RIP Jimmy
06.28.06 (12:38 am) [edit]"You don't need no gypsy to tell you why
You can't let one precious day slip by.
Look inside yourself, and if you don't see what you want,
Maybe sometimes then you don't,
But leave your mind alone and just get high."
- The Allman Brothers, "Ain't Wastin' Time No More"
I didn't get to see the Ozrics.
I was at the merch table, talking to a rather cute girl about their CDs, which ones we each had. A while later, during the opening act, she came over and started talking to me.
Damn, she's really cute. And talking to ME.
Within a few minutes, she told me where she worked. a lightbulb went off in my head.
"Do you know Jeremy?"
"Oh! he's one of my best friends! Did you hear about his Dad?"
Oh no.
Fucking hell.
He died two weeks ago.
A year ago, I moved to Indy after recieving a call from my old band. Two days later, the other band called me. I spent the summer doing gigs with both. I haven't seen the Cincy band since August, haven't talked to any of them since December.
Jeremy was the drummer. His dad, Jimmy, was the singer and guitarist.
I've talked about them before. Jimmy had a severe cocaine habit for most of his life.
He's gone now. Died in New Orleans, helping with reconstruction down there. Massive heart attack.
He'd cleaned up again. He'd gone back and forth several times, but had been clean for months. But it caught up with him.
I could have sworn he was well into his fifties. He was only 49.
Jesus Christ.
I loved playing with these guys. They had all sorts of personal problems, all sorts of reasons for me not to want to get too close to them. but that shit all came out in the music. Some of the rawest, most aggressive music I've ever played was with these guys last summer. It was REAL. Those fuckers LIVED this shit.
I'm going to miss the band I'm leaving in a few months. I love those guys, I really enjoy playing with them. They were SANE, and i could trust them to show up on time to gigs and not have to call off dead. I often wondered if Jimmy would be found in his car, wrapped around a fucking tree on his way to a gig. The guys in Indiana were dependable, solid.
But in terms of real goddamn ROCK AND FUCKING ROLL, it never approached what we did here in the Cincinnati area last summer.
Back in northern Indiana, I'm a twisted freak mutation, some left-field wackjob who pulls everything up to the next level of bad craziness.
Down here with those guys? I was a fucking pussy.
I needed that.
Go read this. it's about this band. From almost a year ago. It's also some of the best writing I think I've ever done.
http://eraserhead667.tblog.co...
I left the show early. I came back to the north end of town, where Jeremy works. I spent over an hour drinking and talking with the STELLAR FUCKING BABE of a bartender, who looks amazing but come off like a very mean (but in a hilarious way) bitch from hell, and I think she could have been a character in the movie Heathers, especially since that's her name too.
He finally got off work, and we went off for beer to a place just down the road. (Which used to be a restaraunt I ate at a couple times with Sheryl.)
he told me that he played his djembe at his dad's funeral, and his uncle wrote a song that he sang for Jimmy. A week later, Jeremy went to see the Allman Brothers, and the second song they played was Ain;t Wastin' Time No More, which he and his dad counted as their favorite Allmans song.
Jeremy looks like hell, but looks good at the same time. On top of losing his dad, he lost his grandma two days later.
He's a damn good drummer and a good guy, and I like him a lot. We sat and drank, talked about Jimmy, and about the unbelievable women dancing around to the shitty music. three or four of them came up to him when we came in the door. Jeremy knows a LOT of women around here, and he's a goddamn magnet for them. Great looking guy. I think I need to hang out with him more often.
I told him we need to play again sometime. Fuck knows when. But we will.
I'm gonna miss you Jimmy. you pissed me off a time or two, but you were a great frontman and singer, a damn fine guitarist, and I've got some great fucking memories you're a part of.
Be well, wherever the fuck you are.
Love,
Dougie
I Fully Expect Massive Head-Rippage
06.27.06 (6:46 pm) [edit]Downtown, just ate a killer lamb vindaloo at my second favorite Indian restaraunt in town.
In half an hour, Bill and I will be witnessing the psychedlic/prog/world/spa ce/mindfuck assault of the Ozric Tentacles.
Look 'em up if you havne't heard them. I've been into them for a decade now and I love most of their stuff. Based on the most recent album I've heard (Spirals In Hyperspace) I'm expecting to leave with my noggin in several pieces. They are true MOTHERFUCKERS in the best sense of the word, and I've not heard anyone who hasn't been floored by them live.
Gonna be a good night.
Love,
Dougie
For Derek
06.26.06 (6:38 pm) [edit]"...I'm very proud of it. I love to hear it. It's almost like it's not me. It's like I'm listening to someone that I really like. Derek And The Dominos was a band I really liked — and it's almost like I wasn’t in that band. It's just a band that I'm a fan of."
- Eric Clapton
Of course I pulled it out for a listen. I HAD to.
I bought the Layla Sessions box set on cassette in a cut out bin. Just the three tapes, no box, no booklet. My CDs are here, my tapes and records in Marion. So I dug through the tapes before leaving yesterday, and found my copy of the best goddamn album Eric Clapton ever did.
Everybody who knows me knows that I worship Cream. But that's because of Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker. Clapton did great shit with that band, but the Dominos always struck me as more HIM. More of what he's really made of when he's not the total cheesebiscuit he's been 80% of the time since recording that masterwork.
Not all of the songs totally relate to his love for Patti Boyd. But they all smoke. There's fire and passion there. He's done a few good things since here and there, but never has he sustained what he did on that album.
What a fucking band. I listened to Why Doe s Love Got To Be So Sad on lunch break today, three times in a row. And spent the next two hours at work re-writing Carl Radle's killer bass groove in my head to suit myself. I need to play that song someday.
I tend to think of Clapton as being at his best with the blues, which I'm sure most people do. And he sure digs deep on Have You Ever Loved A Woman. THAT is the goddamn blues, boys and girls. It's not about the licks themselves (and I've heard a lot of the people he stole them from) it's about what's BEHIND that shit. For all the crap he's recorded over the years, there's a reason he has his reputation. All you have to do is listen to Have You Ever Loved A Woman to know why.
It's a killer, but so is the pop/rock bliss of I Looked Away, Anyday, I'm Yours, Thorn Tree In The Garden...the whole damn thing lights a fire under my ass and makes me need a guitar in my hands.
The version of Little Wing kills, for different reasons than the original recorded by Jimi Hendrix, who died while they were making the album. It's one of my favorite Hendrix tracks, and it's also inspired three of my favorite Hendrix covers - Derek & The Dominoes, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Sting have all recorded beautiful versions of Little Wing.
Then there's Layla itself. One of the most overexposed songs in rock and roll history. You can't leave your fucking radio on for 10 seconds without hearing the damn thing, but there's a reason this time - IT'S A GODDAMN BRILLIANT PIECE OF MUSIC.
I didn't mind the unplugged version the first QUINTILLION times I heard it. Actually, I taped that show the night it broadcast, and rather enjoyed it, but as nice as it is, it also underscores the reason I'd rather listen to some 36 year old shit than the newer shit.
The unplugged "karaoke version" (Pete Townshend's excellent observation there) is nice enough, but it contains NONE of the angst and power of the original. It's not the sound of a man in love with his best friend's wife. It's the sound of "maturity", which is the worst fucking thing that can ever happen to rock music. Stripped of all it's raw honest emotion, it's just another radio hit. Another soundtrack for some stupid yuppie commerical.
FUCK that in it's air-conditioned low-carb asshole.
The original cries, it screams, and it ends with transcendence. When you are in tune with where that shit is coming from, it's exhilerating.
I can't really pretend to feel what he did then. My current semi-infatuation is nowhere near that level. But to know even a part of what he's feeling in those glorious seven minutes is to know part of how it feels to be alive. And I love that feeling. It beats the shit out of feeling dead inside, and I've known that too.
He eventually married his Layla. Took her away, and wrote more songs for her. One of those songs was Wonderful Tonight.
Which is about as perfect an example of "the chase is better than the catch" as I can think of. Layla is power and glory. Wonderful Fucking Goddamn Tonight is THE SHIT ON THE END OF A VELVEETA WRAPPER.
Guess which song my current band does?
Yeah. Good ol' fuckin' irony.
I'll never have my Layla. I can't even begin to bring myself to try. I love HIM too much.
But maybe she'll dance with me sometime.
Love, Dougie
I Looked Away
06.25.06 (11:50 am) [edit]Katie and I had a good drive up here yesterday. She's a lot of fun to talk to about nearly anything. I played McCartney's Ram and Band On the Run for her. Ram is my favorite Macca album. There's such a warm fun feeling running through it, and some of the tunes are so goofy with such bizarre lyrics (Monkberry Moon Delight???) you can't help but be sucked in. I know Band On The Run is probably the "better" album, and fuck knows I love it lots and lots too, but Ram is a desert island thing for me. I think Katie enjoyed it too.
We stopped in Indy at the library, then the post office. I'm getting my mail thing together. Then we went for lunch to Steak & Shake.
I hadn't seen Amanda in a few weeks. It was...nice. I didn't really feel anything stronger than that. It was just nice to see her again. She was going on break, so another girl took care of us, but we got a couple little bits of talk in. And I'll be damned if those eyes don't still do things to me.
We went to my Grandma's so that Katie could play with her cousins. It seemed to go by too quick. But we might be seeing them again in a couple weeks.
Grandma made another significant contribution to my next month's ability to survive and prepare to move into my own place. I'm completely shocked at the amount she gave me, without me asking for a dime.
I got to the gig a bit late, but setup still took a while. B (who will be called Layla from now on, because I'm utterly perverse about these things) wasn't there at that point. I was kinda happy. She showed up later, after we started playing. Mom and Dad and my sister brought Katie in about 20 seconds before we started, and they stayed longer than I expected them to. Katie only really heard half an hour of us though. That kid can be knocked out asleep even with a rock band's speakers pointing right at her 20 feet away.
Actually, *I* could have fallen asleep during the first set. Other than a couple high points, it might have been the worst we've played in months. The alternate drummer seemed to have his energy sucked out when a couple of the guys suggested he was playing things too fast. A couple songs, yes. But the fact is, we are so used to a drummer who is the only drummer I know who plays too fucking SLOW half the time, that our sense of tempo has been severely fucked with. I told him not to take the comments too seriously and just try to be sensitive to which songs had the most words for the singer to spit out (which is where it obviously can be a problem) and he picked up again on the second set and we played quite well the rest of the night.
A couple in their 50s were there early, and even danced during our soundcheck. I walked past their table on a break and they said some VERY kind things about my playing. The guy is apparantly a musician himself (they're coming to one of our July gigs and he said he's played there before) and they were a lot of fun to watch. He's a tall bulky guy, she's a little tiny thing. Both look like they've put down enormous amounts of booze in their time, but they emanated nothing but fun and love for each other as they danced.
I got my turn later.
Most musicians I know look down on this activity. I think they confuse the ACT of dancing with the usual SOUNDTRACK. Most of what passes for dance music in our culture is horseshit on a cosmic level, but hey, you can dance to ANYTHING if you have an imagination.
I always say I don't dance. But during the five songs S sat in on bass, I was out there with Layla and two other women. It was...interesting...
I am fine when I have my bass as a prop. I move around a lot, and though I'm not above a bit of posing here and there, I mostly just move the way I feel the music moving me. There are times I feel like I'm dancing up there. Which is probably a horrible thought for most of the people who know me, but seriously, I get nice comments on this kind of thing, and to be honest, I'm finding myself less tolerant of musicians who simply stand there and do the job, no matter how good they are. You don't have to do anything weird, just FEEL the music, for fuck's sake. Get it in your body, and let it move your dead white ass. Be natural about it, but have some goddamn FUN, assholes.
