 
NOVEL NOVEL

(Who's got the novel?)

A tautologically syllogistic self-reflexive exercise in Nonsense

TABULA DE CONTENTMENTS:

1 – Ta-dahh! [dictionary]........................................................................................6

2- Chapter the first & a smidgen [Horvitz Tractor tav diary].................................8

3 - Unit the Next [daylight savings]........................................................................9

4 - Succeeding Portion [xaphoonin' in Jerusalem]...............................................10

5 - Division the Following [tattoo].........................................................................11

6 - Fragment the further [hopping freight trains]...................................................14

7 - Dialogic Digression ...........................................................................................18

8 - Sequentialist Segment [coochie-coo!]................................................................19

9 - Episode do-si-do [meeting Karen in NZ]............................................................20

10 - Subsequent Sex [sec] tion [Samoa]...................................................................22

11- Following Scene [Muck Billigan]......................................................................24

12 - Ensuing Phrase [Obama elected!].....................................................................27

13 - Canto the Twelf.................................................................................................28

14 - Clause Continuing [La Push cliff/Burmese firewalk].......................................29

15 - Strange Interlude [book cover design].............................................................33

16 - Sound bite shard [T.S. Eliot quote]...................................................................34

17 - Public Service Announcement [CONSERVE!]................................................35

18 - About the type...................................................................................................58

19 - Delightful Divertisement [Music cataloguing].................................................59

20 - Let it Reign [precipitation on the roof].............................................................64

21 - Sagacious Supplement [darts with Scott]..........................................................65

22 - Chapter 11 [Orkila camp lunch]........................................................................66

23 - Howl? NO: I Scream! [Farrell's].....................................................................68

24 - Ensuing Line [blah, blah, blah].......................................................................69

25 - Let's Go: Europe! [Norway mustard]...............................................................70

26 - NaNoWriMo [1st fight vs. NNWM]....................................................................71

27 - Strook in the Big Ench' [NYC serendipity]........................................................72

28 - Passing Passage [ ].....................................................................................74

29 - Political Piece [Dunx' Halloween].....................................................................78

30 - Successive Slice [book on tape versions]...........................................................79

31 - Quintessential Google Search [Jazz, d@Da & Zen]...........................................80

32 - Consequent Leaf [tired]......................................................................................81

33 - Zounds! [KRAB, etc.]..........................................................................................82

34 - The Ol' '2 Countries separated by a common tongue' Schtick [joke]...............86

35 - Knowledge [Socrates in Achziv]........................................................................88

36 - Mmmmmm, Good! [food]...................................................................................89

37 - Li-ine [rickety artifice].......................................................................................91

38 - Idle Diversion [Xavier Whistlechestnut vs. Thronebiscuit]................................92

39 - Utilitarianism [flight & fire]...............................................................................93

40 - Re-burnt, er, Born................................................................................................96

41 - Within Earshot.....................................................................................................97

42 - On the Koan-er [sex changes & buddhism].......................................................99

43 - Schoolin' [ping pong in tube].............................................................................100

44 - Questions [??]....................................................................................................101

45 - PNG.....................................................................................................................102

46 - Censored Secrets..................................................................................................*

47 - Family Diversity [kidz].......................................................................................104

48 - I Bay, You Bay, Ebay..........................................................................................105

49 - Lila: Play in Varanasi [act one]..........................................................................106

50 - Mari....................................................................................................................108

51 - Rhyme time........................................................................................................110

52 - An Act [quantum cat]........................................................................................112

53 - Slim Pickens [met my match].............................................................................114

54 - Dreck [stages of a novel]....................................................................................116

55- I'm Big You Us or The Jaywalking Somnambulist.............................................118

56 - IZ [Biblical Concordance]..................................................................................121

57 - Title Interuptus....................................................................................................128

58 - Sports 'n' School [Joe Steele & Loomis]............................................................129

59 - Brit Bits................................................................................................................132

60 - Who Purrs the Wisdom of the East? Katmandu!.................................................133

61 - Pamplona..............................................................................................................135

62 - Babel [cheers & I love you].................................................................................137

63 - Column-y [help me write this!]............................................................................140

64 - Mommy.................................................................................................................141

65 - Key Bored..............................................................................................................143

66 - The Stars in their Courses [Northern Lights]........................................................144

67 - Local Angles..........................................................................................................145

68 - Shipshape [SS Tampa]...........................................................................................151

69 - A, An Amendment [word count generator]..........................................................153

70 - Let's Call This [Titles]...........................................................................................154

71 - ESCAPE!................................................................................................................158

72 - What's the opposite of Trivia? [Pop's family contests].........................................161

73 - About the Author....................................................................................................164

74 - Novel 2.0.................................................................................................................168

75 - Ill-Using [cars & clothes vs. character].................................................................169

76 - Ch-ch-ch-Changes [adapting Zelig-like, 2 examples].............................................170

77- Hear & Now [Nietzsche plus]...................................................................................173

78 - vs. NNWM again......................................................................................................175

79 - Interview with the author [to be included in the afterword].....................................177

80 - Wed in [love & marriage].......................................................................................179

81 - T.T. [typewritering]....... ..........................................................................................183

82 - Book 'em [special libraries for this book] ...............................................................184

83 - NaNoWriMo Redux [very punny] ...........................................................................186

84 - This is the story of.... .................................................................................................187

85 - Crete...... ....................................................................................................................188

86 - ETS! [Eat The State! calendar].................................................................................192

87 - Word [at my desk] ....................................................................................................196

88 - $$$ [how to spend my millions in profits]..................................................................197

89 - Acknowledgements.....................................................................................................198

90 - Accidents Happen [car crash + bass clarinet]...........................................................200

91 - Reading Group Questions & Topics for Discussions..................................................205

92 - Finishing [parade celebrations] .................................................................................206

93 - Potential Dust Jacket Blurbs........................................................................................207

94 - Desolation Peak-ing.....................................................................................................209

95 - Bits & Pieces/ the Kitchen Sink.... ..............................................................................212

96 - Pen- ultimate [more leftovers].....................................................................................213

97 - Is that all there is? ........................................................................................................215

98 - ...................................................................................... ................................................216

TA-DAHH!

A (āāāāā) n. The verily first, primae facie, the alpha [bet!], where it all begins.

a'a' (aăăæœ   the Schwa!) n. brittle ebony lava in Hawaii at least

aardvark n. – anteater kind of animal so proud to be so close to beginning of dictionary.

aardwolf n. – HA! Betcha didn't think I'd come up with that one, didja?

Ok, ok, so I thought if I'm gonna write the great American/Armenian novel, encompassing everything there is, everything that matters, that I could always just type in the whole dictionary – like that old saw:

"If you could only take one book to a desert island, what would it be?

A: A dictionary!

Q: Why do you say that?

A: Because it contains all other books within it!"

But so -- maybe this approach is not quite so compelling.....

Anyway, hello out there, and here we go: November the first, two thousand and eight..., and already: why, you might ask, do I spell out that date instead of writing the year's number? Well, y'see, I've got 50,000 words to crank out before the end of the month to achieve the goal of this novel creation schemata and so every (weensy-teensy) bit helps, don'tcha know

(and I figure all my crammed-together slangy asides will compensate or subtract from the artificial logorrhea of other sections)

What am I talking about? Why, this is the ninth annual NaNoWriMo whirlwind – National Novel Writing Month if you want to be expansive, though I kinda like this NaNoWriMo/Po-mo Re-write/R-A-G-G-M-O-P-P, Ragmop!/ No no, Nanette, Robo, remo is a remodel, Nanu is Mork's favorite line............

1,667 words a day to meet my goal and only at 279, 280, no wait: two hundred and eighty seven, two hundred and ninety two, three, four...

But ain't there something devilish about this 1-and just over 666 words each day? I'll tell ya, the beast will be what is hovering over me, as I try to complete this silly task -- no, I mean: this great venture in modern literature, wow...!

Chapter the first & a smidgen

So, my little kiddies, sit yourselves down right a-here and let me tell you a story or three – shades o' Scheherazade, etcetera, etcetera, dontcha know, cantcha dig?!!!

.....

And then there's Wayne Horvitz and the ineluctable modality of the aural= it's not about notes anymore, it's about feeling, and remember when we used to all nearly (and why only 'nearly'???!) elevate together, ascend into aethereal plains of jubilant ecstatic joy and peace and love everlasting, amen, shee-it, whad eye meen is that it was such a phenomenal pheromone-rich sound blast of grunge jazz bliss -- sheer paroxyms of wild yea-saying shouts of yahoo-ness, epic blasts of hightailing manic magical majesty, pouring out in ginormous paens of mighty pure sweet blasts of phenomenal phrenzies \-- that I quite literally have gained back one whole hour of time, yas, yas, and we all know time, right Jack,,,yas indeedy.......thank you very much and goo'nite all, a very merry one, and I wish u good night, goodnight, goodnite........

........

Unit the next

And how can it be that one indulges in the tiniest smoke of green gnosis-istic merry joy only to tweak the universe's patterns in such a way, in(ter)ject breaks into the continuum of the cosmos, so, thus, to foment unusual disturbances, foster curious happenstances -- such as waking up, after the long wild organ-patterning musical mysteries of night previous (and did I note this was from front row seat, sitting in the Tractor Tav' with full view of all, including darling blonde yellow-topped Lolita, as well as dangling mesmerized dark nymphet, uh, Victoria, say, dangling like off puppet strings to the seismic eruptions blasting in perfect synchrony upon said stage??) and before e'en breakfast getting a phone call from sick LA so now suddenly having to scramble to fill a slot at work, this work normally going on oh-so-fine without my reckoning as it's Sunday and all, c'mon, gimme a goshdarn break, yeh?

Then too why the crash of huge Nigerian batik off the wall....? -- if not for strange realignments of said cosmos -- plus too let's not neglect mention of the changing of the clocks, the daylight savings changeover of that ol' 'spring forward, fall back' jazz.....

And how does this always upset the balance of the planes of existence, the carefully calibrated one-thing-after-another teeter-tottering? Why else did little Nepal set their clocks 10 minutes ahead of mighty next-door India if not to seek whatever airy-fairy advantage they could (if only upon the chronometric level)?

Why else did the midwestern farmers threaten to go on strike when first this daylight savings nonsense was being floated through congressional decision makings? Yes, for they averred the extra hour of sunlight could well 'burn their crops.'!!!!!!!!

Succeeding Portion

But now, wait my liddle chilluns: sit yourselves down here and let me tell you a story....

"But, Uncle Freemess, why is it that the more you complain, the longer God lets you live?"

"Ah, my little darling, that's exactly what I've been talking about -- now, don't let yourselves fret none, and let me tell you a story 'zackly about this very thing:

Long ago, before the fallout over 9/11 utterly alienated silly Americans from the rest of this splendid globe, our hero found himself in the very heartland of (a) Promised Land, the country not only reborn after some 2000 years out of biblical prophecy and the like, but also a place where kids of all nationalities can easily find themselves a kibbutz-ish roof o'erhead and 3 squares a day in trade for some fine socialist work tradeoff, bringing forth crops and chances out of the beds of clay.

So, yay, I'd done my time, made my connections with all the world's lads & lassies, gathered in makeshift pub at night, getting 'blurred' with the Brits, and affectionate with so many others....

jumping ahead, landing in Jerusalem, one of the world's wonders, where all the races rub shoulders in traditional garb under the covered old city -- and this Bavarian gal, Adelheid Kunigunde Meier, first known from aforementioned kibbutz, was ensconced within the very walls of a convent, nearly committing to a life behind the Christian veil, or maybe not but somewhere for only the fairer sex to reside or even visit, so what could I do but assail the walls of this ancient clay bedecked burg, and pull out my xaphoon, my Hawaiian bamboo saxophone, and serenade her in her Rapunzel-like loft calling her out, Pied Piper her outa her hovel and find a remote sacred alley to make the 'two-backed beast' within....?!

And that is why, "The unknown is an ocean. What is conscience? The compass of the unknown." and that is all for now, and all you need to know, no?!.............

Division the following

Unky Rebus yawned, stretched and scratched idly at his inner left bicep....

"What's that funny symbol on your arm, Unky?" asked one of the manifold urchins ever assembled 'round the funky Unky's presence.

"Aha, good eye, m'laddie, now makes yourselves comfortable because does that ever lead into some kinda saga.....

Y'see, developing a hankering for adventure, I found meself in the American Merchant Marine (quite the story in itself, dontcha know, but all in good time, all in good time, heh heh), and after a couple of inland, land-hugging vessels, I caught the noble SS McLean (yup, my very middle name, quelle coincidence!), bound for the Far East, and thus -- and here is the crucial nub of the biscuit, now pay attention! -- crossed the poetic international dateline.....

And whenever a seagoing sailor finds that he has accomplished this particular feat, he is compelled by Poseidon, the Naiads, Neptune and the manifold other gods that rule the seas (mer ~ mere, dontcha see?) to get himself a tattoo.....

This is the unwritten law of the quarterdeck and dang if I was gonna break such tradition! Now that doesn't mean I was gonna get me a bawdy ostentatious topless mermaid with "Subic Bay" ensconced underneath her lasciviousness, large upon my tanned and bulked-up upper arm, nay!

But when we pulled into the fair harbor of San Francisco, I did get myself quickly down to the infamous Lyle Tuttle's wondrous tattoo emporium and veritable museum! Surely Lyle would have just the design for me.

Now not only is Lyle's shop full of charm and spectacles to behold, but Lyle his very self is a gent out of Ripley's! He is covered, without exception from his neck to his very toes with intricate and varied designs & inscriptions; the inky displays unfurl over his body no less than o'er the fabled Lydia the tattooed lady, herself!

Now please note: I did say 'without exception'!! Yes, for it is said -- and though I cannot vouchsafe the exact truth of this next statement, still less do I have reason to not believe it! -- that e'en Lyle's nether regions are so inscribed, yea: I DO mean his one-eyed snake!

Now, how can you imagine, might such a delicate -- albeit crucial -- body part be filigreed?!! Ah, but the solution to that particular puzzle only exponentially 'ups the charm' of the entire legend. This hirsute gentleman, often in simple white tanktop (to offset his own body's wild abandon of color and design) and yet also mit giant hambone sideburns, seems to have inscribed along his manly member the inimitable mercurial two little words: "YOUR NAME." Amen, and verily this is what it says! But why, you surely may ask, for such a strange blurb?

Well, it's quite simple, really: y'see, when Lyle chanced to find himself wrapped up in conversation with some pretty young lass, and talk got around to the, ahem, more personal nature of things -- Lyle would chance to place a wager with the gullible gal: "I'll bet you that I have your name written right down along my very man root!"

"But what happened when these girls found out that it was just simple word play and they had been duped?" asked one straight man child agog.

"Aha, well, dontcha know, by the time Mr. Tuttle had gotten to the point where he could show off his tumescent slogan, it was far too late to redress any particular grievance, now wasn't it?!!" ha ha

And so, but -- nevermind that special aside: what about my own tattoo?

Well, believing my ears nearly my primary organ, so much do I enjoy music, and digging so many of the world's sounds, overall, in fact, it seemed only logical or sensible to inscribe  upon my epidermis.

No, , is not 3-1/2,  sweet OM is OM, the sound that created the Universe, the ou-boum out of the Marabar Caves, another word for God, the whole kit, caboodle and caboodle's kit, Tippecanoe & Tyler too!

Since even the scientists have determined that all matter (all all?!) is vibrating microelements, all is sound, all is music, all is .

But it wasn't going to be a big gaudy pop symbol version glaring out to all the world from my advertising humerus -- (no, not even humorous) -- but a carefully chosen precise delicate number hidden away on the inside of my bicep, not so hidden so's to be available only to intimate encounters, yet not one big ostentatious WAHHH!

Now, somehow, Lyle's shop, full of all the decorations of tattoo aficionados from all the world, did NOT have just the sort of OM that I was shopping for.....

So I left and perused a number of bookstores, new & used, seeking this one book that I even remember from travels in Alaska quite a while back -- now exactly what book that was is now lost to the mists of time -- but the book was nowhere to be found (I just remembered that upon a particular page it had the most perfect & refined, precise & noble  that ever I had seen).

Leaving behind the many occultish bookstores and the like, I entered into university libraries even, and, finally, there! -- dang, I had mistaken the exact title all along \-- was the book and the symbol -- gad: Da Vinci Code, you got nuthin' on me!

BUT, now, fie!, the only copy machine within the bowels of this University sanctuary was out of order -- what could I do? what could I do? \-- [e'en or despite my future career path as librarian not even glimpsed at the time -- similarly as my New Year's Resolution of Nineteen Hundred and Sixty Five -- yes, it's true, ever infinite series of digressions be damned, for this very resolution 'to be more quiet in the library and follow the rules' is now laminated and upon my wall next to exactly where I now find myself typing] -- but to -- can you recatch this train of thought begun way up above, about 23 digressions ago -- rip out the corner of the page of the [gasp!] library book [DANGER! DANGER! WILL ROBINSON! wwwwheheeeeirrrriillleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEE!] -- (how many words does that siren sound count for, by the way, Mr. NaNoWriMo cocksucker???!!!)

Thence, whew, dashing back to Lyle Tuttle's esteemed needle gun emporium whereupon he DID inscribe this very symbol upon my arm, only batting half an eye at my tale of this ripped page's origins.......!

(And though I was told it would scab up briefly before flowering for good, no, it never did, and still beams out perfectly, I've got this baby right here and now for all to witness to, and all is good in this land, ho, yea)......

Fragment the further

all too common epigram (but still so properly befitting!):

The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing but burn, burn, burn like fabulous roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes 'Awww!"

  * Kerouac - On the Road

"Wow, Uncle Re (bop all) most, tell us more, tell us more! What happened next?!"

Now now, my li'l chilluns, take it easy, we can't unfurl all the flags at once, y'know, I mean, 'a quotation is not a quotation until you can tell your friends the same joke over and over'

??

Let me illustrate that non-point in this fashion...

The summer of Nineteen Eighty was a magic season for yours truly: it was, in fact, soon after the saga of the tattoo, and I had registered at the union hall back in San Fran and was now awaiting for my union card to get sufficient seniority (up to 90 days worth) to land the special boom freighter ships bound for South America (special cuz boom freighters are old-fashioned and take longer to unload and load in port which means I get more time ashore, yee haw!)

My esteemed colleagues, the lowlife dirtbags of sailordom yore, were just as likely to spend their every day at the closest dive bar to said union hall, passing the time with hoary yarns and racing each other to the bottom of bottle after bottle.

You know the difference between a fairy tale and a sailor's yarn? A fairy tale begins: "Once upon a time..." while a seaman's tale invariably begins: "Now this ain't no shit...." \-- the truth from therein out is usually about equivalent in both cases!

Anyway, whilst said seamen rarely strayed far from the shadow of their Union Hall, I bounced around all 'bout the west: from folk's home in Seattle, to high school pal's hangout in Vail and Aspen, Colorado area. But I had no car, for decades of globe spanning travels even, and instead -- in that safer, funner, freer world -- so oft resorted to the thumb for transportation, so often depended on the kindness of strangers who cared to stop upon the side of the road.

And now I DID have my share of fun expeditions upon those gleaming ribbons of asphalt -- hitchhiking could be a load of fun -- but there was one other mode of transport that completely upped the ante for me, despite the dirtiness and less variable routes available; what I'm talking about is the legendary freight train. Yep, the mode of transport of ye olde hoboes, that crashing boomin' carousing iron horse of great yee-haw exuberant firepower...Whitman's barbaric yawp sounding over the roofs of the world, yeahoooooooo!

It could mean long hours sitting (& hiding) inside a boxcar hoping/praying that it might soon start up and take off, and that it might be heading in the same general direction that I was fixing to go.

But once that first big shakedown blast resounded along the spine and breadth of the worldbeating machine worm, you could be in for the ride of your life! Wow, was there nothing like bouncing along this great gleaming countryside astride this behemoth, under a western sun, glorious as Pecos Bill yippee-yi-ki-yaying o'er the fruitful plains, America, America, God's shedding his grace on thee, alrighty, yessiree Bob! [dammit, God, can't you learn to wipe your feet on the doorstep and not shed your grace all through this house, for once, golly willikers!]

But hitchhiking was easier of course, there were many more roads and cars and so I was all too often in the passenger seat discoursing or likely more often being the recipient of a lively sermon, and yas, sermon is zackly my point here:

I remember this ride, out of the several dozen thousand that I ever had, somewheres out in bleak Wyoming nowhereness, a friendly fella driving, but didn't they so often always turn out to be what is so often known in the vernacular as a "Jesus Freak." (The one other common picker upper was a too-friendly gay -- and can I thus be excused for any inborn \--with knowledge specially arrived at -- prejudice against this particular faction?!) Now, don't get me wrong: Jesus was a splendid feller, all around lovely in a multitude of ways -- but, as I recall, this hitchhikee was beating the dead horse of Our Savior's savior-ness 17 ways to Sunday.

Sheesh, I was hungry, I was tired, I was worn out lowdown beaten and just trying to make my way back to Colorady but Preacherman Pete was going on & on, "Are you saved, Sunny? Are you washed in the blood of the lamb? Do you take Jesus as your lord & savior?"

And then it turns out he's only making about 30 miles down the road to another wide spot, plus now here he stops yet again for another hobo who, from the back seat starts chirping up that he too, b'gosh was one hellacious fundamentalist and so now I got it coming from 2 sides, truly tries a man's soul, lemme tell ya.

"Have you been saved, Sunny?"

"Waell, heck, I even been invested quarterly with compound interest!"

"No, I mean do you know Jesus?"

"Gosh, not personally. Now you don't mean in the Biblical sense, do ya?!"

(Blush). "Have you read the Bible, son?"

"Reckon I perused it in weary waiting rooms. Yea, and listen, there's one part that I do like. You know Matt, yea: Matthew, chapter 25 or so, it's about you and me and the whole scene, lissen: "For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat..." and, so by inference: I was hitchhiking and you picked me up -- paraphrasing, I mean, that's all, to update it, see --- yea, 'insomuch as you pick up the least of my brethern, you do so for me, too.' Great, hunh?! Aw, don't be so rigid about the whole rigamarole, man: we all got a piece o' Gawd right in our insides just waitin' to burst out an' spread the news, ain't ya ever felt that -- aw, fergit it, man..." and I drifted away from their broken record proselytyzing, my gaze suddenly riveted by a freight train shadowing us on tracks parallel....

and proceeding just slowly enough so that I just might be able to run alongside and jump on board without then deserving the common sobriquet of Stubby or "nine-fingers" or the like!

And so, in one of those so rare occasions when reality neatly dovetails with the most exquisite framing of the cliche-iest Hollywoodian screenshot out of a Spielbergian can(n)on, P.P. asked one last time, just as he pulled to a stop to let me out, and just as I was nearly drooling to see this grand railroad rocket slow up right next to us only a block or so distant:

"For the last time, son: Do you believe in Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior?"

"NOT AS MUCH AS FREIGHT TRAINS!"

BANG, I slammed the door, and hightailed it down the street, hustling along even while hoisting my big backpack bouncing along, and reached those tracks and, yes!, grabbed a rung and sprang onto a ladder on an oil car, clambered on top sang out a rousing 'Amen!,' waving my nose at the whole horizon of smalltime abstract religion: here was my God!: TOOT! TOOT!, full of more magnificent power & glory & grace & rhythm than a month of Sundays, chuggin' my way into heaven...

Iron horse? Nay!: iron mastodon, leviathan, the worm ouroborous, Ydraggsil, the Midgard serpent, the encircling girdle of the earth, riding like some nose candy happy cowboy, bustin' dis bronco t'beat the band, big oiltank buttress the knob of my saddle, rip-roarin' snortin' behemoth: CHARGE!...

Like Sandburg's 'Chicago': "Earthquake Maker of the World, Lusty Ruler of the Wide Open Spaces, Master of Miles and NO ONE the nation's freight handler".....Like Slim Pickens out of his Strangelovian plane: YAHOOOOO!...

From the top of a freight train at full bore across the flat straight there are no distractions, deflections of awareness from the verb, noun & 5 senses of the train: the continuous bouncing & careening, the deafening polyrhythms of pumping pistons & mechanical thumping shaking rollicking whoo (like a whole tribe of Ginger Bakers & Elvin Joneses piledriving to the pure One Beat, OM MANI PADME HUMMMM.)....the whole Mighty Glorious Heartbeat of America, full of strength & bullheaded determination, yielding to nothing, THOUWMP-WAOUMP, lub-dub, keened on velocity, the thrilling voice of Exclamation -- man, I'm just screaming into the whirlwind, I am King Captain America! The wind's howling, the sun's blazing, everything's running at peak intensity -- and I am ALIVE, superpowered, the sole observer & recorder of this whole gargantuan gestalt like a GAWWWD.....

free and alive and movin' & groovin' and NOT having to kowtow to Jesus or conformities or, goddammit, anything at all: make my mode of transport Pure Anarchy, pure barbaric yawp.....straight, no chaser, and a side of AHHHH!

'Sakes alive, it took me a number of miles, if not states, before I started coming down from this unqualifiedly un-Abraham-Maslow-ian peak experience!

And that is why "I try to arrange my life to myself, and not my self to life." And that is why "you get credit for just showing up, the wise man does over the stars, setting in motion the strange beauty of the fool doing finally (chance is order in time)."

Dialogic Digression

"Are you just going to have long soliloquies or will there be any other characters?"

"But whatever do you mean, my dear sir? This tome is teeming with a multitude of people!"

"No, but will they ever talk to each other or is this just all about you going on & on (and on) without actually conversing with anyone?"

"Well, yes, I do see your point, I guess, but I was aiming for more of a Sartor Resartus sort of schtick, a great sermonizing lexicon to illuminate the masses, you see."

"Sarter, whoever he may be, weren't never startin' nor restartin' what wit' the way you're carrying on -- now, c'mon and introduce someone else, where's the love story, where's the I & thou, the tete á tete, you're gonna get all solipsistic-acious at this rate!"

"Hmmm, well, yes, there is that, I suppose. But really, now, my good fellow, there is YOU, after all, isn't there? I mean, you and I are having a whale of a fine dialectic, are we not?! Is not this debate exactly what you are asking for?"

"...."

"Hey! Hullo?! Anyone out there??? Aw, c'mon, now, how can you do this to me???!!!".......................

Sequentialist Segment

Hey, YOU! I'm talking to you! That's right! Well, then, what do YOU want? What are you after? What tickles your funnybone, jiggles your jello, teases your tassles?

Would you like to hear about that time that I met up with Lola Lapidicious, all 5 foot 10-1/2 inches of her delectable curvaceousness -- we cut right past the small talk and jumped straight to the soft caresses of each other's aching, throbbing bodacious pitter-pat maximum rope-a-dope intermingling mash and mishmash, song & dance sexy, sleek & slinky, whoa, nelly & she was just about to take a hold of my ferocious felonious monkhood when......

ha, gotcha that time, didn't I?! Coochie coochie coo, dear reader!

Episode do-si-do

But who sits behind all this doggerel? Behind even myself sitting here quietly at the keyboard, but the verily better half, yas and though she will be developed further in subsequent sections, we must pay tribute to the very beginning, where we all began, where Karen damsel Platypuss-y pulled me finally outa (too often oh-so lonely, dontcha know) bachelorhood for good.... (this ultimatum decision not yet infallibly & eternally inscribed upon the stars) -- but hold, good sir, here's what you do, and I confabulate not in the slightest here: get thee hence to a computer, get connected to the near ubiquitous internet, fire up the friendly Proquest database of newspapers and journal articles from throughout the cosmos and simply type in "Bruce Greeley" \-- yes, really, go ahead, c'mon: don't be shy, I can wait...........

Do so, e'en in basic search mode, and precisely one article will -- seemingly magically \-- pop right up:

`YANKEE BARBARISM' MEETS `BRITISH GRACE'; [FINAL Edition]

 Seattle Times. Seattle, Wash.:  Dec 28, 1993. pg. G.7

Yea, verily and therein lies (the/a) tale/tail:

Copyright Seattle Times Dec 28, 1993

There I was: along the Routeburn track on the South Island of New Zealand, smoking my pipe on the steps of the Falls hut, on vacation from the occasional carefree stint as helmsman of Hawaiian cruise ships (perhaps akin to the classic Love Boat, though I was having none of it). I was hiking with another Bruce from Canada whom I had recently met.

Here she came: an English bird - albeit born in Kuwait and raised in Nigeria - on vacation from her physical-therapy job in Australia. An Aussie mate was taking her on her first real hiking experience.

Ah, wasn't she thrilling at first sight! It had been years since I laughed so hard while sober! She combined such an elegant and rarefied accent with the most sudden and ribald comments. And that lusty laugh: it could be heard across the glaciers, I'm sure! After a few days hiking through the gorgeous mountains, we parted coolly - but not before I obtained her phone number in Sydney.

It was more than a month later, finally in Sydney myself, that I made that one brave phone call. When she actually answered, there was no looking back! Untrammeled Yankee barbarism vs. traditional British grace: We've fought the Revolutionary War over and over!

We've since been through three wedding ceremonies - on three continents, over four years! The first was just a private affair between the two of us. Because I was a licensed minister through the Mother Earth Church in Southern California (obtained from an ad in the back of Rolling Stone!), Karen thought I should help us tie the knot before I left Australia.

Years later, after I'd "kidnapped" her and brought her to the frontier outpost of the colonies (Seattle), we went through the regular civil she-bang. And, finally, in the quaintest little 11th-century church in southern England, before God and the Queen (naturally!) . . . they lived happily ever after . . . and baby makes three!

[Hey, cut me a break, ya can't plagiarize yourself, now can ya? That's how it's written in the newspaper 'of record' and so it must be so, mustn't it?!!!]

Subsequent Sex [sec] tion

"ooo, ooo, Unky Primus, Unky Primus! Did you know any other wimmin before Karen came upon the scene?"

Ah, well there were indeed other goils before Ms. Wife-to-be, but of course! BTW, me laddie, would you like a little mnemonic trick to remember how to pronounce the dear missus' salutation? For despite her solid English background, she was named after a Norwegian so one must say Karin not Karen. just think of that fine automotive magazine, "Car and Driver" -- yea, baby, she can drive MY car, unh hunh, unh hunh, unh hunh, unh hunh unh hunh [ bolster on up that word count, why dontcha?!"]

Anyway: 'talofa lava! Fa'a pefea mai oi! MALO! And even O te alofa e a te oi! How easily those sibilant Samoan syllables trip off the tongue! For y'see:

It was several careers ago, whilst helming the love boat round the Sandwich Isles of yore, that I befriended the kindly bosun, Rick, a respectable ol' codger with plenty of stories of his own to tell, you can be sure!

And Rick was enamored with Ruti, of a noble Samoan family, and they were destined to be married even down in her very tropic home. Looking not too far afield, Rick naturally asked if I would accompany him down to darling, palm-fringed Apia, Western Samoa's capital, as best man & natural roustabout.

This was not a question to leave me ruminating long, and so I fairly leaped at the opportunity, and we packed our lava-lavas and set off!

Upon arrival I was immediately welcomed into the bosom of the extended family, talking story, drinking beers and partaking of local fare such as taro and the delectable palusami (it was common for visitors to weigh 10-15 pounds more upon departure such was the quantity of cuisine always at ones elbow!)

I also could not but help notice the native damsels, and nearly salivating o'er the legendary reputation of such South Sea gals.

(Too late was I to realize the rather stark division between the free and easy wahines of Eastern Polynesia such as Tahiti, versus the more puritanical ways of the Far Western Samoan babes).

Yet, I could not avoid 'glomming' onto a certain shy Vaoita, shirttail relative of the bride; big & buxom, giggly and yet demure.

Somehow, all too fast, I found myself within a private bedchamber with the virginal V. and behind these locked doors, three layers or levels of the story developed:

We shed our mortal vestements, and I then tried to worm my way into her inner sanctum (oniousness). 'Twas at this very last vestige of decorum that Vaoita resisted me and I came away somewhat empty handed (though, it wasn't me hands that I wanted to fill, (s)natch, I mean, natch'!) Mention of hands is appropos however, as I did discover one finger bloodied after its delving into the divine.

And here is where the tale resounded, multipied upon itself:

1) I thought I might be laughed at as a 'fa-fafine' [or queer] for failing to fulfill my romantic duties with this nymphet who'd not yet discovered this sort of bliss...but then:

2) the mere fact that we were behind these locked doors for so long was enough for most Samoan families and so we were nearly married and I had to buy off the loquacious clan with a couple of bags of groceries and several longwinded speeches of my own to compensate!!!

and yet:

3) I then discovered [in the pages of Derek Freeman's Margaret Mead: Rise & Fall of a Myth which had also attuned me to these people's less salacious style as opposed to Tahiti] that there is a particular type of rape in Samoa called 'moetoloe.' Now the naive Mead heard that tricky men would surreptitiously sneak into women's chambers and have their wicked way in such dark and quiet that they could fool these unwitting gals over who they were but then, once 'violated', these gals became theirs. Freeman instead explained that no matter how dark or quiet, no true lady would be fooled by who is sneaking in to sleep with them, and instead all the men would have to do is break their hymen -- even with a scandalous finger -- and the deed was as good as done.

