Friday 12.30.11
Small random things. Forks, water, smoke, gas masks.
Okay… beyond the fancy pictures, I remembered that I had a couple of other random thoughts bouncing around in my head. Looking at a photo description on someone’s bondage image, they made the comment that the individual had “rocked” the image. Rocked. Rock. You rock. Man, you really rock. Yeah, I completely get it. It denotes some level of unique awesomeness. It seems like the cheap and easy way out of a complete explanation.
“That’s so rock and roll.” This should only really be used when you are listening and then commenting on actual rock and roll music or an actual stone and a freshly baked biscuit looking thing on which you spread butter or cinnamon apple butter. You don’t use this to describe other things and get away with it. “Look at that car… its SO rock and roll!” “Grandma got a new walker, talk about rock and roll!” Well, if Grandma rocks the wrong way she will certainly roll.
“At the end of the day.” I guess this is good for things like “in conclusion” or “to sum things up.” Using “at the end of the day” as part of every conversation you have is not very rock and roll. For this, you do not rock.
“Back in the day.” Usually used when telling exaggerating stories about things that have happened in the past or your personal past compared to things that are happening now…
“Gas prices went up again.”
“Well, BACK IN THE DAY we paid about 35 cents for a gallon of gas.”
“No, BACK IN THE DAY we walked.”
Okay, so which day was that, anyway?
I guess with the start of the new year I could resolve to not use these phrases as much, if at all. It is probably much easier for me to resolve to cringe more each time I hear them used.
Tuesday 12.27.11
The picture has nothing to do with the rest of the post. A gas mask shot of one of my rope meeting pals…
On to the meat of this post… the partial concept of the game idea from a previous post -
Mrs. Carson’s Driveway.
It has just snowed and you can make mega bucks by shoveling driveways for your old neighbors. You don’t bother with the piddly little crap, you go right over to Mrs. Carson’s Driveway. You know she has a big one and after you shovel it – you’ll be rich. There may be some obstacles and surprises along the way to your goal of cashing in.
You start shoveling. This is a long driveway that goes from the street out front past her house and then makes a turn to the right into her garage. Your goal is to shovel all of the snow off of the driveway. Once you reach the garage you can go to the side door entrance and collect your money.
You have a time limit. If you run out of time, you don’t get paid. You have the city snow plow guy to watch out for – he could fill in the entrance to your driveway which means you would have to go back to the beginning. This will cut into your time. As you shovel, you may dig up some useful tools to use or save for when you need them. You may also uncover extra time to add to your clock.
Some of the things you could uncover:
Mr Etzler. This could be good or bad. Once you uncover Mr. Etzler, he will tell you a story about how he is the oldest man in town. This will eat into your time. He moves slowly which also complicates the time issue. Once he is done with the story, we will turn to walk away and then he will fart. This fart could melt a lot of snow which could be beneficial toward your goal. You could also place Mr. Etzler near the road and use his skills to fart bomb the snow plow guy when he drives past. This will take some skill and dexterity.
Waterproof Matches.
A can of aerosol hair spray from the beauty salon on the back of the block.
Once you have those two items, you can create a flame thrower to help melt the snow.
Mrs. Gribble. She is still pissed from when you made bows and arrows from your mom’s lilac bush and shot her in the ass last summer. She will chase you down to the Brown’s – at which time she will give up her chase and go home. This will have eaten into a lot of your shoveling time as well. You could use the flame thrower on Mrs. Gribble if you like. Mrs. Brown also sells fresh eggs. If you pick up some eggs, you can use these against your foes.
Lilac tree bows and arrows. You made them last summer to shoot Mrs. Gribble in the ass when she was working in her flower garden. These can be used against Mrs. Gribble or against the snow plow guy – your choice.
Mr. Balbach. He will want to throw the football around with you a little. This will waste your time. Torch him or shoot him. You could even aim Mr. Etzler at him if you like.
Mr. Evans. He likes to shovel snow. He is pretty old though and will eventually run out of steam. You will be able to tell if he is going to slow down by the amount of frog egg looking snot that is hanging and swinging out of his nose. Once that hits the ground, he’s no good to you anymore.
Lulu Evans. Mr. Evans’ wife. She’s a go getter and keeps Mr. Evans on his toes. Pair these two up and your work is much less.
