is more private." Renna II tacked on a grin after saying that.

Renna II was butch, wore antique bib overalls and a red flannel shirt. Dofa on the other hand was bi-curious at best and always wore little. This arrangement made for interesting off-duty time for both of them.

Dofa grimaced, "My fucking bioleg is not up to speed yet." Dofa said. It would start twitching any minute. Dofa grabbed the bioleg knee and steadied herself.

The Muler

Muler appraised his situation. He knew they were not on the hospital ship any longer. The key was to pinpoint where they might be.

He addressed his minions, "It shouldn't be too hard, you morons".

"These two lesbians are a fucking pain in the ass."

His lieutenants, sycophants that they were, all nodded in trained unison. The Muler chuckled at them in a condescending way.

"Get a location on these two bitches right away or I'll stuff you in the oven and have you for a snack."

"Yes sir!" one of the goofy ones said. The goofy bastard saluted too.

"I'll start with you fuck head!" Muler said.

Muler had made it clear that the dumb fuck would either put up or shut up. One way or the other there was an endless supply of fuck head lieutenants; eager to satisfy whatever he wanted. He wanted the lesbians put away. They were prying into their affairs to closely.

"I want them alive" Muler said, "and in good condition. Lesbian slaves will fetch a good price or entertain us on the wheel." The lieutenants liked the idea of the wheel.

Muler paused for a thought or as close as a Slave Slinger would come to though. "Make sure you take the rechargeable reamers." he said. "But I don't want them damaged."

Then one of the lackey lieutenants bounded up to him. "We have their location."

----

Dofa and Renna II approached the shack with caution. "I remember this." Dofa said. "We need to find all the monitors. We need to view the main one. It should tell us what we stumbled into." Renna II agreed.

"But what if they loaded it with garbage?" Renna II said.

Dofa inspected the threshold. "Doesn't matter...no one is perfect."

"If what you tell me is true," she said, "these scum may not be too bright but they are resourceful."

Dofa remembered everything she was taught. One of those precepts were to never forget why your enemy was so successful. "We should never underestimate these fuckers. They might surprise us and teach us some things we don't know."

Dofu stepped inside and let her training take control. She immediately zoomed in to where the monitor was embedded in the wall that was still standing. The building was still smoldering from the earlier blast.

She turned the monitor on. Renna II stood guard and was impatient.

After she viewed the monitor for a minute she turned it off. "Let's go." she said. "I've seen enough to know what we are up against and what we need to do. I know who this is." Not wanting to stay a minute longer they left.

They had been watched.

Getting Injected

Despite this world's barrenness, the spot the two were at was refreshing. It was one of the few places with a tree or two. "I'd like to cut those fuckin' trees down." Dofa was pissed.

Dofa caught Renna II injecting herself with a protein-based liquid. The sudden injection made her sigh. "Damn!" she said. "This new stuff has a quick kick to it." The first 30 seconds or so always made her feel light. The exact effect she desired. Dofa wondered why Renna II kept up this charade. "Why do you always ruin it by doin' that?"

Renna II was about to answer. Then there was a slight unease they both felt when from nowhere (it seemed), their vehicle was surrounded by Slingers. They were carrying rechargeable reamers. They were ordered out of the vehicle and to not waste any time doing so.

Dofa stepped to the outside. Her bioleg then landed on the leg of the Slave Slinger standing next to her. She was satisfied when she saw its leg go flying off into the distance and it crashed to the ground. Two of the other Slingers bolted to either side of her and grabbed her by her ankles. Before she realized it she was upside down. One of the two Slingers had poised the reamer next to one of her openings. They were ready to turn her guts to jelly in a matter of seconds.

Even though the lasering had not completely healed, she made a thrashing movement with her bioleg and sliced off the arem of the Slinger holding the reamer. It began screaming in a language she couldn't understand. The other Slinger reacted with instinct and tryied reaching for the reamer. Dofa brought around her bioleg and with its ferocity smashed the other Slinger. He lost his grip and Dofa was freed.

She calmed her mind and looked around. All she saw around her were two writhing, slimy Slave Slingers. She couldn't let them live. No one would notice their absence anyway.

Dofa picked up the weapon, activated it and proceeded to ream the wounded Slave Slingers turning them to jelly.

Dofa looked around for Renna II and saw that she had been taken captive. The vehicle was speeding off to the horizon. Renna II was hanging upside down from the Slave Slinger's vehicle.

continued

NaNoWriMo 2007

2007-09-23T11:32:00.001-06:00

Weird Technology, Weird Stuff

2006-07-21T04:58:00.000-06:00

Weird Technology and weird stuff