Roads, Mills, Laps

I think it was Jonas Tacy who was once said that newspaper columnists–regardless of the fact that they charity write–must not advocate rebellion; all must be made to warm the heart; puppy dogs must be produced; backs must be slapped; endings are always good ones.

Ah my three loyal readers: welcome to my humble abode.

I’m sorry for not writing as of late: I recently spent six days in the hospital.

I’m ok. I’m a little worse for the weather, but I’m alive. Thank you, hallelujah! I don’t need any comments saying “Get well!” and “Ah shucks, I hope you feel better gollydarndagummit!”

All is fine.

That being said: I will still leave you with some observations of mine made while stewing at the Chester County Hospital. If you want to read about your mortality and what’s in store for you when your hairs turn gray and your body says “no mas,” when all is dark clouds and bad news, then be my guest. Just don’t blame me for the misanthropy. One second sharing a room with “Joe’ was a sufficient infusion of that to last a lifetime.

Postscript: I am at 0 miles for 10,000 days. I am trying to think about a grand comeback–formulating all the dark-of-night runs, but I don’t see that happening. Not for a while. I aspire to return to some semblance of running after the holidays. Yes, you can say that I’ve gone over to the dark side–to the group of people who hope to run when the calendar year changes, but probably won’t, because there are a million reasons to stay inside, in bed, where everything is good smells, soft skin, and supreme laze.

———–
Joe’s mother is about 100 years old. She was wheeled into my room tonight to visit her son. Joe’s sister drove her here.

Joe’s pancreas is disintigrating.He hiccups constantly. “Heat cups,” he tells the nurse, “are fucking killing me.”

The nurse empties whatever he spits up into a basin that sits in the toilet. Sometimes, they forget to clean the basin and so I get the pleasure of discovery. Lately, I’ve opted to wheel my IV stand down to the only public restroom by the cardiac ward. It’s really clean in that one–spacious too.

Joe’s mother weighs in on things immediately.

“I’m smothered with this coat and I”m smothered with in this hot room. You need to get out of here Joe this place is not your home. Your home is Philadelphia.” I can hear her pounding on her armrest.

“Mom, the doctor is Italian,” Joe says. Joe is 60 years old, but he sounds like he’s a kid telling his mother it’s ok to play on the highway. Joe divides the world into foreigners and Italians–fuckin arabs and to-best trusted Italians from South Philly. South Philly is where the good guys hang out. Everyone else–all youse: stay da fuck back.

Joe greets his family. “Youse people are awful,” he says. Good times for Joe. That’s how he handles things with his kin.

“You need to be closer to your friends, Joe. I could be walking there with my little basket–my water and soda. You’re all closed in here. There’s no air here,” he mother says. She coughs a wet cough. I envision her spitting phlegm into a ceckered napkin.

Joe tells his mother to shut up.

Joe’s sister chimes in. “Joe you always do this; you let things go and then you make us come out to take care of you. Your dog can’t stay any longer with us and your car is illegally parked.”

“Shut up you,” Joe says. He then coughs and spits into a basin.

Joe’s sister turns to leave. “That’s it. I’m leaving. I need to pick up Mikey. Come on Anna.” She tugs at her daughter’s elbow as both leave the room.

Joe’s mom wheels herself using one foot over to the window. “Oh dear Jesus, dear sacred heart of Jesus, look at this rain. Dear God give us a break.”

“You are somethign else. You don’t realize nuthin’, you,” Joe says.

“And they give you nuts? When you are older they don’t give you no nuts.”

“Nuts get stuck in your system. Don’t matter if you are old or young. They just get stuck,” Joe says.

Joe starts to fumble with the television. He waivers on Fox News–his perennial favorite. A little animated .GIF American flag flaps in the corner of the screen: a symbol of fair and balanced objectivity.

“Turn it to channel 10,” his mother says. “Channel 10’s got the good news and the funny shows.” From my bed, from behind the curtain, I can only see her feet. She’s wearing snow-white tennis shoes that look like they came out of the box.

“Who’s the sick one here, mom?”

“I”m sick too Joe. Look at me I”m in a wheelchair. I’m old. I’m your mother.”

“I got heatcups for Chrissakes mom!” Joe coughs for effect.

“Oh this place is so hot. It’s hot and stuffy. Can you open up a window in here?”

“Can’t do that mom. Me and Duncan already tried it.”

“Who’s Duncan?”

“He’s the guy next to me,” Joe says. I can feel eyes from behind the curtain looking at me. Until the family visit, I was listening to MGMT at decible level 10.