That one guy up the street who used to mow the lawn in his white socks. We had heard rumors that he was in and out of some mental hospital from time to time for beating up his mom or something. He will have a shitty snow blower. If it starts, it could be useful. Unfortunately, he will be in his white socks and this does not work so well in the snow. He will get cold and go home.
There may be times when Mrs. Evans wants you to run down to Cook’s Grocery store for a jar of Tartar sauce. She will spell it for you and make you spell it back to her. This will eat your time. If you encounter Mrs. Gribble on the way back, you could pick her off with the jar of Tartar sauce but you have to go back to Cook’s to get another one. Only use this in an emergency.
Cuddles, the neighbor’s stupid dog. Cuddles may take a shit on your clean driveway. Mrs. Carson will not be happy about that. Torch cuddles.
Mrs. Conine. She will give you a bunch of stale popcorn balls wrapped in cellophane left over from Halloween. You can use these against Mrs. Gribble or the snow plow guy.
While all of this is going on, Mrs. Carson will be watching you out the window to see if you are working or slacking off. She may come out at any time and have you start again or go over a location again.
If you do get through all of this and make it to the garage, you can go to the side door to collect your money.
Mrs. Carson will give you two fucking dollars. Congratulations, you win.
Sunday 12.25.11
Small things.
I’ve spent some time over the last few days just taking shots of small random small things. Bent wire, weird shapes and silly ideas. I think I have always been interested in seeing small things close up.
When my grandson, Max was smaller and spent more time with us he would often line up small toy cars on the kitchen table and then would press his eye and line of sight very low and close to the car. It was almost as if he was trying to get a worms eye view of the car from the table top. His head would often rest on the table. This was never a quick look. He would position himself and then study the vehicle. Sometimes he would reposition the car for a different look or another angle of view. Perhaps he saw things like this:
Watching him do this was very interesting to me because I could imagine what he was seeing beyond some toy car on the kitchen table. He was playing. His mind was working. He was studying shapes and hearing sounds and going off into his own imagination. No longer was this a toy car on a kitchen table. This was an adventure. When the kids were younger and all at home we would sometimes all go see a movie. Most of the discussion on the way home was about how they were going to play it or re-enact that movie when we got home. Again, imagination would be at work.
Sometimes as an adult, I forget about how great it is to see things in a first time magical manner and really take the time to take a look at it. I say I because I would never presume that any of you reading this don’t always take time to enjoy silly little things like that.
Tuesday 12.20.11
I was listening to the radio this afternoon. It was mentioned that today is the 35th anniversary of the death of Mayor Richard J. Daley of Chicago. That would have been 1976. Suddenly, I recalled a bunch of things. I had heard the news on the radio that day, 35 years ago, in my car on the way back from the local community college. I was a senior in high school. They did not offer art programs at my school so they allowed me to commute 30 miles away to the community college to take art classes. As long as I passed them, I would also receive credit at the high school. This was before consolidation of the schools was happening – at least there – so this was the other option.
The car was a 1967 Ford Custom 500. Pretty sure it was a four door. It was light robin’s egg blue with a white top. Not a vinyl top… it was painted. The seats were kind of silvery blue vinyl. Bench seats. When I heard the news of the Mayor’s passing, I was at the corner of Stagecoach Trail road and Cedarville road. It was all very clear in my mind. I was on my way back to work at the local meat plant where I worked after school. It was a big deal… the guys who owned the plant were from the Chicago area originally.
I thought it was odd that as I heard this news of the 35th anniversary, all of this information just suddenly popped into my head. I can hardly remember what I had for breakfast or for that matter, if I even had breakfast recently but I could remember that like it just happened.
Then, as I was recalling things, I looked out the window and saw that it had started to snow. This reminded me of snow shoveling, which I reluctantly do. I also remembered a couple of things from when I was a kid.
To tell it right, or as right as I remember… or as right as I figure it should be to tell a story I have to start without the snow and mention my mother. My mom was someone who cooked and baked and sewed and crafted and probably stuck her nose into things she should not have. She was an involved kind of person. During the holidays she would bake things and pass them out to neighbors. One year some lady rang our doorbell. I answered it. It was the Fuller Brush Lady. She would come over to sell crap to my mom. I went to get my mom to tell her that Mrs. Gayle was here. Well, it seems Mrs. Gayle was somehow overlooked or had not yet received any holiday baked goods. She was there to collect.
