Chopper polishin' time!

Actually, things are looking up. The dentist didn't weep upon viewing my teeth for a change.

Katarina and her Fancy-Ass Bag

Finally, someone has captured my essence.

At the Reagan building

Dr. Marc Irwin on the keys, TW on stage singing to Delores, whom he is obscuring completely.

Step Three

Yum. That one before last was a movie, by the way, guys. Click the arrow....

Step Two...

Papaw, we are dining in your honor this evening

I love Japanese game shows

Because, as just happened, you can overhear things like, "He hopes to overcome his fear of heights by not falling." Heh. Don't we all. It's rainy and awful here. Love you guys.

A return to the kicking of my ass

Kevin occasionally invites me to tennis with him, primarily because my impudent serve amuses him and because he can squash the rest of my game like a bug. He is 20 years my junior and at least 12 times my size, having a wingspan like a seagoing albatross. He stands dead center and can reach everywhere on the court, taking great pleasure in running my agèd corpse all over until I droop and wheeze like some ancient, graying schnauzer. And then he laughs.

But it's hot and rainy, so Kevin informed me that he has now taken membership in an indoor tennis facility, the better to study my wheezings and thrashings in its unforgiving fluorescent glare.



It's a curious canvas half-egg, draped with plastic walls and ghostly white netting.



And of course Kevin beat me like a gong once again. However, my serve was VERY impudent and he was able to run me around less than usual. Perhaps my bones are growing back again. Next, the muscles!

Courtesy Johanna...

...I have a new phone with a new chip and this is my first pic: a grim study titled, 'Splintery Socks.'

Things I forgot....

Some pictures from up in Massachusetts just slipped through the cracks. Plus I had them saved on my computer.



This giant bat, for instance.It's laying about for no particular reason being pointlessly arty not far from our hotel.

Also, somehow the extraordinarily lowbrow and tasty Hot Dog Ranch and its wares missed the cut.



Not far away, I'm not sure if it's the overgrown buggy field, the rust, or the proximity to highway exhaust that makes me so resolutely say, "No!" to this.



Not to mention I completely forgot to put this up on the 6th, which --if one takes the farm market sign as gospel-- was World Breastfeeding Celebration Day. I would be willing to bet that would be one of the more entertaining holiday parades you could attend. I would strive for a front row seat, myself. Also one of the few holidays that seems to have its own soundtrack. By David Grover



Lastly, the Cranwell rabbit. Always around, always eating, ballsy as hell. I'm pretty sure he growled at me and I didn't know bunnies could growl. You could walk up pretty close to him and he wouldn't do more than eye you warily, his rabbity cheeks stuffed with grass or weeds or whatever the hell he was eating. And growl. I think. He sorta had Charlie's attitude. He endured us watching him. But he didn't like it.

All of our groupies reek of moth balls

Yesterday drove the four hours up the road to Penn State University, dragging our diminutive pianist, Dr. Marc Irwin with me. Sadly, I always have an idea in my head of what I think a college show should be like.



It's years of frat party movies and Girls Gone Wild videos and Playboy's Hottest Co-ed issues and, well, yes, actually having been to college.



And despite years of having done show after show at college after college, hoping hope against hope against hope...



...the reality never quite lives up what I've been expecting. Tonight was no exception.


And, no, I haven't found my camera memory chip. Why do you ask?

Tragically...

...I removed the tiny little chip from my phone that allows me to save pictures. And I have misplaced it. I know it's around somewhere. However, it makes it more difficult to document my surroundings. I shall have to rely on surrogate photos for the time being.

For instance, I blundered through the heat day before yesterday down to the little park maybe a mile from here to find a giant Ecuadorian Family Picnic Gathering Day or something going on.  Anyway, lots of heart-rendingly lovely Ecuadorian ladies, many a disgruntled-appearing Ecuadorian Poppa, and large tables groaning with roasted guinea pigs and whatnot, and even larger megaphones blasting out community speeches or political exhortations or bingo numbers or something. It seemed to have no effect whatsoever on the crowd even as they cheered every word.

Happy Birthday, Mom!

I love you, Mom
I always will
Although I've always been a pill
And never did keep very still,
I love you, Mom, I always will.

I love you, Mom,
I'll always care
Although I am not always there,
And sometimes, maybe, cause despair,
I love you, Mom, and always care.

