life – Page 2

It’s a Frankenberry Monster Cereal Family Time … Again … Again … So Matt … (post post)

September 28, 2025October 12, 2025by Stephen J Frankenberry3 Comments

Note: revisiting this one from last year, my first Fall here in my role as the Brother Uncle Troll under the stairs, one who doesn’t eat cats by the way (sorry, I know that’s kind of random) as some tails might go, but looks to them, instead, as friends and for emotional support and as somefur’s to defer to and claim to be talking with so as not to completely appear like just someone slowly becoming a batshitting nutter talking to the wind or chemtrails or RFK Jr or ghosts or Nelson (one of the extra folks in his head) … again.

Oh, Nelson? He’s quite nice in case you were curious.

Bella: (stretching) Hey dude. Did you say something?

Me: Just go along with it Bell, for appearances sake, Ok?

Bella: Sure, whatever. I’ve always been a bit iffy on this Neslon fella by the way, just to let you know..

My first Fall it was then, with my Sis and Nephew(s) and extra cats (see? I wasn’t going totally nowhere with that) and because, now, truthfully, I’ve just really been looking forward to calendars turning and to re-posting it for some fun as it’s one of my favorite posts. It is, though, a bit long so if do you take the time (much appreciated) I recommend a stand up and stretch in the middle and a stroll to the concession stand and maybe a pillow behind your back for when you sit back down.

It’s that time of year where we see our name displayed in all its sugary, questionably healthy, comically scary strawberry Frankenstein Monster goodness, any number of “essential” vitamins just an added bonus (See?! I told you Ma! essential freakin’ vitamins!! It IS good for us!!) on grocery store shelves and make sure to text each other pictures of our first sighting.

From Beck this past Friday “‘Tis the season!” and even with a new Jim Henson Muppet character design, well how ’bout’s that!?, though we need to find a store manager to discuss shelving priorities. On the bottom?! Really?! And Boo on top? Love him like a brother but there has never been a day where I didn’t have to open some windows and air out the smoke with this guy.

Anyway, from last year, one that also includes a post from a couple of years ago within it about the newest member of the Frankenfamily then, Carmella Creeper, Caramel Apple, nice change of pace and so much better looking than the rest of us, well in an undead, sweet Caramel Apple but eat your brain zombie-like kinda way.

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October 20th, 2024

When I got home earlier last week I said to my Sis (Beck) and Nephew Matt “So, how do you know when it’s October?” Pretty simple, the pumpkins adorning front steps, the Halloween decorations filling up lawns, sometimes to the extreme (oversaturation people!! Fun, but oversaturation!! And inflatable evil doesn’t really come across) football season already more than a quarter way through, the cool crisp nip to the air and the proliferation of hoodies and sweaters and the nagging sense of dread at the back of your head and taste buds of pumpkin spice (Pumpkin Spice is people!!!)”

I know, I said that last year, and probably the year or years before that too just because it’s funny (Ok, even if only I think so) but still, I didn’t yell that part all madly Charlton Heston-like as not to frighten the children so we’re good, but then I asked “How do you know when it’s October in this family though? When you see this particular display in the grocery store” … and I then showed the both of them the picture on my phone from my trip to Market Bistro (my new favorite grocery store by the way and I absolutely LOVE a good grocery store as any any old man should) in Latham earlier to grab something for my lunch (and no, I wasn’t grabbing Halloween time perfect cereal, Mom would not approve of such a meal, not now anyway) to which Beck said “Hell yeah!!!”

Though Beck immediately noted the lack of Fruit Brute or Yummy Mummy in the display … then it was a quick lesson of family history for Matt who had also chimed in with his Mom’s “Hell Yeah!!” but didn’t really know why.

“Yah see Matt … why don’t you sit down son. Way back in ’71, the Monster Family of cereals was born into a cereal age where sugar coated treats could be sold as a healthy breakfast option replete with whole grain and a varying number of essential vitamins and minerals and calcium (add milk) but also a laundry list of other ingredients you couldn’t pronounce that would cause pause years later according to science and could probably explain some things, but claimed with cartoon character spokestoons for legitimacy in a kid’s world and Frankenberry, Count Cholula and Boo-Berry were welcomed into the greater family fold of these cartoony sweet characters with hyperactive kids Mom sleeve tugging in the grocery store to buy “Please, Please, Please!”, Ok’d by Moms only because of the “essential vitamins and minerals” labeling bit and the need to get you to just shut the hell up and stop stretching her blouse.

Your uncle here was only 7 back in that day, Matt, a day where the internet was Saturday morning commercials of cereals and candies and toys that just happened to have cartoon vignettes placed between them of anvils and beep beeps and a wondrous company called “Acme” that provided myriad ways to blow shit up, Wacky Racers Wacky Racing, cat and mouse best friends trying to kill each other, a snarky rabbit in a rabbit hole “What’s up Doc-ing?” with a sarcastic smirk and a carrot, a That’s All Folks’ and before, shudder, the actual internet, where you had to walk uphill both ways in your bare feet over broken glass (Yes, a lotta broken glass back then Matt and folks without shoes … oh, and it snowed a lot, No, I don’t know why, it just was) to get information from a library or a newspaper and where you communicated with your friends through an ancient tradition of talking face to face or on a telephone attached to a wall in a kitchen that was only as smart as the conversation happening on it (which was often decidedly NOT, no matter who was on it, Moms and Dads included) but one that came with a timer as, back in that day Matt, the whole family shared just one phone, or more to the point, just one phone line even if there were other phones in bedrooms, maybe, for the hoity-toity wannabe’s who just wished to show off to friends and neighbors but which could get uncomfortable with your mother showing them into her and Dad’s bedroom for a “glance” at a new bedspread or curtains or something … “Oh that little extra phone thing on my nightstand?” but still just one line, so that if you picked up another phone you could hear someone else’s conversation.