Mom scurried around and threw something together… wrapped it up and hustled Mrs. Gayle out the door with a Merry Christmas and I’m pretty sure somewhere in her mind was also a “now, get the fuck out.” She did not say that though.
May first is May Day. One year, Mom decided that we should make May baskets and deliver them to the neighbors. We did and we did. One of the neighbors lived two houses towards downtown… which from our house was actually “uptown” but we always said downtown. Her name was Mrs. Carson. She was a thin older woman. She lived in a kind of fancy looking brick house with a round column looking thing on one of the front corners. She had a driveway that started at the street, went through the side yard and then made a right hand curve into her garage behind the house. She had a front door and another entry door off the driveway on the side of her house. We went to deliver the May basket. We rang the doorbell at the side door. After no response, we left the basket hanging from the door handle and went on about our delivering.
Later, back at home, the phone rang. Mom was talking to someone. It was Mrs. Carson. She was super pissed that we were “running around the neighborhood, ringing door bells and then running away.” Mom explained that we were out delivering May baskets. She asked if she had found one hanging from the door handle. I never ever heard whether or not she found the basket. Maybe next time he would answer the door faster.
Which brings me to the snow.
One winter after a significant snow, someone had the brilliant idea that we (I think my brother and me or maybe a neighbor kid) should go out and shovel snow for people. I don’t know if doing it out of the goodness of our hearts was the plan or doing it to make some quick bucks was the plan but once we were out, bucks was the only plan I can remember. I also don’t remember if this was something we came up with on our own or if it was a clever ploy by my Dad to get us out of the house for a while.
Mrs. Carson’s humongous cement driveway was just one big pile of cash waiting to be collected… by us. So, we knocked on her door (pretty sure the side door again) and she did answer. We offered to shovel her driveway. She accepted. Since we were stupid kids, our sense of negotiating a contract for payment was somewhat diminished. We began to shovel. Thirty two seconds into this we realized that this was probably going to be a bitch. We were going to earn every dollar.
I don’t know how long it took. Every once in a while, Mrs. Carson would come out and point out something we missed or that we were not putting the shoveled snow in the right area. Finally, after a ton of back-breaking work we went to the door to announce completion and collect a pile of cash like no other. I would retire. I would never have to shovel again.
She looked over the work (which was good and complete) and grabbed her purse. She took her wallet out of the purse and opened it. Into our hands she place the treasure: Two bucks. Two fucking dollars. Maybe that was okay for sometime in the mid to late 60′s… I thought it was a little light. I wanted at that moment to do something drastic – like shove a May basket up her skinny ass. I did not. We took the loot and split it. And, as all my stories like this now end… she’s probably dead by now.
Later tonight as I was recalling this during supper, I suggested that our APP developer kid in the house come up with one called “Mrs. Carson’s Driveway.” You have the opportunity to collect cool things by shoveling them out from under the snow… you have to make sure you don’t lose points by allowing the city snowplow guy to bury you in at the street entrance. In the end, you could collect two fucking dollars. All I ask for in return for this great idea is one check for exactly One gazillion dollars. My negotiating skills are much better now.
Monday 12.19.11
The end of my trip to California…
Thursday was a quick morning shoot with Lexine in Reseda. Lexine is a professional Domme. Yeah, I hang with the coolest people sometimes. No rope with Lexine, she wanted to maintain her Domme status and not appear to be too subby. She is a great model, a nice person and has a nice personality… but I did not say that – she’s there to kick your ass.
The best person in this whole trip had to be my wife for putting up with me, hauling me across the country and allowing me to go off every day to shoot someone. Without her, I’m not much at all.
Wednesday 12.14.11
Is it Wednesday? I guess I skipped a day in my huge LA adventure. Let me catch you up. Tuesday: More kinky pictures of kinky kinsters. This time from Anaheim. Two days in a row of models on time. It was too good to be true. Two days of not getting into trouble, or at the very least, questioned about what I was doing with that camera. Also too good to be true… and my luck eventually would change. Oh sure, here’s where you want to skip ahead to find out if I am now officially someone’s prison bitch. Nope. Sorry. I did not make it that far… yet.
