30 January 2012

Sweet Logger's Perfume


Today was Sonja's turn to remain indoors. Taking my freedom, the dog and I walked a wet river trail. It was sort of depressing but our spirits were buoyed by spring's faint timber wolf howl to us in the distance.

Stopped at the local standardbred track after our walk and made my bets long before the first race began. Found out later I did ok. Few favourites and a mid-price shot adding up to a 25% profit. I was lucky. I know better than to play the standardbreds when the track is so wet the day's proceedings would eventually have to be halted for a short while to maintain the questionable race surface.

Back home I watched the NHL all-star game. It was a hopeless affair as usual. Why I keep watching it is anybody's guess. I have watched more than four dozen such exhibitions. Predictably, the team with the Canucks on it lost.

Later I switched channels to watch the USA-Canada women's soccer match. After the USA had scored their third goal I took the dog out. I had not noticed behind my indoor television/alcohol haze that the rain had stopped.

A smell in the air caught my attention as if all that television and liquor had turned me into a wet nosed dog. I breathed in deeply, perhaps deeper than ever before. My brain went to work on the puzzling molecules swimming in the warm air. It had rained so hard the bark of the park's hemlocks had become drenched thereby releasing their sweet logger's perfume.

29 January 2012

Pale Green Girl, Pale Green Boy


It was a minute before nine when I heard the call. "Are you coming to watch your movie?" I pried myself from my book and my computer screen, poured myself another glass of pale green cloudy fluid and sat down with Sonja and the Hammer in front of our television. Turner Classic Movies was showing "Soylent Green."

It had been a while.

Earlier Sonja had suggested I would pass out before the film was done. That was all the encouragement I needed to see it to its end. The film is a metaphor for a world, our world, eating its dead to prevent itself falling to the ground, each man and woman, wittingly and unwittingly, preventing themselves from becoming part of the pale green food chain.

The film's appeal for me, the reason I saw it in a theatre in 1973, is to watch Edward G. Robinson's last work. It is not his best but it is, for me, his most memorable role. Robinson was my favourite old time actor, preceded only by Groucho Marx.

Mass consumption of our own kind has not yet come to pass. I wonder if there are, on a smaller, if more demonic scale, I suggest in a hopeful metaphoric tone, secret societies, who do partake of the porky meat that hangs from our own delicious bones. Modern medieval Satanic Majesties gathered in shameful rooms flinging the cooked remains of corpses about.

I call for a re-make of Soylent Green, motherfuckers.
  

Buds




"If you let go a little
you will have a little happiness.
If you let go a lot you will have a lot of happiness.
If you let go completely you will be free."

Ajahn Chah (by way of the Teachings of the Horse)


Yet another fine day to remain indoors it has been. Snow, sleet, hail and rain - we had it all before the day had hardly begun. Read a little. Drank a lot. Sonja went out so it was just the dog and I. The dog slept. When at last she stirred I had to take her out. The evilness of the day was spent. It was ok.

We walked. In a tree above us a young eagle was watched by a single crow. The eagle looked at us, thought about attacking and then thought about something else. On the thin ends of the salmonberry bushes we were slipping through grew buds. In January. Spring, out here in the farm country, will arrive early.

Alright.

27 January 2012

Take Me Home, Country Roads On the Moon

I feel real good today. A man has a right to get down and feel like doing heroin every once in a while, doesn't he? When I am not right my sense of humour can get a little lost. Good thing the motherfucking Republicans are fighting over who is going to get to nuke Iran if Obama does not beat them to it. There is more good humour in the Republican Party than meets the eye.



Take Newt Gingrich. Asshole wants to build a permanent base on the moon. America will never be happy until they start a war on the moon so Newt is probably on to something. Motherfuckers might actually be able to win a war against those commie moon people.

It is going to be an American base. Which means it will have hookers. The most expensive hookers in history. Willie Picton will be in awe.

Newt Gingrich might be a cocksucker but at least he is a cocksucker with a sense of humour. Permanent base on the moon? What the fuck for?   

