You can't lose what you don't put in the middle. -Rounders

You play it close to the vest, or try to. You have to engage the people you wait on, and that is becoming a major chore.

Dance, bear-boy, tell me of your 'specials.' Cling-a-ling. Your cymbals chime.

And you sweat-they have the heat cranked, as well as two fireplaces blazing- you feel like you're running a fucking fever, and then, at half past nine-it broke, it was over.

Even though back at the old job tonight- much better time management/cost effectiveness/bullshit quotient- actually good to be back in the dysfunctional mix-you were still 'working'.

It seems you now have issue with this concept.

It pains you to do it at all.

There, you said it. Are you lazy? You'll buy it. Do you want what you want without having to work for it? Pretty much.

Weary sums it up fairly well. A general malaise that covers you like molasses with a bad attitude.

It was Christmas Eve, after all.

Your youngest angel called to wish you a Merry Christmas- You hoped hers was the best.

You're sure it was.

She has new Daddy throwing her first expensive Christmas at her. Her Husky had five puppies last week. She's busy. She's happy.

But she still called.

You guess that counts for more than any gift, ever could.

When the first baby laughed for the first time, the laugh broke into a thousand pieces and they all went skipping about and that was the beginning...

...of fairies.- James Mathew Barrie. The author of Peter Pan.

My daughters. If you have read this blog for any length of time, you will have read of them.

All of them; including the vampiric 26-year old. She was a baby once. And at a time, held her clothes to my face, inhaling her scent, and crying in reply.

That was a long time ago.

I say this with tongue somewhat-in-cheek. She is stunning, her Irish and Hispanic heritage mixing for a truly wondrous product, and I am proud she is mine.

But she is her Mother's child.

She is vindictive. I will be dead before she forgives. You'd think she was gypsy.

The thing is...I love them all. And I remember their births, each and every one, different and wonderful and frightening.

All of them, will always be my angels, even if they think their old-man is not-worth-it.

My 18-year-old twins think I am urban weird...whatever that means, somewhat cool, I guess, but I relate more to each of them than to anyone else, and they are my princesses and for the youngest I am still "Daddy".

A title I can never give up.

Just because you got the monkey off your back doesn't mean the circus has left town.- George Carlin

7:30 a.m. Wide awake. Dread....work, another double. Much like Sunday. Another meat grinder day.

No. Not gonna happen. The wall. You hit it.

You dial the number.

It's too early for the real managers, but you know one of the kitchen managers is there.

You ask for a manager.

"I'm a manager...how can I help you."

You almost expect him to interject, no really, I'm a manager, seriously.

You tell him who you are. What were you thinking?

You tell him Sunday ate every bit of your last lunch. He laughed.

You are not coming in.

"Ever," he replies? He is not laughing, now.

That's right. You're through. He stammers, unsure of himself.

Your last job welcomes you back in time for Christmas Eve. You are concerned. There are things you need to get to speed on, that you have forgotten.

They will come back. As will the cadaverous hostess, turned to pasture, the one that truly hates you. You said you would never be back. Right.

Another meat grinder day, but one you can live with.

There is ebb and flow. Instead of all flow.

So lesson learned. Money does not count for serenity and once again you are so reminded, you do not play well with others.

You are not a corporate player. It will not happen, so just stop it.

You will do your best, while you hash the rest of this out, to cause no further injury, while you lick your wounds.

Sometimes you just have to pee in the sink.- Charles Bukowski

Ain't it so.

You put up with it.

You pay the bills. And it takes a toll. You feel it; longer than you should, feel quicker to realizing that what you do for a living, is starkly comparable to a trained Ukrainian bear.

You are too weary to cry.

You knew two restaurants ago, the same 'concept' blink, blink, corporate "Stepford" restaurant.

Why did you think it would be different? Same Daddy.

And you quit his baby girl once, then married up, and now looks as though you're getting cold feet.

Why are you surprised?

And one day you get a good look, in total clarity, at what you really do, for a living. The entire charade.

