Saturday, April 30, 2005

Birds gotta fly

No post today.
Sorry, it's a glorious day.
And it's Saturday, and isn't that a day of rest, or is that Sunday.
Anyway, I've got other fish to fry.
And isn't that always the case.
But yeah, no post.
See, this doesn't count as a post.
This is more of an announcement, which isn't the same as a post.
And all of a sudden I am getting tired.
And didn't I mention something about having other fish to fry.
So, as John Prine would say
"Send my mouth way down south, and kiss my ass goodbye."

Friday, April 29, 2005

Do you want to hear something kind of truth is stranger than fiction weird?

I have always gotten Michelle Pheiffer and Uma Thurman confused.

Michelle Pheiffer

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Uma Thurman

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Ok, yeah, that is kind of understandable don't you think, they kind of look alike, and they have both be in a really bad movie where they wore latex.
So yeah, I think you will agree that I could confuse the two of them.

Now here is the spooky weird part.
They were both born on April 29th!!!
Holy fucking unbelievable.

Ok, maybe it isn't that weird but ...
They were born the same fucking day!!!

I mean really, except for the fact that their is a twelve year age difference, they are totally interchangeable. There is not a role that Uma played that Michelle couldn't play and vice versa.
Think about it ...
And they were born on the same fucking day!!!

There has to be a catch after twenty-two, am I right?

It's 5:35 in the morning and I am sitting here with one of those rice filled microwavable heating pads around my neck.
Which is better than I was doing a half hour ago when I was sitting on my bed with my head in my hands ...
But I'm bitching.
But I don't care.
Cause like I said it's 5:35 in the morning.
And I got the right.
The fucking inalienable right.
To bitch.
To moan.
To piss, but only figuratively.
And the heat pad is getting heavy.
And so are my eyes.
And it hurts to be in pain.
And whatever happened to the Grand Ennui?
And Baby Jane?
And the Snowdens of yesteryear?
The Snowdens of yesteryear?
The Snowdens of yesteryear?
The Snowdens of yesteryear?

Live from the Ryman

We had a full house tonight.
There was Hank, and Dolly, and Ernest, and Patsy, and Kenny, and Buddy, and Bobby, and Richie and Duane.
Fucking Duane.
Duane.

When did I become this smart?

I realized something earlier today.
I realized that instead of having to do the math and subtract three hours every time I wanted to find out what time it was in San Francisco I could just set one of my clocks to PDT.
I mean really, it was that simple.

Thursday, April 28, 2005

Randomness connected by a thread

I didn't make my bed yesterday, I always make my bed, always, but I didn't make it yesterday.

I'm listening to Astral Weeks by Van Morrison.

Fuck August, I'm getting the spinal surgery at the earliest possible date. I don't want to spend another three months plus of my life like this. I've got some markers I can call in, people owe me, and it's time they started paying up.

I just looked over my right shoulder, out the window, and in the past hour the lake has turned from dark blue to steel grey.

This is the first time in weeks that Thursday hasn't felt like Friday.

I am waiting for the perfect moment to get dressed.

I bought three new t-shirts yesterday, they are all three neatly folded and laying on my still unmade bed.

The evil karma of the bobbleheaded clown doesn't stand a chance.

It is the perfect moment.

Wednesday, April 27, 2005

Nocturnal Admissions

It's six in the morning
And I should be in bed
Because I was up till three thirty three
Which is half of six sixty six
Giving the devil his due
Matching two for two
When the Seal Wife meets old Mack Heath babe
You know your sister don't stand a chance
You can talk all night
And never say the word
But you know it's there babe
Just beneath your breath
Give me your hand
Never mind the cognates
Let me give you all I've got
I guess that will have to do
But you know that John and Iris
Are going to meet sooner or later
And dance barefoot to Otis Redding
On some moonlit beach, or back in their room

Tuesday, April 26, 2005

Seven Seconds From Death

I swear to god, I thought I was going to die.
I had just swallowed my last bite of dinner, it didn't even have the chance to go down all the way, when I got a violent case of hiccups, the kind that start out silent but end up sounding like an emergency broadcast alert.
Then I started sneezing, while hiccupping, and I started panicking.
What if I burp, what if I cough, what if I fart.
I was staring death in the face and I knew it.
I coughed once, I coughed twice.
I hiccupped violently.
I sneezed.
Dear god, it can't end like this.
And then, oh fuck no, and then ...
BRAIN FREEZE
I just let my body go limp. I knew this was the end.
I saw the light, oh yes, I saw the light at the end of the tunnel, and people, yes people, people that I knew, people that I knew who had died, were motioning for me.
Boz, Ken, Boz Ken, come to the light, come to the light.
So calm, so soothing, so peaceful.
Come to the light, the light, the light.
Then something happened, I'm not sure what, it might have been the heartburn, but the light started to dim, and the people started to fade away, their cries muffled ...
Ok, I've taken this far enough.
I hiccupped, I sneezed, I coughed, I had brain freeze, and heartburn, and I lived to tell about it.
Yeah, right, big deal.
I could have used the vacation.

Monday, April 25, 2005

The look

I talked to my sister on the phone today.
She said they'll be taking their vacation in August, so that looks like when I will be having my spinal surgery, if I need spinal surgery, which I am sure I do, and of course everything will depend on the neuro-surgeon's availability, but yeah, August sounds like a go.

I was telling this to my mother today, while we were out, and she started shooting me this look every few seconds. I think it was a worried look, I couldn't be sure, I was driving, and I couldn't look over at her. I really didn't want to look over at her, because besides worry I am sure there were a lot of other emotions in the look.
Ok, truthfully, I was afraid to look because I knew the look was all about guilt, her guilt.