26 January 2012

The Junkie Month


I am still making my way through Mark Leirer's biography of Bakunin. A few pages at a time. If you are an industrial worker, as I am, I would not suggest you do the same. Creative destructive urges are frowned upon in the workplace. An old foreman of mine put it this way, "The next one of you stupid cocksuckers who breaks something is fucking fired."

It is only Wednesday but if I had just a little less sense than I do I would have pulled off the main road in town on the way home and got myself a big bag of fucking Afghan heroin. January is a motherfucker. The junkie month.

Got myself a cider on the go. That will have to do. Tomorrow it will be whisky. Beer in the pub on Friday. Looks like I will be going toe to toe with the heavyweight champ on Saturday night. Bottle of Mexican absinthe I have been saving for a night when I need to see shit and not feel a fucking thing.   

25 January 2012

Into the Future


Took a flying leap into the future today. A flying leap into the 1980s. Got myself my first cd player that plays more than one cd at a time. A Sony. Used. Best looking one on the thrift store shelf. Hard to say just how old the fucking thing is. It is a little smaller than a suitcase but not by much if that is any guide.

Cost me $25. More than I really wanted to pay since I figured if I could buy a new one I could surely pick one up for less than $50. Nobody seems to be selling new cd players any more.

When I got home I had to hunt around to find where I had put my old cables so I could hook it up to the stereo. They were in a box of old shit in one of my house's darkest creepiest corners.

As I was hooking it up Sonja came home. I was in behind the stereo, my hands tangled in wires, when she asked, "What the fuck are you doing back there?"

"Get me a fucking beer and I'll tell you," I guffed her back.

Got it wired up and turned on the power. Lit up like a nuclear reactor's control panel. Picked five cds from the cd shelf real quick. Leonard Cohen, Ted Nugent, KISS, Vibrators and Willie Nelson. Jews, rednecks and outlaws - my kind of motherfuckers.

Hit shuffle. Cohen was first up, then KISS, Ted, Knox and Willie. Fucking old piece of crap sounds excellent.

Now all I need is a good 8-track player.

23 January 2012

Wheels of Death


Now it has warmed up a bit it is slushy and shitty outside. Neither Sonja, my dog or I like that so we spent the day indoors only allowing the dog out to piss and shit occasionally.

Sonja made soup. I made spaghetti sauce. Soon after I turned on the television. American football was on.

"Why are you watching this shit?" Sonja asked during the first game. A sensible question. "You hate this boring American crap."

I do. I had no answer. Well I did but I was not going to say I was watching it to prevent her from watching her Sunday afternoon woman movies. You know the ones I am talking about. Jennifer Anniston is in half the fucking things. Comedy romance.

Was a time you could count on a good old biker movie being on television on a Sunday afternoon. Somebody really needs to make some good new biker movies. No comedy, just fucking, no romance.

Fell asleep during the first game. Sonja did not notice or she would have changed the channel on me. The second game was a little better. I stayed awake.

Sonja took a bath. The dog got up on the couch and lay on Sonja's blanket. I let her stay up there. She looked at me, then she fell asleep. I took her picture. Later I showed it to Sonja.

"She's not allowed up there," Sonja reminded me.

"Hammer," I told my dog who looked at me with great understanding. "Stay off the fucking couch."   

What a waste of a fucking day. Life's so short I hate to do that but it happens. Could be worse I suppose. At least I did not waste Saturday afternoon watching the fucking Canucks.

Big Dog Next Door


When I began writing here six years ago I did not anticipate writing poetry. I had not written any for decades. I am glad I do however. Being a poet is like being a plumber in the early days of indoor plumbing, an occupation for the 1%.

Poetry's form seems particularly well adapted to this media. A poet would have to write a very long, very bad one for the reader not to read it until the end.

My next door neighbour
Has a big dog
My dog
Likes to play with

The dog is
Big and dumb
And smells real bad
Just like its master

They look at each other
Through the fence
Sniff noses
And dance their dances

Sometimes they bark
Sometimes they howl
They wag their tails
And act like politicians

22 January 2012

Hey! Ho! The Good Old Days Are Back Again!


