Smoke em if you got em!

OK, the quality is swamp ass but you get the idea. Maybe not. This is the one I did last summer.

So You Want To Be A FilmMaker?

Start here. The rest will figure itself out.

Bruce Baillie - Valentin de las Sierras (1971)

Jewish Foot in Mouth Disease

Traditionally, on Christmas Eve, my parents invite the entire extended family down to their house to celebrate the near completion of yet another ravenously successful year of purchasing. And traditionally my culinary capabilities are called upon to prepare that timeless of all Christmas treats: 5 alarm texas Chili. This I love to do because it is the one time of year that I actually make a half assed effort in selecting the ingredient as opposed to opening up the refrigerator and blindly reaching for anything resembling meat. This year I returned from the butcher shop with no less that 5 species of meat; 2 from the flying kingdom and 3 from the petting zoo phylum. All of these, including various beans and spices were heaped into a ten gallon cauldron. It was a masterpiece. The house soon took on the aroma of a nasty Tijuana street fight and quickly my mother came drifting into the kitchen to check on my progress. "Ummm, that smells good," she said stirring the meaty mix. "What's in there?" "Well," I started, proudly and then went on to name every ingredient. When I was cruising through the "petting zoo department" she got this really concerned look on her face. "Did you say sausage?" "yep," I said "100% USDA approved pink squealer." "Ummm, you do realize that your cousins are Jewish don't you and they are not allowed to eat pork." It was at that point that every reservation I had ever had about being an atheist were washed away. I had just made a pot of chili that would have buckled Willie fucking Nelson's knees and now I was being told that the guests couldn't eat it. I was furious and with fury often comes "La Dance du Foot in Mouth." Oh, everyone knows this dance; you open your mouth to bolster your case but instead end up saying something so far beyond stupid that you are required to wear your penny loafers next to your tonsils while your bravely continue to rebuild your reputation. So, without thinking, I said "Sooooo, we don't have to tell them...do we?" An eerie silence filled the room...but only for a moment. Then, much like when southern white trash tries to describe the moments before their trailer parks "done flewed up into the sky" the scene got ugly....derned quick! In the next twenty minutes or so I was brought up to speed on compassion, respect, understanding and deception....with a little morality thrown in as a sweetener. By the time my mother was done raking me over the coals for my slip I was just a puddle of piss on the kitchen floor ready to be left on the steps of the Simon Wiesenthal Center for adoption. Well, to make a long story short I returned to the butcher shop and prepared the best "pork-free" chili I have ever made. As for my shoe, well, I still have one lace wrapped around my tongue according to my mother.

Oh Fuck Yeah!

I wish I still took Acid!!

Mekas Madman

The problem with being a genius is that you sometimes have to carry the baggage. With that said, I have been following Jonas Mekas' 365 Day Films where he shoots a different video for every day of the year and I have come to the conclusion that this man is out of his tits insane. But...in a way I could only hope to be some day.

Sweet Smell of Bullshit

A Reluctant Capitalist Haiku

Hefty Inbred gals
Godzilla charm in Spandex
Welcome to WalMart

When Worlds Collide

I was hanging out in a library today flipping through some old photography books. On the cover of one of the books was that iconic image of screaming Vietnamese children running away from their village that had just been Napalmed. The photographer who took that picture is named Nick Ut. He was the only one who got that shot simply because all the other photographers there had shot their entire roll on the attack itself. Nick was the only one with film in his camera and pretty much changed the face of war photography. A few years back I was asked to be part of the media circle-jerk that covered the Michael Jackson trial out in Santa Maria California. While there I was lucky enough to become friends with Nick. He was an AP photographer and I was working for the organization that ran the media pool circus so we happened to cross paths frequently. He explained how he got that shot and how it had made him a name in the industry. To me he was a god amongst weasels that scurried around the courthouse parking lot on a daily basis. One night we were out chowing down at an all you can eat pizza joint. The decor was based on the Klondike gold rush and had polar bears and moose heads hanging all over the walls. Nick came in with a new digital camera. This thing was sick; something like 22 mega-pixels and worth 20 grand. So he sat down and said to me, "Glen, stand on table next to moose." I thought the request kind of odd but I figured this was an idol of mine and probably would have downed some tainted Kool-Aid if he had asked. So I climbed up on the table and stood next to a moose head. Everyone in the place turned to watch. Nick then took his hands and made the international symbol for moose antlers by curling his upward palms on the top of his head. This I took to mean that he wanted me to do the same....and I did. He raised the camera and took the shot. later that night as I lay in bed I thought about what had taken place. Part of me was flattered that Nick would use me as a subject in one of his pictures. The other part of me wondered how the fuck this incredibly gifted Pulitzer Prize winning cat could find himself in a shit hole, greasy spoon taking pictures of an idiot standing on a table pretending he was a moose. Thus is the complexity of life.