When my mother was expecting me, she had some health problems, and the doctor prescribed some sort of new miracle drug that had just come on the market. It might have been for morning sickness, I don't know, I'm not sure.
Anyway, she took some drug, for some health problem.

Then sometime in the 70's it was discovered that one of the drugs prescribed for expectant mothers in the late 40's and early 50's could cause some delayed and long term health problems for the child.
She has no proof she took this particular drug, and no way of checking back, because her pediatrician has long since passed away.
So there is no proof that she took this drug.
But, she believes that she did, and that is all the proof she needs to feel guilty for every health problem that I have ever had in my entire life.

And that is the look that I knew my mother was giving me, and that is the look that I didn't want to see, because drug or no drug, she has nothing to feel guilty about, absolutely nothing, but it is useless trying to tell her that.

An altar boy's been hit by a local commuter.

Songs that are almost perfect, at least for tonight.

1. Harvest Moon - Neil Young
2. In California - Neko Case
3. Nadine - Chuck Berry
4. Allison - Elvis Costello
5. Just Like Tom Thumbs Blues - Bob Dylan
6. Little Angel, Little Brother - Lucinda Willams
7. These Days - Nico
8. Thirsty Boots - Judy Collins
9. Dock of the Bay - Otis Redding
10. Bruised Orange - John Prine

Sunday, April 24, 2005

Bad Hair And No Snow Day

And a whole lot of cabin fever.



What happened to the 12 plus inches of snow they've been forecasting for the past three days?
I'm going out, yeah, and I might even go to the Dollar Store, and Burger King too.
Man, that sounds like a Sunday dream come true.

At the beep

I leave really crappy phone messages.
My tongue gets sort of all wrapped up around my heart and I just say things
True things, well, true things, yeah, true things, but true things that I don't know how to express, things.
But you know, I like to leave phone messages, because a phone message is me stripped bare. It is the completely honest me.
I mean, you only have a half minute or so.
That's not enough time to get your defenses up.
That's not enough time to collect your thoughts.
You have to react to the beep, you can't think, you just react, and it's pure emotion.
It's the emotion of the moment it's not the words.
That's what is important.
It's now what you say, it's not even how you say it, it's just that you say it.
This is a post for her.
From me.

The need for speed

I had to run out and get some things Saturday because we are supposed to get about 8-12 inches of snow by tonight.
I can't just take my time.
I have to do everything in a rush.
It is like I am working against a clock.
It was that way while I was out and it seemed that everything and everybody was transpiring to slow me down.
And it just made me want to go faster.
It reminded me of a Stephen King short story where the main character was trying to find a quicker, faster, way to work, you know to take less time getting to work, because time is so very important, and they would drive a little faster and knock a second or two of their time every day or so, or the way would find a new shorter route, and knock a few more seconds off their time, and eventually, and yeah, you know this had to happen because it's a Stephen King short story,
And eventually, they arrived before they left ... POOF

What?

1. French or Italian?
2. The Fat Lady or the Geek?
3. Clowns or Dentists?
4. Going down or going up?
5. Soul or Karma?
6. The last time or the next time?
7. Franny or Zooey?
8. Velcro or infinity?
9. Ten items or less or automated check out?
10. Easy or easier?

Saturday, April 23, 2005

If you seek a pleasant peninsula

They're talking about snow for the weekend.
Not just a little snow, snow.
They're talking about up to ten inches of heavy wet snow, snow.
Fuck that.
It was eighty plus degrees on Wednesday, and now they expect me, and all my moods to deal with snow, fucking snow.
The sun doesn't shine and I can't get out of bed.
The wind blows and I'm predicting the apocalypse.
Fucking snow, at the end of fucking April.
I'll be catatonic.
High colonic.
And a bunch of other 'onics too.
Hey, Weather Channel and all your high tech gobbledy gook.
Take a great big bite of my ass.
And choke on it.

Friday, April 22, 2005

The first bug of the rest of my life

I woke up this morning to the sound of the first bug of spring
Throwing his little bug body against the ceiling again, and again, and again
Making that annoying little bug tap-tap-tap noise
As he tried to kamikaze his way through the ceiling tiles in my bedroom to freedom
I used to just take a newspaper and swat them
But now that I have become this zen-like idiot savant
I have become the bug
And now I am free.

Thursday, April 21, 2005

Grand Dufus Update

Thursday, April 21, 2005
Holy shit I quit Winn-Dixie after 3 years 1.5 months. I never thought it would happen. It feels so good, but being broke sucks.

Editor's Note: Don't you just love a free spirit when they are free on somebody else's dime.

New Tricks

I was just watching Floyd the old guy from across the street.
Floyd was out walking his dog, some kind of beagle, or beagle mix, that was already old when he adopted it from the humane society after his wife passed away some ten years ago.
The dog got tired, or stubborn, or comfortable, or nostalgic and refused to move, and after ten minutes of prodding and cajoling Floyd knelt down and picked his old dog up and carried him home.

Wednesday, April 20, 2005

There is no Boz in Michigan

This is one of the days that I hate Michigan.
For starters it isn't California.
And it's April.
And it's not Paris.
And it's dreary.
And it's windy.
And there is a chance of snow for the weekend.
And there is no Michigan state of mind.
And trust me if you ever got stuck in Saginaw it would take more than four days to hitchhike from.
And it's not California.
And Pinconning is the cheese capital.
And I hurt.
And I'm depressed.
And it's all Michigan's fault.