Whoa, this was almost my predicament -- + only saved my own [bachelor] bacon with a coupla slabs of bacon and half a dozen cans of spam......!

And that is why: "there are two sides to every story, but an additional side to the story of the story" and by the time you get to my story of the Russian Babushka dolls Escher-esque spinning tales upon whales of tales, that you may come to discover that too much meaning & too many interpretations of this unfolding existence is just as existentially meaningless as cold stark Sartre no exit anxiety, whoo!!!

Following Scene

So, waitaminnit, is this just going to be a series of maudlin reminiscences, a string of thinly disguised memoirs, scarcely hanging together, let alone full of developed characters & a meaty plot?

Oh, so you'd like me to introduce, for instance, unh, let's see, what about:

Plately Stumped Muck Billigan, er no, how's about, Hero-anonymous Bosh, known to his friends as "Goots" woke up again in his social studies teacher's bed and catapulted himself headlong into another day's adventure. Foregoing his usual breakfast of scrambled obelisks, he toasted a couple of rashes of speckled cornstarch marshmallow cabbage and slathered on a rich baste of phenomenal Jim jam, washing it all down with the juice of a cow, no, of a turtle breasted hamhock.

Goots sat chewing while rubbing his proud aquiline nose, wondering if there were any other kinds of beaks upon folks, (save for the obvious cute as a button or great bulbous) and ruminated reflectively, 'what the fuck does aquiline have to do with noses, anyway?!'

Suddenly, without a moment's notice, the mighty fleet of Emperor Porntiddly materialized upon his breakfast nook, and although this fleet did only span three & three quarters feet (soaking wet), they were still a formidable threat, possessing as they did the mysterious Roseate Spoonbill Scabard of the Geats, which granted its owner the ability to osculate dragoons in 14 dimensions.

Thinking rapidly, Goots spun round brandishing his own valiant Odds Bodkin and so there they stood, Porntiddly and Goots, facing each other as they had so many times before (see specifically Saga #23: How to Fix the Mashed Potato Blender, or Goots does It Again, This Time in Plaid!):

"Why dost thou dare oppose me again, here, as I am surrounded by my unvanquishable army, Bosh?"

"Cut the crap, Porn dude, do you think I can maintain these fictions indefinitely?" Goots promptly changed his name to Roger Brown, Jr. and danced into the audience waiting for the curtain opening of his daughter's premiere as Sleeping Beastie in Tchaikovsky's 3rd Rhumba with a Rake.

"Wake up! Wake up, Beauty! This is your big scene! Your Dad's out there waiting with his super zoom Flip Video!"

...ready to capture every iota of my life, capture and keep me imprisoned, that's right! Why can't I be free, Dad? Why can't I live out beyond your purview for just a second, for just one show?

"Aw, c'mon, Darling daughter, what then would I write about?"

What then, indeed, Jesus Christ, what a load of rubbish, you know the worst thing about all this? You know what just gets stuck in my craw about the whole, erm, Weltanshauung? It's that this smooth backspace erase feature of the fuggin' computer has none of the satisfying finality and grants none of the pure wrapping up closure as does ripping the ruined paper out of the freakin' typewriter wheel and crumpling that petty sucker up and pitching it unerringly into the trash, to join its several zillion fellow meagre balls of blood, sweat & tears.

Ah, but have no fear: I won't dare erase one character of this epic, no siree, Bob & Bobarina! I'm on my quest for 50,000 words and whatever vomit appears on this screen, stays, is that perfectly and exquisitely clear, concise & clear (& concise)?!! 5,585, fuckin' A! Hercules at his labors didn't have the kind of trouble and strife that I got with this ol' ball & chain battle...

What does the quick brown fox do again now? Jumps over a lazy dog, that's right, so there: there's all your 26 letters, do with them as thou wilt! Send forth your troop of trained monkeys to type Hamlet again after umpteen attempts, maybe them monkeys are only hiding in your own noggin, but let 'em loose, and feel free to rearrange all those letters to your heart's content! Here, let me add a few wingdings, webbats & gimcraw whatnot weezix's to the whole shebang to help you out:

^&#Ø‰ åååååååå

(hmmm, I kinda like that one!)

Alas, so it's all up to me after all then? Your not gonna help at all? (Not even to tell me that it should be 'You're'?!) Och, how can life be so unfair???? Eloi, eloi, [Eli's coming! Hide your heart, girl!] lama [rama lama ding dong] lama sabacthani!!! [and how dare Ginz have forever stolen the idea for the only perfect word to come after that phrase but 'saxophone'?!!!]

I cram another half-handful of burnt pumpkin seeds into my gaping craw, take a deep sigh, and ponder my next line... though still pestered by hunger, both of belly and sheer ennui, and so.....

I cram another half-handful of burnt pumpkin seeds into my gaping craw, take a deep sigh, and ponder my next line... though still pestered by hunger, both of belly and sheer ennui, and so.....

I cram another half-handful of burnt pumpkin seeds into my gaping craw, take a deep sigh, and ponder my next line... though still pestered by hunger, both of belly and sheer ennui, and so.....

I cram another half-handful of burnt pumpkin seeds into my gaping craw, take a deep sigh, and ponder my next line... though still pestered by hunger, both of belly and sheer ennui, and so.....

I cram another half-handful of burnt pumpkin seeds into my gaping craw, take a deep sigh, and ponder my next line... though still pestered by hunger, both of belly and sheer ennui, and so.....

(Hey, here's one solution!) Naah, even I won't stoop that low, but, y'know, those Minimalists weren't so stupid (he thinks to himself even as he still proudly calls himself a Maximalist!)

and now, but waitanotherminnit: every day we're supposed to produce 1,667 words (that one over the big beasty's number) and now, already on day four I notice I'm supposed to be at 6,668 -- what is this sheer deviltry creeping in all too often?

And then, but look: today is THE DAY! What matters this exercise in typographical masturbation when we find out who will be the next President!!!! Will it be an Obama-rama or the dark McCain insane where all else will Palin comparison....?

ENSUING PHRASE

This is a novel not a diary!

This is a novel not a blog!

BUT STILL! BUT STILL, C'MON NOW! America woke up! With flying colors! Hurrah, we've come Barack to our senses!

Canto the Twelf, er, Twelfth, in which our valiant protagonist discovers a hidden bedchamber, disposes of manifold disagreeable situations arising from mistaken identities, extracts a promise from his Grandmother and benefactor, the delightful henrietta philogyny, rescues the damsel Naomi from the clutches of the evil Count Whatever-you-want-to-call-him, and Resurrects the missing snakeeye from the loose stairstep behind the broken stovepipe under the sign of the pincushion from manx

.....What????!......

Clause Continuing

"Uncle Dream-us! Why are you transmogrifying into an amorphous ill-defined rigmarole of haphazard smatterings? Where is the sense or sensibility in your wild ravings, and how can you possibly tie any of this together into anything approaching cohesiveness let alone a charming story to wile away the time?"

"Oh -ho, my little chickadees, never you fret about the big picture, for you see, just for example, I am only now just discovering myself how one random story, stepping off a cliff on the La Push shores of Washington State somehow connects to walking upon the coals of a Hindu fire walking ceremony in the middle of the night in a back alley of Rangoon, Burma -- please don't call it Yangon, Myanmar, yech, whereat romance there?!

Anywho, these 2 events were separated by decades as well as thousands of miles but now I realize that it was my floppy legs that led me into both adventures......

As a mere lad, and neophyte forest ranger in bucolic Fort Warden upon the outskirts of bedazzling Port Townsend, I marked my days digging out trails for friendly hikers, as well as tolling the mighty bell downtown on the night that the mighty bassist Charles Mingus bellowed his last down Mexico way; or, additionally, since the forest ranger bosses allowed us to paint our rooms any way we wanted, I passed out spray paint to any visitors to my hovel and let them go at it, ending up with a regular graffittied NY subway car look, whoo.

We took a trip out to the coast and I ventured out hiking with another burgeoning ranger dude, Paul. Though years past the apex of the hippy era, Paul still fit the type fine philosophically. I remember him waxing at length about the virtue of moderation, how one should always seek the middle way, and not get too exaggerated towards one side or another. Playing the devil's advocate, I asked, "But wouldn't that get boring, always being so safe and middle-of-the-road-ish."

"Why, yes, you've got to freak out once in a while! You've got to be moderate in practicing moderation!"

So on we went up this steep bluff right on the water's edge, bushwhacking to our heart's content. Our path got increasingly severe, and finally Paul bailed out, saying he'd meet me back at our trailer park. Sure, I said, but I gots to go further! And so I did, cresting the sharp cliff and starting down the other side, sheer as can be. Scrambling down, step by step, with the crashing waves about 20 feet below, beating themselves against the jagged rocks, I took one step too far, grabbing tufts of grass which finally did NOT hold me back, and I stepped right out into space -- the image of this 'one small step for man' with frothy sea and jagged rock next to my dangling foot, still crystal clear in my memory.............................................

This, however, was the last that I remember until I found myself lying on a beach, safely inland from the treacherous waves and rocks, though plenty wet and even with head bloodied. Even worse, I could remember nothing about myself or where or even who I was as I staggered in the dark along the shoreline. Fortunately, this state of affairs only lasted five minutes or so, for I noticed the faux totem pole marking our RV-like campsite, and all my petty 19 years of gnossis-knowledge came flooding back.

Now, if you have no faith in the supernatural and guardian angels and all that rot, then how can anyone explain how I survived that fall, and got back to the relatively dry beach? For, you see, the following week I returned to this spot with my brother, ostensibly to look for my lost camera, and we were confounded to even get out to the spot where I fell, even in the daylight, even as two too-hardy lads starting at sea level!

\------------

Now, resurrecting red-pen-scrawled diary from fall of 1984:

...I scoop a seat on spartan Rangoon plane, complete with cockroaches & a sacklunch like Mum cda useta make. Landing to infinite paperwork & doublechecking ~ the more backward the country the more comprehensive the bureaucracy (inversely proportional to their ability to deal with it) & then on top of that axiom add the lust for red tape of socialism, wow.

'54 taxi to town past '54 Smallsville, Midwest-type views (quiet 1-act suburban Main Street Our Town s) till the grand golden glowing Schwedagon Pagoda shocks us back to SE Asia. YMCA check in, dash out (already 10pm), run right into Frisco freak sitting with a friendly local Muslim, offered a seat, a big leafy cheroot + a cup of tea rt. off the bat, so at ease with real chums not square English, egocentric Swiss or slob degenerate Aussies like in plane hassles; learn there just happen to be 2 once-a-yr. festivals tonight only, WOW, psyched, change into 'chameleon outfit' for 1st Hindu then Muslim w/S.F.'er....Durga Disco I call the 1st: Durga puja at the local temple (I thot Burma all Buddhist but every country a melting pot, on this shrinking shuttling planet, amalgamam continues). Drums pounding, 'natives R restless,' resounding far around, + palpable presence of dance Fever carried w/it -- Straight into the tumult we go + after a few moments' sideline sidling we drop airs + distance + join the mania: big bass booms + snare rickety ticks + cymbal exclamations driving the swaying throngs, One Mind of Nataraj entranced in movement, swinging smoky censers + tho' barricaded off in the middle of the crowd, somehow calm + smoothly rhythmical till I jumped in + started bouncing off the walls + doing everything except the steady groove my Deadhead pal was in (they preferred hippy fanaticism to beatnik jilting lunacy) -- In India we would have been shuffled off to the side or ignored (!) but here full acceptance + I traded disco steps w/a couple other moderns. Only quit when the music did, \+ then a fight started, police appeared, bye bye.

Next up was elaborate fire walking ceremony over hot coals at midnite, no 1 AM, no 2, no 3 as fire wasn't ready till then but my pidgin Arabic worked wonders + we made plenty friends, even an old Burmese movie star who was here to film the schtick + we sat inside the mosque so gaudy so influenced by Disneyland Hindu w/ the 2 thumb hands made out of big sheets of tinfoil + a large 'altar' w/ lots of colors everywhere ~ \+ we arguing for all religions/faiths over Mohammedanism + learning their angles like this fest. comin' from Mohammed's grandson's family walking out of a burning house.

Finally sometime past 3 the surreal parade approaches: young males swathed in red but legs bared to high thighs (in none of the ultra conservative reserved Islam I know of Mid East), pasty white make-up crudely smeared on face + body + on all the Burmese wimmin all the time, "for beauty" as it keeps face young but ugly while on so defeats purpose), the front men bearing tall cheap glittering scepters, some like parasols w/ hanging bangles continuously twirled, + each main man accompanied + held around waist by plain clothed 'suitor,' ending in a buncha smaller urchins + everyone chanting "Ali! Ali!" + more \-- to mosque + inside prayers + strength to/from Allah, then circling around now fiercely red hot glowing coals -- a line about 15 ft. long -- a crowd forms + over the heads I see them bare feet walk (the wimmin sequestered in rm. all in black, behind me w/ even worse view, but I hear they're front + center at the end, lying in sand + having coals heaped on top of them like a (warm) blanket), the slower the better eliciting "Ma'shallah" murmurs -- over + over they go, the coals burning my face 5 paces away but they're oblivious, not in a trance but sure + committed. Other onlookers cross after the main group, many w/ tiny infants in their arms + now as it's winding up, some guy catches our eye, our shoes are off \+ pants rolled up in anticipation + yes: our turn, not once, not twice, but 3 times, my faith not pure I can tell from the burning I feel long afterwards (no dipping in water they insist) + a couple large blisters between misshapen toes. But wow we made the legendary scene, shades of Indiana Jones, not so tough if you just keep the tootsies in motion......

And we won't even elaborate on the sheerly incomprehensible feat (ha!) further upland on Inle Lake, where the natives go fishing and row tourists around, while standing up in their boats, and both arms busy so they row withtheir oars entwined around one leg, yes, that's right!

Nor the one meal I ever refused: waking up groggily on a train to the offer of sparrow on a stick!

STRANGE INTERLUDE

So, I was thinking of a really *now*, Minimalist cover for the book, stark but refined (for first printing, I mean) -- how do you think that sounds? You know: like the "White Album" except instead of The Beatles embossed along the lower quadrant, it would read "The Bestseller" (in very subtle off-white, of course).

Or maybe put it out in with three different covers, what do you think of that? though only very incrementally different, so you'd have to search for these variations, like a sort of "Where's Waldo?" for grownups, yea, that's the ticket....

Or, no, I really think my publisher (after I settle for one following the hearty bidding war, naturally) should probably go all out, and we could even have a special 'pop-up' opening up right out of the cover, a sort of trompe l'oeil illustrating man's inhumanity to man or something like that.

But, I also don't think we should rule out a possible future massive universal 'dumbing down' (for some reason or another) which unbelievably enough, (I know) also leads to my book NOT becoming the hottest thing since Harry Potter invented sliced bread....and so, in that case, we should probably settle for the standard beautifully bikinied blonde leveling a colt .45 (or luger?) at the camera -- but someone 'old school' like an updated Ursula Andress or maybe Catherine Deneuve but just a little more sluttish. (Note to super-agent: does Deneuve have any daughters or nieces who might suffice -- who aren't too French, n'est ce-pas? ) This always works, of course, I mean, look at James Bond + "Quantum of Solace" \-- what kind of fucked up title is that? What the hell does that mean? One quanta of feeling sorry for yourself....?!???!

But it's a giant hit in theatres AND bookstores of course, so this kinda cover wd be a safe fallback, yea?

SOUND BITE SHARD

.........Shoring up these fragments against my ruins, you bet -- T.S.: you're on your bloody own!

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT

'Tis a green era, of course, and so I, naturally, will be doing my part to conserve this planet's fragile resources and that means we may even resort to limiting the number of copies to be printed (possibly as few as the low millions), so act now and get your copy today, do not delay!

Furthermore, in the spirit of ecological equanimity, I must urge you to please use our wood pulp resources sparingly, that is, I heartily entreat, with all due pomp & pageantry:

DO
NOT

WASTE

PAPER!!!!!!

\---------

(Wellllll, reckon that gives me a leg-up on the page, if not the word, count.....sheesh)

Dammit, what if I don't talk but expostulate not about bop tunes but of the tremendously transformative beautiful excitement of Charles "Yardbird" Parker's "Klactovesedstene" \-- will this, NaNoWriMo bitch, record my sesquipedalianesque-itude only as simple solitary words the same as 'big words, wow"?! Drat!

About the type

This epic was written in an increasingly varied style & range of types, beginning with the properly practical Times New Roman, veering into the slightly whimsical Helvetica Neue Black Condensed and even adopting the bold Britannic Bold as well as the Snell Roundhand Bold. The ink used was the author's own precious blood mixed with a stereotypical portion of sweat, tears & gawd nose what else, kee-rist, what the fug, did you already reach the end of this stirring masterpiece? Has it not properly moved you to tears or perhaps left you doubled over in laughter, such that you cannot really read this properly at all??? Never mind the rest! Get thee out to a bookstore and order another half dozen copies! Or at least call all your rich friends and demand that they also avail themselves of this tome-of-which-one-can-no-longer-live-without!!! Don't worry yourself about the type, for god's sakes! Haven't you yet learned that this is no type, this creation is unique in all the histories of the world, that it stands alone, noncompareil, uncomparable, infinite, irremediable, irreducible, unfathomable, idiot-proof, incandescent, aoxomoxoa, out of this world, oshkosh b'gosh, onomotopeia-fied, och....

(I had too much to think last night, sheesh!)

DELIGHTFUL DIVERTISEMENT

Novel writing can be tiring, it's time for a nap......

Music, Symbols and Cataloguing

Yes, hi, thanks, I'm Bruce Greeley from the King County library system -- Fall City, in fact -- and don't mispronounce the name of my branch or you won't believe anything I'm going to say tonight... "Falsity," geddit?!...

Anyway, thanks for giving me this splendid opportunity to speak before such an august crowd...can it be an August crowd in April?!...well, some of you veterans may remember a similar sort of presentation given by one of my colleagues, Lynn Kanne, at a previous of these Solinus orange Julius whatevers...You may even remember some of the technicolor props I'm displaying here!

But don't accuse me of plagiarism yet...in fact, I'd pretty much given that speech to Lynn to present when I couldn't make it back then....We called it "Tha Gnu weigh 2 spel" for those of you taking notes...

And since I think the surest path to success these days must be to try & emulate Hollywood or even our nation's foreign affairs, well, what is the hottest thing going but sequels?.... so here I go with the "Son of 'Tha Gnu Weigh 2 spel'" or simply "Cataloguing Music & Symbols." [boom-kssshh!]

And since every good (and lousy) sequel begins with a recap, let me summarize what Lynn & I had come up with previously: I started out with KCLS as this librarian with a special late night teen program in Burien, one of the perks of which was to be able to go down to Tower Records every so often to buy new CDs for the kids. Rap was all the rage then, and they would tell me or write down all these groups for me to buy. I soon was stymied by how to find these groups: on the one hand, the artists themselves are so lackadaisical about the form of their names: whether its Tupac or 2pac, etc.

Or even how to spell their names.... Like, how about when these teens told me to go down and buy the latest by (what I thought was) "Enemy." I looked all through the "E"s but it was not to be found...Why? Because they are "NME"! (I thought they were articulating this a bit too precisely!)

So, anyway, time marches on, but this predicament of odd spellings and listings for music groups in particular continues to command my attention. And some of these artists continue to frustrate me and maybe many of you, too.

For instance, tell me, the first time some scruffy kid came up to you at the reference desk asking if you had any [M&M], did you think to show him the section on candy?!! Before Eminem became the big movie star and we all know about him, I mean!

Now let me interject here by saying that I am NOT a cataloguer,,,,but some of my best friends are..(yea, right!)....

And I admire the hard job they have with some of these examples I'm going to cite, especially in the electronic format.

Like what about that group, "The The"? Now, I'm quite a pacifist but doesn't this just make you want to resort to violence that someone could abuse the concept of 'stop words' so egregiously?!!...By the way, you can't find this group under this name in at least the KCLS catalog; try looking under the (oh-so prosaic name of) "Matt Johnson", instead (one of this group's members).

Now I'm not sure I've ever even heard this band and I don't think they're in many library catalogues, but if they were, does anyone else question how you're going to find

"? and the Mysterians." Or that important new drummer for "The Roots" who goes by the name of ?uestlove. For the non-cataloguers out there, would this come before A or after Z or what? Or perhaps more importantly, how do you even refer to these folks? Was it "Question mark and the Mysterians" and "Questlove" or "Questionlove" or "Questionmark -uestlove" or what?! Good question, eh?!

Or what about this techno pioneer guy, µ-Ziq? That lead letter is not a "U" but the Greek letter, "Mu," which means his name is pronounced, very cutely, as "Music." Now, I don't know about you, but I have a hard time just finding Greek letters on my computer keyboard, let alone trying to figure out where to alphabetize them!

But these are comparatively easy ones, so far...what about Prince? It's a good thing he reverted to this royal nomenclature -- how many of you remember how he changed his name for a number of years to  ...which I'm told is truly unpronounceable. Journalists took to calling him either "Squiggle" or "The Artist Formerly Known as Prince" or TAFKAP which is quite the mouthful. I'm wondering now though that since he changed his name back if he should be called "The Artist Formerly Known as Squiggle... formerly known as Prince"?!

At KCLS at least, there is at least one reference to this on a CDROM of his, which is titled "[Male/female symbol] interactive" which I think is cutting corners a bit.

And this seems like a good time to mention how this reminds me of this hilarious t-shirt I once saw in a window in Edmonds with

And underneath was written "Male, female, Nabisco" (Catalog that one!)

But also I know how important antecedents and roots are for Librarians, and even more important is citing sources, especially if they're from scholarly tomes, so I must digress again and tell you about what I think must be the origin of my fascination with these themes, and refer to a true classic of literature written by a world renowned Doctor, Geisel, or something.

When I was very young I would visit some neighbors and was always quite mesmerized by this one book, On Beyond Zebra \-- I'd imagine what letters really could have come after Z -- and look at these symbols that Seuss devised for this..

Anyway, I'm trying to bring things more into the present here...one of the hottest new bands is "Sigur Ros" from Iceland (really) but how frustrating that their latest album, without any words anywhere on the disc is titled "( )". In the KCLS catalog at least, this is not alphabetized before the As or after the Zs or even in the Ps for parentheses but in the I's. Why? Because in parentheses – no: excuse me -- in brackets, after their title is the explanation "i.e. parentheses"!!

Now despite all I've related about this obsession here, my favorite kind of music is actually jazz. And one of the wildest of the saxophonists is one Anthony Braxton. His compositions are extremely complicated, and his titles for these keep getting more and more elaborate. I used to be a volunteer radio disc jockey and I once played this fantastic song

but then was stymied as to how to say that on the air!

KCLS and even the liner notes to his albums usually refer to them as "Piece one" or "Composition no. 136" or whatever ...which is a good thing because the song titles are only getting more & more complex; here's some more:

And now he's incorporating cartoons and whole city plans for his titles like:

...please note that Mr. Braxton is a musician who is now writing songs to be played by musicians in different galaxies so good luck keeping up with his endeavors!

And to close, I want to return to music more prosaic, specifically the folk rock artist Fiona Apple.

KCLS lists one of her recent album title's as "When the Pawn" but that's not quite right and I think they cheated a little to not even put in an ellipse after this.

Because I think Ms. Apple belongs in the Guinness Book of world records for longest album title and I would love to see this really completely catalogued.

Let's all recite this together...can I get a little help here....follow the bouncing ball:

"When The Pawn Hits the Conflicts He Thinks Like A King What He Knows Throws the Blows When He Goes to the Fight and He'll Win The Whole Thing 'Fore He Enters the Ring There's No Body to batter When Your Mind Is Your Might So When You Go Solo, You Hold Your Own Hand And Remember That Depth Is The Greatest Of Heights And If You Know Where You Stand, Then You Know Where To Land And If You Fall It Won't Matter, Cuz You'll Know That You're Right"

Ah, the vividness of some dreams.........

LET IT REIGN

Ah, now is a good time to write, the rain is tap-tap-tapping on the roof....waitaminnit, ain't that downpour an example of Gawd almighty typing his own novel, if only I could transcribe the undoubtedly marvelous story, as his million precipitatious fingers beat upon every surface...

Hey, what if I constructed some giant keys and affixed them overhead? Then I could capture the Saga of all Sagas....I bet it would look something like this:

npec,blre[Ss448GU KSKLWPORTPTJK[P [PFRPRHBJBDJOCHSWEQW T34E7645668y8i867564RR65365r88989FKMDFPJDBMFFCNNGJH PHKJPJKPNKPVBOFG(*B^)alas, podrYorick!R^%WC&*^%%&^$*$ngmnm MHJMUMTR RRGJ JDBOIJQ2945348009877666%$^&RIFG&^R%%^*E%

*^% ^&T &IY*(UT IHIUGUYGFYUbvcbmdfgghojgdsgudg9hg9p fghnghfp aeyhfpy8fesp;

hmmm, well, yea, ok....nevermind?.............

SAGACIOUS SUPPLEMENT

O, great oraNcle WeMust, are you an orphan without beginning, nor in any way, shape or form, connected to others, or are you the sole solipsistic sentient survivor of all surveyed...?!

"Tush, tush, you perspicacious rapscallion, you -- but, of course, my origins were much the same as yours, I had a mother & father & even three younger brothers, yes....

And while I consider myself Athena-like in emerging fully formed at birth to tell you all there is, much did proceed before this miraculous culmination of which you are now reading....

For instance, there was the time I was lollygaggling within a friendly pub along with dear brother Scott, yes, we even, quaffed several pints of the good Lord's lager... Forsooth, we struck upon the idea of playing a game of darts and so began taking turns pitching the arrows as well as keeping score on the adjacent blackboard.

It wasn't too long before we were interrupted by a rather boisterous patron, who couldn't keep from exclaiming: "Now, waitaminnit! You guys are brothers? And yet, you are throwing the darts with your left hand while writing your score righthanded, while he is throwing righthanded and chalking the board as a leftie...? Who the hell raised youse guys?!"

Ah, yes, and there's the rub........
CHAPTER 11

This gig is bankrupt, end of story, nevermind, Gee-sus!

Wait, just a second, I know: they say a picture is worth a 1000 words, what will that evil overlord NaNoWriMo have to say to that, hunh? hunh?

But is even this pic below worth a 1000 of those beastly novel parts?!:

okay, okay.....

But it all started so early, y'see, I mean I was always the 'garbage can' at dinner time and had to eat all the leftovers, whatever Pop plopped down on my plate, it's a wonder I was only 'husky' and not downright fat, ever but then Scott and I went away to Camp Orkila one summer and my burgeoning d@Daism started to flower -- & no, I'm not talking about the proto-punk/new wave music band we put together for the talent show, complete with myself in yellow & black striped bathing suit......anticipating Sting, e'en??!!

er, what? this is so much all about ME, on & on, what a single monotone track, you say? How ineff-ably boring, tedium times ten, isn't there anyone else...?

Well, ok, then, it's YOUR turn: tell me a story!....................No, really, I mean it! I may have gone on a tad too long, please take the stage!................................................................................

I'm waiting........................

What's that? Cat's got your tongue? Well, ok, then, if you don't want another 150 blank pages then shut up and let me go on!:

Now where was I......oh yea, the bumblebee trunks....no, but besides that:

About 50 or even more of us 10-year-olds were going off on a big half day hike and first we had to make our own lunches. The counselors came up with an assembly line and we all started grabbing pairs of bread slices and spreading some generic big-plastic-tub peanut butter and even-less-savory jam or some-unidentifiable choice of meats and mayonnaise &/or mustard, and then I guess there was cheese and relish maybe, too.

But it only took me about 1-1/2 sandwiches worth before I got bored of the standard choices, and so began truly mixing it up: mystery meat with fruitless jam; unrelishable relish & plain white goopy mayo; and, my favorite, (discovering my own form of zen): 2 plain white pieces of bread.

Boy, were there some unhappy campers when we got to our lunch break that day! Mmmm-mmm, good....just like a certain still-nascent novel, whoo....

HOWL? NO: I SCREAM!

\--------and did I ever tell you \--- okay, I guess you get the point....

but then, there I was: taking my newish gal \-- a proper British lass, audacious and sassy but in no way wanting to ever draw attention to herself in a public setting, oh, no, that would certainly be 'a bit much of a muchness,' now wouldn't it?! -- to the special gay '90s Farrell's ice cream emporium... This was a fun place for anyone but already disconcerting to a English resident used to only about 3 or 4 flavors of ice cream, and huge servings instead of dainty little plates, loud gaudy colors and waiters -- but wait, waiters, the best is yet to come!

For, remember, they also pull out all the stops for birthdays, and though Karen's natal celebration shouldn't have been coming for six months or so, I thought it a fine idea to introduce her to classic American brashness right here and now and so whispered to the so-called 'maitre'd' that it was indeed the anniversary of the day she was born.

Ah, the look of sheer bewilderment on her face when the sirens and big bass drums started going off!

"Wow, Moosy, where's the fire do you think?!"

And the terribly delicious anguish on her face when she found this fuss was being made over her -- right out in front of non-Queen and non-country + all!!

"Happy birthday to you, too!"

ENSUING LINE

blah blah blah, and so forth, and so forth, etcetera etcetera.....geez, so many words, what does it all mean? DO I have to spell everything out, do you need every detail exhaustively (+ exhaustingly) delineated? Can't you perceive the whole gestalt simply through a noble gesture, can I not just hold up a single humble flower?!

aha~!

LET'S GO: EUROPE!

Hey Spelunker Flea-Moss, how did you become such a seasoned world traveler?

Well, now, my little Sputnik, you don't just wake up + fall out of bed with such talents, y' know.

There's some edukashun one must get from the school-of-hard-knocks + whatnot!

Which reminds me of a -- you got it! \-- storeeeeee!:

I was in Europe for the first time, as part of my grand round-the-world odyssey (which ended up taking nearly 2-1/2 years!) and was in the middle of my beginner Europass section, just getting my feet wet, so to speak (Though, by now, my whole backpack had been stolen so I was journeying around with a English boy-scout daypack with found socks, etc. -- save that episode!), and had been there, done that done my short sightseeing stint in Norway and now was waiting in the station for the next train out of the country.

Only had a small handful of krøner left and so scoured the food stalls for what this might get me.

Bravely stepping up to the hotdog stand, I proudly said, could I have 1 sennep.

"Sennep, Yank? You just want one?!"

"Ya," I replied meekly (in my best Norwegian).

"Sennep is this" he said and held up a tiny packet of mustard.

"Oh, well can I have one velsmak then?

"Velsmak? That is relish, man! Golly, you Americans have funny diets, ha ha!"

And so I slunk off throwing the krøner coins onto the ground, hoping beyond hope, in this nobly socialist welfare state that looks after their indigent so well, that some bum might pass by and need these pennies...............

NaNoWriMo

Dammit, NaNoWriMo, you are stealing all my free time, you are relentless and I don't even have time to exercise or nuthin'; how dare you dominate my life so....! And what if I get carpal tunnel from all this typing! I'll sue you, I really will!

Suddenly, without warning, the desk behind my computer parted and a huge bookish figure rose out of it straight into the air, 7,8, 10 feet tall, looming over me, swaying ominously....

He was tall, of course, but also bean-pole-ish and slightly threadbare but oh so serious and threatening. And though he uttered not a word, I was certain this was none other than the Right (dis)Honorable NaNoWriMo hisself.....

"Okay, NaNo dude, this is it! I've had enough outa you -- you don't scare me! Lissen, I challenge you, I dare you: the first one to 50,000 words wins, you got that?!

But I'm gonna do this on my own terms, see? I'm gonna throw in everything including the kitchen sink, yea, why not.....

who sez?......who's gonna make me?...........Oh, you big baby: you know what? Maybe I'll write the greatest novel ever written in 49,999 words, what would you say to that, hunh, hunh?!!

Maybe just before completing your utterly arbitrary and ridiculous task I'll write "The End" and let my book sweep the nation, nay, the world, for all and sundry to devour it and thus begin the transformation of this whole noosphere Teilhard de Chardin grok-rock into the next 'Childhood's End' stage of evolution, the description of which we can explain or understand as well as the ants dig Wall Street machinations.....so I won't even try, but suffice to say: watch your back, NaNoWriMo! & don't forget December 21, 2012 is not too distant, now, this novel just might be that first step up, up, and away-y-y-y-y-y-y--y-y-y-...........

Ooof, I collapsed onto the couch in exhaustion, sapping my reserves of bravado while NNWM faded away into the woodwork, though leaving a permanent stain, a vague presence, as if hovering in the tenative periphery of my imagination.......

STROOK IN THE BIG ENCH'

I opened a fortune cookie today: You will soon have a chance encounter with an old friend.