Yesterday’s shoot went well, was easy going, involved coffee and an Italian restaurant. All good. Right up to the point where we were going to wrap it up, burn a cd and call for her ride to come pick her up. That’s where things went south. The car dude had vanished. Option A, I just keep her. Hell, this bed is so big I need gps to get out of it so I doubt if she would have taken up much room. Option B, I drive her home to Anaheim. After some quick negotiations with my boss, we went with option B. Sure… I’ll drive and hour or so away to Anaheim and rely only on the gps.
For those who don’t know, my gps is equipped with the voice of my 7 year old grandson, Jack. I trust that 7 year old Jack can get me through Los Angeles and down to Anaheim – and back without a hitch. So, off into the night I went. As I was dropping the model off she told me that if I stuck around for a few more minutes, I’d see the fireworks. Fireworks? Evidently I was in Disney’s back yard. I did not stay, Jack was directing me back to Calabasas.
It was late, around 10:15 when I got back to the hotel and found the number to call today’s model. No answer, I left a message. I did the same thing this morning. We had originally planned to start around 10:30. Some of this would depend on how much rain we had yesterday (none) because the Japanese Gardens in Van Nuys is closed 24 hours after a rain. She called me around 10 or later and would be on her way… from wherever she came from. I think it was around 12:15 or so when we got going. The Japanese Gardens was not far.
One of the things I was concerned about coming out here is having or not having a permit to shoot. The whole state and especially the LA area are very picky about letting someone with anything more than a point and shoot camera to take pictures. California is in such a financial shitter anyway… they don’t want some asshole from Wisconsin coming in here to take pictures which could possibly take revenue away from them. Like I’m making a gazzillion dollars… Ha.
Being fairly stealthy about what I’m doing with a camera is kind of the key strategy here. Walking around with the equivalent of a photo studio in my camera backpack is close to drawing attention. I think our problem today was more like… the model showed up in complete Geisha makeup, wig and kimono. Yeah, that will kind of do it. I have no idea what this girl really looks like other than a few distinctive tattoos.
Check out what the Japanese Gardens really is… the water reclamation plant. It really is a beautiful place and very peaceful. The cover of their brochure says: Suiho-en “Garden of water and fragrance.” I thought it kind of smelled like a water reclamation facility. I guess that chemical smell is a fragrance too. Getting in you have to stop at a guard house and show your DL to some guard. Drive over the mine field of speed bumps and eventually you are at the gift building/admissions place. The sign on the door says something about not using a tripod and photos only if they are candid snapshots. We went in. Keep in mind that I’m hauling a mostly naked Geisha girl around in a car directed by my 7 year old grandson in a city zillions of miles away from home. We would fit right in.
The first thing I said was “Hello… we are here to take candid snapshots.” Really. I said that. The lady said we picked a good day for it and that the girl had certainly dressed for the place. I paid the admission, we got our sticker to say “we belong” and in we went. We should have asked for the “we belong for a while” stickers instead. We got as far as the red X on the map above. That was when a guy in a uniform and another guy in a button down shirt started coming my way. The guy in the button down had a piece of paper in his hand. My mind suggested “oh shit, not gonna be good.” Outwardly, all was good. I had shot 2 pictures of a pond and bamboo area. The girl was off looking at something else at the moment. The shirt guy said that the woman in the office was not real clear on the rules and that when I come in there with a girl in full makeup, it is pretty obvious I’m not taking candid snapshots. He asked if I would like to take a look at the permit fees which were on that piece of paper. Okay, let’s take a look. My options now were to pay something like three to seven hundred dollars for a permit or get the fuck out. I opted for the less expensive route.
Now what? Perhaps there’s some park around that has something Japanese looking… some tree or bush or sushi bar. We finally made our way out and towards a place I had visited on Sunday. On the way there, we found another place I had driven past and figured this would do. It did. Done.
Monday 12.12.11
Still in LA, Baby.
And, not in need of bail money… yet. I did try pretty hard today but the rain and low temps (50′s… what a bunch of pussies) must have kept the man too busy to keep an eye out for the likes of me.