So you had to learn patience and a respect for privacy (unless you thought your Mom had some juicy shit to share with her friend Marina or there was something you could hold over your brother and his friend’s heads to blackmail them with so you quietly snuck into Mom and Dad’s room and picked up the hoity-toity phone) or if it was a real far away friend you might actually have to send a letter as those long distance calls could be a cost so you sat down in your room and wrote a letter with words on paper, or parchment as you might think of it now, and then put it in an envelope with a stamp … what you might ask? … a stamp? … oh, a small square sticky paper thing with fancy edges that represented mail money with presidents on them or flags or flowers or whatever was the latest “this deserves to be on a stamp!” picture that you licked a gluey bit to stick them … yes licked … a gluey bit … with your tongue … and after some person at the Post Office had rolled or layed out however many you were looking for with their bare, possibly filthy fists across the sticky bit that you were going to lick … I know … how did we all survive and that stamp went on that envelope that you wrote an address on and put in the mailbox to then wait patiently for a reply until you died of old young age. And you can’t even imagine what a breakthrough stamps you could peel off of a sheet were!! Think of the DVR or the toaster oven or the wheel just in a stamp kinda way … and the public health implications? It was HUGE!

Anyway, I won’t belabor this as I’ve written something to this effect at this season for years, just know Matt, that I don’t change, nothing in the air at this time has me suddenly looking any scarier or sickly sweet as I do on a Sunday morning, after a sleepless Saturday night doing just this sort of overly wordy thing only with beer, for a pee replete with “Aaaaaarrrgggghhhhs!!” at a damp bath mat soaking my socks (dammit fella’s!! can ya dry off in the shower a bit more when you’re done please?! And I was gonna keep wearing these dirty socks I’ve had on since Friday!! They were practically, and comfortably mind you, pasted to my feet”) full moons don’t have me suddenly transform, that is a Fruit (Frute) Brute gig in his warewolfyness, I don’t float around all dreary eyed high-like wondering who I might be the blueberry spirit of (probably of some marketing guy who reveled the late 60’s too much), I don’t have a sarcophagus in the basement where all that overbought emergency toilet paper of recent years can come in handy, I don’t have to run from villagers chasing me with torches and pitchforks and poorly misspelled signs just at the mere sight of my pink self for sale on a grocery store shelf, like some sort of monster nightmare commodity replete with steam vent horns and temperature gages, clunky boots, knobs in my neck and sleepless night residual sugar highs (I swear some of that sugary stuff could sit in the system Matt … like all freakin’ day! … at least that was what could have been my excuse for a who me was then if I hadn’t been too young to think of it).

But do know, as you grab at crucifixes and lunge for holy water that that ain’t my monster domain either, plus poking me with said crucifixes while making a nice lemon butter and garlic pasta just makes me giggle, it tickles, and that is the Count’s purview anyway, plus he takes a pill now that helps him “Wow, I never knew how tasty garlic was!” which he says EVERY FUCKIN’ TIME WE TRY TO ENJOY ANYTHING WITH GARLIC AND IN HIS ANNOYINGLY OVERDONE ACCENT (he always wanted to be an actor). Yeah, we get it … you can have garlic now … sigh

But I should also let you know Matt that your Mom was remiss in her noting the lack of inclusion of some family members in the “family picture” display at Market Bistro as last year we Monster’s were introduced to a long lost cousin, and a pretty cute one too, well, as cute as an undead zombie that only wants to eat your brain can be cute, Carmella Creeper, but certainly a hell of a lot cuter than we ugly mugs, that’s for sure. Yes, that includes you Count. No, shut up, you ain’t “distinguished lookin'”

Carmella has fit in quite nicely and to tell you the truth it is nice to have a woman around, she freshen’s up our old guy monsters perspective and in Caramel Apple, such a tasty new addition to our old, tired flavors.

Anyway Matt, that is the story and where we stand right now in another Frankenberry Monster Family cereal season.

Matt: (looking up suddenly at the stares from his Mom and myself) “What … were you talking to me?”

Me: “You put your earbuds in didn’t you? Had them in almost the whole time?”

Well, anyway, next October will come around sooner than you think for more story time.

Before that though, this was the Attic introduction of Carmella to House Frankenberry Monster Cereal Haunted House of the Monster Cereal Family House.

Ok, I can work on that.

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June 10, 2023

A Welcome To A New Monster Cereal Family Member

A good friend of mine recently posted to me at Facebook of the arrival of a new member of the family of Monster Cereals, Carmella Creeper. (thanks Patty, I didn’t get the cereal text alert for some reason … thought for sure I was on the list).

Fixing up her room here in the haunted house as we speak.

For those that may not know my name is actually Frankenberry. It’s not a radio handle I invented somehow as some have thought on occasion over the years, that I may have decided, maybe drunkenly they surely had to have thought, that a pink strawberry flavored Frankenstein looking monster cereal character would be the perfect name to attach to a radio persona or to a Blog from an Attic.

No, Stephen J Frankenberry to be exact as my English mother would surely and adamantly have you note. And Stephen with a proper “PH” she would also add. Not some Americanized “V” as she always viewed it. Not that she thought less of anyone with that “V” mind you, though maybe silently thinking such of the parents, “It’s not their kids fault” she surely thought.

“I’m sure they are all very fine Stephens but just with a “V” … Oh, Bloody Hell!”

The cereal came out when I was 7, in 1971 (yes, I’m old) and inspired many the jokes then and ribbings on long school bus rides and also prank phone calls on the weekends that would drive my mother mad, in a “mad” monstery kind of way though.

“Hello, is Count Chocula there? (click)

“Hello, is Boo Berry there?” (click)

A few years later

“Hello, is Fruit Brute there? (click)

She, in her very English just off the plane only 8 years earlier, had no idea what prank phone calls were.

“Joseph Frankenberry!! You and this bloody name!!” followed with a “Hell’s Bells” and many other very English expletives that she would eventually get a bit more explicit with but in an English accent which just made them sound really cool and cute so you forgave.

Whatever and well, I have always been inextricably connected to a pink strawberry flavored Frankenstein monster cereal character and am quite fond of it, even have a tattoo on my forearm to proclaim Monster Family solidarity.

So, to find out that I have a cousin?

Well now, that was pretty exciting.

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Nice to make your acquaintance Carmella, and welcome to the family.