You know that you do not care a pinch-of-salted shit how this person's spinach salad tasted. If it tasted yummy, you might make a 2 dollar tip, a whole five if you really gave it to her. The whole nine yards...if you haven't been triple sat and can now become the 'auto waiter', simply throw food at their gaping maws, smacking your lips as they order, showing them, they are indeed...in the know.

You make yourself sick.

Her water- no ice, with straw...it just tasted bad. May I have free 6.00 bottled bullshit? But of course madame, je suis imbecile...

It is probably safer you do not carry a firearm, anymore.


It can put you in a stupor.

The trouble with unemployment is that the minute you wake up in the morning, you're on the job. - Slappy White

Not yet, but the writing's on the wall.

I can read.

So when the hammer drops, what do I do?

"Being unemployed is not good for an actor. No it isn't, no matter how unsuccessful you are, because you always remember getting fired from all the restaurant's. You remember that stuff, very, very, strongly."-Phillip Seymour Hoffman

I think I have done my time serving other people over-priced food.

So...gets me back to the list. See if I can write down every 'career' I ever had: Journalist; waiter, bartender, fisherman, dish-washer, office worker, temp-work, soldier, oil-field worker, rigger, black marketeer, record promoter, Cadillac salesman, soldier, fry cook, day-laborer, phone solicitor, hotel desk clerk, deck-hand on Alaska tour boat, espresso maker, line-cook, apprentice pressman, press operator, retail manager, brain injury technician, aircraft-parts department manager, door-to-door salesman, police officer, private investigator, security officer, corrections officer, bail bonds agent and real estate administrative assistant; and a couple of them my children do not need to be made aware of.

There may be a few that were missed.

I have even shoveled sand out of a grain silo.

Seems I have a stability issue and am not cool with authority.

Who knew?

I don't want to be John O'Brien...

No. It's too sad.

Had his novel. Leaving Las Vegas. Published the novel in 1990.

A movie exec found it in a used bookstore and optioned the rights. Probably in the dollar bin.

It was made into a film in 1995.

Two weeks after learning his novel was to be made into a film, he shot himself.

Jesus. That makes me look stable.

I don't have five years.

The Man...

“He is a man of thirty-five, but looks fifty. He is bald, has varicose veins and wears spectacles, or would wear them if his only pair were not chronically lost. If things are normal with him, he will be suffering from malnutrition, but if he has recently had a lucky streak, he will be suffering from a hangover. At present it is half past eleven in the morning, and according to his schedule he should have started work two hours ago; but even if he had made any serious effort to start he would have been frustrated by the almost continuous ringing of the telephone bell, the yells of the baby, the rattle of an electric drill out in the street, and the heavy boots of his creditors clumping up the stairs. The most recent interruption was the arrival of the second post, which brought him two circulars and an income tax demand printed in red. Needless to say this person is a writer.”
George Orwell quotes (English Novelist and Essayist, 1903-1950)

Really cheap shots are the one's you take when no one else is in the room.

You are almost fifty. Whatever that means. But for you, it means you've lost a step, and you unfortunately know it.

Sweet suffering Jaysus...your body; it's grown, and softened. And done things. You will never be chiseled again.

At one time you modeled. Years ago.

Quietly and desperately to pay the rent, but so what?

That won't happen again.

One day-you wake up, and realize with blinding clarity,that it has never happened for you.

Just like the monkey at the zoo-masturbating against the glass- "Nor will this ever happen for you!"

None of it-the picket fence, the faultless marriage, the 'Maytag' way of life.

The success (defined by others) that you were denied. Much of which is your own fault-and you know it.

They say being fired is nature's way of telling you you had the wrong job.

At one time you wanted to play blues-guitar.

Really, really wanted it.

You would practice in front of your baby girl...hair in your eyes as you sang to her.

Her mother...your biggest fan.

The memory...fuck.

The haunting.

Your angel was pre-raised on Eric Clapton and Stevie Ray. Headphones on the belly of the most beautiful woman you will ever know. You read his autobiography to the belly. It was good.

