Spaceman!

16th St. Mall chess player

Bozo the Clown en pointe

Charcoal head study

Light rail commuter

Operation "Bore Children to Tears" is underway.

One week into my daughter's career as a student and this smart and curious little girl is already telling me what a lousy week she had at school, that she doesn't like it, that it powerful sucks because she and her classmates are required to sit and be quiet all day long.

I feel ya, sista.

It's been 35 years since I attended kindergarten, and somehow educators still haven't figured out what makes five-year-old girls and boys tick, haven't figured out that boys and girls do not need to be quiet or sit still in order to learn, that quietness and stillness retard mental and emotional development in five-year-olds, just like it does for most human beings.

Mankind seeks love

You: Distant, incomprehensible, intelligent and wise. Does carbon-based life turn you on?

Me: Violent, creative, instinctual, emotional, frightened.

What I seek: Your total destruction.

What I hope you seek: A little slap and tickle, a good fight.

My dream: An epic clash of cultures, planets ground to dust, depleted stars, trillions dead, a dark epoch and perhaps an epiphany, a small hope, a pair of intrepid dreamers, a common enemy, a common goal, two star-crossed lovers in need of each other’s warmth, strength, life, joined in a technological manner by a mutual commitment of love, of harmony, of balance, drifting through a bountiful universe spreading eternal bliss to all we touch.

My nightmare: That I'm here alone, or simply farther from you than my farthest thoughts, farther than matter can go, farther than light can shine.

Might have to give up fishing because I'm a soft hearted man

When you're as good a fisherman as I am, "catch and release" starts to seem a little cruel. I prefer "catch and fry up in the campfire" because it tends to more quickly end the torment these animals are forced to endure. 

It's a torment I'm directly responsible for every time I expertly present a caddis fly in such a tempting manner that the fish must strike. Poor little guy can't help himself. 

I'm no longer proud of my little triumphs because it's like shooting fish in a... jeez, that's a weak analogy.

Goodbye, Frank.

For 13 years, you were the biggest pain in the butt, yet I miss you and I'm sad that you're gone. If we meet again, I hope you'll forgive me. Jk.

I've come to Andalucia to learn flamenco

I was already an accomplished American guitarist by the time I first heard Vicente Amigo nearly fifteen years ago. When he attacked the strings with his explosive "Spanish strum" I thought to myself, "where the hell have I been all this time? How have I never heard this before?"


So I immediately packed my bags and hopped the first ocean freighter to Cadiz. I lie many wave-tossed nights with my headphones lodged in my ears, listening, cataloging, organizing, learning this music... down to the last detail.

"Did you know skilled flamenco musicians can produce a three-octave melody by simply clapping their hands?

WTF?

"It's true, dude."

Such was my Atlantic crossing. I dreamt of nothing but the guitar. Little did I know of the disappointments and struggle that lie ahead.

In Cadiz, being a good guitarist is nothing. Being a great guitarist remarkable only in the sense that your playing doesn't make Andalucians wince in displeasure. Being a virtuoso gains you an opportunity to apply for apprenticeship.

I still don't know why they accepted me. I was always afraid to ask.

But they put me in a class with a bunch of bookish teenagers. I had proven my technical skills, but my new judges found my heart severely deficient in vitamin "F". Nobody in Cadiz had the slightest hope or care that I pass the final exam. To them, I was just the next Ry Cooder, Carlos Santana, or George Harrison: They, too, thought they were good enough to cross the culture barrier.

I had such a long way to go.

Duece Fuego's Ark

How long does it take to build a gas-powered scale model Pay-n-Pak jet boat?

Is twenty-six years enough time?

Cuz I've been working on my model Pay-n-Pak jet boat for twenty six years, and I'm still not done.

I started the project in junior high, and can understand that it might have been a little beyond the abilities of a first-time R/C boat builder such as I was back then. Mistakes were made, setbacks occurred, bad advice given. And on top it all the self-discipline required to complete a complex project had yet to develop in my youthful brain. Which could explain the first couple of years.

It does not explain the next twenty. I've taken this damned boat with me all over the country, declaring to all who set eyes upon her, "I fully intend to finish this boat, mark my words!"

I don't know exactly how many times I've said that. I can only guess that over the course of twenty years I repeated it many, many times. It became a kind of a joke for those aware of the boat's existence: "Oh, you'll get around to it... you mean like the boat?" I've promised to finish it so many times the promise eventually sounded like a joke to me, too.

In a sense, it means that I've consistently made the decision to NOT FINISH the boat many, many times over two decades. Or maybe it slipped my mind for two decades. Well can you blame me? I didn't know decades were so short...


It comes to an end this year. The goddamned boat will float this summer.

You mark my words.

Gotta polish these bloody ramparts. The woman don't like bloody ramparts. She also wants me to get her swords sharpened -- like I don't have important things to do.