Sound and the Fury

My aunt is one of the classiest women I know. She is an avid opera fan, attends all gallery functions and could whoop any one's ass in a game of classical Name That Tune. So it was a trifle disturbing that I should crack a joke the other day and she would rip the loudest fart I have ever heard come out of a human body. We were sitting at her kitchen table and I just happened to let fly with an off color joke. I have never told her an off color joke but I figured at least once in her 80 years of existence she was damned well going to hear one. As soon as I released the punch line she threw her head back to laugh but before anything could come out of her mouth a sound I can only describe as an uncooperative elephant seal being dragged across over-sized bubble wrap. She caught herself mid-laugh, jumped from the table and ran into the bathroom. I sat there stunned listening to what I thought was sobbing coming from beneath the bathroom door. I thought about making a hasty exit but before I could split she reappeared wiping tears from her eyes and laughing hysterically. "I almost pooped my pants!" she said. Well, it just goes to show you. You can take the girl out of the opera house but if you do she may just ask you to pull her finger.

BarkArt

I cut down this hollow tree I found last year while running from the law.I then sanded it up, polished it and then polyurethane-d the shit out of it. I put some lights inside of it and then took some pictures of living trees to place inside of it. Here's the funny part: I printed the pictures on transparent plastic and decided to mount them on PlexiGlass to get that "ghostly" feel. So, just a few minutes ago I was trying to cut the plexiglass with a razor-knife and it wasn't working. So I took a BBQ lighter and heated up a butter knife until it glowed and then used that to melt my way through the plastic. Now the house is full of toxic smoke and I have a headache. Wonder how many brain cells just bought the farm?

Buggly

Last week some sort of flying insect crawled into one of the plastic, see-through legs of my computer monitor. It struggled for about a day and then expired...there in the see-through plastic leg of my computer monitor. So now, as I sit and type away I have a set (possible more) of eyes staring forlornly out from behind the plastic. I'd like to get rid of it but apparently I would have to perform some serious computer surgery and I am not up to the task at all. So I have solved the problem by resting a piece of stale toast against the leg and thus blocking its frozen gaze. Tomorrow I'll have to find something a little more environmentally stable than crispy dough. Just an observation.

Nature's Little Schizophrenic

I lived in Southern California for almost a decade and when people ask me what the worst part of living out there was they almost always assume that I'll snap back with the obligatory response of earthquakes, fires, mudslides and traffic. It almost always comes as a shock when I look them straight in the eyes and tell them it was the mockingbirds; those little under achieving language learners of the sky whose retarded stream of consciousness drive men to eat the business end of shotguns.
I lived in Del Mar. It is one of the most affluent and stunningly beautiful communities on the face of the planet. Snuggled tight against the ocean to its tits and dry ritzy hills to its ass, it is a place where the surf bum and the filthy rich rub sunscreen and Armani-covered shoulders. I happened to luck out by finding a dirt-cheap house to rent amidst the million dollar shacks. The reason it was so cheap was because the landlady, a demented little woman, chose to leave the 50’s era, military style apartment house “as is”. She considered it charming. Well, “charming” was one way to put it. However, I found that fighting mice for a place on the couch and dancing around frogs that would pop out of the detached bathtub drain fell a little bit outside the realm of charm. But considering I lived to surf and its location directly across the street from the beach I bought into the whole “charm” thing and bit my tongue.
The little fucker came in the spring. At first I thought it novel to be awakened every morning at sunrise by the sounds of various birds chirping right outside my window. It gave a sense of closeness to nature that would otherwise have been vacant being so close to the seagull infested shore. Within a few days, however, I began to wonder why these birds seemed to wait until the other had finished its calls before the next one began. Never were they in harmony. It was like an open-mic night with a constant turnstile of variety. One morning I hastily opened the window because it sounded like someone was sodomizing the neighbor’s cat only to find a single shitty, gray brown bird sitting on the arm of a low-slung juniper tree creating the god-awful racket. Being only five feet away I scared it off with the wave of a hand. But it returned…every day…at sunrise. At first I began by tossing a handful of pennies from a jar a kept near the window but eventually resorted to throwing object with more substance; a water glass, books and even a stale burrito. Nothing worked. No hint was taken. It simply returned the next morning. The little bastard was driving me insane and my neighbor was getting rich off discarded projectiles tossed into his yard from my window.
One morning, after a month of this I decided to cut down the tree and you know what? It worked. I lived happily in that house for the next year. When I finally moved a mile up the coast (the frogs finally won out) I ended up in a posh house surrounded by dozens of huge junipers and the very first morning I was there I was awakened by dozens of mockingbirds chattering outside my window. To this day I still hate Gregory Peck.

