REELIN' IN THE YEARS W/ A ROYAL SCAM

I was working at the market yesterday, allegedly working. kids these days I tell you what...i know it's me, it's not age. I surround myself with plenty of people "my age" they don't act like I do. I am too much for most people my age. whimsical irreverence is freedom. Maybe bob봅 taught me that? I just don't care  that much about the affairs of others. It's amazing how much people care about shit that is inconsequential to them. if they even thought about that stuff. (*I also know that I am allowed to be the way I am out of extreme privilege. I don't worry too much about financial stuff because I am generally broke, i don't give  a fuck about possessions, and i think money is stupid and meant to be spent or burned (THanks star trek).  I make it happen when it needs to happen but I recognize that if shit hits the fan, i can probably get bailed out by my parents who moved on the crab long ago. good decisions, hard work and good fucking ethics put them in a place where they not only don't have to worry about themselves, they can help me not worry. It took a long time for me to accept this without guilt. fuck you if you think it's weak. it's just luck. and luckily, at this point i can use this privilege to do good for all. ) 

So, this all keeps me thinking. 

I've been known to say and have on occasion given the advice to others that if you aren't necessarily "in to" your employment situation, go ahead and treat it as a social experiment. Take your  self out of the game and become the observer. I have been studying youths ( and raising a few over the last 20 years) that work at the market. They fascinate me because they are so fucking inept and bereft of at and all personal inquisition either to others or towards their self. I don't think I am wrong about this. It's heartbreaking because it's so obvious. No one has ever told them to at least try and be interesting, or that they could be interesting, or that the shit we pack our heads full of is not interesting at all. they have had zero training in communicating interaction beyond grunts and nods. I'ts fucked. When I engage with these kids, they look at me with a dull fuck you, not even trying. they psychically eye roll the old man as they begrudgingly remove a single  airpod. "what's up" without even a question mark to feign interest. 

which is fair. I am an old man. I'm an old man working as a stock boy in an independently and locally owned grocery store. I have no future, they know that. 

why this scenario is so fucking amusing to me is the treat of it all. what they're retardation isn't allowing for is that I am the one that is smiling. grinning as I bag ice, take out trash, clean toilets, and mop the floors. they don't understand that I have a soundtrack in my head  to all of this. A script that is writing itself before my very eyes. This is not work you fools. you have y e a r s of that ahead of you kid. the amount of wisdom and storyline packed in my skull is the true rich stuff. buried treasure. what's also ridiculous is that I am willing to share it all for damn near free. You just have to care. show kindness, at least pity me, attempt to understand where i might be coming from. do that for me and then do that for every other person you come into contact with and you will find your own shitty existence to be so much more palatable. 

I have married and divorced, have two amazing sons who totally get it and somehow don't hate me for being a drunk fuck for their whole lives. I've lost my mind in a sea of human beings dancing to the same song, had a million weird jobs, settled down with a dismal trade that involved more depth, mystery and insanity to fill ten lifetimes. I've started over. I have been punished for mistakes and lauded and praised and loved and hated and cried, oh how much I have cried.  I've met so many amazing people... I've even seen the topless dancers of corfu. 

what AM I SAYING HERE? 

probably nothing. I just know it's worth something and probably not what you think it's for. 

LIVING OUR BEST STAR TREK LIVES or REVISITING THE PAST TO SEE THE FUTURE

I am currently watching all of TNG in sequential order. We are at S5E26. It has been ENGAGING to say the least. A few things:

1. Trek doesn't give a fuck about inconsistency. the keystone cops of the federation bumbled their way into saving the whales by warping around THE SUN in stolen a KLINGON BIRD OF PREY owned by Doc Brown. from then on the time has time travelling capability AND a cloaking device. TNG Enterprise ( s7e5 ) had to  borrow a device from the Klingons during some Romulan kerfuffle. BULLSHIT

2. guinan. i personally think she could have been a bit more helpful.  

3. Riker is a dog.

4. there's obviously a lot more but i just bored myself into stopping at this point.   

The best thing about Trek is that it showcases the best it could be in the future with still allowing for human idiocy. replicators changed it all. imagine living in a world with out realtors. i can't wait for the future. 

WORKING AT THE MARKET HAS BEEN MESSING WITH MY MIND. 