Ding-dong! "Stoo! Strook-man, wow, how did you happen to come here?!!"

"Bruce, m'boy, alrighty! Great to see ya, matey! I had to drop in, see how things are coming along with you, it's been too long of course!

And I was tired of being outmatched by you in the surprise department! Remember all those years ago at the Paul Winter concert, in New York City -- Carnegie Hall even -- and in between them bringing out the wolf to howl and eagle to shriek with us, I had just sneaked down to the 7th row in front and got hit in the side --

"And that was me! shouting and huzzahing, cuz you had just moved within this great city and I didn't know where, and I had just gotten off my first ship, sure I remember, and was holing up in the YMCA, and decided to go see the great jazz/animal collaborator, and had proudly snuck down to about the 9th row and then I see you beat me to this trick & two rows closer!!"

"In NYC, that's right, and didn't we sneak backstage and get the Carnegie Hall usher's jacket after that?"

"No, that was a couple night's later -- no, you're right, cuz when we snuck back the second time, that's when we ended up in the main hall, and I got to peck out the first couple notes of "Tenderly" on maybe Horowitz' own ivories!"

"And we shared those great meals of scrambled eggs in my cold water flat''

"On one plate with one fork, man, you were splurging them days, Strook!"

"And didn't you surprise me again, years later, right there --

"IN Greenwich Village, that's right -- and that's after hitching all the way across the country to begin my exciting overseas odyssey, getting off after the Holland Tunnel, and finding a subway down to your approximate neighb' --

"Sheeet, you surprised me right in the street, I couldn't believe it!"

"And then I left you to flee east as far as possible"

"But not before you found out right there with me that I got the newspaper job in Honolulu"

"And so met you at the end of my eastbound trip some two-plus years later, right"

"But not before finding a pineapple in that grotty Manhattan convenience store!"

"Did you dine 'n' dash for that too?"

"You mean like at Pizza Express in London before my wedding?! Nah, paid for it, fair & square!"

"So, you're on, then! You called me a wimp for traveling, lissen!: Let's see who will eat the plate of ancient insects at the end of the earth first, yea, that's right!"

PASSING PASSAGE

....and now, in tribute to my dear wife (who sarcastically suggested this very same), here forthwith are a couple of {seemingly} blank pages, which, however, I hope, are liberally (and secretly) sprinkled with invisible code words

WAIT

Brrrrr! Gad, let me in, willya? Geez, it's so cold out there in that wide white expanse! How frigid the stark white canvas, the empty tableau of vacuity...let me warm myself next to a crowd of warm words, ahh, that's better, phew!

POLITICAL PIECE

And what with all this recent politically charged atmosphere, it's a healthy corrective to look back to earlier, less divisive days, back to the fall of 2000:

Late October, it seems there was another election heating up the nation. But I was pretending to ignore these vital issues and was at a local Halloween party at the kids' school. I believe Anastasia had already had her share of these parties so I was just with 4 year old Duncan. He was having fun with all the games, but then I saw channel 5 was there with camera filming the obligatory 'kiddies in costume' short for the evening news. The glib on-air personality was stooping over asking kid after kid, "And what are dressed as for Halloween? A cowboy? A pirate? Oh, that's sweet!"

And yes, here was our chance: I had primed Duncan, after all, that precocious little bugger, that son-o'-mine never fearful of going right up to any old one and speaking his precious piece, at even this age, that's right.

So, the smarmy micman stooped down to little Duncan -- and such is the denoument about to be delivered, that I can't even remember what costume he was even wearing -- asking "And what are you dressed as this Halloween, little man?"

And with the camera trained on my little boy -- the eyes of the nation, or at least Seattle newshounds, tuned in to hear Duncan expertly shout:

"VOTE FOR RALPH NADER!!"

(Could this have been the straw that broke Al Gore's sorry back? Naaaah!)

SUCCESSIVE SLICE

Hmmmm, I wonder who they'll get to narrate the book-on-tape version of this epic? Or should we get a whole Cecil B. DeMille creme-de-la-creme cast of 1000s from amongst the Hollywood/intelligensia/talking head/superstar elite?

(And how would they be reading this very section in question? Would there, or should there be a slight smirk or titter to be so self-reflexive, so meta-euphoric...?

I don't mean to deliberately create problems for the reader-- deliberately create prob-- deliberately create problems for the read-- brzzzt sweep...tch tch tch tch.....END OF SIDE SEVEN, PLEASE TURN OVER, CHAPTER 23, CHAPTER 23, PAGE 417.....

And, but, geez, what should we use for introductory music on the audiobook? I was thinking of maybe some free jazz symphonic grunge rhapsodic power-pop ballad but perhaps that's selling myself short here. If this legendary agent is worth his salt, I expect we can get Yo-Yo Ma AND Christine Aguilera to probably collaborate with Philip Glass (note: make sure he doesn't get too drone-y and minimalist) or John Adams, and, wait, yes, we must get James Carter or Branford Marsalis for some special jazz saxophone during the fading obbligatos --- y'know, maybe I'm gonna have to compose this myself.........

But of course, I am composing this all already, only I am using words instead of musical notes, I am selecting unique vocables to convey the infintessimally distinct meanings for every utterance; I am conducting a gigantic orchestra of declarations and utterances ushering forth fresh timbres from each shaded inflection and pronouncement!

QUINTESSENTIAL GOOGLE SEARCH

Let us usher into the main stage the grand triumvirate: JAZZ DADA & ZEN!

The big three who deserve the highest accolades and most celebrated fanfare!

In this angle of the pyramid, Sun Ra, originally from the planet Saturn:

""If you're not a myth, whose reality are you?"... "Space is the place."

Tonight at noon, in that corner of the circle, Tristan Tzara:

"MY goal among goals is to micturate in different colors!"

Seated za-zen upon the head of a pin, the 6th patriarch of zen buddhism:

"What is the sound of one hand clapping?"

Mix together thoroughly and turn the slop loose amongst the dumb populace, see what that gets ya! Recipe for harmonic nonsense enlightenment! huzzah!

CONSEQUENT LEAF

hnnnnnh.....tregjdfivbmlkscmmhonjhritngsn x....

My hands are tired and finally just collapsed onto the keyboard, you know the feeling? This is getting relentless, golly whilikers!

ZOUNDS!

and now, let me take you back, back, to the distant past of radio's heyday, or at least before it became all commodified into wretched background chatter dreck or shock talk crapola.

As a child of the '70's in a groovy west coast big city, I got to discover so many of the world's sounds through a sort of underground, truly alternative radio. Seattle was home to KRAB-FM, 'highest' on the dial at 107.7 and nearly the granddaddy of all the listener-supported stations that had a brief flowering here in that heady time.

KRAB was amazing to the ears of someone just growing up then. You could hear three hours of pygmy drumming followed by a city council hearing followed perhaps by a special show dedicated to bop trumpeter Fats Navarro or electronic music pioneer Pierre Henry. I found so many of the sounds this station produced so mind-expanding that, one day, I trounced down to the station in person, at this time ensconced in the 4th floor of a former fire station, and offered to sweep the floor or do anything to help them out.

Eager for any willing body, they quickly signed me up as another volunteer disc jockey, and I was off and running....

mostly filling in as a sub for jazz shows when the regular d.j. was too hungover or sick or out of town or anything....

I'll never forget one of the first shows I did, I was nearly alone in this 4th floor walkup, and at one point, needed to 'use the facilities' so picked out a nice album-length song from the ample shelves of dusty classic discs slapped it onto the turntable and ran down the four flights to the porta-potty on the street corner. Finishing my short duty, I confidently climbed back up these stairs, certain nothing could have gone wrong, but as I got closer I heard the record skipping! For all the cool ears of Seattle to be getting bummed over

After a few more years KRAB finally succumbed though it sorta reemerged in shiny new future form as KSER in Lynnwood (of all places!)

Here I presented myself to the staff on hand and quickly got my own once a biweekly music show, which I promptly dubbed "MESS-cellaneous." For two hours on Monday nights I got to play all the craziest greatest music I could think of, a sort of Dr. Demento for the avant garde. I delved into Armenian chants and Henry Brant (the reigning champion of spatially separated orchestral music), shamanic chants, and the World Saxophone Quartet, Led Zeppelin parodies and microtonal piano etudes. I even got to air some speciality shows, such as the Christmas show when I read the passages from The Bible's Revelations about each of the 7 trumpet players who would play at the apocalypse interspersed with Miles Davis & other stark solo horn soliloquies. I also got a number of comments on my 2 hours of songs with the sounds of animals.

With two turntables, several CD and cassette players, I also experimented with early versions of the now-tired mashing: combining several droney new age soporific spiels into something twisted & magical since they were often keening along in different keys -- I also did a whole show on choirs, from that part in Pink Floyd's "Atom Heart Mother" where the luxurious major key singers start to veer off into discordant howls to quarter tone chants to Indonesian kecak to Tibetan monks intoning long & low to Urszula Dudziak, the Polish jazz chanteuse who likes to electrify her voice into something unearthly!

But what an opportunity to unleash my own wild sounds upon the formerly-deaf populace  To play the post-disco dance band Enigma that also blended in the oldest music of the west, Gregorian Chant! AND the infinitely plaintive sobs of the Armenian duduk! AND shadow surrealist bop scat singer Slim Gaillard! AND the Tuvan throat singer warbling rock classics! AND Rahsaan Roland Kirk playing three saxophones at once (or regular flute and nose flute at the same time -- for 20 minutes without pause, circular breathing, dig! AND "New York, New York" played entirely on car horns! AND Eugene Chadbourne mixing free jazz scratchings and classic C&W on electric rake! AND Spike Jones, sure, but also the Nihilist Spasm Band! AND John Mayall's "Catch That Train" where he plays solo harmonica with the sounds of a freight train! AND the Bonzo Dog Band's "Rawlinson's End" which consists solely of one man's lonely laughter broken into 2 second snipplets AND John Zorn's "tre nel 5000" which jumpcuts just about every kind of music from film noir mystery to raucous R&B to atonal twitterings, etc. all every few bars AND MC Paul Barman's raps using palindromes AND Steve Reich's "It's gonna rain" which features a part of a preacher's harangue on a slightly out of synch tape loop for about 20 minutes ("It's gonna rain, it's gonna rain, it's gonna rai--") AND Captain Beefheart's crazy fractured free jazzrock "Fast 'n' Bulbous" AND Carl Stallings' cartoon music accompanying Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, AND Xaviera Hollander's sexiest version of "Michelle" AND Rhino's amazing compilation of the greatest hits of last 20 centuries AND maverick American composer Charles Ives' quarter-tone piano pieces AND the even more maverick crazy Harry Partch's pieces with words transcribed from road signs AND African rainforest pygmies actually drumming on top of the water for beats and music AND Einstuerzende Neubauten's 'music' for power drills and chainsaws AND James Chance & the Contortions punk jazz version twisting Sinatra's "That Ol' Black Magic" AND the Grunge Lite muzak version of Nirvana's "Smells like Teen Spirit" AND homeless NYC street artist Moondog's composed rounds AND cocktail lounge singer high pitched Blossom Dearie's "I'm Hip" AND German avant trombonist Albert Manglesdorff's "Ant Stepped on an Elephant's Toe" AND Frankie Maximum's song snipping sounds of animals into a Count Basie song, "Jumping at the Barnside" AND extreme classical composer Luciano Berio's "Omaggio A Joyce" getting Cathy Berberian to recite the wildest onomotopeic "Sirens" section of Ulysses and then cutting it all up and mixing it together AND post-punk band Bird Songs of the Mesozoic's version of the theme song to kiddie cartoon "Rocky and Bullwinkle" AND the New International Trio, featuring Northumbrian small-pipes, virginal and Cambodian hammered dulcimer playing Thelonious Monk's fractured bop tune, "Blue Monk" AND Steve Turre playing jazz on conch shells, AND Screamin' Jay Hawkins singing "Alligator Wine" AND Mozart pieces for the glass harmonica AND the soundtrack to The Mahabahrata featuring Japanese taiko drums, Iraqi sentur, Turkish ney, Iranian zarb, a Dane playing didgeridoo and east Indian vocals AND Brave Combo playing "16 tons" as a polka or The Doors' "People are Strange" as a South American cumbia AND punk rocker's Flipper singing "I Knew an Old Lady" with new verses ("I knew an old lady who swallowed a minister, isn't that sinister, to swallow a minister...?! I knew an old lady who swallowed a rhinoceros, isn't that preposterous, to swallow a rhinoceros...?!) AND the Moody Blues little known gem "Procession" which simply contains the history of this whole planet in about 4 minutes of sounds (and culminating in one of their bombastic rock guitar solos!) AND tv hardnosed detective Jack Webb intoning "Try a Little Tenderness" AND Billie Holiday singing "MY Yiddishe Mama" on some rare homemade recordings AND plunderphonic tape wizard John Oswald mixing Webern and the Beach Boys on Ten4gv AND Marilyn Monroe singing "Happy Birthday" to President Kennedy AND President Jimmy Carter singing "Salt Peanuts" with Dizzy Gillespie AND ancient Chinese recording of He Zemin and Huang Peiying doing "Big Idiot buys a pig" AND the greatest culminating expression of art by man (yes really!) when, in the middle of Charles Mingus' "What Love", Mingus' bass and Eric Dolphy's bass clarinet stopped playing music and started expressing their innermost feelings, they were talking, goddammit! & oh so goddam close to legitimate speech! AND sometimes all these songs, back to back one after another......

Ah, music

THE OL' '2 COUNTRIES SEPARATED BY A COMMON TONGUE' SCHTICK

I could write this whole book about the difference between the English and the American, but perhaps this joke I first heard from my father puts it all in perfect perspective:

"There was this Yankee, see, who chanced to travel overseas and went to England, had a grand ol' time. Met a few friendly blokes, and they got to talking and finally the American says:

"You Brits are known for your special sense of humor. Do you have any hot jokes right now that I could retell to my pals back home?"

After thinking this over for a bit, one Englishman ventures:

"Yes, m'laddie, I think I can accommodate in precisely this fashion: You see, there was this pretty young thing situated upon a park bench in a conservatory one day, and during the afternoon, she was passed by three people: an equestrian, a bicyclist and a runner. Now which of these three do you think she was acquainted with?"

"Umm, I rightly don't know, sorry."

"Why, the horseman knew her [horse manure], hahahahahaha!"

"Oh, heh heh, good one, okay, thanks, that is special indeed."

And soon after the American was back home, relating all his adventures abroad. It didn't take too long before he was asked particular things about the English.

"We've seen Monty Python and Absolutely Fabulous and all that, so tell me: what is their humor really like?"

"Ah well, it's funny you should ask," relates our traveler, "for I do happen to have a special joke they told me as a perfect example."

"Well, stand on no ceremony, friend, tell us, tell us."

"Okay, well there was this chick, see, hanging out in a park, and these three dudes passed by: a horse rider, a biker and a jogger. Now guess which one knew her?"

"Gee, we can't guess, who?"

"HORSESHIT!"

....?.....

Oh, okay, they grumbled, that is certainly something different, yas, hmm, well....and soon they went about their business.

But, as it happens, despite this joke's falling so flat, that the American and the British humorist had become friends and soon the Yank had returned the favor and invited the Englishman to visit him here.

They got on quite well, and one day the Londoner asked to hear the latest American joke.

"I've got just the ticket," answers the American. "We're quite into limericks these days...listen to this one:

There once was a fellow named Tupper

Who invited a young girl to supper

At a quarter to five

Before dinner arrived

It was up her -- not supper -- but Tupper!

"Haha, said the Englishman, I do like that, I'll have to tell that when I get back home!"

And so he did, or tried to, but he'd lost something in the non-translation or the intervening time full of voyaging experiences had thrown him off or something for his recitation changed some crucial elements:

He was back at his friendly neighborhood pub at home, and his lads soon asked him: "hey, what's the latest from the colonies these days? We like their movies, what sort of humour are they fond of now?"

"Ah, glad you asked, my friends, for they seem to have a fondness for the limerick currently. See what you think of this:

There once was a bloke name of Skinner

Who invited a lassie to dinner

At a quarter to nine

Before they could dine

It was in her -- not dinner -- but some chap by the name of Tupper!

The first time I heard that from my Dad -- complete with appropriate accents and inflexions -- I nearly burst my gut I found it so unexpectedly hilarious!!!!

KNOWLEDGE

"Monkey Seem-us! You're so smart, you know it all, don'tcha? How do you pack it all into your brain?!"

"Ah, now, my sycophantic sillies, 'tis not always so true: let me tell you a wee bon mot in order to explain"

"I was laboring away, it matters not where, and was jawing away with my good buddy, Brian Braggadocio, and we started to tiptoe out into the profound & basic waters of philosophy.

And finally I posited, "Y'know, Brian, I reflect upon this grand universe and our place in it and my heart swells and I sorta feel close kinship with Socrates."

"How do you mean?," responded Brian.

"Well, you know, I mean I can relate to that great line of his: 'I know that I know nothing!'"

"Don't give yourself that much credit," answered Brian, without a pause, as a cosmic rimshot resounded, crashing down over our heads....ka-ching!

MMMM, GOOD!

"There is no equivalent in the languages of Europe for the spirit which [W{h}it{ty}man] immortalized. Europe is saturated with art and her soil is full of dead bones and her museums are bursting with plundered treasures, but what Europe has never had is a free, healthy spirit, what you might call a MAN!"

\- Henry Miller - Tropic of Cancer

"Carbuncle Pre-moss, you're funny! You just eat anything! Maybe not the plate of play-dough that your Dad tried once just cuz it was offered as a hors d'oeuvre but geez, don't you care what goes in your mouth?!"

"Well, now, of course I care, my cretinous kiddies! But let me tell you about the time I was hitchhiking in Germany, Schwarzwald country -- you know, where that Disneyland castle really is -- der Bruder Grimm-land: the Black Forest, and had somehow hooked up with some noble German folks, and they invited me into their home for a small meal.

It was resplendently laid out for us, with thinly sliced tomatoes just off the vine, healthy pink ham, sprouts and baby shrimp and mustard & horseradish & pickles & romaine lettuce & a Bavarian type of mayonnaise, and butter newly churned right out of the cow and, lord, so much more -- all to be chosen from for the exquisitely European open faced sandwich, on a type of dark loamy Bavarian bread, so thick and luscious it is nearly a meal in itself full of seeds & grainy richness so as to nearly make this loaf a dreamy meal in itself.

But -- at no time being shy -- I stepped up to the table and started lathering on relish and mustard and ham and egg slices & cheeses & maybe some turkey and pickles and sprouts & capers & a few other garnishes too -- but was interrupted by quite a bit of tittering that turned to guffaws.

"Er --uh, excuse me, what's so funny everybody?"

"Oh --ho, ho, Yank, we could tell you were an American before you opened your mouth! Only you guys pile this food all together, we find it adequate to eat this rich bread with one slice of ham or a few tender tomatoes...!"

"Oh, yea, heh heh, I see, well, I'm sorry, I can put back --"

"No, no, Yank, go ahead, eat up! That's fine, we just find it so funny! Why I remember once, near here at a US army base, I saw an American soldier walking down the street, he was eating a hamburger, drinking a beer, chewing some gum and smoking a cigarette, all at the same time! Only the Americans do this, och!"......

Hmm, yes, just so, see....

"Hee hee, Punk-L Ki-miss, so of all the foods what's the weirdest, no, wait, what's the hottest thing you've ever eaten?"

"Hmm, well, that's actually quite easy to answer, though just a minute, lemme dig around in the garage for the older cardboard box of diaries, hmm, yes, well, here it is:

a Picanteria on the beach...serving up picarones & parihuela (cut the footnotes, we'll get back to this one!), washed down with chicha de jora. So, Parihuela, a sorta seafood bouillabaisse filled with little squid and various fish and a deep red broth, but so hot I coughed, I hiccoughed, I hic-hic-hic-coughed, I sweated, a heat rose from my throat to my temples so palpable + supreme I yelled "pan de horno rapido rapido!!!" Lucky I didn't simply incinerate! Yea, you can talk about your triple xxx southern hot barbecue, you can wax lyrically about the super spicy Szechwan meals, but this was the only time I ever ate food soooo hot that my teeth hurt -- true startling throbbing!!! [And please note, I was several sheets to the wind, as per typical shoreside visit off merchant vessels, when I sat down for this meal!]

LI-INE

"Junkle Creamis, Junkle Creamis, tell us -- "

STOP! Just stop it! Cut the crap, cut the rickety artifice, willya? How about a real novel? How about an actual story, NOT simply transcribed outa your sophomoric journals, but a rich, varied tale filled with characters we can develop feelings for, and an exciting plot full of twists and intrigue and adventure and even romance...?

What about boy meets girl, girl at first spurns him, and so he sells his stamp collection and joins the underground cantaloupe farmers' conspiracy, strikes it rich by inventing a new way to eat soup, and wins back her heart by playing three no-trump and doubling on his aunt's pair of kidneys...?

IDLE DIVERSION

Ri-i-i-i-n-n-n-ng! "C'mon, Plumfrey, there's no time to even get that phone, the Crimson Cobbler is on the loose again!

We rushed downstairs, jumped into my convertible banana, and peeled out of the back alley, climbing three flights of stairs, and a half-addled sassafras.

"Don't stop now, Plumfrey, he's getting away!" I dashed down the salt shaker, while Plumfrey pinballed behind the plate glass wheelbarrow, and we finally had him cornered.

"So, Xavier Whistlechestnut, we meet again!"

"And I hope it's the last time not through some jailbars, Thronebiscuit! This is your final chance: give us the formula to stop the evaporation of the latitude lines, or I will drill you so full of gecko seeds you won't know what hit ya!"

"Oh, XW, I'd love to accommodate you but I've got an envelope to catch" and right then, his fire-breathing, purple-winged dustbin descended and whisked Professor Grossalicious F.P. Thronebiscuit the 23rd away, eluding my grasp by mere angstroms.

"Curses, soiled again! Plumfrey, bring some fresh t.p., will you, lad?"

Frustrated, I changed the channel, just before that annoying commercial with the aluminum ballerina and the lemon-scented exercise bean. Why are all the shows on the toaster oven so predictable these days? And why does the t.v. keep burning my breakfast? If this existence weren't so mundane, I'd half believe I was dreaming...

UTILITARIANISM

I might as well go inside and do some yardwork, time to rewire the flower beds and shingle over the cupboard ducts. How's that spelled again? Oh yea, it's got a silent vowel, like the P in swimming...I hope I've tucked away enough tail feathers in our joint shavings account 1,2,3,4.....

and so on, and so forth, and suchlike, and what have you, and on & on, yadda yadda yadda, sis boom bah, lah-dee diddly doo dah day, oy vey, whaddya say, whatever, whatevah, O.K., just WHATEVER!:

enough is enough, gawddammit! what are all these words for?! What does the accumulation add up to? It's like fighting one's way out of a big wet paperbag, what good does all this speechification do?

Maybe it's simply time to kick the goddam Beckett: "I can't go on....call that going? .....call that on?...."

I mean what's the point? What's it all about {Alfie}? And who the fuck is Alfie that always pops up with that question?

This staggering insignificance of EVERYTHING descended down and whacked me hard whilst I was smack dab in the middle of India, simply underlining passages in some groovy book or another while habitating in some minor youth hostel. I suddenly beheld myself in this tiny room on this tiny planet, drawing lines in a silly book, aware of how puny and unimportant I was in the vast cosmos totality of all in toto.... [how did I ever return to preoccupation with the everyday, the transitory still so essential to us carrying on? Oh well, maybe I never have, you know, it took time, & I reckon there's some residue hanging around, it's ever been hard to truly take anything quite so seriously...ha! ... but all that's another story...

meanwhile:

You know: fergit it, just fergit it.... --- listen, I know, let's get some use out of all these pages of paper:

tear out the next few pages and fold on the dotted lines

\-- Look!: a paper airplane!

There's something useful, eh?!

No, wait, I got a better idea: are you cold at all? I hope so: quick, rush out and get a big cannister of highly flammable gasoline -- don't worry, I'll be right here waiting, I've got time, I'll be fine [whistling] ................

okay, you've got that now, oh yea, and a useable book of matches or a lighter?

Great!: Now douse this useless book, that's right: pour that petrol all over [glug, glug, glug]. Now light the motherfucker, yessir: burn, baby, burn! That's not big enough, do you have anything else you can throw in the blaze, yea, sure: even your clothes will do, take 'em off!

Let a giant conflagration begin -- may this fire build into a huge inferno, imitate the very bowels of Hades, grow into a giant red-orange bloom of all-consuming wonder!

"You can climb a mountain,

You can swim the sea

You can jump into the fi-i-i-i-i-i-r-r-r-re

But you'll never be free..........."

At least we can get this book to warm your cockles for a short while, geezus!

RE-BURNT, er, BORN

ewoaGHGHGHWHLLYOWWWWW! Shoot, like a phoenix outa phlames, am I, from burnt embers re-emerging as that crayola box's favorite hue: Burnt Umber-man, ready to emblazon anew this verdant land, jes' aching to get a load of whatever I have in store for you, oh yes, oh yes indeedy!

WITHIN EARSHOT

JAZZ! Everyone's favorite word, but no one's favorite music. Why is that, eh? America's one great contribution to the arts, the aural translation of democracy [everyone plays their own thing, spur of the moment, but everyone's got to groove together, too!], the truest expression of freedom, the free-est truth expressed, the free express to truthiness!

And so I embraced it truly, managed to fling out a few fancy apophthegms for local jazz rags/ glad bags/band tags:

SECOND ANNUAL JUG-OFF

The New Orleans was steamy with anticipation -- or was that the gumbo cooking? -- for the second annual jug-off. Despite the many sordid connotations, the Jug-off is simply that -- a jug jam. Big, unadorned ceramic or glass containers challenged the five contestants to blow melodious.

...Guitarist Orville Johnson introduced the cast of characters, "All it requires is courage and a lot of wind" as Mr. Jug blatted and bleeped his way to both laughter and acclaim.

Defending champ Fritz Richman, all the way from Portland, then brought out his own flatulent axe to honk on "Walk Right In" ('the most famous jug song,' he claimed) with accordion assistance. "He has to take his shoes off to get that low" was one assessment of the performance....

For a finale, all five instrumentalists got on stage for a massive juggernaut. "Winin' Boy Blues" never oozed so uproariously as the fivesome took turns belching wind and going straight for the jugular.

Ah, where is the modern Keats to write an Ode, not to the plebian Grecian urn, but to the noble jug?

EARratica

FOLKLIFE: There are those who say the Memorial Day weekend Folklife Festival ain't jazz. It's true this 21st annual ("comes of age!") celebration at the Seattle Center had more strings a-twangin' than Paul Bunyan's cat's cradle. But besides all the bluegrass and banjos, performances included: Apple Maggot Quarantine, Baba Balkanettes, the Groove Meisters ("too hip to jump ship"), Taradiddle, the Olympic Mountain Yodelers, Filucy Hootchie Kootchie, wheataweavers, flintsnappers, celtic punk, "tales for the Jung at heart," "songs for all occlusions," and a band consisting of bagpipes, harp and didjeridoo!

On Sunday alone, I saw a mandolin orchestra playing Sousa, some oceanic gospel (the original "Wave"), Klaus Lenzian the spitting image of Picasso's blue guitarist, strumming the flipside of flamenco, & an old accordionist jamming with a punk beating 2X4s with a set of end wrenches (the industrial xylophone).

Even during those rare moments when you couldn't find a stage with 'the right stuff,' it was a cinch to set up the "Charles Ives" experience and station oneself in between two -- or more -- groups to hear the odd commingling.

The Fun Forest, too, offered up a whole other soundscape, with carnies barking, toy guns popping and even Hendrix playing as part of a ride ("Musical Express").

And anyway, as Satchmo himself once said, 'All music is folk music. I ain't never heard no horse sing a song!'"

ON THE KOAN-ER

"Uncle Remus! Unc \--wha---????!"

"Now, now, kiddies, don't fret, your Uncle just went and got himself a little severe nip & tuck, even so far as to change sexes, if only so I don't have to hear your dang litanies o'er & o'er....You can call me Aunty Matter from now on, makes never no mind, nohow!"

You mean, like 'no matter, never mind,' Aunty? What's a mattah? Mind your matter manners, no-mind! As a matter of fact, I don't mind which you choose: Mat or mind.....

Remember the two Buddhist monks arguing in the courtyard on a stormy day. One insisted, "the wind is moving!"

"No," said the other: "the flag is moving!"

Their master (Mater Monk) stopped them both with the true answer:

"The mind is moving!"

SCHOOLIN'

I was in this class, see, and our teacher posited the following:

Let's say you're in a science lab, and there's the usual bric-a-brac: test tubes, a sink and some beakers, and there's also a long narrow tube affixed vertically to the floor with a ping pong ball stuck in the bottom. How would you get the ball out?

No, there's no blow torch to cut the tube, no, there's no string; no, very good, but you have no gum to stick to a dozen unbent paper clips.

Yes, in the back of the room?

I answered, "That's easy: you fill the beaker with water from the sink and fill up the tube until the ball floats up to the top! But, now, you tell me: how would you get the ball out if there were no beakers?"

No, there aren't any mugs or jugs either; no, you wouldn't be able to cup your hands well enough to fill them up with water and then pour that in.

Give up? I'll give you a hint: Piss off! {Gasps echo around the room}.

Oh sorry, actually let me give you a nicer hint:

this would be a lot easier for a man than a woman to accomplish!

Yep, that's right: you'd drink a ton of that water and piss into the tube!

Urine big trouble now, buddy boy!

QUESTIONS

Why does everyone except me slow down and gawk when they see a car crash?

I enjoy a cup of coffee to wake up in the morning and also one cup after dinner, but why this obsession with coffee type drinks all day long from the near-ubiquitous MoonDollars latte stands?!

Who was Casper before he became a ghost?!

Why is there evil in the world?

Why did so many ever think George Bush was anything other than a total asshole?

Is that all there is?

Why is there something instead of nothing?

Why do so many folks throw away perfectly good money going somewhere special just so they can get tired exercising? Pay money to sweat? They can't get their exercise working around the house? How can they pretend to ignore people right next to them as they bicycle to nowhere?

Why do so many sophistos, groovers who love to attend the latest gallery shows and only watch artsy foreign films and read brave new serious fiction, suddenly drop all class and elan and jump & jive to the latest vapid musical hit?

(And why am I the only one who much prefers serious artsy complicated music and yet also prefer much of the mainstream Hollywood movies to this pretentiously serious cinema?)

How can anyone listen to the television news? Where the so-called talking heads yammer on & on about nothing?!!! Or no matter what or where the disaster they insist on interviewing their fellow nincompoops for their opinion??!

PNG

"Aunty Matter! Aunty Matter!"

"Oh, gosh, kiddiwinks, you can call me by my first name, Whatsuh. But whatsuh matter?

"What is that long straight thing hanging off your bedroom ceiling?"

"Well, well, my blathering babes, make yourselves comfortable for that leads to quite a bit of bother:

This is, in fact, a penis gourd from Papua New Guinea, and its priapic powers are quite apparent as you see our three darling chilluns running around here.

But that is the only article of clothing worn by a number of tribes of this mysterious island nation, one of only several dozen reasons that drew me to travel there.....

Y'see, I had done my round the world odyssey, and I was in fact looking into early passenger trips into outer space, when the thought struck me to visit this vast archipelago just north of Australia.

I had, in fact, first got the idea to go to PNG when visiting the Commonwealth House in London -- and, as I walked around the CH's large galleries featuring photos of people from around the world (folks from all the countries once part of the British Empire), I was especially impressed by the quite otherworldly sight of the Mudmen of New Guinea. While everyone else looked generally similar, with obvious human skin and recognizable facial features, the Mudman was practically extraterrestial: covered in gray mud and wearing a large smooth globe of hardened mud around his head like an astronaut, marking him as oh-so-singular in this world family.

Thus, then: that's for me, certainly! And the more I delved into this land, the more superlatives I discovered. One of the largest islands in the world! Full of unique animals much like neighbor Australia, such as a kangaroo that lives in trees! A bowerbird that decorates its nest with blue baubles! Other birds that are poisonous, and even more with fancier feathers than what Liberace would wear in his wildest extravaganzas! A country of over 700 separate unique languages! One of the last areas of the world to be explored with a plateau home to over a million people not discovered until the 1930s! Jungles so impenetrable that one of the finest, hardiest Himalayan mountaineers spent all day bushwhacking to beat the dickens and could only progress one straight mile further on his path! Tribes, whose women, during the passionate festival of the yams, actually run down terrified men and rape them  Mountains right on the equator so tall that they are still covered in snow -- a substance deemed to be magic for the natives who first hiked up to the snowline -- especially when they packed away some of this 'cold salt' only to find that it had all disappeared by the time they returned to their friends at sea level! A place whose capital city's newspaper still reported banks being held up by robbers using bows & arrows! Tribes whose men decorated themselves so extravagantly, with feathers, with paint, with even tin cans and automobile engine air filters, that a whole coffee table picture book dedicated to them is simply entitled Man as Art! A land filled with headhunters and only one generation removed from cannibals, and where the most comfortable pillow within their longhouses, may be the skull of your sacred ancestor! Where pidgin English is the lingua franca so instead of "Jesus said, 'I am the Way!' we've got "Jisas I tok, 'Mi, mi rot!'" When driving on one of the few roads, if you run over a tribesman's pig, drive faster because they may want your life for this mistake! All other transport by old rickety WWII planes! Phantasmagorical sculpture combining the best of the surrealists & PNW totem poles!