“He knows what Duncan means, ma.”

“It’s hot in here.”

“Duncan is Scottish for brown warrior. He must be a Highlander fan or somethin.”

“Joey you need to come home. You can’t have this operation here. It’s too far from your family.”

“Ma. I’m gonna do whatever I want to do.”

“Turn it back to Channel 10. The news is on…yeah that one.”

Joe clicks the remote back to Channel 10. Someone got shot in the city. An action newscaster stands in front of yellow caution tape. He holds an umbrella with one hand and a microphone with the other. He turns his head and looks back at the crime scene. It’s the city’s 10,000 murder, we are told.

“Bah: another nigger shooting,” Joe says. [Theresa is Joe’s assistant nurse. She’s black. She literally changes Joe’s shitty pants; she dumps his heat cup deposits and changes his piss-stained sheets.]

“See. That’s why you should have your operation close to home,” Joe’s mom says.

The room grows quiet. Joe falls asleep. He starts to snore and fart and say things that make no sense…things like “Berp! and Whatcha mean garny?” I stand up and walk over to the bathroom. I see his mother. Her head is supported by her wrinkly arm that is propped up on the wheelchair’s armrest. She just sits there and blinks.

I open the bathroom door and see that Joe has painted the floor and ceiling with a 50-50 concoction of pancreas and barium–a real Jackson Pollock special.

I walk out of room 261 and stumble down the hall. I catch Theresa as she’s in the middle of trying to put a blanket over that open-mouthed lunatic in room 255 . [The guy who screams ‘LINNNNNNDA! LINDAAAAAAA!]

“Does Joe need something?” she asks.

I want to say, “Joe is a fucking racist.” I pause and search for the right words.

“Tell him I’m coming right away,” she says.

“It’s the bathroom,” I say.

“I’ll be right there,” she says.

“Take your time,” I say. “I’ll go use the other bathroom.”

When I come back to room 261, Joe and his mother are both asleep. My IV stand makes a clanging noise crossing the door’s threshold and it stirs Joe’s mother.

“You should come home, Joe,” she says.

I hope Joe listens to his mother.
—————
Earlier in time.

My hand is the size of a grapefruit; it’s red and swollen. A red line runs up my arm-giving the hospital ward a tour of the lymphatic system Go to 3:26 in this video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpCr6Ojozz8

to see what I’m talking about.

“It’s on its way to your heart,” Doctor Potts said. He picked up the phone and dialed the ER. “Cellulitis: left hand.” He hung up the phone and crunkled his brow. “Don’t waste any time.Go right there,” he told me.

So here I’ve sat–for two days,so far. “You’re in for many more,” I was told.

I share a hospital room with a creature named “Joe.” Joe’s from South Philly. Joe don’t like no foreigners. He tells me that arabs are all terrorists. Joe is 300 pounds and missing pieces of his pancreas. He talks to himself.

Right now, an old crazy man with a gaping mouth and skin the color of chalk dust is calling out into the hallway: “Help me. I’m dying!” he moans. He does this all night. He’s the kind of guy who pushes the nurse’s button and unhooks the ivs intentionally so that the world can share in his misery. Doctor Kevorkian should wander the hall with his little machine; we’d all at least get some peace and quiet.

Joe rolls over, farts, and says, “Shut your trap dumbfuck,” to no one. Well, I suppose, to me.

Joe tells me what kind of poop he lays–whether it’s a long log or a brown turtle. I get to hear it all.

Joe just said, “Allright, I”m fine,” to no one in particular. Whenever I have to walk over to his side of the airline aisle (because thats what it is–a large airline flight–straight to hell.)

Joe pushes the nurse call button and just blurts out: “I need somethin’.”

I spent 5 seconds getting to know him. Here’s what I gleaned.

1. He can’t seem to answer any Daily Doubles.

2. He says he doesn’t like foreigners or arabs. He says this while a Chinese-American nurse with a big grin is filling him up with happy juice.

3. He told the nurse last night that he is into Korean movies and gets “the cassettes” in some guy’s house that this guy has converted into a Korean video rental store; I put my noise cancelling headset on my head at that moment, because the conversation was heading down a scary path–down somewhere where a gimp with ballgag has been shackled to the insides of a Harry Houdini box.

4. He pronounces “you guys”as “youse.” I don’t like how youse sounds. Its similar to Palin’s downhometowngollygeewasilla-speak..snowmobile n’ deer eatin’ banter. When I hear “youse” I expect someone like Joe to come around the corner and ask youse to help him pick up a box full of Chinese-made Pocono deer targets. I expect Walmart sprees and farts.
——————–
To be cont. Falling asleep now…on ambien and percocet.

very close to chanelling Hunter S. Thompson

This album is fantastic; it grows on you, Japanese dodder-like, if you are unfortunate enough to share my taste in crappy/weird music.