Weather in the Altogether

It rained for the first time this spring.
One of those late at night, early morning rains that seem to come out of nowhere.
I like rain.
I like everything about it.
I like the minutes just before it starts.
I like seeing the first drops hit the pavement.
I like the sound it makes on the roof and against the windows.
I like driving in the rain, and adjusting the windshield wiper speed until I reach a happy medium, that both the rain and I can live with.
I like when it is raining so hard, that it is nothing but rain, everywhere.
I even like the thunder and the lightening, but only late at night, when I am in bed, and I am half asleep, and I am safe, and I know it can't hurt me.
I like when it slows to a sprinkle and you go outside and you can still smell it.
I like when it stops, and the sun comes out, and it is warm, and the steam starts to rise, and thirty minutes later you'd never known it had rained in the first place.
We all feel that way about rain, right?

Tuesday, April 19, 2005

Well?

Didn't the new pope used to play Cliff on Cheers?

Hello God, it's me, Boz

Ok, so I have this fantasy.
I steal a Winnebago.
And I drive to California, yeah, northern California.
With god as my co-pilot.
Sorry, I couldn't resist.
Two steps ahead of the law.
I pick her up.
There's a misunderstanding at a liquor store.
And there's bloodshed.
I swear it's an accident.
The chase is on.
Think Bonnie and Clyde on zoloft.
So, ah, where was I heading with this?
Folk heroes.
Bandits of love.
Think of the merchandising possibilities.
The Mexican border.
Freedom.
Roadblock.
Think final scene, Thelma and Louise, but make it Selma and Louis, fuck, just make it Thelma and Louise, who cares, it's just a fantasy ... right.
Thelma and Louise, but in a Winnebago, and instead of dying in a fiery crash, we do the ET thing and land safely in Austin Texas, which is now part of Mexico, and open The Grand Ennui Coffee House and Poetry Emporium, and live happily ever after, with lots and lots of cowboy boots, and rocking chairs, and music, and sawdust on the floor, but not obvious sawdust, just sawdust, and sangria, and short stories, and John Prine is our next door neighbor, and he stops by at least once a night, and sings about loneliness and redemption, and the frailties of life, while we dance barefoot in the the coolness of the night.
I think that's everything.

When all else fails

I wish I were an adjective.



Oh man, that is sooooo Boz.


Would that be an adjective?

Monday, April 18, 2005

The pain I feel may be my own

It's five in the morning
I've been asleep and awake
With feverish dreams
And yeah, this is another post about pain, my pain
So just move on along if ...
It gets a little worse every day, every night
It burns like a mother fucker
And if not for the tylenol and the heating pad
And her
I'd be making this post every night
Tonight was really bad, maybe the worse
I hurt so bad I thought I might puke
It comes in waves
And I still might puke
But you know
Sitting here
With the light on
Typing, thinking, writing
It doesn't seem quite as bad
I'm just sore, and scared, and tired
Yeah, scared, I thought I could sneak that in without noticing it
But I caught it
And I am scared, big deal
But just writing
I don't know
Just writing makes it hurt not quite so much
Or is this just another of my feverish dreams

Who knows where the short story blows

I've had this idea for a short story rolling around my brain for well over twenty years, and yeah, I know it's never going to get written but ...

It's about the War in Vietnam, which luckily enough, I didn't have to take part in, and as you probably noticed I capitalized the W in war in homage to people who unluckily enough did have to take part in ...it.

It's about a Sgt and a Lt and a guy who really had no business being there in the first place, as told by a third person in the first person.

It takes place in Vietnam in a small combat squadron or platoon or whatever they call the smallest division of troops on the frontline.

The Sgt was a real jerk, a real hardass, a real army type army guy, that everybody hated, and he was particularly hard on, and hated by, a young borderline retarded grunt, who, I dunno, let's say we call him Billy.

The Sgt always kept Billy close by, he never let him out of his site, he just didn't trust him. The Sgt never let Billy go out on point, ever.

In comes a new Lt, some guy fresh out of college, probably a west coast surfer type dude that everyone really liked, and Billy really adored him.

There was tension between the Sgt and the Lt. They were from two different worlds, and you knew something was going to happen.

The other guys liked Billy, he was like a mascot to them, the kind of guy you were always giving a lucky rub too.

Billy keeps on to the Lt about how he has never been out on patrol, and the Lt is sure why not, if you want to go out on point, go out on point.

The Sgt goes ballistic, he can't believe it, he practically comes to blows with the Lt.

You guessed it, Billy goes out on point, he gets lost, ambushed, killed, whatever and the whole platoon freaks out.

They confront the Lt, wondering how he could have let someone like Billy do something so dangerous. The Lt just sort of sluffs it off, it's war, shit happens

Boom, the shit hits the fan, and at the first opportunity the Lt is fragged. Fragging being the act of killing someone on your side, usually a non-com or an officer, during some sort of skirmish with the enemy and thus covering it up as being killed in combat.

The Lt has friends in high places and the fragging is investigated. Everyone from the platoon is scheduled to be interrogated, and out of nowhere the Sgt, who didn't frag the Lt, confesses to the murder.

Everyone in the platoon wonders why, why, why. I mean everyone hated the Sgt, and he knew that they hated him.

To make a short story even shorter, the Sgt copped to the murder for the same reason he kept a tight reign on Billy. These soldiers were his men, they were his responsibility, their lives were in his hands, and yeah it's old fashioned, and yeah it's old school, but the Sgt really believed in loyalty, fidelity, and all those other groovy type things that are pretty much ignored anymore, or at least were, and yeah, probably still are, to some degree.
These men were in his charge and he took it seriously, very seriously.
He felt he failed them, so he took the rap.

