Tag: humor

Driving Prophets

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profit drive

We work hard to keep expenses down
It makes no difference as long as it works
There was an accidental death you say?
When in business profit from every loss

Someone sends memo’s to keep us in check
We’re plagued by whistle blowers as well
In the end we will destroy every last one
Because yearly Quarterly reports are due

The business must show off a lot of profit
So some of the small people may need to burn
You tell me there are hungry people starving
Without money its not a corporate concern

Them peasants they never have cash and carry
They can live and dine on leftover crumbs
We’re not losing one single night sleep
Worrying about some unproductive bums

The lazy lot of beggars they’re on welfare
And they drive our property values down
If it was up to the big corporations
We’d toss all their assets straight out of town

Because the only people we really need
Are the folks with dollar sign eye sockets
Like foolish Eskimos who purchase upscale ice
We have the naïve buyer in our hip pockets

The one thing we will sell for the indigent
Is We’ll sell their asses all down the rivers
But don’t go calling us greedy bastards
Call us generous minimum wage job givers

For a healthy tax break we create entry jobs
Employment in which you break your backs
Politicians speaking in fuzzy economics say
Donate to us we’ll give you shelter from the tax

And if anyone attempts to topple our profits
You’ll find your heads inside a hanging noose
We will eradicate any who try challenging us
No one will ruin our branded golden goose

Everyone knows money talks and bullshit walks
You consumers can stop all of your squawking
If your credit rating isn’t up to our standards
Don’t let the door hit you and keep on walking

Walk your maxed out credit cards outta town
No one rides if you don’t have enough bucks
Money is the reigning king of everything
Without it your all plain shit out of luck

So let the bleeding heart socialists whine
Prophesizing an economy thats falling down
Long as we keep driving our high end profits
We’ll drive those prophets deep into the ground

Jewels Hollandaise Sauce, The Happy Culinarian

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jewels

Jewels Hollandaise Sauce here on Foodie Channel Network with my new show, The Happy Culinarian (THC). Today I am interviewing the once rising star in the cake industry, Bae King Powder, who just recently wrote his tell all culinary confesional book, “Batter Up, The Rise and Fall of A Cupcake Empire.” Welcome to the show Mr. Powder. Let me begin with the scandel you recently found yourself in with the purchase of illegal products that authorities gave you such sought after top shelf cupcakes. How did it all go down, what toppled your empire?

BKP… Thanks for having me here Jewels, You’re a sharp interviewer, I see you like to get right to the point. Yes its true, I was busted, Leavening Agents took me from my bakery in handcuffs. Really no knead for that. But they had been watching my bakery for quite a while. Apparently some of my shcmuck competitors tipped them off I was using illegally obtained PH in my batter. The batter accusation hit me hard! They were way off base and it came out of left field. First let me go on the record, I had no idea PH from Thailand was illegal, and yes it’s true I used it. The cost of inflation was rising but my cupcakes weren’t. After the Cupcake Wars ended and it was revealed that no whip pans of mass induction were hidden in rebel bakeries. Aside from the politically aligned bakeries all cupcake makers were left flat, mine included. Mission Accomplished my ass!

JHS. Of course, we all remember the bad intel The Food Channel got from Halliburton Lard Distributors that lead to the Cupcake Wars but lets get back to you. As I remember it you claim you were targeted because of your sudden cupcake rise to fame. Exactly how did your cupcakes rise so much?

BKP. Well yea, my batter was much different than most other bakers. With high quality ingredients and hard work my cupcakes rose to near cult status, some even referring to them as ‘crack cupcakes’ because they were addictive. Most of those other shmucks were using short cuts. That’s the reason we rose, not because of some illegal powders in my recipe. I got a much fluffier and porous product and that made me a target. All my competitors wanted to see my cakes fall so they set me up. Just about everybody jumped on the Baking Soda bandwagon and that made their products all seem like cookie cutter copies of each others product. People couldn’t tell the difference between Crumbies, Mack Nola’s, or that new place, Two Broke Chicks. They all tasted the same, looked the same, nothing special. I tried to keep my secret ingredient under wraps like the sandwich industry, or like Coca Cola or any other product that wants to keep their secrets contained. The brand of PH I used was as much intellectual property as my recipes, I had no idea we had broken ties with the Thai’s on PH trade. I had agents dumpster diving on my property while my bakery was closed but that didn’t work so they snuck a mole into my kitchen. Once they had their mole in place they called the Health Department. Shut me down because of a blind rodent that was planted in the plant! Mission Accopmplished my ass!

JHS. So after the clandestine garbage hunting failed they snuck a mole on your property then called the Health department? That’s a serious allegation Bae.

BKP. Oh its more than an allegation Jewels, its an accusation. The other bakeries wanted me destroyed and they lobbied with the Cupcake Icing Agency as well as the Felonious Bakers Investigation pitting both the CIA and FBI against me. They sent Leavening Agents to me looking to get a rise out of me by offering me bribes. I had it on camera but the government had it erased. Of course now I can’t prove anything but if you really look at my pudding, you’ll find the truth there. That was my mission accomplished.

JHS. Proof in the pudding? Conspiracy by government officilals? I mean really Mr. Powder, you want us to believe that all these people conspired to bring your cupcakes down?

BKP. You can believe what you want but if you read my book I have no doubt you’ll see I speak the truth. No one is outside the reach of our government. My cupcakes got too big, rose too high and they didn’t like that, felt threatened. That’s what my book will tell you, all about the conspiracies that took the wind from my sales. If tearing down The Cupcake Dude was their mission, I suppose it was accomplished. But the Dude won’t go down without a fight, I’ll take my batter and come out swinging, slam them for a grand at least.

JHS. Okay Bae, THC wishes you good luck in your plight. Well you heard that folks, buy Bae King Powders new book, Batter up to find out the truth behind the conspiracies. I have to tell you Bae, I usually have my staph read these books for me but I actually read this book in two days. How you built the empire was riveting, I was fascinated the entire read. Not only by the conspiracy but by the whole story of your rise to cupcake stardom. One last thing before you go, what’s next for the Cupcake Dude?