I hope Santa Rosa Jon will not mind my converting his comment to my own writing about the big explosion up in Burns Lake last night into a poem. Used to be Jon wrote lots of great stuff for his own Poetry Is For Assholes. Now he prefers spending his time on Facebook trying to get laid by the corn fattened good looks gone bad high school cheerleaders of his grand American youth. I have given it the title

Hey! Ho! The Good Old Days Are Back Again!
 
In one year
When I was at US Steel
I think six or seven people
Got killed on the job.

I mean in my one location.

It used to be
That you at least
Made decent money
Doing dangerous work.

Nowadays
They expect you
To die
For chump change.

When my grandfather
Was an ironworker in
New York
Unemployed ironworkers
Would hang out at job sites
And wait for someone
To fall to his death.

Welcome to the good old days.

Rest In Peace


I am an industrial worker. Union one. Damn fucking proud of it. Could well be you live in a house constructed in part with forest products that have passed through my hands at some point in the last several decades. Probably there are some other wood products in your house. A non-conductive spruce ladder. A Quebecois fine grain cedar sound board guitar.

My fellow organized industrial workers are much the same as I. About the only difference is I can string a few words together better than most of them. Couple of them died by the sounds of it yesterday in Burns Lake. Couple Steelworker brothers. From what I know about serious burns a couple more may soon join them.

What the fuck else can I say?

Absolutely nothing.

Say it again.

Work is a motherfucking war.   

21 January 2012

Gimme Gimme Some Truth


I am not exposed, directly, to many of the grander sickening aspects of modern life. Few of us are. Working for a living keeps our eyes averted from the big fucking picture. One of my biggest regrets in life was when I did not speak up when I once witnessed just such a modern clusterfuck in person.

It was several years ago. I forget the year exactly but it was somewhere near the middle of Gordon Campbell's time as the crooked motherfucking do anything for every corporate criminal and parasite in town Premier of our province.

Sonja and I were on our way into BC Place (now known as Every Corporate Criminal and Parasite Place) when we saw Campbell being interviewed outside his stadium office. He was surrounded by reporters and their television cameras and they were sucking his motherfucking dick like the very oxygen their life depended on came out of it.

I slowed, just about to a stop, and Sonja, wisely I guess, grabbed my jacket sleeve and moved me on. Sonja, to her credit, has endured my willingness to create a scene all too often. She was not up for it and maybe I was not either. It was still so early in the day I had not had a beer yet. Let's just say the entire confrontation would have been the most expletive deleted piece of television news in history. Trouble is, my ire would have been entirely misdirected. Politicians will be fucking people until the Air India bombing investigation is complete. What is inexcusable is a fifth estate that will not or cannot keep to its task of asking hard questions, often.

But it would not have made the least bit of difference. Campbell would have continued fucking everybody until, at last, people got wise to his pornographic people fucking act many years later. Nowadays only our Conservative Prime Minister and the people of England continue to be entertained by his high school cheerleader corporate porn star bullshit.  

The media, every dick sucking one of them, does not want Mr. Beer N. Hockey on their dick sucking team. I am using my name metaphorically here. The media, every dick sucking one of them, does not want Mr. Beer N. Hockey on their dick sucking campaign bus.

I guess that is why I call the wee bit of electronic space you are reading here a Free Press. I think a free press is important. Too bad the very concept of such a thing as a free press is fucking near historical as the Dead Sea Scrolls.

On Fridays I Enjoy A Beer Or Two


After I had walked the Hammer in the freezing rain I fed her, got out of all my work clothes except my long johns, got myself a fucking beer, arranged the couch pillows just so and laid there still as a lake frozen, yet not frozen enough to skate on. I had gone into work after all - about three hours late. Safety first.

All comfy now, I flipped the pages of the local newspapers as I drained the magic brown bottle. The only good news - yet another dead Hindoo gangster. Pretty soon they will all be dead.