————

Back in the day, when I didn’t like listening to someone (a boss/professor etc.) I used to keep a tally of their word whiskers. Here are the results from last night:

“Maverick”: 5

“Main Street”: 4

“The troops”: 4

“The surge worked”: 2

“Wasilla”: 2

“Hockey Mom”: 2

“Joe Six Pack”: 1

“God Bless her; her reward is in heaven”: 1

“Dadgummit, gosh darnit, heck, shoot, jeepers creepers, shucks,” (and other various minced oaths that give off a folksy, Main Street-meets-Christian Hockey maam feel): 10

Other category–gestures and other props: winks (2), hand over heart (2)
———–

My vote was decided in a matter of seconds. No it didn’t have to do with watching this creepy video:

It had to do with hearing that Governor Sarah Palin’s husband, Todd, won some grueling snowmobile race and that he prides himself on that happy memory–so much so that his license plate bears the race’s name. He actually pays money to boast to fellow drivers that he is a kickass snowmobile rider.

What is grueling about it? Do you risk a frozen ass? Will you die if you run out of gas? “Snowmobiles” and “grueling” aren’t synonymous. Snowmobiles and excessive noise: now you’re talking.

What are the challenges in this grueling 2000-mile race?

Not pushing the gas pedal down hard enough? You don’t hold the pedal to the metal for 3 months straight, you lose buddy.

Letting go of the steering wheel? You try holding your arms out for 3 months in frigid conditions, pal.

Getting lost? Running out of gas? No gas stations out there, unless we start drilling damnit. Drill baby drill.

Wearing a diaper in sub-zero condtions? Hey listen, poop freezes to skin, did you know that?

This whole thing is typical; it’s red state/redneck absurdity.

“Hey I’m just a HACKEYMAAM FROM WASILLA.”

“And I’m her husband. I have a goatee. I’m a snowmobile racer and a hunter. I eat meat and ride around town while straddling an iron horse. I kill things and pose next to them; I represent the rugged American; I am strong and independent. If the redcoats landed in Wasilla, I’d get my powderhorn and musket and go kill them.”
———–

I find it laughable when I read (or unfortunately see) right-wing pundits talk about how someone like that dopey actor-turned-politician, Fred Thompson inspired them at the Republican convention–how Fred brought the hall to its feet and infused them all with the ANWR-provided, drill-baby-drill energy required to ensure that the country stays the course for the next four years.

I can’t find any inspiration in any of it. It’s as repulsive as a diarrhoetic dog turd melting on a hot Mombasan street.

I could never see myself clad in a blue blazer with anchors for brass buttons, Mao pin pinned to my left lapel, near my dear heart, a straw boater atop my large head, screaming with clenched fist, “Yeah! Fred Thompson! YEAH!!!!!”

“YEAH!!!!! THOMPSON!!!! YEAH!!!!”

“Fred Thompson is fightin’ for me! He’s gonna take it to them elites in Washington. THOMPSON!!!! YEAH!!!!”

And I want no more of those dark days for McCain in the Hanoi Hilton; I don’t want that script read back to me; I don’t want the grainy images set against the flapping flag; I don’t want to be told that its “service first” or whatever that awkward Orwellian slogan is this time around. It ain’t about service anymore; it’s about getting to be the president making people think it’s about service.

And while I’m ranting like that crazy guy with the Sharpie pen and the cardboard sign outside the White House, what’s up with that empty suit; that glassy-eyed, pedophile-looking “family values” tsar, Gary Bauer. I had the misfortune of seeing his picture in the paper and reading that he said “values voters” tended to favor someone with a resume like Sarah Palin’s.

What does that mean? Because I don’t subscribe to his warped manifesto; because I don’t listen to him and John Ashcroft belting out in Sunday church about eagles soaring and silver towers rising; because I don’t ride the Sea of Galilee ride at the Holyland Theme Park, that makes me a what?

Does that make me a “non-values” voter or an “evil-values” voter?

WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?
———
It was no better two weeks ago. I also couldn’t seem to find anything to charge my fist in the air to when I heard Fightin’ Joe Biden deliver his FIGHTIN’ for the hard-scrabbled Scrantonians of the world–the hard workin’, toothpick pickin’, coal minin’, country truck-drivin’, my dad was an elementary school janitor-remindin’ acceptance speech.