The End
I think

Sunday, April 17, 2005

Nikita Khrushchev

Today would have been Nikita Khrushchev's 111th birthday.
You can talk about your Osama Bin Laden's, your Saddam Hussein's, and your George W's all you want, but to a kid growing up in the late fifties and early sixties Nikita Khrushchev was the devil incarnate.
Every time you looked at a newspaper or turned on the television news ...
Nikita Khrushchev was doing this.
Nikita Khrushchev was doing that.
Nikita Khrushchev was going to do this.
Nikita Khrushchev was going to do that.
Nikita Khrushchev was going to bury us.
Nikita Khrushchev was going to bury us.
Nikita Khrushchev was going to bury us.
Nikita Khrushchev was going to bury us.
Nikita Khrushchev was going to bury us.
Nikita Khrushchev was going to bury us.
Nikita Khrushchev was going to bury us, that's what scared the everloving shit out of me, and the media made it clear that Nikita Khrushchev was going to bury us under a hail of nuclear weapons.
I never realized that there were kids the same age as I in the Soviet Union who had the same nightmares about Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy.
I never realized that the United States was the only power that had ever used a nuclear weapon on another people.
I never realized how the media loved to play things up.
The only thing I realized was that Nikita Khrushchev was the devil, and he was going to bury us.

Nikita Khrushchev is gone.
The Soviet Union is gone.
About ten American presidents have come and gone.
The media is still there, bigger and more powerful than ever.
And there are still a shitload of little kids here, there, and everywhere, who are listening.

Better lovers through chemistry

It's five in the morning and I just woke up.
It's ok Nurse Ratched, I already took my pills.
Synthroid for the thyroid.
The big Z for the big A.
And the Centrum vitamin to help build strong bodies twelve ways.
Burnt two copies of the Beast #5 last night.
One for me, and one for you know who.
You wouldn't believe me if I told you what she asked me to send her.
No, it's not gross or anything, but it does border on the slightly kinkily romantic, so of course I'm going to send it, in duplicate, and in spades.
I think I should go back to bed now
I guess this is the part where I think up a terribly glib title that may, or may not reference back to this post.

There is a new Beast!

Beast of Boz Volume #5
1. Am I Not Pretty Enough - Kasey Chambers
2. Love Minus Zero No Limit - Bob Dylan
3. Season of the Witch - Donovan
4. Heterosexual Man - The Odds
5. My Father - Judy Collins
6. Bette Davis Eyes - Kim Carnes
7. Waterloo Sunset - The Kinks
8. The Captain - Kasey Chambers
9. I'm Your Man - Leonard Cohen
10. She Belongs To Me - Bob Dylan
11. Ways to Be Wicked - Lone Justice
12. Coney Island Baby - Lou Reed
13. Down By The River - Neil Young
14. In California - Neko Case
15. Gift to the Women of This World - Lou Reed
16. Where Have All the Cowboys Gone - Paula Cole
17. Fairytale of New York - The Pogues w/Kristy McColl
18. The End of the World, As We Know It - REM

Saturday, April 16, 2005

Audio and Video Chat

So, does anyone have an opinion on what is the best audio, and, or video chat application?
We will both have Logitech QuickCam Pro 4000's, which have both good audio and video capabilities.
So what do you think?
AIM?
Yahoo Messenger?
MSN Messenger?
ICQ?
Other?
Do any of them have near the audio quality of a telephone connection?
She just ordered her first computer, an Apple Notebook, Power Book, Whatever book, due for delivery by the 25th.

Oh yeah, she is on a road trip this weekend, so if anyone has any really, really personal questions you'd like to ask about her, now is the time.

Friday, April 15, 2005

Kat's Kwestions

I'm not really big on memes, but Kat asked for volunteers, and Kat is one of the few people I would do anything for, so enough with the small talk, here are Kat's 5 Questions of which only one of them made me squirm.

The Questions:

1. Let's get right to the dirt: how long has this romance with AmyJo
(hi there, AmyJo) been budding? Inquiring minds want to know.


I guess it started sometime earlier this year. It was a gradual thing at first. She's been a member of RW ... BS since late last summer, and it started with comments on posts, and conversations on the zonkboard, the there was the chat room. I guess it started warming up in January this year, and then I rigged XIJIF so that she would get my name, and the two of us started spending more time in the chat room. Then she went to visit her mother in Japan in March, and while she was gone we started exchanging mad crazy emails. Yeah, I think it was while she was in Japan that I realized just how much I cared about her. When she got back we started spending all our time together in a private chat room. I can tell you the exact moment I knew I was totally gone. It was Sunday night April 4th, and I was finishing off an Audio CD I was burning for her, and I was telling her how much I had enjoyed making the CD and then I started rambling on, and getting flustered, and doing the whole goofy laugh thing while I was trying to explain to her how much fun it had been getting to know her the last few weeks. I guess the next day we talked about it, and yeah, yeah, yeah. There have been three hour phone conversations every night since then.
But that's all I'm saying.

2. What is it like having Mother Boz around the house? Has her
moving in changed your lifestyle much and is she still trying to feed
you cornbread concoctions?


She has turned my house into a little old ladies house filled with Rockwell plates and Precious Moments figurines. It's been pretty smooth for the most part, we just sort of pass each other in the hall every now and then. Oh, yeah, and I don't have to
do my own laundry anymore, and that can't be a bad thing. So, yeah, it's cool.