I find Play That Funky Music White Boy to be both totally absurd and kinda fun, because it's one of the few opportunities I have to get the funk out in any meaningful way in this band. (Spooky, by the Classivs IV is another, and I really like that one.) It's infinitely easier to do so with this drummer. Last night, we closed with it and I managed to pull out two things I've never put into it before. One was just my particular idea of a Rocco Prestia groove. Rocco is the unbelievably cool bassist for Tower Of Power, whose first album tore my head off years ago, and who I've heard a few killer live recordings of recently. Rocco is known for his way with fingerstyle 16th-note funk grooves, very distinctive, extremely cool.
So I tried some of that as fills here and there. I fucking NAILED it a couple times.
Of course, then I got the "white boy" thing out by sticking the riff from Yes' Roundabout into the groove too. That was pure genius/stupidity on my part, if I do say so myself.
This shit works. It gets people up moving, and goddammit, that's a good thing.
When S first took my spot on stage, I was sitting next to Layla, trying to find a way of checking out her amazing, delectable legs without being too obvious about it. I probably failed. She took her shoes off, and leaned back and...oh lord, I want something I can never have...
Another woman came over and dragged us onto our feet, and before I knew it, I found myself doing something I've long wanted to do, but never really felt loose enough to do.
Like I say, it's easy with my bass as a prop in front of me. But without it, out on the floor with three women (one of whom I was desperately wanting to look cool to, even though it's just goddamn WRONG) I felt really, really weird.
I've let go by myself before. That's easy. I can put on a King Crimson CD and dance in 17/8 like some crazed mutation of John Belushi and Robert Fripp, for fuck's sake. But that's when nobody's looking.
I can't believe how inhibited I felt. I enjoy watching people dance while we play, because sometimes you get people who really let go and are fun to see, but usually I enjoy it because of how ridiculous some of these white girls look, dancing the way their grandparents might, sorta dancing, but sorta looking really uptight and inhibited.
And yes, based on last night's venture into this activity, I dance like a fucking white girl. JUST like the three white girls I was on the floor with, maybe a little more loose than them, but not much.
I need to work on this. I think it might just be one of the most liberating things I ever do.
I learned something utterly amazing this morning.
Mom told me how much they enjoyed the part of the show they saw, and that they stayed well into the second set (with Katie sleeping like a brick) because Dad wanted to. He doesn't see us that often, and he really enjoyed it.
He was enjoying more than us, though.
Mom told me that he was having a lot of fun watching the older couples dancing (especially the one I mentioned earlier) and said something to the effect of "I couldn't do that anymore."
Anymore?
When I was little, I remember the other couples that my parents would have over, or go out with. i havne't seen any of them in years, they haven't either.
What I never knew is that they often went out dancing.
My parents.
My DAD.
One of the most uptight, stiff, anal-retentive people I know, who drilled conformity, fear, inhibition, and SHIT into my head for as long as I can remember...this man used to LOVE dancing.
My fucking DAD.
I can't fathom this. This is information so left-field, so totally unexpected, so completely at odds with what I know of him at age 36 (he's 65 now) that I just can't process it.
Until Mom tells me more. Then things start to make sense.
He used to dance with the other wives. Mom hardly ever danced with him. She wasn't into it, felt weird about it, never could do it for long.
Things are never as simple as you sometimes think they are.
I tend to think of my Dad as the one who shuts all the fun down. Fuck knows that's been MY experience. But I had an epiphany this morning, and I had to hide it from Mom, because I suddenly felt an enormous amount of anger towards her.
That went away quickly, and was replaced by sadness. And now, just more understanding.
What has happened for the last six years since I moved out, when I call home and she answers?
Probably 70% of the time, when I merely ask her how's she's doing, she can destroy my mood with one sentence. "Not very good." Delivered with the kind of pain and suffering of a woman who just KNOWS that the whole universe is fucking with her, and she's going to feel sorry for herself no matter what.
And the bad thing is, I recognize this shit. I can just go look in a mirror if I want to see somebody else who can do that stupid shit sometimes.
My Dad used to do something *I* can't even quite get myself to do.
And my fucking mother killed it.
Oh, she didn't mean to, and that's where the anger turns to sadness, then to understanding. We seldom mean to kill the things in our loved ones that they need for their happiness. We just DO it.
It usually goes both ways. He's certainly killed some things in her. But it never occured to me what she could have done to him.
Fuckin' hell.
My DAD???????????????????
The biggest lesson I've learned about my family in the past few years of getting into genealogy isn't who they were. It's what they BECAME. I was fascinated to find that so many of my ancestors were Quakers, who at one time were about as forward-thinking a collection of white people as you can imagine. They had some weird tendencies and bullshit ideas, just like most religions, but these people were way ahead of the game on issues of race, education, women's rights, gay rights, etc.
I've asked myself many times in the past few years this question - how could THIS group of people have turned into the ignorant, racist, narrow-minded FUCKS who I grew up around.
Easy. It's called INERTIA.
When I took that walk a few weeks ago that caused me to meet my Dad's third cousin, I was walking on property that had been in my family since the 1830s. It still is. My Dad was born there. And the family hasn't left.
I grew up four miles away.
It's interesting to think of the better sides of a group of people staying in one place. It is kinda cool, in a sense. They were among the first white people here. Indian land was mere yards away from that part of the county when they first started coming here (I believe my gggg-grandfather's brothers were here in the 1820s. He was here by 1836.)
But the disadvantages are obvious.
When you stay in the same place, and never venture outside of that world except for a week's vacation (and I've met people in this area who haven't even done THAT, who in fact have never even left this COUNTY one time) and only hang around other people like you...what the fuck do you THINK is going to happen?
I had a sense of something being wrong with this picture from a very young age, but it was so drilled into me that I never could put my finger on it.
Moving out of this goddamn place was the best thing I could have done for myself. I started moving out in spirit in my last months of high school, when I dug deeper into the rock and roll that pretty much destroyed my religion. And thank God for that. You hear one Frank Zappa album, and you're either gonna run back to the withered arms of your fellow Narrow-Meisters, or you're gonna run headlong into THAT stuff, that sense of freedom.
Well, maybe not headlong. Maybe not even running. It took me a while. But I began moving.
Another big jump in the move out spiritually was around 1997, when I first got online and started meeting people from around the world. I moved out physically in 1999, came back, then moved out for good in 2000 when I went to Cincinnati to be with Sheryl.
It's become a cliche to talk about how 9/11 changed people. but for me, that change was pretty drastic. And very different than the "change" (yeah, right) that most Americans talk about. Watching those towers go down over and over again on the TV that day, sitting there holding my infant daughter, that was terrible. but what I saw in the days and weeks afterwards was what nailed down the thought that I had to spiritually distance myself even further from my upbringing. I DESPISE what this country has become, and it's because of people with the same mindsets as the ones I grew up with. People with no sense of what lies outside their tiny world. Are they better company than assholes who fly airplanes into buildings in the name of THEIR bullshit? Of COURSE they are. Believe me, I'd rather party with W than Bin Laden.
But that's beside the point. MY people are in need of change. THEY are the people who I'm around every day. I'll take them over the other guys, but that's hardly my concern. My concern is how to make my corner of this planet a better place, and I can only start within myself. I've started. I've come down the road a good distance, but there's more steps to take. Towards freedom, not just in the sense we hear aboutfrom our "leaders", not just in the sense of not being so fucking dependant on others like I've been my whole life, but also freedom from the shit that is still lurking in my noggin, years and years later. I could quite easily point at these fuckers who taught me that shit, but I'm 36 now. I've gotta do this work myself and let them take care of THEIR shit.
I need to learn how to dance.
That is the next step. The inhibition I felt last night was put there by other people. It's only going to be done away with by ME.
A perfect metaphor for my life. Trying to dance, feeling constricted and full of doubt, with a woman five feet away who I would love nothing more than to be absolutely without inhibition with. I can't have her, she's not mine to have. But what she represents to me now - freedom from the chains I felt on me last night while she was RIGHT THERE NEXT TO ME - that is something to pursue. I'll have to find another place to pursue it, but I'm glad she was there at that time, because looking back to last night with the knowledge I gained this morning, I may not be able to love her, but I can love what I saw there, that moment when she was by me while I tried to shake loose of that inhibition.
It was funny. She had the inhibition too. But it's not in her eyes. She looks very free inside, it's one of the things that draws me to her. She's got an incredible spirit. But on the dance floor, she shut down the way I did. She didn't on the first gig she came to after having her baby, though. I remember being totally knocked out by how free she looked THAT night, less than two weeks after having her daughter. So obviously the inhibition doesn't completely control her. She can let go sometimes.
I hope S comes back and sits in on another couple songs sometime soon. Layla sometimes dances with a couple of the guys who come out to see us often. I might feel guilt over part of my feelings here, but there is no reason I can't ask for one thing if the opportunity comes around.
I'm gonna ask her to dance with me.
It'll get me off my knees, you see...
Love,
Dougie
A Certain Girl
06.25.06 (1:27 am) [edit]"There's a certain girl I've been in love with a long, long time
(What's her name?)
I can't tell you
(Ahh....)
I can't reveal her name until she's mine
(What's her name?)
I can't tell you
(Ahh...)
Someday I'm going to wake up and say
I'll do anything just to be your slave
There's a certain girl I've been in love with a long, long time"
- Naomi Neville
I always liked Zevon's version of that.
Other good stuff to write about, but i've got one thing on my mind right now...
Layla.
This is getting worse. Not that I'm really letting on so much, I'm just feeling it when I see her drive away with him after the gig.
The guy who I'd never think of doing anything to hurt.
OK, I think about it a lot. I'd just never DO it.
Why couldn't she be married to an asshole? I wouldn't think twice about trying to steal her away. But no, she's married to a guy I love like a brother.
Shitfucky.
Shitfucky on a STICK.
I wonder if she notices when I'm playing to her. I even point the damn bass right at her sometimes.
The guy who might be replacing me finally did his audition tonight. The place always clears out after their drawing at 11:00, so we let him sit in on five songs. That's a whole other set of emotions right there. Suffice to say that he'll probably be fine once he gets more comfortable with the material, but it brought up some really weird shit inside me to be in the audience for that.
She made a joke out of there only being 8 people left in the audience by coming up and sitting right in front of us on the floor. So I sat down beside her. And tried to unglue my eyes from the most perfect set of legs..........
It's only later that I think about what she could do to ME. When she's there in front of me, all I can think about is how much I want to please HER. Honey, the dick can wait. I KNOW you can take care of the dick. The challenge is to make YOU happy. I want to make YOU come. Now lay back, relax, and wrap those unspeakably awe-inspiring legs around my head while I get to work on you, you fucking goddess of a woman.
We only exchanged a slight couple bits of innuendo. She mentioned how she got a laugh out of some place she saw called Beaver Ice Cream.
"Sounds delicious..."
She seemed to like that.
I was softly singing Layla to myself while breaking down. Every time i walked past her - "you've got me on my knees..."
I'll write more in the morning. First I have to shake this off.
Love,
Dougie
Satan Is My Co-Pilot
06.22.06 (6:34 pm) [edit]"Don't shake me, Lucifer." - Roky Erickson
Took a break from this here library (damn, I love this place and I'm glad I can come here often again) to go eat some death. BW3. Nothing like Guinness and hot chicken wings on a night I feel like tearing shit up.
It's a good feeling. I'm actually really goddamn happy right now. Fuck knows why.
I walked into BW3 and the cute little brunette behind the counter took my order. Imagine a much better looking Shelly Duvall. Then she stepped back for a minute and made a funny noise, looked at her hands.
"Oh no. I forget my rings."
"Uh-oh, I hope you're not married. You can get in trouble for that shit." I gave her my cutest/stupidest smile.
"No, but one of them is important."
"So you're not married, eh?" Even cuter/stupider smile.
She laughed at that. Or at me. Fuck knows which.
I went to the bar for beer and she brought me my food.
"I hope you find your rings."
"Oh, I know where they're at."
"I'm not wearing any. Want to eat wings and drink beer with me?"
She laughed again. "Sorry. I'm working."