So, a couple of things. I tend to walk around the haunted house here in only my boxers, neck bolts and my big ass scarred head and head accessories clutching a one eyed teddy bear, the Count can be a little arrogant and is something of a night bat with his late night TV viewing of horror and Hallmark flicks (he finds it very amusing that somehow the two aren’t really all that distinguishable from one another), Boo is a sweetheart though a little flighty, and Fruit Brute is a bit unpredictable and will most certainly leer at you. Just remind him that we are family and that this isn’t the South … oh, and that you will kick his ass (he’s all talk). Yummy Mummy visits from Egypt on the holidays and has his own room with a sarcophagus in the basement.

Oh, I’m also historically, according to the TV commercials, a bit of a scaredy cat, so if you can keep the “Creeper” part of “Carmella Creeper” to a minimum I would appreciate it. Your room is all the way up at the top of the stairs in the attic loft bedroom with a great crow’s eye view of the graveyard in the front lawn. It’s a pain in the ass to mow and weed whack around all the headstones but is still quite eye catching (though the HOA are NOT fans and don’t find the same aesthetic in it that we do).

But again, welcome to the Monster Cereal Fam Carmella!! Lookin’ forward to October!!

Brute, seriously? What did I tell you about her being family?! Really Carmella, feel free to kick his ass!!!

Look What Trump’s Done (song)

August 16, 2025February 16, 2026by Stephen J Frankenberry9 Comments

Now in January of last year I did a version of Melanie’s “What Have They Done To My Song” from back in 1970 with “Look What They’ve Done To Our Trump” which a good friend of mine commented at the time that she thought was the best parody tune I had done yet which was high praise because one: I had done a ton at that point and was still counting ’em and two: I didn’t really think she liked any of my parody tunes.

Who knew?

But hers is an opinion I value, still do and dearly so, so I took that, as I said, as high praise.

Well, things have changed dramatically since then, as we all know, and not for the better and I thought I’d revisit the song then and update the lyrics and do some liberal “borrowing” from the first one, freakin’ self plagiarist that I am!

Hey!! I said this is just an update!

Well, a slow tap of a foot and bop of a head again and some current thoughts.

Look what Trump’s done to his Trump, Ma

He’s the nightmare now that goes

bump

He finds fascism’s all he wants do just right

So he and despot pals are tight, Ma

Look what Trump’ s done to his Trump

Look what Trump’s done to the court, Ma

They’re just bought and paid for cohorts, now

He’s got six of ‘em dismissing precedents

And legislating from the bench, Ma

Look what Trump’s done to the court

He just wants a good country for whites to live in, Ma

Says he’s a true proud Ameri-can, Ma

Who just wants dismantle from the inside out

Destroy democracy for autocratic clout

Look what Trump wants for coun-try

NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA

NA NA NA NA NA NA NA

Cmon everybody NA NA NA with me

Maybe even LA DE DA

Look what Trump does for his Trump

But this’ll surely work for the right, Ma

Who’ll trade our freedoms for their piece of pie

They’ll justify a thuggish po-lice state

If it don’t come for them “well that’d be just great”

Until he finds their loyalty doesn’t rate

Now Trump’s just foll-o-wing a simple plan, Ma

Where he’s the Man to all his Stans, Ma

And he revels how easy this all has been

To revisit bleak history’s darkest sins

Look what our vote now calls a win

Look what Trump does for his Trump, Ma Ma Ma

He’s found just how to grift us all his chumps, Ma

He dances rooftops once re-vered houses white

While tastelessly gold gilding everything in sight

Look what Trump does for his Trump

He has a brand new day in mind does Trump, Ma

Not one where we all have an equal say

Life, Liberty and Happiness

The pursuit of such some DEI nonsense

Not part of his white Christian pretense

Look what Trump’s done to our ‘stead, Ma Ma Ma

Look what he does with nationalist in-tent

Well, fascism’s all he wants to do just right

With masked jackboots

Helping him sleep at night

This is what Trump calls himself a win

While singing dark songs

XTC and Days

July 27, 2025August 8, 2025by Stephen J Frankenberry1 Comment

Broke out XTC’s “Oranges and Lemons” from back in ’89 earlier this week as the weather called for something that wasn’t my latest in the car, the slog of old school Deep Purple, in all their iterations.

Now for reference, I don’t listen to music any longer except in the car, 25 minutes at a time, Lilly, my six speed old man CD playing (ask grandma or grandpa about CD’s) girl. Love ya ol’ bluesy heavy metal but you can only go so far and you can be a bit dull. Are you loud, yes, loud is good, has always been good (sorry Ma, I’ll turn it down) especially with open windows, but are you bright and bouncy and lyrically damning and compelling and biting enough for sunny days? No, that you are not.

I’ve been a music only in the car for the longest time now where I used to be an always in the foreground or at least in the background as a subtle soundtrack of days. Should I worry that things are falling off, that once loves have been so easily discarded like baseball (not my doing) or relationships for instance? (reasons) or more, just altered?

I don’t know and I probably should be a little concerned that I don’t really care I guess. I mean I like to hear new things, usually at work where we sometimes build spots with new music, but at this point in my oldness I have my comforts and going back to Deep Purple or The Rainmakers or The Silencers or Alan Parsons or Bob Mould or XTC works just fine for me. I just don’t really feel the need to invest myself in anything new, I’m pretty full in that old regard, though I do look forward to something new from MonaLisa Twins at some point, the only “new” that has caught my fancy in the longest of time.

No, I’m good, I have words and cats and my sister has cats, they sing well enough at my feet at the crack of stinky can or on a set of stairs, one of them just needs to learn how to play guitar or even bass … not drums though, I don’t wanna have to hit a broomstick on a wall like a cranky old landlady.

Including an Arthur … apologies, I kinda talk pretty loud …

“Really Steve, you don’t say”

“What?”

… something I am always reminded of in videos but then forget when taking a video. But ya gotta love his eventual southern belle-esque turn of disdain here, a “Why my Lord, I neva …” the only thing missing being him holding a dramatic paw up to his face.