3. I have several mixed CDs and I know you do, too. Which of your
mixed CDs is your current favorite?


My current favorite is Beast of Boz Volume #4
It's got a little bit of everything, and I think that what makes is so special is I made it for Amy.
The Playlist
1. Jolene - Dolly Parton
2. Walking the Dog - Rufus Thomas
3. Girl From Ipanema - Getz and Gilberto*
4. Hound Dog - Big Mama Thornton
5. One Way Or Another - Blondie
6. Green Onions - Booker T and the MGs
7. Rosalita (Come Out Tonight) - Bruce Springsteen*
8. Sultans of Swing - Dire Straits
9. Witchi Tai To - Everything is Everything
10. The Road Goes On Forever - Robert Earl Keen
11. One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer - John Lee Hooker
12. Ring of Fire - Johnny Cash
13. Willing - Little Feat
14. Harvest Moon - Neil Young*
15. She's Got Soul - Nick Lowe*
16. Haunted - The Pogues and Sinead O'Conner*
17. Mustang Sally - Wilson Pickett
18. Morning Dew - Tim Rose
19. We Gotta Get You A Woman - Todd Rundgren*
20. Polk Salad Annie - Tony Joe White
21. Venus in Furs - The Velvet Underground

The *'s are songs that I really, really, really sort of like.


4. You're starving. The fridge and pantry are practically (but not
quite) empty. You just don't feel like going shopping but you have to
eat something. What is it?


I've got about six cans of tuna fish that have been sitting in my fridge for about 2 or 3 years, I think I could whip something up out of that. Who's up for Tuna Surprise?

5. If you could conduct a no-holds-barred interview with a famous
person who would you interview and what would you ask them?


I have no interest in conducting an interview with any famous person, but you know, I wouldn't mind being interviewed by a famous person, and I guess I sorta am right now.

Broken cookies

My Grandma Cole sold her house in Berkeley Michigan in about 1955.
The story was that she was too old to take care of it anymore.
The rumor was that my Aunt Pauline and Uncle Russell needed help with the down payment on their new house in Warren.
After my Grandmother sold her house it was decided, not by her I'm sure, that she would live with each of her children on a rotating basis.
I remember when she moved in with us. She got the small bedroom. I think I had to move in with my parents, my sisters, I don't remember which.
I don't remember much about her. She was old. She liked to watch wrestling on Friday nights, and scream at the bad guys, and yell at my dad to shut up whenever he laughed and told her that it was all fake.
She used to send my sister D, I think D was her favorite, kindred spirits or something, down to the corner store to buy bananas. The bananas were for grandmother, not to share, just for her, and this pissed my mother off to no end.
My most vivid memory is that she chewed Mail Pouch flaked tobacco and had a spittoon next to her chair that was fashioned out of an old three pound Chase and Sanborn coffee can.
I looked in the can a couple times, and it was gross, maybe the grossest thing I had ever seen.
After a few weeks she moved on to another relative, another of my aunts and uncles.
A few weeks after that she moved on to the hospital, she had some kind of cancer.
I remember while she was in the hospital we drove out there. My dad went in to visit her and my mother and my sisters and I stayed in the car. I remember that it seemed like my dad was in there forever.
We sat in the car and complained about how hungry we were, about how really hungry we were.
Then my dad came out and we stopped at the Oven King Cookie Factory Outlet Store and bought two big bags of broken cookies for 49 cents a bag, and the hunger was sated and all was right with the world.
My grandmother passed away not too long after that.
She passed away on my birthday.
The birthday that I stepped on a rusty nail and I had to get a tetanus shot.
I remember at the funeral home, I fell, or had my feelings hurt, or something like that, and I saw my mother talking to another woman and I ran up to her and buried my head in her skirts and started crying.
Except I had buried my head in the wrong skirts, they were my Aunt Ruby's skirts, an aunt I never knew I had, and my Aunt Ruby and my mother laughed, and this embarrassed me even more, and then my mother told my Aunt Ruby that I had just had a birthday, and my Aunt Ruby reached into her purse and gave me a dollar, and I stopped crying, and life went on.

Thursday, April 14, 2005

The Grand Dufus lives up to his name

Thursday, April 14, 2005
Wow, been over a month since I updated. Been havin fun especially since I have a vehicle now, that's always nice. Found my Ecko jacket, some skanky slut bitch workin at Waffle House has it, oh but I'll get it back don't worry bout that.

Editors note: It takes a certain kind of aplomb to refer to a Waffle House employee as some skanky slut bitch
when you work the midnight shift at the Winn Dixie bagging groceries at minimum wage, and you look like this.

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Update: Oh yeah, the vehicle he is referring to is his mother's old minivan. Happy pimpin' Doof!

With the Tawas Blues Again

Where's the post I dreamt I made.
The one where the words just flowed.
It was the dock of the bay.
It was the Chelsea hotel.
It was every song I've ever loved.
Sung just for you.
Filtered, filtered through my Tawas state of mind.

Wednesday, April 13, 2005

Ode to a Kosher Dill Part 2

This isn't going to be as easy as I first thought.



I cheated a little bit, I opened the jar and took a whiff.
My sinus are no longer clogged.
So I guess that is something.
And strangely, I am starting to feel hungry.
Mmmmm, hungry, hungry, hungry.
Oh baby, give me one of your ...
Whole
Kosher
Dills

Tuesday, April 12, 2005

Ode to a Kosher Dill

Tonight's a first.
I made a promise.
She is going to seduce my palate, pallet, palette ...
With a kosher dill ... pickle.
I've never eaten a kosher dill before, or even a regular dill for that matter.
I have been pickle deprived all my life.
But that will change tonight, but I already said that,
A dill, a kosher dill.
Briny, salty, sour, what, what, what?
Don't tell her, but I'm kind of excited, but scared too.
I'm tempted to go eat one now, as a warm-up, just to see if I really want to eat
A kosher dill for real.
It's strange though, you know.
My father, his name was Dill, well actually Dillard,
But they called him Dill.
And you know, could this be some kind of ritualistic stepping out from my father's shadow, by devouring it, his shadow.
Or is it just a pickle, a kosher dill.
Yeah, that's all it is, just a pickle.
Just a kosher dill.
And what about the phallic implications.
I don't even want to go there.