Oh The Thing You Learn

Today I learned from a fellow co-worker that the "Guacamolans" down in Brazil were stealing our jobs faster than these jobs could be created and were pretty much the sole cause of the construction industry woes. First of all you have to take into consideration this co-workers perpetual state of pre-menstruation and his blindingly...blind faith in the Red White and Blue. I granted him some geographic leniency but prodded him to further expound upon his thesis. And what he told me. MY GOD! I never realized in how much shit we, as a country, were in! Apparently this act of job stealing is more wide spread than I had ever imagined. I was utterly astounded to learn that the Portuguese (also from Brazil) were flying across the border faster than pregnant teens in Pre Roe V. Wade days and that these Portuguese were taking ALL of their money and sending it back home! What they really wanted was to start farms back in the old country and they were just "using" us as a way to make that happen. No wonder it was so hard for nice Caucasian boys to find work. I was always under the assumption that white kids were too busy jacking off on the internet and day dreaming about seven figure salaries like all the shiny-faced tools on MTV to be bothered to take a job that paid slightly higher than minimum wage. And you know what? I am led to believe that A LOT of people know this fact! Where the hell have I been? I guess they really don't want better lives than the countries that they emigrated from could ever offer. What they were doing was just padding their pockets at our expense. I guess I am going to have to radically change my way of thinking. The first thing I am thinking of is purchasing farmland down their in Guacamola.

Meaning will not be found at 3am cruising the empty streets of a dead mill town. Not down vacant, alley cat passages that cut along the granite chunk river. Not behind the flake paint walls of lean-to tenement buildings. Not left nor right down dead-end-life-threatening-blvds. Scary is the insomniac gambling on the turn of the wheel..fingers crossed, door ajar...waiting to make that leap into the fresh. Risking all for that chance to sleep anew. Its 3am

Vlad

I was just walking into my living room and a bat the size of a toaster oven was doing laps around the ceiling light. Having had my share of encounters with these little bastards I showed no fear and understood that it would have to make a pit stop sooner or later and it would be at that point that I could grab it and toss it back into the wild. HOWEVER, this behemoth took three laps, hung a left and pulled a Houdini on me. I have been looking for the last two hours and I can't for the life of me figure out where in the hell it went. Now, like I said, I had no fear. But...that statement was made when I was still maintaining visual contact. The idea that this prick could be roosting over my bed kind of gives me the willies. I am debating whether or not to build a mosquito net out of Q-Tips and 8mm film.

Super

Everyone at some point in their lives believes that they have some sort of supernatural powers that separate them from the rest of the population. I'm not talking about tying a towel around your neck and running around the living room chasing the cat when you were, like, 27. I mean legitimate "ESP" kinds of weirdness. Some believe they are capable of guessing the future while others profess the ability to leave their bodies under deep meditation. Back when I used to imbibe in man-made hallucinogens I truly believed that I could breath through ice cream and that with enough backing and blotter acid I would someday perform at the Lincoln Center. Now that decades have past since my last "voyage" the only thing that I can hold up as an example of anything even remotely supernatural is that I can sometimes see through my eye-lids late at night. Really! And when I finally get my fingers to shoot lasers it will be ass kicking time.