Now back to XTC and “Oranges and Lemons” their “Sgt Pepper” or from the artwork their “Yellow Submarine” (every band wants to have their own). I had the hardest time trying to decide which tune from it to present in this post as this album is just perfect, and I have only come across a handful or so that would meet that “perfect” mark for me, filled with so many great choices of tune and so many that even sing to our current times from 36 years ago and with Arthur’s disdain.

(writer’s note to self: This isn’t Facebook numbnuts, you can put more than one video here… Oh, right …)

Ok, so three then.

And close with pictures of cats … there’s always pictures of cats.

Saphira The Diva …

Rikki The Raspy … dude, can ya run down the street and get me a pack of smokes …

An Arthur face …

Bella yells a yawn …

And Cricket commandeers my pillow …

Cheers all,

JJ and Me

July 19, 2025July 20, 2025by Stephen J Frankenberry5 Comments

Got a call from a friend of mine (Friday) while I was still toiling away in the radio salt mines (yes I know, I can be so dramatic). It had been a been a day of pounding that salt into fine powder, one that had lingered longer than the usual, giving me a right on angry headache, even more headache than the usual Friday where shit always lingers and aches said head, salted, longer than any other day of the week. “production Fridays”.

Yeah, they are a “thing” in my small salt production world, with so much stuff, last minute, that just “HAS” to start on Monday.

But when I got that phone call I realized I wasn’t on my way home, and that was my cue to be done. damn the torpedoes Tom and the Mondays, as when these phone calls happen we are usually on our ways. Just some talk while we have our quiet time through some short time drives. There is something to be said of our time in cars.

But I adjusted, just paced instead into a studio where I could talk loudly outside the morgue quiet of my digs on a Friday night (I talk loudly, like wake the dead loudly, so I try to be respectful if I can even if no one may be around)

These calls are check-ins, have always been check-ins, sometimes more for one side than the other, depending, make sures of still breathing (with the hopeful picked up phone for confirmation) make sures of things that friends check in on for a bit of normalcy like how are the cats, what about that game and the latest gimmick that pisses you off or how is the better half or the newbie and his ever growing feet and newfound baseball fascination and new working, ever evolving mind and new singular habits doing?

I have been lax lately on new stuff in the Attic, other than my latest “poem” (poem in quotes as I am not quite sure of it), but I just haven’t “felt it”, haven’t felt need to anything new, I just haven’t for reasons, reasons I couldn’t tell ya of as I don’t know them.

But this friend was checking in with me, this time, really, for just that.

You see, he’d actually listened to me when I have said, to him and to others in the past, you don’t need worry or to call, you don’t need to concern. If you are for some reason curious as to a me, just check the Attic in the dust and musk and piled things in newly uncovered cardboard boxes, piled things of still breathing thoughts in an upstairs this is where I’ll be.

He listened, he’d noticed. Shit, I didn’t think anyone would actually listen to my entreats.

What a wonderful discovery … that someone would actually check in with me via the Attic, that they would notice my recent ebb.

It was a good phone call, there are still cats, there are always cats and stories of dogs now in his case, and there are better wives and growing feet and Happy Meals and growing minds and new baseball fascinations (no, I won’t be a dick as to my current opinion of the game in the new rules era) and there are lives to catch up on even in small talk windows.

In studios instead of cars? No matter.

Just a blip JJ. Just an ebb. Still breathing my friend.

Same Stuff, Different Birthday

July 1, 2025July 19, 2025by Stephen J Frankenberry9 Comments

Well the fourth … hold on … no, fuck you ad (freakin’ calendar phone apps) keep holding … you know what, let me just turn this over old school instead on a wall with a tack, oh hello July, you look like a younger Grayson (he was a cat, a very special cat) …

… the fourth is supposed to be this Friday if these annoying ad inundated apps and cat calendars have anything to say about it and that is the deadline Trump has imposed on his Big, Ugly Ass Evil Bill reconciliation package so he can take a victory lap right before the holiday while grilling immigrants and hot dogs and passing out brown shirts and small flags on small sticks made in China while laying claim to yet another amazingly destructive measure that he seems to gain so much pleasure from, he’s probably even considering subtly implying necessary kickbacks from his oligarchs and thinking of hugging another poor unsuspecting flag again for emphasis … I know, who would do that right?

But, well, I’m going to try my best to not lose any more sleep over it for the moment (though that’s probably an empty desire) and instead just enjoy a short week for my birthday as I have taken it, the 1^st and then the 2^nd off, back in on Thursday and then off on Friday and into the weekend.

Now I have no plans for this, don’t wish to have any plans for it other than doing what I’m doing right now, keyboard scribbling and hanging out with the girls (Bella & Cricket) for a little extra time. And, well “no plans” is still a plan, at least in my book and I am REALLY good at such.

Hey? You need someone to assist you in planning no plans? I’m your guy. And it’s pretty simple really, I just tell people NOT to ask for my help and then just do nothing. I don’t know if they take this advice that I don’t give on helping to plan no plans but it works for me and I’m happily left in the dark as to their successes or failures.

But with my birthday rolling around for yet another year, timely precise bastard that it is (you know, you could miss a year or two, I’d be alright with that) but with it returning with reminders of more gray hair and shorter breath and larger waistlines and creakier, cracking backs I am reminded, as with a conversation with Beck earlier, that well, I, we still got ones, these birthdays and not ones that someone else is remembering for us with flowers and maybe a knelt tear or two.

No, we’re still kicking it, Beck and I reminded ourselves, while she practiced some guitar and I caught up with her on her recent past weekend away to the Burgh (Pittsburgh) with her guy, Buck.

She went out that way with him this past Thursday, something she and he do every summer, maybe a couple of times, to take the Burgh back in and catch a Bucco game on a Saturday.

And in their yinzing they visited the Iron City Beer Brewery for a tour and eventually the gift shop and picked me up a couple of things … much appreciated.