The plan today was to shoot a little suspension in the Old Los Angeles Zoo located in Griffith Park. From my hotel, this reads as 27.3 miles or a 36 minute trip. HA! 36 minutes, my rear end. In fact, my rear end was in the rental car more like 1.5 hours to travel this great distance. How in the hell these people ever got to California in the first place, I’ll never know. Today’s model, Nev, told me that this rain and low temp is similar to that first snow in Wisconsin… people don’t know how to drive in it. Well, they do drive in it – at something like 6.4 miles per hour.
So, today was cold and rainy. The cold was not so bad (for me) but the rain always stinks. The trick today was to not make it stink too much. We met at the park and drove to the old zoo area. After taking a quick look around at possible areas to shoot, we packed gear and made our way through some ripped out fencing and into the off limits (yeah, sure) parts of the old zoo.
Suspension was the plan, she had been here before and had envisioned this. Since I did not bring a shibari ring on the trip, I had to invent something out of rope. The “something” worked and now I will make it work better next time.
The shoot lasted maybe an hour and then I was headed back towards the hotel.
Sunday 12.11.11
I’m in Los Angeles, baby.
The trip started at around 2am on Saturday morning. For 1 day, I could not believe the amount of crap we squeezed in. Take a bus to O’hare, get on a jet to LAX. Find a car, drove to Calabasas via the Pacific Coast highway and through Topanga Canyon. Ate lunch at Johnny Rocket’s, dropped stuff in the hotel and then off to Vasquez Rocks Park, home of the famous “Kirk’s Rock” featured in several episodes of Star Trek and many other films. After that, it was an electronic adventure at Fry’s electronics store followed by a secret trip to Hollywood to observe art and eat at a nearby Thai restaurant. Don’t plan on getting anywhere in a timely fashion around here… everyone is in a car – and they are all on the road at the same damn time. Apparently, 24 hours a day.
Today, up and ready to go… almost.
Yes… no hot water. I made a call to the front desk. They had just become aware of the situation and it would be about 30 minutes. 30 minutes here is like being on the road driving somewhere… 1 or 2 hours. Finally, after some hotter water, we were ready to go see the Reagan Library. Here is the ghost of Ron trying to lift my wallet for a campaign contribution. It never ends.
They guard the place with a ton of these guys…
I decided to make my feelings known about the current GOP lineup, after I called Trump and told him he could stick it.
I was tempted to buy souvenirs…
Tomorrow, I try to not get arrested tying up a naked woman in the old LA zoo… more to come. Maybe.
Thursday 12.8.11
New in the file: The Rick Perry Gay-Bashing campaign ad. You’ve got to be shitting me.
I don’t have a thing against people from Texas. I take that back, I wish we had more of their warm weather up here. I guess I have to hold out a few more years for that Global Warming to make it up here to the “Other Mitten State.” Then, we can trade those mittens in for some sun block.
I guess the other thing I have to wonder is what frame of mind elects this guy as Governor? I should not talk, I used to live in Illinois. I don’t recall ever voting for Blagojevich, though. Being me, I’ll talk anyway. Have you seen this ad?…
Here’s what he just said…
“I’m not ashamed to admit I’m a Christian but you don’t need to be in the pew every Sunday to know there’s something wrong in this country when GAYS can serve openly in the military but our kids can’t openly celebrate Christmas – pray in school. As President I’ll end Obama’s war on religion and I’ll fight against the liberal attacks on our religious hertiage. Faith made America strong. It can make her strong again. I’m Rick Perry and I approve this message.”
Quite a statement. Add to that the music in the background, the fall/winter jacket and the lovely landscape… you’ve got something. But what do you have? When I saw this for the first time I wondered if this guy has lost his sense. I certainly did not feel confident about a guy who jumps out there and attacks Gays serving openly in the military. I did not feel confident in a guy who wants to make America strong because HE will, as President, do something to change the way we do religion in school. What happened to that separation thing as well as having the right to believe whatever we want? Talk about confusing. School should be school. Learn stuff there. Learn how to read, write, do math and not be a complete douchebag. If you want to study and or learn about religion, go ahead. If being religious makes you a better person, your family happier and healthier… wonderful. That does not mean I have to go along with what you think or believe. I believe I also have the right to not give a shit one way or the other.
