Look how cute!
On my many travels around the world I have had a lot of time to think.
Perhaps those hours could have been better spent by doodling, playing video games or just chewing gum, drooling or reading People magazine but like the fool I am I chose to think. As a result of all that thinking I have decided to let you in on a secret; There is more to life than death and taxes.
Not much more, but something.
Those things are: Chinese Restaurants and Irish pubs.
Think about it. Have you ever been anywhere that doesn't have one or both of those institutions?
If I were interested in creating a new religion that espoused another mad conspiracy theory (see Mormons, Christians, Muslims, Judaeism, Communism, Burtism, Buddhism and anyone else I may have forgotten to offend) I would develop a theory about how these two nations are in the grasp of the Devil and doing his bidding.
If you are interested I'll get you started with a couple of lines.
Feel free to join in and maybe we could create a new liturgy.
Lets face it. It has to be better than the rubbish that's on offer now.
"Behold the sacred Scroll of Number 47" (fried rice with green chillies)
"Brothers, Let us drink from the haloed cup of innebriation.
Touch the cup of death so that we may extend our life and ward off the inevitable" (Guiness)
Just a thought. Maybe you had it too
The Pulchritudinous Review is an arts magazine with an emphasis on avant garde poetry and graphic art. Renée Zepeda edited and compiled it using a rare & highly desirable scarlet letterpressed cover printed with sea-blue ink by Ken Mikolowski in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The cover paper is handmade from Nepal; the red thread is archival. This issue will be handbound with a Japanese binding and approximately 75 pages. Poetry comprises the majority of the content, but there are also short stories, photography, and paintings. Featured writers and artists include: Anne Waldman, Alice Notley, Ann Mikolowski, Elizabeth Robinson, Roberto Tejada, Christine Hume, Matthew Rohrer, Timothy Callaghan, Nicola Pinder, and Chris Weige, among others. As a bonus one original handmade collaged postcard from a collection of only 500 will accompany the magazine as an insert. Subscription is $10/year and the magazine appears annually. To pre-order your rare copy visit: http://tinyurl.com/62ybd5
Married 9 years today! Together for 13 years since last June!
Still happy and in love. Seems like a perfect day to take the doggies to the spot mom and dad got married...
:-)
Furniture Making/Design class begins tonight at the local college. I'm nervous about managing school while working full time; the lengthy commute to campus; and I'm insecure about my skill level as compared to other students. I am, however, excited to play with power tools and have access to a woodshop again!
This will be the first time I have been a woodworker and a corporate person simultaneously. I have always had the luxury of compartmentalizing these divergent aspects of myself. It will be interesting to see how high heels by day and steel-toed boots by night interplay with one another.
Obviously, this is something I will have to get used to...my goal is to start by having a small shop, while continuing to make real money, until the shop becomes sustainable. I'm not sure how likely it is that I will be able to pull this off in San Francisco - the dream will likely need to wait until we move back to Hawaii. But, as long as I am in that place by my 30th birthday, I will be happy. *knock on wood*
You know, over and over I find that things are really not so bad after all. I don't know why I work myself up into a tizzy for nothing. And I beat on myself over trivial and big things. Mostly trivial things. Just let it go.
I just said good bye to Max. Max is the huge, happy pet of my ex. And he has cancer. And today they have to let him pass. My ex was crying, his wife was crying, I was crying. Aaron and I got to hug him and say our goodbyes.
I know exactly what they are feeling. So so sad...
Pity me. Reach into your soul and dredge up the best of your sympathy. I have a hangover!
This is no ordinary head thumper. I am not suffering from some self-induced malaise this time. For once I have the excuse of being able to blame almost all my friends for my current state of dehydration. You see it really was nothing to do with me. Unless you consider the fact that this weekend was my stag do.
I suppose, in a small way, I am responsible for instigating the entire debauched lunacy by asking the nearly Mrs B to marry me but I maintain that the resultant war wounds are not my fault. In fact I would go so far as to blame Meneer Heineken and his cohorts. If he hadn't made the brew I wouldn't have been forced to drink it now, would I?
But you don't want to know about that do you?
You want the dirt. The sleeze and the sorrow. You want to know what happened and who did what to whom. You want to know how many people were arrested and what costume I was forced to wear whilst dancing on stage at the Foile Berger don't you? Well I am not telling.
So there.