Now while she was gone I was the cattaker, as always, as I mentioned in my 5:39am post from last week, and others as well making sure to take care of her three along with my two of course, keep everyone in good furry sorts of stinky food and company, including Arthur, who I think broke a little earlier this morning at 5am in his missing of Mom (Monday the 30^th) as I heard him at the top of the stairs, meowing his pained, lonely cries down into my basement room (a nice one by the way, this basement room, not some dark and dank place with only food and water provided by someone throwing it down the stairs just within reach of the chains, but a really comfortable spot with a bed and pillows and litter boxes and stuff collected and a TV and an air fryer and a fridge and a microwave and bookcases with clothes to read on the shelves.

But he was just looking for company and, as I have done in other recent posts, a couple of quick videos then, simply because they are always Arthur cute and endearing.

Timeline:

5am: Arthur plaintively meowing at the top of the basement stairs

8am: Groggily make my way upstairs for a shower

830am: In the final moments of getting dressed for the day

845am: Make my way back upstairs with Arthur following to feed he and Saphira and Rikki, who, raspily reminds me that I’m fucking late for her breakfast, that she has been simply wasting away waiting for me at this late time and where she just glares at me in her chunkiness when I say that she should really start an exercise routine and eat a bit of lettuce or something.

Well, another birthday, one that has me turning 61 and officially being in my 60’s now (yes, can’t fudge this shit any longer when I could still say that I was in my 50’s last year) and my first one at Beck’s place, in a nice basement like its own apartment, with she and Matt and extra cats.

Still kickin’ it we are Beck, and happily and thankfully so.

Holding off on flowers and tears from others just yet …

Oh, and a favorite birthday post from a few years ago where it was all about Victor stories and gifts of fancy hot dogs and ice cream cakes (he is a number of years older now and would surely hate me for this re-post)

5:39 am

June 15, 2025June 21, 2025by Stephen J Frankenberry7 Comments

Now this is kinda exciting, not really but kinda, like hearing that “winner” sound at the Deli when Sandy runs your lottery ticket and you realize you’ve maybe gained 20 bucks back on the hundreds you’ve spent over the last 3 or 4 months trying to grab a dream (you know it isn’t more than that as Sandy ain’t dancin’ or calling a lawyer) but still kinda exciting ‘cause my new headphones are here! My new headphones are here! while Steve Martin bounces in spirit with a phonebook and I literally just ordered them last night.

5:39 am “delivered” email.

Yay and wow and cheers to you Amazon driver person! I hope at least you can go home early and have something of a Sunday.

And yay and wow and cheers to you Jeff Bezos … for like five seconds. You’ve still got a lot of ‘splainin’ to do for your acquiescing knee bent protection money spending sitting privileged in the back bleachers all proudly for coronation photos and your hatred of unions like some sweat shop boss and holding back WaPo opinions and just general Jeff Bezos questions as you aren’t what you seemed.

Shit, I’m guessing 5:39am driver guy or gal might be thinking a question or two as well, just not out loud.

But you get a temporary mulligan, a one I will rescind though and mark that ”gift” 8 on your card in a heartbeat (you really need to work on your putting game. I would have killed you in mini golf … Oh, I know how to play this windmill … and this creepy generic clown with the hole in it’s nose?)

But it is still a little exciting anyway as the duct tape on my old ones was really starting to scratch my ears more annoyingly than it already did. Duct tape can work for a lot of things, as we all know, back car bumpers, corners of cell phones, gas lines you accidentally dug up without notifying anyone you would be digging, small parts of bridges, even relationships if you are into that sort of thing, but headphones? Not so much.

So 5:39am driver gal or guy? Thank you. Now clock out little early if you can. It’s a Sunday.

It’s also kinda exciting as I don’t really do “purchases” other than trips to the grocery store but that’s just a necessity to keep me and my Bella and my Cricket alive, I just don’t do big things and anything over 75 bucks is a big thing for me so a hundred bucks for these new Sony MDR 7506’s is a big thing (I am only name brand on two things, Hellmans and headphones). But my Mom in her infinite Mom’d wisdom left me and my Sis and my Brother a few dollars, certainly not some huge windfall inheritance that the three of us would fight over like in a Lifetime movie or a cage match but enough to have me feeling a little flush for the first time in … well I couldn’t tell ya as I have never felt flush. I love what I do, have loved what I do for too many years now but it ain’t affording me any Rockefeller status so having a couple of extra bucks is new and welcome.

Now Beck (my Sis and housemate and dearest friend and landlady who only asks for a few dollars and be subject to her and her “circle’s” weird blood letting rituals on Monday nights (I think they speak Welsh in them if only to confuse me and Tuesdays can be a bit of a slog) and to be a backup guy for her Saphira, Arthur & Rikki cats if she is out of town down the state at Buck’s place, tells me, knowing me, that it is alright to treat myself to a few things now especially as that is what Mom would have wanted. Hell, I’ve just been happy enough to not have to worry over grabbing lunch “out” and not brown bag it courtesy of Mom without having to crunch numbers so Beck’s assurances and Mom’s extra Momness has been a small bonus and with it? Well, a necessary new computer (a few months ago) and a new pair of headphones to plug into it.

Also a new computer chair that will be here, I hope, just before my birthday in a couple of weeks which is a big one, no, not the chair (though it does have “executive” in it’s descriptor and will allow me, more comfortably, to fall asleep in it like any old man worth his salt, I mean, that’s what old men do right, fall asleep in chairs?) but a first birthday beyond the milestone of a new zero from a year ago.

You see when you have milestone birthdays, besides being able to exhale a sigh of relief that somehow the universe hasn’t been paying too much attention to the stupid shit that you’ve done for the last ten years, like the blood results for a feared checkup that show Ok counts of what blood does when it’s being counted and not of what you did last Wednesday, but you realize that for whatever this milestone is you could at least say, for a year, that last year I was still in my 20’s or 30’s or 40’s or 50’s.

Why is this a big one coming up? Because I am going to officially be in my 60’s and I can’t get the fuck out now, I’ll have to wait another ten years to say last year I was in my 60’s.

Well, here’s to 5:39 am drivers, duct tape not duct taped to my ear for sound, comfortable eventual chairs and Moms still doing Momness even from the great beyond.