I cannot fucking wait.

The Hammer looked out the window as the first molecules of alcohol seeped into my bloodstream. She was waiting for Sonja to join us for the motherfucking weekend.

As I emptied my bottle I let out a fart so loud the Hammer jumped. She did not turn around or anything. She knew who did it. Did not jump that high or anything. Maybe an inch or two.

20 January 2012

Police Grant Beer A Snow Day

Snow is no fun when it is hi-ho-hi-ho off to fucking work you must go. I woke this morning tired as a Newfie joke from the extra exertion required by all the snow we have had here in Steepleton. Just the same, I was up early, readying myself for another workday, when I heard on the radio a warning from the local constabulary to stay off the fucking roads.

Alright!

18 January 2012

Tuesday In Canada


Coffee
Shit
Drive
Work
Drive
Drink

Walk dog

Drink
Shovel snow
Drink

Walk dog

Drink
Eat
Watch hockey on tv
Write excellent poem
Sleep

17 January 2012

Monday In Canada


Coffee
Shit
Drive
Work
Drive
Drink

Walk dog

Drink
Shovel snow
Drink
Eat
Write bad poem
Sleep

16 January 2012

News Hour Dull Sports Franchise Names of Canada


There are some things I will never understand. Like why Dope City's NHL team has been named the Canucks since before I was born. Why not the Villains? Or how about the Hot Rods? The only good Canadian sports team name I can think of is the Murder Squad.

In fact, all the Canadian NHL teams have boring names. Same goes for just about any other sports team in this country. Seems like we figure we are doing pretty good at naming teams if we do not call another one Rough Riders. Canadians are good at a lot of shit. Some might say we are good at everything. Too bad we let the fucking JWs name all our sports teams.

15 January 2012

El Niquel


Was taken unsteadily down memory lane by a Christmas gift opened but unseen until last night. It was a dvd recounting Tom Waits' early career Sonja gave me which had been leaning hobo patient against a pile of recently played albums. Waiting for a cold winter night empty of entertainment.

I first heard Waits on an old Co-op Radio programme called "John's Wild Years" as I recall. That would have been somewhere around the middle of the '80s. Around about the time I began to broaden the scope of the music I enjoyed beyond Deep Purple and DOA. John, or whatever the fuck his name was, I did not know him, had a great radio show. A rare treat, then as now.

Soon thereafter I must have begun buying Waits' records until I had them all. Loved the Kerouac/Bukowski free drunken motherfucker sound of each and every one of them.

Do not remember seeing Waits on television until maybe '88. He sang "The Nickel" on Letterman's show. Jesus Fucking Christ never grasped human suffering, make that men suffering, as Waits grasped it then.

14 January 2012

Ned Kelly and His Guns


I try and avoid
Writing about the weather
It is all us Canadians
Talk about

The weather
Our boring Hollywood Starfucker
Our Ned Kelly
And his guns

My dog likes the snow
So she woke me up early
Walked me over to the
Front window to see

You are lucky you have me
To get your ass out of bed
So we can be the first man and
His dog to go out and play

She is pushy
My dog is
Got her own mind
Like me

I put her in the back
To blow off some steam
Made coffee
Wrote a poem

I will
Be going
Out now
To play

The snow
My dog
Cup of coffee
And me

The Hammer's Favourite Guy Besides Me


Saw the guy whose shit my dog eats today after work. Despite his living in the bush just a stone's throw from my house I hardly ever see him. Last time I saw him, back in summer, he had a broken arm in a dirty cast.

The Hammer greeted him first. Does not look like he is a dog guy. Not afraid of the Hammer or anything, just not as happy to see her as most people are. It was getting to be dusk. I think he was heading for a warmer place to sleep for the night than his tarp home.

"How's the fucking arm?" I asked him.

"Not bad," he told me, swinging it a little to prove how well attached it was to him.

That was about it. He is anti-social as fuck. Our brief conversation more than he hears or says in a week when the weather is warm enough to allow him to stay in his tent without freezing to death.

