Month: April 2021

Ya know I’ve found myself, over the last couple of years, to be prone to a parody tune or two, political stuff (minus the occasional things about cats peeing where they shouldn’t) the Orange Devil, going to hell in a handbasket, hypocrisy, authoritarian leanings, that sort of thing, obvious shit, things that for some reason I find necessary to point out because of being dumbfounded by that obviousness. Does anyone listen and should you see these things on your own accord without my poorly sung insistence? No and sure but not without disappointment.

I have though discovered this. I enjoy the fuck out of writing some new lyrics and the looking forward to singing whatever song is my latest project. Give me my little studio on a Friday night with personal obligations I don’t have, a pair of headphones, a knowing that my girls will survive if I’m a couple of hours late (though Mimi will remind of such when I do get home in that smokers sounding annoyed rasp of hers) and I’m all good. No one is going to read my straight right up rants, hell I wouldn’t read them myself, but with a bit of a tune? Maybe.

I ran this one by my “Mikey likes it” or doesn’t like it friends earlier, a taste test if you Mikey will and I got thumbs up as opposed to another recent thing I sent them that didn’t even garner a late night cricket. Apparently they hate Neil Diamond. Can’t blame ’em I guess.

Anyway, something new here in the Attic. A take on the late 80’s classic “Crash” from the The Primitives.

“Oh shush Memes, I know, I’m late …”

Crush

Here we go, fuckin’ fast

Must pass laws we hope’ll la-ast

Cause we know, in blatant show-ow

We can’t win with a vote’s honest go

So Stop, stop the polls

Shut some doors maybe clear the rolls

Make it rough, so no close ca-alls

We wanna make sure of a doubts no go

So restrictions where there weren’t none

Enact new rules replace old ones

That worked just fine when it was we won

But when we didn’t there was clearly something wrong

.

Na na na na na na na na na

(we gotta crush the vote)

Na na na na na na na na na

(we gotta crush the hope)

.

Here they go, fuckin’ fast

Chauvin a martyr white bias cast

Say Maxine shut your mou-outh

Your words are a fire that’ll burn the town

But Trump words, were benign

Hugs and kisses it was just sublime

It was really nothing be concerned

Only five dead and the cap riot didn’t earn  

What libs will have us learn

No that was just a patriots turn 

But now the Tuckers and the pundits churn

Will have believe verdicts real concern was burn

Chauvin’s martyr turn

Excuse for justice served

.

Na na na na na na na na na
(gonna crush the vote)
Na na na na na na na na na
(gonna crush the hope)
Na na na na na na na na na
(ignorance it is the show)
Na na na na na na na na na
(white nationals refuse the blow)

Na na na na na na na na na

(gonna crush the vote)
Na na na na na na na na na
(gonna crush the hope)
Na na na na na na na na na
(ignorance it is the show)

Mmmm hmmm

Well, the girls just survived a visit from The Louie.

Mimi: Egads!! What the hell is that thing?!

Bella: Did you just say “Egads”?

Mimi: Yeah, and?

Bella; Well don’t look at me on that thing. Hell, you came from the “down there” you should know … and please don’t say “Egads” again … ever.

Mimi: Hey, I’ve been up here for a while thank you and anyway I don’t know this one. I’d surely remember such a slobbery mess.

Bella: Yeah, well a HAPPY slobbery mess since it’s eating all our freakin’ food!

Cricket: Hey, what’s goin’ on you two?

Mimi: Oh, it’s disgusting. Where’d that human of ours go? He didn’t leave us with this abomination did he? And what’s with all the snorting?

Bella: I don’t know, a truffle hunt identity crisis? And I think he just went to the “down there”, he didn’t say goodbye like 30 times like he usually does during the week.

Mimi: That is kind of annoying huh? Just say goodbye once and get the hell out already.

Cricket: Hello?! Anyone? A little help you two, blind over here ya know. What’s happening?

Bella: It’s just one of those noisy, slobbery, snorty things from the “down there” eating up all of our damn food!!

Cricket: Oh, that’s all? Ok. let me know when it’s gone. I’ve got more blind circles to pace.

Mimi: Hold on I hear footsteps. Save us human!!! And please clean those bowls and Adam’s to go’s before you put more food back in them. They’re all freakin’ gross and spitty now.

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I had popped my head downstairs to say Hi to Celie who had just gotten home, along with her son Matt, and I was grabbing the last of some things in the dryer. It is a benefit of living here that I’m able to keep the sundries and other such wearing things clean on a weekly basis without having to outsource it to some spot where quarters are at a premium, uncomfortable sitting is required, even a good book not enough to distract and I’d have to have sanitizer at my hip on a worn leather belt like some sort of gunslinger in the Covid age.

After a quick hello to cats and Celie humans and an insistant bird and a retreat back to a soon hamper fill I made my way through the mudroom where the washer/dryer sits as well as the door to my upstairs. I did a quick dog count and a “goodnight” at each count head check.