What a land, what an island, what's a mattah?!

FAMILY DIVERSITY

Perhaps it's time to delve a bit into familial background...:

I was the eldest of four brothers all born within a span of 5 years (!), and we all grew up together, were often teased about how much we all looked alike, and yet we all developed such radically different interests. My favorite way to delineate this is through musical tastes:

Scott the heavy metal & Weird Al Yankovic lover; Dana the super punk grunge dude, famous for his three mohawks in dyed blonde hair once-upon-a-time; and David the classical music and classic jazz fan. And I, well, we've delved into that subject plenty: basically all the oddball stuff that's never been popular.

And now this wide range continues into the present/next generation for: when you come to our house, and get a tour, you might feel whiplashed when we take you upstairs and introduce you to our two eldest children in their rooms: Ana on the right perched upright in her bed reading Jane Austen or Jane Goodall by candlelight while being serenaded by the likes of Mozart & Bach coming out of her ubiquitious classical KING-FM radio; while, only 6 feet to the left is Duncan's room: here you will open the door to Journey and AC/DC blasting out while Dunx is bouncing around his room chasing a ball, while reading comic books + Mad magazines!

They've both been raised similarly too, of course -- and lord knows -- given these parameters & range of choices -- what roads their younger sister, Lucy, will decide to travel upon!

Lucy Elizabeth Berjouhi Greeley has already etched out one special place, at least. I attribute this to her being born in this millennium as evidence of the next step of evolution!: Lucy can (and so often does) bend the top of both her ears down and stick them into the hole of her ear and have them stick there! Such is the flexible malleable nature of the cartilage making up these hearing vessels of hers, that she can, in addition, do a couple of other subtler ear tricks, c'est magnifique, non?!

Curiously, from the earliest age, Lucy would gravitate towards other folks' ears and grab onto them for identity/reassurance/familiarity....?!

I BAY, YOU BAY, EBAY

In case any of you millions of readers have any leads, these are the things I'm looking for on Ebay:

  * Cupid tv show on DVD

  * Robin Williams & Steve Martin's performance in "Waiting for Godot"

  * Coltrane's "Expressions" where he performs on recently posthumous Eric Dolphy's bass clarinet

  * Salvador Dali's version of the tarot

  * The Grateful Dead grooviest endlessly innovative jam band dueling with the King of free jazz wailing saxophone, Ornette Coleman (I believe they played together twice at least)

  * A cribbage board made out of an oosik (penis bone of a walrus)

  * Hendrix's greatest blues solo ever live on top of Maui's Haleakala in simply shredding "Red House" to the Nth degree -- heard once at Loomis and where is that bootleg out there?

  * Pacific NW Indian art version of a moose

  * Miles nearly last concert in Paris where he returned to some of the old standards he became famous for and with some of his ol' pals like Wayne Shorter, etc. from "Kind of Blue" days....

LILA: PLAY IN VARANASI

In the fall of 1984, I found myself in India and in the sacred city of Varanasi, even discovered the wonders of opium. Felt my creativity blossom, scenes from a play thus sprang, fully formed outa my bedazzled cranium:

Mr. Junior and Miss Mister appear from nowhere, arm in arm and looking very strange at that, since they are complete strangers, & arms now dropped liked hotcakes.

Mr.: Ever hot a dropcake, Miss?

Miss: Have I never!

Mr.: Yes, have you, Heather?

Miss: My name's not Heather; what's your name, Mr.?

Mr.: Yes, but call me Justin.

Paying no attention, Miss nearly runs into a passerby, startling everyone becuz no one else is on stage, not even them.

Mr.: Better watch where yr going, dear -- ya just missed her.

Miss: No, you's "Just Mister" if you was a she + I was a he + we wuz married.

A 12-foot Mexican hat dances on stage.

Hat: Hey, Meester \---

Justin: No, she's Mister.

Hat: Hey Senor, un peso por favor.

Just: Sorry, I'm Junior, not Senor, junior -- And what's yr middle name, Miss?

Miss: Ms.

Mr.: Of course, pardon -- but yr name, Ms.?

Miss: Yes, but you can call me Miss until I'm married.

Mr.: Miss Ms. Mister?

Miss: Yes

Mr: Soon to be Mrs. Miss Ms. Mister?

Ms: No misses for you -- I shall indeed keep my maiden name.

Mr.: [if not maidenhead, ha] Hmm, yes, and who's the lucky beau?

Ms.: That famous jazzman, Muzz Mezzrow.

Mr: Mr + Mrs. Ms. + Muzz Mezzrow nee Mister?

Ms.: No, that his sister, Lester -- kissed her?

Mr.: Not till I've tendentiously untwisted my tortuously tangled too tender tongue + tiny tonsils....!

EXEUNT [Gesundheit!]

MARI

After another long full day of boisterous play in the fall leaves outside, we settled down around the family fire, caressed by the creaking of my stalwart rocker. Zero perched on a pin's head reading his runes, Evan S Ent sat stroking the pet tapir, while little Mxyzptlk played with his philosopher's stones...but, I knew this stasis wouldn't last for long.

"Aunty Matter: what prompted you to go off to Europe anyway? Did you know anyone over there?"

"Ah my marvelous Mxy" I uttered, causing him to blush down to his green roots, there was in fact, someone waiting at the end of that European rainbow, yea, verily.....and I drifted away upon more memories, distinct as granite, even though the whole affair -- held in check for 2-1/2 years after our initial meeting -- lasted but one good week............

MARI, O! MARI, cherry cheru-bim bam bomb Bambi, lamb fawn Swede I'd child, starry eve lapis lazuli droolly blue eye tender cutie kewpie croissant, buxom bosomy pixie vixen, sleek as sat(a/i)n, a priapitious conundrum & answer to my (wet) dreams, I was in luvst....!

A Swedish exchange student met at my brother's wedding in Eugene, she was a slightly smaller Rita Hayworth but here & oh so now, not a remote Hollywood starlet...!

But of course, it was not love, nay, it could not be that primal emotion as I was still a comparative babe, my heart still but of a fondling....though I could have infatuation certainly, I could have lusts, I could have pangs of passion, I could twist & whine in the wild winds of whim-ever...

And lord, did I ever suffer!

But we dreamed over each other, and corresponded in those frustrating eons before the internet, and I studied my Par Lagerkvist, and my Bergman, and Pugh Rogefelt, trying to gain some glint of connection with this lass now back home in wee Vasteras in Sweden.

And so, two-plus years later, I finally began my voyage to cross back over to the Olde Countrie...Catching a ride to St. Louis, I began my hitch on the other side of the grand Mississipp' and scurried into the Big Apple, finally flying over to fabled Amsterdam-it-all.

Through Holland & Germany & even Denmark with scarcely a pause, I vaulted into Vasteras, and our reunion was of the stuff that creates mythologies, worlds, new evolutionary steps towards Godhood!

What I mean is: we made love seven times that first night!! {pant, pant, whew!} And then....and then,,,,after only a few more days, she woke up and suddenly thought we hardly knew each other at all....and on such different tracks, certainly....

So that was it then + I could go off and blow wild endless cadenzas on my bamboo saxophone in the city square, what did it matter?!!! I patched up my chest's red ball somehow and soldiered on....

& here's one thing I learned: Americans may be prudish and shocked by, for instance, the casual way condoms with smiley snake faces on the boxes are sold anywhere to anyone in Scandinavia, but there seems to be something missing, some romantic aspect absent when sex is so easy & acceptable.

And anyway, don't ya see? We don't want to conjure these Swedish phantoms back into whole flesh, don't want to rekindle that phenomenon too strongly; it would be the same mistake as bringing the dinosaurs back in Jurassic Park, right?! They (Mari or Tyrannosaurus Rex) don't belong here in Broadview in 2008, amongst Greeley kiddiewinks to share with wife no. 1 & all that accompanying fiddle faddle.....

For here, in the land of the Kwakiutl, nay, the Kwakwaka'wakw, "Among leading families the most valued language was whispered into the ear of an heir; every conversation carefully weighed each word for content, tone and volume."...

RHYME TIME

Yield to the variety of thought.

Once upon a chapter, a young man THE END.....

It was only happily ever after

than one could hear the laughter

NaNoWriMo NaNoWriMo Jabberwocky

Beware the NaNoWriM, my son!

The nano-rhyme,

shortest poem ever penned,

an earworm fostering great harm,

A cruel taskmaster demanding 1,667 words a day,

sapping strength, ideas, creativity,

pinning your nose, your pen, your bollocks

to the grindstone

& not letting go for a whole month!

But by my love and hope, I beseech thee:

Do not throw away the hero in your soul --

HOLD HOLY YOUR HIGHEST HOPE!

\- Nietzsche (is Dead \-- God)

NaNoWriMo

I go Pogo

Allegro Non Troppo

pomo promo

Want to go porno?

Amontiladdo

NaNoWriMo NaNoWriMo

banjo bingo bongo bravo

gateau wino Rambo maestro

hambone rhino manhole vinyl

Wham-o primo Afro Sligo

fatso sideshow macho dildo

Van Gogh hypo deathblow scarecrow

fellatio in Guantanamo

desperado Antananarivo

AN ACT

"Aunty Matt---!"

"Hold it! We've got to go, c'mon, no time to grab nothing, let's just step on out..."

We exited the house and pirouetted onto a passing dirigible....

"You see, my rapacious rascals, we need a new venue, it was all getting too tired: fresh air, new input, novel environs, yep, that's the ticket!"

We continued on, buffeted by the clouds and aiming straight for a passing rainbow. The zeppelin zigzagged past a zealous ziggurat, zipping up ze bras, zaftig + zealy.

Without a morsel of consternation, I, Aunty Matter, pulled out my magnetic bumbershoot and gave us all a lesson in teleological thrombosis.

This momentarily confused the best of us, but then we saw the plan: Schrödinger's cat had snuck in and stolen the ur-Bible, the Ultra Tome of All Meaning, the Book by Which All Else is Known, and it was up to us to get it back!

The Bobbsey Twins (unrelated) were sent for camouflage to disguise the magical kumquat ladders while Zero & Hero reconfigured the miracle cheese. Finishing their appointed tasks, they returned to the Room of No Shadows where I as Ms. Matter was retightening the sled dog slingshot.

Suddenly everyone stopped: we all noticed the box in the corner, the plain nondescript container drawing no attention to itself, but which, we knew may (or may not) contain the evil perpetrator of the crime.

The cat had the book, that we knew, but was this feline in the box? Certainly, someone had let it out of the bag, but did it have someone's tongue? Was it, even now, nipping at our heels, or were the nine lives miaou'ed out?

The quantum eigenstate of its existence was either a furry phenomenon present in the box or an illusion predicated on the Being of the Book. For which book was it, but this very book, Novel Novel, now being written......!

If the cat did NOT exist within this non-metaphorical cubic construct then whereat the book \-- what of the last 20,000 words that I've been studiously tapping out these last couple of weeks?

Here is this book after all, therefore, the cat is.....where??

But I am only still in the midst of writing this -- first there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is \-- nothing's set in stone-bound form, the book is not yet, the book is a process, the book is a verb, this book is a becoming, a German yet-to-be-ness, ding an sich to be, ding ding ding dong....

By some miracle of never to be completely understood transformation, this may yet some day be the book, these random chicken scratchings transmogrified into the Total Grand Unified Field Theory of Literary Genius, the One Stop Shopping Panacea-tic Glorious Incandescent Radiating Phantasmagorical Mystical Marvelous Whole Schtick-orama & even throw in the kitchen sink, yippee do dah day!

SLIM PICKINS

"Aunty Pasta Matta! Didjoo evah meet your match? Was there ever anyone so kewl as yew?!"

"Gosh, my insipid idjit, there was Mephistopheles Slim, did I never tell about him?"

Pasta simmered off, adrift on the ever-buoyant waves of memory..........

Yea, Slim qualified for the Olympics, he was a gymnast unparalleled, but when he got to the '68 Finals in the Floor Exercises (in Ougadougou for some reason?!), instead of showing off his patented triple back flip with an inverse Oliver twist, he chose humpback whale mating calls for his music and simply sat in the middle of the mat meditating for his whole routine.....Still almost won the gold medal when several of the judges insisted that he had risen clear off the floor, and was floating above the mat, but it could never be confirmed -- some more neutral observers insisted this claim had to do with the mushroom tea Slim had served to some of these same judges...!

The next I'd heard from him he had joined the quietest Mariachi band in rural Mexico.

"Oo, wow, that's cool, what instrument did he play?"

"He shook broken lightbulbs for maracas -- you know how their filament makes a noise -- but it sure had to be quiet! Though it was said he could send crickets into arrhythmia!"

"Oooo, where is he now, Aunty?"

"Well, last I heard, he's running a peculiar restaurant in Humptulips: The Olive and Matched Snapdragon. This joint has every ingredient in the world on the wall lined up in matching glass jars -- but they only serve omelets and milkshakes!

If you come in, Slim's only happy if you order something unusual, like a marmalade & lutefisk omelet washed down with a maple syrup & pickle milkshake.

I visited him one day and when I asked to have mine made with cheese & chocolate he threatened to kick me out, until I reassured him that I meant a cheese milkshake and the chocolate in my eggs!

"Slim," I said, "Relax! Where did you get these funny ideas for retail anyway?"

"Well, now, Re-Moose, you shoulda seen the last retail store I founded.

It was in the swankiest shopping mall in Beverly Hills, next to Faberge and I. Magnin and all the rest. I called it Nought, and in the midst of all this exclusive finery, I spared no expense: I had the purest sort of nothingness, clean lines everywhere, really sharp & oh-my-gosh posh! My cash registers were state-of-the-art, shelves white as virgin lambs, my entrance way open, wide & beckoning.

"Yea, yea, great, but what did you sell, Slim?"

"That was the best part: I sold nothing! There was nothing to sell! Nada! That's why the shelves were so clean. It was a wild sensory deprivation experience after all the excess outside! My checkout clerks stood proudly at the ready, smiling wide at anyone who dared cross into Nought, and only nodded dumbly as the shoppers walked up and down our empty aisles scratching their heads -- wha--the fu---?! I think these bright clerks (who either wore all white or were naked, I don't remember which) would only say, "Have a --- day!" when these bewildered shoppers left our premises.

My accountants were flummoxed by the huge goose eggs at the bottom of the balance sheets every month, but, y'know: I think our business model was ahead of its time, and they're teaching merchandising classes referencing my spreadsheets even now....!

Ah, Slim, whatever became of him...

DRECK

The Great Beast NaNoWriMo stopped me the other day, told me that what I'm doing is most certainly not a novel, in any way, shape or form, nosirree, Bob!

Sheee-it, NaNo baby, whatchoo mean? I'm putting words to paper, I'm producing a bonafide masterpiece, of course!

No, no, no said NaNo (a bit repetitious I thought), you have to tell a story, you have to have a plot & characters!

"Oh-h-h-h, you mean that!

Yes, he went on, like, listen: your novel is a journey and there are four stages on this path -- look, I'll write it down:

Denial - I don't wanna do it!

Resistance - You can't make me do it!

Exploration - It's interesting doing it!

Commitment - Let's do it!

\-----

Now, do y'see?

What!, NaNo brain, are you serious?

Yes, of course, what's the matter?

Okay, wait, so, could we maybe add something like "Knowledge" or 'Know-how' as the 5th stage at the end?

Uh, okay, I guess, so what?

Why? Cuz look what it then spells:

Denial

Resistance

Exploration

Commitment

Knowledge

DRECK, or trash, shoddy merchandise to be precise! Geez, no wonder I never listen to you, Whiny Ninny nono -- take a hike, loser!

....and so there he went, lumbering off, sniffling slightly, leaving a scent of embarrassed miserableness in his wake.

I, meanwhile, sauntered back home, whistling a happy tune, with a special lilt in my step, though not too jaunty as I knew he'd be back all too soon, and keeping up with the daily word count was killing me.

But we're into page 93 now, that's something now, ain't it?! Jesus, you want a À la recherche du temps perdu or sumpin' -- then proffer a dandy madeleine, motha fugga! "Remembrance of Things Past," ha! How about Remembrance of where I left the car keys or Remembrance of the name of this silly soul talking to me...?!

I've tried absinthe and a full moon, and that's the best I've got tonight......

I'M BIG YOU US or The Jaywalking Somnambulist

I was just a foxhole salesman; you know, odd jobs: obfuscating dreams, stealer of tractor umbrellas, goose Mother in the nursery on occasion. But, of late, I've glimpsed harbingers of Wholly Other: cyphers lurk in corners creakspeaking of Mis(t)eries while the tick of clocks (talk of clicks) collaborate on the concatenation of Passing Presents. "Askew! Askew!," I hear in absent moments, this always deeply disturbs me. "Who askew?," I sometimes stammer, and if the cajole continues, am forced to scream the soundless expletive, "Geseundheit!"

One idyealle day, staring at the croaken block in the bus station/cuss bastion, consanguinary penguins tried selling me pocket watch codpieces while an absconded scallop toggled by, dribbling ellipses. Or was it an aborted abalone, blearily discombobulated? Aw, p'shaw to the petty distinctions, now melting into metamorphism.....

Yes, for now, snails smell the squire's pall-bearing, sheep cover daughters falter under running water, and polka-dotted socks malign fortitude.

I could see that the Query Quests Quixotic, but the threads of a pattern, illusive, elude, did. "No clues, detective," I murmured, this was all much too Too Much.

So, tonight at noon, I slipped a loophole at work, and stepping out onto the popsicle sidewalk, tripped turned & tossed, falling into a parade of righteous pachyderms, discussing raw angles.

Estrrrrranged was I, over the rusty dusk, Rusty Dusk. Then, from out of nowhere, appeared Maid Intywan, who asked to see my footnotes, portending this asterisk* I ducked into a room closet, and seeing sta(i)rs, pushed down while turning.

Now I found myself in de basement, Atta Bar, drinking dream-cleaned hi-ball tonics, subdominately on the rox. Was a curious crowd therein situated: close by, a pair of pensive artichokes pondered mute questions posed, trying to out-preponderate each other. In the far corner, a Shadow armwrestled a Form (an even draw), while demented pincushions, savage as empty ashtrays, christened U-boats and X-rays with names from an archaic alphabet. I dropped an ear-eave 'mongst the other cussed-tomers:

............"Flies open, Seymour"............

"Part of the problem is the reason..........."

"Abacadab-- rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb, lub-dub......"

"Well, you needn't," postulated a ribald Monk.

"Laugh!" cried a hysterical onion.

"Cry!" laughed a lachrymose hyena.

Then, my ear bent too acutely:

"Heyoo, what I-ball you staring at?"

"Who izzit that's asking?," riposted Miss Maya, Mum of the (N)One.

Saved by her quick retort, I subsequently emulated the wallpaper, faded into the foreground, unmoving save for an oft-inclined elbow, bending out at the knee, jutting into sandwiched space; jes' floating in sour milk was I, (for) Lorna Doon Nada.

But right then, at ebb tide, in lollydollys an Unmarred Mollycoddling Mollusk; a priapitous conundrum and my jubilant jonquil jiggled as tumescent as Lautreamont's parapluie. Oh yes, boggling juggles of ripe rhymey flesh, the Mammary Fammary had sent me their best! My maidenhead wore stretch marks razor sharp, yessir. 1duress, Wunderessence.....!

"Hey baby, word a flurry thistle my way. Tarbender!: a Double Hardly Doppleganger for this ravishing revenant."

Sitting down next to me, "What do they call you, child?," her voice a sore note tickling the tethers of tantric calligraphony.

"Uh: C-green eye cellar bum."

"Yea? Whatcha do?"

"Ah, dontcha know? I'M the alchemist who transmutates the sublime into the ridiculous!"

"Izzat right?"

Quick, short non-sequiturs were, back & forth, soon snapping like tiny triceratops:

"Doughnut feel like Spring?"

"Yea, yea, send in the Clones"

"'K, smartypants: what's in between sleep & sickness?"

"Uh, insomnia?"

"No, silly: amnesia!"

"Aha! Ha Ha!"

The ideas transmogrified into feelings, and thus we retired to a back room -- the Kiss inhaling fevered limps, spits dregs of ooze. But O, how she caressed my chasm, phulfilled my empty innerness.....

purloined beads of mustkiss chantilly pistil grace blest pump in evanescent splendiferous SinShine/ Earnest Coarse Prim(ev)a/il/

She slithered every crevasse I was indented with

/ Corpulent Outflowing Blancmange/

"pour livid, my lurid!"

Viscid shudderings/ layers lascivious/ lambent coaxings/

oaxis edge.........

HHWLHNNHPNHH#@**)+!: the crowning consummation, origami-ed orgasms; ejaculating heart-colored rainbows allinover the plasmatic barm of moon-fed consternation -- whew, I mean, how do you spell relief?!

BUT**

Suddenly Succubus stole my spermgirlen, naked moment of shame captured by a scythe of caskets (the pimp of kin, the mirth of torture).

What could I do? What could I do? I gave in, I'd had enough, I snuggled deeper under my bedcovers of contingence, ready to sleepwalk through another intersection, against the lights.............................

IZ

"Aunty, whatsuh Matter?! What happened to your breasties?

"Yes, dearies, I'm losing my womanhood -- and yet, I am also spurning maleness....

'Tis time to evolve, my own morph began in the nonpareil kingdom of Achzivland.

What? Don't believe me? But I can show you the stamp in my passport, that's right!

Though unrecognized by the all-too-chummy league of nations, Achviz is a minute little oasis just south of the Lebanon border upon the shores of the Mediterranean. Surrounded by Israel, Eli Avivi declared his property independent after too many skirmishes with this new country, and has gone his own way, ever since. Was he Jewish? Christian? Muslim? Or more likely, that most mysterious and secretive religion: Druze...?

Eli, in his long white flowing robe and regal beard, never said, but did let us work hard on his property, digging up artifacts and tending his garden, helping transform his funky castle into a real museum and so forth.

I wandered in one day off an unhappy kibbutz, and ended up staying three months, becoming a kind of prince of the realm, living for free as long as I labored away lifting stones, moving rocks, making pipes for irrigation & so forth.

And here is where I met Sabine, the lovely independent Kraut, who became a sort of 'partner in crime' subsisting together through thick or thin.

We stayed for free, but food was another issue entirely....sometimes we ended up eating the lentils we dug off the rocks on the nearby beach!

And one night, starving, I hit upon a fine idea with mein Kraut:

"Listen, Sabine, there's a well-to-do kibbutz nearby, right? They'll have plenty of food and I'm sure they'll be happy to share it!"

"Yea, OK, Bruce, but, hey, we don't know anybody there."

"Hey, that's ok, we can fake it, watch. Listen: I can chat up the guards at the gate and once we're in, if there's anyone German (and you know there's bound to be), then you can be friendly with them, I'll take care of the rest."

"I don't know, Bruce, sounds a little" and she wavered her hand the way she always did, indicating a bumpy plan, or unsureness & the like.

"Nah, Sabine, don't worry, the trick is just to act cocky"

"Cocky?"

"Yea, like we know it all, like we're sure of what we're doing. Listen: I can say we're here to visit, uh, John & Mary, uhm, Smith, no, that's too obvious, uh, Green, yea, and, tell me, what's the most common German names?"

"mmm, how about Uli Schmidt?"

"Yea, perfect, listen the Israeli guard won't know and once we're in, we can pretend, and if there's no one there with that name, we'll just say they must have recently left!"

And that's just what we did, pulled it off without a hitch, and once we did get inside, this kibbutz, like all of them, was simply overflowing with good bread & yogurt & fruit & stews & all, and we filled ourselves up to our stomach's content!

Our initial bravado and loud boisterousness tied us over getting in and we simply overwhelmed the cautious international crowd of kibbutzim, all who were a little tenative and shy, as aware that they too were just 'crashing' visitors on this volunteer socialist farm experiment.

AND/but/so that's not anything about spirituality: why I began telling you this is that I wasn't usually the bon vivant of the party gatherings upstairs in Avivi's main lair, rather I chose to be in my little hovel below, and what I did there was.....read the Bible....by candlelight.....! Really! From start to finish, or at least the entire Old Testament \-- the New being plenty familiar already and too repetitious with the 4 gospel guys repeating each other and all those dreary letters from sanctimonious Paul.

But get a load of what I wrote on some of the postcards home to my brothers at this time! \--

First to musician brother David:

Dear I Samuel 21:13,

(I Sam 18:27), 2 Sam 5:13, 2 Sam 11: 2-5, + 1 Kings 1:3, but no O Suzanne. Re Raiders of the Lost (Exodus 25: 10-22): I Kings 8:6 ~ 2 Kings 24:13, 25:13...?

How's the I Chronicles 25:1? Have u sent a new tape? (Job 21:12) -- I haven't been in Jonah's footsteps lately (Jonah 1:3, Joppa = Tel Aviv), happy in Joshua 19:29, Judges 1:31, but it's Bethlehem (I Sam 16:1!) for Xmas (Cool Hand Luke 2:4,7) + then p'raps another kibbutz to outlast the winter (Ecclesiastes 5:18). Keep on boogieing (2 Sam 6:5, 14-15) 3 John 1:13, Judges 13:18, Exodus 3:14 \+ 2 Kings 24:1

[Whew!] \-- this sent to David aka Tav [aka Kenaniah (I Chron. 15:22)]

And likewise there was the one sent to trumpet playing Smane, or Joshua (6:20):

Ezra 5:7,

FROHE WEIHNACHTEN!

BENAIAH (I Chronicles 15:24)! ELIOENAI (Nehemiah 12:41)! Holy July 1st! (Leviticus 23:23!) Numbers 26:62 (the divinic 12th) -- O, son of Mac Aaron (Numbers 10:8), we coulda used you at the top of Jubal Musa (Exodus 19:13) -- Aha! (Job 39:25) Meet you on the Greek island, Patmos (Revelation 1:9) for the last punk jazz epiphany (Rev. 8:2-11:19)....

Big bash here New Yrs. (Proverbs 23:33-35), Write on! (Proverbs 25:25),

Further details forthcoming, Lei' traot, Mark 14:51-52 ("streakers for Jesus")

TITLE INTERUPTUS

Hey, that's not bad, is it? Going for the ol' public domain racket and, uh,
CHAPTER 23

...wha-----, hey, stop that! So, uh, I wonder what other classic books I can plunder from to, uhm, flesh out, so to speak this

CHAPTER 24

\---What? Now, c'mon, stop th---
CHAPTER 23

WHOA! Now, just one tarnation min--

CHAPTER B ZIRCONIUM TROMBONE BATHTUB ZACHARY MOLUSHES XITG5FBN4IEERDNDDIEW^$SA!~()(HBNKJRBIUAS

Okay, Okay, I get it, very funny, but really, stop it.

CHAP --

NO, I really mean it, now! Just who is in control here anyway????

So, hmmm, do I know any good quotes from the Upanishads, Bullfinch's Mythology, Bocaccio's Decameron to spew out upon these pages, hmmm....? No, well, then, uh, where were/are we...?

SPORTS 'N' SCHOOL

"Oh, Amorphous-Blob-Formerly-Known-As-Our-Uncle-Or-Even-Aunt --- this is getting downright unwieldy! \-- didn't you ever play any sports? You never talk about that" said young Krapacious McKenzie, sniffling as he picked at the scabs on his knees.

"What -- you mean besides hopping freight trains? Well, yes, actually I did....here find yourselves a cozy place here, settle in, this could be a long tale spinnin'........!:

Back when I was just a young ragamuffin much as you are now, in fact, sports was ALL I did care about. Especially football, yessir, that's right, I ate, breathed and sweated over those exploits. Was every Autumn Saturday morning I actually came alive, did I....y'know, I can hardly smell a lick -- that's one reason I can eat just about any darn thing -- but whenever I do get a whiff of benzoin -- y'know, that weird goop we used to spread on our feet to toughen 'em up -- I get sucked back right to those days in the locker room and on the gridiron, boyoboy, lemme tell ya!

I loved football, and I was a star, I was the leading running back, halfback, fullback, it hardly mattered. Yea, you may laugh, but see, right about age 14, I had my first serious knee injury (just chasing Dana around the house and landing on my leg the wrong way \-- Pop said I was too cramped up in my tiny Armenian Mother's womb and so these knee problems were kinda hereditary or genetic and bound to occur eventually anyway) but, see, I was a big 14-year-old, but that was about it: stopped growing so much once I became a near-cripple hobbling around on crutches throughout high school, etc. (sigh)

But before that, I was a world beater, yes I was. Why, I only played little league football, but guess who was 2nd string behind me in the backfield?: Joe Steele, that's right, Steele who went on to break all the rushing records at the U Dub, uhnh hunh, you can look it up, that's right....okay, so maybe he DID grow a hell of a lot after our little league days, and started blossoming with special talent he never showed back then, but be that as it may, I was a star runner: returned more than one punt for a touchdown, broke long runs plenty of times, you bet!

Why, we even played for the championship of Seattle in fabled Husky stadium one year -- Unfortunately only came outa that one with a tie (yes, I know, and it was that ol' Husky coach of my youth, Jim Owens, who coined that perfect description: "A tie is like kissing your sister").

But 'twas right near the end of that game with the score tied and we were back on about our own 35 yard line, that QB Pete Lee called the fabled "Greeley screen" play. This was a special play designed strictly for my particular expertises: the QB would get the ball and back pedal fast cuz our blockers scarcely put up any resistance & let the defense pour through. Meanwhile, I'd stay pretty much in the same place, and when Lee backpedaled fast with the opposing lineman charging him down, he would then lob a nice little pass over all their heads to me, and when I caught it, suddenly there were my linemen still in front of me with a whole nearly-open field and away we could go!

Yea, this often worked --- but at this point, I was slightly injured already with one sore knee: y'see, earlier in the game I sprinted down the sideline looking over my back at the ball we had just punted and this dirty defenseman had just gone down on all fours, cockily tripping me up since I didn't even see him and I ran right over him, flipping over headlong.

So, now I had a big bandaged-up knee and a limp and lumbered down field but finally got pushed out of bounds as time expired, alas, alack.....and that was that....

SOOOO, my whole identity revolving around the precious pigskin -- the ritual oatmeal in my stomach for Saturday morning breakfast, the sweaty neck exercises with a partner, the shoulder-pad puffing-up esteem, the all-eyes-on-me-when-I've-got-the-ball, the split second reactions like to suddenly spin 360 degrees shaking off a potential tackler as I'm running full speed straight ahead, and then do it again right afterwards and end up in end zone even though I'd never tried that stunt before and probably never did again, the joy at even big heavy downpours cuz, yessir, I was a 'mudder' and I didn't even want to be able to see what number I was by the end of the game, the celebrations drinking down the big hearty mugs of root beer in seconds flat after contests -- all this ended with my bum knees, and it was time to reinvent myself....

What happened? Well, for one, I was sent away to an elite prep boarding school 3,000 miles away -- yes, at age 14 -- this same prestigious school that me own Pappy had attended a mere 38 years previous -- and, curiously enough, it had changed somewhat:

for one, all my new classmates had hair down to their shoulders and were all quite into the ol' younger-brothers-and-sisters-of-the-original-hippies drug scene.

It took a matter of months for me to first actually pollute my body with some of the foreign substances, but once I acquiesced, geez, I partied with the best of 'em....!

One of our stalwart floor teacher/counselors even gave me the moniker: S.O.B. -- not for Son of a Bitch, but for "Stoned Out Bruce"....!

Whew, this sure was some kind of turnaround.......

These turmoil-y three years could certainly deserve their own separate book -- but you're not going to get that, ok? -- I still got miles to go before I sleep, and heck, I was still too young way back then to truly be the star of my story, I was just a wee sputnik, being pushed & pulled around willy-nilly, still yet a nascent cotyledon forming shards & snippets of the {ahem} legend to come, ha -- and neither am I gonna dwell overly long on this ancient history, I'm no example of Irwin Shaw and his classic "80 yard run", no, not me!

Suffice it to say -- and here, really, the first inklings of who I am were poured into metaphorical concrete -- that whereas the rest of my classmates, these sons & daughters of the nation's elite (why, we even played Kennedy's alma mater, Choate) all sallied forth from this Gloom/ Loomis-Chaffee Preparatory Boarding School in prestigious {sic} Windsor, Connecticut, bound for all the best & brightest Ivy League bastions of higher learning -- yea, while Buffy & Sarah & Preston all went off to oh-so-snooty Harvard & Yale, I deep-sixed all that folderol, pretense, stuffed shirts, buttoned down manners & high-falutin' pomposity, those stepping stones to the Great Wielders of Power & Secret Machinaters controlling this nation, well, I instead up and joined the Merchant Marines....!