BKP. First of all Jewels, my cupcakes will rise again, like The Phoenix. No breads, I don’t knead the dough, but I am working on a new line of alcohol based cupcakes and deep fried mini cupcakes. People today are all concerned about all the GMO crap so it’s a perfect time to sneak the fried foods craze on them. Also, suddenly half the world thinks it has gluten allergies so I’m developing a cupcake made exclusevily with edible plastics. My first attempt was a C4 cupcake which blew up in my face, but edible plastic is the next wave of the future. I’ll be launching a line of cupcakes with Polyunsaturated Urethane Styrene as well as a number of other substances people won’t even be able to pronounce. Plastics are the future and edible plastics will take over the entire culinary industry once everyone realizes what a brilliant concept filling people full of plastic pleasure truly is. Thanks for having me Jewels, and remember, Never Underestimate The Power Of A Cupcake….Peace

High Crimes and Mister Meaner, A Tale Noir (pt1)

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high crime

by J.T. Hilltop
The story I am about to tell is true, the names have been changed to protect the guilty
Prologue
The year 1971, the town Centerlawn, a thriving little Long Island community in the suburbs of New York City where four youths chose to show blatant disregard of the law and engage in the heinous crime of sharing a marijuana cigarette. In an attempt to prevent these youths from throwing their lives away down the illegal drug drain two police officers arrested the four miscreant hoodlum youths and took them to the precinct for some instant “wake the fuck up” real world advice dispensing. That’s how things rolled in 1971 suburbia.…

My name is JT Hilltop and I was one of those miscreant hoodlum youths who narrowly averted a lifetime of penal institutions for a taste of the forbidden fumes. We weren’t hardened criminals or anything, just a couple of teens out on the prowl hunting for some fun. Me and my three cohorts were typical suburban kids looking for some cheap kicks to break up the boredom of living in our mundane cookie cutter neighborhood. Our way of escaping the doldrums of our mind numbing existences was to engage in the mind altering practice of smoking anything containing THC. Opting to gamble our futures away for a few puffs on the magic dragon we engaged acts of refer madness that can only be described as….One helluva crazy fun time! This is our story:

Part I
“Hey look, here comes Monty, he got his car back.” Monty, short for Montebello, was one of the cool kids in high school who had a car. Me, Streak, and Jimbo were just hanging around “The Stores”, a local meeting place where youths gathered to plan their evening of hijinx and carousing. Rolling across the tedium of a warm summers eve Monty pulled up in his recently repaired Plymouth Valiant. Not an especially hot car but it beat the Hell out of anything we had, which was actually two sting ray bicycles and a ten speed. In our defense though the sting ray bikes were tricked out with Ape hanger handlebars and Banana seats. One even had a sissy bar. Monty pulled up alongside us rolling down the window, “Hey man, you guys got any buzz?” Buzz! That’s what we lived for, a taste of escape from the unified conformity in Centerlawn that shaped our lives. Buzz was how we described anything that got us high, marijuana, hash, colored capsules from our parents medicine cabinets, or whatever we could get our hands on. “I got some weed man, you got papers?” Streak had some weed. Streak almost always had weed, I could never figure out how he did it but it wasn’t a surprise when he spoke up. We shared buzz all the time because none of us felt like getting high alone. I guess relief from misery loves company as much as misery itself. From the tiniest chunk of hash to the biggest five finger ounce of pot if one of us was holding, all of us high. “Of course I have papers. Get in guys.” Streak got in the front, because with having buzz comes privilege. Jimbo and I filed into the back. “Where ya wanna go to get high?” Streak was already rolling a joint, “Lets go up to the school parking lot man, we can hide in the back corner.” The sound mind of Jimbo, the most rational thinker of our crowd (actually the only rational one) broke in quickly, “No man, not a good idea. There’s no way to escape from there.” Streak overruled his objection, “No ones even gonna see us Jimbo, we can puff all we want, no one will ever know.” Monty and I agreed so Jimbo gave in reluctantly.
Now if we had seriously thought this whole thing out we would have realized that Jimbo was absolutely correct. “The school” was our old Elementary school and far beyond the parking lot in the corner of the playground was where we first learned the virtues of partying. It had been a safe place for us to guzzle Budweisers, or Schlitz if we were low on cashola, or Ripple or Boones Farm wine when we felt all upscale suburban. The cops patrolled it periodically but we were located in a perfect position to run in different directions into the woods. No one ever got caught there and it must have pissed off the cops because they never gave up trying. Or maybe they didn’t really care because it was only beer but there in lay the real problem. We had graduated to the hard stuff, smoking the devils weed, which puts everyone Heroin Highway, a dead end road for drug users. Now we were not just sneaking in a little alcohol to get drunk, we were committing high crimes that suck the soul of youth out of every neighborhood. That only made the police more desperate to catch us. But Hell, we were indestructible and would never get caught. Did I say never? Despite our dark out of the way hiding spot and being unseen by any passing traffic we failed to realize that the cops still made periodic runs through the school. Maybe we were too eager or too stoned but it never occurred to us we were far from the corner of the playground without our safety net. In hindsight the cops had to get to the corner of the playground somehow, and as we would shortly find out, they used the most logical path, straight through the parking lot.
“Just got my car back from the shop, cost me fifty bucks man. So what you guys been up to?” I always liked Monty so I answered him then gave him an offer, “Work mostly man. Keeping it real at the Nursing home, hanging at the beach when I’m off. But I was vacuuming the floor in the nurses office and noticed the medicine box unlocked. I five fingered a dozen Darvon man, got two with me now man, you want?” Monty accepted the two pills and placed them in his pocket as he slipped Jethro Tull’s Aqualung tape into his eight track. We had already passed the joint three times and I was flying, “Fuckin A Streak, where’d you get this shit man, its killer?” Streak took a deep hit answering without exhaling, “It…sss…we chair wee igha fra mahbaath Bobba” We all understood stoner speak, the language spoken while trying to keep your hit of weed in your lungs. He said “its wheelchair weed I got from my brother Bobby” Any weed that was super potent we called wheelchair weed, because after puffing it you felt like you couldn’t walk. The kept the car was full of smoke with the windows up because we didn’t like to waste the smoky sweetness and thought if it hung around it would continue to ply its magic on us. Mistake number two!
Streak took out his baggie of herb getting ready to roll another joint when we noticed two blaring white lights right in front of us bearing down like mini rockets. Because of the smoke we couldn’t tell it was a cop car sneaking up on us but in hindsight it wouldn’t have mattered if we did. The cops were on us within seconds so we reacted in typical stoner fashion. We totally froze trying to make sense of anything while wondering what the Hell was happening. After a few seconds we all three noticed two men running out from the two glaring lights. The message finally made its way past all the smoke and up to our brains so we instinctively began a frantic attempt to roll down the windows. Streak in a fit of panic tossed his baggie of weed with seeming super strength across the lawn. The doors of Monty’s car were flung open and the sight of two men in blue uniforms pointing actual guns at us made us damn near shit our pants. “Get the fuck out of the car and put your hands on the roof!” The voice was scarily authoritative and our “highs” were the only things that had a chance to run away. Now straight and shaking we obediently placed our hands on the roof of Monty’s car. “Hmmmm, smells like you boys are smoking some of that marry-wanna. You boys getting high here?” Desperate to find an excuse Streak replied weakly, “No, ah no, we were just, ah um, we were just talking and listening to music.” As he spoke we all saw the cloud of smoke rolling out of Monty’s Valiant making good on its attempt to completely discredit the story. One of the cops grabbed Streak by the arm and forcefully walked away with him. We could pretty much make out what the cop was saying, “You some kind of wise ass punk? You think we’re idiots?” I prayed Streak didn’t answer truthfully to that question because we considered the cops dopey drop outs. It was obvious he was really just trying to scare the shit out of us. Thinking back, he was pretty successful. The other three of us stood like petrified mannequins with our hands Velcroed to the roof as he pushed Streak back up against the car. Then the other cop came walking over holding something in his hands. He held up the baggie of weed Streak had tossed like it was a prize twelve point deer in a hunting contest, “Well lookie here Finch, seems we got us some Mary Jane here. Are you boys reefer addicts or something?” Then he walked around talking in his ‘I gotcha ya little fuckheads’ voice meant for us, “This here is what we call felony weight boys. Any of you young hoodlums know what felony weight is? I’ll tell you what it is, its over one quarter ounce of a controlled substance like this here bag of marijuana which raises this heinous crime from a misdemeanor to a felony. That means some hard time for whoever owns this shit and I aim to find out which one of you punks owns the dope!”
I was shivering like a naked beachcomber in January despite it being a beautiful warm summer evening. The cops took each one of us for a walk and talk and when returned put handcuffs on. Shit was getting real and I was no longer feeling any kind of buzz. That is aside from the paranoia buzzing in my ears. I was the last to go for the perilous perp walk and by this point they knew my brother was a cop. “Son your brother is gonna be real ashamed once he finds out what a low life criminal his hairbag little brother is. You putting him in a bad spot.” To accentuate the point the had been squeezing my bicep muscle between his thumb and forefinger like he was crushing a peanut shell. “You know what a felony is there Justin?” A million thoughts were flooding through my mind, jail, big bad strong criminals in jail, big bad strong horny criminals in jail, going to jail as fresh meat, and facing Mom and Dad. Jesus I was in deeper shit than ever before. I was hoping he was nicer than Mr. ‘Lookie what I got’ over there so I tried to sound remorseful as I pleaded, “Please officer, I’m not a bad kid, its just a little weed, we weren’t hurting anyone. Have a heart sir, I’m only sixteen and I” He cut me off as he now pinched my arm hard enough to cause a bruise. Apparently he wasn’t the nice cop, he was Mr. Meaner. Not fully satisfied at my wincing he then pushed me hard making me take a few steps to keep from falling on my stoned face. “Have a heart? You’re a cimm ee naal boy, you broke the law! This here is illegal and you did it anyway. Your brother is gonna get a lot of shit for having a felon for a brother. Tell you what though, since your brother is on the job I’ll cut you some slack. All you gotta do is tell me who’s stuff this is and we can work something out.” Shit! Jesus H shit! A rat. He wants me to be a rat. Well there’s no way man, I can’t turn on Streak. “I-I’m sorry officer, I never saw that baggie of weed, all we had was this one joint one of us found, I can’t even remember which of us….” The pain shot through my arm up into my shoulder. Now he was twisting and squeezing my arm pinching the bone as he literally tossed me back towards the car with the others. His voice was trembling he was so angry “Bunch of fucking idiots, all of you. I want to know who’s pot this is and you’re gonna tell me you little shits. Each one of you hairbags are going to jail.” They were rather well versed at intimidating four teenagers with bully tactics that fell just short of abuse in those pre I’m calling DYFS days. The one asshole cop, Mr. Meaner, who had a particular problem with me ruining my brothers cop reputation was eyeing me with evil intent. I saw him move his right foot and the moment his government issue hard leather flatfoot shoe found its target I yelped like a beaten puppy. I could tell there was already a huge lump as I fell to the ground in pain. My calf was throbbing as the other cop, Fitch or Finch or something grabbed both of my arms lifting me up. He flung me like a rag doll against the cop car. I could hear the slight clinking of metal as the criminal containment bracelets slipped around my wrists locking in place. The sharp pain of metal stunned me and I let out a gurgle. “Oh I’m sorry, is that too tight?” Finally some compassion, I nodded and managed a squeaky “A little”. With the ease of a man who more than likely has trouble in bed but found courage and a sense of real manhood wearing a badge of authority, the douchebag tightened the cuffs digging into the flesh at the outer edges of my wrists. Tears welled up in my eyes while they loaded us into the back seat of the police car and proceeded to escort us to the fourth precinct. Apparently what we had here was a failure to communicate.