I enjoy it but can't help but break it down. Have my experiences been so varied that I am no longer able to see things simply and without cross examination? very possibly, but i still retain the ability to recognize that. bully for me! I simply observe a lot. This place is has somehow existed outside the regular world. It operates like a grocery store from another time but still current. I can't explain it right now. (*Edit 8/31 ) It is a borg grocery store. hurtling through time and space assimilating what it needs to stay alive and in many senses thrive without any understanding of it's current place in the universe. 

In school, when we were younger, we would write on our notebooks like our ancestors did to this door. That thing is a fucking cave wall.

 werner herzog amazing. 

when i was a child, my crew and i would sneak into the back door of this place and run around in the basement. we'd steal what wasn't tied down. we wern't into beer then or we'd still be drunk and rich. it was a dungeon. it still is. the cash registers that took our change in exchange for candy are down there. slowly being forgotten. 

   

HEY PINKO! WAKE UP

Haven't been able to sleep lately. Just crushed 5 hours. PINK FUZZ on the headphones now. Got some arts done yesterday. More today. What a life. 

I had coffee with a friend yesterday, a real friend but also a major 'splainer. His wisdom is fine but rarely necessary. I HAVE HOWEVER, taken from him a better understanding of grace and forgiveness. People are all flawed. Thats the truth. It's OK to take what you need. Offering that to yourself is terribly important. 

The story behind the image above can be found by clicking upon it. Anyway, here's to habits and such. Don't piss into any wooden nickels. It takes an awfully big dog to weigh an Uzi. I drew the pictures below on an airplane high on LEGAL DRUGS. I DREW THEM EXCLUSIVELY FOR MY EIGHTEEN YEAR OLD SON TO WAKE UP TO. 

                   

Obviously a post from the past. I FUCKED UP AND MOVED IT AND THIS BLOGGER APP IS SO OLD IT FORGOT WHERE IT WENT.  Gonna put it up here anyway. 

Filler up.

There is a curse in living where you grew up. I have lived in _____ for 40 years excluding a few years in _________ and ______. Over those years I have met many folks, I have many friends and have very few enemies (to my knowledge). I have much love and connection in this town and with that comes pain. This job I do really makes me confront my time here on earth. It's never easy but there are times when it becomes much harder. I do not consider myself a particularly weak person but there are days that I feel pretty beat down by it all. 

My problem is, I know too much. 

What I am confronting right now is just how thick my callouses have become. I don't mind the smell of decomposing bodies, I don't flinch at gaping gunshot wounds, it never surprises me to find stomach contents filled with partially digested pills. I don't don't see these people as people anymore. I see them as a job to do. I see them as work. This, is not good. In order to "get through it" we make jokes. We laugh at expressions of horror or how stupid the tattoos are or how dumb someone could be to get to our table. We laugh and chortle wittily with scalpel and saw and syringe as we break them down to smaller parts and categorize them with labels. We make fun of their ways as while ship these bits to laboratories and anxiously await the results so that we may have our answers. We strip them of their clothing and medical interventions and take photograph after photograph to catalog the condition of their bodies in their most naked states of being.  

I can't sleep worth a shit these days. My schedule is pretty wacky. I have a job again. Working at the M&W market. So strange really, all these years of going there for everything. Jesus. Just thinking about a million years ago moving in with my parents house with those two boys. Blowing up worlds. So much unknowing caring so much about unknowing. just keeping it together. M&W was there. Thanks for all the beers!. 

I quit drinking. Can you believe I did that? CRAZY! feels really good. I kinda hate that shit now. Such a great way to not do it anymore. Sort of like the pills? That hurt more. I didn't tell you about that. I don't think I want to. No one knew. How insane. So fucked in that basement. Writing around in sweat and hatred. 

I quit drinking because I couldn't look myself in the eye anymore. Shame is a heavy bitch. Guilt is a dagger. Am I over all that shit? I might be. I am almost 50. That's fucked huh? 

I live with a girl now. Close to where I used to live with a girl, and then didn't. Had roommates. Drama. 

Not sure how I got here. The future is in front of me. Seems as though you can just muddle through it and if you do that for long enough, you learn what you shouldn't do? Maybe? FuckifIknow.

 Make a nest.