Yea, while they were now forging the keys to the City State, I was out sailing the high seas

And, let the truth be known, I've always danced this sort of 'back & forth' ever since, always chosen to be 'on the other side' in whichever milieu I'm plopped down into -- cuz -- & it's nearly no joke -- like ol' Groucho: "I would never belong to a club that would have me as a member" henh henh henh...say the magic word, and a duck will come down and fly up your skirt!

But I was the vagabond hitchhiking ol' jazz lovin' bum while attending the snooty oh-so-proper boarding school & then flip-flopped into the refined, poetry-reading, elegant fop while hauling lines & painting scuppers on the decrepit container ships I sailed; thence pinballing again into the coarse, older autodidact when I finally returned to matriculate at an institution of higher learning; becoming a newspaper reporter who never took a journalism class; a jazz musician who can't read a lick of music; a librarian who wings it with every question, searching in random 'hail mary' fashion instead of following any premeditated plan or ritualized attack.

\-- And so it all continues: constructing half-d@Daistic nonsense welded to heart-on-the-sleeve bathetic memoir entries & calling that a novel!

BRIT BITS

"Amorphous-blobness! Undifferentiated background of blather! Why do you go on so much about the English so much? Don't they (sorta) speak the same language and everything? And you're married to one, after all!"

"Yes, yes, of course, lissen: the English are swell enough. I always said they'd do just fine after we buy the island and turn it into a 51st state theme park of antiquity, ha...

No, of course, they've not only given us Shakespeare and Tom Stoppard, the Beatles and Monty Python, they've come up with quite a bit really! Not a bad lot, and all that...

But wait!: y'know what the difference is between an American and the English? It's not the accent or the formal rigidity or any of that, but what the English do as part & parcel of their everyday, the American only does when he's sick! To wit:

talk softly, drink tea and take naps! Jeepers!

WHO PURRS THE WISDOM OF THE EAST? KATHMANDU!

"But Blobby! Out of all your travels, what's the one place that really captivated you? That was unrestrainingly fascinating and simply tremendous?!"

"Hmmm, well, yes, there are so many, y'know, chile. I mean, how 'bout right where you are sitting now? How about the charm of this exact moment wherever you & I are at this very moment, like YOW, and wow, forever, dig?!!"

"Yea, but Blob-meister--"

"Yes, yes, my little pickaninnie, do not fret, spesh cuz I can think of just such a place:

....As part of my long globe-spanning journey over 2-1/2 years, I finally vaulted outa Europe and the Middle East and smack into the heart of India. For even the seasoned traveler, there is nothing like being in this oldest of countries. I don't think it helped that I was often quite ill (just simple Delhi belly and the like, but still!) but the diet of simple dahl (lentil stew) and rice 3 times a day was starting to get to me.

So when I crossed the border into Nepal, well, Kathmandu became the be-all & end-all. I mean, get a load of this diary entry, pure run-on exclamations!:

Kathmandu -- Magic! Durbar Square (Yeti/Durga) P.B. milkshakes! Enchiladas! Pie a la mode! Tibetan momos! Buffalo cheeseburgers! Chocolate coconut banana cake! Human bone trumpets! Medieval alleys opening to wooden intricate temples! My hotel (for 56 cents!) a ¼ mile from Kumari, a living Goddess (incarnation of Taleju)! Evil eye giant hillside stupas with Tibetan Buddhists praying inside temples like zen center chants, & huge Kangling prayer horns! Music everywhere all the time! Happy friendly people! Ganga to heroin to whisky to chang, a Tibetan rice beer! Reality soup! On resty signboard a cosmic message about a guy ready to sell his eye & kidney! Wildest patchwork shirts! & lopsided (topi cap) hats! S.F. pizza by the slice! Cappucino! 10 million used book shops! Freak street! Pig Alley! Decorated human skulls for sale! Granola & yogurt! Western herbal health restys (asparagus cheese mushroom casseroles)! 6-foot brass trumpets for $90! The OM shop! Yeti rugby team! Humus! Tacos! Festivals every other day! 10 minutes ahead of India time! Passing marching bands every day! Pleasanter cooler weather (than India) & shorts & no shirt no eyesore to locals! & crashing thunderstorms & lightning, Dorje (thunderbolt/ sceptre), the power of Buddha! Monkeys cavorting all o'er! Low register clarinets & saranghis for under $7! Avalokitsovera Thankas! Animal sacrifices! Witch doctor dances! The Valley of the Mt. Gods! Marine Bar w/ Budweiser! Breakfast in bed room service! Yak cheese on pumpernickel bread! Macaroons! Jackfruit (giant bumpy green fruit w/ tiny yellow sections inside with the consistency of bubblegum)! Tsampa (Tibetan monk porridge)! Laughing Buddha natives! More temples than Shirley's family tree! Fish & chips! Tibetan tofu! Phantasmagorical kaleidoscopic rainbow Joseph's coats!

wowowowowowowowowowowowooowowwowoowowoow!

[And all this before I even met up with a bunch of wacky international crazies on the top of a hobo youth hostel, where we smoked weed which had simply been plucked from just down the side of the road, and jammed on guitars and homegrown clarinet/saxophones, eventually even coming to the immortal spiritual peak song to express all bliss & harmonic fullfillness: John Coltrane's "A Love Supreme" \--wow

PAMPLONA

"O Blobbo! Is it hard to live through all your ancient memories; does it get tough now that you're just a boring librarian and---"

"Hold it right, junior! Now, first of all, I will enlighten you presently upon the extent of said boringness of said librarianship, but not all my adventures are from the distant past -- why only 2 summers ago, the family went to England, France & Spain, and the timing was so right that, well, yes, don't let me bore you, read all about it on my blog(!):

thursday, july 12, 2007

Getting bullish...!

Okay, I can tell you all are the kind to always turn first to the climatic end of every novel you pick up; don´t want me to try and maintain the dramatic tension in telling this story in order, so to cut to the chase (literally, ha!),

TODAY I DID RUN with the bulls!

It was quite an ordeal but I couldn´t back down after all this build-up, cd I...?!

I mean it started with a nearly 500 mile drive (one-way) as I had miscalculated how close we were! Went so far I crossed hemispheres (from east to west!)...only got seriously lost once...

But, last night, whoa, Pamplona is like a fullblown mardi gras for 7 hard partying days! More marching bands, amusement parks, fireworks, and ALL night drinking and carousing through the narrow quaint cobbled streets & alleys...

I only had a few beers before retiring to car to try and sleep for a couple hours (unsuccessfully as too cramped and cold)...

up again at 5:30, now in quite obligatory white shirt, red scarf (almost EVERYONE in city wearing this, plus white pants and red kerchief belt too), stumble back to ´él encierro´´, find my place crammed like scared sardines in a tiny square, & moments before 8am, the police stop their blockade and we spread out quickly....

I choose my spot not far away right before a big right hand turn (so i know to keep to the right side avoiding the momentum careening bulls to the left) and we hear the cannon blast, and they´re off!

Adrenaline kicks in and it´s hard to even ´reassemble´what came next...but a wave of runners turned the corner and so I knew to start working my own broken knees...

only about 40 yards and the first bulls were upon us...I moved over to the side & hugged a wall and then the worst thing possible happened: 1 bull became separated from the rest, stopped, and while a bunch of macho idiots tried taunting him, he turned around and around and even came stepping back towards me a few steps...!

Many around me were screaming and running but i stayed glued against the wall -- about 10 yards away, no more (though there WERE many closer than me) and then the bull picked on one fella & GORED him good right there in front of me! AIYYEEEEE!

Though i was too transfixed to take any photos, I DID take a good picture right afterwards of all the blood across a newspaper this lad left...(he was quickly carried off by bystanders, they have expert surgeons very close by for all these cases!)

yikes, and so how was I to know if ALL the bulls had passed or not yet...¿?

they hadn´t...but the rest passed by less excitingly...!

wow, all over just like that -- i heard this was one of the worst days of injuries they have had for quite some time (another victim was still cordoned off down on the ground earlier on the run when i retraced my route)

and hey, you can catch all the drama here:

www.sanfermin.com/tv

(I think -- it´s replayed on our tv here over and over again every morning)

(look for me in black beret trying to melt into one wall as others run away past me!)

so then there was just the 500 mile drive back to the rest of family,,,,

WHEW!

´nuf sed...?!

BABEL

"Uncle Remush! You've got a million tongues, wow, verily as the great God Shiva, a 1000 tongued-demon! And I was just gonna ask how could you communicate in all those lands you traveled in? How did you manage?"

"Hoosh-arar, my petite chickadeedilees! First of all, I AM one of the grand masters of Charades, yea, 'tis true!: When I play the game the other team simply comes up with titles like "The Agony & The Ecstasy" for me and then sits back to watch the ensuing drama and passion I will be emoting!

But the true secret, after learning the standard words for greetings and thank you and the like, is to master these two phrases:

"Cheers!" and "I Love You" \-- oh yes indeed, this works wonders, believe you me!

Now I can say hello and praise Allah in about 10 ways going back and forth with my noble Arab for a good few minutes, but one "Anna behebach" and I could just get myself invited into the rear of the Bedouin tent!...(or killed!)

And though I can 'talk story' while down in Samoa, with my Talofa Lavas and Malos and what not, it only takes a "O te alofa, ia te oi" to perhaps see what is really under the lava-lava....!

Here are some of those 'three little words' you can be sure I have memorized:

I love you in different lang.:

2. Arabic Ana Behebach (To A Female)

12. Chinese Wo Ah Ni

25. Finnish Mina Rakastan Sinua

27. French Je T'aime

28. German Ich Liebe Dich

29. Greek S' Agapo -- "S'agapo makoos" "I love you, do you hear me?" the song resonates through my head from the days of Crete and love

31. Hebrew Ani Ohev Otech (to Female)

39. Italian Ti Amo

40. Japanese Ai jin

64. Spanish Te Quiero

67. Swedish Jag A'Lskar Dig [note: this too often 'backfired' as so many Swedes don't want to be 'bogged down' with dumb romantic Yanks after a heck of a lot more than a simple one-night stand...!]

73. Thai Ch'an Rak Khun

75. Turkish Seni Seviyorum

Armenian - Yes kez sirumem

And then of course, you must celebrate [or commiserate for missing out] with a drink after:

How to say cheers in different countries

Armenian Genatsoot ("Life"))

Mandarin : Kampai

Costa Rica "Pura Vida" (pure life) which they use for everything.

Denmark Skaal / Skål

Dutch (Flemish) Proost

Finland "Kippis"

French / France A votre sante

Gaelic (Ireland) Sláinte (to your health) Goa Magh -- Ceildh mia failth

German (Germany) Prost (beer) -- [which more than one foreigner thought was my name

Hawaiian Okole maluna

Hebrew L'chaim ("To life")

Italian / Italy Chin chin (formal); Salute (informal)

Japan Kampai

Maori Kia Ora is a Maori greeting, the equivalent of 'Hello'

Russian "Naz drovia" "Spasibo"

Spanish Salud

Svenska Skål

Tagalog Mabuhay ("Long life")

Thai /Thailand Chock-dee

COLUMN-Y

Hey, you! Yea, you out there, yea, I'm talking to YEWWWW, come over here, closer, listen:

you wanna help me write this thing? Contribute a few words here and there, hey, I don't care: scrawl them into the margin, sure! You could really help me out here, I'll pay you on commission, 'k? Promise to cut you into the tidy fortune we'll both be rolling in when this shoots up the bestseller charts, with a bullet, you betcha! So, go ahead, scratch some bon mots anywhere you like, I just need 50 thou of them total and I'LL BE THERE! Hey, who's up for a special 'buy-a-word' program?! I don't know how that will work 'zackly but whuddoyousay, eh? Are you in or are you in????!

So be a pal, thanks a zillion, go for it!..........

MOMMY

Wow! [surveying the crowd gathered] She certainly left a mark....

I'm Bruce, one of four sons...

So I'm not here to talk about Virginia's childhood in Detroit, or her marriage to Mac, or even her life in the church but as my Mother...

But I've slowly discovered that we're all kaleidoscopes: perceived differently by everyone -- like the elephant as detected by the blind men: one feels the trunk, one touches the tail, and one first strokes the leg, and they all think it's a different animal.

I sort of first discovered this with my brothers and our differing memories of our Father (who passed away 5-1/2 years ago).

But though my memory is no longer as good as an elephant, these will be my reflections (hopefully not seen through a glass quite so darkly).

First of all: everyone calls their Mother "Mommy" when they're really young. And then (almost) everyone grows up and decides it's not cool anymore to give her such a 'baby name' and you change her name to Mom or Mother. But she never changed and you are only sort of distancing yourself to do this -- I never felt comfortable doing that and she forever was "Mommy" to both myself and my brothers.

But the one biggest thing with Mommy was: she gave us unconditional love -- always! Of course, we very rarely used the "L" word although I did hear that word creep back into her vocabulary right at the end a few times -- but we knew she cared deeply about all of us and was always as concerned for us as much as any Mother has been...

She was always there for us -- like during the last couple of years when she came over every Thursday to pick up two of our kids from school before I could get home from work -- she did this every Thursday without fail or complaint....and she was so selfless in her duty, not just content to but preferring to stay in the background about this...

Growing up, she cooked ALL our meals (and was a great Midwestern cook, plus the special Armenian extra touches!), bought all my clothes and then dutifully sewed up all of these clothes for my brothers when I outgrew them! and so we four boys grew up, and are still here, we didn't kill each other and are all out of jail still -- (I think, though I don't see Scott here anywhere!) -- so, that's quite a testament in itself!

I want to close with one little vignette that tells a lot about Mommy. She was a true born again Christian over the last many years but she also had a good dose of superstition still in her -- for instance, there was this bald eagle that started hanging out in a tree right near her condo window soon after Pop passed on and she would often tell us all how that was the spirit of Pop, the great bird lover. But six days ago, we were back at her condo, preparing the photos for today, and there was no sign of the eagle. But what did we see instead, across the slough, midmorning for the first time ever? No, not one of your bogeys, Dana -- but a full grown female deer! Maybe that's dear Mommy coming back and saying, hi, I'm free!

{I write all this and only then realize this is my parent's anniversary today!}

KEY BORED

Hmmmm, wellllll, as I type away on this keyboard, I think of other keyboards, Art Tatum, Keith Jarrett, Keith Emerson, Horowitz, Jerry Lee Lewis, Great Balls of Fire! How much work would it be to convert this all into music:

a few tenative single note runs:

asdfhikol[p

and don't forget the bass boogie woogie:

zcbm zcbm zcbm

Let's put it all together:

asdfdgghfghlghhkhppuyutyhjgfjhbobvc bcnxvzfbaefergidjg[ bxcobxc bipf h[ohj[gjfzfgpizfgbfdzgndfgjsd foghj fgghofg jhofgpxmnb f[g mhfdg hertyhjsdgdah gtaeghad8 ghae rtyhw5e5-9yurhj bhifn gh[a rwegt0ewahdq[E Q[THE[GDSZJHS[YJS[ HYRIS0=UHJRDHJ ZG KMS "

aw, shucks, just remember what Edison said about one of his inventions when criticized: "What good is a newborn baby?" (And then I believe Edison emulated the newborn [or shd've] and pissed on his stupid interlocuter!)

THE STARS IN THEIR COURSES

"Polyphemus! How can you be so single-visioned, so Cyclopedean? And how are we supposed to capitalize upon an inspiring experience?!"

"Bbaaa-a-a-a-a, silly sheep! When I was in Alaska did I hesitate on the hiking trail, when I came across a historic artifact, an ancient canoe, possibly even the very one Jack London rowed on his legendary journey up the Chilkoot trail? Naah, I grabbed for all the gusto, and pitched that into the river and jumped in, stroking nobly a short way before throwing it back onto the bank and carrying on!

And though everyone else takes a train down to the beginning of that steep mountain and recreates the wearisome hike back up the Chilkoot Trail, what sense is there in that? Especially when one can walk along the same railroad tracks for 30-odd miles -- so utterly alone that one may hike for awhile just as Gawd made ya, naked as a jaybird & happy to wave at that once-a-day train as it goes by and once even stepping out late at night, cocky that it wd be impossible to get lost until suddenly looking up under the near full moon so bright and faced down by the huge demigod-like Snowy owl, w/o even a ghost of a "Who-o-o-o!", a Power Owl, Agent of the Beyond, nearly reducing me to jelly with his implacable stare-down -- but after this lovely saunter along the tracks I could then skip down lightly down this silly steep trail, chuckling at my compatriots struggling & sweating up the severe incline....

These same sheep only days before had retired into a nice cabin along a different trail but I was turning into a great outdoorsman, and feeling trapped by manmade walls had retired to sleep away under the magnificent Alaskan skies. Or try to sleep for I was unusually restless, and thought I was hallucinating, grabbed my glasses, and lawdy lawdy! The Fantastic Awe-Inspiring Supreme Aurora Borealis Northern Lights were Blasting Out All Over the Heavens!

Like the Greatest Psychedelic Light Show were these Twisting Cavorting Phantasms Dancing About the Skies! Nearly Instantaneously Appearing and Sweeping the Whole Firmament! Shooting Out, Fanning Across, Bundling Up and Spraying Over Another Great Piece of the Horizon! Mostly Muted Greens & Sepulchral White & Vague Purples but no less Spectral on the Grandest Scale & Nearly Needing Some Supra-Fabulous Grateful Dead Band of Overwhelming Musical Intensity to Match or Follow Along! The Sky, The World was Tripping Out in Synaesthesic Ecstasy & I Was the Sole Witness, Flashing Back like a Wordsworth/Coleridge Freakin' For All Time!

For, y'see, "Sense is the soul of writing, words are but the attire."....?!!!

LOCAL ANGLES

"Oh, hello, vast swarm of swirling Remus light pinpricks, is this your first book? Have you not written anything before?"

"What a splendid question, my invidious inquisitive imp!

But of course there is a book which preceded this! A volume now sequestered within some of the finest libraries upon this great land! A small chapbook which I promoted & PT Barnum-ed all up & down these environs in the hopes for an unusual bestseller.

This book, in fact, is The Best of Local Angle: A Selection of Anecdotes from the Popular Weekly Column Appearing in the Everett, Monroe and Snohomish Tribunes.

"Can it be? Is it true that you were once---"

"A scoopster, a newspaperman, a journalist, a hack, yes, 'tis true! 'Twas just after graduation as a sorry English major that I stumbled upon this smalltown newspaper gig, and while earning the smallest pittance, it was my introduction into the regular 9-5 work-a-day world.

And though I never got into the 'digging out the truth' aspects, or trying to catch folks telling lies, I DID enjoy some of the writing, especially of the headlines, often getting 2 or 3 puns into one squeezed-in title.

Hey, in fact, while we're at it, I better list a few of these award-winning headers!:

Caption for a picture of two chess players:

GONE FISCHER-ING

Caption for an art student drawing:

EASEL DOES IT

About the Monroe state fair:

EXTRA READY & RARIN'

MONROE SHALL BE FAIR-ING

Caption for two kids petting a rabbit:

PLAY BOYS, BUNNY

About a movie being filmed locally:

SKY VALLEY IS SOURCE AND

SET FOR CELLULOID SCENE

(Note how crucial the number of letters are so often to fit into the headline space!)

About the rodeo:

BULLS TO BUCK

'N' BOUNCE

FOR BIG BILLS

And another:

AT MONROE RODEO, EVEN COWGIRLS GET A BRUISE

Caption for a pic of a bicycle repairman:

SPOKES MAN

For a picture of a scenic stream and road over it:

BRIDGE OVER THE RIVER QUIET

For a picture of a female construction worker tiling bricks:

MORTAR SHE WROTE

Or of another such:

MORTAR IN THE COURT

For a school team of aquanauts:

SWIMMIN' WOMEN BOUND TO WIN IN NEW POOL

Caption for a grass cutter:

LAWN ORDER

And for his mate sweeping leaves:

RAKERS OF THE LOST OAK

Caption for a equine vet hard at work:

THEY SHOE HORSES, DON'T THEY?

And of another:

MANE TAMING

Of a kid biking through a puddle:

WASH CYCLE

For an article on local Swiss Hall's annual banquet featuring sauerkraut:

COOKS CUT CABBAGE,

CREATE KRISP KRAUT

And for a different edition, same article:

COOKS CUT CRISP CABBAGE,

CREATE CULINARY COMESTIBLES

Caption about a little girl on the jungle gym:

SWINGER HANGS OUT AT BARS

About local daredevil sport:

BUNGEE BUFFS JUMP FOR JOY

ONLY ONE STEP

BETWEEN SAFETY

AND SPACE

Caption for KFC fast food sign repairman:

LOOKIN' FOR CHICKEN LICKIN'

And subtitle: There's not a 'colonel' of truth to the claim that repairman Steve Sampson is chicken to fix Snohomish's big bucket, temporarily stopped in its appointed rounds.

And what won me first place for an article about local model train fans:

HOBBYISTS ENGINEER LOCAL RAILROAD CLINIC

TRAIN THEIR SIGHTS ON

MAIN AT-TRACK-TION

(Certainly, if I were judge, I would choo-choose this one, too!)

Thus, the Managing Editor decided I better have my own column, and thus was born Local Angle.

Soon enough I thought to collect some of these quaint passages into a humble book, which somehow, despite my relentless hawking, failed to make any bestseller lists...

Some of the all-too-precious blurbs from said column (AND book):

TAKE HER OUT TO THE BALLGAME

How 'bout those Ms?

Everybody seems to be following their pennant race -- well, almost everyone. A recent British immigrant happened to notice my "Seattle Mariners Information Guide" as were ready to head for the beach. Instead of asking for, say, Ken Griffey's lifetime batting average, she quickly piped up: "Oh good: we can check the tide tables!"

(Is that why she's classified by the government as a resident alien?!)

VERY PUNNY

One Thursday, with deadline fast approaching, the Tribune suddenly received a vital phone call: Wisconsin's Wienermobile was coming!

The 23-foot-long hot dog on wheels was stopping in Snohomish to pass out wiener whistles during an Oscar Mayer promotional tour.

Spokesperson Erin O'Shea filled in some more of the details: "Some people call it a Lamborweenie. It really hauls buns. I hope you can ketchup with us during this stop in our tour.

Hmmm, two can play this game: "Frankly, my dear, I shall relish this opportunity to see you hotdoggers!"

Aw shucks, it mustard been something I ate!

A VOTE FOR....WHAT?

Curiously, in Monroe, where all four city council members up for re-election were running unopposed, each candidate still managed to receive a different number of votes. The big winner was Robert E. Wilcox of Position 5, who garnered 37 more votes than the other council members. What's his secret?

Perhaps it's the council quipster's sense of humor. During a recent joint council-school board meeting, Wilcox told those assembled: "We need a traffic light for the intersection of Kelsey and State Route 2. We don't have the money yet but we've already picked out the colors (!)"

DOOMED BY "WHOM"

Meticulous Local Angle reader Louis Wetzel just sent a correction our way: the headline of a column two weeks ago should have read "Whom" not "Who They're Rooting For in Snohomish."

Well, OK, but as the old saying goes: "To err is Whom-an..."

OVER C-ING A COMMITTEE

For sheer abundance, who can top the SCCCCC (Snohomish Chamber of Commerce Community Coordinating Committee)? Just think if this gang had a Consultation Chapter, we could have called it Snohomish's 7 C's.

Note: this is not what Robin Williams meant in "Dead Poets' Society" when he said to Cs, er, "Seize the Day". Enough already, I'm getting C-sick.

FIBER VS. FODDER

In the 108-pound class of the wrestling match between Snohomish and Shorewood recently, Cotton beat Hay. What -- did they draw straws for that match? Well, actually it was not so unpredictable: I woulda picked Cotton.

AVAILABLE FOR CAMPAIGN PROMOTIONS

Rap star MC Hammer came up with a catchy song and slogan: "Too legit to quit" which, it seems, could be just slightly altered for our own county executive:

"Bob Drewel: too legit to spit!"

WHILE VIOLINS PLAYED

A rare emotional moment put a pause in the Snohomish school board meeting the other day. Assistant Superintendent Keith Forney was receiving eulogies before retiring after 30 years with the district. Long-time board member Bill Holt paused to reminisce over his fond memories of Forney, whom Holt had first encountered as his typing teacher at Snohomish High. After a considerable build-up full of heart-on-the-sleeve sentiment, Holt proclaimed, "On behalf of everyone on the district, I'd like to say: Mr. Forney.....I still don't think I deserved that C!!"

A BOOK WORTH CENSORING

It may not be hot off the presses, but Jules Archer's book of biographies, The Unpopular Ones, does seem to harbor a special -- if horrible! -- relevance, especially when one scans the title of chapter six: "Burn the Tribune! Hang Old Greeley!"

COW-ABUNGA!

Never one to milk a joke for all its worth: still must ice cream: you butter hurry down to Walt's Milk House on the old Snohomish-Monroe Highway for all their sales before they're gone. (It's a Moo-ving sale!)

STAND-UP INTERVIEW

Not only does Monroe plant seller and all-around entrepreneur Pete Wood have the proper name for his obsession with growing green things, but he's a heck of a fella to interview.



Wood pointed out on rare and sick yew tree on his ground that had to be saved. "You know why, don't you? Because there'll never be another yew!"



To raise money for his dream resort in Monroe, Wood needs to sell all his trees and has lowered his prices accordingly. "There's three kinds of prices: retail, wholesale, and fairy tale," explained Wood. "That last is what mine are: so low you can't believe them!"



Before departing, Wood offered a special tidbit: "They just made it a state law that anyone living within 500 feet of a cemetery can't be buried there \-- you oughta do a story about that."

"Why the heck did they do that?" I innocently inquired.

He quickly shot back: "Because they're not dead yet!!"



SHIPSHAPE

Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; ...then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me....

\-- Melville - Moby Dick - 1st page

"So, Swirly --- (it's time to really get it together, y'know) -- life has just been one big bowl of cherries for ya, hasn't it? You just sail from one dandy hijinks to another, dontcha?"

"Au contraire, mon frere! So then I've never told you about the first ship I sailed on, then? No, of course not, though this was the very ship I disembarked from to meet up with Stoo in Carnegie Hall with Paul Winter, wolf & eagle....

so, please: adopt the position: sit on back, and lend a long ear......!:

I'd made it through my three-month stint at the dismal Harry Lundberg School of Seamanship in Piney Point, Maryland, and was then assigned to my first ship, possessing the three aspects I did not want to be part of: an inland ship (not deep sea), a Sealand container ship not old freighter (so less time in port), and as a wiper in the engine room not on deck or even in the steward department.

The SS Tampa, a converted T-2 tanker, running the tired route from Elizabeth, New Jersey (armpit of the nation) down through the Bermuda Triangle to Puerto Rico and Jamaica (!) and then on to Houston and/or New Orleans and back. This baby was on its last legs, the crew were all hardcore redneck assholes and my roommate was a green Black newcomer too.

Every day I slogged it on down to this Engine Room, as close to hell as there is above ground. It was literally 120 degrees Fahrenheit & 120 decibels down there and you touch the wrong pipe and you get a nice permanent scar burned into your body part. You could scream at a sailor standing six feet away and he wouldn't hear anything. One day my paint brush caught on fire as I was painting a pipe: any idea what the ignition temperature of paint is????

Never would have made it without the influx of Jamaican Gold once we hit that treasured island!

I was certainly not cut out for this life: possessing almost no mechanical machine sense and only made dumber by the tormenting noise & heat. But by the end of that stint, I was down to rolled up pants, socks & boots (no shirt!) and I would stand there assisting an engineer welding, laughing as the sparks flew off and hit my bare torso, wahhhhhaAHGGHSHSHHGGHH!

After 81 days, pulling into Joisey, that rust bucket finally broke down for good and I HUZZAHED as I danced off that gangplank, Dammit! I beat that sucker! I survived! I was like Ahab vs. Moby Dick or maybe Ishmael vs. the Pequod, but the point was: I won! I did NOT quit! I survived, I thrived, I not only endured but prevailed and sent that fuggin' ship from hell into drydock while I marched on, unvanquished! Triumphant! Victorious! Hallelujah on & on forever, amen!

A, AN, AMENDMENT

This fuggin' NaNoWriMo word count generator just gypped me out of fifteen hundred or so words, geeezus! So I only think it fair to whine & mope right here to all o' you as compensatory payback -- this may well be a pathetic interlude but it's fleshing out the word count gypped by NNWM, that beast as threatening as a HP Lovecraft monster: fie! Fie on you a thousand times! And you can't even count, neither, sheee-it!.....

Wait just one garsh darn minute, christ almighty on a cheese crumpet! My buddy mac here counts thirty one thousand and sixty seven words now and that cheapskate NNWM devil is only giving me twenty eight thousand, three hundred and sixty one?????? Dost this infernal reckoner realize this is a huge deviation of at least two thousand seven hundred and six words???!!!!

Waitaminnit -- I get it: NNWM [my own personal and infernal -- as well as semi-upside down -- YHVH!] is not counting the footnotes, the very grace and filigree of this whole document! Why, that is like not counting the coconut frosting on the German chocolate cake, not counting the 6 minute soliloquy at the end of Coltrane's "I Want to Talk About You", not count the sex with Miss VaVa BaBoom Delish after all your mates watched you sashay down the street into hotel room #23 with her! Not count the hand gestures accompanying an Italian conversation!!!

What else is an upside down YHVH but the very devil & dickens himself, no?!!

LET'S CALL THIS

Now, really: Novel Novel is NOT such a wonderful title, izzit? One supposes that there should be some modicum of creativity involved at the very outset, yes?!

Something more descriptive, perhaps, like A Method for Scribbling on a Computer, or How I Spent an Entire Month Bashing My Head into a Wall of Words or maybe something more succinct, like, Rubbish! or Tathagata or Thusness.

Though, somehow, this still doesn't convey the all-encompassing nature of the enterprise. It's also missing the particular meta nature of so much of this post-modernist conceit. Maybe, in that case, we should call it Underlined (or how about Underlined not underlined!!)

Italicized?

50,000 Words (more or less)

Great ExpectORations

My Very Precious and Personal Heart & Soul -- Go Ahead and Rip it Out & Stamp On It, I Don't Mind, Really!

Diary of a Goof* * With Goofy Asides!

The Title of the Novel

What You Cannot Live Without

Spurn Mere Air & Water: This is ALL You Need

How I Wasted My Time in November 2008

How to Repair Your Subaru, Find the Girl of Your Dreams & Get Rich Quick

What Happened While I Was Sitting Quietly at My Desk

Hey John! [or Mary!]: Check THIS Out!

The Da Vinci Code by John Grisham

Harry Potter, Eat Your Heart Out! You Only Wish You Could Be This Wonderful

The Meaning of Life-ishness

Bruce Greeley's Brain

IT

Not-IT

Whatevah'

YO! Look What I Found!

:

?

One Million Dollars

The Best Bestseller

NNWM vs. YHVH: The Final Showdown

What I Found the Month I Looked Within

Steal This Book Too

Kindling, or A Small Paperweight

The Holy Bibal

Sex, Drugs & Five Pounds of Flax

Fnords

I Don't Care If You Hate Me and My Book!

Now on Sale!

Half Off!

Free

I'll Pay YOU to Take This Furshlugginer

Maximum Inconsequentiality

This Title is False... (is False)... [is Kind of True?!]

Hey, shucks, this is going so well, maybe I can get to the rest of the 50,000 in book title ideas, how 'bout that?!

I couldn't get to sleep last night, here are some more:

Guess

Best of (a) BeeGee

Scratch Pap-- No: Toilet Paper!

The Genius' Grocery List

Carpal Tunnel the EZ Way

Symphony #23

How to Screw a Nut

50 Years Wasted Daydreaming

Heaven: A Traveler's Survival Kit

Don't Stop BeBleeding!

Wrunk & Stite's Elements in Style

Late for Breakfast

Old Diary Excerpts & Paradiddle Parodies

Not Nought (uh...Who's There?!)

I Killed NaNoWriMo!

This Title is False

Just Leave Me Alone, Willya?!

Bruce's Blood, Sweat & Tears -- oh, and Vomit

(That one when I thought of it while going to sleep last night had me shaking with laughter in bed --and waking up my wife -- wait, that gives me an idea):

I Woke Up My Wife for THIS?!

On Beyond On the Road...Beyond

Push Down While Turning

What's a Meta...?

The Month I Lost My Mind

The Seattle Times Times Two

Or to please both teen readers (or teen serving librarians) and {very} old fans of the New York Giants:

Y.A. Tit(t)le

The Return of the Son of Hamlet II: The Sequel

Like Water for Chocolate Elephants

Or what if I underline the entire text except for book titles? What would you call it then, hunh, hunh????!

ESCAPE!