And the belly kicked.

And deserved. More than you could give.

Your daughter will always be your special angel for too many reasons.

You go through your motorcycle-drinking-blues guitar-playing, power slide into 40. Holy Shit. Streak... baby daughter- hot wife -great job and she walks away.

Are you kidding?

And takes your heart on a cocktail fork. Nice.

The boob-job for your ex-wife, payed for by your ex-boss, as well as all her new furniture, colored your outlook for a long time. Damn good job though.

But what could you do? You failed to provide.

The 64,000 in back child support, delivered certified mail by the State's Attorney Generals Office to the double-wide in the boonies outside San Marcos, may have had something to do with it.

Hard to find because of the Cedar. Wind could be heard everywhere. Deer, your largest neighbors.

Scorpions you attacked, in the huge mound of undefined earth ,adjacent to the front yard, defending hearth, and home. Sons-of-bitches were everywhere.

As were the deer, and oak trees.


You told your step-son, eight-years old, her son, about the Hill Country, dreaded, weenie-dogs.

His room in the double wide had a window, the bunk beads he 'had' to have, taking up all the space in the room. The wind moaned outside it. There was scratching on the window.

"There are packs of wild dogs in these lands, lad...some of which you may hear on a warm summer night." His eyes would grow.

"Don't be afraid. But do not listen to them, for whatever they promise. And no matter what you do, never, ever, open the window.

They are small, but be warned they are clever. They like to stand on the shoulders of one-another, and try to get in through young-boys windows. And once they do...?"

He would gulp, pulling the blanket to his chin.

The next day; after navigating our way for 1.5 miles down rutted, potholed hell, to the county road, taking him to school-he saw them.

At the intersection.

Three dachshunds. Seriously.

Staring at the car motionless as it passed.

He flipped.

I laughed long and acted like I knew... and he hated me for it.

But the whole thing. Represented what? Some kind of man-vs-nature bullshit, Americana-musician-frontier?

Sad.

Cheap housing for white folks.

Just like you though- buying into the dream by representing the dream -hand-sanding the baby's crib; work boots, Wranglers, Shiner-Bock after work -every day for three-months. That was one smooth crib. It was given away, once she outgrew it.

Even had a pickup. Sometimes-in Hill Country-spring weather, it was grand.

Was anyone watching?

Then practicing guitar. And you do it...all of it. For her.

You breathe for her.

The mother of your daughter? Always.

The love of your life?

Regrettably, but nonetheless.

The only woman who ever, really had you. And you would say it was all okay, the past forgotten, for just one night...pathetic.

"I didn't sign up for this." Parting shot. Door- literally hitting her in her perfectly-cheerleader heart-shaped-ass.

Exactly the type that her next five attracted.

Can we all exhale?

Your marriage crashed...bewildered and you stumbled, and you shattered your left hand. Wearing a space suit for some bullshit micro-processing company in Austin. No more guitar. No more motorcycle. Almost lost all four fingers.

They hurt when it rains.

But you wore tools. And got to work at six.

Steve McQueen would have kicked you. Coffee shops-lounging on sofa's, collecting checks and chain smoking. Crashing on pain killers outside.

Held together by pins and pain-killers for six months. Law suit-Doctor's-Attorney's- You are fucking drained.. Two years. Depositions. Bullshit.

Many joints still immobile.

Never again. Ever. You would never again play along and sing with Jeff Healey; however badly, but for the possibility of slide, but that would be to much of an after-school special.

Rather wallow in it.

You live alone, which you actually enjoy, but are starting to wonder.

Yeah, you think about dying alone.

And it scares you so badly you resort to known methods to put it to sleep.

You hate your job. I mean you loathe getting up and putting on this corporate attire. It weighs a psychic ton.

You 'smile' for a living.

You trudge through your day trying to act as though you care, but everyone around you knows the difference.

You are a trained monkey. And the demands of the job are such that you wake up knowing the aches and pains of an imagined rodeo clown. After work you have to stop and buy ointment and powders for sensitive areas.