Certain cross to bear.

I drove by a woman today who was talking to herself. She was really over-emphasizing her words and in the brief seconds it took to pass her I think what she said was "I know for a fact when the world will end" or "I now have a cat whose Zen won't bend." I would have been useless on both counts so I went for a coffee and a fruity thing.

Think Before You Joke

I was making spaghetti today and realized I needed a can of whole tomatoes. I drove down to the market and grabbed a can and as I was walking down the aisle I noticed a sorry looking kid stocking shelves. Besides collecting tolls on the interstate I cannot think of a more mind numbing job than stocking supermarket shelves. So I thought I would make the kid laugh. Holding out the can and with a serious expression on my face I asked him if my canned tomatoes were fresh. Well, he looked at the can, looked at me, looked at the can and then kind of got a glazed look in his eyes. Realizing I wasn't dealing with Lenny Bruce I brought the can up to my nose, sniffed it and said "yep, they're fine" and walked away. Pick your targets wisely.

Insanity

I watched a fantastic documentary last night over at Fitchburg State College. Created by former student Melanie Perkins it is one of the more powerful pieces I have seen in a great while.


"Have You Seen Andy?" is the personal story of a childhood friendship abruptly ended by the tragic abduction of a young boy. On a hot summer day in August 1976, ten year-old Andy Puglisi was playing along with dozens of other children at the Higgins Memorial Pool in Lawrence, Massachusetts. Then suddenly, he disappeared. Twenty-two years later, filmmaker Melanie Perkins, Andy's childhood friend, begins her search for answers in this feature-length documentary.

Image Sells

How fucking dumb do advertisers think we are to believe that they can take a television personality, throw a product in their hand and expect us to get a hard-on for that product simply because this personality says "ya gotta have it"? Well, let me rephrase that: why are we so dumb that we fall for this shit? First of all I have never been a big celebrity fan. I certainly enjoy watching sports and going to the movies if I know a certain player or actor will be performing. But that's where it ends. I am aware that there is no relationship beyond my reach of the remote control. I don't know them and they don't know me. Ultimately when it comes time to pay the bills or figure out why my balls itch they are not going to be there with a checkbook or ointment. So I find it fascinating that celebrity endorsements are considered high value marketing for advertisers. What qualifications does someone who plays a doctor on TV have in trying to get me to buy a fucking car during a commercial break? Maybe the line between fantasy and reality is just a little too thin and some people truly want to believe that these recognizable faces somehow understand their needs or that through some act of loyalty they will be just a little more like them. There has to be some form of mental breakdown because there is no other reason why a 19 year old, 300lb hog farmer from Nebraska should ever believe that if he eats a certain brand of burger he too will be able to dunk a basketball. But he continues to do so. Well people, the sad truth is that celebrities don't really give a shit if you buy that product or not. For a fat check they would sell diamond studded designer colostomy bags. You have to remember that these people have no more of a clue about life than the guy pissing on a dumpster behind the bus stop. Their success should never be confused with omniscience.
Advertisers are pimps by nature and celebrities are simply pseudo-pimps hired to whore a certain product. I find it difficult to buy something that needs to be "jazzed" up by Tiger Woods. If there is a product out there that performs the same function as the one with the "Swoosh" then I am buying it. If there isn't then just say that and stop all this celebrity nonsense.

You think...therfore I am.

I met a man once who had an interesting take on the existence of heaven and hell . He believed that heaven/hell is simply how others remember you after you are dead. If these memories are good then you must have lived a decent life and your reward is to "live" on as a benevolent loop in the minds of others. If you were a cock then the opposite would follow; you being eternally viewed as an ephemeral douche bag. However, unless you were Mother Theresa or Pol Pot whose memory will live on indefinitely, there is going to come a time after you are dead and buried that you WILL be forgotten. Yes, sketchy as it sounds, within four or five generations there will not be a soul walking this planet that will be able to remember who the fuck you were, what you did or how you fit into the family album. Then what? What does heaven become? It's kind of a "get out of hell card free" for petty criminals and those guilty of high crimes that were never brought to justice. If there is no memory of those crimes then, for all intents and purposes, they did not happen. And if you were a Willy Loman and spent your life doing the right thing but were so completely under the radar that even YOU almost forgot your existence, then brother, you will be as forgotten as the shit you took last Wednesday. So, I guess the suggestion would be, if one wishes to attain heavenly memory status, that you should live grand and leave a lasting impression (good or bad) because inevitably...poof...you are vapor.