"Infintessimal atoms of Adam, you are coalescing! Your frenetic Brownian motion is constituting a constitution! Who are you now, surrounded by all the books?!"

"Oh, darling inquisitive one, you can call me Marian the Librarian or perhaps Barbara Gordon, better known as Batgirl -- who was also a librarian! Or perhaps you'd prefer Alexandria or Rupert Giles or Eratosthenes or even Casanova, who, you know spent his last years also working away in those book-filled stacks!"

"So after all your wild adventures, & travels and hijinks, now you've basically just thrown in the towel and are just one of those stereotypical head-in-the-bun shhh'ers, eh?!"

"Oh, please, you formulaic parrot! (Or are you merely the perfect straight man?!) These hoary houses for books are a whole new bag now, you best believe it, yas, yas. Don't interrupt -- even with an extra quotation mark \-- and let me tell you all about it:

My first night working as a public librarian, a policeman tackled an insolent young woman right at my feet, yes, indeed! This was all due to this special program I was to begin hosting: ESCAPE!

ESCAPE! was an idea born in a community where a kid had been shot in a semi-urban parking lot: there was nothing for youths to do in our neighborhood!

So, rather than logically opening up a community center with basketball hoops and so forth, this library volunteered to stay open every Friday night until midnight (!) and I was to find programs and activities for the many misfits who didn't play sports or study conscientiously in a stable home.

How to attract the indigent, the oddball, the down & out, the freaks & geeks to a library on a weekend night? My quest was not just to think outside the box, but to burn that damn box down and never acknowledge its existence again!

Over the 2+ years that program ran, I brought in: tattoo artists, full decibel rock bands, Polynesian dancers, fortune tellers, soda pop distributors, hiphop acts (who even made up raps about me, Bruce Greeley, the guy who made fun in the library!), free haircuts, unicyclists, Kurt Cobain's aunt, traditional Cambodian folkdancing followed by breakdancing, CPR training, Junk Percussion workshops, Count Dracula, Klingons, storytellers, Dark Ages swordfighting, Magic: The Gathering role playing, poetry, the editor of MAD magazine, harmonica lessons, instant planetarium star tours, BMX'ers, Theatre of Liberation presentations, and in a grand coup that I will always treasure: the incomparable, inimitable sheerly flabbergasting Artis the Spoonman!

Playing the spoons may not sound like such a big deal, but Artis has turned this petty trick into a Monstrous Athletic Wunderkind of Gesamtkuntswerk, whoa! I first saw him play at a Bumberdrum percussion battle during Seattle's giant summer arts festival, Bumbershoot. Here he played spoons against an entire Japanese Taiko drum orchestra & played it to a draw!

With two (or 4 or 8) simple spoons, Artis will bend nearly in half, contorting his body to play these eating utensils against every body part in the rapidest rat-a-tat staccato, like a nervous woodpecker on mega-steroids! As I said when I first introduced him: you can argue all you want about who the best guitarist is, or the best basketball player or drummer or race car driver, but as far as spoons go, it is no contest at all: NO ONE can touch Artis for velocity, timbral variation, musicality and grace! THE GREATEST SPOONMAN EVER!

And, amazingly enough, this is not his only talent. In our library meeting room, Artis captivated the audience with poetry, unaccompanied soulful singing, and incredible bubble magic, like blowing bubbles that were square, and inside other bubbles! All the money that gets dumped into vacuous art (or even the military or whatever) and no one has come up with a genius grant for this singular gent?!!

AND the greatest thing about presenting all this wild variety of talent for ESCAPE! was that, no matter what I came up with, there were always library books and materials relevant to the program! (Artis even had his own book of poetry -- as well as a photo of him naked playing spoons on the back!)

You never have to pick a career as a librarian: every other career and possible avenue of expression is available to learn about, to help others discover, to dabble in!

"But you stopped doing that, didn't you? Now you're just a regular librarian?"

"Yes, yes, 'tis true, and we discovered that the Parks & Recreation could and should take up the mantle of vagrant wastrel services, no? Go ahead and install a few b'ball hoops: I could never adequately work out the athletic side within the library -- though, it's true we did host a few air guitar contests!

But, dontcha know, libraries are the last refuge for those without money, aren't they? You really can't hang out in any other store for long, and I guess too many are happy in the mall (but few w/o the ackers, eh?) -- and, hey, now we're putting libraries in those malls, too, how 'bout dem apples?!

So the public library has become the last resort for society's last resort. Who can forget Frank, pungent as any unwashed soul, who strolled about with his name and birthdate pasted on his forehead above his glasses?! This was -- he insisted -- so he cold easily find himself on the video recordings he was sure were being taken of him 24/7. Frank constantly caused havoc in our bathroom because he insisted on flushing down great sheaves of paper that he had printed off to make sure whatever secret agents or super spies wouldn't be able to retrieve. Neither could Frank ever hold a conversation without immediately descending into a good argument. "Good morning? What do you mean, good morning? What's so good about it, really...." and off we'd go.........

Then there's the gal (or man? as he/she appeared when entering the library one day) who long ago moved to Oregon but keeps calling us because "the libraries down there are no good." (Or maybe they're less tolerant somehow?!) One day she wanted to get into the phone sex business and so needed some phone numbers of these companies. One of our fairer librarians had to retreat into the back room before she could read off this contact info: "1-800- SUCK-ME" and the like!

Not too long after that she called back wanting the phone number for a psychic hotline.

"I could find that for you, but we needn't bother" I smartly replied.

"Why not?" she huffed.

"Because if they're any good at all, THEY'll be calling YOU in just a minute!"

WHAT'S THE OPPOSITE OF TRIVIA?!

One year, long about Christmastime, at the still tender age of 28, while I was traveling down under (and first getting to know this particular babe that has now become my wife!) I received a special letter from Pop (one which he had obviously sent to all four of his sons):

"Dear Gang,

What would Christmas be without something different, something unorthodox?

You can hear it now

100 questions and $100 to the winner.

Collusion is frowned upon and will be severely punished; however any attempt to bribe the judge is not only expected but encouraged.

So, away we go..."

And what followed was indeed 100 questions about our shared mythology growing up together. It was immense, it was amazing: to actually revisit all these growing-up stories, and make a trivia contest out of it!

Questions like:

  * What was the Golden Acorn award and who won it?

  * What did Dana weigh, 1970-1980?

  * Define "Pro-co-veev"

  * Who named our first boxer "Moshie"?

  * Name three girls Tav was in love with before 2nd grade.

  * Our milkman's name?

  * What's a corky tree? A Kennedy?

  * Explain "I like Xmas better than cousins"

  * Who do you reach if you call LI6-5431?

  * Translate "Wait for me come!"

  * Who was "Apfo"?

  * Name the whistle for each of the four boys & Mommie?

  * Explain "jus' for luffs"

etc.

GOOD LUCK & MAY THE BEST MAN WIN OR ?? MOMMIE??

ANSWERS BY 1-25-87 WOULD BE APPROPRIATE

P.S. The winner is obligated to do something similar for 1987!

And so other such contests continued annually:

  * Best yardline for Pop's tickets to the Huskies?

  * Best line Gordo used on a girl?

  * What is Sap's full name?

  * What were 'nose goop biscuits'?

  * Describe how and where Moose chipped his tooth

  * List the color of each boy's bunk bed at the cabin

  * What do you call someone who is always on time?

  * What did Hennessy Tennessy play?

  * What did not work in homemade milkshakes?

  * What was the '45' Bruce threw off the cliff?

  * What was the job list made out of?

  * Name two spellings for the Indian who sold the fireworks on the Lummi reservation

  * Name of the Aunt who fills the metamorphosis from Captain America to Aunt Butt

  * "Gramma, we're pretty good _______"

  * Who gave Mommy & Pop the picture that hangs above their bed?

  * How did Heidi's gramma die (theoretically)?!

  * What once hung from Scott's ceiling only to be thrown off the cliff on fire?

  * ORP -- Define

  * Who was Kaa?

  * Who was the first to the car after Bertha Mae Lake, or who won anything between Moose & Smane, or which is Sunrise & which Sunset, or who can do the most pushups, or who's the strongest, fastest or who is first?????!

Complete answers to all of these are printed in heaven, natch........

BUT, what other father initiated such questionnaires -- revisited such childhood trivia and resurrected it as Grand Family Mythopoetic Story now set in stone...?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Over 3/5th through this colossal endeavor, I think it's about time to consider certain addendums.....

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

What could possibly be added to this biography that hasn't already been thrown up on all these pages already?? Do you need to know more about moi?! Vraiment?! Well, shucks, I'd love to oblige but am also insulted that you didn't learn enough from all the drivel actually enclosed within these sheets....!

Well, 'veni, vidi, Velveeta': I came, I saw, dandy processed cheese spread...

How about just a nice photo of me instead, with, say, our dear cat Rafika reclined regally upon the couch -- yea, that could be good: so many readers love their cats....

Or maybe a swarthy pic of me holding back that line of tanks in China or, uh, with a Smith-Wesson & martini upon the beaches of Montego Bay (with only a discrete 2 or 3 bikinied darlings -- make sure one has glasses on for that intellectual touch, right?!)

Or maybe something like this could be updated (sent in to 25th high school reunion committee):

Education:

Primarily, I feel my education has come from the school of hard knocks: after Loomis, hitchhiking and hopping freight trains out in the oh-so-much wilder West, thence joining the Merchant Marines for 12 years, sailing the world, plus taking time to circumnavigate it on my own -- but then, in New Zealand, upon the glorious Routeburn track, I met my wife-to-be, Karen Louise, born in Kuwait, raised in Nigeria (yea, Fela!) but oh-so-veddy British! She's done her best to make me more, uh, 'honest'?, 'professional'?, 'reality-based'? since then: getting my BA & Master's Library degrees both from the University of Washington finally with a stint as a small-town newspaper reporter in between. Then a gig at the Moloch of Microsoft (yup: that's me solely thanked for "research assistance" on the CD-ROM accompanying Bill Gates' The Road Ahead) and now public libraries -- beginning with a three-year stint programming and running a teen program open till midnight.

But, now two remarkable little kiddies we have as well: Anastasia Grace and Duncan Maurice, who, like all children, are brilliant, extremely attractive and polite but also have more unique qualities: both awesomely courageous, and full of more exuberant fabulous personality than most adults I ever meet these days!! They are truly my 'raison d'etre' now.

We all now live within the same zip code in north Seattle that I grew up in.

Curiously, my hair is maybe a little longer than at Loomis, through a bit more silvery (no balding, though): I remember being proud getting my hair cut ultra-short on the Island in order to 'look more like a convict' though all my buddies had shoulder-length mops!

Accomplishments:

I've swum in the source of the glacier-fed river Ganges in northern India guaranteeing my entry into Nirvana; I had to buy my way out of a wedding in Western Samoa with a couple bags of groceries; I've seen, even touched, St. Elmo's fire aboard a boom freighter bound for Central and South America; I collected some of my supposedly humorous newspaper column blurbs into a book, The Best of Local Angle, now ensconced in the Special Collections of esteemed libraries everywhere; I fell unconscious after tumbling off a 30-foot cliff onto rocks into the turbulent winter Pacific Northwest coast ocean, until saved by what must have been an angel; I survived a marathon session in Jamaica with some ganga-stoked rastas; I've climbed Mt. Olympus, Mt. Sinai and Mt. Rainier and beheld the Motherland's radiant Armenian Ararat from not so great a distance; I found classmate Strook Taggart twice by luck out on the streets (and concert hall) of teeming NYC; I've bungee jumped, parachuted, hangglided & survived the tuk-tuks of Bangkok; I'm a member of Mensa, Phi Beta Kappa and several other of those left-brain, hung-up organizations; I've captivated a boatload of Indonesian strangers on the ferry between Java & Sumatra as the sole disco dancer with my fiancée; I too have seen the best of my generation sell out or give up, throwing aside the dreams of youth; most miraculously, I sit here quietly by myself, doing nothing...; I serenaded, nay, captivated a Bavarian lass shut up inside a Jerusalem nunnery from atop the Old City wall on bamboo saxophone; when the pseudo Love Boat I was working on in Hawaii (as Able-Bodied Seaman) caught on fire and they were off-loading the 1300+ on board, I descended into the hold with oxygen breathing apparatus and single-handedly put the (rather tepid) blaze; I was singled out for praise in the prestigious Jazz Journal for 'out-jazz' reviews I penned; I witnessed a kaleidoscopic hypnotic drum & dance sing-sing spectacular by locals less than one generation removed from cannibalism in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea while scores of miles distant from the nearest other 'tourist'; and now I've thoroughly embarrassed myself spilling overdone naked breast beatings of ego braggadocio here ('[the fellow] doth protesteth too much, methinks'!)

Reflections:

I'm afraid I recall my time at Loomis as the proverbial line about the '60's: 'If you can remember them, you weren't there!' Yes, they were the formative years, but beyond some hazy Buddhism lessons with JP Bermon, vices first explored in the once-Big Apple, or marathon truth-discovering episodes with comrades ever to the soundtrack of the inimitable Grateful Dead, specific details are a-fading fast...

Sorry, I can't make the latest reunion, keep me posted on the 30th.....& beyond!

-/:}>

Bruce "SOB" Greeley

\----------

This was not so unlike a couple of postcards sent back to the Loomis Alumni bulletin -- from far-flung corners of the globe:

"from Kathmandu's Kal Bhairav (God of Terror) AKA Ed U. Kayshin ~

Cancel my subscription to the resurrection, I've found Shangri-la  the central chakra of JPB's Alan Watts' Mystic East (& Pete Stevens' + Mrs. Moore's Marabar Caves coming up ~ OU-BOUM) --

Scratch me into the ol' Alumni Bulletin:

. Q: What am I doing? A: When hungry, I eat. When tired, I sleep.

SO AHAM ASMI!

Studying tantric chthonics + serial (to the 1.916 power) lost chord composition from Yeti's wife, Maria Ouspenskaya, pilot of the 8000+ m. transchromatic bobsled run on Mt. Chomolongma ("Mother Goddess of the World") + cracking the cure for schizophrenia-AIDS-common cold.

SHANTIH,

St. Theolonious Avalokitesvara Tzara, Archdruid, '75"

Or from central Papua New Guinea:

Asaro Mudmen...

"Greetings Alumni! ~

An update report: re Papua New Guinea, 'the last unknown' -- updating Malinowki's research on the yam fertility cult of the Trobriand Islands (pornographic anthropology), revitalizing the dynamic Sepik River art w/ the introduction of d@Da + surrealist elements (founding the 'limp watch' school of mask work), trekking through the most impenetrable jungle where I found Rockefeller's skull as a paperweight in a cannibal's hut, translating Finnegans Wake into Neo-Melanesian (pidgin English), converting fanatical missionaries to zen druidism \+ thus pacifying tribal warfare-happy natives who now meditate on albino orchids + turning these Asaro mudmen onto free jazz.

Thank you,

Bruce "Klutch Kargo" Greeley, 1975 (A.D. of the alleged Xtian era)

NOVEL 2.0

So, heh, you call this a novel, hunh? Sheeeee-it, this ain't nuttin' but a lotta drivel, a heapin' passel of folderol...it's a poor man's blog, yea: a blognovel, a twitternovel, a mere flikr of a novel.

"Yep, that's IT! It's the Novel 2.0, the whole next phase in literature, quite beyond anything that has come before! It's fresh, it's new, it's revolutionary... & lemon fresh scented as well!

Hey, pssst, come over here! Come close, I've got a secret: what I really hope to do is spawn a virus and let this novel propagate across all the Internet, yahahahahahah! Soon, everywhere you turn or type: Google, Amazon, Facebook, THERE will be Novel Novel (or whatever furshlugginer title I settle on for this sucker & a ½.....), happily replicating throughout the cyberspace planetary Gestalt, impossible to avoid and thus part & parcel of every goshdarn thing you ever do, for now and forever, amen, ah-choo & ah-so!.....

ILL USING

"Unky, are you gonna Ream us? Are you gonna---"

"Stop, chilluns, stop, and let's go:

we jumped into my souped-up Vapour Grey metallic x-j Jaguar automatic six-speed suspension with electronic traction control, four wheel ABS, fine molehair triple bucket seats, refurbicated dry pinion ossifier with slim cams and 7,023 hpgs under the hood.

I was wearing my herringbone sapsucker doublebreasted flimflam suit with pleated shoulders over a gabardine cardigan boxer shorts ensemble with matching chartreuse -----

"Hey, stop it!"

"What?"

"Why, that's no fair!"

"What is? What's a matter?"

"Geez, you've spent much more loving time describing your car and clothes than you've even given to us! Man, they don't even know what sex I am, I'm just one of your generic young children asking stupid questions to further this non-story along!

But, Christopher Hopscotch Erroneous Fitch! I'm so sorry, I'm only too happy to list all your salient features and---oops, dreadfully sorry, but I've reached my word limit for the day and must say goo'nite now! Maybe next time! Jolly good, pip pip and all that, tally ho, what?!

CH-CH-CH-CHANGES

"Hey, Proteus! You are so adaptable, so alterable, how can you morph so?!"

"Well, 'tis true, I rekkin: guess that's how I found librarianship so appealing, serving each member of the public that comes up to the reference desk no matter who, and maybe the roots of this flexibility extend back to the days of hitchhiking and adapting infinitely well to each car and driver that stopped for me, whether stoner, businessman or lonely girl....!

But wait \-- I can give you two swell examples of how I seamlessly adopted different characters to fit into the radically different local worlds that I was encountering -- both did after all involve thumbing as well -- will the real Bruce Greeley please stand up....is there one after all, Zelig?!"

The first example is far back in the distant past, as early as summer of 1978, I was now out of high school, had completed a year and a smidgen of local college, in fact, but did not cotton to that sort of thing just yet....I was dishwashing in a restaurant in the tallest building in Bellingham, and looked out over the harbor, dreaming of sailing away on those proud ships that passed by....

Was in fact heavily influenced by a coupla books, both high & low brow, urging me to flee to sea: Irwin Shaw's Rich Man, Poor Man (and especially the tv mini-series with Nick Nolte as the quasi-bad boy who also found some sanctuary in the deep blue on ships) but also Eugene O'Neill's powerful & excruciating The Glass Menagerie especially as Tom so exquisitely extracts himself from this dysfunctional family by splitting to join the Merchant Marine.....

I'd actually walked the Seattle docks seeking method to get on board and there was told I should apply to the aforementioned school of seamanship in Piney Point Maryland, which I subsequently did.

And so, while waiting for word of admission, I hightailed it by thumb to the environs of Vail Colorado, where my 3 best buddies from Loomis were passing their own time, skiing, restauranting & partying: lanky loquacious & speedy Stoo (already discussed at length through serendipitous meeting in NYC); curly haired reticent & cynical non-nonsense Dave out from Massachusetts; and the handsome sly Androo McShewst, whose cozy A-frame I squatted in. But this was the excess of the '70s -- such as when I went down to get paid off for my own last days of restaurant work, and the boss opened up his desk drawer for cash and had to unroll several bills -- still nearly flecked with white dust -- to pay me off the difference....Yep, the nose snow, and lots of good weed & endless nights of beer & wine & booze and I bounced off the walls partaking in all this with the best of 'em. But then, allasudden, I took myself away to one state south: the Bodhi Mandala Zen Center in Jemez Springs, New Mexico where my ol' pal Steve Mull was seeking enlightenment in multiple 3 -hour zazen sessions....Steve Mull, about 10 years my senior, who I'd first met as we worked together at the Lake Crescent Lodge in beautiful Olympic National Park, continuously on the road to satori, and here I thought I was just going to pop down and visit...?!

I was thrust headlong into their monk schedule of good hard work and multiple hour sessions of sitting....only spent a week or less but came down with a tremendous hallucinating bug of fever freak outbreak -- how was my body to adjust to all this waxing and waning...?!

So, g'bye Steve, thanks for the instant karma -- back to the hedonism of the square state, and here I learn that, yes, I have been accepted into the Merchant Marine school and so hit the road (by thumb, naturally!) for this next stint.

A tricky speedy hitch and now thrust right into a semi-military boot camp for the three month course: had to cut my hair, adopt a blue jean uniform and march around like I meant it! My peers all examples of the splendid dropouts and wastrels this nation is so good at producing -- I a definite alternative kettle of fish, but put up with it, I did, found the sideways path where I could do a kind of late-night guard duty and so get out of all the silly marching with my fellow proto-Republicans. But, in short, I survived, right? From one kind of discipline (zen frugality) to another (military discipline) with an exact opposite in between (rampant hedonism)....ahh!

Similarly, several years later -- in fact, upon the very same occasion which spawned my tattoo: I'd just gotten off this giant container ship from the Far East, where every other word uttered had to be a fuck or shit\-- having basically just lost my virginity with a couple of twins in Taiwan and was hanging on in the Frisc' (SF), cutting out for a quite avant contemporary classical music concert, & was of a sudden waylaid by an unusual lass, one Margery Fibrazio, aka Vincent de Luna, crazed mysterious musician, over twice my age, but a doyen of the harpsichord, wearer of wild masks, character nearly from Fowles' Magus and so I soon joined her circle, sipping my cups wif' automatic poets and vagabonds with beards of hidden surprises, lying under keyboards while hyp-tonic (W)holograms droned on amidst light shows and incense.

This dabbling was fun as well but it was time for me to head homeward: Seattle or Bust and though I had a heap of dollar bills in my pocket I chose to beg for rides once again. In not too long down the way, got a ride with a friendly trio who even invited me back to their, uh, sort of, commune.

I assented and was soon on a remote farm surrounded by a bunch of way-too-cloying sycophants, powerfully religious in some undefined way. I sat through some sappy lectures and then washed about a billion dishes because I claimed I had no money....escaped to a nearby hillside when I could to rant and rave to the stars about what a bunch of miserable dunderheads all these guys were, how little, say, Nietzsche, would dig these unquestioning sheep and how this was the opposite of what our goal should be: that it's not enough to merely be happy, you've got to have some gumption behind all that too, some meat, some oomph -- there should be some thought & reflection & inquisitive passion and curiosity involved. ANYWAYS, the next morn I did escape and continued my thumb outa there...quite a few days later I received a letter from one of my main, uhm, 'sponsors' from that queasy center, and it turns out they were all, in fact, MOONIES!!!

No lie, and nice that I got away with a whole mind, whilst I could!

....& still I morph & turn about.....

HEAR & NOW

My thought bone connected to my metacarpals descending upon these lettered keys staccato out an indescribably diverse & manifold panoply of words, some of which e'en lead to ideas, descriptions, thoughts, objects, items, artifacts, whatsits, whatchamacallits, thingamabobs, doohickeys, doodad dada doo-dah day......................

What sheer pomposity! What utter bombast! What crushingly huge ego, dredging up all this self-contained diary-a, maybe I could include another real character or 3 once in a while....?!

...Save for uh-xample, The-o-o-o-lonely-us Spherious Monk-alacious [cue the ree-ree-ree-ree of Bill & Ted's air guitar licks] ....I'd welcome a nice ol'-l-l-l-l-l-l nightttttmay-errrrr.....

\-------

once more with feeling:

Q: What's the most miraculous thing in the world?

A: Sitting here quietly, typing nothing!

.....and so 'tis, indubitably....Do not forsLake me, oh my darling!.....

"I laughed and laughed, while my foot still trembled, and my heart as well. "Here forsooth, is the home of all the paintpots,"—said I.

With fifty patches painted on faces and limbs—so sat ye there to mine astonishment, ye present-day men!

And with fifty mirrors around you, which flattered your play of colours, and repeated it!

Verily, ye could wear no better masks, ye present-day men, than your own faces! Who could—RECOGNISE you!

Written all over with the characters of the past, and these characters also pencilled over with new characters—thus have ye concealed yourselves well from all decipherers!

And though one be a trier of the reins, who still believeth that ye have reins! Out of colours ye seem to be baked, and out of glued scraps.

All times and peoples gaze divers-coloured out of your veils; all customs and beliefs speak divers-coloured out of your gestures.

He who would strip you of veils and wrappers, and paints and gestures, would just have enough left to scare the crows.

Verily, I myself am the scared crow that once saw you naked, and without paint; and I flew away when the skeleton ogled at me.....

  * XXXVI. THE LAND OF CULTURE. Too far did I fly into the future: a horror seized upon me. - Nietzsche - Thus Spake Zarathustra

\----------------

366/500s = 183/250 ~ ~ 36/50 = 18/25 ~ 3/4 = .73384 = .73424 ∞∞∽∽≡※♭ㆅ〠㉓㉓㉓㉓㈎動Ю

22/30 = 11/15 = .73333333333333

(this is how much I am now ahead of my deadline of 50,000 before December 1!)

\----------

So much more could be fleshed out, I know, I know, this is all so skeletal and these ghosts will never come alive, there's no depth to anything, and it's all the merest glance upon my world -- what an achievement in and of itself to write so many words upon the screen and list all the manifold superficialities, and yet fail to give you any reason to care, any inkling of who I am, what this is all about, and most especially of anyone else in this empty wide world I live in.....

vs. NNWM again

Help! I'm trapped inside this room here, being forced to type out a novel before the month is over! Help! Somebody get me out of here! Big glowering NaNoWriMo is brooding over in the corner, probably grumpy cuz his name sucks so bad....but he won't let me leave and I am compelled to keep prattling on, rattling on, rambling man, man alive -- shucks, do we ever have a live one on hand now, golly gee willikers ....but, hey there, Mr. NaNoWriMo, sir: how about a little r 'n' r -- rest & relaxation or rock & roll, i'm not fussy, you gotsta give me a break, maaaaaaan, i'm not a machine, I don't just churn out ultimate genius novels lickety split, at the drop of the hat, on the spur of the moment -- let me OUT, & let me breathe, and I promise I'll return with all kinds of great ideas to keep this baby rollin'.....ok?.....'k?

Wait, I got an idea, take a few of these here writer's blocks, stack 'em up, that's the trick, oooo, some of these are pretty heavy.....gadzooks, this is turning into a regular tower of babel/babble -- c'mon, baby, get on up there, now if I just clamber up on top of 'em, that's the trick, yes, yes,

"The journey of a 1000 miles begins with a single step" ....ah so, grasshopper, and just so....now I can peer down upon the ant-like populace, what meager germs, what petty commonplaces obsess all these bugs, ha...

all except that damned NaNoWriMo who hasn't left my side -- NaNoWriMo, listen!: I know you've got that staunch solicitude, your oh-so-goody-goody perfect posture and rigid moral comeuppance, I knew the first time I saw you with your unblemished steely grey eyes, sallow pallor and goofball grin that I was gonna be in for the ride of my life, but, whoa Nelly!, little could I have guessed....

Your stiff gait and awkward demonstrativeness gave me the first inkling of just what I should watch out for, and the way you led me on, seemingly effortlessly and yet inexorably drawing me into your own weird twisted game, now I see the plan you had designed all along! It was no fair that you eased my fears with your patchwork coat and slack-jawed expression, your knowledgeable airs and spit-polished debonair gracelessness -- how could I have been such a fool to fall for it! NNWM, you give me no choice but to drive the shaft and cut the bolt loose, sever the ramshackle tethers to base reality and goose this sucker, find the next express to the infinite!

Because, really, lissen!: if anything is possible then how about unleashing simply everything! Bring on the midgets with ingrown toenails, the laughing omnibuses of flim-flam men in plaid pyjamas, let the dishwashers fly and the clouds burrow underground, where are the erroneous pincushions and the tetherball courts with one eye shut, the octopi on Broadway, the stormfeathers in the foxtrot soup?

I want the femme fatale to marry the big red dog, the dashing hero to slip on the banana peel of regrets and fall down the stairs of no tomorrow, and let's have Godot finally, for real, show himself: c'mon, big guy, front & center, where & who & when & why & how the hell are you anyway, feller...?! Meet NNWM here, betchoo could become real pals....

Why can't they live happily ever after before the wicked witch casts her spell? Why not kiss the frog, bite the apple, sleep on the pea, and climb up the hair of our hair-oine (ha), all before the crooked robot rolls the dice and craps out in Ever-Neverland's Las Vegas?

Do I mean it? You bet! Surreally, I do, with gumdrops & porcupine quivers -- cuz great gosh almighty, I've never had so much fund in my rife!

Interview with the Author [to be included in the afterword]

Q: So, tell me, BG, how did you come to pen this special novel?

A: Don't you give me any of that blather! I know what you're up to and you won't get away with it, do you hear me? Let me outa here!

Q: Aha, very interesting, and did this take you long to create?

A: The gestation period of the blue whale is 10-12 months and my novel is bigger than any one of them, now in'it? This book has been worked on since the beginning of time!

Q: And when did you think to include NNWM himself in this and was he, she or it flattered?

A: Cut it out, willya?! You can't simultaneously write the questions and expect me to come up with an answer with any skein of spontaneity.

Q: And what are your plans now? Will you be going on a book tour to promote this?

A: I'm going to find a church key and break outa here, is what I'm going to do.

Q: What about that sudden switch to 4th person in \---

A: -- in the 3rd section, when Sylvia Peabody discovers an inheritance from the Grand Duchess of Balchusistan? Don't think I didn't see that question coming! Well, let me tell ya: I ain't talking, see, and there's nothin' you can do about it...

Q: Thanks very much for your time, BG, and I hope we get to read the next book in the series very soon.

A: You want me to say thank you, too, now, I suppose? Will that help maintain the ridiculous patina of believability so that this fiction's presumptuousness may continue?

Q: You don't have to be so mean!

A: That wasn't a question \-- ha: gotcha!

Q: waaaah, Mommmy!

A: Well, I think that worked out rather nicely now, didn't it?

Q: Hey, do you know what time the next #28 bus stops here?

A: Do not worry, my friend: the bus will come when it is time for it to arrive.

Q: and what about Naomi anyway?

A: After a chess game, the king and queen are put back into the same box.

Q: Hey, I'm a bit peckish, got any nibbles to eat around here?

A: A great thing about getting older: on a sinking boat you'll be saved with the women and children.

Q: Why, you've \--

A: W, X, Y, Z.

Q: What is the way?

A: TH-WACK! Outside, fool!

WED IN

"Well, now, Aunty Uncle Re-Remiss, you're sure dressed up fancy today. You going to a wedding or sumpin'?"

"Ah weddings, yes! Those have indeed been special occasions, to be sure! Why it was at Scott's wedding that I met the Swede, Mari, captivated her with my pheasant/peacock feathered tie from Taiwan, snake belt from Bangkok, super manic plaid socks, Carnegie Hall usher's coat, and fevered tales about hopping freight trains.

'Twas then at my youngest brother David's rehearsal dinner for their wedding that I unveiled salute after salute keeping the great round table in stitches.

Like so:

First, standing slowly, "David & Suzanne! I would like to make a toast!" and then proceeded to pull out a piece of toast from my pocket which duly was passed around (only madman Jamie, opposite, dared bite a piece out of said bread!)

Thence: "David et Suzanne, j'espere vous avez la plus grande vie...uhh...together....well, guys, that was my French toast!"

Again: "Ahem, I was going to mail my salutations to you but that would have been a post toastie"

And then when Suzanne nee Hatch's parents left the grand affair a bit early, I dropped the best bombshell of all:

"Yes, my friends, it is so sad that Suzanne's folks have retired for the evening, but it was not unpredictable -- for you know the old saying:

'Don't count your Hatches before they've chickened out!!!'"

And with that a grand cymbal crash resounded over the hall, deafening us all, and a discrete long white cane sneaked out from behind the curtain and snatched me right away, off stage, into Purgatory, running for my strife....

One last zinger occurred at Dana's wedding to Katrina nee Sharon.

"Are you going to keep your maiden name," I innocently inquired of the bride, with everyone listening in.

"No, Bruce, I will become a Greeley, too -- alas!" she answered, all chipper.

"So, then, you will no longer be Sharon, eh?" HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

As inscribed above, Karen and I have now had three weddings on three continents, and, in fact, have 5 anniversaries, counting the day we met and the day we first, ahem, kissed!

The one grand affair in England was quite the rigamarole, what with my own entire family of brothers, wives and parents showing up too. This big deal took place in an 11th century church (mentioned in the Domesday Book), down in cozy West Sussex.

I shoulda known there might be trouble, when, in the very Rolls Royce obtained for the drive from church to reception -- one of the rare moments when my dearest actually found time to give me a little one-on-one -- she chose instead to focus on quizzing our makeshift chauffeur -- yes, really!

And so now, all these years later, we are facing off over this particular curious 16-page questionnaire filled with nosy inquiries such as:

  * Thoughts of divorce occur to me very frequently, as often as once a week or more. TRUE? FALSE? Year it began to be true?

  * We are staying emotionally connected or becoming emotionally distant --

this problem is: perpetual or situational/solvable

A problem or not a problem?:

Just simply talking to each other

Staying emotionally in touch with each other.

Feeling taken for granted.

Don't feel my spouse knows me very well right now.

Spouse is (or I am) emotionally disengaged.

Spending time together.