"Yes, how much is this cream designed for swamp ass?"

Someone suggests Yoga. You suggest they go fuck themselves.

And you realize you wish to pursue your 'dream' job.

What do you do?

Go through a very dark place, allowing destructive habits to grow a few talons, but then starting over, knowing you never wish to do this again, and it comes to you.

You are one-unhappy motherfucker. You are absolutely no fun to be around. You make Eeyore look like Peewee Herman.

You start going down the list; the 'perfect' job, for you.

Having a large selection of been there done that's- while you make the list-you realize you are up against a wall.

It comes to you.

To be paid to be yourself; or paid for what you represent, so that you may sustain yourself and all past due debts and obligations.

Wow, I guess if you are a professional, a Doctor, Lawyer or other individual with letters behind your name, I suppose that sustains you.

But what of us?

The ones who are never quite certain where we fit...the one's who hear the internal voice-" No...not this...God I hate these people. I really do hate my job. What the fuck."

The one's who know we are writers, or artists, or actors with our own voice, not someone else's.

Journalism is dictation bound by archaic rules of grammar and 'news', held together by strange dysfunctional hierarchies.

I'd rather cut off a foot than do that again. But- I loved the act of writing- although whatever I had written was so badly maligned by my publisher it was hardly my work after all.

Maybe I just dig typing.

What if I was behind anything you had to offer?

WTF?

Let them in Peter...let them make some noise, although they are very tired.

It is cold. It is raining. It is nearing Christmas.

Remember where the broken bodies lie.

Tell them how they are missed.

With us down here.

I almost quit today. Done. Finished.

My manager, hearing I would not be in for the evening. Big exhale.

I know when I am not up to 100 percent.

I am pretty much, never say die.

I don't know that I can do this, anymore. It really is a tortuous grind. A Goddamned beating. Hi, how are you? Mean it ...love ya...jesus...I am all about you.

It really can be hard.

I shit you not.

It made me so much, so much fucking sorry.

For a living.

A Bus to Maine? Washing dishes? Why the fuck not?

Throwing myself on the mercy of the language. Using a passable intelligence. Could work.

A guest made fun of me, yesterday. Not that that is unusual. Stop it.

I'm not for everyone. But it is a beating.

But it was a version of hell I'm not familiar with.

It did not fail, however, to end. It endured. For the longest.

I assure you.

People normally enjoy my stupid ass.

If yall could just laugh...

A middle aged black woman, for what it's worth. Table-all black. We want butter...wif dis bread.

Mo' buttah'..surving utensils.

All this... every time.

Know how to never make a canoe not tip? Paint it black.

I'm not fucking kidding.

Passed to me by a waiter going to the game. Fuck this. This is your's.

I had packed up her 12 or 16 box of "I'll have some of that..." The matriarch of the table. Sweet creeping Christ.

"We want med rare-we want well done-at the same time. And hot...goddamnit-these potatoes are cold. "

Asked me what box the mushrooms were in. Like I fuckin' knew. Two, three.

"I'm not sure, one of them."

See you next tuesday. Fuck me.

Just fuck me hard....Jesus. These are the tears I kissed.

I had not bothered to label the damned things. I had grown tired.

"duh..." she replied.

I'm not kidding. She said it again. Then wanted seperate checks."It's his berfday...
I'm paying for him. Them two's together, and them two, and him, he's a baby."

"Duh..." she drew it out. They all laughed.

Wow. I was stunned.

Making fun of a middle aged white guy...in public.

Maybe I had it coming.

She wore me out. How many trips...?

I was just slogging it out.

The trenches.

They're not for me, anymore.

The Vet's I know...

I so appreciate you all.

Some, retired and earned it, others cashiered and fucked.

I know that your service allowed me the freedom to live as I did. I know that my service does not make it even-steven.

Sorry. Not the best troop, but I had some of the best leaders.

SSGT Roy Fyffe, Capt. Wild Bill Wilson, and the rest of the 1/16.