Can you possibly charge your fist in the air to that supercilious megalomaniac? Can you wave the little flag on the stick and say “Yeah! Fightin’ Joe Biden! YEAH!!!”

The unfortunate 10 seconds that I watched of the entire Democratic convention were filled with a fat-faced, gray-haired, gray-bearded Michael McDonald taking up the entire screen, moaning some tribute to this country, banging away on a piano with his fat fingers.

I’m sorry but there’s nothing there either.

Yeah! A full-time Sentator! Yeah!!!!! Now were talkin’ change.

Hope’n'change, hope’n'change….

Hope

and

Change.

Hope this and hope that; change this and change that: with a lifelong, glad-handing, Senator at your side. Now that’s some hopenchange.
————–
Ode to Larry the Cable Guy.

I really enjoyed listening to this on my petroguilt-laden drive home yesterday.

Wolf Parade, one of my favorite bands in the wholewideworld is in town in a month’s time.

I’m the distance between my index finger and my thumb away from a backstage pass and an exclusive interview. I’ve never had a backstage pass; I’ve never interviewed a band. I’ve never really gotten close to the stage of any concert. I mean I did try at this overpriced grand debacle of disillusionment, but that doesn’t count.

This is their side project: Handsome Furs. Husband, wife, elixir-looking bottle of Red Stripe, an old keyboard/drum machine thing, and a guitar climax: does life get any better than that?

——-
6/26 UPDATE: Editorial assignment/papal blessing secured; just need the label to get back to me now. Hot damn I love journalism!

Lots of f-bombs and other bad words ahead, but well worth it.

Writing about the USS Taylor tour, made me remember the Dog and Pony shows that I used to have to put on for the brass and the whitehaired, white-skinned Senators at Fort Bragg a long time ago.

It was so long ago, Senator Strom Thurmond was alive. In fact, when I had to give him the Dog and Pony show, he was walking: barely.

Well one day I drew the short straw; it was my platoon that got picked to demonstrate the capabilities of the XVIII Airborne Corps. We had to depict flawless urban warfare executed by America’s best warriors: MOUT. We were it; we were the belligerent actors in that grand play. Senator Thurmond: that old womanizing curmudgeon; that supreme racist KKK Dixiecrat centenarian, we had to make pretty for him of all people. He represented the people of South Car’lina; he was then chairman of the all-powerful Senate Armed Services Committee too. That diaper-wearing, oatmeal-dripping fool: he had his hands on the billion and fiddie dollar purse strings. He was supposedly democracy incarnate; the mass of okely-dokely people empowered this curmudgeon of a man to make the big appropriations. Yay!

We spent days (24/7 days) getting ready for this circ d’ grande. We had to pick the best looking Sergeants–a mishmash of 2/504’s square-jawed Adonises and bit-part Mr. Potato Heads; we had to polish our equipment–making it look like Hollywood props in the hands of John Wayne and Audie Murphy. We had to perform for the Brigade Commander; then the Division Commander; then the Corps Commander. Our men had to make crisp movements; they had to act like obsequious robots. They entered and cleared rooms with their AR-15s drawn. The enemy (then a bumbling ragtag collection of incompetent South American insurgents wearing battle-dress uniforms inside out) died instantly, making demise-of-bad-guy moans. At the end, a black helicopter–the XVIII Corps’ deus-ex-machina–descended and evacuated our poor casualties, proving to the taxpayers that, like the movie Blackhawk Down, we will never, ever, leave a brave man behind. We practiced; boy did we practice. We were fed lines and then learned them rote. We moved left, right, left. We said, “Room One Clear!” We fired two rounds-boom! boom!–when we kicked the door open using machismo and polished boots. We dispatched the drug dealing-bastards; left them writhing and dying. Then we radioed to HQ and gave meaty Officer Poncherello-esque thumbs ups.

We did it at night too.

Then we did it again during the day.

The Colonel called for a large, four-wheel generator: an eight-Kilowatt generator summoned from the bowels of the motorpool. It had to be hitched to a deuce and a half, driven by a jaded Haitian-American with a slight lisp.
It arrived so quickly, because it only took a phone call from the Colonel. The Colonel was an Old Testament God: He could get whatever He wanted using spite and spittle.

“You get me it now!” He barked.

“Roger, sir,” the fawning Bridage duty officer said like a modern day Amos n’ Moses.