Black and white memories

Today would have been my sister's 61st birthday.
Last year would have been her 60th birthday.
The year before last would have been her 59th birthday.



Happy Birthday D.

Monday, April 11, 2005

Super - Bozu

Could there be a more perfect gift for me than this?



My present from her vacation in Japan.

Mother Boz update

I found MB's alarm clock in the trash the other day and asked her what had happened.
She told me it stopped running, but she saved the battery because she thought I might be able to use it for something.

All the plaster in Paris

So, here it is, it's ten after what the fuck time.
Barely twenty minutes.
And I'm already missing the sound of her voice.
I'm that far gone.
Solid gone, I really am.
There is no dancing at three in the morning, but I am.
Amen brother.
Good night.

Sunday, April 10, 2005

What About Boz?

Things are getting better.
I'm reading a book.
I almost thought of ordering a cheese burger.
I'm working up to eating a kosher dill pickle.
I don't know about this avocado thing though.
I'm thinking about considering not being afraid of commitment.
I really, really, think I could learn to swim, or at least float with proper guidance.
I watched a movie all the way through without interruption, except for a couple of bathroom breaks.
I've learned that the pauses aren't to be dreaded, but savored, oh yeah, savored.
It IS all about baby steps, baby steps, baby steps.

It's national library week

So take a library to lunch, or get 'em a nice fruit basket, or something.

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I think the first real adult grown-up book without pictures I read was a biography of Buffalo Bill Cody when I was about six years old.
All I remember about it is having to ask my parents what just about every tenth word was, and them telling me.

Saturday, April 09, 2005

Saturday morning 6-7 am

I should really go back to bed, no I really should.
But there is a certain rhythm that you can only get
When you are half asleep, and it's still dark out, and you have the need to write.
There's a car on the road, I can hear it.
It's that one kid who always guns it as he turns right and heads down Green.
And you know I sort of kind of wish I was still coming home at six in the morning
And still had the balls to gun it at as I turned right on Green.
Yeah, he turned right, it's him alright.
And god, that sound is annoying.
And god that sound is exhilarating.
And he probably thinks he is some small town version of Bruce Springsteen.
And you know he probably is, with his Rosalita by his side.
And a feeling deep inside that he doesn't understand.
He just doesn't know.
He just doesn't see.
He'd better get it while he can.
Cause he's just a few steps away from being me
Sitting here at seven in the morning
Searching for the rhythm, instead of living it.

Things I have learned in the past week.

Real men have guts.
I am textbook neurotic.
It's ok for straight guys to kiss but not ok to kiss a dog.
I have one good drunk left in me.
I have an Austin state of mind.
It's okay to call him Hank Miller.
Cashews aren't an aphrodisiac.
The telemarketer and the schoolgirl is not a good erotic phone sex fantasy.
But the cruel librarian is.
Every song is a love song, seriously.

So young lady, you think it is acceptable behavior to chew gum in a library?

Friday, April 08, 2005

You have the right to remain silent

I have a confession to make.
I want to fuck Bambi.
Yeah, that Bambi, Disney's Bambi, the dewy eyed fawn they call Bambi.
Wait, please don't judge me.
I know it's wrong. I know it's sick. I know it's perverted ...
But I want to fuck Bambi.
Yeah, it's sick.
Way sicker than my wanting a threesome with Betty and Veronica.
Sick, sick, sick.
But you know, I thought I had it under control.
It had been years since I'd had those feelings, those longings ...
The wanting to fuck Bambi.
Whewwwwwww.
Yeah, it's cool, I'm cool, you're cool, Bambi is cool ...
God, I want to fuck Bambi.
Yeah, it was under control, yeah under control, until Jonnie made this post.
I didn't realize, I didn't know, I wasn't the only one who ...
Wanted to fuck Bambi.
So yeah, I'm working on it. It'll be hard.
I've already been banned from all the local video stores, but yeah, I can deal with it.
I don't need to fuck Bambi.
I don't have to fuck Bambi.
Goddamnit ...
I want to fuck Bambi.

Please, please, please, don't judge me until you've walked a mile in my shoes.
By the way, Thumper's girlfriend is pretty fucking hot too.

So, ahhhh, what's your favorite color?

I've heard that people who have police scanners are able to pick up cordless phone conversations.
If that's true there is probably a guy in the Castro district looking to get a Boz in a heart tattoo, and an older couple in East Tawas who missed about three hours of last nights Matlock marathon on TBS.
I'm just saying, that's all.

C-a-t

I was the second smartest kid in my third grade class.
Peggy E was the smartest.
But we were opposite sides of the coin.
I had a sort of native intelligence and a quick mind, but I was lazy and I was destined to peak in elementary school.
Amy, I mean Peggy, on the other hand, was smart, a hard worker and you knew she was going to make something of herself.
We used to have weekly spelling bees and Peggy, always whipped my ass.
Peggy always won. I'd always do ok, you know second, or third, or fourth, but that goddamn Peggy, always fucking won. You know the little bitch had to be getting off on it too.
So anyway, one week we had this spelling bee right before lunch, and yeah I guess it was a sleepy kind of day, and kids are falling away like flies, until there were four of us, then three of us, and then just Peggy, and I.
Yeah, I looked over at Peggy, and sort of sighed, and thought what the hell, this will be over soon enough and I can go home for lunch and drown my sorrows with a couple of tuna sandwiches and a bottle of Pepsi.
And then it happened, holy shit, then it happened, yeah, right, you know what happened.
Peggy, got the word almost, and she blew it.
I mean, she fucking blew it.
The bitch was mine!
I just laid Peggy, over the table and let her have it.
(Figuratively, of course)
A - yeah
L - oh yeah
M - who's your daddy
O - beg me for it
S - oh god, oh god, oh god
T - YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
I must have had a boner as big as Texas and as we were walking home for lunch I said ...
Peggy, Peggy, Peggy, what did you think, did you know you were going to miss that word, huh, huh, huh, did you think I'd get it right, huh, huh, huh. Oh Peggy, that was good, that was so good for me. Was it good for you, was it was it, was it???