High Crimes And Mister Meaner, A Tale Noir (part 2)

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high crime

By J. T. Hilltop
The four of us were squeezed into the back seat having now had the first chance to actually see each others faces since the whole ordeal began. Every face was sullen, frightened, and slightly angered, as much at ourselves as our situation. Streak had a visible bruise on his temple, and Monty had a slight shiner of a black eye. The cops laughed and taunted us the entire fifteen minute ride in a misguided attempt to cheer us up, or maybe to make themselves feel superior and in control to compensate for any short comings they may possess. Fitch or Fatch or whatever tried to educate us in what life is like for a felon of our tender ages that get locked up in prison. He took a sadistic joy describing the details of the exact sexual activities we might be experiencing and his partner kicker cop just laughed. Their description of jail rape was frighteningly detailed down to a very expressive diatribe of the pain one feels as a new asshole gets torn in a more literal sense. I had little doubt they were feeling sexually aroused themselves just thinking about our fates, but even that couldn‘t cheer me up. Once we arrived at the precinct things seemed far too relaxed.
We arrived at police headquarters and were instantly separated into our very own personal interrogation rooms. Mine was a small room decorated in post modern minimalism with just a small table and a pair of folding chairs facing each other across the table. My fear impulse was pounding like a herniated migraine headache. I’d heard many stories about beatings with rubber hoses and hard punches using phonebooks so as not to leave any marks. I was hoping I had watched too many cop shows and movies and that shit like that didn’t happen in real life. But inside I knew that was being naïve. I stood there doing nothing as confused as a June bug in July. An idiot in handcuffs just standing still for what seemed to be a half hour. Finally a cop, a different one, came in my room. He walked behind me, removed my handcuffs and ordered me to sit down. He stunk of stale cigarette smoke mixed with too much English Leather cologne. He was much older than the cops who brought us in. I weighed the value of that, older and more paternal or cynically old and more adept at hiding interrogation bruises? “Justin Hilltop, possession of marijuana and distribution of controlled substance! I know your brother Randle. Worked with him a few times. He’s a good cop, a good man, why would you do this to him?” He stared at me condescendingly but I just cast my eyes downward. “It looks like we have a bit of a problem here Justin. I want to help you out here, keep your brother away from all this, but my partner hates drug users. Look son, someone here is guilty of a felony crime, and that somebody has to face the music. Its just a matter of time .We’ve talked to each of the other guys, Monty was caught with some pills and everyone swears you gave them to him. Not only that Justin, they also all claim that it was you that threw that bag of marijuana out the window. Your friends are willing to sell you down the river son. You say it isn’t yours but you see how looks don’t you? Your word against the word of three other kids. The brother of a police officer in position of felony weight marijuana. Not only are you screwing your brother, you may be heading off to Sing Sing.” What? No fucking way, they would never! My head was spinning with possibilities. Hope was melting like a mini marshmallow in a cup of hot cocoa. First business is the pills. I reckon I had to cop to that but its only two pills and I didn‘t sell them or anything, I’d think of a good lie for that, but the weed? Did all of them really say it was mine? That makes no sense. I sat in my chair dumbfounded. “Look Justin, here’s the deal. The other guys think because your brother is a cop you’ll get off easier. Personally I don’t think it was yours but someone has to go down and it looks the others chose you. Maybe we have an option though. Here’s what can happen. One, you admit its your marijuana and we book you, and off to jail you go. Case closed, you go to jail and your buddies go home. Two, you let us know who’s stuff it really was and we‘ll arrest him and see what we can do about getting you home, or three, I call your brother Randle and ask him to come in to the precinct and maybe you can tell him all about it. Know what? I need a smoke. I’m gonna go have one and give you a few moments to decide what your gonna do.” Without another word he got up leaving me alone in the room.
The first thing I noticed after he closed the door was a huge mirror on the wall. I had seen enough movies to know it was a two way mirror. Assuming I was being watched my survival mode kicked in and I went into acting gear, pacing the floor with what I hoped was a panicked look on my face. I pounded my hand and started talking to myself to enhance the performance. Starting of in a low unintelligible voice as if I were reasoning with myself I gradually began speaking louder and more clear so the cops could hear me. “I can’t believe those guys would say it was my stuff, why would they even do that. It wasn’t even ours. Oh man, oh Jesus shit man I’m in big trouble now. I did give Monty the pills but its not like I sold them or anything, I just gave em to him. Oh fuck man, the old man is gonna freakin kill me. I’m gonna get the beating of a lifetime, I’m as good as dead man, what am I gonna do?” I continued on like this for a few minutes before good cop came back in with his partner.
“Well Justin, we need to start talking the truth here son.” Before I could even respond the new cop, just as old and weathered with a battling cologne of perhaps Old Spice snarled at my direction, “Just lock his dirty hairy ass up in the back. Let old man Rheingold make friends with a nice young girl. Is that what you wanna be, a girl?” Now it was directly at me and his voice gained momentum, “Cause if you wanna be a girl with all that hair you’ll fit in real well in lock up, they love girly boys in there. And once they find out you‘re the brother of a cop thay’re gonna treat you extra special, maybe even give ya ass a sweet gang rape. You ready to spread your cheeks there ya smelly, dirty little hippie-shit pussy boy.” Wow! He was pushing every button on the intimidation elevator. Not especially articulate but playing bad cop a bit too well. I opted to give my attention to good cop, “Look I admit I gave the pills to Monty, but I swear to God I have no clue if anyone else had more pot than the joint we smoked. I wanna help, I really do, but I just don’t know where that bag of pot came from.” Good cop stared at me as bad cop began pacing and making harumph noises. Bad cop looked like he wanted to kick something, or someone. Good cop looked over at him, “Marty, wancha go check on old man Rheingold while I finish with Hilltop here.” Bad cop gave me a purposeful distained glare as he left the room slamming the door behind him. “ I told you my partner don’t like no drug users, he’ll be okay. Look Justin, here’s what’s gonna happen now. I’m gonna take your statement down about the pills, Martys gonna talk to your brother Randle, and then we will decide what to do with you from there. And that’s it, unless you have anything to add. Think hard about whether you got anything to say boy, I have no idea what the Sarge will choose to do with you. but I’ll tell ya one thing, he sure don’t like marijuana smokers.”
My head was spinning, so much going on. Before I knew it I was sitting at a desk with good cop who was asking questions and writing things down as I answered. “Okay Justin, what kind of pills did you sell Richard and where did you get them?” I was taken aback, “Wait, what? I didn’t sell them to Monty, er I mean Rich, I gave them to him!” I felt like I pleaded my case well but good cop was not feeling it. “Oh sorry Justin, I thought you knew. The law see’s no difference between giving and selling when it come to controlled substance. Its called distribution. It doesn’t matter whether you accepted money or not, legally you distributed illegal drugs. So lets start over, tell me where you bought the pills.”
I felt completely busted, they tricked me into confessing and I knew I had to give them something in order for them to back off about the baggie of weed. Thinking fast I came up with a story about an unattractive older woman who gave me the pills as a way of gaining my sexual friendship. They ate the story up believing they were on to a sexual predator. Or maybe they were getting off on it, but it worked. I’m not sure how long it took for them to give up searching for a heavy set dirty blond thirty something woman in Cold Spring Bay driving a Pontiac Firebird and surfing for young boys with a vial full of pills. Actually, thinking about it would really suck if anyone was hassled over my fable, but I had to do what I had to do. They finally relented on the marijuana charge, I thought I threw them but found out later that Streak admitted to owning the wicked weed. My brother came to the precinct to take me home which sucked, because it meant a long lecture and an extra few cc’s of disappointment guilt serum before going before the firing squad in my house. This too shall pass.
The legal part of the ordeal was over. Randle explained to me that my friend Jack (Streak) had admitted to owning the pot so Jimbo and Monty were released to our parents and I was given the added bonus of being released to my very angry older brother. I begged him not to say anything to Mom and Dad, trying the old it will kill them routine, and he told me to wait in the car as he went in to talk to them. It was a weak argument but I had to give it a try. When he called me inside I knew instantly he told them by the look on both my parents faces. They had somehow been able to register an array of emotions on their faces. Anger, disgust, profound disappointment, sadness, the feeling they failed as parents, the feeling their son is a drug addict, and more anger. I didn’t know it at the time, but once I became a parent I would possess the same super power of making a child feel like shit just by shape shifting the expression on my face.
As for the four of us delinquents, we got scoffed at by school mates for being idiots but also acquired a bit of street creds for being arrested. We avoided each other over the next few days, none of us knowing what the others went through, but once we finally did speak our tales were remarkably similar. The cops took us each aside and dangled the “everyone else told us it was yours” bait in front of us, and just as I assumed Monty and the rest sold me out for the pills, Streak was sure we had sold him out as well. In retrospect the cops were not as stupid as we thought them. We miscalculated believing them to be dim witted asshats but they fooled the shit straight out of all four of our pants to get to their “truth”. I was grounded for the remainder of my teen years which actually sounded fair, but I knew it wouldn’t last because they would grow tired of me constantly moping around complaining about where my friends were and what they were doing. I grew tediously disenchanted with television and snuck joints up in my room among other things to help pass my home incarceration sentence. All in all I learned a valuable set of lessons. One, always have an escape route when getting high, two, if a level headed member of the group suggests a place to be unsafe hear him out, and three, if ever again I get pulled into the station for a crime, remember that the cops are smarter than they look, they lie their faces off, and cannot be trusted about anything. Oh yea, one more thing, always keep a stash of something hidden in your room in case you ever get grounded for life.
Epilogue