Attica!!!!

You never know what will brighten your day. This morning I got up and drove over the hill to get a cup of coffee. As I rounded a bend there were three cars stuck behind a school bus. So I queued up and sat...and sat...and sat. After a couple of minutes I thought about giving a friendly tap on the horn to remind the bus driver that her anger at getting slapped around by her drunk husband shouldn't be used the following day in the form of a yellow, 6000lb passive-aggressive weapon. Just as I was ready to lean on the horn I heard another car begin to blast its horn. Never one to draw attention to myself I was pleased that someone else was taking the initiative. No sooner had I thought this than a cop, seated in his personal SUV directly in front of me, jumped out of his car, ran up to the honking car's window and began a roid-raged litany that would have put a chimpanzee to shame. He pointed at the school bus, pointed at a couple of wide eyed children staring out the back window and then stuck his finger through the open window of the car into the face of the driver. The beauty of it all was that the driver had to have been no less than 80 years old. The cop was relentless. As the bus pulled away the cop continued to scream at the driver. Now the line behind me was beginning to get agitated at the cop for holding up the line but not a soul dared honk. After a few more nasty gestures the cop stormed back to his vehicle, slammed the door and spun out around the old man. The poor old bastard was on queer street. He had his head so far up his ass after that that he ran a stop sign in front of me and nearly clipped a car. I kind of felt sorry for him but at the same time....better him than me.

Go Speed Racer...Go!!

A few weeks ago I was building a deck on this old couples house a few towns over. While digging a hole I uncovered an old mud covered Match-Box car that looked strangely familiar. Cleaning it off with the garden hose I was stunned to find that it was the original "Mach-V" driven by that "Demon on wheels" Speed Racer himself! To me this was/is the Holy Grail of all the toys ever manufactured. In the early seventies you could take your "Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots" and Light Brites and shove them up your ass. But give me the Mach-V and a pile of dirt and the world became a fantasy land of evil assassins and narrow escapes. Every kid in the world wanted to be Speed Racer (except for the neckerchief). We watched that cartoon with fanatic enthusiasm. Merely listening to the opening music often caused epileptic seizures of delight. Even though we've traveled around the sun many more times than I would like to admit and responsibilities often dictate a jettisoning of childish nostalgia I will always keep a pile of dirt in the back yard specifically for the Mach-V. And if you try and take it from me I'll bite your damned leg.

A Day At The Symphony

I caught her out of the corner of my eye doing what appeared to be an elderly impression of some soft shoe tap dancing. Knowing that the grand gesture of swinging arms and seemingly uncontrollable stagger steps were a sure sign of a finale I spun to my right to catch the big finish. The expression on her face wasn’t one so much of fear as it was of the inevitable and she would accept this with as much dignity and style as one would expect in Boston’s Symphony Hall.
Purse wind-milling in one hand and cane tossed like a stick grenade two aisles to her left she scat danced out of control to her knees and then used her face to wax the leg of the mahogany chair I sat upon. The first thought that came to my mind was Howard Cosell’s famous cry “down goes Frazier, down goes Frazier…!” The second thought was “damn! I probably could have caught her had I not taken for granted the extreme difficulties the elderly have consummating a bowel movement let alone highly choreographed, impromptu dance moves on an inclined walkway.” The last thought was, as I stared at her motionless body, “I bet I crack a rib if I have to perform CPR.” However, she was a trooper. I dropped down to my knees and told her to stay on the ground. She was having none of that and tried to get up. I stuffed my arm under hers and hoisted her to her feet. She looked like she had gone a couple of rounds with a bottle of Valium with her wig askew and glasses dangling from her right ear. I asked her where it hurt….besides MedicAid. She pointed to her face and I tried to discern any new trauma that wasn’t a liver spot. She appeared remarkably unhurt. Straightening her glasses and faux follicles she was handed her cane and ushered away by the, um, ushers.
Every now and then I would glance back to make sure that she wasn’t taking a little catnap. Then I began to think that sitting there in Symphony Hall at ninety with a mild concussion and probably wondering why the Red Sox have taken the field with tubas under their arms isn’t all that bad. At that age I wouldn’t give a flying fuck if I pulled a cartwheel into three rows of concertgoers. Cheers to her for getting the hell out of the house and having the dignity/senility to put her ass in that chair after what many younger people would have considered an event ending embarrassment. I just hope my wig stays put when I start taking my tumbles.