So, why this message? I was reading another article which made some claims on why this ad was done. 1. Knocking Gays will “woo” Iowa Evangelicals. 2. He is telling you Romney is a Mormon. 3. He is telling you Obama is a Muslim. 4. Perry is secretly Gay himself. 5. Obama Hates Christmas.
Whatever. Some stretching going on there too, I think. First of all, why make a message that says one thing but “secretly” means some other thing. Just say the fucking thing and get it over with. Am I supposed to look at these ads and know there is a secret meaning? What if I just listen to what you said in the ad without having to dig deeper? If I don’t know “exactly” what you meant when you said what you said, have you now wasted your ad campaign dollars?
You want me to vote for you as the GOP Presidential front runner. You want to be President. You say America is weak. You are a Christian, and you are “in the know” about the country but you don’t attend church every Sunday. Are you also implying that people get their information on how this country works by going to a Christian Church? You have just set the precedent for you to be “ok” with not attending church on a regular basis – and even with that you know what the hell is going on because you are a Christian.
“There’s something wrong in this country when GAYS can serve openly in the military but our kids can’t openly celebrate Christmas – pray in school.” You’ve got to be shitting me. Pray any damn time you like, wherever you like. If you celebrate Christmas then you better plan to celebrate every other religious holiday as well, just to be fair. I’m sure as President, you do want to be fair… no?
War on Religion? I don’t seem to recall that proclamation other than in your ad or maybe on Fox news. With this War on Religion, do we have boots on the ground or are sandals more appropriate?
Your ad plays to a specific group of people in Iowa and I suppose you’ll recycle the ad for other Bible belt locations. You are betting that there are enough redneck morons out there that will take this message like “yeah, buddy… that there Perry is gonna be hard on them Gays.” Hard on is the thing there Rick, some people think about things with the big head too. I don’t want someone who thinks so little of me that they figure they can play on my heart strings to manipulate my mind and get my vote. If this is the way you’ll run the country, well… you’ve got to be shitting me.
Wednesday 12.7.11
We have a new law in Wisconsin. I can now use deadly force against anyone who is unlawfully inside my residence, business or vehicle, whether the trespasser was armed or not. Deadly force means a force that causes you to be dead. It will be presumed that I had acted reasonably. I am protected. You die. All is cool.
I am not a gun guy. I’m a word guy. I’m probably not a very good word guy. Most of it comes out as profanity, just for shits and giggles – or to over emphasize my point. This law seems a little extreme to me. We already had the right to protect ourselves in those places. This seems like more of an ad to go out and buy a gun and some ammo.
One line in the article linked above is this: “Republican Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen has said he has not reviewed the particulars of the bill but that he supports the general concept.” What? You have not reviewed the particulars of a bill that has become law? A law. You are the Attorney General. How do you not review the particulars? What the hell is your job?
From my own personal history I can relate two stories.
A friend of mine lived south of the town in which I grew up. He lived with his family on a main highway on a span of road that was 11 miles between towns. In front of his house, out by the road was a ditch and then the sidewalk from the road to the house. On each side of the sidewalk was a brick or stone column. One night everyone in the house was awakened by shouting, pounding and yelling coming from the front of the house. This was a farm house… no neighbors around. When they came down to see what was going on some man had broken into their front door and was pretty animated about something. Seems he had gone off the road, into the ditch and then hit one of the columns out by the sidewalk. The car was smunched and someone else was out there hurt.
My friend’s family were all hunters. There were plenty of guns in the house. At no time did they ever consider blowing away the individual who broke through their door. They called an ambulance and the police at the request of the intruder.
Story #2. One New Year’s Eve we had a similar thing happen at our house when I lived in the country. Same thing… someone pounding on our outside door. Some drunk neighbor had put his car in the ditch down the road, walked to our house in the something below zero temperatures and started pounding until I went downstairs to see what was going on. He was already in the kitchen when I got there. Scared the shit out of me but I don’t ever recall the urge to do him in. Instead, I got dressed and drove him to his farm where we got another vehicle that would pull his car out of the ditch. Ok, I kind of felt like killing him a little after all of that but in the end I allowed him to live.