Peggy, turned to me and said ...
Hey, spell this, FUCK YOU!

So yeah, words are great, I really love them.
It's spelling them that sucks.

Thursday, April 07, 2005

Benzedrine and answering machines

You know you've got something special when on your first phone call you talk about.
1. Randy Quaid.
2. Tards.
3. Lesbian submissives.
4. Compost heaps.
5. Barking homeless guys.
6. Gilliomville.
7. The cunt known as Meg Ryan.
8. Playing in traffic.
9. Your mother's crappy pictures.
10. How really fucking awesome it is to hear the sound of her voice when she is actually speaking with it.

Dear sir or madam

I was a very earnest fifteen year old.
I think it was a combination of too much folk music, and not enough contact with the opposite sex.
Anyway, one day I discovered the letters to the editors page.
I was like whoa, you can write the newspaper letters and they will actually print them.
So I gathered up all the righteous indignation I could muster and sat down and wrote this magnificent
condemnation of the middle aged and the middle class.
I chided them for living in the past, I wagged my finger at them for not taking us seriously.
Sure, they had the depression and World War Two, but we had stuff too.
The threat of nuclear holocaust, the war in Vietnam, segregation ...
I went on and on.
I practically quoted The Eve of Destruction word for word.
It was my masterpiece.
I felt like a young Thomas Paine.
I put the letter in an envelope, addressed it, and put it on my desk, and then forgot about it completely.
I had a short attention span even back then.
I got home from school the next day and remembered the letter, and I decided to toss it.
I decided to let the middle aged middle class have their day, and besides I knew it would cause all sorts of shit at home.
I looked around, nope, couldn't find it.
No biggie.
Maybe I hadn't even written a letter.
Short attention span, remember.

Fast forward a couple of days.

I get home from school. I went in the afternoons, I usually got home at about five forty five.
Dinner was already on the table.
My stupid son of a bitch of a brother in law walks in.
Yeah, my sister and the dipshit were living with us at the time, he had just gotten out of the air force and he was trying to find himself, and he usually found himself parked on the couch watching game shows and soap operas.
But I digress.
My stupid son a bitch of a brother in law walks into the kitchen with the paper under his arm, and a shit eating grin on his face, and starts laughing, and I knew he was laughing at me, and I knew why he was laughing at me.
It was the letter,
Damn, I hated being laughed at in general and by my ssoaboabil in particular.
Yeah, it was the letter. My mother found it on my desk, stuck a stamp on it and mailed it.
She didn't mail if out of good faith.
If the letter hadn't been in a envelope she would have read it.
She mailed it because she wanted to know what was in it!
Mother's of teenage boys are evil evil bitches.
Anyway, my ssoaboabil had his laugh, my sister said awwww, isn't that cute, my mother said she didn't understand it but it was well written, and my father said where's the sports section.

So ...
I guess from that humble beginning sprang The Grand Ennui.
That humble beginning and a 38 year gap.

Wednesday, April 06, 2005

Drive by

I drove by the pet store today.
The sign out front said,
Hamsters.
I was very tempted.

It hurts when I do this

I just ran into my doctor in town.
Great guy, a few years younger than me.
His bedside manner is his best trait.
My dad loved him, seriously loved him.
I used to refer to him as
The son my father never had
But never to my father's face.

Insert Goofy Smile Here

It's AmyJo.

Take your best shot

So, I wore sneakers for the first time this year.
I almost fell asleep while driving.
I heard somebody call my name.
There were incredible highs.
There were lows too, but nothing that can't be dealt with.
Did I mention there were incredible highs?
I listened to the Beast of Boz #4 all the way through.
I am listening to the Beast of Boz #4 again.
I ate a whole pack of strawberry licorice just because it was there.
I am worn out.
You can go a long way on emotion and adrenaline.
Rufus Thomas is walking the dog.
I think spring is here, well at least most of the snow has melted.
I probably screwed a few things up.
I didn't mean to.
It happens.
And when she passes each one she passes goes ahhhhhhhh.
Hahaha.
I need a shave.
I'm afraid to look in the mirror because my goofy look isn't my best look.
I'm trying to memorize a telephone number.
I hate telephones, they expose my inner flusterability.
Take a deep breath, good, exhale, again.
Twenty five years. Twenty five years. Twenty five years. Twenty five years. Twenty five years. Twenty five years. Twenty five years. Twenty five years. Twenty five years. Twenty five years. Twenty five years. Twenty five years. Twenty five years. Twenty five years. Twenty five years. Twenty five years. Twenty five years. Twenty five years. Twenty five years. Twenty five years. Twenty five years. Twenty five years. Twenty five years. Twenty five years. Twenty five years.Twenty five years.Twenty five years.
Did it work?
Do I care?
I'm coming to liberate you, I want to confiscate you, I wanna be your man.
Zooooooooooooooooom.

Tuesday, April 05, 2005

It's uncanny, fucking uncanny

Happy Birthday Bette.

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Nice eyes, someone should write a song about them.

You're not a ham sandwich until someone orders a ham sandwich.