  * We are in synchrony on basic values and goals

  * We are coping well with issues of power and influence

  * Spouse has become more domineering

  * Spouse is 'spacey,' not a strong force in the marriage.....and

  *

LOVE MAPS

I can tell you some of my partner's life dreams.

I know what my partner would want to do if he or she suddenly won the lottery.....and

NEGATIVE PERSPECTIVE

I thought, "My partner has no right to say those things."

I took my partner's complaints as sleights....and

FLOODING

I feel like running away during our fights....and

SHARED MEANINGS QUESTIONNAIRE

HONORING EACH OTHERS DREAMS

We see eye-to-eye about the role of TV in our home....and

IN THE PREVIOUS WEEK, HOW MUCH WERE YOU DISTRESSED BY:

23 Suddenly scared for no reason

58 Heavy feelings in your arms or legs

85 The idea that you should be punished for your sins

90 The idea that something is wrong with your mind...and

YOU OR YOUR SPOUSE IN THE PAST YEAR/EVER HAPPENED

g. Cried

n. Kicked, bit, or hit with a fist

r. Used a knife or gun

s. Other....and

SEXUAL COERCION SUB-SCALE

My partner makes me engage in sexual practices I consider perverse....and

DEGRADATION SUB-SCALE

I'm worried most when my partner is quiet........................................

Kee-riminy! Why not just ask when I stopped beating my wife....!

Time to wash my brain out with soap, shucks!

T.T.

Tap tap tapping, typing away, tip top tripping, traipsing, trolloping, tipping, tap tap typing, typecasting, tarpaulin, inTerpreting, topping, Taiping, tropes trolling, perps trapping, sTepping, typing, taping, troops trooping, tipping, tepid, topping, TP, schTupping, sTopping, stirrup, ticious, type type tapping........
BOOK 'EM

But what place may this handsome volume reside in all the most illustrious libraries, henh?! I've already inspected the shelves at my local house of books, not sure how satisfactory I find the natural placement therein. I mean, to say, that there is all too much Grafton and Grisham about; how may we adequately squeeze this Greeley in between? Especially when it is encased within only the most tasteful faux molehair hide, and bound lovingly by an encasement of virgin hemp. Might the too plebian common novels surrounding taint its very exquisiteness?! Perhaps I might request a sort of substitute atlas stand to be placed within fiction in all libraries, something for this book to sit upon as a sort of regal overseer, henh?! We certainly don't want this anywhere near that {sniff} Andrew Greeley drivel, now do we?

Yes, an atlas stand and then we might as well add an additional (subtle) reading lamp, you know, a sort of swell mellow light to add a special patina to the whole display, a kind of halo to offset the dross of most common (henh) fiction. Yea, there ya go.

I wonder then if we shouldn't then just expect a special alcove to be added to all fiction shelves -- I can see there might be added expense, but certainly this would be worth it, wouldn't it?! Nothing too large, you understand, but simply a little separate nook for this unique title, as well as, ummmm, no, best to leave it with this only, I think we may forego any special seating arrangement.

Would these alcoves then gain a rarefied status and perhaps all share a type of unique bond? \-- mayhaps, all these libraries-within-libraries could facilitate a form of interlibrary consortia; I can see fascinating exchanges in trading these books between branches, it may be that the different editions could prove illuminating or one might find edification to hold each Bruce Greeley book as so many other Great Minds residing in each community obviously would have before one....

& might not the Internet itself and all other knowledge, thought or written expression simply fade into obscurity & extraneousness once this book gets its proper shelving? If we can construct a faithful concordia, I can see how the right kind of indexer could establish how Bruce Greeley's book might serve as substitute for all sorts of encyclopedias, almanacs, dictionaries, how-to books of lovemaking, nautical guides, photo albums, animalpedias, books of grammar, graphic novels, folktales, guides for ESL students, dream interpretations, thesauri, brontosauri, when-I-poke-you-you'll-have-a-sauri, fantasy series, choral song collections, Bullfinch's mythology, cookbooks, diet books, polar works of adventure, compendiums of color, joke books, alphabet primers, conspiracy theories, and books about tartan plaids.

To find another 300 words to make my count for the day is simply not possible and I shall not even stay up another instant to make the quota, it doesn't matter, no, no, no, and this carpal tunnel is acting up again and there's work and student conferences and bed and bills and dreams and I gotta gas up the car and there's probably more dishes and is that the cat crying and I'm tired, gawd, I'm tired and yet still still still, the clock keeps ticking on: less than one week to go and how can I do it? How much more mash and mush can one spew out...? From whence may more words manifest?

Can this novel reinvigorate the economy? Can it find peace in our time? Will it give us universal health coverage? Can it cure racism, save lives, heal the sick, stop random violence, fix my gutters, salve our wounds, solve the mysteries, swerve out of the ditch, swatch the timepieces?

But it's bedtime, and sometimes one has to pull up the stakes and call it a night, call the hand and fold, turn off the lights, the party's over, wash the day's dust off, turn down the heat, cool one's jets, tamper the flame, crumble the cookies, and whatever you do, don't forget the immortal words of that sage of all sages, that Beatific Bard of Bodaciousness, Cool Hand Luke:

"Sometimes nuthin' is a pretty cool hand."

Really? Really? You're gonna call it quits even when the finish line is within sight, just up around that next bend, only the merest handful of words left to spill, dontcha want to break the big 4-0, that would really be the icing, now, yes? That would really flambeau the meretricious custard -- imagine, 4/5th down, and one swell, deep tasty fifth to go, a week, a fifth, a whim, a

40,014! 80.028%

NANOWRIMO REDUX

I was having this intellectual discussion with one of the Three stooges -- you know, the serious violent one with the mop top haircut, and he was getting all cynical and sardonic with me, but that's o.k., I was kind of playing the librarian role, answering his questions in a sort of rapid fire style, and making sure to throw in his name with a unique modifier even -- and then he threw this scientific question at me:

"What's that technical prefix term for a billionth, anyway?"

And I of course had to answer:

"Nano, wry Moe!"

"Oh, so think you're pretty clever, eh? Eh?"

But no, I was not to be drawn in to be poked in the eye like Curly or Larry so he settled down and we went back to our little tete-a-tete, trading special epithets back and forth. For some reason we turned to poetry:

"So, Broo, ever write any verse-o? Ever go for composing a song-o? A piece of doggerel-o, even?

"Naa, no rhyme-o!"

"Christ on a crumpet, Broo, what the holy fug, maan."

Turning inconsolate, Moe then pulled out his little virtual pet, a kind of tamagotchi-ripoff. He was really fond of this baby item, they were nearly inseparable. Moe said he was even teaching it how to bake bread (using really simple language). But it kept making mistakes with the amounts of ingredients to add.

"Look at this, Broo:

'Wheat: less!'

'Flour: less!'

No, Nano: Rye mo'!

groaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan

THIS IS THE STORY OF THIS IS THE STORY OF THIS IS THE STORY OF THIS IS THE STORY OF THIS IS THE STORY OF THIS IS THE STORY OF THIS IS THE STORY OF

(how long is this good for, NaNoWriMo motha'????!)

CRETE

"Foundling/sprite/muse/straight man, want to hear about when I was king, when I ruled the roost, was at my very most peak, Mr. Extrovert, Bon Vivant, Man about Town, and that rot?"

"Nahh, not really"

"......?......."

"Ha, SpelUnkle, just kiddin'! Please spill..."

"Well, this was back in the dark ages, prehistoric times, during my first big circumnavigation of the planet, 1982 & 3. It was getting a bit wintery-ish and so I thought to get myself to the southernmost place in Europe: Crete in Greece. However, it turned out to be the coldest winter in 50 years down there too, oh well.

I found myself in Rethymnon working for 800 drachmas a day {a pittance!} picking olives and oranges and the like, but the farmer did have a room for me complete with a fireplace and dry place to sleep. This also included a plate of runny eggs in the morning and the noisiest continuously crowing rooster but that was all by the by; you see, this just might have been my first semi-owned place of residence, as well, and I was proud of it.

I was still nursing my broken heart from Mari, while yet still ogling every European sweetie I could espie as I went about my business. Staying out in this farm instead of in town amongst the bustle and gossip of the coffee shops in town was lonely and kind of sad.....

I went to work on some occult-ish magick, as I had some throw away paperback book of spells or what have you: I wove together some strands of line from olive sacks together, and gathered together a bunch of colored beads I'd picked up from somewhere or other and then chanted some random incantations cobbled together from some ersatz Aleister Crowley in front of the roaring fire -- naked, of course. What I was asking for, naturally, was to find a sweetie, I was so-o-o aching for love, and I gave myself one month to accomplish this!

Then I put this necklace around my neck and forgot about it, kept pining & mooning after the damsels but who wouldn't -- in this island of charmers just vaulting into Spring?!!

After a couple of weeks, I moved on to nearby Hania and here, at the local youth hostel, I fell headlong into a tremendous Renaissance of like minds, where we were all determined to enjoy life to the fullest. There were English and Germans and Swiss and Canadians and damn few Americans and especially those Scandinavians, lawdeeee!

The Swedes were out in force, lapping up the sun & the surf & the wine, so buxom I thought of dairy cows (!), but so overall beautiful too, and so eager to shed their garments and hang-ups, their reservations and hesitations!

I had never had much success with the ladies (outside of a few strange interludes) but here I ended up with four damsels from 3 countries (UK, US & 2 Swedes) in 9 days, finishing off with Tanja, a tall, so sleek, deep mahogany cool-as-a-cucumber dazzler and I was like a kid in a candy shop, uvula-deep into French kissing all over town.

And this town became my fiefdom: suddenly hailed by tourists and local Greek washerwomen alike everywhere I went with "Kalimera, d@Da!"

Yep, my name was not mud, but dAD@, since I was knee-deep in wine and raki and my own restraint and interior seatbelts had long been discarded so I pulled out all the stops and delighted in the nonsensical and insane, which I duly instilled upon the populace:

"There are three rules here:

#1 There are no rules

#2 You have to wear a hat

#3 You don't have to wear a hat if you don't want to....."

and so on.....

For the first time on my travels, I threw away my guidebook, I set aside my lists of all the special places all groovy tourists are supposed to see here & there, and just hung out with the international band of wastrels, at the beach, in the clubs, in the bars.

I even taught them "Exquisite Corpse" as simply something to pass the time & make us thirsty: writing a line of poetry on a paper, folding it over and passing it around for everyone to continue this blind verse -- I think Tanja hated it, but lieberasi!

Tony "Cueball" Harrison, [I nicknamed him for his bald pate], the genius Englishman addicted to birding and Mahler, introduced us to henbane, a nearly forgotten mild numb hallucinogenic leaf that, mayhaps, Socrates and Aristotle chewed for fun and inspiration.

Cueball who also singlehandedly encapsulated the difference between the English and American language with one simple aphorism:

He had been to America and was struck by the short phrase affixed to our garbage cans (right there a telling note, as they are snootily referred to as dustbins in the Old Country, you know {sniff}). In England, next to these dustbins, there is often a quite officious sign:

"Please deposit refuse in the receptacle provided" which is all fine and dandy but what Cueball saw on the American sign were two words:

"Pitch it!" Just so and that will suffice quite nicely, thank you! Pitch it! That's all you need! Perfectissmo!

However, weeks of partying finally dribbled away + then Tanja's two sisters flew down to join us (all beautiful naturally, I immediately dubbed them the Three Graces, or Aglaia, Euphrosyne and Thalia!), and we finally went somewhere on the island hiking the longest gorge in Europe, the gorge of Samaria.

But al these quaint details are all still simply leading up to the whole point of the story! At the bottom of this gorge, we all ended up frugging wildly at an outdoor disco, and after hours of such passion finally collapsed in various states of undress and distress all about these gentle fields.

And it was then, and only then, after conquering womankind nearly in toto(!), as I was about to leave this island, yes, with Tanja, on to Turkey, just about precisely one month after I had first donned this necklace, that I was startlingly awoken in the morning by a donkey biting said medallion off from around my neck, chewing it up thinking it was some kind of food as I slumbered hung over.

I AM STILL trying to put together the mythological significance of the donkey, whether he was Bottom out of "A Midsummer's Night's Dream" [which is not a bad title for this entire episode, note!] or Sancho Panza's mighty steed or was I just making an ass of myself, or what...?!!!

And so, Tanja and I trained up to that crossing place 'tween Europe and Asia -- Istanbul (is Constantinople now) and she tolerated my strange tourist style a short while, then agreed to meet me in Israel....

'Twas not to be a later reunion, alas, but note that when I did finally arrive in the Holy Land and settled down on a kibbutz, my two English roommates (obsessed with getting 'blurred' -- or shit-faced out of their mind at every possible chance) were talking all about the fun they'd had only scant days previous, kept referring to this Swedish bird that was with them before she came down with heat stroke. Finally I asked what was the name of this lass...? ......Tanja.....

oh nooooo! oh yes, it was the same -- what synchronicity, no? what powers of love to somehow have me discover her story through this one-time removed retelling! [Naah, she'd never really write me, not her style, I rekkin] And so, I went on with another broken heart, limping along, oh tha's alright, don't worry about me.....I'll be fine [sniff] gosh!

ETS!

So now, here I sorta am -- creativity through the written word only re-emerging after eons through that bastid NaNoWriMo...(!)... save for the occasional doggerel, such as the April Fool's issue of "Eat the State" an enlightened, super-leftwing rag of which I've been compiling the calendar for, over the last couple of years:

FRIDAY, APRIL 4

Start of Hate Week (through April 10). Recognizes the day on which the fictional character Winston Smith started his secret diary and wrote the words DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER on April 4, 1984. From George Orwell's dystopian novel, 1984 , portraying the end of human privacy and the destruction of the individual in a tolitatarian state (published in 1949). Waitaminnit, this is fiction?!

SATURDAY, APRIL 5

9:30-7:43 PM. Meaningless Movies Presents From the Bush Leagues: Inspirational Speeches. Hear excerpts from all this legendary statesman's greatest orations from I'm the decider to Families is where our nation finds hope, where wings take dream and especially, They misunderestimated me. Followed by discussion (if anyone is still conscious). Expensive and closed to the public but donations are rudely refused. Location: Building with that tall spire, you know: the green church, next to Pike or Pine street. Info: Internets.comm

Now & Forever. Festival of Progress. More! MORE & MORE!! Celebrate growth, in all its glorious manifestations! Music by DJ Cancer Cell. Red Sun Tavern, 6 789th St. SE, Seattle. Info: unclesam@kapitalizm.com

SUNDAY, APRIL 6

Anniversary of the Discovery of the North Pole. Robert Peary first reached the North Pole on this day in 1909. Plans are being made to recreate his harrowing trip over the freezing ice with a family-friendly stroll over the now sultry tundra including a sidetrip to the last polar bear (skeleton) -- don't forget your sunscreen! Info: hell@hot.com

MONDAY, APRIL 7

Billie Holiday's birthday! God Bless the Child. The incomparable Lady Day was born on this day in 1915. Go ahead and play her music all day long, we dares ya!

TUESDAY, APRIL 8

Rush hour. Puget Sound Regional Planning Meeting. We will meet where all the cars are: stuck in gridlock on I-5. Satellite meeting scheduled for the Renton S-curves. See you there! Agenda items include: Light Rail and Lite Beer. BYORR (Bring Your Own Road Rage). Sponsored by the Seattle Metro Puget Sound Northwest Regional Adjunct Planning Preliminary Meeting Trial Transportation Commission Organizational Group Team (Acronym impossible!)

Birthday of the Buddha. They just don't make 'em like they used to.

BUSHDAY, APRIL 9

Tonight at Noon. War Vigil. No ones' peace vigils seem to have accomplished much so today were hosting a vigil for the winning side: All war, all the time! Sponsored by the SDS (Spineless Democrats Society). NorthWestlake Plaza. Info: hawk@testosterone.com

THURSDAY, April 10

Midday. Celebrate the Season of Ooblek! There were hot days in December and now lots of snow at the end of March. We veterans of the Great Northwest know that the idea of standard seasons is meaningless around here -- so, let's pay tribute to Dr. Seuss' classic tale ushering in that brand new kind of precipitation: Ooblek! NOAA's Sound Garden sculpture, Sand Point Way. Info: Geisel@lorax.com

9 AM-5 PM. Public Apology by Local Sports Mascots. The Sonics Squatch, Mariner Moose, Blitz the Seahawk and assorted Husky Dogs and Cougar Cats make a solemn public apology to all their fans for their teams mostly dismal performances over the past few years. But they also want to know: does it really matter? Aren't there more important things to be worried about these days? Oh, and they also would like some new stadiums, please! Simultaneously at Key Arena, Qwest and Safeco Fields. Info: Fan@getalife.com

FRIDAY, APRIL 11

7-11 PM. Lecture: I Don't Believe in Christopher Hedges. The Lord Almighty Him(?)self makes a rare appearance to argue against recent commentators who have both been defending AND attacking God. Tickets available through Ticketmistress; proceeds to benefit the One and Only Beneficent Mother Earth Church of Inimitable Truth, Justice and the Universal Way. City Hall Seattle, 2300 3rd Avenue, Upstairs, enter on Seneca Street, take a U-turn on Jefferson, cut through 4th and 7th Avenue SW, backtrack behind Bell and Lenora, and then ask someone: where the heck am I? City Hall members can receive vouchers for the movie playing next door, instead. Info: www.cityhallseattle.org

SATURDAY, APRIL 12

5:23-7:49 PM. Eat the State! Dinner. Menu: Sauteed political platforms, fried dogmas, sides of platitude salads and shredded consciences. McBurger Queen, 23 Skid Road. Info: Pepto@bysmal.gov

Walk on Your Wild Side Day. Time's wasting, friends. It's high time you went out and did some things no one expects you to do. Be unpredictable for once. Go to work dressed like a gorilla -- get a master's degree -- do something they said you'd never do. Info: www.wellcat.com/holiday.html

SUNDAY, APRIL 13

National Library Week (through April 19). A nationwide observance sponsored by the American Library Association. Celebrates libraries and librarians, the pleasures and importance of reading and invites library use and support. Info: www.ala.org

3 AM. The Final Showdown: Cheney vs. Corrie. VP wannabe Richard Cheney throws down his final challenge taking on the (deceased) contender, Rachel Corrie, in a showdown for the ages! Winner will be superheavyweight champion of all time! Top of the Space Needle. Ticket price: $ If you gotta ask, you can't afford it. Info: spoof@whatevah.com

TUESDAY, APRIL 15

National Income Tax Deadline. Why not just blow it off?!

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 16

National Wear Your Pajamas to Work Day. Bring the comforts of home to the office for at least one day! Info: 1-800-GIVE PJS; www.PajamaGram.com

THURSDAY, APRIL 17

Time forthcoming. TBA. Not much of nuthin happening. Info: ?

FRIDAY, APRIL 18

Midnight. The End of Everything as we Know it. The fit really hits the shan! All hell breaks loose. Put your head between your legs and kiss your keister goodbye. There won't be nuthin' left. Everywhere. Info: Beelzelbub.com

SATURDAY, APRIL 19

Dawn. First Annual Post-Apocalyptic Gathering. Everyone invited! (If anyone's left). Please join us (or me, anyway)! Info: TBA

Looking ahead: Shleptember 3

All day. Firearms fiesta! Shoot 'em up with all your freedom-fighting, gun-loving fellow patriots! Special appearance by the ghost of Jesse James. Charlton Heston Stadium, 23 Rifle Drive. Info: texritter@neo.con
WORD

Shucks, you should see my desk: I've got all these heavy volumes piled up on one side -- hain't cracked but one or two of 'em but they gotta help me crank out this silly book, no? Works like The Oxford American Dictionary and Language Guide, Hacker's A Writer's Reference, Oxford American Writer's Thesaurus, The Writer's Digest Grammar Desk Reference, Merriam-Webster's Rhyming Dictionary, and Hemley's Turning Life into Fiction. Certainly these swell reference works have to help me spin these yarns into gold, no? If I actually ever look inside these proper books, certainly they will unlock the secrets from which THE Great Novel will be unleashed, yes???!

43,324 86.648% by 86.67% of month over

6,676 words to go! No, now forty three thousand and three hundred and thirty five!

forty three thousand three hundred and forty six -- Eureka!: Arrival, over the top for the day, made it to next boot camp!

\------------

Give me those binoculars, willya. Yea, lookee there, I think I can see the end way up ahead....it won't be long now, said the evil enchantress with the razor blade enclosed within her, um, inner sanctum after her last, ahem, customer.....

\------

& y'know, NNWM, man: I'd love to donate to your cause, this has been a right challenging and captivating enterprise, but how 'bout making it easier to send a special quantity of dosh, eh? Why only the stolid ten dollar option (& higher)? I've already listed that I hail from Humptulips, right -- I'm an arteest, see, I can't be bound by the regular forms and standards, I've got to answer to my muse, and he/she would be telling me to give unto you a swell seven dollahs and twenty three cents....

Must I harangue, too, about the importance of 23, a crucial figure long before Jim Carrey movies, and a numeral cropping up in everything from the genetic code to so many movies to the 23rd psalm of the Bible being the most popular verse to Michael Jordan's number to 23 skiddoo, an expression whose origin is utterly untraceable! [thankee Robert Anton Wilson!]

$$$

I wonder what I will do with all the riches I earn from the sale of this life-changing epic? There's laser eye surgery, of course, I'm tired of these glasses, and then I thought: why do you just think about yourself, let's help out others. And I had noticed that our pet seemed to be squinting a lot lately and so I wonder if I would go through a vet or an eye doctor to get this lasix for Thor, our happy hermit crab....!

Certainly I'll be able to chip in a mil or 2 to ol' NNWM, looking pretty shabby of late, and it'll probably be time to refurbish the entire town of Humptulips which I've sorta adopted as my own through this rigamarole.

And the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Deluded Novelists should also get a nice donation -- maybe I should just build a statue. A statue out of words, that's it, isn't that what I'm doing now?

and, hmmm, should I get a personal secretary that I can dictate my future works of art to, or would it be better to simply have a private masseuse to give my hands, arms and, uh, other pertinent body parts a bit of TLC every few, uh, hours or, hmmm, minutes...ahh, could I ever use a bit of that right now, yasss!

45,454 90.9%! with 90% of month gone.....that precious point nine percent, ahh, gravy! 4,533 words to go, a dinky 1,511 words a day left, we're gonna do it!

"...I'll get back on my feet someday,

The good Lord willin', if He says I may.

I know that the life I'm livin's no good,

I'll get a new start, live the life I should.

I'll get up and fly away, I'll get up and fly away, fly away...."

  * the Dead "Wharf Rat" -- certainly these true believers in share and share alike, on beyond copyright, are not gonna begrudge me using their lyrics, is they?!!!

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank first and foremost, he, who, without whom, this immense endeavor would not be possible: Bruce McLean Greeley. [yes, of course, whatevah'!] AND also a hearty round of applause to my long-suffering wifey, Karen, who has put up with the huge mess in the back room of all my various papers and files and leaves me blissfully alone to compose this mess -- hey, but do you have to leave me alone so completely? Couldn't you stop in and say hullo once in a while or sumpin', sheesh?! \-- and to my three darling inspirational kids, Ana, Duncan and Lucy, so powerfully & inexorably their own creation. I would also sincerely like to thank the Valley View Library (not for its great librarians and research sources but cuz that's where I work!) and every god blessed creature on this great green earth, cuz, dammitall: you're all in this, one or six degrees removed, got it?! This means John Paul Bermon and Wee Willie Winkie and The Cat in the Hat and the Man in the Moon and the Pie in the Sky and John Doe and Jehosophat Rumplestiltskin Smith and Italo Calvino and Eloe Omoe and R2 D2 and Charles Mingus and Tarquin Fin Tim Limbim Whimbim Lim Bus Stop F'Tang F'Tang Olé Biscuit Barrel and Jack Kerouac and Kaptain Krunch and Robert Anton Wilson and Pop and Mommy and Julius Pierpont Patches and Kurt Schwitters and Frank Sullivan of A Garland of Ibids fame and Sally Otten and Xerxes and Dean Moriarity and Barack Hussein Obama and Hangover Farnsworth McGillicuddy Twat and Aaron Zzyzgy and YOU!

ACCIDENTS HAPPEN

"Waaah! Why are you holding that gun to my head, galUnky?! What's this paper I'm supposed to read? Oh, uh: 'So, uh, my dear sir, you're just sailing along nicely now, isn't you? No big worries, kids growing up, all fine & dandy, no particular speed bumps at this comparatively late stage?' Is that what you wanted me to---urrp!"

"How gratifying that you should ask me, honey chile.

In fact, speed bump is quite an apt metaphor as I recently did have quite an interruption to my regular state of affairs, and that was the car crash on the last day of February two thousand and six.

I was driving to work in oh-so-normal fashion, been through two traffic jams already and so maybe a couple minutes late and a little more urgent...came up to the 509/518 interchange, the light changed for me the first car and I immediately pulled out into traffic and here barreling down on me from the left was a big white pickup -- WHAAAAM! -- big totaling t-bone crash right behind my door. I'm lucid all the way through (first thing I do is stop the book on tape I'd been listening to) but sorta smashed trapped in here -- Good Samaritans in abundance with cellphones but I can't get through to Karen -- stupid longhair driver of the pickup gets out and asks who's fault it was and all the bystanders shout, "YOU!" And soon discovered this jerk had multiple recent traffic infractions, had one soon after this one, in fact! -- one of the first rescue workers who talked to me through passenger door I recognized as a Fall City Library patron!....Pulled out somehow, pain in side now excruciating, especially as unfeeling ambulance worker wants me to stretch my arm ("OwwwwwoUGHGHH!" "Alright, already, take it easy!")

Taken to Harborview emergency room, laid flat out for x-rays and catscans & it's a teaching hospital so sometimes after excruciating agony in lifting my arm for an X-ray, the nurses discover their student assistant didn't do it right so we get to do it again. Some docs in hysterics when I ask if I'll ever be able to play violin when I get out?

Was then flat on my back for first 46 hours without moving. But it was all moving around me, that's for sure: I was like in a closet with a cloth curtain while police patrolled outside interrogating subjects, staff wandered in riffling through drawers for tools, & a guy singing & a someone else falling asleep as they try to get him to sign some form and I drift through it all pressing my morphine drip every eight minutes (which erases my cares or worries about time passing as well as easing pain)....

bearing up fine at first really, thought I was going to be getting out of there soon -- another joke: "Does it hurt much? "Only when I laugh" -- ...

Then came a pain so severe, dwarfed any from the 9-10 broken ribs: a build-up of gas/constipation (side effect of morphine), I hadn't 'gone' in four days! Every breath became a nightmare, and then Karen and kiddies walked in and watched me gasping & writhing with no surcease.....

And then success in the bathroom and I become so rapturously poetic o'er the damn thing(!): "So rare, so anticipated, so relieving, + so perfectly formed, should not the nurse bronze my bowel movements...?!"

Continuing: "Yea, verily, a good BM not only relieves headaches + tension + sluggishness but also cures smelly feet, psoriasis, several types of cancer, cleans unwanted stains, reduces taxes, lowers street crime, preserves marriages, guarantees world peace + trascendent enlightenment for all sentient beings....!"

And then I was carrying around a square box with tube draining 'the fluid' out of my chest. X-rays were clear, then not, something not quite right, the docs excellent poker players never letting on what they really thought...

More operations needed, more tubes to stick in my chest/side/back to drain out the puss & yuck that my main chest tube can't suck out...

Nurses the greatest & my lifeline, and I get to try out my multilingual greetings to all these multicultural angels...even composing poetry:

"Ah, Severin!

Tu es meilleur que excederin

Ah Severin!

Tu me fait que pense que tout les hommes sont bretherin!

Ah Severin!

Pourquoi nous ne trouve pas un Reverend!

Ah Severin!"

....and now I'm getting despondent, even more restricted than ever, the IV morphine and then delaudin causing massive anxiety/paranoia, like my perspective on everything kept changing every few milliseconds -- and I'm restricted to bed + have to use the urinal bottle + then even bedside commode + some of the piss goes on the floor + I'm reduced to an infant + so fed up/frustrated + it's not just the pain but the restrictions + all the wires connecting to my nose + arms + chest + constant taking blood + 'taking vitals' + how hard it is just to reach 5 more inches for something + what traumatic misery to say, how the phone slid off the bed, cuz it's taken all my strength + energy + lots of time to retrieve it....

\+ 1 night sweating through all my sheets + nightgowns in bed I ask for new 1s plus wipes so nurse brings 'em in + leaves -- me in the dark, hardly able to move, what good is that?!

But room turning into a greenhouse with all the well-wishers + their flowers, criminy!...

....Reflecting on how libraries are like hospitals, taking in all strata of society and very multicultural (both staff and patient/patrons) -- but, while in the hospital, you may often hear the classic library question: "Can I help you?" in some permutation, it is rare in libraries to hear the standard first query asked in the hospital: "Have you been passing gas?!"!

Another day passes......: walking around slowly, not winded at all -- they even got me to lie on my stomach + then roll over on left side! whooee, what an achievement!

Another day: Got permission to stray far afield so pushed wheelchair down to computer center + then stood outside briefly in the drizzle!.... WOW! Not only muscles but eyes, mind, etc. all atrophied -- though overcast the light was surreal, so bright, so real! And the air so precious, whew, almost too much to take in! almost too rich for my lungs to breathe, almost like sensory deprivation to be overwhelmed by 'all the things' (hadn't been outside in days stretching to weeks!)

Now able to hobble down to hospital cafeteria to eat -- first day picked up random section of newspaper and immediately came across 1 big editorial + 1 letter to the editor all about putting cameras on traffic lights to catch folks running red lights!

Finally get my discharge papers -- after 20 looo-o-o-o-ng days -- not healed yet you understand but I guess they decided it's time for my body to take over and heal itself, not enough progress quick enough in there...

Karen drives me home and when we arrive, I stumble out of car and fall down on my knees on front lawn, crying and tearing out the grass, so happy to have made it, so pleased to experience this real world, my home, precious thing, alive again back in the world, wow....

But we weren't out of the woodwork yet, oh no. Now I had some deadly serious withdrawals from the morphine that I'd been studiously taking for the pain. This was a drug that dulled my hurts but also made one desire only life with it. There was no special pleasure from being on it, but when I withdrew, I'd have moments (that seemed like hours) where every sensation, every thought & feeling was painful and miserable. It was all I could do to hope that I should go on: to be sitting in a chair, bend over, and then desire to straighten out again, to care about existence continuing.

Took weeks, months (years?!) even to recover completely BUT --and this is key but only realized a connection quite some long time after -- the whole horrible experience did lead to a real good and that is: that with my small foreseen payoff from car crash, I splurged on myself by going out to buy a BASS CLARINET!

Yep, the same instrument that Eric Dolphy played, the God of sonic experience! This was great for strengthening my lungs but also led me deeper into the oh-so-long-anticipated, dreamt-about, longed-for realm of the JAZZ MUSICIAN!

Sure I really had figured out the whole embrochure schtick by playing this bamboo saxophone from Hawaii (a glorified recorder but with the mouthpiece of a saxophone), and then picked up a hand-me-down regular clarinet, tuned to local jazz stations and managed to play along a little bit. But though I haven't learned to read any music really, and had only a couple of fumbling failed lessons, I now have this wicked ax and manage to solo in front of audiences and they even clap afterwards....!

The instrument fulfills my destiny, always dreamed I'd be jamming with foghorns on the Washington coast from my bhikku-cozy log cabin. The range is immense, and it has such a lovely sonorous deep & velvety tone, a bellow straight outa my soul -- damn straight, Mac!

It's truly somethin' to get a song under your fingers, hear the contours and direction, get a good buoyant cushion of piano chords underneath you, and push off, starting with a note or two maybe but thrusting forward, getting near-instantaneous feedback with subsequent sound, adjusting immediately and barreling ahead to the next sure thing, often with sheer bravado your saving grace to help guarantee that you're 'in tune' and even 'in the groove' -- go ahead, just play something and if it's not right hopefully the next note is and you can give it extra oomph to cinch the deal, make the chorus correct, get the girl....

I mean, like, look: we've done that 'picture worth a 1000 words' jazz but so, how much more would a video with moving pictures be worth?! Hunh, NANOWRIMO mo'fo'? Like, dig said live concert gig:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssSXIKq1oiw

or, just to get patriotic, plus extra family members:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkNY2eOAueE

or even strangely romantic weird & sickly!:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0MFXNtiHdc&feature=channel

READING GROUP QUESTIONS and TOPICS FOR DISCUSSIONS

  1. Where do you think this author gets off thinking that there would be any interest at all in this book, let alone some fancy-schmancy book group guide?!!!

  2. If this is a novel, what isn't, huh? How can Mr. Bruce Greeley get away with throwing a mishmash of diary excerpts & meta-jokes about writing a book together and think that's cohesive, intelligent or funny?!

  3. If a novel is necessarily fiction, why are you so itching to ask, "Did he really did all these things he writes here? Even the five girls in Nicaragua?!"

