Category Archives: stuff

As we all know (okay maybe not we and maybe not know) the holidays aren’t my favorite time of the year. Too commercial and full of greedy bitches. But I will not digress today, that’s not what brought me here.

Today I remembered a favorite blog while thinking about the conflict in the Koreas and wondered if there were any photos posted there. There were. I also looked at the blog history and found myself in awe of the earth and her splendor. It reminded me that I am but a small spec in this vast universe. I may have whatever issues and problems but they are a fleeting moment. I can choose to pass through that moment and see the beauty that surrounds me. I am thankful for so many things. I have been fortunate in life that whatever darkness fall, the light comes soon after.

I hope the morrow is full of beauty, friendship and love.

…I want to smile and sing and dance naked in the rain
…I don’t love Friday
…Its just another ordinary day to work and do and be
…I don’t want to be happy and helpful and nice
…I just called to say I love you
…I think about all the beauty I haven’t yet seen
…I wonder if the best already came
…my tears are happy
…I want to listen to angry music really loudly and tell everyone who wants to hear pop to fuck off
…I want to go for a drive really fast and not worry that I will get a ticket
…I don’t want to be sleepy
…the grass isn’t greener on the other side, its perfect right here
…I want the words to be easier
…I want there to be more love

me: “So… whatcha up to?”

MO: “listening to polka”

me: “What? Where? Better yet… Why???”   “Nevermind, I think I found you”

Thus began a surprisingly fun and silly evening of beer, babes and well, you get the idea…

As I walked across the street into my favorite little writing spot, I realized my idea of siting with a beer and penning out thoughts of liking my dog (or even my coffee tale) more than people were going to be put on hold. The polka stylings would not have been enough, my favorite boys sitting in back may not have been enough… but group my favorite boys with not just polka stylings, but polka covers of some very unexpected tunes and well.. funny shit and good times.

There are some things you may expect from a fun polka cover band that are outside the norm. You expect lyrics to be changed to suit the German beer drinking bratwurst eating theme… You do not expect a ten minute drum solo in the middle of Ina Gada de Vida. You also don’t expect to be polka-ing while burning in a Ring of Fire. Hell, there were a ton of things I didn’t expect…. I didn’t know I’d be asked to Whip It good while Fighting for my Right to “drink beer!”.  Nor did I know a Sharp Dressed Man would be Jumping like David Lee Roth, I mean David Lee Brat while Mama got Her Squeeze Box. There was a White Wedding that was Too Sexy for the Humpty Dance; Someone was Puttin on the Ritz down a Country Road when they saw some Smoke on the Water so they decided they needed another Brick in the wall before calling in the “Bavarian Rastafarian” (I can’t make this shit up) to “Drink Two Beers” in the mornin, then Drink Two Beers at night. I think the only thing that could possibly be considered expected – and thats a huge stretch is the Ramstein song and that”s only because they are German.

For the most part I watched MILFs, cougars and children alike shake whatever they had. I laughed my (no existent) ass off and  hoisted my stein to a very fun evening. I guess the rant about stupid people will have to wait until another day. It is Oktoberfest after all and I have beers to raise, brats to eat and everybody needs to polka! or something like that.  I think I hear Iron Man… Polka gone Ozzy!!!! What?

The students are returning to my little town. The peace and quiet I have come to love is coming to a bad-driving, frat-boy thriving, bars filled with girls wearing too little clothing, coffee shop loitering, blinding, screeching,hipster-turn-wanna-be-hippy halt. Everyone is texting across the table, while trying to hold a conversation where “he was all…” and “she was like…” then “he was all..” and “like oh my gawd, she totally yelled at him.”

Whatever! I need another FD35.