Out in the middle of a scrub oak-strewn field we strung multicolored Xmas lights; we installed a 36-inch television and a VCR to tape our great shenanigans. The General arrived amidst wailing sirens and saluting sycophants; he called for bleachers and a juggling clown astride a patriotic unicycle: That all came an hour later. The Brigade’s official artist was summoned. He was ordered to make a sand table that resembled our multi-level stage. He followed orders, making things look really nice for that influential Senator from South Car’lina.

“Make it nice,” the General warned.

“Roger, sir,” the artist responded.

We had to press our uniforms with heavy irons and shave twice using Gillette XTREME razors. Our cap bills were folded into perfect parabolas using water and a small drinking glass. Our Kevlar helmet liners were ironed. Dust and wayward hairs were lifted off our battle dress uniforms using Scotch tape. Our company commander had to practice his walk–a rooster-like strut yes, the cock of the walk. Our company commander loved his strut; he also loved hunting deer and listening to Garth Brooks. “I will sail my vessel till my river runs dry,” he used to sing nostalgically, humming as if he was in the first row at the concert at Branson.

And oh what a play it was: All our equipment had to be shined and made black using edge dressing that was purchased in the PX. The token casualty had to lay still–no moans were allowed in our dog n’ pony world. Any visible hands had to be knife-edge straight. The water in the hanging lister bag had to be free of the taste of rubber. The latrine’s seat looked like the polished treasure of the Sierra Madre; the walkway to the theater was free of all weeds and rocks greater than 3/4 of an inch in diameter; no living thing crawled or grew in the path of the Armed Service Chairman.

Someone accidentally called it a circus: he was silenced–frogmarched, actually, into a one way-heading Humvee, back to the stockade. No sarcasm: sycophants only, please. Rebellion was impossible; this demonstration thrived on obedience and good manners.

When Senator Thurmond eventually arrived, he was escorted by his puppet masters: dyspeptic aides with comb-overs who wielded cell phones and one-word dictates: the guys who made the real decisions. Thurmond had a palsy; he shook like a epileptic prop in a snakeoil Evangelist’s revival tent. Though he could walk, he wasn’t allowed to; the aides pushed him down. He was put on a Rascal-esque motorized wheelchair. (We had to clean it well in advance with a bottle brush and a concotion of Simple Green and Windex.)

When he got to his observation post, my Company Commander radioed me. I radioed the Adonis-looking Sergeant who then radioed the square-jawed S.S. Corporal who kicked off the whole affair. Robots moved robotic-like. Casualties kept quiet. South American insurgents with dastardly-looking, Rollie Fingers mustaches were killed. Helicopters hovered and descended. All was good; all was made safe in the end. Both Disneyworld and the mass of taxpayers need a happy ending.

Senator Thurmond clapped.

“The boys look good,” he said, approvingly. A long trail of white spit formed between his mandibles.

“Yes sir, they do,” said the XVIII Corps Commander. (To become a Corps Commander, one has to take a class called “Glad Handing.”)

“Yes sir,” said the Brigade Commander. (Any Brigade Commander worth his salt glad hands better than the instructor of “Glad Handing.”)

“Yes sir. Private Jones, the M-60 gunner is from South Carolina, sir,” my company commander offered. This line hadn’t been rehearsed. My company commander decided, on the fly, to extemporize a bit. It worked.

“Where in South Car’lina,” Strom Thurmond said.

“Florence, sir”

“What’d he say?” Senator Thurmond asked, his hand cupped to his hairy ear.

Senator Thurmond’s aid jumped in to help the withered man. “Florence. Florence he said, Senator.”

“Florence?”

“Florence, yes sir, Florence.”

“Good. Good. It’s good to see South Car’lina boys here-ah.”

My Company Commander nodded. “Yes sir,” he said, pushing his chest forward hubristically. [This was warranted since the dog and pony show was a success.]

The Brigade Commander winked at the Division Commander. The Corps Commander saw that and smiled. Though it wasn’t in the script, it was well received. The XVIII Corps was sure to get it’s next request for fiddiemillion dollars.

Senator Thurmond was wheeled back to his Humvee and whisked away. He waved at us as he departed–his shriveled hand stuck out the window looking like the Pope John Paul II’s circa March 2005.

“Good job,” the Brigade commander said, turning to my Company Commander.

“Yes sir.”

My Company Commander turned to me. “Cut the generator,” he ordered.

“Yes sir.”

We turned it off; the Xmas lights went out; flashlight arcs appeared;my men shouted as they started cleaning up the range.

We were done about 12 hours later and then we went home to our saltbox base houses. We ate our warm cookies and drank cold milk.

Then we got up and did it again.
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