Can I get that "to go"?

I went to visit the Department of Psychology at Clark University today in order to get some information on their Doctoral program in clinical psych.I met with the department secretary and she filled me in on the requirements and a few tales of success. When I asked her the approximate time one takes to pass through the program she told me that most students will defend their dissertation in their sixth year. When she said this I literally shit a four-course French dinner right there on the department floor. Six F'n years!!! That would make me fortyyy...OLD. I was kind of hoping they had one of those accelerated courses where you "could be diagnosing clients in as little as six to eight weeks." Square one...again....again...and again.

This . . . This is . . . This is not . . . This is this this is not . . . this is . . . is this . . . not . . . is this?

All You Need Is Love

I was listening to the radio today and some country artist was going off on some twangy fools rant to the affect that "all you need is love." I felt echoes of the Beatles whom I am damned sure weren’t the first to propose this hedonistic way of living and it sent shivers down my spine that a sentiment this trite could still find its ways over the airways. Furthermore, in a time when a person can sue the manufacturer of a hot tub company because he got his dick stuck in one of the water jets...and WIN then I would think it risky, at best, to allow such callous advice to be given to a group of already mentally disadvantaged listeners. Don't get me wrong but if you have a country station pre-programmed on your radio then there is more than a fifty percent chance that when you lost your virginity all you needed was a handful of carrots and a key to a barn door. With that said, I still feel it is unfair to lead people to the foolish belief that Love is all you need.
First of all lets set the record straight; love is a wonderful emotional experience. Nothing can compare with a bottle of cheap whiskey, the passwords to a dozen porn websites and an empty house. But this only fills the emotional voids in your life. I would certainly think that if I was a country crooner and wanted to send a message of truth I would start with the hit "all you need is Food." Give or take a few lustful cravings, you can probably last an entire lifetime without love. However, try and go three weeks without a burger and your spleen will start chewing on your liver. And in the country world you are basically preaching to the chorus. These people understand what it means to be well fed. Did you know that any state South of Maryland has to have the words "Beef" and Cream cheese" in their states anthem? Its true.
And what about water? Experts say that in optimal conditions a person will last about a week without water. Considering the human body is comprised of nearly 72ish percent of this liquid it is not surprising that after three days without water a person will attempt slit their wrists with the family Poodle. But again, "All You Need Is Water" played by a country singer whose initiation to manhood included lighting his own urine on fire after a five day moonshine bender is not going to have the same intended educational effect.
What about shelter? Its a nice place to start. A warm house to keep you out of the elements seems to me to be far more important than love. Sure, a nice set of tits to stand under during a driving rain is one thing but throw in freezing temperatures and those hammers better be hiding a wood burning stove. Once again we find ourselves barking up the wrong tree. How do you impress upon someone the importance of staying out of the elements when their idea of a house includes four tires, a propane tank and an awning. They’re just not going to listen.
Lastly, and far more important than anything I have previously proposed...there is air. Within 6 to 10 minutes of losing your last breath you are on deaths door. Even if revived atr this point the only thing you would ever be capable of again would be drooling or maybe clapping for you high school football team. You just have to have air. Try holding your breath for a minute. Now imagine some crazy bitch who you thought loved you holding a pillow over your face for five minutes. Hmmm? AIR! But how am I ever going to get "Hopalong Hayseed" to sing the virtues of cool clean air when he has a lit Lucky hanging from his lips, two between his fingers waiting to go and a group of kids at his feet dying to be just...like...him. Ah, fuck it. Maybe we do need to over simplify things and pander to the masses. I know for a fact that love aint all you need...but maybe its a good place to start.