13 January 2012

Newfie Joke of the Day


Every day since I have had a computer my dad sends me Newfie jokes, usually several each day. "You don't know what you're missing b'y," he seems to be saying, "living over there with everybody else that have convinced themselves they must be in Heaven because the Chinese and everybody else with a pile of crooked money wants to move there and pretend they are movie stars in Hong Fucking Kong."

Here is the joke that came in today.

A pharmacist in Dildo walks into his store to find a guy leaning so heavily against a wall you would have thought he was holding back the river of crap that keeps pouring out of Ottawa since Harper took over.

So he asks his clerk, a young b'y just graduated from Memorial University, "What's with the guy over there by the wall?"

The clerk, one of those wise ones unversities are pumping out nowadays who are proud they can think outside the box, tells his boss, "He came in this morning to get something for his cough and I couldn't find the cough syrup so I gave him an entire bottle of laxative instead."

The pharmacist blew his top when he heard that. "You idiot! You can't treat a cough with a bottle of laxative."

The clerk was having none of that old school guff from his boss. Told him, "Of course you can! Look at him. He's afraid to cough!"

12 January 2012

100,000 Poems For You


Walked the dog
Lit a fire
Fed the dog
Put Emmylou's "Last Date"

On my record player

Got pedal steel
Steel toes
One hundred thousand
Motherfucking woes

Just because
I have a smart phone
Does not
Make me

A modern man

11 January 2012

In Anticipation of Spring



Just like everybody else
Around here
I can sense our city
Is ready to let 'er rip
In another deep as space

Run by the Canucks
In the Stanley Cup play-offs.
We have never seen
What would happen
If the Canucks made it to the Final

Two glorious years in row.

I want to see
If the city can keep a lid
On the boiling pot.

It is not like everybody
Is going to switch
From Molson to Twinings. 

10 January 2012

Up Yours Honour Killers


A mother and uncle of a young woman who was contract killed back in India when visiting the husband her family had not chosen for her were finally arrested by the RCMP for conspiring to have their young relative killed. Fuck knows why it took the RCMP so long to get around to it. The young woman was killed like a dozen  years ago and everybody knew who was behind it all along.

Arrested her on behalf of the fucking government of India they did. Guess the RCMP figured, belatedly, rather than have their witnesses perjure themselves here in Canada and have the conspiratorial fuckers get off free as birds like the Air India suspects did they were better off to send them to India where perjurers get a good sound beating and the criminals get put in jail for a good long time or until somebody pays enough money to the right people to get them out.

That is justice, motherfuckers.

As I made my way around the mill today I encountered several groups of Punjabs who appeared to be talking over the latest neck deep puddle of mud the white man has dragged their people through. When I got close enough I could hear the words, "Blah, blah, blah, Fifth Estate. Blah, blah, blah. Fifth Estate, blah, blah, blah. Blah." No one volunteered to say anything in English about it and I did not fucking ask. Fuck them and their Old Motherfucking World ways.

Was a time a couple decades back people around here were beginning to think all the people from India who had settled around Dope City were not so bad after all, if only they would take driving lessons. Now, what with the gang bullshit, the honour killings and the political fixing a lot of people are having second thoughts.

This is Canada, motherfuckers. We do not kill our children when they fuck people we do not approve of.

9 January 2012

War Profiteers, Anarchists and Sherlock Holmes


Went to a movie again last night. You would think we received gift cards from a movie house. The place was packed once again. Had to stand in line to get tickets and to get popcorn. Took Sonja, Hunky and Kitty less time to snake their way to the ticket booth than it took me to get to the front of the popcorn line-up.

The room was packed by the time we had sat through the pre-movie bullshit and the new Sherlock Holmes movie began. Directed by Guy Ritchie, it is a better than average action packed movie sprinkled with what would probably pass as humour in fucking England. We all enjoyed it better than War Horse mostly because there was a plot to it slightly above that which would be comprehensible to a six year old.