Here is the longer version of that story: The guy lived on a place a couple miles behind me. I knew there was a place back there somewhere, but I had never gone to check it out. So, this drunk dude puts the car in the ditch, comes to get me. I don’t know the guy, he does not know me. I would drive him home, we would get a tractor. I get dressed… which took a minute or two as it was one of those times when it was like 10 or 15 below with an even colder wind chill. We got into my 2 wheel drive – no weight in the back pickup and this drunk is going to navigate me to his place. It is like 2 in the morning. I drove down the road, made a right, passed his car in the ditch and proceeded up a long steep hill. These are snow packed gravel roads. We make another right onto something that is like a road. No tracks in the snow ahead of me, just an obvious space without trees where I can drive. This did not look good.
The lane was narrow and proceeded to become very curvy. I suppose it was about .75 miles to his farm. Suddenly after one of these curves, there were a bunch of buildings and a house. This was the place. We parked the truck. The plan was: go start up some tractor, drive that down to the ditched vehicle and then we’d bring both back to get my truck and I’d be out of there.
Oh. No. Not so fast, buddy.
Once we got out of the truck he said we needed to go check the house first as he had not been home in three days. Inside the house were two large chocolate labs. They had been in the house for those three days. Dog shit everywhere. House was pretty destroyed but I could not tell if it was due to the dogs or if that was just his style. He went to his kitchen… “I guess I should have turned off this coffee pot, now there’s a burnt slug in the bottom.” Yeah, no shit.
We went out to a barn. He peeled back the doors and started up a tractor. The tractor had a bucket on the front. I thought we were ready to go when he said “Hold on a second” and then went out in front of the tractor, picked up one of the dogs and placed it in the bucket. He came back and said “She likes to ride.” It was about then that the tractor died. It would never start again. Sorry, Dog… no ride for you.
Plan B. In some other building was an old Willys Jeep. My guess is that it was pre-1960. No roof. No heat. It did start. We would first have to put chains on the nearly bald tires. Since this guy was drunk, he was not able to function well enough to put the chains on. I did that. He was driving… another great idea. Back out to the curvy twisty turny lane. He was going faster than he should have been… I think this was in order to just keep the damn jeep running. Once we got through the curves and were almost to where we would start going downhill, he turned to me and said “Oh yeah!… One more thing – NO BRAKES!”
Fuck.
We somehow managed to stop before we ran out of road at the T intersection… backed up and pulled the car out of the ditch. I drove the car back. Once there, he had me come in one more time to say thanks. He walked over to some old wood burner that was stuffed full of newspapers, reached in and pulled out a bottle of Crown Royal. “Let’s finish this off!”
Uh, no… I’m good. Happy New Year. And with that, I was as they say “the fuck outta there.”
So… there are times when people breaking into your house are not there to swipe your stuff. For the record, if there ARE any cat kidnappers out there who are looking for a place to hit… come on over.
Here’s an old image from a much warmer day…
Friday 12.2.11
Ka-powie…
Friday night. It was around 5 or so-ish. I remember this like it was just 5 or 6 hours ago. I was sitting here updating the blog with results from my heat box experimentation. Suddenly, there was quite a boom. The building shook. Every once in a while there’s a boom. Most of the time this is the result of an electrical transformer blowing up somewhere in the vicinity. One time it was a tire blowing off the rim of a grain wagon as it had passed by and crossed the tracks. My guess was transformer.
I got up and went to the door to look out and see if I could see anything. I did. Some dope from the bar next door had backed into the building. I don’t know if this person was male or female. All I saw was tail lights as they got the car straightened out enough to escape out the back way. Asshole.
This building has been here for most of, if not more than, a hundred years. Why it was originally built, I don’t know. It must have been some kind of implement dealership way back when this was the hot place to be in town: next to the tracks. On the other side of me was a hotel/restaurant which burned down in 2007. The bar, a VFW used to be a train depot. In fact, it is a rebuilt train depot as the original also burned down. In the 12 years I’ve been here, only one other moron* has backed his vehicle into the building. That guy had the sense or decency to at least come in and let me know about it. This one… tail lights vanishing into the darkness.
Ahhh, tis the season to go get hammered on a Friday night after work and drive into my building.
*Not to be confused with the same moron tasked with holding a photographer’s crap from a previous post.