While Thomas Went Mad (part one: Smoothing Stones)

June 1, 2025February 7, 2026by Stephen J FrankenberryLeave a Comment

While Thomas Went Mad (part one: Smoothing Stones)

Thomas thought of madness quite often or at least what madness would allow. I mean it’s madness after all, he thought, would I, me, he or that beleaguered soul in a muddied street below seen from a high window who could be me even know?

No, he walked the halls leaning, for balance, sliding his left palm on those ancient and smoothed stone walls over words not quite worn, though he knew that would take more time, well beyond his, well beyond his imagined, words he only partially understood (were they of Master Pembroke, of his stories of devout guidance or were they of Saint – he so wished to meet Saint someday) but only the good parts of the words of course, he hoped, assumed, thought, wished through his unrelenting stark dark visions, or dreams, instead, as he was more inclined to call some of them, the kinder ones, the simpler ones, yes, that was a bit easier to couch, much more benign but what if he were backwards in thought, a pretzeled logic instead where that what which was are would could seemed stitched together with a thread of hope, that reality wasn’t the walls but the dreams, or … are actually not that at all, instead meant only to distract from the harsher ones and the mundane walls and the awful, nonsensical wanderings of his head?

Thomas thought hard on this, as hard as he could, as hard as his fractious mind would allow in shoulds and woulds and coulds and maybe’s though, he was sure, as absolutely sure as he could be expected to be in his me’s, I’s, he’s that still existed somewhere in that me, I, he, he knew, primally at the base of the hairs on the back of his neck, the ones on his arms, the ones on his legs even in the shorter ones below that just confused him as they made no curling sense, especially when they gave way to tall, that this wasn’t actually madness after all as right side up becomes wrong side down while sliding his left palm, for balance, along smoothinged walls, with words inscribed that he was erasing over time, he just knew … but I can’t be expected to have madness make sense now can I he thought? I must just treat it, address it in simple maddened minded maddening terms. Maybe even embrace it.

And Thomas waited this madness and walked and leaned for balance, and smoothed those words over time with his left palm of he or a his or a mine and he waited as there would be a time … that was all he knew … for what he couldn’t say but there would be a time.

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Master Pembroke watched his halting, hiccupping screen, tapping it like that would help “What do you think?” he said to Minor Pembroke “can we proceed?”

“I don’t think so, not just yet sir. He is still smoothing the walls”

“Oh, the walls Minor, it’s always with the walls”

“But he needs to see, or feel that he is rubbing them smooth, alter his perception of time, let him know that this is the only real”

“Ok, I will defer to you then, but when does it just become, you know, cruel?”

“Have you your sash Sir?”

“No, I don’t … have you seen it?

“It’s right under your chin sir”

Fumbling his neck “Oh it is, it is right here, thank you Minor … such a funny thing … it was always right here wasn’t it?”

“You are always welcome Master. Now time to rest”

“Indeed Minor. I am a bit tired”

“How about we let Missive Pembroke here get you to bed?

“That would be nice”

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Thomas had dreamt again, no darkened vision, all of his Thomas’s, the he’s and me’s and I’s and even the them’s, the one of the house, no, cottage, yes cottage with painted window flats, shutters, is that what they were called, of the one where it got closer, again, though seemingly imperceptible if anyone else were to witness or even join his dreams and go mad with him, all of the him’s, but they knew, he knew, that the grass was just a little taller, he could actually count the spokes on the cart now and the former blur in the window now had spots that could be eyes and even blue, no brown hair?

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“C’mon Thomas time to wake and take you for your walk”

This Missive Pembroke was different from the others, the ones that beat him and made him make promises he didn’t understand, even signed in blood sometimes on paper they wouldn’t allow him of his own, and she was taller too, tall enough that she wouldn’t need a ladder or even a simple stool in the orchard for an apple. He found himself, all of his selves liking her, though he realized it was most probably that she just didn’t beat him or ask of him things. She just put him to bed and then, lifetimes later, would wake him for his walk.

“Take your time Thomas” she said with genuine patience and an even seeming care, this is where the bruises and even blood would come with the others if he wasn’t spry enough. He didn’t know what he had done, or hadn’t done, to deserve this new Missive Pembroke but it, she, was most welcome.

“Thank you”

“Did you sleep well?”

“You know we did not”

“Sorry Thomas”

“What? What? WHAT?!! Apologies, the others are demanding me to ask if you have a name?”

“Yes, it’s Missive Pembroke of course”

“No, What? WHAT!!?? I’m getting to it … sshussh … no, an actual name. You surely had a mother? A one who called you something, even just in the fleeting early moment, something coy and cute, just between she and you?”

“I don’t know what you mean Thomas”

“(Sigh) it’s just that you call us Thomas, and so sweetly, but all I can call you is Missive. It just seems so … we don’t know … so distant, so impersonal”

“But I am not distant Thomas, I am right here, is my name really a matter?”

“No, you’re right Missive Pembroke, you are right here and that’s all that matters and blah, blah, blah (all the while all his selves went to the cottage in search) blah, blah, blah, blah …”

“Wow, you are quite chatty this morning Thomas”

“Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah (then, suddenly, one of his me’s, his him’s, found a two-wheel in the ever talling grass, a one they knew for some reason, a one that had a name scratched name on it’s body, like with a nail or a sharp sprig) Ok … Lily?”

The Missive stopped short, taken aback, she hackled suddenly “what did you say!?”

Thomas flinched, scrunched “What? I am sorry” and hemmed and hawed while all his Me’s ducked their heads and scrambled for unified thought “I just thought we could go into the garden one of these days … to maybe … maybe there are … Roses … yes Roses there, or Lilies, Daffodils maybe too, something to smell, to admire, something more than walls in halls”

The Missive shrunk the hackles “Yes, Thomas, that would be nice and is a fine idea, there are Roses there and Daffodils and even Petunias, so pretty right about now, but all the year round. Yes that is something we should do soon”.

All of the Thomas’s noted that she didn’t say Lilies.