Halloween

Of all the celebrations that this holiday-overdosed nation observes Halloween is by far the one that I most look forward to. Not so much for the event itself but for the absolute gold mine of memories it has served. Unofficially, it is Halloween that begins the two and a half month spiral of festive nonsense that culminates in the obligatory dry heaves on January 1st. Like a runner loading carbs the night before a marathon, Halloween serves a similar purpose by encouraging an already overweight nation to get jacked out of their tits on sugar so that they can power through the coming months on artificial energy. On paper Thanksgiving and Christmas each have their own merits. What other back to back holidays celebrate the annihilation of one culture and the intolerance of the rest? It is Halloween that rests unpretentiously here at the end of October; no shiny new bikes or remote controlled cars held above children's heads as hostages of good and bad. It simply exists as an exhibition of flawed American understanding of foreign cultural celebrations. And I wouldn't have it any other way.
My earliest memories of Halloween come mostly from washed out Polaroids and grainy black and white super8 films. With man attempting to set foot on the moon and Vietnam raging a world away I was often dressed up as an pint sized astronaut or baby faced G.I.. I can only imagine what goes on in the mind of a child not yet capable of rational thought as they are dragged through the streets at night with countless horrors passing before their eyes. Can't understand why you child wets the bed? But when that magical age is reached and the comprehension that playing dress-up equates with bags of sugary treats then the true games begin. You now understand that dressed like a lunatic and armed with three magic words a world of legalized begging has opened where, if the porch light is on, you are almost certainly guaranteed something special for your efforts.
You always remember those houses that offer the best treats; full sized candy bars, sticks of gum or some other expensive store-bought item. And you learned to avoid those houses that pushed shit like candy corn, popcorn balls or something that could easily hide a saw blade or arsenic. Our house fell in the middle range of these two. Some years my parents would buy so much candy that we would heap handfuls on wide eyed kids. Other times my father would expect a single bag of mini-Snickers to supply a neighborhood full of rowdy kids only to realize at 5pm that he had run out and rather than turning off the porch light he would begin passing out individual marshmallows or Ritz Crackers (no shit). I guess if you have any sense of dignity, or remember how fantastic it was to say "trick or Treat" and be met with something substantial, then you prepare for the onslaught of kids with truly memorable goodies.
I can't think of any celebration that allows everyone involved a chance to feel like they are making a contribution. Certainly you were whoring yourself off as a Devil or super hero only to be paid off in confection but at the same time the "Johnny" homeowner had the satisfaction of opening his doors to some smiling faces and a flood of memories. Its a victimless event.
Just remember the two cardinal rules of Halloween: 1) don't be a dick by skimping on the candy 2) you now serve as the memory provider...don't fuck it up.

Say what?