"Ahhh, fuck work. I've got a nice cave just north of here and we can eat nuts and berries in the woods and go on beer runs when necessary."
"Oh my God, you are so funny." She about came apart.
"I'm also really rich, smart, and an incredible lover."
"Really?"
"OK, I'm full of shit. I'm actually broke, stupid, and impotent. But I mean well. Come to my cave and eat wings with me anyway."
"I'm a vegetarian."
"You must feel a distinct sense of incongruity given you position here at this fine chicken-killing establishment."
No shit. I pulled that right from my ass.
"Oh my God, you are so funny."
"And you are really cute. Will you marry me?"
"Sorry, I've got a boyfriend."
"Shit. But look!" I held up a wing. "My chicken parts are bigger than his!"
I'm surprised she wasn't repulsed at that.
She laughed REALLY hard. "That's what you think."
And that is when I started laughing so hard that Guinness nearly came out my nose.
The look on her face nearly made my brain snap. "I've gotta get back to work."
"Damn. And I was enjoying our chicken-based innuendo." I gave her the dirtiest "I wanna eat your poon" look I could pull off.
She patted me on the shoulder. "Come back sometime."
i think I just might have to do that.
Love,
Dougie
Your Pussy Would Be The Fucking Winning Lottery Ticket For Me, Baby
06.22.06 (5:20 pm) [edit]"I'll buy that for a dollar!" - Robocop
I bought coffee this morning on the way to work. (I'm not even typing about that, it's got weird and I'm not sure what the fuck is going on work-wise right now.)
I also bought a scratch-off ticket. I've been paying The Idiot Tax once or twice a week for a few months now. I figure a couple bucks a week is fine. Anything more than that and you're a desparate asshole.
I won four bucks. Wheeee! I can pay the rent for YEARS!!!!
After work, I went to cash it in. Behind the counter of a Shell station was a guy and his co-worker - a DELICIOUS looking young thing, probably just above high school age. Dark hair, straight, shoulder-length. Dark eyes mixing innocence and pure FUCKERY. Pouty lips that could in all probability suck a basketball through sixteen yards of garden hose.
I had bone-syndrome in NANOSECONDS.
And based on her performance behind the counter dealing with approving a pump and taking care of my ticket, she was also DUMBER THAN A BOX OF SHIT.
Like I care about that kind of thing when my weenie is awake.
Gawd, I'm a fucking asshole...
I asked for four of the same ticket. She gave me four completely different ones. Then she levelled me with a DICK-ENGORGING smile and said, "If you win a hundred bucks, you should split it with me."
"Honey, if I win a million, I'll take you to Vegas with me."
Yes, I called her "honey."
"Vegas? I'm not even 21 yet."
Bone, meet polyester...
"Oh well, I don't even like Vegas. We'll go wherever you want."
"You better take care of me if you win."
Oh, I'll take care of you alright. I'll shove my face in your snatch, pick you up by your asscheeks, and drag you around the room while MUNCHING MUFFIN until you come so hard you can't see straight for a week, you little vixen.
OK, I'd get lockjaw, break my back, completely disgust her and end up in a goddamn wheelchair. Who am I kidding?
I went to the car and scratched my four tickets. Won five bucks. So I went back in.
"Did you win? Did you win???"
Cloth, meet Woodrow.
"Five bucks."
"Well, that won't help me."
You little fucking tease...
"Give me five of the same thing. If I win a hundred, will you go out with me?"
"Sure!"
Pants, meet...oh, you know the rest...
"Of course, if I don't win a hundred, you wouldn't have anything to do with me, would you?"
"No."
At least she's honest. Little cunt.
"Seriously, you should go out with me if I win big. I'm sure you'd love nothing more than to go out with a fat hairy guy who is...how old ARE you, anyway?"
"19." Said with lips a-poutin'...
Schlong, meet...get the idea now?
"You wouldn't touch me with a ten-foot cattle prod if I didn't win, would you?"
"No." Goddammit, you REALLY need to stop smiling like that...
"And if I win?"
"I'll think about it." Oh my gawd, the evil little look in that girl's eyes...
qn30fv825t4jv20845g,jmv-x 9qfx0gj06h,065hk,-wckg,-5 wkgc.-w4kwb-.kc-6kh-56h,.-wkgh0 nbqoervc98jg0,q,xj034jt5q k3
I went outside and did the five tickets. I won ONE dollar.
Oh well, I've only actually put a dollar into it.
"OK, one more time and I'll get out of your way so I don't hold up the line. Give me one more of those."
"OK. You better win."
"And if I do?"
Just a smile...
"Give me the fucking ticket." We both laughed. The other guy behind the counter just stared at me like I was a total asshole. I AM. Fuck him, I'm having fun.
I scratched it off in front of her. She leaned down in front of me. If only she'd been wearing a better shirt, I might have got to see something...
Nothing. Nada. Not a goddamn thing.
"Shit."
"Sorry. Can't go out with you now."
"You are too fucking cute, do you know that?" I looked right into her eyes. Winked. Probably looked like a total idiot. But goddammit, I was TRYING.
Big smile. The kind thar said "Yes, I am. And you are a fat repulsive fuck who is twice my age."
"Have a nice day."
"You too." Goddamn, quit smiling at me like that, you little...
I turned around and looked at her as I walked out the door. She flashed me another quick smile.
And all it actually cost me was one fucking dollar.
Hard,
Dougie
f4otj0qjfc50,kg6p'iuyb7k,9yk-4ckv.wyhvp64
06.20.06 (6:43 pm) [edit]http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060620/ap_on_g o_ca_st_pe/military_gays
This is the kind of shit that makes me want to punch people dead in their stupid goddamn CUNT-LIKE faces.
Love,
Dougie
Return Of The Son Of Time For More Beer
06.20.06 (6:36 pm) [edit]"Be careful what you wish for, you might just get it." - My first girlfriend, Susan
She told me that often, usually in reference to herself. Good advice too, that heartbreaking little...damn...I really liked her...
Getting in women's pants for $9.50 an hour. Fuckin' hell. If I'd got what I MEANT by that wish, they wouldn't have to pay me at all. I could just live...you know...down there, and survive on the nutrients provided by...uh...eating that.
Shit.
The temp agency called back. She wanted to know how I liked the job. How nice of her. I guess. I asked about the short-term thing. She said it should go through this week, maybe into next week, but would end after that. I asked again about what she said before about being able to stay on if I impress them enough. "Yes, they might take that option." Totally non-committal.But it's not her job anyway, so...
I'm hoping if it does have to end that it at least gets through this time next week. At least keep my child support payments under control and help me knock down the old cable bill.
I did a bit of shopping at the grocery store I used to work at. Never heard back from them, but one of the girls told me I should just go talk to the lady who does the hiring now. I wasn't sure how to go about that. Of course, she's not in today.
Saw four people there I used to work with. The funny thing is, the only people still there over a year later are the people I LIKED. The assholes are gone. Most of us hired in within a few weeks of each other, and they're all making more money now.
So it's still an option if this other thing tanks on me. The drop in pay back to what I used to make there would be downright fucking depressing, but I might be able to weasel a bit more out of them. I left in a hurry, but I did well for them while I was there.
I'd rather do what I'm doing now though. Oh well...
Signs made to put up advertising for students. THAT is what I need to be doing as soon as I'm able.
Saw E at the grocery. Damn, she's cute. She actually seems to like the idea of working with me again. Of course, the disadvantage is that I can no longer sexually harrass her, which is what I've been doing for the past year whenever I go in there. (About once or twice a month, it's been.) Of course, she knows that I know that she knows this is all bullshit and she'd rather stick a live sandcrab up her poonani than fuck ME, so it's all been a stupid fucking game anyway. But I'd sure like to find out if that killer recognize-it-from-a-mile- away light blonde hair is her natural color, though................................
Love,
Dougie
Time For More Beer
06.20.06 (5:00 pm) [edit]I got up this morning, got my shit together, and was about ten minutes from going out the door to begin a day of relentless job hunting when the phone rang.
The temp agency. Calling ME for a change. You know, as opposed to me calling them SEVEN FUCKING TIMES A DAY like I've been for a couple weeks now.
I was working by 10AM.
I don't want to say much, because it appears to be short-term and even though they told me I might be able to stay on longer if they like me, I've come not to believe a goddamn thing this agency tells me.
BUT, I hope it lasts. Because it's damn near exactly what I was hoping to get from them. The hours i'm fine with. The money is the best I've ever got from them except for a couple short-term jobs I did for them back when I was married. The job is ridiculously easy, and not too bad of a drive. It's about as good as I am likely to get from these people, so I'm gonna do my damndest to keep it.
Of course, it might end tomorrow for all I know.
Funny job. They deal in women's clothing and cosmetics. I spent the day going through pants, marking a tag in each pair. Supposedly I'm "inspecting" them, but all I really do is open the plastic bag, mark the tag, tape the bag back up and throw it in a box.
So, I spent all day getting in women's pants. Oh, the cosmic motherfuckin' irony.................
Saw a girl there who I worked with at the job I did for a few days back two weeks ago when I first started brinign my stuff down here. We both agreed that this is MUCH better than that job. And hey, she's a cute little thing. I noticed half the black guys talking to her. Yep, me and the brothers got one thing in common - we like them little blonde white girls.
Got my new P.O. box. Without the hassle at one of the other towns of extra paperwork and having to wait 5 days for them to confirm my previous address. These guys were almost 1/3rd of the price, and I was out the door with the keys in ten minutes. Yay!
Due to M's weird schedule with his other band, we're having to cancel our Indianapolis gig in July to make room for the gig we were going to do on the week before in Marion. Sucks for me, because I had a few friends I wanted to come out and see us (including a couple of you fine readers) but the guy in Marion loves us and even took out a newspaper ad for our last gig there where he called us the best band in the county. If they're going to keep going after M and I leave, they need to be on good terms with him. So it's for the best, I was just hoping for that one gig in Indy. They're supposed to be there again in October, after I leave, but if they're still having personnel issues, I might try to make that one too.
I just saw the hottest fuckin' girl I've seen in a week, here in the library. And I'm PRAYING she's legal, because I really don't know and I think I need a shower now. Holy shit, look at that rack..........
Time to head back home, unpack shit. That guy at the Marathon station is gonna be getting real used to me and my two-cans-of-Steel-Reserve -a-night purchase...
Love,
Dougie
Time For Beer
06.19.06 (7:21 pm) [edit]"And every night I shut my eyes
So I don't have to see the light
Shining so bright
I'll dream about a cloudy sky, a cloudy sky."
- Faith No More, "Just A Man"
Main Entry: 1bit·ter·sweet
Pronunciation: 'bi-t&r-"swEt
Function: noun
1 : something that is bittersweet; especially : pleasure alloyed with pain
- Merriam-Webster Online
Stardate 061906, Loveland, Ohio Quadrant. Must...find...hot...alien chick...to plook...Spooooooooooooooock!!!!!! !
Turned in the keys at 5PM. About three hours behind "schedule", not that I'm capable of ever planning this kind of thing ahead.
The car looks like one big opaque fuckin' thing. You can't see out of most of the windows. I had more shit than I thought. And this is after throwing a ton of shit away. Nothing important, mind you, but final clean-up was quite interesting.
The last two things I took before locking the door was a small green ball and a picture. A picture I carried across the country and back last year. It's not the best shot of Katie - white background making it kinda washed-out - but it's stayed with me. I've kept it by the bed for the past year.
I did better at organizing this time than when I moved last year. Not that this is saying much.
I filled up the gas tank at the VP behind the apartment. Put air in the back passenger side tire, which needs looked at soon.
I pulled out onto Thompson Rd., heading towards I-74. I took one final look back at my home for the past year. I cranked up some Faith No More. A mile later, I was crying so hard I nearly had to pull over.