Of note to me was the movie's portrayal of Anarchists as the dupes of capitalists impatient for a good war to make gunnysacks of money on. Oh yes, let's not let the world forget us Anarchists are a bunch of dumb motherfuckers looking for sadistic greedy capitalists to exploit us and help them start fucking wars.

Fuck you too Guy Ritchie. Let me guess: it was a fucking Anarchist who pulled Madonna from your bed. Motherfucker.

8 January 2012

1970 Again


From Christmas on I watch hockey, sometimes whole games of it, like I did today as the Canucks took on the team that gave Dope City reason to riot last spring. It was like game eight of the Stanley Cup Finals except this time the Canucks were healthier and The Bum was on the bench watching a fucking American fill his spot in front of the hemp hut.

Watched the game in my pyjamas, a blanket warming my cold feet. Sonja brought me beers and toast. There was fighting, high-sticking, a line brawl. A rookie Canuck, Cody Hodgson, who few still believed in, took centre stage with the game winning goal and an assist in the victory.

The fucking Swedes winning the world junior championship a distant memory. It was like it was 1970 again.


Know Your Product


I heard Bruce Allen, manager of Anne Murray's golf schedule, commenting about how rock 'n' roll product is not moving like it once did. No shit Bruce. It is not a rockin' free world we are living in any more. This is twenty-fucking-twelve. It is a disco pussy motherfucking world we have got now. Disco pussy motherfuckers with guns.

You want to make fast money being a manager like Allen did in the '70s and 80s? Get yourself a job managing some disco pussy or a fucking bomb factory.

7 January 2012

Helter Skelter


When I was a young lad, when I was not dreaming of winning the Stanley Cup or the Grey Cup, I dreamed I would one day be a mountaineer.  (There were still unclimbed mountains in those days. Now it has all been done.) I never did any of that shit. I did, however, get to add the Mount Everest Web Camera, to my sidebar list of Fellow Motherfuckers.

It is so fucking cool.

FM


Yet another Fellow Motherfucker to report. This one is A LIFE IN HELsinki. I have been reading the blog for some time now but I was not sure if I wanted to be associated with him - he's a fucking German! A German living in Finland. And I thought they were all moving to the Cariboo.

In the modern world spirit of everybody pretending the Germans have done fuck all to attract our attention in the past century or six I can assure you he is a good little German boy. Traded in his gas chamber for a sauna. If you have not seen the Finnish Father Christmas videos he posted over the holiday season I suggest you do so forthwith. Funny as shit they are.

6 January 2012

Home Early For Hockey



Sonja got home early today.

"Why isn't the hockey game on?" she hollered from the still open door as the Hammer ran to greet her.

"What fucking hockey game?" I asked incredulously. Been a while since Sonja asked why a hockey game is not on tv. A thousand years. Maybe more.

"Sweden-Russia asshole," she reminded me. The gold medal game of the world junior championship from Motherfucking, Alberta.

She turned it on just in time to see the opening face-off.

Wicked game.

Good thing the Swedes won. I hate the fucking Russians.

5 January 2012

Without A Net


I do not download music. Do not often watch videos on my computer either although a few recent ones I have watched, Arcade Fire and Neil Young, Anti-Nowhere League and Lou Reed and Metallica make me wonder if wasting a little more time doing so might entertain me a little more than I am already entertained.

I listen to my music in stereo.

I listen to WDVX-FM.

I do not own a portable mp3 player. I do not listen to music I could store in my phone. I suppose I am an old fashioned motherfucker.

Out of date.

Out to lunch.

Out of touch.

Out of line.

Out of luck.

Out of it.

I buy new and used cds, new and used records, used cassettes and the occasional old 8-track. I could use a good quality 8-track player. I could also use a good quality cd player. I see used cd players for sale all the time but I am not sure which the best one to buy is. I play my cds, one at a time, on my dvd player.

I have two new additions to my music library. One is the Grateful Dead's "Without A Net" two cassette set. I never quite got the Dead though I really like all the country shit Jerry Garcia has contributed to that I have added to my collection over the years. The two cassettes are ok in a boring hippy sort of way. Almost fell asleep as I was listening to them. Just like any Zappa lp they are worth listening to for the guitar freak outs I guess.