I love you, Mom
Forever more,
Though farther than I was before,
I wish I still lived right next door,
I love you, Mom, forever more.

Happy Birthday, Mom. I wish I was there.

Good morning, New York

Looking south from the tiny Doubletree on W. 29th. I'm pretty the WTC would have filled a lot of that sky space. Will put up pictures from the boat later. Must head to LaGuardia.

Smelly cab?

VERY smelly cab.

Good Lord

Drove home all night long, slept solid for two days, didn't even post anything and already on a plane back to Manhattan. I'll miss the busy when it's gone...in, like, two days.

One last drive past Lover's Lane...

...conveniently located next to a playground for maximum creepiness.  Local authorities have made a safe haven for the teenagers in these parts to explore their budding senses of complete irresponsibility.

One last schvitz....

Last day at the range

Well, no more free balls...so probably no more golf for another year. But great for the shoulder, not bad for the torso musculature, and very psychologically satisfying when you actually manage to whack the hell out of the thing. Things like this are always more fun when you don't keep score, I reckon.

Mick Jagger has nothing to fear

Yes, he may be older. But he still looks better when he does this.  Me and Jon Bell proving we're no Mick Jaggers.

Local nuisance

Me and Maw had gone to bed, our bodies drained and weary,
I felt a hand upon my head, I opened one eye, bleary,
'twas tiny little Tommy, his young eyes all wide with fright,
He looked from me to Mommy, then he peered into the night

"Why, Tom, my funny little lad, what's with this late-night waking?
Have you seen something bad?" He had, he said, his hands a-shaking.
His little voice began to rise, he blurted out with feeling,
"A gargoyle that has light-up eyes is pooping on the ceiling!"

I was taken quite aback, did not know what to say.
That's not the kind of fact you're used to hearing every day.
And then, I guess, it dawned on me, that Tommy still was waiting,
I guess I'd have to go and see this ghastly defecating.

So through the door and down the stair, outside to see this proof
And sure enough, a gargoyle's there a-poopin' on the roof.
He looked at me with light-up eyes, his manner grand and haughty
And squeezing out one last surprise, completed his foul potty.

And then he stood against the sky and gave us one last glare
He spread his wings, began to fly, and vanished in the air.
Me and Tommy rarely speak, the subject gives us tingles.
But once in a while we have to peek at the pile up on the shingles...

Default mode...

Brought some friends with me

Tell Michelle that I like my monstrous potholders so much I brought them with me.  ROWR!

Liberals hate oil

Sure, I'm in Massachusetts, notorious democratic stronghold, cradle of the Kennedys --who got rich the good liberal way, not by selling you legal oil to pour into your car, but by being drug dealers: selling you illegal booze you could pour down your throat-- home to the arty-farty Berkshires, wherein I am currently located.  A place that probably has more mimes than plumbers.  So if your toilet breaks, a mime will come to your house and teach you how to pretend to poop, instead.

And liberals hate oil. Oil reeks of Bush and things Bushy and Texas and killing A-rabs to keep our lawn tractors full and Bush and fat-cat businessmen with cigars and giant oily bags of loot with dollar signs on them and Bush and oligarchs and Bush. Unfortunately, as with so many things we deprecate and fulminate against --our parents, our jobs, cable television, Barry Manilow-- part of the hatred is wrapped up intimately with the undeniable fact that we need these things desperately and even secretly like and admire them.  But oil isn't like our jobs --grumbling like an underground cancer bothers oil not a whit-- nor is it like our parents --we can stomp off to our rooms all night long and oil isn't going to give a shit. 

Massachusetts realizes this, surrounded and filled as she is with giant petrol tanks to warm the rural houses and lots full of huge, thirsty plows to deal with the narrow wintry highways that wind through gentle hills, punctuated by the kind of fire hydrants that have long golf-hole-style flags on them to indicate where they are in deep, deep snow.  Massachusetts needs her oil.  And judging from the proudly gleaming (and occasionally even decorated) oil tanks everywhere, Massachusetts LOVES her oil.  But oil is bad. Oil is a slut. Massachusetts loves her oil, but only call it by dirty, dirty names. You naughty, naughty, oil.  I wasn't able to get pictures of the trucks for Gross Oil or Throw Up-y Hideous Turd Squeezings Oil, but you get the drift.