As a working class stiff and a card carrying member of "de collar bleu" I often come into contact with some fairly sketchy individuals whose pasts read like some bus stop, pulp novel rap sheet. Superficially these people would appear to be fine upstanding members of the community. Give them a shave, a haircut and teach them that "aint" is not a conjunction and you have before you Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Citizen just waiting to perform some sort of manual task. What you see is what you get. Scratch the surface, however, and you get a glimpse at dysfunctional with a lemon twist. Whether by tongues loosened by to much drink or simply time and trust, sooner or later an opportunity will present itself where you become privy to some extreme and often hilarious shit.
For instance, there was "Dan" a fellow construction worker who had one of the sharpest minds I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. There were few historical facts he did not know. I'm not talking "what's the worlds biggest lake" bullshit trivia, this cat could tell you the "who, what why, where when and how's" of most anything asked of him. We worked side by side for quite a while and I thought I had him all figured out. It wasn't until I had know him for about a year that he pulled me aside at a Christmas party and began an hour long monologue about how he had escaped from a Mexican prison after being arrested and sentenced to twenty years for smuggling heroin. It was, he said "just a thing." Shit, "just a thing" is getting pulled over and finding that you left your wallet at home. This was Hollywood shit. If anything, I would have pegged him as a embezzler. I heard recently that he was strung out on the same shit he used to run from the south.
My first real initiation into "human camouflage" came when I was 17 and working for a food supplier for a large restaurant chain. I was extremely naive and inexperienced and hadn't been working there for more than a month when all of my "nice" coworkers began rapidly unhinging themselves from reality and I always seemed to be at the epicenter of their collapses. A black dude named Ollie and I ate lunch together every day and over time I thought of him as the ideal family man; wife, kids, been with the company for a decade. Then one day he began to where combat fatigues and headbands to work. Our lunch hour discussions went from how well the Boston Celtics were doing to how fast he could disassemble and reassemble an M-16 assault rifle. He just didn't show up for work one Tuesday. In passing, another worker commented "Vietnam's a motherfucker." Indeed. And then there was the guy who filled Ollie's shoes at the lunch table. He wanted me to help him heist cars. "maybe we can go out and have a few drinks first." That was my last day pushing burgers into an eighteen wheeler.
I guess I should be somewhat desensitized to people pulling rabbits out of their asses, but I still find it hard to reconcile perception with reality. A little more icing on the cake came today when "Jeff", a guy I've know for over a year and always thought of as gruff but harmless threw a beauty out there that had me doubled over laughing my ass off; not so much at what he said but more the matter of fact "oh, by the way..." way in which he just put it out there. I'd been talking with another coworker and I asked him how his little girls were doing. He said they were just fine but that the youngest one had been starting to bite his oldest girl. Out of left field "Jeff" chimed in, "yeah, I know how that can be, that's why they put me in prison." I absolutely lost it. "Say What????" "Yeah", he said "the old lady owed me some money, when I tried to take it out of her purse she tried to pull the purse away....so I bit her shoulder!" Aaaaannnd?? "Well, she called 911 and I got booked on felony assault, the jail was full and they sent me to the state prison." Unbelievable.
So, I guess I will have to assume the position that nobody is really who they portray themselves to be. This is, of course, unless they entirely spill their guts. However, I think the game is best played making these erroneous assumptions and having your world bent a little bit sideways when someone pulls that rabbit out of their ass.

Social Darwinism

Today I saw a fat kid bullying another fat kid. Normally I wouldn't have paid much attention to a couple of neighborhood kids practicing the time honored tradition of "bully and prey." However, it struck me as odd that both of these future diabetics seemed to be cut from a similar socio-economic cloth as well as waddling from the same Ben and Jerry's filled gene pool. In most instances the aggressor has some sort of physical or status superiority which grants him an advantage over an individual of lessor claims. Take the "special needs" kid in gym class for example; you know for a fact that as soon as the whistle is blown every dodge-ball in the room will be air mailed to his melon. Sadly, there is an unwritten hierarchy that was established long ago that ensures that at some point in your life you are going to get punished for your shortcomings. From guys who stayed home on Saturday nights to knit scarves for their cats to anyone whose ever confessed to owning an album by ABBA, everyone has been a target at one point or another. In my day the hierarchy appeared something like this:
1)Jocks/heads
2)hipsters
3)bookworms
4)band members/chorus
5)guys who had posters of Eric Estrada in their lockers
6)Team Short Bus

This is not to say that you could not fall into multiple categories. I was actually the quarterback on my junior high football team and sang in the school chorus. You just learn to take your lumps when half the team shows up and sits in the front row to bust your balls during a concert. You then took out your frustration by giving an atomic wedgie to the lead trombone after the show. Order restored.
I think as you age you become less and less aware of the differences that separate and begin to explore those differences that engage. You no longer find yourself trying to, well, find yourself and are more apt to be open to those that are downright fucking bizarre. By bullying yourself into a social pecking order you surround yourself with individuals of similar attitudes and interests. After a while you discover that your life has become as interesting as a loaf of white bread. I envy those individuals young enough and strong enough not to buy into the rules of order that stipulate that only a certain drumbeat can be marched to. I am also discovering that it is never to late to free your mind of this fallacy.
As the two kids chased each other across the front lawn of a neighboring house I noticed that the lead man had a bag of chips clenched tightly in his fist. Explanation gained, theory held.