"Sure, sweetie... I'll take your weapons the smith on the way to this morning's JOUST. No problem, I've got plenty of time to travel 20 minutes out of my way while the squire prepares my armor and horse -- Oh that's RIGHT! My squire quit the other day. Well, I guess I'll just fight for your honor in my pajamas today."

Love you, sweetie!

Message to my 7th grade AP math teacher:

Ms. Harvey:

Would you please put some damn clothes on so I can study these quadratic equations? For god's sakes, this class is hard enough as it is without you prancing around in your tight-fitting preppy purple Izod shirt and your MASSIVE bosoms poking out every which way but Sunday.

I can't keep my mind on these VARIABLES... I've never seen nipples so strong... look like they're gonna spear right through the knit. Come on, boy! All you gotta do is solve for x and you can write your own ticket with this lady!

Spaceman, put the pedal to the metal and get the hell out of here!

Bounce, bounce, bounce off the atmosphere of my heart, you sweet thing! 

I'm taking you home with me. We're gonna get married, you and I. 

But we gotta fly, cuz the authorities are on the hunt for your missing person. 

I'm gonna be your loverbeing. 

I'm gonna show you the way to the center of the sun I'm gonna get you high. 

I'm GONNA MAKE YOU SAY GOODBYE... to that fool you call your man. 

He's such a stupid man-boy human with hairy arms and an unclean mouth. He won't stand a chance when I vaporize his brain. Not a chance in hell when I'm done with him. 

He's a dead man... a dead, stupid man-boy human with hairy arms, an unclean mouth and a soggy brain steaming in his skull. 

That's how much I love thee, my sweet earthling. You make me perform difficult tasks, tasks that creatures beneath us might consider unpleasant. 

The restraining straps aren't too tight, are they? 

Now hold on, Sugarpie... we gotta go.

Strange encounters with a first-time dad

“Don't look at Daddy's dick, sweetie.”

My 9-month-old daughter sat on the tile floor and watched me as I brushed my teeth. I did it just the way I had done for years – naked at the sink... and her gaze started to bother me. If that weren't bad enough, she climbed to a standing position, supported herself against my leg, and reached skyward for my cock!

Now, I had done nothing to provoke this – a guy's gotta brush his teeth. None-the-less my baby's searching hand had forced me past some terrible, unspoken line that prompted a full body spasm of defense far out of proportion to the threat.

I imagined a parade fathers: my dad, my grandpa, Governor Bill Ritter, the neighbor down the street, the social worker – all of them advancing on me, spurning, reproachful, disgusted, shaking their fists in a violent revulsion:

“YOU SICK SON OF A BITCH! NEVER LET THE BABY NEAR YOUR SHAME!”

No, no... of course not. The baby will be punished severely.

But wait a minute... That's not right.

I couldn't be the first guy to have blundered into his daughter's innocent curiosity about her daddy's junk. How had other fathers dealt with this? How did my dad do it?

To answer my own question: he didn't have to. My brother and I didn't pose the same kind of threat. Of course we weren't allowed to go grabbing and pinching his dick, but neither of us ever wanted to (Well, I guess I shouldn't speak for my bro.)

No, I mustn't be brutal about this. I mustn't be harsh, but what do I do? Think, man!

I told her, “Don't grab Daddy's junk, sweetie.”

That made her mother laugh, so I rolled with it and it grew into a running gag. But it didn't end there. Daddies have to change diapers, you see? And in case you didn't know, baby girls have tiny little crevices that are impossible to avoid when wiping up all the poop that seems to ooze out of their butts all the time.

I'm just doing my job, see? There's crap everywhere and I've read that women must be careful when wiping their asses so they don't get that nasty shit stuck in their junk, see?

So I do my best to clean my sweetie's junk – get the bits of blueberry and applesauce crap out of there so she doesn't get an infection or the clap or some kind of unpleasant yeast infection (I'm unclear about these maladies).

And I can't help but notice she's gazing up at me in a relaxed way. Staring right into my eyes. So I wonder if maybe she isn't enjoying this, which on the one hand is A-1, top-shelf, royally effed up... but on the other hand, who wouldn't like to have someone else hand-wash their privates?

Where do I sign up...? Just keep my Dad the hell away from me.

Apparently, incest hadn't entered my baby's mind at all -- probably because she has no shame. Nor should she. She's perfect in every way. Innocent on all counts.

I'm the one who must navigate the murky paths of shame for her. I'm the one who worries this could be weird (it's not.) I'm the one who has to remind himself that it's okay for a father to clean up his daughter after she's crapped all over the place. It's more than OK – it's required.

So maybe I've got a few hangups. Nothing serious, I hope. I can't be the only one.

Rap machine: test number one.

My lyrics don't rhyme
They never did and never will.
Poetry hates me
'Cuz I possess disdain
for quatrain and refrain
for hexameter and hyperbole
for simile
for meter.

My lyrics haven't the time to rhyme like fine wine between thine... hind... legs?
Senseless and fence-less, what-a-mess I've made of my pencils... and my papers.