I've learned to accept failure. It's becoming my best friend. It teaches me the shit I'm too stupid to figure out on my own. And when I spend enough time working through it, it doesn't feel like failure anymore. In fact, it feels pretty fucking good, though there's always that other side of it, the side that doesn't taste so good, but seems essential for nutrition as well. I've finally learned the definition of "bittersweet."
I haven't got the first fucking clue what will happen tomorrow, or next week, or next month. I'm out on a goddamn limb, and Shirley McClaine can kiss my hairy ass.
The sun is out.
Love,
Dougie
Father's Day, The Devil's Cupboard, & Eternal Whiteness
06.19.06 (10:56 am) [edit]Taking my final break from moving out. In a few hours, I'll be ready to go.
Ready, but not ready.
Father's Day was pretty special. Katie got me a set of ice cream bowls, and a scoop with a cone handle. I think she was sending me a message...
So we had ice cream on our walk by the river. We watched a bit of Star Trek, and had dinner at Red Robin. They've got about 800,000 different burgers. I hadn't been there before. The pot roast burger was OK, not great. But the chicken tortilla soup was UN-FUCK-BELIEVABLE. I need more of that. Like, NOW.
I bought her a coloring book at Half-Price Books, and we sat in the parking lot for a while, just snuggling and talking and goofing aroud. Being together. I'm one lucky daddy.
Packing up food, I found some things Mom gave me that are fairly horrific. Mom seems to have set her sights a bit lower over the years when it comes to Culinary Excellence. Now, I buy shit at the dollar store too, but you have to be SELECTIVE in this sensitive area of shopping.
Then, of course, are the two cans of soup I've tried to ignore for months now. Bean and bacon. Wal-Mart brand.
Now, I love beans. I'm pretty fond of bacon. Fried up some this morning, in fact. But when you put these two items together in a soup, it is moving into an area that few humans should dare to tread. When you can it and have fucking WAL-MART sell it, you are essentially entering the manufacturing and distrubution of SATAN'S BUNGHOLE GREASE. This, my friends, is not something you want to carry on your soul for long.
I look at these cans of DEVIL POOT and think "Maybe I should donate this to someone less fortunate than myself." A nice liberal white-person thought.
But that's hardly an altruistic notion. You might as well find some guy on the street and throw him a can and say, "Here, ya poor fuck! Eat THIS shit!"
I've got a bag of stuff I'll drop at a local church. I figure if some down-on-his-luck wretch has to have somebody to blame for poisoning him in the name of charity, let it be the goddamn Christians.
After dropping Katie off last night and heading towards Indy for the last time, I stopped in a convinience store. I got in line behind approximately 47 million Hispanic people, taking their sweet time to get their stuff and get out.
The Uber-White 50-something gentleman running the register was obviously HIGHLY DISTRESSED by the presence of these Non-Americans infesting his precious vanilla space. The loathing on his visage was a priceless study in Midwestern American Values.
I knew what would happen once they were gone and it would just be me and my fellow white man. So I prepared myself.
The last Hispanic child out the door (I thought they were cute little boogers, if a little too interested in running around knocking each other over) and Mr. America looked up at me and said, "Those Mexicans are everywhere now, aren't they?"
I feigned a look of absolute horror. "Dude, my FUCK-BUDDY is a Mexican!"
Not girlfriend. Not wife. When I go for shock value, I try to GET IT RIGHT.
It's a good thing he spent the rest of our transaction looking down. I was having a really hard time not exploding with laughter.
He made my change and didn't say a word as I walked out. Another line presented itself to me as I walked through the door.
"And he's got a bigger DICK than you, too!"
Fucking racist shitbag. Gotta keep 'em on their toes.
Time to go finish up at the apartment.
Love, Dougie
Layla, You've Got Me On My Knees
06.18.06 (2:56 am) [edit]"Have you ever loved a woman so much you tremble in pain?
Have you ever loved a woman so much you tremble in pain?
And all the time you know she bears another man's name.
But you just love that woman so much it's a shame and a sin.
You just love that woman so much it's a shame and a sin.
But all the time you know she belongs to your very best friend."
- Billy Myles
It terrifies me sometimes to think how easily certain women could fucking OWN me if they wanted to.
Especially the ones I keep wanting so bad. You know, the ones that it's fucking INSANE for me to want.
If I could have kept my attention on the one dancing right in front of me, I'd been OK.
Fun gig tonight. We've been there three times now and they always like us. One woman kept coming up, and at first I thought I was imagining it, but all the other guys noticed too and mentioned on break that she was obviously into me. Of course, then she'd sit back down next to another guy. Dammit.
Tall, short blonde hair, kinda flat body all the way around. Not the prettiest ever, but she seemed like such a NASTY little girl, the way she was smiling at me, the way she was moving that ass. Damn. she could MOVE, and she was doing it right in front of me every time, often looking back up at me.
And of course, she left with the other guy and I never really had a chance to talk to her other than about 20 seconds by the bar. It was if she had it for me when I was onstage and didn't give two shits once I was off.
But that wasn't what made the night difficult.
She actually started it, as she has a couple times in the past. I'd been thinking for the past couple gigs that she was sick of me. I am too fucking obvious. I can't keep my eyes off her. And I NEED to, because she's married to one of the best friends I've ever had.
But every once in a while she'll play with my head. Like tonight. She seemed all about talking to me tonight. It makes me NUTS, and she knows it, and she has no intention of following through on ANY of this, she obviously just likes MAKING ME GODDAMN CRAZY.
She managed to pull it out of me when she was pregnant several months back. My attraction to pregnant women has already been detailed here. I think she was the first woman I ever talked to about it, and it was highly amusing at the time to do it in a cutesy cloaked manner as if I wasn't talking about HER, when I most certainly and obviously was. She looked stunning the whole time. The GLOW off her for those nine months could knock me on my ass.
She still has some of it, and it mostly comes out of these big blue eyes that can turn me into a massive puddle of SHIT within nanoseconds. Those eyes...they could control me. They almost DO. I don't know how many times I've wante to fall to my knees and beg her just to let me LOOK at her for a while. It's goddamn PATHETIC how fucking STUPID I can be around her. I've learned to keep it under control, but she can see right through me every damn time.
When I saw their baby a few weeks ago, I looked at her and said "I can't believe it. She has your eyes. You're gonna need a shotgun, because this one is gonna have every guy in town after her when she grows up, just from having your eyes. Wow. Those eyes could kill a man, B."
She's pretty open about this stuff. I can't remember how it started tonight, but she was goofing around while I was at the bar, and put a drink glass on top of my head from behind me.
"Oh, you're good."
"I sure am." Evil little grin. Then she walked away.
I went up to her. "Honey, I already guessed that on my own."
I didn't catch all of the next sentence. I caught "nympho", "perv", and "all night long", and those eyes...oh, you dirty little girl. Fuckin' with the bass player's noggin again.
Once everyone was away a few minutes later, I went up to her. She was sitting on the drum riser. She had on a short skirt, no shoes. Her legs are WORKS OF ART. I didn't even try to hide it as I looked at them. She looked up with a grin. As if to say "You want these wrapped around your head, don't you, Dougie?"
Fuck yeah I do...
"So, B. What was that nympho thing again?" Big smile.
"Oh, just something one of my friends said about me." Said with the tone of innocence, with anything BUT innocence behind it.
"You little tease." I laughed.
She looked away. Started whistling.
"OK, just back me into a corner, why don't you..."
"I have no idea what you mean." Whistling again. You little vixen...
"B, I think I've said something like this to you before, but do you have any idea how difficult it is for me every night we play when the most beautiful woman in the room - and as far as I know probably the coolest - is married to one of the best friends I've ever had?"
She looked up, more serious. "I'm sorry." Obviously, she suddenly remembered what she was doing to me.
"Don't be. I enjoy it too much." Big smile. Then I stuck my tongue out. Faked a single lick.
Thank fuck she's got a good sense of humour.
"Oh, you are so bad."
"Bullshit. I'm really very, very good." Tongue again.
Nervous but very amused little laugh. Turned the tables on ya, didn't I, you evil little temptress?
She flashed those eyes again. I know what I THINK she was saying - "Too bad I can't take you up on that offer, boy" - but I don't really know. She's pretty fucking good at this game. Little vixen...
I had to look back over my shoulder to see if anyone was coming. I leaned down, looked right into those unspeakable eyes from two feet away. I wanted to take her face in both hands and softly kiss her. Softly, gently...then pull her to the floor and attack her like a crazed jackrabbit.
"It doesn't help when you wear stuff like that. But please, don't stop." I couldn't bring myself to say it out loud, but I tried to construct a face that said "Honey, I want to fuck and eat you like you've never been before."
I usually feel like a complete moron doing that. Something about her, the way she flirts right back, makes me feel like it actually works with her. Not that she'd do anything about it. She's just fucking with my head, after all.
And she's married to him.
Goddammit.
A couple minutes later, I got to say what was on my mind, a famous guitar lick soaring through my head. "I'm Eric Clapton and he's George Harrison, honey"
She knew exactly what I meant. Her smile said so. My little Pattie Boyd.
If I made a top ten list of all the women I've ever seen, she'd be on it. Not just because of her eyes, or her body, or her incredible light delicate skin that makes me want to run my mouth and my hands over every single inch of her. What lies BEHIND all that is even more of a turn-on. A very sweet, funny, intelligent, liberal, open-minded young lady (13 years under me, for fuck's sake) who knows she's a killer but in the end does not show a trace of arrogance, and who is always just plain fun to be around.
And...you know...totally fuckable and married to my friend...
Lay-la..........
Love,
Dougie
Shoot Is Shit With Two O's
06.17.06 (2:23 pm) [edit]My cute little slutbag neighbor is enjoying her new place, apparantly. Last night I didn't sleep very well, and around 2AM I heard a guy's voice out my window from next door:
"Have a good one, D!"
"See you next week!"
Hmmm. MAYBE it was a 24-hour laundry service. I'm thinking somebody got his knob shined. Either that or she got her stash for the week. I talked to her for a couple minutes this morning (standard neighborly bullshit) and she seemed quite WIRED FOR ACTION. Cute little whore, but she scares me.
Saw H yesterday and this morning. I had to buy a new mop this morning since the old one was...uh...I think you could cure cancer with the shit on the end of it.
She's expecting in August. She looks AMAZING. And practically about to fall out of her top were....oh my fuckin' gawd...look at those tits...
"Didn't get a call from you."
She looked away. "I know. I'm sorry. I really just can't call you."
"Of course you can't. It was insane of me to suggest such a thing."
"No, it's OK. It was really tempting." she looked up briefly with a funny smile.
Dick, meet zipper.
"Really?" I gave her my best smile. And probably sounded as out-of-breath as I suddenly felt.
"Yeah. You're very nice to me. Thank you. But I can't, you know."
"I know. And you're very nice yourself. Not to mention amazingly beautiful."
She turned about sixteen shades of red. Man, this is cool...
"I wish my husband would say that to me more often."
Now what do I say to THAT? "I'm sorry to hear that."
"He barely wants to touch me anymore." She looked...what was that? Definitely unhappy.
Now me, *I* want to touch her. Oh fuck I sure do.
"I'm sorry. I hope things change for you after the baby."
"They better." Wow. THAT was an evil little grin.
Somebody got in line behind me. Fuck.
"Have a good one. I don't know when I'll be back by, but good luck with everything."
"Thank you. You too. I hope your move goes OK."
"H? Don't forget - I think you're fantastic."
"You are too. Thank you."
I walked out about ready to collapse. My back was hurting, my head was spinning a bazillion fucking miles an hour.
Damn. If only...
Bad craziness, Dougie. Bad fuckin' craziness. Time to get the fuck on the road away from here.
------------------------- ---------------------
I've said it enough times already. But damn, I'm gonna miss Indy. It's hard to be in that apartment now. Most of my stuff is out now. But I laid there this morning for half an hour just wanting to milk those moments for all they were worth. I love that place. I wish I could take it with me. But I can't. And there's one very good reason why not.