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An Extra Tuesday And An Oompa Loompa Song … Again

May 27, 2025June 8, 2025by Stephen J Frankenberry6 Comments

Well, my PTO has finally rolled over (Paid Time Off by the way, not Paul Tried Origami or Patty’s Trusted Oncologist (hey that’s important) or Palantir’s Takeover Onesies and an owned from your get go cute baby t-shirt (which are all understandable mistakes … I’m with ya) … I’m only pointing/spelling out these possibilities as when as when I was first introduced to the acronym I worried that I was going to have to go to meetings in the town hall basement community room with Parents and Teachers and bad coffee and day old donuts and fold chairs into that long contraption that collects chairs at the end after listening to Madge drone on and on about whatever Madge drones on and on about.

I mean, I feel bad for the loss of Mr Sniffems Smarty Pants, who was like 98 in human years and walked with 3 canes (don’t ask), but somebody really needs to start a fund to get her another cat, and it’s even tacked on three extra days now as I have hit the ten year mark at the stations (Oh, you shouldn’t have, that was waaaaaay too kind and they were really nice, even the “Happy New Year!” “It’s Her Birthday!” and “You Finally Graduated Now Go Get A Job And Get The Hell Out Of The House I Have Plans For Your Room” ones you got in a bundled discount and I didn’t even know they had “So Sorry For Your Loss” balloons as well, but it’s the thought right?) so I figgr’d to add Tuesday to this already extended weekend and take my first renewed day.

A bit of a vacay if you will or staycay as I’ve heard it phrased by those in the witty cool know (and which is more my old man speed anyway) as I don’t go out, I don’t travel or have any need to, I don’t go to events, I’d even avoid my own funeral if I could get out of it, though that’s a question of the Devil, and a one that would probably be my last anti-social hurrah, I have even conditioned my friends to not trying to bother to ask their “Hey, what are you doing this weekend” questions and before I belabor this some more and repeat myself from an old post that explains it (it is here below) that explains more in full of how I don’t do, or care to, or give a shit to … plus it also comes with a really fun re-play of my version of the Oompa Loompa song by the way, if you haven’t already heard it, so don’t just dismiss me out of hand.

I have though noticed, over the last few years, that if use up my PTO time too early, like by a couple of months, as I always do, I spend those last couple of months being overly tired, on edge and noticeably scatterbrained.

“Well how about you dole them out with more of a plan then, so you don’t waste them too early”

‘Yeah, fuck you Captain Obvious, but you’re right”

“I told you”

Note: Never admit ANYTHING to Captain Obvious and give him a win. He’s a nice fella an all, well meaning surely, but he can be a bit of a dick in his judgements and condescension so that all you’re gonna wanna do is slap him upside the head or knee cap him if you know the right people but that shit takes time, so many layers there, including paying off your uncle’s debts (he’s always loved the ponies, they’ve just never loved him back) plus, violence is never the answer, at least not on an extra Tuesday.

Wednesday? Well, that’s up in the air.

This one extra day though? A Tuesday? More than welcome.

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April 2, 2024

So a friend, Drew, recently posted to the Facebook this meme …

… and I thought well, what if the Oompa’s showed up at the funeral of this meme guy, a fella named Bob maybe, whose ‘last mistake’ was actually his LAST mistake.

Now, if anyone was wondering why it’s been so long since I’ve had a girlfriend, probably not, well, this is the kind of thing that I think about and do for fun which goes a long way to explaining said singleness.

I don’t date, don’t go to movies, or dinner, or events, or play pickleball, or go “clubbin'” and whatever that might entail (sounds expensive and I ain’t got the wardrobe for it as I’m sure sweatpants aren’t gettin’ me past the bouncer) I don’t nature hike, I’m not a regular at any monthly game nights with friends, I don’t Church, I don’t Astrology (seriously? the phases and prickliness at holiday get togethers of Mars or Venus? Be more concerned with the “aura” of that rogue planet we pissed off in the late 40’s, I don’t go to family get togethers with anyone new and pretty in tow to make Aunt’s happy (Oh, “finally” they would say in small Aunt klatches quieting any busybody speculation), I don’t gym or bike or jog or even walk briskly, not that some exercise wouldn’t hurt, I don’t do anything in groups though the one’s I am not in might sometimes remark unfairly of such, no, I just do this sort of stuff and other writing things silly and not silly, oh, and I have full blown conversations with cats.

It’s amazing what you can learn about a cat’s daily by the way, if you just take the time to listen.

“Really? You meditated in a window in the sun (napped) while contemplating the mysteries of the universe (still napping) and then woke up and went to the litter box?!”

Yeah, that ‘single’ status ain’t changing anytime soon I don’t think.

Anyway, for the dearly departed Bob, who took one final unintended bus ride to the sky.

Oompa Loompa Bob Song

Oompa, Loompa, doompety-do
I’ve got a little story for you
Oompa, Loompa, doompety-dee
it’s about Bob so please listen to me

What do you get when you’re walking a street
Lost in your cell “hey, that video’s neat”
You don’t pay attention to what’s in your surrounds
Including that curb’s last mistake to be found

I don’t like the look of this

Oompa, Loompa, doompety-don’t
Step off that curb Bob please tell me you won’t
Oompa, Loompa, doompety-please
Lift your head, look around at that bus bearing down

… Ya big dope!

… Ya really dead dope!

… Oh, Bob

Of Glasses, Old Men & Sisters (post-post)

May 18, 2025May 25, 2025by Stephen J Frankenberry2 Comments

So in the header for my blog here I do my best to give you an idea of what to expect if you decide to do some rummaging around some strange man’s attic or scream, after such, for help to anyone who might be listening on the front path three stories below to get you out of the shackles and chains (though, good luck with that – these are new double paned storm windows).

I mean, no site worth its salt doesn’t give you some sort of idea as to who or what is behind it and what to expect of its content right? Even if it’s just a pithy slogan.

News sites are good for that.

Washington Post – “Democracy Dies In Darkness” … or at the end of a slinking, weak willed, million dollar pen for an inauguration fund.

“Fair and Balanced / Most Watched, Most Trusted” … always with the jokes and works in progress for them there folks over at Fox “News” huh?

Voice of America “… choke … gasp … Kari … suicidal thoughts … reels … choke … the devil’s handmaiden … Lake …” Ok, that one’s a little lengthy and ungainly.