In the end no real harm was done other than our parents finding out we smoked pot and Streak having to get a lawyer to go to court. Streak received an ACOD, adjourned in contemplation of dismissal, meaning if he got in no trouble for six months the charge and conviction were stricken from the records. Streak never really treated me or Monty the same, even after hearing that the cops tricked us by telling each of us the same thing about everyone else saying it was ours. I think he always had doubts. Jimbo and Streak however remained close friends, maybe Jimbo’s sound mind quality made him more believable. Time passed and life continued to happen. Jimbo and Streak eventually cut off all ties with me but I was leaving town soon anyway so I lost contact with pretty much all of my Centerlawn friends. Even now in the Facebook reunion age Jimbo wants no correspondence with me which is fine, some parts of our pasts are best left behind and forgotten. As for Monty, I went my way, Monty went his, I have no idea where or how he is but we parted as friends. I am certain of one thing though, if I were to somehow get in touch with Monty he and I would get a big laugh reminiscing over this tale and other assorted teen age escapapades we shared. Monty and I remained friends even after our being memorialized in the Long Islander newspaper Police Blotter section. Not like BFF best friends maybe but a friendship that traveled beyond schoolmate acquaintances. A friendship unchanged. As I stated, the bust have a lasting effect on the shattered friendships of my other two compadres. Once childhood friends now a casual friendship built on distrust and tension. Jimbo remained the sound voice, forging his life as one of Centerlawn’s upstanding citizens to this day and by all accounts he’s happy, but as I understand it Streak found himself on the wrong side of the law later in life in a much more serious capacity. I think about three of those compadres every now and again, and especially the night our heinous disregard for law and order altered our relationships. One night, one incident can have a ripple effect on our universal existences, turn friends into acquaintances, but in the end we really only need to answer to ourselves. As for me, well I continued my evil pot smoking ways for a long time to come, had my own minor brushes with the law, but in the end if its true that a persons measure is in their deeds and character, then I’m okay with myself. My deeds, counseling of youths, and assistance to others in need far outweighs all of my minor mistakes. Life is not always easy and all four of us had our share of dark times, but then again, sometimes you need to feel around in the dark for a while in order to appreciate the light. Peace

Joint Therapy for Manic Monday

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joint therapy

Every Monday it starts out the same way
Complaining about everything just to complain
Worthless words ponding with hammer force
Another set of vocal nails piercing my brain

Why not just shut up, stop the barrage
Everybody has got their own issues
They continue filling me full of their woes
Chill out with a damn handful of tissues