My lyrics can't rhyme cuz they're slime and haven't a dime.

They're street, baby.

Romertopf: German for bone-dry pork loin.

Bought a Romertopf at a yard sale a few weeks back thinking it would be a perfectly eclectic addition to the family kitchen. You know -- delicious roasts on a bed of hearty vegetables... that kind of thing.

Well, I've learnt a lesson, and learnt it well:

You can't have delicious roasts on a bed of hearty vegetable just because you buy a two-dollar clay pot at a yard sale. No, sir. You still gotta know a thing or two about cooking.

Don't believe those Romertopf recipes that say you can't overcook meat in a clay pot. Trust me, you can.

It was so sad, too. It's a tragedy when pork is treated so badly.

You're such a beautiful Retro-Tech vintage stereo: I'm the only one who loves you.

Just look at her. She's gorgeous, ain't she? Can't stop gawking at her HUGE KNOBS, can you?

Neither can I.

Born 1978-1980, I remember the day she came to the house. She was unpacked with care, and BAM! -- just like that, the family was finally cool.

At least in my eyes.

Felt the same as buying an iPod three years after all your friends bought theirs. It was like: "Cool stereo, man! Yeah, thanks. We like it because of the quality."

When the parentals got divorced, we kept her in our house. My dad bought an identical model for his house -- only newer, and also a kick-ass dual tape deck. By that time, she had grown old and tired. No longer a novelty, but just a device to make sound.

They just don't make 'em like that no more. Can't believe I'm saying that, but what the fuck, it's true. Circuit City's like Houston and Las Vegas getting hitched at an outdoor wedding in a trailer park -- gawdy graphic displays and thousands of tiny buttons.

I'm not trying to launch the Space Shuttle, here. I just wanna rock a little. Click, click... BANG! Know what I mean?

Anyway, I had break out the lighter fluid and contact cleaner, dissassemble her piece-by-piece and clean out the 30 years of dust inside. She works like new. I think I'll call her Beulla.

Drunk behind the control stick

"I'm telling you, that planet came out of nowhere! I was just cruising along, you know, lookin' at the stars, and WHAM! Just like that -- I was, like, "SHIT! Did I just hit a planet?!"


Spaceman peered at the trooper's prowler stationed outside his cockpit, but he couldn't see the officer inside. They had been communicating over TicketNet, the official communication platform used by traffic officers in this sector of the galaxy. It was new technology, and it was quite effective at insulating officers from the influence of a traffic violator's emotional appeals. Spaceman was unable to catch a glance from the cop. Spaceman felt he needed every advantage he could find. He was stoned to the bone.

"I mean, there was NOTHING I COULD DO. It just happened so fast," he added.

The officer's voice, laden with static in the speaker: [How fast were you traveling?]

"Oh, not fast... The speed limit, you know... Maybe a little faster," Spaceman stammered.

[How much have you had to drink?]

"What? Nothing. Totally. Well, a couple of beers, like, maybe an hour ago..."

[A couple of beers, sir?]

"If that."

[Would you move your face closer to the cockpit window so I can scan you with the Booze-a-tron?"

"Now officer, I really don't think any of this is necessa..."

[I'm not going to ask again. My lasers are trained on your cockpit. Should you refuse to cooperate, I will be within my rights to open fire... ]

"Wait, wait, wait, wait! It's not like I did this ON PURPOSE! It's like I said, it couldn't be helped! Nobody could have avoided this."


[You hit a planet, sir. You've caused considerable damage on the surface. Many people down there are upset. Now please, move your face to the cockpit window. I need to scan you for intoxicants.]

Spaceman slowly moved his right hand to the thruster control by his thigh. The cop's prowler seemed small to him, possibly only a local bird. It was possible he could get a big enough jump on him to reach the sector boundary before they called in reinforcements. His thumb hovered over the thruster release.

[If you attempt to flee, sir. You will be killed. Reinforcements are already dispatched. You won't make it.]

Spaceman slumped in his seat.

[I've engaged my Imbecilitron, sir. The device reads minds of thugs and idiots like yourself. No offense, sir -- I personally don't think you're an imbecile. However, the device only functions in the presence of certain brainwaves found predominantly in beings of low intellect. It's so effective, in fact, that we were alerted when you entered the sector. We knew you were going to do this long before you did. All we had to do is wait.]

An ode to Botas Rodeo: America's Garage Band

Never a lead repeated, never the same beat twice
Never a ballad sung softly, as our tube-amplified strings scream so loudly!

when our fingers fumble o'er the frets and sticks of our quality instruments,
We sometimes stumble, mumble, and produce a clever lick.

Listen!
You might detect a hint of brilliance,
buried beneath all that lack of practice.

Hey...
They don't call it "garage sound" for nothing.
And besides, we're not trying to re-invent the wheel.

We just want to rock...
most Thursday nights,
from about 7 p.m. to midnight.

And if you're anything like us,
you'll be fucking amazed
that four married white guys could sound as good as we do...