I saw Katie's rehearsal for her dance recital Thursday night. The recital itself is about to start as I type this. Between moving and the gig tonight, I couldn't go. Damn. But the rehearsal was great, and she looked WONDERFUL in her little dress. It was great to see how she reacts to being onstage. She loves it up there. She looks so confident, and she knew what she was doing. I was so proud of my girl.
It's good to see her more now. I'll spend part of tomorrow with her, not as much as I'd like since I have to come back to Indy one more time before handing my keys in Monday, but I can't wait to see her. I've got the best kid on the planet.
Gig with the "sub" drummer tonight. Haven't seen him in a month. I'm thinking ahead to what I want to do band-wise down in Cincy, still formulating ideas. Bill and I had a talk the other night about how much we both need to find ways of marketing what we're best at. We're both tired of this fucking grind that leads nowhere. The American dream of working hard until you have more? It's BULLSHIT. Especially today when we're owned and operated by corporations that are increasingly driving most Americans down further and further, with a government hell-bent on making us blame everyone but THEM AND THEIR CORPORATE MASTERS. We aren't entering an age of corporate feudalism because of immigrants or terrorists or liberals, we're here because of the SWINE who have come to own us and our futures.
FUCK them in their rancid assholes. I finally feel the strength to break free of that cycle. It will take time. It won't happen overnight. But it will happen. I'll find the way of marketing myself without compromising my soul. Goddamn it, I HAVE to.
Love,
Dougie
You've Got Friggin' Mail
06.15.06 (10:26 am) [edit]Prices for a P.O. box for six months in three different towns:
$37.
$50
$14
Uhh...not a hard choice.
Love,
Dougie
Very Nice...
06.14.06 (3:13 pm) [edit]"So far I have seen nothing which could possibly give me the notion that cosmic force is the manifestation of a mind and will like my own infinitely magnified: a potent and purposeful conciousness which deals individually and directly with the miserable denizens of a wretched little flyspeck on the back door of a microscopic universe, and which singles this putrid excrescence out as the one spot whereto to send an onlie-begotten Son, whose mission is to redeem those accursed flyspeck-inhabiting lice which we call human beings - bah!! Pardon the 'bah!" I feel several 'bahs!," but out of courtesy I only say one. But it is all so very childish. I cannot help taking exception to a philosophy which would force this rubbish down my throat. 'What have I against religion?' That is what I have against it!"
- H.P. Lovecraft
There's No Place Like Home
06.13.06 (8:47 pm) [edit]"Jesus jumped-up Christ, that movie WAS an acid trip!" - Me after synching up The Wizard Of Oz with Dark Side Of The Moon
Scrambling for work today. Nothing from the temp agency. Had to re-apply online for the grocery store. One of the guys there (who hired in the same day I did and is now going between cashier and low-level management) told me there was no reason for them not to hire me back. "They've gone through 30 people since you left."
Also went back downtown to the library, which I'd done with Katie last night.
Last week, our Wednesday night was very special. She was here late, and we watched TV and snuggled, and it hit me very hard just how weird this all is. She's not far away now, but I still only see her a couple times a week, and I still have to take her home, which was harder Wednesday night than it has been for a long time.
But our time together is beautiful, and that's what matters.
Last night, we came back here for dinner, then downtown. I parked by the river and the big stadiums, and we walked up into downtown. Just walking, talking, BEING. Not our usual night, but perfect.
I said something about school, and she told me she wanted to go back to her school to visit when she gets older. She'll be leaving there for kindergarten in a couple months. "I did that a couple times, honey."
"You did? Did you have memories? You missed your friends? I'm going to miss my friends. We're all going to different schools now. We had good times. It was so perfect."
The strain in her little voice was so pure, so sweet, but still hurting.
"Well honey, you'll still have good times. Maybe even better. And new friends. It's hard to move on. I know that. Right now I'm moving back here, and I'm really going to miss my apartment and everything in Indianapolis, and it really does kinda hurt. I don't like that feeling, but I know it can be even better here. I can have more than I had there. And I'll be with you. That's what makes it better. But I know what you mean. I'm sure you'll find new friends and have even better times than you did before."
She thought for a moment. "You're right, Daddy. I bet my new school will be LOTS of fun. I cna't wait to meet new friends!"
Funny how her mood lifted so quickly.
------------------------- -------
"Sometimes I'm with my daughter, and I'm walking with her, and talking with her, and I pick her up and look at her and I think that the relationship I have with her now is going to affect her relationship with men for the rest of her life. And I realize then that my only job as a father is to keep her off the pole. Keep my baby off the pole! They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter is a stripper, you fucked up!" - Chris Rock
"I'm a dancer."
"Really? Looks like I'm moving out too soon." Big smile.
"Wanna see my tattoos?"
"Uhhhh...yeah..."
She must be quite the Aerosmith fan...
"Uhhh, nice. You CAN pull that top down a little farther. Or do you need a dollar?"
"Give me a dollar and I'll laugh at you. I can do better than that."
"Let's see...here's my wallet...hey, I've got a twenty. Do you do private showings? I mean, there's a bush back there we can..." I started laughing before I could finish.
She thought I was funny.
She laid out her basic philosophy of life, which pretty much revolves around using her "assets" to get as much money as possible. I loved how she referred to the guys as her "clients" in the same way my lawyer friend would say that word. Yeah, clients. Of course, I guess if you're getting cash to have a 400 pound trucker splooge his caffiene-ridden semen on your stomach, THAT is a client.
Not all strippers are whores too. But come on. This little girl has served more cock than a Chick-Fil-A.
She told me she's 20 years old. Pants, meet wood. She told me about the friend who was about to pick her up for work. "She's really cute, but she kinda looks like Tom Petty. You know who he is?"
"Sure, I've played a few of his songs in bands before"
Her already crack-heightened eyes got really big. "You're a musician??? I've GOT to see your guitars!"
Pants, meet...oh, you know the rest...
So before I knew it, I was in my apartment, sitting on the floor across from a beautiful but fairly scary crackwhore stripper who was holding my guitar. Moving her hand up and down like...oh shit...
Shoulda gave her the bass. As the Prophet Claypool once said, it's longer, and those low frequencies keep the sperm count higher.
At this point, I'm breathing heavier, completely wanting to fuck this girl at the same moment that every RATIONAL part of my being is saying "If you stick your dick in THAT, it'll explode."
Her friend pulled in. Long straight blonde hair, with obvious dark roots. Quite pretty, but sonofabitch, she DOES like like Tom Petty's kid.
I bade them goodbye. Thank Christ. THAT was fuckin' weird.
------------------------- -------
"False gods will bring the devil the blues
And the blues do not themselves excuse
Don't come from the blues, if the blues are empty
Hell is filled
Don't slander me ma-ma-ma, don't slander me and you."
- Roky Erickson
Only seven more gigs with the band.
The best place for us to do our more aggressive side, it was our third time there. Great fun. I usually hang around and try to talk to women afterwards, but every one in there seemed to be with a guy. Most of them were older this time, many in their 40s. And looking damn good for the most part. One particularly pleasant looking cornfed lady with beautiful blonde hair framing a weathered but lovely face came up to me on every break, asking for songs we didn't know. But some good ones. Never had anyone ask for Van Morrison's Tupelo Honey before. She came up and danced a lot, often with her boyfriend/husband/whoever .
The guy that's possibly going to replace me was there, and intends to be at most of the rest of our gigs until he's in. Nice guy. But when he told me who he was, a nice little bit of arrogance shot up my system. "I'm gonna fuck with this guy's head", I thought to myself.
I played a LOT of notes. I can do this shit a lot more effectively and intelligently than I used to, but I still went out of my way to be as aggressive and note-y as the music would allow.
And I scared the shit out of him. He said it himself at the end of the night. Hehe. I'm such a prick.
Of course, he doesn't have to do 1/10th of what I did that night, and I told him how I played most of the stuff very simply for the first few months I was back in, because you can, and what the fuck. I still lay out nothing but the groove almost half the time, but I push it hard enough to be noticeable, and I think that's the best thing a rock bass player can do. You don't need chops for this stuff. It's about BALLS.
At soundcheck, I laid out a basic groove, and the others jumped in on a straight blues progression. I got up to the mic and sang a Roky Erickson tune that nobody within 10 miles save for our singer would likely have known. It would have been good too, if not for the lack of rhythmic propulsion behind me. I'll let the musicians have fun with that thought. Fuckin' drummers...
The solo version of Rockin' In The Free World got a great response, and I even heard a couple guys in the back singing along. I sang it great too, up until the last note out of my mouth. As Stone and L.A. will remember, I always came out of the last chorus with a loud "Freedom!" that isn't on any version I know of Neil doing it, but he did add that to a live version of Crime In The City (one of my favorites, also originally on the Freedom album) and I thought it fit here well too. When I hit that last word, I did the most accurate impersonation of Tonight's The Night-era Neil I've ever pulled off. Which is to say I cracked all over the fucking thing like I'd just downed eight beers and hit puberty.
Somehow that was kinda cool. Too bad the entire upper half-octave of my vocal range was shot to shit for the rest of the night, though.
Getting towards sundown here in SW Ohio. I havne't even bothered bitching about my problems with my bank in the past week, but maybe tomorrow I'll actually be able to USE that check my grandma so kindly gave me. Got some fuckin' bills to catch up on, and Bill wants me to tag along to a dinner tomorrow night with a couple online prog-fan buddies in town for the week.
Love,
Dougie
Evolving The Outlaw
06.13.06 (4:07 pm) [edit]"I don't see why people are so upset about cloning sheep. American television networks have been doing that to their audiences for years." - Jello Biafra
As I wrote recently, I've been enjoying several of Jello Biafra's spoken word albums recently. I get a positive feeling from him. After laying down all this SHIT going on in the world, exposing the horrific extent of corporate power that is quickly expanding in all directions, and expressing sympathy for the desire to smash it all to oblivion, he comes back down to how we must strive for a peaceful and rational solution. It's fucking inspiring stuff.
Doing a bit of web research, I discovered something that was a nice surprise - Jello's real name is also mine. We're both Bouchers. I don't know if we're related at all, but it's cool to share a surname with an excellent speaker, a strong activist, and of course, the guy who wrote Too Drunk To Fuck, one of the greatest rock songs of all time, if you ask me. Shit, there's even a reference to Eraserhead in there. How can I NOT love that song?
Keep it up, Jello. We need more like you.
Love, Dougie
4 Quick Stupid Things
06.12.06 (12:15 pm) [edit]1. Moving is a big fat pain in the ass.
2. H never called me. Given the amount of dick-thinking that lay behind even giving that particular girl my number, it's probably for the best.
3. Somebody hit my blog doing a Google search for "Brownsburg sucks."
4. Now that Gay Porn Boy is gone, I have a new neighbor. For one more week. Met her today.
A STRIPPER. And a REALLY FUCKING HOT one too. Of course, I think most of her "extra income" is going towards "high-velocity entertainment chemicals" given how fucking scattered she was, but damn, she looked good. Came over and sat on my floor and played my guitar. What a fucking moment of penile growth syndrome THAT was. I'll have to write more on this "special topic" later.
Gotta get moving. I just brought a shitload of stuff to Marion, now it's back to Indy, then down to Cincy for the week.
Love,
Dougie
I'm A Very Bad Boy (Redux)
06.10.06 (5:56 pm) [edit]I went back. Handed her a piece of paper.
My name
My phone number
I would love to talk to you some more soon. I'm in town (except for tonight) through Monday morning.
You, my dear, are a treasure.
Doug
This time she looked away. Blushing like a schoolgirl. "I'll see you this weekend."
THIS weekend? Uh...that implies tomorrow. Did she mean NEXT, when I said I'd be back to the store? Or...I need to think about something else. Not taht I've been ABLE to think about much else for hours now. My chest has been pounding, my brain has been a mess. And I'll be damned if I haven't loved it.