Got ‘em all, Pea, Polly, Georgia, Chrissy with head pets and bellys and under chins and … Louie? But wait … There wa’nt no Louie. Where the hell was Louie?

Seems I had left my door ajar. Louie knows all about doors ajar. Well, it was no longer “ajar” but fully open and seeming to invite Louie to venture.

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I stopped at PetSmart earlier today on my way home from a little sendoff for my brother Nick, who is bound for Louisiana, a new step in his Entergy world. He has worked at Indian Point for years I can’t count now as some stuff and time melds, but with it’s soon closing he is off to a new spot to continue to patrol places we never really think of but provide us with light to write words.  

It was a nice sendoff. Brothers in Beacon, NY, a place with pizza, they probably call it artisan, but a menu beyond that, I’ll have the chicken scarpariello with those cherry peppers and jalapenos please, a place that has been the go-to for so many years of our family moments.  Beck (my sis) and her guy Buck, in the coolest of hats, a similar fedora type thing I rocked from the Cherry Door thrift shop so many years ago in college, gave Nick a Christmas present that he didn’t get back when we were Christmasing from afar, a really nice Marines t-shirt  that could kick my ass just from looking at it, I gave him a small box of some Alan Parsons CD’s for the to Louisiana drive because of course I did.

Mom was there with Al, her guy, who genuinely, almost accidentally laughed in his stoidness at some of my and our stupid stories, especially the one about that time years ago where I came to find myself wearing my ex-father in law’s underwear (story for another time) and Ma sat being Ma gathering her collar in the chill that was an outside sit (my only stipulation on going to a restaurant). Can’t really ask for more than that. A Ma, and a proud new hairdoo with some new blonde highlights Ma. There is a disconnect as things slide, but Ma was a Ma today surely cursing somewhere in her head why we had to be sitting outside with her gathered collar in the not quite cold almost warm of a Saturday Spring but still cold to her “Stephen I’ll brain you for this chill as it’s all your fault”.

//////////////////////////////////////////

I only went to Petsmart for a few things, all double masked up and head down. No Ron DeStupid Florida type stuff here. Other than Price Chopper early in the morning once a week or so I don’t usually stray, but it was on my way, and I wanted some cans of that food that have a fancier look, ones that claim Farm and others that claim Ocean and cost a few more cents, but gain an extra nose and an extra lick and a bag of Royal Canin dry food that I can only blame Bob Miller for. He’s the morning show guy for WBPM here and when the last of his best passed not too long ago he gave me what was left, even though there were now kitten newbies, a let go and a start anew I guess, some foods that I gladly took not realizing at the time that Mimi The Quirky, Cricket the Blind and my little Bella would find the Royal Canin to be the greatest dry cat food since the big dry cat food bang.  

This shit’s almost 40 bucks a bag BOB!! I wanna see your portfolio. What dry cat foods are you invested in?

Motherfucker.

//////////////////////////////////////////

Louie cleaned house. He went past the ajar and just vacuumed, not a hard bowl or plastic Adams to go box left with even a morsel. But the girls were fine, each in their own computer chair, when I made my way to the fast realization follow up the stairs, calling for and shooing a Louie away.

Just stares from two out of three of the chairs, a nose up from the third wondering of the sloppy mess that is a Louie, more curiosity than anything else was all I had to be worried of it seems.

I stepped back down to note to Celie and to Matt of a Louie and whatever words I could find to convey the funny of a Louie mess in my apartment but they were heads in on another furry project. A blind one who’s needs superseded anything that I could imagine.

Me: You’re all good girls. Ya met Louie I’m assuming? Yeah, I know. He’s a pain in the ass. Hard bowls and Adams to go’s are back in order now, and I de-louie’d them.  (Mimi: Oh, thank goodness!!)

Me: Thank goodness indeed Memes.

Mimi: Woah!!! You can hear me?

Me: I can if I’m the one writing this and, well, I am a crazy cat lady guy, that would only make sense right?

Mimi: Freaky.

Me: Oh, I guess it’s a good thing I stopped at PetSmart on the way home now that everything needs a refill. Loaded up on that fancier looking Frisky stuff you three like and got another bag of the Royal Canin. Freakin’ expensive stuff, gotta kick Bob’s ass and definitely gotta keep Louie away in the future, but you’re all set now.

Mimi: Ummmm … thanks?

Me: Welcome.

Mimi: Hey Bella guess wh…

Bella: Don’t look at me, I ain’t saying a word.

As I was driving home earlier this week, enjoying day three of temps in the upper 60’s, finally a nice stretch that might stay now (I’m not checking the forecast forward by the way just in case) I had my windows down welcoming the breeze of the early evening and the drive, Alan Parsons “I Robot” playing just loud enough to remind me of when Ma might knock on my bedroom wall and I came to one of the many, waaaay too many traffic lights on Route 9 here in Poughkeepsie.

