Ab-Sinner

These were some of the elements present on the night I got deep into a bottle of absinthe, or absinth in the Czech preference. This "Bohemian Glass" was shipped neatly from Prague to me and I'm quite pleased with the results, although I can't remember many of the latter results, thus the need for more experimentation. If you click to enlarge here you can see the beginnings of a green fairy painting but that's about as far as I got on that night.

I did manage to get green paint on my Chuck Taylor's though I don't know how. Luckily it was still wet on the tiles in the morning so I could wipe it up. I'm sure that happened to Picasso on a routine basis. Ah, he probably had naked women to wipe up his paint. Well, I'm still young enough.

A fog lingers in the stark sunlight two days after. As it dissipates I take off for the west coast in search of the elusive path. I think I'm well equipped but time will be the judge. I tried to evolve a year too early. Release me now, Lord. Or was Nietzsche right?

We need no urging to hate humans

A champion's night in the deep south proceeds with signs of shock receding. What a game the AFC championship turned out to be. I'm still stunned and admittedly relieved. Through with excuses, I was ready to spend the next few months talking about nothing but the Falcons, bored with the non-super rematch of the '85 Super Bowl. But then the miracle happened, not at once, but slowly built up to a crescendo of... relief. I didn't even think Peyton Manning was really having any fun at the end, he was so deflated from thoughts of someone waking him up and taking it away.

Suddenly my hand is back

My audience, my own work

Another one for the stack

Where a future fortune lurks


A cold, wet rain has fallen steadily all day and a hearty fire has kept me all the hours through all the games and all the canyons of hopes and fears.



This year of the dog has one more cycle to fulfill and then the path to chrysalis, or pupa, shall be celebrated in all the lands. Who would challenge such a decree? I've been listening to the sub-space chatter about it for months now. Now back to meatball surgery.

Winter Grab Bag

For the moment, the insanely mild days are gone and grim winter sets in with windy, howly fanfare. Just yesterday I rode my bike all over old memories in total comfort. Who watched American Idol tonight? I didn't and I never have, not to be a snob. Why don't they just make a separate show for the ones that suck? The intrigue originally made it seem like these three strutting baboons were randomly auditioning everybody and had to deal with the bad and the good. That's not the reality, of course. They have everything preselected for the "judges" and they probably don't ever see more than a handful of acts and the finalists have already been hand picked by now anyway. That's my take but, truly, I've never watched it. I'll just watch the dorks on YouTube.


I dwell in the house of Mother Strange Bread, and it's a good thing.

Trying to find a way to make my own torture a capital success proves a mighty task but I have no plan for execution. Now I remember one girl and the way she liked to show her body but not get too gritty. She was a good sport, though, and was one of the best rodeo queens I've known. The compliment I give her is that she made the impossible easier. I guess that's more my testament than hers.

Monday Night Thoughtball

It's 9:03 in the p.m. on January the 8th and I'm watching the college football championship on Fox. The Fox Network is systematically trying to ruin everything, including Family Guy from what I hear of late.

9:23: The Gators are ahead 21-7, I love it. I'm no U of F lover, but I DO love an underdog. I guess hype produces great irony, at least. The exterior of this new stadium in Glendale, Arizona looks creepy in the blimp shots, like part of the Death Star growing out of the desert night.

9:46: The Florida marching band often plays the theme from Jaws as the frenzied fanatics in the stands wildly clap their arms to emulate the Jaws of... an alligator. I guess they have to do something.

9:55: Jonny Cat is on my lap and the vibrations begin. Happy birthday, Elvis. Why is there college football on your birthday? I saw two articles today that said USC would be the preseason number 1 later this year. We still haven't played last year's championship yet!?!? What the fuck?

10:06: 27-14, U of F, just before the half. The telecast has been much more palatable than I would've thought in a million years. That is to say, I've hardly noticed the commentary. Fumble to Florida, looks like they'll score again before the half. Hyuk. OSU was HEAVILY favored. This is fun. The stadium looks more like H.R. Giger than Death Star.

Today the Falcons introduced Bobby Petrino as the thirteenth coach in franchise history. After about three minutes of deliberation, I officially became optimistic and will remain so for the next year, at least. Nice feeling. Good name, too.

10:28: The Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B. The biggest game of the college year and they eat air time with halftime marching bands. WHO watches marching bands on TV? They kill time nicely at an arena with no other competing media, save the occasional frisbee catching dog. TBS is running Family Guy. How clever and ironic. I cast my lot.

11:11: I finally check back and there's been no score at the end of the third quarter, Florida in control by twenty. Iggy Pop heard on a Cadillac commercial makes me wonder what mosquito needed to live in the past to have affected the future this way. Great fucking song, though.

11:46: The last look I'll give to the game finds the score in a palindrome, 41-14. That's all I need (bad, fake, Irish accent).

And We're Off!!

The eye of the hurricane offers many benefits, including Jonny Cat on my lap. The wafting notes of Sugaree weave around my noggin in a glorious parade of memory. Insanely warm temperatures are still the norm with a low temp of 58 degrees tonight. That's about 27 degrees above normal. Good thing I'm childless so the planet can just die with me and my generation. What is the rest of the world doing tonight? Business as usual? That can't last forever. Slowly I begin to find ways to reenter civilization and some of these ways seem viable while others seem to come from pipes, or something. Early January can be a lifeless time but a shiny red bicycle can change that attitude and I'm not so crippled anymore. My muscles are grateful for the ache and I feel like a man again, able to prowl the land and pick the battles.

Five years old again
Picking my nose and my friends
No hurry to grow

Cro Magnon Masterpiece

I've learned new tricks and embrace the cold which leaves the cold uneasy and confused ... and then I've got him. Perhaps my mother mated with a scorpion. At this point I was going to do a year-in-review piece but the Menagerie is just one big review anyway. Let's just say that 2006 was a link between cycles and let it go at that. "Let the dead bury the dead, Mr. Finch." Right off the bat, the number 2007 is much cleaner and obviously ready for action. Fittingly, the year ended on one of the most ugly kind of days; steady downpour with the moisture and the fog seeping in through the cracks, making it seem like the sun hardly came up at all. Perfect for a couch and football and we'll start fresh next year. That will include a new coach for the Atlanta Falcons, God be praised. We need a southern man for this job, not a redneck, per se, but a tough, steely gambler with riverboat charm. That and technical prowess ought to do the trick. Do I ask for too much? The year really begins on the second, when the norm is restored and most hangovers have percolated down to the bedrock. Now I set myself in the path of the future, not on the rocks but in the hard icy current. You should wager five hundred quatloos on the newcomer, that's me!