But I have been listening to a double CD comp of Roky Erickson from 2005 I got from the library. I was shocked to find that the album I had is apparantly re-recorded versions - most of what is on this comp is different versions of nearly all my favorites. Some I like better, some not, but it's all cool, and there are several goodies I hand't heard before.
I'm gonna have the band soundcheck on a minor blues progression tonight and sing Don't Slander Me on top of it. I can't fuckin' wait.
I took my desk to my Grandma's. She handed me an envelope right when I walked in the door.
A seriously helpful check. Not ass-saving, but far more than I'd have imagined, and I'd not asked her for anything. A very kind gift that will catch me on on my phone bill, pay my next month's car insurance, and take care of this week's gas and food.
Time to go rock. This place LOVES us, and we can play harder here than anywhere else we go. Based on what I did in the car today, I think I'm going to be singing well. Bass should be interesting. My arms are sore from all the shit I've been lifting and doing this week. And...OK...that other thing hasn't helped... :)
I'll be thinking of her while I play tonight, of course...
Love,
Dougie
The Shittiest Little Tape Gun In Texas
06.10.06 (10:32 am) [edit]Gawd, so much I want to write about, but I figure half of it is horseshit anyway, so I'll try to condense. At the library near my apartment. I got back into Indy last night.
I was told the first day that the job was likely short term, and it was obvious anyway, given the nature of the work. So yesterday we cleared the place out and left 15 minutes early, and sure enough, within a half an hour I got the phone call.
Fuck. Now I'm not working again.
So when I go back Sunday night (or maybe first thing Monday morning, I haven't made my mind up) I'll be thinking towards checking out the grocery store, and of course, bugging the temp agency for work AGAIN. I've got a couple other ideas too. They all suck, but they're workable.
The job that ended was fucking terrible. If the thing up in fuckin' Brownsburg was possibly the best job they'd got me, this newest one was quite arguably the worst. But I was prepared to slog through it for a while, probably because I had little choice. To list everything that SUCKED SLIME-FILLED HORSE COCK about this job would be a self-indulgent bitchfest of epic proportions that nobody in their right mind would want to read and I'd be an asshole to write. (Though at least I got to come up with the title of today's post. And for the record, it was TWO shitty tape guns. I damn near threw one across the room at one point.) So I'm not broken-hearted about not doing this job, but I am very uptight about money right now. I've not written much on this, because I'm trying not to think about it too much, but cash has become a very major problem. I haven't worked a full 40 hour week in two months. If not for the band, I'd be HOSED right now. Using my parents' van has made the move itself much easier, but the gas mileage in the damn thing is a motherfucker to deal with in comparison to the car, which costs far less to drive. But I'll be done with the van next weekend.
I saw H this morning. I figured she was gone by now, out on maternity leave. But no, she said she's there until the last minute.
My God, I can't believe what she does to me. I can't believe how incredible her body looks to me. I can't believe how much I want to fuck a woman who is PREGNANT and MARRIED. I'd feel utterly dirty about this except that just the sound of her voice, her smile, the way she talks to me, the fact that she went back into the office to find her schedule to tell me when she'd be there next weekend, and just the way she LOOKS at me - all that makes this weird, but very, very nice. She makes it seem so INNOCENT, even though it most certainly is not.
I'm convinced that she wants it too. I might be wrong, but I really doubt it. She's being way too friendly considering that I'm coming on VERY strong. Not that I'm outright suggesting anything. I'm just looking at her, and telling her that she's incredibly beautiful and can make my brain cells carbonate within 2 seconds of seeing her. I SAID this shit to her, and she blushed, but she NEVER LOOKED AWAY. Which only makes the fuck-drive towards her WORSE.
God, she's beautiful. That red hair, that light skin, those heart-stopping eyes. Her unspeakably WOOD-INDUCING curves. Her smile, her laugh, the overall aura of PURE SWEETNESS. She seems so nice, so perfect. Which probably means she's an evil distraction sent by Satan to destroy my mind. But I'd pay that price to have her just once.
Well, I would when I'm around her. Right now with the fog lifted, I'm thinking "You're a goddamn lunatic and you know better. Stay the hell away." But yeah, I know when she's working next Saturday, and yeah, I'll go visit. Because I LOVE the weird convuluted shit she makes me feel.
"Of course, you're married..."
"Yeah, I am. But come back in a year and I might not be."
"Oh?"
She just smiled. And never took her eyes from me.
How the FUCK can I avoid being around THAT whenever I get the chance? Holy fuckin' Christ in a salad dish.
This week has been very odd, a mirror of all the bipolar shit that I deal with much better these days, but is still completely integral to my every waking (and probably sleeping) moment. And if that isn't a pretentious sentence in need of a good dick joke to follow it and take the edge off, I don't know what is.
I can't think of one. Somebody help me out here. I need DICK-JOKE THERAPY.
I spent five days in Cincinnati. It hurt a little when I left, but I loved being back. I loved Wednesday night, one of the nicest times I've had with Katie. We went to the house, and she jumped on my bed while I put in the Brak Show on DVD, then some old Star Trek. I laid down and she crawled up on my back. Something she used to do all the time. Earlier, when we had dinner at Skyline, she sat next to me, and while we waited on our food, she climbed onto my lap and snuggled in. "I'm glad we're going to see each other more often, Daddy."
There is no doubt about this move. I need to do it.
But upon driving back last night, and getting out of the van in front of my apartment, I was blindsided by the massive contradiction of where I'm at in my head right now.
1.) I am SO ready to be back in southwest Ohio and closer to my daughter.
2.) I am absolutely NOT ready to leave Indianapolis and the life I've been fighting to create for myself here.
I was willing to do this for another year, as crazy as it's been. I've had things to prove to myself, and they're being proven. Playing bass with guys I feel are brothers, and being paid well for it has been essential for my sanity. I've found a few things in myself I never thought were there, or at least had thought were gone. I've found some shitty stuff too. But I've not had a problem with that. This past year has been NUTS, but I wouldn't trade those lessons in for anything.
But I need to be back near my girl.
I can find all these things down there, I can re-create this existence there. It can be better, and most likely will be. But that doesn't make it easier to leave. Simply having to start over again makes my head hurt, when I look at where I live and think of how much I've come to love it here.
Other things I wish I could write about, but I'm running out of energy for that. I spent a couple hours taking my desk apart and boxing things right after getting up at 7 this morning. I've got a gig tonight, after dropping this shit off in Marion.
And I can't get her out of my head. H, I want to fuck you more than I've wanted to fuck ANYONE in months. But I'd gladly just stand there and look into your eyes for a while.
rjf82c9gj;f9190tj15801m1[ 0fjc50jf0[j052f2utj680yjc 60g0j0j,g064
Love (or confusion),
Dougie
Cornholed Again (Slight Return)
06.07.06 (10:21 am) [edit]"Kill! Kill! Kill!"
- Arlo Guthrie
Woke up at 5:30AM. Got to work five minutes early. The supervisor got there 20 minutes later. Sent me to another building. They sent me back. Then I stood around for ten minutes waiting to be told what to do before me and six other people got sent home.
At this point, I've pretty much given up on being pissed at these cocksucking bastard sonsabitches. I don't have the energy for it.
So I took a nice walk in a park I hadn't been to before and came to the library. Gonna print out a new resume to look for a teaching gig. Not that I expect it to happen right now at a time of year when students are all off for the summer.
I'm supposed to go back at 6:30 tomorrow. I've been reassured that I will work tomorrow, and I'll be compensated for the hour I was there this morning.
Yeah, I'll believe it when I see it, fuckface.
Oooh! I can pick up my check in a little while! Just enough from the two days I worked last week to pay the past due on the phone bill and buy gas to go back to Indy on Friday, leaving me with about enough cash to hold my DICK with! Woo hoo! I'm rollin' in shit, Ethel!
Yippie-eye-o-ty-ay, motherfuckers,
Dougie
------------
Later
And now I'm downtown at another library, with 45 minutes to wait before I can pick up my check. They sent the damn thing to Indianapolis AFTER the woman at the office Monday changed it to come down here. So they're voiding the one in Indy and cutting me a new check, but I had to come downtown to get it and wait until 3PM.
I'm seriously considering going back to the grocery store I worked at before the divorce. I don't even know if they'll hire me, and the pay is fucking awful, but at least they weren't BUTT-FUCKING SOCIOPATHS FROM THE BOWELS OF HELL. I bought lunch (Fuze banana drink and a turnip) there a little while ago, and the manager I liked best is still there, and acted super-happy to see me.
I'm whistling a happy tune to myself. Anything to distract from the dogs barking in my fucking head.
Weedly-weedly-wee...I'm motherfuckin' happeeee-yeee...
Dougie
Give Me Convinience Or Give Me Death
06.06.06 (9:30 pm) [edit]Even though they're basically a crew of prison-bitch cokemonkeys, and even though I know they've been gigging again since March, I thought I'd get back in touch with the old band from down here.
The guitarist and drummer. Neither of them were home. In fact, I left a message with the drummer, only to get a call back from some guy saying he wans't him and I'd left a message with the wrong guy.
Shit. If nothing else, these are the only guys I had any kind of connection with musically down here in any cash-drawing way. And, let's face it, I really need to play bass at a pool-party with drunken yuppie chicks flashing their tits again. It's rock and roll, ya know?
Watched a DVD of a scene that Bill's niece was in. She's trying to make it as an actress. She's a stunningly beautiful young woman, and I enjoyed her acting in the short scene I watched.
Also listening to both Jello Biafra's Become The Media (from the last post) and the audio version of Bill Maher's book When You Ride Alone, You Ride With Bin Laden. Both are essential shit.
I can think of no greater cause for me to invest myself in right now than to find a beautiful young lady and munch her muffin until she feels peace and contentment, a oneness with the greater good of mankind. A noble pursuit, I think. Then she'll blow me. A Perfect Circle.
Love,
Dougie
Become The Media
06.06.06 (8:03 pm) [edit]"You bawl like the baby in Eraserhead"
- Dead Kennedys
I'm listening to one of Jello Biafra's spoken word albums right now. If you relate in anyway to the hatred of societal bullshit, politics as usual, the degredation of life into a pursuit of money, the constant array of fear beaten into our children, or any of the other shit I write about when the veins in my head are about to explode, you need to hear some of this shit.
That is all.
Love,
Dougie
Tired
06.06.06 (4:20 pm) [edit]It's taken me all day to get moving, but I finally did when I got details on my new job, starting tomorrow. Shitty pay and hours, but I've done worse. Hopefully they'll have something better eventually, but I'm glad to not have to wait longer to work, which I was more than a little scared of. These fuckers hung my ass out to dry for three weeks in April, me calling them twice a day. I'm still paying for that and probably will be for a while.
It feels odd to be here and not be able to go see Katie tonight. I'll get over it, but knowing she's only 20 minutes away brings up a whole new set of emotions. But I'll have her tomorrow. I think we'll mostly relax and hang out here. I can cook for her again, and that feels good too.
Now I just need more money. :)
Love,
Dougie
Squeeze The Milk Of Life Into Your Dirty Cup And Drink It Warm!
06.05.06 (9:04 pm) [edit]"America is beautiful
But she has an ugly side
We're lookin' for a leader
In this country far and wide." - Neil Young
"What did you think of that song, Katie?"
"Great!"
"Honey, this is one of my favorite people in the world, and I only heard this album for the first time just before I picked you up today, but it makes me very happy. It tells me that even though we live in a world where some really bad people control things and are our leaders, we can still feel good about ourselves and dream of a better world. And that's what I want for you, honey. It's part of why I came back here. I want to help you know how to be happy in this world. But you know what? I think you're gonna teach me a lot more about that."
"Ok, Daddy."