  4. Who brought the coleslaw tonight? Did anyone bring any vino?

  5. Is it really an achievement to write 50,000 words in a month, in and of itself? Is that really all we can consider here with this spectacular failure?

  6. Not that this is in any way a sort of sycophantic sick strategy to get this novel picked by her, but isn't Oprah just the greatest? I mean, really, isn't she?!

  7. Considering that "The Electric Company" was only a brief hit on kiddie t.v. (and a ripoff of "Sesame Street") then we must really ask ourselves, seriously, and excuse me if I repeat myself, but: What about Naomi?

  8. Can I borrow any money till Tuesday? I promise I'll pay you back, really!

  9. In chapter 14, why did Heathcliff not return for Stephanie's lost diamond ring? Did this have anything to do with the dowry that Millicent has promised to leave to Bartholomew? (oh, sorry: wrong book!)

  10. Whatchoo dooon this Friday night, hunh, sugar, hunh?!

  11. That's enough now: why don't you just move it along, eh? I mean, don't let the barn door slam you on the keister, got it?! {How's them apples for questions, eh, NNWM, sir?!}

FINISHING

I can hear the crowds cheering up ahead at the finish line now, boy o boy, is it ever close and the noise is growing, they can hear me approach, this marathon is gonna be surmounted, yes indeed, the champagne corks are poppin', the birds are chirpin', all's right in the world, we all know God is pooh-bear, natchurly, yea, Jack!, my foot on the pavement is this type-tap-typing, what a crazy November, wound up with this wild word flurry, whipping away at the relentless restless warp & weave of why & who & well well well (& whatevah') -- I'm gonna chomp through that fifty thousand finish line and HIP HIP HIPPY! We's gwine to have a right honorable hearty party, Marty! Bring on the dancing girls and the sweet red wine and the rainbow ribbons and the darlings bustin' outa cakes and the banjos strummin', the strobe lights strobin', the animals playing, the biplanes skywriting: HE'S DONE! HE'S DONE! Let the church bells (AND the Harleys AND the bananas) peal, let the lemonade squeal, let the 23-gun salute shoot, may the paraders march, the fireworks blast, the supernovas explode, the galaxies blow up in a final frenzied great chthonic awe-inspiring cataclysmic apocalyptic utter immolation!

This may be the last big hurrah for this Universe, and so, let it be, Let everything happen that can or can't occur, let the heavens erupt and the seas immolate, the words all link up and bring the whole enchilada to a supra-phenomenal inescapable finish!

So this book may be the final IT! OK and amen, read it NOW, finish it up, make your peace with your peacemaker and leap into the Great Preposterous All-Consuming Conflagration!

{ttfn}

[1,546 to go!]

POTENTIAL DUST JACKET BLURBS

"Certainly one of the greatest achievements of modern man, only possibly overshadowed by the discovery of fire! And quite a bargain even at retail price: you should buy two copies!"

\-- Bryce, er, Greevey



"What he said."

\-- Bruce, I mean, Bryce Greevy's friend

"Do you really expect me to endorse this??"

\-- Amy Tan

"If Tan wouldn't do it, you can hardly expect me to even read it, can you?!"

\-- Stephen King (the bastid)

"Do you want fries with that?"

\-- Alisha Brown

"Makes a good doorstop. And almost as good as toilet paper!"

\-- the other Martha Stewert

"Hey! When's the dang tooth fairy coming! It's been weeks already!"

\-- my son Duncan

"You again? Leave me alone, get outa here! If I see you again, I'll call the cops!"

\-- Stephen King again

"Full of more spine-tingling thrills, white-knuckled excitement and passionate romance than my toaster repair manual."

\-- Professor Ignatius Sneed

"Change you can believe in!"

\-- President-elect Barack Obama

"This and a fiver will get you a fine latté at Starbucks."

\-- Oprah Winnfrey

"Ow! Better than a poke in the eye with a stick."

\-- Hector Seymour

"Five pounds of flax."

\-- Malaclypse the Younger

DESOLATION PEAK-ing

"klUnky! You are looking momentous, or izzit mountainous, dare I say? Wha's up wif dat, in da house, dat's right, uhn hunh, unh hunh!"

"Whoa, li'l nephew, getting all rappy on us, now? But yea, the peaks, I'm peaking, lemme tell ya....

Well, see, I'm not the biggest alpinist, though have scaled Mount Rainier, Mount Olympus and Mount Sinai [home of Greek and Jewish Gods, respectively], beheld the mighty Mount Ararat from not too far a distance, and wore a Mount Bruce t-shirt all through New Zealand that gave me plenty of ammunition:

Fair damsel reading or regarding my t-shirt: "Mount Bruce?"

Me: "When, darling, when?!"

But the toughest and most momentous climb I've probably done was one of the most recent -- up the tremendous Desolation Peak in the Northern Cascades only this summer -- and chosen primarily because that was the same fire lookout that ol' Jack Kerouac spent a sober summer in a mere 52 years previous.

"It's not so hard to write a poem...

The true quest is to be that poem!"

\-- written in journal during hike

So, I even had to borrow a backpack and headed on out, getting a too expensive ride to the trailhead on the only taxi boat up Ross Lake. A mere 4-1/2 miles, but it didn't take me more than 100 steps before I was fantasizing over Emil Zatopek's tortured appearance while winning all his long distance races -- yea, that would be me, too! Especially as I'm carrying 50 pounds on my back (had I ever hiked with so much even as a strong kid?!), and so up I went step by step, including the big bear cannister to protect my food from these smart hairy guys that likely haunt this area...

Nearly no bugs, but lawdy lawd, was it steep and relentless, then just before the end of the woods, a baby bear in a tree, whoo-ee, exciting but waitaminnit, where could mama be? I snapped a couple pix but then moved along right quickly....

Stoppin frequently, walking fast as a slow slug with a sore stomach -- only 2 other groups on the trail, but many overgrown trees blocking narrow path too... up, up, up...

pass by a campground sign not realizing that was the cutoff for campground, up, up, but what views, what gloriousness, and then: there it is: the lookout! But where was the campground, what am I gonna do, I never saw it, there's a bit of snow, I'm gonna be stuck up here, no tent just a big tarp and such a crummy sleeping bag....?

Walk around this fabled hut, check the door, wait: only a couple screws holding the lock on, and amazingly easy to unscrew (obviously this done by all the cool hikers!) so I got in, this is mine, whoo oo! this the very same hut Jack spent all summer in, whew, and even the cot he slept in as I would, wow wow

The huge mounds of rock around me like belugas in the fog, but spectacular 360 of great alpinic peaking peaks, though I nearly past being able to appreciate it -- almost crippled hobbling around now, even towards mighty Hozomeen, Hozomeen, ghastly straight up two-pronged spire due north....oh yea, I had this walking stick as my best friend, all that had me get this far, and would need a second to get down again, using as crutches, by jiminy -- my meal on top an instant cooking chili: just pull a tab and it starts cooking away, ghastly but got me through.......

Even wearing my "the only ones for me are the mad ones..." t-shirt, and listening to jack on mp3 player, ooo, what a poseur!

Written in secret journal inside, next to big square boxes of water, fire watch compass, all the regular accoutrements:

"Yas, Jack,

I too have hitched a million mile,

hopped freight trains through the wild west

labored on merchant marine vessels around the world

for a dozen years,

dug bop jazz forever

kept infinitesimal & precise journals of all actions/journals,

written silly little floozy poems

\+ scrawled long endless stories of crazy gone madness

\+ now I've been alone atop a mt. top with you...."

And also copied out an excerpt from unpublished Desolation Journal of Jack's that I read in a John Suiter article about this site written in The Independent (England) in 1996:

"The night before he left the lookout, he read his beloved Diamond Sutra, and borrowing from one of its passages, transcribed into his pocket notebook these words: ' Such places [where the Scripture is observed] however wretched they may be, will be loved as though they were famous memorial parks and monuments, to which countless pilgrims and sages will come (to Desolation Peak!) to offer homage and speeches and dedications. And over them the angels of the unborn and the angels of the dead will hover like a cloud.'"

And certainly I had angels looking out for me, cuz I had found one little snow patch right near the top and was able to boil off a lot of the frozen H2O to add to my shrinking water supply -- and it took about 9 hours going up and over 8 to get back down -- ran out of water again, and really woulda coulda perished but for one little stream halfway down too...

Knees swollen up to size of the moon, feet burning too (bleeding through both socks by end) \-- "how'd you get all the way up here?" I ask the prairie dogs, the rabbits [who love to drink the piss I left for them in middle of night outside], the bugs and butterflies.

Left to myself, left to my own devices, lawr-dee larwd, focused on every step, agonizing over each tender stride [not unlike this very novel, hmmmm, metaphors....!]...holy moley I finally made it!!!

First meal out at Buffalo Run Cafe in Marblemount:

  * 1 grapefruit juice

  * 1 latte

  * 1 Moose Drool beer

  * bull's balls in beery batter

  * Buffalo burger with mushroom and onions [the smell of onions on fingers what excited Jack so at end of his long summer sojourn on top of DP]

BITS & PIECES/ the KITCHEN SINK....

Whew, gosh....we're approaching the end, golly. Reckon my wife won't miss my shaking the bed late at night with my belly laughs. Might be time to return to work (or at least this planet), too.

But there's so many stories I never got to: like borrowing the tie-dyed top hat in Alaska to greet a descending hot-air balloon, or the only-briefly mentioned twins in Taiwan, or captivating an entire ferry of repressed Muslims by dancing with Karen on the trip between Java & Sumatra, or meeting Lady McLean at Duart Castle on the Isle of Mull ("I'm only sorry Lord McLean couldn't greet you but he's down visiting the Queen today!"), or experiencing an early peak moment at age 16 after hitching to see jazz great Mingus in Boston and catching a ride back on the magic bus and then sitting in a dorm room with headphones on listening to the most exhilarating Santana guitar solos ever put together, or the total eclipse at Maryhill's fake completed Stonehenge, or my stint cheating as census taker, or my Improv theater class or jury duty or my bungee jump or singlehandedly putting out the fire on the cruise ship as all the passengers were evacuating, or winning the trivia contest against even teams from Microsoft and Mensa, or catching that one ride hitchhiking from Birmingham, Alabama all the way to Los Angeles at age 17, or hearing the entire "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" recited by heart on the ferry between Italy and Greece and then going on deck and learning Grecian dances with music I played on balloon bagpipes, or dunking in the source of the River Ganges, (guaranteeing my future entrance into Nirvana!) beneath a glacier where, further upstream, enlightened sages were rumored to be meditating on the ice packs, or skipping kindergarten because I was already reading books to the rest of the class, or the five girls that really were pulling on my arms in different directions as soon as I stepped off the ship in Nicaragua, or the great flowing beard I had and which I even bleached white in the middle when I visited Meggido, Israel (site of fabled Armageddon), or of how I first witnessed the great Taj Mahal in the dark and fog not by sight but by sound with the 21-second echoes resounding around the perfect building...or a million other magic moments...

PEN-ULTIMATE

hwLWHLOUGGHGHG -- I think I'm hitting a wall -- so close to the finish and I can hardly continue: my kids are assaulting me with the noise of an infantile video game right behind me here, my wife is babbling on the phone, the cat is miaowing for more food, my ideas are dribbling away, my heart is aching, the faucet's dripping, the sheer meaninglessness of this enterprise is hitting me like a ton of bricks, the sky is crying, the fearsome spectre of NaNoWriMo is perched in the corner wanting to harangue me with "Nevermore!" if it weren't such a cliché, I'm tired, so weary, can hardly even look up synonyms for 'tired' in the thesaurus, can hardly even muster another phrase, another word, another concept...

and yet I never got around to truly exploring my childhood, and my dreams \-- yea, like what does it mean when you find yourself being chased around Emperor Constantine's kitchen by a bass sarrusophone wearing high heeled sandals? Even while a burning giraffe spanks your neighbor's teenage daughter?! Oh yea, and you're stuck upside down in a giant ice cream sundae, uh, naked...?!

But have I even mentioned my trusty cuckoo clock ticking consistently every day since I first got it at age 4ish?... How I'm an Aquarian who in 7th grade wood shop, stumped for what to create decided to make a crystal ball holder for my semi-occult-ish mother (before her Born Again phase)?... How my Dad never let me go trick-or-treating believing it was sort of beggary and how I still think Burning Man is the ultimate artistic apotheosis that anyone should go to?... Or how, as a mere child, I could not get a sound out of any of the various wind instruments, so instead settled on the unique viola, largely because while ALL the other instruments in the orchestra, the trumpets and piano and flutes and cellos and, yes, even the sarrusophones I reckon ALL use either the bass or treble clef, the viola ALONE must read the odd in-between 'alto clef'?!... How I never missed a day of school between kindergarten and ninth grade, very rarely occasionally slightly ill maybe but still Pop & Mommy dutifully bundled me up and sent me off to class anyway (we were only allowed to get flu on weekends!)... How since we are all being so carefully tracked now with our shopping habits that when I go out for groceries I always try to throw in an extra package of fruit flavored tampons or battery operated olives?... How I smoked a pipe for 25-odd years, faithfully, and verily as my best friend, never any common cigarettes nor big ostentatious cigars but only the one pipe, sometimes even purchased specially, e'en carved for me, my faithful solace, my after dinner solitude in the garage or on board ships or up on a mountaintop, with Amphora Black Cavendish or Troost or even "Bruce's Reserve Blend" and then suddenly, one November day, now three (or four?) years ago, suddenly quit just like that, never looked back, never smoked again?... OR even how I so seem to enjoy the various lists compiled throughout this poor excuse for a novel, even though (or especially because) Pop used to annually take us to see the classic movie "A Thousand Clowns" [this long before videos] with Jason Robards haranguing on about, among other things, "listmakers"!... Or of actually truly touching the magical and probably not fully understood when even known about St. Elmo's Fire on one ship far out at sea, or the true UFOs seen while on lookout duty through the many midnight shifts on deck, the dolphins dancing before the bow or psychedelic glow-in-the-dark jellyfish in the harbors of Callao?... Or how, when I dance, every joint and angle of my body must move & frug in all directions as I attempt to capture all the polyrhythmic frenzy of the wholistic rapturous music...of my crooked smile, ever so stuck so upon my face...of my Molasses Mac kinda voice...how being born on Valentine's dooms me ever to being a dreamy romantic fool....how 3 year old Duncan spellbound a huge audience of hipsters at WOMAD, when he wandered down to the front of the stage and then hoisted up by the Black French African musicians and simply starting shaking & jiving on stage, yea, sure, no worries, mate!... How we scattered Pop's ashes on the beach in front of our ol' house at 18303 in Innis Arden in Richmond Beach in Shoreline and I somehow managed to taste a few, incorporate my Father's corporealness in some Grand Mythological Narrative [that Joseph Campbell could probably write a book or three about].... How I visited my Mother's parent's hometown in tiny central Turkey, where no tourist had heretofore been, surrounded by a couple dozen Turks pressed in against me fascinated by my drinking tea or blowing my nose and then not killing me when I said my Grandmother's name was...Bedrosian...that is, Armenian!... And then further traveling down to magic Cappadocia, with spires hewed out of the rocks looking every bit like fantastic curvy Dr. Seuss shapes but even holding within mysterious ancient Byzantine churches!....

THIS BOOK, THIS UNIVERSE, 50,000 WORDS HA HA YEE HA

IS THAT ALL THERE IS?

Peggy Lee

SPOKEN:

Then I up and wrote a book, I was so in love, it was the most wonderful novel in the world.

This cat NaNoWriMo would haunt me but that's ok because I had this book and I would just sit for hours gazing at these precious pages.

We were so very much in love.

Then one day I re-read it all and saw that it was all utter drivel and I thought I'd die, but I didn't,

and when I didn't I said to myself, "is that all there is to NaNoWriMo?"

SUNG:

Is that all there is, is that all there is

If that's all there is my friends, then let's keep dancing

Let's break out the booze and have a ball

If that's all there is

and then I woke up....warRRHGHHGHLLUGHlGHGh, what a dream...:

"hey, Mom! Finnegan's (a)wake".........................................................!

 Whoaa...! Can you sense the great engine of creativity starting up, creak/cranking outa the starting blocks, shaking off the cobwebs, rusty but still in working order, yessuh!

 In addition to their ingenious solution to time, Nepal has also established a unique approach to space -- I mean, go ahead and grab an almanac, turn to the page on national flags. All these emblems of the world _have_ come up with different hues and designs, sure, but they also all share one other trait: they are all rectangular. All except one, of course: that's right, Nepal breaks out into a couple of funky triangles!

 In addition to the worthy news of just where I had crossed this dateline from -- the Far East and a couple of twins in Taiwan who had exquisitely stolen this boy's cherry, though that may deserve a whole 'nother novel -- the actual day I crossed this imaginary marker in mid-Pacific from west (in the east) to east (to the west) was on February 14 -- Valentine's Day, sure enough, but also my birthday! And so I've gained my own special trivia question to whip out on unsuspecting victims at any ol' time: how could I have had two birthdays in one year?!!

 Leaving us at age 56, note, and on that same day precisely 56 whales also beached themselves on a Mexican beach not too distant -- make of _that_ what you will...! Did they wail further when his ashes were scattered upon the Ganges...?!!!

 Still my number one favorite spot on the planet: such grandeur, such majesty in the crashing waves, the pure endless power & glory.

 Did I mention that it had been getting dark already?! Another reason for Paul to turn back.

 or not?!

 I won't even go into how I played up my groggy concussion drunk act up in order to get a little cuddlier with sweet Mary Lou....!

 One of all too many lost in assorted fashions: if anyone finds any of these, how about sending the pictures to me in care of Camera Obscura, Inc....?!

 _Good one, no(n)?!_

 Ni-i-i-i-i-ce!

 Yes, our family resemblance was indisputable...

 meaning me, he means

 yet(!)

 effin' is right, _amen_

 or, dare I say, wife-to-be...?!

 No, not _that_ kind of gay

 two of which would be vanilla, and _(gasp!)_ French vanilla

 I never knew what or who _'sundry'_ is -- how about you?!

 Agent-to-be: Please have this arranged with the special pages, and have it work so one needs to douse the pages with lemon juice perhaps to translate the secret message. Oh, what will it say? Well, listen, let that be your reward, {secret} agent man _[ha! -- btw: where's the function to put a footnote on a footnote, hey! should we call_ this _then a_ toenote??!! --- _cuz here's a good chance for zackly that]_ : when you finagle this invisible ink rigmarole, I shall reward you by letting you choose what words to inscribe said pages with!...No, don't thank me: enjoy thyself!

 Maybe it would be a better idea to scent them with some special 'scratch 'n' sniff' fragrance! Yea, _that's_ the ticket! But not anything common like patchouli or cheap strawberry; we must insist on something tasteful like _eau de lavender lily_ or _the scent of a fresh mown lawn or of the 50-yard-line before a Green Packers game._ Yea?

 And how, indeed, _this???_ Let's put the pedal to the Meta & just go for it, eh?!

 I had to consult the thesaurus for alternate words for 'word' -- which reminds me: what's another word for thesaurus?!!

 And there were those who said you couldn't tell when it changed between these two programs!

 whose seminal piece "Variations on a Door and a Sigh" I'm still looking for if you have a spare mp3 amongst your billion of pop throwaway tunes out there!

 We're talking about them ol' 33-1/3 speed El Pees, the big records, natch'

 Or maybe they thought it was some cool new repetition rage! For I believe it was a long sonorous baritone sax solo & sounded vaguely like humpback whales...!

 though let's not also forget that this weird stripmall mistake Lynnwood, this lack of city-planning nowhere 'burb north of Seattle was also the location where demi-god John Coltrane dropped acid his one + only timeand recorded one of his wildest LPs, "Om"...!

 It also must be noted that some of these songs were on old cassette tapes that were freebies I took from my Father's medical swag and Mother's religious schlepp. Originally I had big sheets of paper listing what was on, for instance, the "Green Female Climacteric" tape [some rare Mingus live in Europe in 1964, I believe] or "Medical Outlook for Cardiologists" or "Avoid Death & Holocaust"!

 Itself based on the old standard, "What is this Thing Called Love?" Not to be confused with some of Mr. Mingus' other incredibly titled tunes such as "All the things you could be by now if Sigmund Freud's wife was your mother" or "If Charlie Parker were a gunslinger, there'd be a whole lot of dead copycats" OR "The Shoes of the Fisherman were some jive-assed slippers"!!

 Curiously, I hear of what songs my fellow NaNoWriMo'ers are writing to and am startled!: there is _no one_ more passionate about music than me but perhaps that is why I can't write this while any music is playing -- it would distract me, and interrupt the rhythm of these words and all that rot.....!

 I was in the infrequently recognized independent state of Achzivland on the northern coast of Israel, as a matter of fact!

 Can I -- is it about time now -- to copyright this phrase, finally?!!

 family-owned eatery

 of Cuzco, Peru

 sweet ring-shaped fritters

 a drink made from maize

 'Spanish bread quickly!!" of course

 What's a Grecian urn? Oh, about 25 drachma an hour!

 Earshot Jazz, Nov. 1991, pg. 11

 Earshot Jazz, July 1992, pg. 6

 This one is actually kind of easy, at least according to any good zen master: "To thicken the plot!"

 One fine answer: who says there's not nothing?!!

 Golly gee, that's me!

 by us Whities, I mean, of course

 Just now came across this xeroxed page, unattributed but must be from the legendary Bronislaw Malinowski's The Sexual Life of Savages: "All districts in the Trobriands have the economic custom of female communal labour in the weeding of gardens....Now this communal weeding...,gives the weeders a curious privilege. If they perceive a stranger, a man from any village but their own,...they have the customary right to attack him,...

The man is the fair game of the women for all that sexual violence, obscene cruelty, filthy pollution, and rough handling can do to him. Thus first they pull off and tear up his pubic leaf, the protection of his modesty and, to a native, the symbol of his manly dignity. Then, by masturbatory practices and exhibitionism, they try to produce an erection in their victim and, when their manœuvres have brought about the desired result, one of them squats over him and inserts his penis into her vagina. ...Worse things are to follow.....[pg. 274-275; please indulge yourself and read further wherever you may find this special volume! I've got my own book to write....]

 Armenian for bearer of light and name of my mother

 "You've got to go to India to get it _into ya_ "!

 _Me Tarzan, You Gene!_

 Reunion with Stoo right there on the streets of Greenwich Village previously delineated

 Try saying _that_ one even _one_ time, fast _or_ slow!

 _is Pietzsche but Sartre is Smartre!_

 AHA!

 ...And [David] he changed his behavior before them, and feigned himself mad in their hands, and scrabbled on the doors of the gate and let his spittle fall down upon his beard.

 Wherefore David arose and went, he and his men, and slew of the Philistines two hundred men; and David brought their foreskins, and they gave them in full tale to the king that he might be the king's son in law.

 ... And David took him more concubines and wives out of Jerusalem, after he was come from Hebron: and there were yet sons and daughters born to David.

 ...And it came to pass...that David...saw a woman washing herself; and the woman was very beautiful to look upon. And David sent and inquired after the woman. And one said, Is not this Bath-sheba...? And David sent messengers, and took her; and she came in unto him, and he lay with her....

So they sought for a fair damsel throughout all the coasts of Israel, and found Abishag a Shunammite, and brought her to the king, [David].

 And they shall make an ark of shittim wood... And thou shalt overlay it with pure gold,...and shalt make upon it a crown of gold round about. And thou shalt cast four rings of gold for it,.... And thou shalt put into the ark the testimony which I shall give thee. And thou shalt make a mercy seat of pure gold...And thou shalt make two cherubims of gold, of beaten work shalt thou make them,...And the cherubims shall stretch forth their wings on high... and their faces shall look one to another; toward the mercy seat shall the faces of the cherubims be....; and in the ark thou shalt put the testimony that I shall give thee.

 And the priests brought in the ark of the covenant of the LORD unto his place, into the oracle of the house, to the most holy place, even under the wings of the cherubims.

 And [Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon] carried out thence all the treasures of the house of the LORD, and the treasures of the king's house, and cut in pieces all the vessels of gold which Solomon king of Israel had made in the temple of the LORD, as the LORD had said.

 And the pillars of brass that were in the house of the LORD, and the bases, and the brasen sea that was in the house of the LORD, did the Chaldees break in pieces, and carried the brass of them to Babylon.

 ...David and the captains of the host..should prophesy with harps, with psalteries, and with cymbals...

 They take the timbrel and harp, and rejoice at the sound of the organ.

 Now the word of the LORD came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me. But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD, and went down to **Joppa**...

 And then the coast turneth to Ramah, and to the strong city Tyre; and the coast turneth to Hosah; and the outgoings thereof are at the sea from the coast to **Achzib**...

 Neither did Asher drive out the inhabitants of Accho,...nor of **Achzib** ,...

 And the LORD said ...fill thine horn with oil, and go, I will send thee to ....Bethlehem...

 And Joseph also went...unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem...with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child. And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.

 Behold that which I have seen: it is good and comely for one to eat and to drink, and to enjoy the good of all his labour that he taketh under the sun all the days of his life, which God giveth him: for it is his portion.

 And David and all the house of Israel played before the LORD on all manner of instruments made of fir wood, even on harps, and on psalteries, and on timbrels, and on cornets, and on cymbals.

 And David danced before the LORD with all his might...So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the LORD with shouting, and with the sound of the trumpet.

 I had many things to write, but I will not with ink and pen write unto thee.

 And the angel of the LORD said unto him, Why askest thou thus after my name, seeing it is secret?

 And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.

 ...Nebuchadnezzar...

 And Chenaniah, chief of the Levites, was for song: he instructed about the song, because he was skilful.

 So the people shouted when the priests blew with the trumpets: and it came to pass, when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, and the people shouted with a great shout, that the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they took the city.

 They sent a letter...wherein was written thus; Unto Darius the king, all peace

 And ...Jehoshaphat, and the priests, did blow with the trumpets before the ark of God...

 And the priests: Eliakim, Maaseiah, Miniamin, Michaiah, Elioenai, Zechariah, and Hananiah, with trumpets

 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,

 And those that were numbered of them were **twenty and three thousand** , all males from a month old and upward: for they were not numbered among the children of Israel, because there was no inheritance given them among the children of Israel.

 And the sons of Aaron, the priests, shall blow with the trumpets;...

 ...when the trumpet soundeth long, they shall come up to the mount.

 He saith among the trumpets, Ha, ha; and he smelleth the battle afar off, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting.

 I ...who also am your brother, and companion in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was in the isle that is called Patmos,...

 And I saw the seven angels which stood before God; and to them were given seven trumpets.... etc. etc. you know this, certainly, right?!....The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood,....... And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever....And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament: and there were lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail....[whew!]

 Thine eyes shall behold strange women, and thine heart shall utter perverse things. Yea, thou shalt be as he that lieth down in the midst of the sea, or as he that lieth upon the top of a mast. They have stricken me, shalt thou say, and I was not sick; they have beaten me, and I felt it not: when shall I awake? I will seek it yet again.

 As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country.

 And there followed [Jesus] a certain young man, having a linen cloth cast about his naked body; and the young men laid hold on him: And he left the linen cloth, and fled from them naked.

 Yippidee doo- dah, guess what?! By rough reckoning, this 'toughen' word is the 25,000th of this sacred manuscript -- I'm halfway home, daddio, and lawdy, lawdy, it's all downhill from here on out, YAHOOOOOO! Okay, now, get back to work, enough foolin' around.......

 <http://gohuskies.cstv.com/sports/m-footbl/mtt/steele_joe00.html> [nice to be back in footnote land here, though I reckon this didn't particularly assist the word count too much.....]

 Also where I first heard the transcendental groovemeister AND Nigerian revolutionary, Fela Anikulapo Kuti, husband to 39-odd wives and king of his compound, somewhat seceded from surrounding nation, but best of all: greatest funk sax, organ and proselytizing singer!

 f'r real!: http://bullrunnin.blogspot.com/

 Waving _what_ you may well wonder!

 An introduction so traumatic that I needed massages & TLC from my caring wife to help me adjust at first!

 Which even eventually got me an award: First Place in SPJ's [Society of Professional Journalists] Western Washington Excellence in Journalism Competition, 1991, Non-Daily Newspapers: Headlines.

 Available in 3 different colored covers: Magenta, azure and cream -- or for the more patriotic: Red, White & Blue. Printed by The PRINT SHOP at the BEND in the RIVER in Lowell, Washington in 1993. ISBN # 1-881147-07-X. (And, lordy, was I chagrined when I learned that it's 42 pages missed being catalogued & collected by the Library of Congress by a mere 8 pages!)

 um, my wife, actually, note -- whoo hoo, 100th footnote(!)

 Which will most definitely have to rate a separate chapter!

 ...to steal from Faulkner's nobel acceptance speech

 _Praise Jeebus!_

 "Yo! What's the title of your book?" "Guess" "Um...."

 as in: "Call me anything, just don't call me LFB"

 Perhaps in the midst of his great novel, as well? One of the scariest aspects of Frank adorning himself with his birthdate was that it so nearly dovetailed with my own....there but for the grace of Karen, go I...?!

 This was Pop's birthday, naturally!

 This one was good: "You're the best thing since peanut butter"!

 of who I have no special fondness for at all, actually, really

 A certain amount of compression prevented me from relating how, in my first class back in college after an absence of 11-plus years, I happened to study James Joyce's mammoth Ulysses and even somehow managed to write a paper comparing this incomparable novel to modern quantum physics and relativity....! _But that's 'nother story..._

 Product placement IS available for these particular words, please inquire, costs are quite reasonable -- we WILL sell to the highest bidder!

 meaning: YOU, naturally

 This almost-first-real-job began, the first night, with me passed out on the floor after cutting myself with a knife and fainting from lack of blood!....but _that's_ another story!

 and was my roommate back at Loomis one year during that oh-so-formative era -- so we wuz pretty bonded, of like minds, and all that rot

 Stoo had quizzed me as to if I was a believer now, a zen student, a follower of a particular school -- "Naaah, Strook baby, don't worry: I'm just pulling a George Plimpton!" -- that is, to say, just dabbling in many varied arenas, testing the waters, digging the myriad possibilities. This greatly amused my pal......

 Naah, now's _still_ not the time!

 Yet another name assigned to the letters SOB long ago!

 Librarians: please just go ahead and weed those A. Greeley books right now -- let's just remove those rank imposters, those five-and-dime yellow screeds before anyone dares confuse them with this present volume, right?! Trust me, no one will miss them!

 Remember! A dictionary is what we started with here, yes?!

 It must be noted that almost all my possessions by now were things I'd actually found on streets discarded, or purchased for mere pennies or pfennigs or kroner since my backpack had been stolen in England months before -- yes, really! So I had a small English boy scout back pack that a mate in Sussex had given me, and was surviving with all the tidbits and whatnots I acquired in just this fashion: I was in fact a hodgepodge of Greater Europe within my own self, whoo hoo!

 They say there are two things you find anywhere in the world: Coca-cola and Germans!

 & as my mentor and inspiration, Zorba said: "God has a very big heart but there is one sin he cannot forgive: if a woman calls a man to her bed and he will not go...!" But that was from the movie, y'know. Here's Kazantzakis' more literary version: "He who can sleep with a woman and does not, commits a great sin. If a woman calls you to share her bed and you don't go, your soul will be destroyed!

That woman will sigh before God on judgment day, and that woman's sigh, whoever you may be and whatever your fine deeds, will cast you into Hell! If Hell exists, I shall go to Hell, and that'll be the reason. Not because I've robbed, killed or committed adultery, no! All that's nothing. But I shall go to Hell because one night in Salonica a woman waited for me on her bed and I did not go to her..."

 I can still hear Bob Marley singing "Is This Love?" and am there dancing with that vixen!

 TRULY!

 "...[Mingus] went back to his apartment, where he was met by a scene of chaos, an open window blowing a blizzard of paper across the room. Wherever he lived he accumulated stuff the way his body accumulated weight....Eventually when he felt himself becoming hemmed in by the mess of rainy-day junk, jotted notes, and abandoned projects, he'd file everything away, picking up armloads of paper and chucking them in a desk drawer like he was throwing fuel in a furnace, or dumping stuff into the furthest corner of a room like rubbish on the outskirts of a city...."

\- Geoff Dyer But Beautiful, p. 115-116 -- a total fantasia on jazz & musicians but no less true for all that!

 Pico Iyer's Video Night in Kathmandu for those of you taking particularly careful notes

 "Uh, sure." "Wow, that's great, Doc, cuz I could never play it before!" yuk yuk

 Plus broken collarbone not even diagnosed till I went to my regular doc weeks after being discharged from Harborview -- this place only dealing with life & death, never mind the _small stuff!_

 Note: on just about the first page of Mingus' nearly impenetrable autobiography, Beneath the Underdog, he writes about trying to commit suicide by screwing _23_ ladies in succession \-- so five is not _that_ amazing, now izzit?!

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