I was in the middle lane of three when from behind me in the outside lane I heard heavy metal. Definitely not the Alan Parsons Project, and definitely not a just loud enough Mom knock on the wall kinda volume. No, this was at a Mom pound on the wall kinda volume, maybe even accompanied with yells, wall broom handles and threats. It sat behind me, just to my left drowning out I Robot’s “Breakdown” until the light turned green and as we moved forward it passed me … windows wide … a mini van, a kidless mini van, with the van’s younger Mom driving it. No worries of broom handles or threats I guess. No pound on walls when you’re the one behind those walls right? Just sensible walls on wheels. I thought to myself “Nice. Nicely done. Nicely loudly played open windows some younger Mom.”

Besides noting that younger moms’ nice play of rockin’ out in her mini van I did note something else, something I just don’t quite get and something, really, that I find a bit dismaying. She and I and just a relative handful of others, compared to the amount of traffic you’ll find on Route 9 at this time, were the only ones with our windows open.

Now when I tell you the weather was just perfect, throw that sweatshirt from the morning in the back seat when you get in to head home your t-shirt just fine perfect? The sun setting sitting setting just right, and prettily so, not blinding, no you don’t need your unnecessary too cool shades perfect?  A breeze that is just, just, as you sit at traffic lights with a comfy elbow out happy to be breathing?  Yeah, it was that perfect. That finally weather, the weather with a small window that you’ll eventually hark back on not too long from now, annoyingly so, but fondly, as you do every year, about how you wish it could have stayed like that when the heat comes.

Yet I noted so many closed windows, so many driving closed with what, all I can assume, is their AC on already. Really?! 6 months or so of cooped closed windows at home, at the office if you were there, in your car because Winter and when you finally get a chance for some fresh air, especially now, you keep your windows closed and maybe go for the AC?

I mentioned this to a best of friend at work who sheepishly raised a hand.

“it’s because it seems kind of oppressive” he said.

“No, no it doesn’t” I said with an eyebrow.

“But to go from the cold to this it can definitely feel kind of oppress …”

I let him trail off as his justification was just lame.

Now admittedly I don’t like AC, I hate it. At work? Well, that is what it is when it is and I have my at work zip up hoodie at the ready just in case. But given the choice? No, I ain’t using it if I’m in a position to not. I haven’t used AC in the car since I lived in Florida for a short time and that was 20+ years ago and even then it was as infrequent as possible. Not wanting the need to maybe change my shirt the second I clocked in the only reason for it. Hell, I’ve owned BB going on 4 years now and I’m not even really sure if his AC works. I mean, I tried it once when I first bought him, just a check it kind of thing, but it didn’t do a lot of AC’ing, just a lot of air blowing, was probably in need of a re-charge I thought but? That would be a waste of money since I’m not going to use it especially as that runs around 150 bucks or so these days.

At home? I had one of those inside, on wheels droid looking things with a vent hose for a window when I first took my now going on 7 years singleness on the road to an apartment in Hyde Park. It was really just a noisy bother and only eventually had me laying things on or over it, usually Pirates hats or a Tees first step before the hamper and repeating Star Wars lines at it …  “This isn’t the AC droid you’re looking for … ”

My wonderful little apartment here for the last 3 now going on 4 summers has central air and I know that “central air” can, for some, call heavenly horns right? The thing realtors surely sell hard, but for me it’s a just a thing, a thing I won’t use.

I have fans and open windows with bought cat seats or fashioned storage binned ones with towel tops. I mean why even have a window if you can’t open it and sit with a cat and see and hear and feel their view?

I like open widows and being aware of the sound outside of them. Throw in some fans for the summer and I’m all set. I want to hear the singing of birds and bugs in the morning and the trains that used to pass just across the Hudson in my Hyde Park apartment at night, inspiring clickety clackety clack bad poetry. I want to hear traffic in the distance, sirens and stories imagined, to hear neighbors fighting or laughing or cooking with plate and silverware sounds, wondrous things that waft scents and click forks up the stairs, open windows. I refuse to not hear the world, to not feel natural breezes aided with a fan or two, to not have to curse when rains come and I have to close them.

Here, at times, I’ve heard the owls at night or the roosters in the morning, the cows when they’re cowing and reminding of cow wants, the sniffing and huffing of horses, dogs barking and cats occasionally reminding other cats to back the fuck off. I want to hear the lawn mower possibly wake me from an early Saturday afternoon nap after I spent Friday night being an idiot and staying up too late like I was a kid again, I want that to hear that mower wake me and throw at me some of the sweetest of newly cut grass smells.

Can’t your closed window AC just take a sec, till when you really have the need for your creature comfort to then bitch about the heat later? Just take a sec to air stuff out now on a perfect of Spring rides home?

As she drove off, that younger mom, I applauded her moment, my moment, a not quiet one for sure, Mom’s a knockin’, maybe on the way for a pick up of the kids to fill that mini-van with a different not quite musical noise, a one of love and obligation, but she had her loud windows open, a least for a little bit, welcoming a real breeze … with a soundtrack.

A loud soundtrack.

Cheers younger Mom.

Rock on.