Living With War is going to be remembered as one of Neil Young's most uplifting and powerful albums. For 42 minutes, he takes on our current world in the most consistently political album of his career. The music is electric, very mid-'70s, in a Zuma vein. Perhaps a touch of the early '90s via Mirror Ball, the album he recorded in four days with Pearl Jam.
He carries this blatant politicism in a way I never could have hoped to myself. Few of us could achieve such a pure statement. Not once does this album contain hatred. It barely even contains anger. It's downright goddamn INSPIRATIONAL, and as I pulled into the parking lot at Katie's daycare, the final moments of the album drifting through a choir singing an acapella version of America The Beautiful, I finally felt proud to be an American again. It's been a very long time since I felt that. Little of what I've seen in the past six years has made me want to partake of patriotism. But this album did it. Even in the midst of the most corrupt and disgusting crew of degenerate swine at the helm of our nation, we can lift our heads and sing hopefully for a brighter day. Goddammit, I love America.
Pretty fuckin' good for an album made by a Canadian, dontcha think?
"Daddy, can I have an apple?"
"Sure, honey. Let me find the bag...oh, there's bread in here too. Want a piece of bread?"
"Yes."
"I've got potato bread and wheat bread. Which do you want?"
"Weed bread? Is it made from weed?"
"Uh...no..."
"I'll have the weed bread, Daddy."
"Sure thing, Kate. Give me about half an hour, and I'll go score you some at the park up the road here."
OK, I didn't actually say that...
There's no place like home.
Love,
Dougie
Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!
06.05.06 (1:55 pm) [edit]It never felt as weird to leave Indy as it did a few hours ago. A bit painful, even.
But it never felt so damn good driving into Ohio. Well, there was one other time. A little over a year ago. I was coming back to Katie then, too.
I won't see Indiana agaijn until Friday night. I'm back home now.
Love,
Dougie
PS I just started listening to Neil Young's new album in the van. I'm three songs in and I'm completely floored by how cool it is, how NEIL it is.
More Stuff For Yer Ears
06.05.06 (7:29 am) [edit]Here's a version of Dylan's Lay Lady Lay recorded around the beginning of this year. Me on guitar, my friend Dennis on vocals soon before he moved away:
www.extrafancy.net/doug/LayLadyLay.mp3
I'm not so sure about the reverb I used on this, but I like the performance.
Well, fuck-a-doodle. I'm packing this computer up and getting the fuck out of town in a few hours. See you motherfuckers on the other side.
Love,
Dougie
Some Crap For You To Listen To
06.04.06 (9:27 pm) [edit]A while back, the fabulous L.A. gave me access to some webspace to upload to. I linked here to a version of Zappa's Zoot Allures a month or so ago. Since the rotten fucker hasn't written me back yet to tell me what he thought of the other stuff I put up there (just kidding, you know I love you, you little cunt) I thought I'd inflict another recording on you fine folk and see how much it makes your brain explode.
This is probably 10 years old now. Maybe 11. It was done on my four-track machine. It's four tracks of vocals, two of them backwards, run through various effects. And while you might not believe this, I was SOBER at the time.
Some of you have heard this monstrosity already. It's called Several Species Of Roger Waters Fans Locked In A Mental Ward And Playing With A Four-Track. Fans of early Pink Floyd will get the joke. The rest of you should be informed that no psychedelic muppets were harmed in the making of this...uh...thing.
Check it out:
www.extrafancy.net/doug/SeveralSpecies.mp3
I was going to do one last recording tonight here at the Indianapolis location of Froggytown Studios (yes, that's what I've called it since i got that four-track back 12 or so years ago) before moving my shit down to Cincy tomorrow. Unfortunately, my voice isn't cooperating tonight. I can hit all the notes with plenty of strength, but all my subtlety (what little I have) has flown out the window and I sound constipated. Dammit. Oh well, enjoy this old shit.
Love,
Dougie
Opulent Radish Cradle
06.04.06 (12:15 pm) [edit]"Maybe I might have changed
And not been so cruel
Not been such a fool
Whatever was done is done
I just can't recall
It doesn't matter at all."
- Greg Lake
OK now, to the tune of "Bonanza", everybody sing!
Fuck tittyfuck tittyfuck tittyfuck tittyfuck fuck!
Fuck tittyfuck tittyfuck tittyfuck tittyfuck titty fuckfuckfuck!"
Sorry, don't know what came over me there...
Fun afternoon gig in the country east of Lafayette yesterday. Lots of food, the drummers' family all loved us, (and I'd like to love a couple of his cousins, wow...) and we even got an extra $20 each, which of course, went straight into my gas tank.
Also drove a couple miles up the road to where my great-grandmother was born. Somewhere around there, I'll probably never know. They moved around a lot.
I visited my grandfather's grave. He lived with his sister-in-law after his brother's death (he lived with his brother when he moved back to Lafayette after leaving my grandma) and she's buried near him, despite having her name on the stone next to her husband in another cemwtery. Guess she liked my grandfather more.
And I found out, through the help of a very nice guy in the office (who was MUCH more helpful than the prick I dealt with the first time I was there trying to find these people) that right next to his sister-in-law, is his sister who died in 1988. Without a marker. I'm pretty surprised how many people in the family don't have markers (yet are buried right next to people who do) and while in some instances it might just mean they didn't have the money, I think it was mostly choice. My grandfather's sister-in-law paid for those lots the year before my great-aunt died, he also told me, and copied me the burial cards in the office. Excellent service.
So, my great-aunt, my great-grandfather (acorss the cemetery from her), my great-grandmother, both her parents and her grandfather, all are buried without markers. The latter (my ggg-grandfather) is the only one I haven't visited. He's in a cemetery south of Lafayette I haven't been to yet. Hopefully I can go back up in the next couple years and find him, and do some of the other research I want to do.
At another cemetery is my great-granmother's parents, a child in the family without a marker, and her brother and his wife, who do have a stone. It had what appeared to be very fresh decorations. Somebody's been there recently. I got there just as the gates were about to be closed, but they kindly let me have ten minutes. I went right to the spot, despite not having been there in three years. I found everything quickly, which was nice.
The last cemetery I went to is southeast of town. My great-grandmother in an unmarked grave, right next to her son (who died the same year she did, 1961) and the son who my grandfather lived with. My great-uncle Bill lost his first wife when she was 32 and he was my age. I can't fathom that, and one of the few things my Mom remembers about him was how shaken he was by her death even years later after he'd remarried. She has her own stone. He's next to her. his stone also has his second wife's name, without a death date, because she's the one buried near my grandfather.
But when I pulled up I saw something that made me jump out of the car and nearly trip over myself running up there.
Her grave, that she isn't in. There was no grass on it. Somebody is in there.
Her name is still on the stone, but there's a small marker down on the ground. Her son is there. He died last year. He was only abou 61 years old.
Shit. If i'd been on top of things, I could have met him before he died.
I've met exactly one person in this family. Mom hasn't seen her dad since 1960. We had no contact with any of them until a few years ago when I found her first cousin online and went up to Lafayette to visit him. He gave me the flag that was on my grandfather's coffin at his service. He gave me a bible that belonged to him. Several pictures. And my great-grandmother's rosary.
I haven't talked to him in a few years now, though i keep meaning to. I have a folder I need to finish putting together for him, with my info on the family.
And now I see that his brother - my mom's first cousin she never knew - died last year.
It's a lovely place. A simple cemetery, but very well taken care of. The one my gg-grandparents and their son is in is huge, with lots of trees, and stunningly beautiful in a way that you just know is creepy as hell at night. The one my grandfather is in is very, very nice. It's good to go to places that are taken care of. Some of the little cemeteries I've been to (even a couple of the big ones) kinda look like shit.
I have no idea when I'll be able to go back up there. To do everything I want to do there and in the towns half an hour away, I'd need two weekdays and a motel room. Can't do it on weekends. Too much courthouse stuff to get at. so it's probably not going to happen for a while. Oh well. I'll shift back to the relatives I can research back in the Cincy area now that I'm moving there.
But these people, my grandfather's family, are the ones that made me get into this to begin with. So I'll be thinking about this a lot, and I have to send W that folder and get bak in contact with him soon.
I saw Amanda an hour ago. She seems happy with her boyfriend, though she let out a trace of cynicism. she's still wondering if it will work, but it's gone very well for her in the past week. I'm happy for her. I'm happy that she's happy, and I hope that she continues to be with whatever guy she's with.
You know, just another of those "horrible" thoughts I have about women. What a rotten PRICKFUCK I am. Caring about her happiness that way. I really should be punished, eh?
I'm hoping to leave around noon tomorrow. Lots of shit to do, but I don't feel too pressured about it. I'm calling the cable company after I send this and get shit done there, though I'm going to try to keep my connection til morning so I can hit those torrent sites one more time. Hey, I've got shit to download and not actually getting around to listening to for a year, dammit.
Had a very nice visit with Stone last night on the way back home. Was there until 1AM. Good to see you again, man. Watch out for that baby Jesus, dude. I hear he can fuck up Martha Stewart's hair from a distance of 30 yards.
Love,
Dougie
Damn You
06.03.06 (12:38 am) [edit]You're out there right now, and you just visited my blog for the first time in a few weeks. I fucking miss talking to you, dammit. It's been weeks since you left. At least tell me why you went away, goddammit.
Doug
I Love The Dead
06.03.06 (12:15 am) [edit]"In this dirty old part of the city
Where the sun refused to shine
People tell me there ain't no use in tryin'
Now my girl you're so young and pretty
And one thing I know is true
You'll be dead before your time is due, I know
Watch my daddy in bed a-dyin'
Watched his hair been turnin' grey
He's been workin' and slavin' his life away
Oh yes I know it
He's been workin' so hard, yeah
I've been workin' too, baby, yeah
Every night and day, yeah
We gotta get out of this place
If it's the last thing we ever do
We gotta get out of this place
Cause girl, there's a better life for me and you"
- Barry Mann
No, not the Alice Cooper song...
First of all, read this shit:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20...
This is the county in Indiana i grew up in. Now you know why I didn't move the fuck back THERE last year.
But I did visit today, and it was a hell of a trip.
After my last post, I got my oil changed and went to the library. The lady who runs the genealogy department there is married to one of my third cousins. A while back, I visited and gave her the money to run off a copy of a file on our part of the family put together by my grandma, the one who is still alive at 97. She did this back in late 1998, a little over a year before her stroke. I'd never seen this thick slab of papers before.
i picked it up today, and flipped through it. It was a bit frustrating at the same time it was interesting to me. You find out real quick when you get into genealogy how many mistakes can be made, running from small details all the way to massive errors. As of 1998, Grandma was claiming that we were descended from the writer Edgar Allen Poe, who had come over from England. Bullshit. His family was Irish and he was born here. His dad was an actor, and his grandfather had been a general in the Revolutionary War. And we AREN'T related to him, though Poe was my Grandma's maiden name. Others in the family have done extensive research, to the point of DNA testing, and there are Poes in this country who can't even match DNA from 25 generations back. We also can't be "descendants" of a man who had no children, and neither did his brother or sister, as far as I know. I read a biography on him years ago. I do love his writing. It's often ridiculous and awkward, but he's one hell of a story teller. I'd like to think that I "inherited" some of that, not from genetics, but simply from loving his stories.
She also claimed that the reason that stones from one cemetery nearby (two of my ggg-grandfathers and one of their wives) ended up at another was that the graves were moved to "make room for new construction." There's no new construction there. It's in somebody's back yard next to the river, where nothing's been built since Great-Uncle Gus nailed together a few planks for the shithouse, for all I know. The stones being moved is a mystery. A tornado tore through the area in 1966, destroying most of the small cemetery, but there's indications the stones were moved before that. By the way, my other grandma lived almost across the street from there for years when she remarried, and when the tornado hit, his Chevy was lost for three weeks. They found it buried in a ditch.
This stuff shows up again later in the post. Keep reading. It gets better.
But I did find out that one of our Poe cousins married somebody with MY last name, who is totally unfamiliar to me and I seriously doubt is a relation to my grandfather's family. Interesting.