The other addition is an old Emmy Lou Harris record. I am not going to listen to that yet. I will save it for the weekend. Save it for the weekend when, like last weekend, I just might let my freak flag fly. 

4 January 2012

True Story (Dedicated To My Dog The Hammer)


The more cynical of you have probably thought,
"I bet Beer,
Or whatever the fuck his name is,
Does not even pick up his dog's shit
When they are out in the park."

Untrue.
I love picking up dog shit.
That is what working in a sawmill
Your whole life does for you:
It gives you an appreciation for the finer things
In life
Besides working in the fucking mill.

In fact,
On those rare occasions when I
Lose track of where my dog has shit,
Usually due to fog
(My dog's shit steam escapes traceless into it)
And darkness' early onset this time of year,
I find myself a couple cold wet dog shits
Some other dog owner has left behind.
Do not care for cold wet dog shit much.
I like it hot from my dog's ass,
Especially this time of year.
Feels good on my shaky cold fingers.

Then,
The next day,
I find my dog's shit from the day before.
My dog shits big so it is never hard to find
If it is still a little light out.

I have a dream.
I dream that dog shit will one day all be recycled.
If we made bricks out of recycled dog shit
We could use them to build government offices
Every time the motherfuckers want new digs.

Some people have
Trouble thinking
Outside the box.
Not this motherfucker.

3 January 2012

Thirteen Lines For 2012


January now
Santa and
Jesus and
Mary

Have fucked off for another year

Mom got Sonja and I
An emergency preparedness kit
She must be getting the same
Premonition I got a while back

2012 is going to be an evil motherfucker of a year

Sonja got me new binoculars
So I can see the horses I bet on

Screw me more clearly

1 January 2012

Year of the War Horse


The night started out sensibly enough. After a couple we, that's Hunky Z, Kitty, Sonja and I, went for Japanese. An early meal before catching a movie then going home to say hello to 2012. Our New Year's Eves are not the farmyard clusterfuck they once were. Or so I thought.

Our food was good, the Chinese beer delicious. Hunky Z insisted he order us all green tea to go with our meal. When it came he poured it into one of two thermoses he produced from the bag he had brought in with him. From the second thermos he poured us mushroom tea.

"New Years is a good time for hallucinations," he insisted like he had just thought of the idea.

We ate and we drank then we went to see the movie Hunky had also insisted we see. War Horse. "Nothing better than hallucinating and watching shit get blown up," Hunky further insisted like he had just thought of that idea too.

Lots of shit got blown up but War Horse turned out to be something of a boo-hoo movie. A big over-sized over-budget Lassie of a film. The four of us sat there hallucinating and crying our eyes out. I liked it, but then again, I am a sucker for horse shit.

It was the first time in years I have sat in a movie house that was almost full. It felt cool, like we had travelled back in time or something. Cost $5 to get in. Lots of First Nations families were there. They all looked real happy to be out on New Year's Eve with their kids having fun.

Back home we drank up and listened to records before we turned on the television shortly before midnight. I had recently lucked into a dandy pile of used '60s and early '70s records that were most suitable for the occasion. Tonto's Expanding Headband, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Spirit, Love, Zappa, and Quintessence's first album. Quintessence came out of the same lysergic scene as Hawkwind and the Pink Fairies. Some real groovy shit, motherfuckers.

It was a nice night. A night that leaves me feeling inexplicably energized for our New Year. A night which made up for the Hammer rolling in and eating the shit of the homeless just before Hunky and Kitty came by. She had not done so for quite some time but she remembered the routine that follows her shit eating behaviour very well. First the back yard hose down, then the long luxurious bath, which I gave her because Sonja told me, "I'm not fucking doing it!" It was not the stinkiest shit of the homeless. The Hammer smelled pretty good, for a change, once I was done.

Today it is a day at the races. Good luck today nearly always means good luck all year. See you motherfuckers by the finish line.