“This is CNN” … boring and noncommittal has its place I guess.

MSNBC “Lean Forward” … but not too far, leaning forwards or backwards, either way, can be a concern especially when dependent on the winds.

One America News Network … “The Wheels On The Bus.”

Breitbart … “Fuck You Democracy”

And others …

White House News (Propaganda-R-Us) and Travel Agency … “So Many Possibilities” … (that one can change on the fly though, depending on the legality or Karoline’s light ultra or meta ultra condescending mood).

But mine simply lays out for you to just expect things written of my everyday “sometimes funny, sometimes heartfelt, sometimes angry, sometimes funny again because, well, who don’t like funny, thoughts on getting older and sometimes stuff that’s just kinda shit. I pen and sing the occasional parody tune and other songs, sometimes I even get a little bit poetic or story-etic or something like that.”

Well, I have covered almost all of this ground recently, a funny one of a cat named Arthur and a one of just bits and pieces, a few things for Mom (so miss ya my dearest friend … and this one) a couple of new parody tunes and re-posts of older ones, and quite a few poems (poems) and short fictions (short fictions) too.

But the important thing of note here is that I’ve been able to come about all of these pieces while wearing the right pair of glasses, my “close” glasses.

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Lilly the Car has been making some unwelcome sounds lately, like she’s carrying a bucket of steel stones under her belly, which, truthfully, she has probably been sounding alarm of for quite a while now, cries for help, I just haven’t heard them from listening to my damned heavy metal return to old school volume Deep Purple for open windows in nice weather. That rumble of Ritchie Blackmore and the boys might have even contributed to it.

But when I finally turned the volume down I realized, shit, there might be an issue here. My apologies Lilly, you and my mother could surely commiserate on Steve, still, after all these years, never listening to those pleas to please turn that crap down.

So, I inquired of a shop, which was a concern of mine since moving up this way. Could I find a place like Lou’s (from many years down in Beacon) that I could trust? Well Beck (my Sis if you didn’t already know) via my nephew and his gear head friends, recommended a place called Hari’s that I immediately liked it as I couldn’t find it under “Harry’s” with any search. Nope, I just liked it.

Then I asked Beck if she could follow me to drop Lilly off and then give me a ride the rest of the way to my day. Her commute mirrors mine, or can mirror mine in times like this as she works just around the corner.

And that was it, thanks Beck with a wave. But when I went inside to my desk, started the process of a day, I realized that things were a bit fuzzy.

First thought? Oh, son of a bitch, my eyes just got really bad, like seemingly overnight, then I looked at my phone, even worse, as that shit is small and now I was going to be checking on the going rate of pencils. I was suddenly Burgess Meredith in that classic Twilight Zone episode “Time Enough At Last” where he finally gets his wish for people to be gone and leave him alone in a huge library, with countless books to read for the rest of his days, only to then break his glasses.

Then? “Oh, son of a bitch twice!” I’m still wearing my “driving” glasses. There was relief for a moment, whew, I don’t have to make phone calls to the eye doc I also haven’t found yet for a checkup and distressing news.

But now I had to take my wave back and call Beck to ask for another favor, a much bigger one. Your idiot brother left his “close” glasses in Lilly and is instead wearing his “driving” glasses which aren’t worth a spit if, ya know, ya ain’t driving and could she circle back to the shop, Hari’s, and save me?

Though I can laugh about it now, stupid unintentional things that can follow me from the moment I wake to the moment I go back to sleep (though a lot stupid happens then too, just nonsensically and with more color) but it was debilitating. It gave me a greater appreciation for what I do still have, two pairs of glasses? That’s a non-starter of an imposition.

And it gave me a greater appreciation of a sister who surely just sighs often but still loves me anyway … for the most part … I hope.

Well it seems now that not only will I have to shell out a few bunch of dollars to fix that bucket of metal stones from under Lilly’s belly (you don’t want to know the estimate, let’s just say the number is equivalent to that of a ton of bricks) but I will also have to shell out some more for some backup glasses to leave in my always places … just in case.

Ok, now I have covered the “thoughts on getting older” (for recent things) part of my header as well, or more realistically “thoughts on BEING older”.

Son of a bitch, thrice.

(Love ya Beck … Sincerely, your old man brother)

She Said (Old T-Shirt Song) … (redux redux)

April 12, 2025April 16, 2025by Stephen J Frankenberry4 Comments

It was a bit of a week in Frankenland, yes, simple radio commercial/podcast producer guys have those too, not that that is a thing you think about for comparison, but it was a bit of a week nonetheless.

All I wanted to do at the end of it was to just sit, as I have mentioned before, just sit. Though I realize there are many things that are better and healthier than just sitting, like anything other than just sitting, maybe line dancing on a Wednesday night with Kacey and the girls, or tennis with unfound friends at that country club back when, when they declined my application for what I don’t know (Hey! that was just once and Mrs Wagaman’s rose bushes grew back just fine the next year thank you! No, I didn’t know her husband was the chairman of the country club board) I did though get a kiss from THE most popular girl in school courtesy of a few rose bushes (I think, memory gets a bit hazy right around then) and in front of people! PEOPLE! (still hazy) and screw you, I didn’t play tennis anyway.

I wanted to only do just that, sit, damning the possible healthy of a walk but not damning the computer chair with a cat on a lap.

But one of the things I like to do in this just sitting is to put my headphones on, the one’s only held right ear together now with spit and duct tape (a bit scratchy and sticky and wet but workable) and listen to some of my stuff, my old parodies to see if they still stand, which of course they do, just dated, I mean he hasn’t really changed all that much other than being more empowered in his authoritarian dreams.

Anyway, I also did do some tunes then that weren’t the doom and gloom of an orange.

I figured at the time to branch out and get my head out of the morass (see what I almost did there?)

This was one of my first and and a long time favorite still (also another I did at the time, We Let Billy Drive The Car). Just something to an instrumental I had found and the remembering of old girlfriends.

It is something I have posted and re-posted before but why not again?

Hell, this shit is mine and so is this blog so …

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She Said (Old T-shirt Song)