She also spelled my mom's maiden name wrong, but she got my birthday right - another book on the family put my brithday on March 22. Which isn't my brithday, but, oddly enough, was the day I moved in with Sheryl in 2000.
At the library, there's a map on the wall from 1860. An original, behind glass, faded somewhat, but readable even to my shit eyes if I get right up to it. Other plat maps from later years have had copies made, broken down by townships, and you can even get the ones for 1877 online.
I have copies of the 1977 ones. I've visited the area I'm interested in with my Dad. But looking at the 1860 map, I tried to memorize a couple things, particularly the location where one of my ggg-grandfathers lived just north of a tiny town a few miles west of my parents, where so many other family lived then, and still do.
I found it fairly quickly, or at least what had to have been damn near the same place. I've become better at reading these maps, I've made some mistakes in the past that landed me next door to where I was looking for.
It's just farmland. Fucktown, Indiana. Flat, boring rows of corn for miles and motherfuckin' miles.
But as I've written before, there's always a chemical reaction in my head when I see these places.
This is where I'm from. These are the people I owe my life to.
The mix of personal responsibility I feel at keeping some sort of memory of these long-dead people alive in today's world, and the utter "we gotta get out of this place" shitstorm that flies through my head whenever I THINK about Grant County, Indiana is something I've learned to thrive on. I LOVE visiting my hometown for a day, doing this work. But if I ever move back to that wretched shithole of unrelenting entropy, one of you fuckers better come and kill me, dammit.
I drove back to my parents', said my goodbyes, and printed off another copy of the township plat map from 1877. I thought maybe I'd go back out there for a few minutes before coming back home.
(Home? What IS home right now? Shit. This won't be home anymore in a matter of 16 days, and I'm only gonna be here maybe six of those while I go to ANOTHER home that will be temporary.)
A few minutes turned into well over an hour in a fuckin' hurry.
Just four miles west of where I lived for far too fucking long myself, is the place where my dad was born, in the middle of corn country, on a county road a mile north of a straight, flat state road. A state road that runs through much of Indiana and Ohio (running very near one of my friends who reads this in Ohio, in fact), into West Virginia. The part my family lived on has to be the straightest, flattest fucking part of the whole damn thing, I bet. I've driven on much of its length, and I've used it as a route between Marion and Richmond, making up half the trip from my parents' house to Cincinnati.
My dad's mom's family has lived in an area of just a few square miles by that state road since the 1830s.
The ggg-grandfather I'd looked for an hour before (We'll call him TC. I'd call him THC, but...uh...never mind...) lived just north of that tiny town in 1860. in 1877, he lived just south. I looked at the plat map as I drove slowly down this empty country road, finding where the creeks ran to judge where I was at, the borders of each section of the township obviously being the roads I was using. And I remembered when Dad took me out there, to show me where he was born, to point out places where houses once stood that he'd lived in, having moved around for the first ten years of his life often before his parents settled into the house where Grandma lives today. I distinctly remember him telling me had had a cousin from TC, same last name, who lived somewhere nearby, but he wasn't sure where...
He had stories to tell that day, including the time he stood out in the field and looked up to see several B-1 bombers flying overhead towards the nearby Air Force Base. He decided to be a pilot that day. He was nine years old. At 15, he had a pilot's license, and he was a corporate pilot from the time I was a toddler until 11 years ago, when he was forced into early retirement by a "corporate shuffle" that resulted in lots of upper-level guys being shitcanned. He's worked in the tool department of a home improvement store since.
I drove down a road I'd gone on often, a well-used country road leadng to a small town where Dad's family has reunions, two miles north of the state road. And I found where another ancesotor lived, my grandma's Grandpa Poe, who has a substantial biography and interview in a county history, talking about that part of the world in the days when they were right next to Indian territory, when the city of Kokomo was a small trading post. The interviewer asked him if he ever saw a ghost. "I ain't never seen anything uglier than myself", he replied.
I like that.
Next to where he lived (a big barn with the current family's name on it there now) is where his brother lived. I've driven past there many times before, to see family, but I never knew these people had lived here. His brother's place now has a beautiful stone house, which may very well have been there when they were alive. I don't know.
I cut back south towards the state road, and turned back onto the county road where everything on both sides of the road for a mile was owned by family.
The small Quaker church is across the road from where my Dad was born. A new-ish hosue is there, owned by the son of one of my Grandma's first cousins. I'd told Dad a while back that the property was owned by his ggg-grandfather in 1877. Oops. That was just down the road. No, it was owned by the man who married his ggg-grandfather's sister. A man who just so happened to be the gg-grandSON of a man I'm directly descended from, 11 generations back. On my MOM'S side. A man named Peter Cook, who died at sea bringing his family to America from England in the early 1700s, whose descendants make up a huge part of American Quaker history, and who did some really fuckin' funny comedy with Dudley Moore a couple decades back.
Well, not that latter bit. That was another Peter Cook. Did you know that there are fleets of ships and light aircraft up Joan Crawford's cunt? And hamburger stands. But no fucking hamburgers.
I drove around a bit, around this one square mile section. Coming back north from the state road, I drove past where yet another ggg-grandfather lived. His last name is on the red barn there, because that land has not left his family since he died in the 1920s. His grandson lived there, and my grandma has spoken of her uncle in the past, I just can't remember what she said about him. Dammit.
I drove back to the church. I got out of the car and looked around. It was a lovely day, and had gotten hotter, though not as oppressive as it was earlier this week. I decided to walk around.
There, just across from me. Two driveways next to each other. The older one back to a recently built barn. It used to go back to a house that is no longer there. My Dad was born there. Here, where I stand. Once farmed by a man buried in a cemetery just across the creek from the woods I played in as a child. When he died of cholera at age 28, his wife (daughter of the man related to me also on my mom's side, just across the street where Dad was born) married their next-door neighbor. ANOTHER ggg-grandfather, whose first wife died in Texas on a hunting trip. (Insert redneck joke here.) She - related to me in about seventy-six different ways and NONE of them via inbreeding (don't worry, that shit is elsewhere in the family) - is buried right next to my grandfather.
So I stood there, looking at land that two direct ancestors and two other family members owned 130 years ago, and some of them for longer than that. A burning sensation hit me. I HAD to get more perspective. Only dad has told me about this place. And Dad is full of information, but he's also the guy who never told me how to do SHIT in other life-situations. I need to find out more.
I knocked on the door of the parsonage by the church. The preacher's son answered, not a lot to tell me, but he directed me to the house acorss the way, on a corner next to where dad was born, another country road cutting the township section in half on its southern part. More relatives back there. In fact, at least one that was about to knock me on my ass...
I knocked on the door. Nothing. Next door, people in their garage. I walked towards there, map in hand. They were just pulling out of the driveway. Shit. I walked on past, probably looking like an idiot out here where "you ain't from here, are you boy" goes double for guys with my hair, but fuck it, I AM from here.
I looked back. They were at the end of the driveway. And from out of nowhere, a guy walking down the road. They stopped to talk to him. I wasn't sure what to do.
They pulled out on the road and up to me.
"Sorry to bother you, but I'm doing some genealogy reasearch and trying to learn about this area. My family lived here. I see you're leaving, so I won't bother you."
The old guy (probably my brother's cousin's nephew's former room mate) pointed back at the guy walking towards me. "He's lived here his whole life. Ask him.", he said with a smile. And drove off.
"Hello, sir. Sorry to bother you while you're out walking, but I'm researching my family in this area. I've got this map here showing me where they lived along this road in the 1870s. Do you know much about the area?"
"Yes, I do. Genealogy, eh?"
"Yes. My name is DB."
"Hi, Doug. I'm JC."
My jaw dropped. The C was the exact same last name as the ggg-grandfather I'd originally came out here to look for. One of the least common surnames I research.
I asked him if he knew people with my last name. When I told him my Dad's name, he looked up. A quiet guy, just around Social Security collecting age, like Dad. He kinda reminded me of Dad.
Maybe that's because he's my Dad's third cousin.
It's hardly a surprise, but it sure as fuck is great TIMING. I mean, look where I'm at. These people have been here FOREVER. They were the ones who came in right after the other white guys kiled off the Indians. It's not REALLY a surprise that I should be standing here with family land all around and run into a cousin on his late afternoon walk, but this shit HAPPENS ALL THE TIME TO ME, often in much, much less obvious ways.
It took a while to get to the exact relation. He knew my Dad's name. He knew he worked at the home improvement store. And after a while, after more talking, he told me he had gone to school with Dad, a year behind him. Suddenly it clicked. This was the cousin with this name who Dad said had lived out here. But J said that he knew Dad most of his life but hadn't realized he was a cousin. "But now that you mention it, I think someone told me that once."
When I mentioned the name of a woman, the pastor of another Quaker church, he told me "Thats my wife."
His wife heads a church several miles away. My mom met her. She told Mom she needed to talk to her husband. Mom met J. "Oh, I remember your Mom. she said her son was into this."
Fuckin' cool.
The church his wife leads has a cemetery next to it. People in my Mom's family are there. Two sisters of her great-grandmother, and the son and husband of another of the sisters. These girls were all born near where the Indianapolis airport is today, near where I was teaching guitar until this week. I've written about part of that family before. These sisters and a coupel of their brothers lived in the area, as did their Dad briefly before he moved to Iowa. Their sister Rebecca lived near Lafayette, over an hour to the west, home of Purdue University. Rebecca had a daughter named Emma, whose son was my asshole grandfather who abandoned his family in 1960. Emma died in 1961. According to Emma's birth certificate, she was born in a tiny town a little east of Lafayette.
A tiny town less than two miles from where my band is playing tomorrow. The gig is my drummer's family reunion. I'll bet this beer next to me that I'll find out tomorrow that he's my fuckin' sister or something. Oh wait, the beer's empty. Oh well..
Do you see why I do this shit? why I'm addicted to it like crack, and once I get on the slide, I've gotta ride that fucker all the way down? These "coincidences" happen to me CONSTANTLY. I accept some of them as mere coincidence or good luck. But...I don't know. I just don't fuckin' know. But I'll be damned if this doens't fuck with my head. in a very, very good way. It's rewarding work.
J told me what he knew off the top of his head. Turns out I know more about our common ancestor TC than he does, but he knows more than enough about more current things to keep me very, very interested. We walked down the county road and back, exchanging information. I told him I'm moving back to the Cincinnati area. I told him I'd be living about half an hour or so from Waynesville.
You know, the town where TC lived until the 1840s, when he moved to Indiana after his father's death, linking in with my father's family. People utterly unrelated to him about a mile or so away n the other side of the Little Miami were my mother's Quaker ancestors.
J seemed impressed. "you've done pretty good for four years work."
"Yeah, but my notes are a mess. It would take weeks to get it all together."
I told him about what I found in the courthouse in Ohio a few years back. TC and his dad, their land records, and his dad's will and estate papers. I told him one of the most frustrating stories in my genealogy travels. How I found those estate papers, and found a copy of a reciept written in 1844, record of money paid to the man who dug the grave of TC's dad. A man whose name I found in locla histories, discovering that he came to Ohio from the same place in Pennsylvnia that the C family did. Yet, even with the receipt for the man who dug his grave, and having seen the remarkably thorough and detailed county cemetery book put together by the county's history society (updated again just this year)
I still have no clue where his dad is buried. I DO know right where he lived, though. While I can't prove it, I have a gut feeling that TC's father is buried in an unmarked grave on his own property. I may never know.
TC had a son who died in the Civil War. I have his military papers. Among them are affadavits from other soldiers who knew the son's family. Bizarre records, these. They contain stories (I have no idea how this shit ended up in military records) about how everyone who knew TC thought he was a bit weird, because his hobby was chopping wood. For no reason. Not to use it. Just because it was THERE,
I have a romanticized picture in my head of my ggg-grandfather TC. I imagine an old