But the bitching keeps pounding into my ears
Until my brain feels like its gonna burst
Full of opinions and my coworkers gripes
Bitchin’ and moanin’ is the absolute worst

Gotta go or I’ll blow today
Gotta fly or I’ll die today
Gimme crap and I’ll snap
Shut your trap or I’ll slap today
No more flap no more yap
Your gonna get a wrap
Cant take no more of this crap today
I gotta get away
Everybody just shut
Its time to cut
And escape this damn rut

Slipping away to commune with mother nature
Dried out, seedless, and rolled in a nice fat stick
Strike a match and inhale the sweet ass relief
Oh yea much better man that does the trick

As the fumes rise up I feel the happy go in
Gently tugging at my mouth and I smile
Music rocks to push out the people poison
Now I can finally relax and chill for a while

Their problems and gripes go out with the tide
Bullshit fades away sinking down the drain
Joint therapy makes me feel so damn good
One more doob to cancel the rest of the pain

One toke of the smoke
Bullshit starts to choke
A little marry jawanna
In my bathroom Nirvana
Herb bud of chronic
Ear bud of sonic
Add rock to the mix
Now I got my fix
Makes the deal so real
Stone mass appeal
I smile away merrily
Relief is joint therapy
Now me and my smirk
Can get back to work
Until tomorrow

Rear View Paranoid

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REAR-VIEW

I thought my life was flashing before my eyes as paranoia began creating a vortex for its ascent from my stomach up into my head. Fear shot electronic impulses through my entire body as the flashing continued. Get hold of yourself dude, everythings cool!! Its an actual flashing not my life flashing. A quick peek in the rear view mirror reveals there is a cop car advertising its intentions behind me in my car. The cop car drove past me in pursuit of another driver. My adrenal glands began chuckling as the paranoia flew out the window into the cosmos. Those flashing lights weren’t for me at all. The welcome relief washed over me but the tension remained. WTF? At this point of my life I am an upstanding law abiding citizen. Well aside from whatever I may do in the privacy of my own home but that’s my business. My car is legal, I drive and obey the traffic laws, (like never speed when a cop is near by, etc.) so I have no reason to fear even if I do get pulled over. I no longer keep any stashes under my seat or papers in the console. Hell man, I even had my seatbelt on. So why this rush of paranoia every time a cop is behind me when I drive? Primal evolutionary instinct? Not exactly but it can be traced back to my teen years.
Like most of the derelict suburban youths of my era my first contact with police outside of school visits, or watching Dick Tracy and Courageous cat and Minute Mouse, was our own teenage version of cat and mouse with the cops. We wanted to get drunk drinking cheap beer or wine and they wanted to catch us and sadistically pour it out while sarcastically letting us know we should head home to Mommy and Daddy. In truth it was an okay relationship for both parties, they could tell the adults in town that the streets were free of drunken degenerate teen hoodlums and we only had to cry over spilled beer, not get in big trouble with Mom and Dad. But it all changed when the evil Satan Smoke, Beelzebub bud, the Devils Weed crept its vile horned joint rolled self into our teen culture. The sinister antichrist herbal delight swept into our teen lungs, relieving our teen angst, making us teen laugh, giving us teen munchies, and made us feel all around teen fucking awesome.
Unfortunately the post teen portion of suburbia was not as enchanted with wacky weed as we were, they were certain it would turn each and every one of us into drug addicted serial killers who threaten to tear and shred the very fabric of their three martini society to shreds. Our relationship with the police altered drastically at this point. The police needed to massage the concerns of the scotch swilling adults assuring them no marijuana could find its way into their neighborhoods but we wanted to massage our minds with that very same illegal weed of wit and wisdom. Now our job as teens was to smoke pot and get high free of handcuffs and the cops hoped to arrest us and lock us up so the rest of society could rest easy knowing the refer mad hooligans were locked up alongside murderers, rapers, and armed robbers. Where we belonged. (is there a special font for sarcasm?) Then and only then could society relax and take a deep breath. Not a breath test, because I’m pretty certain most of our parents would register above the limit for alcohol. Anyway, the dichotomy changed, we found better hiding spots and continued our evil ways and cops continued in fruitless pursuit of passionate pot puffing juvenile perps.
Once we began driving however, the cops had the advantage. With badge comes privilege and the police were willing and able to take liberties in their attempts to remove our liberties. Now they could exact their revenge for our ability to avoid capture by flashing those strobe like red lights to pull us over on a minor violation accomplishing two things. First they knew that it sent a surge of paranoia through our circulatory systems causing discomfort, perhaps even incontinence. That’s the primal response I was speaking of earlier. Secondly, a pull over and the badge equipped them with everything they needed to search our cars to find out where we kept our hash pipes or hidden stashes, because they knew we were still prolifically puffing the perverse pot of decadence. With any luck they would then have the opportunity to use the Miranda right speech they had committed to memory for real. The bust of the neighborhood, a few more hardened (well stoned anyway) criminals locked away making society safe to continue forcing its backward values on their youths.
So now, even when I’ve reached the age where high school students read about our antics of demonstrating while high on the woeful weed in their history classes I still stiffen in paranoia when a cops lights flash in my mirror. That’s living proof of evolution right there, my brain has adapted to the fear of danger caused by flashing red lights just as our ancestors developed the fight or flight response from being chased by ferocious human devouring animals. My children probably have this red light fear gene embedded in their DNA already. Or maybe its just a stoner reaction. If that’s the case I wonder is if this paranoid phenomenon will ever cease. Will I ever be able to drive normally when a cop is behind me? Am I destined to peering behind my wheelchair in the old folks home if a light flickers while rolling to early bird dinner?
I get that the institution of policing is important, ever since I reached the point I understood I really never was invincible I understood that believing in anarchy is a part of teen angst coming of age, but like I said, I obey laws. For the most part anyway, and the few laws I may bend are hardly worth punishing because I obviously will never learn and will never consider my minor indiscretions to be evil or wrong. But seriously guys, there must be a way to break this cycle of fear every time I see a cop.
PEACE

Reboot, An Evolutionary Tale

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part 2

Previously:

I’ve nothing but time young dude, so help an old man out here, what’s going on? Are you with the Geek Death Squad?”