As the other white meat and I sat dabbing at our bleeding ears and wiping our eyes from all the laughing; it dawned on me that the reason the flag had thrown up on everyone was Labor Day! I’d been wondering if I had been wandering around in a drunken stupor for an entire summer and missed the 4th. Great Gus people! Who decided that making a skin tight mock tank out of a flag would look hot??? Well maybe Bubba, but since he was quick to share that he didn’t graduate that’s a clue of the man you’re gonna get. I think there is a whole grip of people that think holiday = rally time for team ‘merica (fuck yeah!). Wasn’t Labor Day originally (I say originally because, as most holidays have, its lost its true meaning) intended as a day to celebrate labor unions and workers rights? Now I guess it’s become a time for someone to sing Lee Greenwood way too loud and reeeallly off key. But she was sure to put emphasis at the end of every line my stomping her foot. (oh god bless the usa, and shake that tambourine) I think she was far more fun when she was doing some sort of country river dance thing without her shoes on (as if the outfit wasn’t bad enough on its own I had to watch the kmart feet jumping around the floor too!!) Where was I before my mad digression into “how the holidays have morphed”.. Oh yeah… so there I was, performing to perfection my favorite sport… Karejokey people watching! I honestly don’t think there is a better was to pull yourself out of a dumpy mood, short of leaving dead fish under the seat in your ex’s truck on a hot summer day. Oh wait, I’d never do such a heinous thing…. >: ) You can find every type of person in a dive bar that has a karaoke night on Sunday. All sorts of folks just want their 5 minutes in the spotlight…big-boobie blondie lookin for her kryptonite to deal with the earth movin under superman’s feet. Her heart was a lonely hunter… still trying to figure out what she was hunting exactly. My vote was for cougar bait for her friends birthday. But that friend slid right out of the booth and onto the floor so the bait and boobs were wasted. Leisure Suit Larry was trying desperately to have his way with Mrs. Brown’s daughter. She’s a firecracker. I think this dude hot tub time machined his way here 1978. Toothless Joe, who was incidentally waiting for a very important call on his bluetooth, but not so important he couldn’t ride dirty with some sweet young thang. The fully punk-rock, bar back that blew my mind when the country twang Clint Black started, was joined on the harmony by the karejokey mc, who had interjected himself every few songs but was lip-syncing at least part of the time (POSER!) wasn’t half bad. Mr. Tambourine man who got his license to bring that thing with him from the farm supply where he picked up his flag shirt, kept playing anytime he thought he should – whether the singer agreed or not. Someone else got a ticket to ride with his best friend’s wife, right after Alice found the white rabbit hiding beside the pool table and stole his fabulous shoes! I think his wife got pissed though because she and the best friend proceeded to make our ears bleed and some dogs started howling outside. Bar-Back gave a rebel yell in true William Broad fashion, while smoking outside the front door of the bar. Mr Brightside poured some sugar on me and she felt like a criminal wearin some hot shoes, then fell down and went boom. Finally, after making my immortal ears bleed it hurt so good that a drunk chic stole my bar stool. But meh, I got to have a friendly “discussion” about racism and politics. You know how I like light conversation… now where is Simon when I need him.

………’wake up young man, its time to wake up’………. melodic in that haunting voice that can only be Layne Staley floats through the buds in my ears or just through my mindpod. This song keeps coming back to me for reasons probably unintended by the writer and at first unclear to me. The lyrics are seemingly so simple yet really not so. They’re quite poignant actually, and ring true as many songs, good songs will. They stay with you for periods of time, come back to your mind when you have need for them and make you think… about everything and nothing, about yourself, about what ‘leaves [you need] to rake up’ in your own life.  Are you ‘a crack up’… ‘dizzy and weakened by the haze’?  He of course wrote all this of his battle with heroin and his need to wake up let go of that which was killing him in a slow form of suicide. In that way it isn’t something my squeaky drug free ass can understand. But maybe in a way I’m not as dissimilar as I think.  I have ‘cracks and lines from where I gave up, making me an easy [wo]man to read.’ there have been times I’ve let ‘them bleed’ me and plead for peace.  I’ve held on to my drug of choice, so to speak, my fear of letting go and putting myself out there; being afraid to fall on my face. I’ve watched this fear take root in my life in ways that weaken and infect me. Not so different.  However, unlike our lyricist I will wake up. I need to wake up, not allow myself to slowly wither into nothing. After thirty-five years I am seeing that my affair with fear is costing me more than I am willing to give. I’ve spoken (or written) of this fear before and yet even the small steps I took to correct things haven’t changed what lies beneath. There is a current of fear that is in charge.  it’s a self chosen level of deceit that gets me through the day so that I’m ‘not a crack up, dizzy and weakened by the haze’.  But that isn’t living. On average I’m not quite half way through my life but I’m close. This scares the living shit out of me.  I can look back and think of a few things that were good and times that were great but fear has kept me from following my heart and taking control of myself. I can’t remember a time where I truly put myself first or understood what that meant. The idea of doing for self isn’t something I really grasp. I’ve never let go and looked at the leaves as they fell around me for the beauty of the leaf.  Thus I look back and have no memories of my own. Nothing that allows me to say ‘I did that and it was amazing’. I’ve born witness to amazing things, but I was a spectator. And really, who wants to be a spectator in their own life? I think my wake up call has come. So many things have piled up as of late and wading through them has been a process I’ve checked myself out of more than once.  Its time to leave behind my tidy pile of leaves and stop raking, there will always be leaves. I need to get up off my seat on the rock, under the shade of the tree and let the sun shine on my face… time to wake up.