What goes on tour stays on tour.
Well nearly. There is one thing I think you should know about this weekend of drunken revelry. You can sum it up like this.
Paris is an extortionate rip off but utterly utterly lovely.
Oh, go on then. Just one or two snippets. Just to prove that I am still the man I was when I left.
Actually that's not true. I am in fact a better man. (Despite the fact that my brain is now the size of a Water shrews gonads).
Mrs Nearly B and I have been together for 13 years so far and in all that time she has never doubted my fidelity. In fact she has proved to be an amazing woman. Even when I brought an entire troop of naked dancers into the living room and let them rub jam into my arm pits and then let them lick the fragrant goop off again she has never doubted that she is the one for me. She didn't bat an eyelid as I frolicked in a whirlpool bath with ten nubile playboy bunnies and she wasn't even phased by the sudden appearance of Lindsey Lohan, Jennifer Saunders and a small ferret called Ralph in our bed one night. Because folks, she trust me.
Yes she does.
Completely.
She trust me because she knows that I am totally and utterly crap at playing away. She knows that by the time I had realised that the opportunity to indulge in some nudey prod games had arisen I would probably have already drunk myself into a stupor, eaten too much and fallen asleep or talked so much the object of passion had left and gone to sleep it off under a flyover somewhere where the drone of traffic was more soothing than my monotone drawl.
So when the weekend of my Bucks party hove into view she knew that there was no way I would be coming home with hickeys and a nice collection of STD's. And as ever, she was right.
The event was organised with military precision.
London - Paris - London. Hospital. Home. Wedding. Divorce court. Penury. Gambling habit. Death and a small headstone. Got it?
On day 2 of the blast we were in Paris. The sun was setting and we had been touring the sights of the city. We had seen an Irish pub, a Belgian pub, three or four French Bistro bars and probably some others that I have forgotten by now. The crew was still together and we had ended up sitting in a bar in the Pigale region of the city. For those of you who are not as cosmopolitan as I am (CUE SMUG GRIN... AKA RICTUS) this is the red light area.
We had established ourselves in a bar where the manager was delighted to have suddenly acquired the alcoholic equivalent of a gushing oil well. With beer at E10 each and six of us drinking about 4 an hour he was suddenly watching his profits rise as fast a sailors dick on shore leave. And so when we made ready to leave he used every trick in his book to get us to stay. In other words he gave us free beer and a discount off further rounds. It worked and so we remained there for ... forever I think but I am hazy on the exact times.
When the beer was drunk and the party was in full flow we inevitably decided to visit a strip club. It is traditional after all. So the gang of stout yeomen staggered up and away and blew kisses to invisible friends in the bar. Fortune favours the inebriated and as luck would have it there was a strip joint right next door! Would you believe it?
In we all trooped, having first negotiated an amazing discount of about 40 centimes on the entry price. We are the toughest of the tough!
Inside it was like a ... well I am not sure but it was bloody horrible. Dark, Dank and tiny. There was one light bulb and a dance floor about as big as a tablecloth. The walls were all made from artex and painted oxblood red. In short it was as sleazy as sleaze itself. Proper job.
There was a pole in the middle of the room. There was no one spinning on it. One of our party - a distinguished doctor would you believe - decided to have a go. Up he got, grabbed the pole and swung around. It was then that we heard the screams! The manager came rushing into the room and grabbed the pole.
"NO TOUCH NO TOUCH!"
I had heard of no touch the girls but no touch the pole? Surely that was the point of the place?
Be that as it may, the pole wasn't actually fixed to the ceiling. Brilliant!!!! A pole dancing club with no pole. I was already feeling at home.
Then the dancers came in. There were two of them. One was called Claud the other Bernard. They had a little hop and sat in the corner opposite us and waited. So did we.
When the girls finally came in they were amazing. Not because they were stunning looking or exotically dressed but because one of the them was the size of Sly Stallone and wearing dungarees and the other one was wearing a woolly jumper.
The cheers went up! At last!! Woman flesh!!
Except there wasn't any.
They refused to do anything at all.
Not so much as a nipple.
We had found the only lap dancing club in the entire universe where no one but the customers danced and there was no nudity!!!
We had spent E100 for six beers and a piss.
Excellent value all around in Parisien terms.
My sort of place.
My sort of story.
My sort of Stag.
I will be running for Pope in 2010. Please vote for me