Hey, are like Gandalf or something man? Is this Middle Earth here?”

“You head is spinning because of the buffering JT, it’s a side effect of dying. It will go away once your operating system is renewed.”

Fuck Dee Bays, I’m going where I wanna go dead or not! Stick it myself?! I‘ll stick it where the fucking sun don‘t shine baby. One last ride downstream, to hell with Interface Mountain.
II
The anger began subsiding while having fun jumping from rock to rock attempting to negotiate my way downstream. The ice cold water rushed up over my feet, some rocks were slippery some not so much but all in all I just had a great time laughing and jumping. Who needs serenity? Rock jumping was always one of the most fun things my friends and I did when we were teens on our vacations in the Catskills. Criss-crossing the streams looking for the water falls, stopping to smoke some weed here and there, just the most carefree days ever. Those were the days man, getting stoned, listening to rock, climbing rocks, riding down waterfalls, skinny dipping, making love out in wilderness, doing whatever we wanted without a worry in the world. It was so much fun and so relaxing. I was so into the memories I barely even noticed that the fish in the stream were hopping along following me downstream until I heard one speak. Yea, yea, I know, it sounds all hallucinationy and trippy, a little too much THC, but I hadn’t smoked anything in ages and wasn’t in possession of anything now. But I had no doubt it was a fish talking when it jumped out of the water addressing me directly , “Isn’t this great? Makes me feel so serene.” I laughed, partially because a fish was speaking to me and partially because I was feeling giddy, “Yea your right there Mr. Trout, it is almost serene. Its actually…..wait….Did you say SERENE?” Trouts were now jumping all over the place. I heard a stupid fish tell me it felt serene, just like the old dude wanted me enjoy. Co-incidence? No way! I spoke to all the trouts in a voice loud enough for all to hear, “Okay, way to weird, there’s something fishy here!” The trout all began jumping and giggling, “We’re all fishy JT, on a scale of one to fin, we are most definitely fin possessing talking fish.” Now I’m conversing with a group of rainbow trouts! “Cut the shit! Fish can’t talk, is that you old dude?” But the giggling touts wouldn’t stop, I felt like I was trapped in some Billy The Big Mouth Bass infomercial. My own personal Hell, a bunch of fish making fun of me. “Old dude old dude fish can’t talk, young dude young dude fish can’t walk.” A chorus of trout singing like school children. One trout stopped in front of me peering up from some rocks, “Fish can’t talk? Says who JT? We have always talked, you just never cared enough to listen JT. You humans are so wrapped up in your own worlds you never take the time out to try and communicate with other species unless its for your benefit or pleasure. You trap animals in labs for testing, stick us in zoos or aquariums so your kids can gawk at us, or pen us up and force feed us to make us big so we can feed and clothe you. You always act like you’re the most important thing on this planet but you’re far from it. Only in your deaths are you ever properly humbled. That’s why you guys only get rebooted. You’re no longer a part of the cycle of life, you disregard the laws of nature. Time for you to leave this stream, you don’t belong here. We don‘t want you here.” All the other trout had become silent creating a pounding silence that I remembered all too well. All the times I got into real bad trouble with Mom and Dad they would gang up on me to grill me with questions and accusations to near breaking point. I remember the silence thundering out a pulsating uneasy rhythm, a loud yet inaudible thumping warning me that I had no way out, I was caught. Busted. This is absurd! I want to cry because a trout just put me in my place. I felt a tear sneak out and roll down my cheek. As if on cue a towel hit the top of my forehead and covered my face. “Wipe off the tears JT, time to go.”
I recognized the voice in an instant. Old dude. “Hey man what was that all about? You get talking fish to make a point for you? Then force me to dredge up an unpleasant childhood memory? Why, just because I wouldn’t do what you wanted me to? Okay I get, I get it, you win old dude. I’ll go to the top of the mountain. Just no more of this weird shit man, it’s freaking me out. I just wanna get this over with.” I waded through the stream to the bank in the direction the towel had come from. “You don’t need to climb anywhere JT, you’re at the top of Interface Mountain.” I wiped my face with the towel and looked around astonished. Sure enough, I was at the top of the mountain looking at an amazing waterfall just below my feet. The water shot out a good ten feet over the mountain to what had to be a two hundred yard drop of sparkling silver sheets of moving water. “How the…what the….I thought you said you weren’t a wizard old dude?” Old dude was now sitting in front of me suspended in air without visible support, “I’m not a wizard JT, I’m a cloud, a data base. Its not Dee Bays, its D-Base. I am all the genetic information of humanity, the database of human existence and evolution. You’re here to be rebooted into another human life form but first I am attempting to load some information into you so the next human will grow up with some of your memories.” He placed his hand gently under my chin and closed my gaping jaw, “Wait, what? You’re implanting memories in me before letting die? I don’t get it, why?” Before I knew it I was sitting suspended in front of him. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised, I mean I’ve been through a very strange death ordeal, the geek, Gandalf here, the mountain, talking to some angry trout, so why not float on air while some cloud injects me with memories? Sounds pretty plausible. “Not implant false memories in you JT, just pass along your DNA with a little more information designed to get humans back on track in evolutionary terms. Not so much passing you memories but more like echoes of memories. Did you ever just know something and not remember why you knew it, or gone somewhere familiar? Or see a place that intrigues you an you can’t figure out why? That’s not coincidence JT, its memory echoes of previous lives. You have echoes in your head that track back as far as the dawn of civilization. Take the fight or flight gene, or the fact that toxins smell putrid to you. Those are echoes you have from previous lives, ones who discovered the hard way that toxins can kill. That’s what evolution does, it takes these echoes and creates new defenses and strategies from them. Unfortunately, somewhere shortly before the Agricultural Revolution humans began practicing rituals that go against the law of nature. Life my son is a system of perfect synergies. Trees absorb the energy from the sun, supply homes to millions of creatures, give us oxygen, and when they die they feed millions of micro-organisms which are eaten by insects. The insects are eaten by larger predators and those predators eaten by even larger ones. And when creatures die they feed the vegetation through decomposition. A perfect system. Well perfect until humans began burning their dead, bogarting the vegetation, and killing other creatures because they MAY eat plants you determined you could own. You can’t own things that grow freely, but humans don’t care about that, they lock up food keeping it away, tear apart ecosystems to build factories. You destroy more than you create. Progress is one thing, you’re evolving to be smarter yet you still aren’t smart enough to see how life works. Not just for humans, but for all things.”