So anyway, I just finished talking with her, about a half hour ago, and we were talking about stuff, and how she really likes my writing, and that is music to my ears and stuff. Tra la la.
You know, she digs me, we dig each other, but yeah, that's just stating the obvious, but she's careful you know, she doesn't want me to know that she really likes what I write too much, because of the whole ego thing, mine, not hers, and damn that whole Ego Anonymous thing just ain't working out, but anyway, she strokes it, my ego, because well, we dig each other, and ego stroking is something that people who dig each other do to, and for, each other even when they know they shouldn't.
But she said something tonight, before the ego stroking started, that really just floored me. She said something like ...
You writers are all alike.
And I'm like whoa, writer, me writer?
I mean, no one has ever so casually called me a writer. No one whose opinion I value, and I value her opinion, because she knows about things like this, and yeah I also value her opinion because I'm trying to get into her pants, and yeah no one has ever so casually called me a writer, and that is awesome, and I mean awesome on the backhand, the forehand, and the any hand awesome.
So wow, meet me, boz the writer, or at least one woman's opinion of a writer, and her opinion is the only opinion for me, so, la di dah, la di fucking dah.

And we should all know by now what digging each other is a codeword for.

It's my fever and I 'll cry if I want to

I had pretty much resigned myself to the fact that the life I'd been leading would be the life I would lead for the rest of my life.
Then I got knocked on my ass, and when I looked up there she was.
Ummmmm, stay tuned for part two, sometime.

Babble on incoherently much, Ken?

Monday, April 04, 2005

This car ain't got no brakes

Crap.
I don't know.
Crap.
I've got all these conflicting emotions going on, ya know.
I've really been happy the past few weeks.
Can you tell?
Shit.
I hurt, and I mean I hurt all the time but ...
I'm happy!!!
I don't know what's happening.
I'm happy.
I hurt.
I'm crazy.
I'm introspective.
I'm in touch with my own mortality.
I'm happy.

Every goofy love song I have ever heard is going through my mind.
No, no, no, no, no, that's not what I said.
It's the songs, they're goofy, and they're love songs, and they just happen to be going through my head, and it's three in the morning, and I'm trying not to look over the edge, but damn, I want to take a peek.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So tell me.
Never mind, don't tell me, but yeah, I'm curious.
Is this even somewhat normal?

Well, I'm going back to bed.
Wait, wait, I thought there was someone there.
Ok, no, I'm really going to bed now.

I'm not used to wearing my emotions on my sleeve, well, I'm not used to wearing this emotion on my sleeve, but you know, it's kind of cool, and I'm happy, seriously happy.

It's April in Paris, and these visons of Johanna they've kept me up past the dawn.

Sunday, April 03, 2005

Who Am I

To paraphrase AmyJo, I am the young boy who sits in the back of the class with the pet hamster, that he's smuggled into class, unaware that the teacher, and the rest of the class are watching as he talks, jokes, and sings, to his hamster, and when he picks the hamster up by it's hind legs he smiles and laughs because it's eyeballs don't really fall out.

If I miss paraphrased AmyJo I'm sure she'll correct me.

The BEAST of BOZ #4

1. Jolene - Dolly Parton
2. Walking the Dog - Rufus Thomas
3. Girl From Ipanema - Getz and Gilberto
4. Hound Dog - Big Mama Thornton
5. One Way Or Another - Blondie
6. Green Onions - Booker T and the MGs
7. Rosalita (Come Out Tonight) - Bruce Springsteen
8. Sultans of Swing - Dire Straits
9. Witchi Tai To - Everything is Everything
10. The Road Goes On Forever - Robert Earl Keen
11. One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer - John Lee Hooker
12. Ring of Fire - Johnny Cash
13. Willing - Little Feat
14. Harvest Moon - Neil Young
15. She's Got Soul - Nick Lowe
16. Haunted - The Pogues and Sinead O'Conner
17. Mustang Sally - Wilson Pickett
18. Morning Dew - Tim Rose
19. We Gotta Get You A Woman - Todd Rundgren
20. Polk Salad Annie - Tony Joe White
21. Venus in Furs - The Velvet Underground

Saturday, April 02, 2005

Saturday, it's not just the weekend anymore

It's saturday morning and I'm awake, awake.
I swear my body's electric.

So, a man with a penis attached to his forehead walks into a bar and orders a Manhattan.
The bartender, a shapley woman of indiscriminate age, hands him his drink and says ... is that a penis attached to your forehead, or are you just glad to see me?
That'll be six dollars please.

I've been so in touch with my feminine side lately that I've taken to wearing pads, just in case.
Someone dared me to say that, but it's true, I swear it's true.
Is that a sanitary napkin in your pocket or are you just glad to see me, or could it be something of a more delicate nature?

And finally, this just in.
The pope, through a vatican spokesperson, says:
I ain't dying till this whole Shiavo hysteria blows over. I'm the pope dammit and I expect center stage.

Friday, April 01, 2005

Everything but the squeal

Did you know that I know that that it isn't unusual for a woman to pee herself a little when she laughs real hard, and I think I've probably made more women pee a little than come at all, and that's just a gut feeling, and I'll probably even forget that I've said it by morning, huh.

Ok, it's three in the morning and I'm here, and you're there, and the pope is dying and that girl with the feeding tube is already dead, and still the world goes on.

It's really nice to be liked, but I honestly don't know why anyone would like me. I mean, I'm not like a psycho or anything, I'm just sort of this guy, but what the fuck, I'll quit trying to figure it out, and just try to enjoy it, what, that, yeah, it, ok.

Oh yeah, the pain is worth it, and those of you who are supposed to understand it will.

This is fucking Pat O'Brien for Hostess fucking Ho Ho's signing the fuck off.

Ummmm

I mean seriously ...

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There's gotta be a dirty joke in there somewhere!

Coffee, tea, or me???

I left a comment on David Duchovny's blog.
Scroll down towards the end.