I really had to mull this over, I mean I dig that he‘s right about some things but we need to survive as a species. I can think of a number of assholes that could use some of his echoes, but why me? “So stop me if you heard this before, you want to plant that info into my DNA like a gene splice, send me down the river where I’ll be what? Born again? Are you Gandalf the Baptist or something? This is crazy man. Listen old dude, all due respect, but I am not like that, I care about the planet and what humans do to it. Okay, I may not belong to Greenpeace, I’m no Ralph Fucking Nader or anything but I did my part and I love animals. Not like throw red paint on a mink coat PETA love but loved none the less. I understand we treat animals real shitty sometimes and I wasn’t like a vegan or anything but I understood and disliked the way animals were treated. Hunting for sport seemed selfish and wrong to me. I respected other life forms and have always kept an open mind about life. Now I’m dead and you keep playing head games trying to make me feel bad about how humans have acted and frankly G its not my damn fault. I care and I understand. Why not peddle this stuff to the jerks who need it” Old dude was smiling like he had just sunk my Battleship. “Yes JT, and where do you think your feelings came from? Evolution takes many years, many generations and your generation was a big step. But lately humans have been stepping backwards and going back to the old school concept of destroy whatever doesn’t fit your needs. So we are renewing our efforts to help save humanity by reprogramming your evolution. That cable I gave you is loaded with echoes which you will pass on in an attempt to get humanity back on track before they destroy themselves completely. If humans don’t evolve correctly there will be no need for an asteroid to cause mass extinction, you guys will blow the whole planet up by yourselves. The cable is attached to your body, just take the other end just like a USB terminal, plug it in over there then ride the falls to your reboot.”
I felt for the cable and sure enough, it was attached like an adult umbilical chord. I stuck the other end into a waiting socket and the sensation of spinning returned. I was buffering. I turned to look at Gandalf one last time and jumped into the waterfalls into total darkness. Wonder who I’ll be this time.

Reboot , An Evolutionary Tale

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reboot

Part I

Last thing I remember was sudden darkness and the sound of shattering glass all around accompanied by a coarse rhythm of twisting crunching metal. Car accident? Yes, yes that’s it, I was driving down the highway in a mad rush because I was late for work and then…..and then… then what? Everything is so damn foggy. Wait! Where am I? Feels like I’m in the haze of dry ice smoke at a rock show but maybe its?…Well it sure don’t smell like weed so probably not a rock show but where am I? What’s with all the smoky mist? I was in my car on the way to work and what? Oh shit now I remember, some asshole came across the median and right into……. Oh fuck, I was in a bad accident, I’m in a hospital. Yea, that’s it, I’m in a hospital and….. No wait, that can’t be right, the mist, no tubes or wires, no beeps, not in a bed, I’m…ah I’m in a…No! Wait! I’m fucking dead man? My flair for the dramatic not yet dead I paused for effect…..That’s when it began to settle into my head. I was killed in a car accident and now I’m in….. In where? The morgue? Heaven? Purgatory? The “Heaven Can Wait” waiting room? Is my AS2 guardian angel Clarence Odbody coming to take me away and earn his wings? But that’s not possible, I’m an existentialist, and if there is God he isn’t about to let me hang out on his turf, he’d probably send me to one of those special places I hear them talk about in churches. So then just where the Hell am I, pardon the expression? Actual Hell? As I was pondering my death fate a loudspeaker broke the unearthly silence. “Hilltop, Justin Thyme? Is there a JT Hilltop here?”
Before I heard this announcement I was merely confused. I thought I was all alone but I must be in a group of some sort and someone is paging me. Now its like “Peeewwww…. Mind blown!” Here I am trying to figure out what the hell is going on with my death when I get mind-fucked by a loudspeaker. Do I stand up or do I pretend I didn’t hear it? I was right at the point of making a decision when I noticed standing right in front of me was a young dude. “You’re JT, yes?” I gave this, this, umm, entity the once over. A nerdy looking kid somewhere in his late twenties with thick rimmed glasses and a bargain store suit that was a bit to big for his small clunky frame. He had thick but very short dark black hair and not a hint of a smile on his face. He didn’t even look my way as he was running his eyes over something on a clipboard waiting for confirmation from me. After a few seconds of silence he spoke in a monotone voice, “Don’t make this difficult Mr. Hilltop, you’re already dead so you really have nowhere else to go. Just come with me please.” He never even waited for acknowledgement just began walking away. I stood and blindly followed out of the misty mist.
At first I was kinda hoping he was in search of his lost personality but I wasn’t gonna wait to find out. I decided I would try and engage this nerd so maybe he could help acclimate me as to just where I was, “So this is your job? You come to bring the dead to their destination? Who exactly are you working for?” His pace quickened, “Something like that Mr. Hilltop. I work for no one and everyone now just come along please, no time for idle chatter.” I processed his statement. No time? Maybe he has no time but if I’m dead what the fuck do I care about time? “I have nothing but time young dude, so help an old man out here, what’s going on? Are you with the Geek Death Squad?” The nerd shook his head as though I was exasperating to him, “Mr.Hilltop you died! You have ceased to exist. You were in a car accident, a drunk driver hit you head on. Looking over your file sir it seems about as an appropriate way to die as I’ve ever seen given your pension for the bottle. That or cirrhosis anyway. Your at the terminal right now, and please no lame jokes about the name terminal its been done a few million times over the years by people far less witty than you think you are. I’m your agent assigned to take you to your Sherpa who will assist you in your transition. Now please keep quiet and continue to follow me we’re nearly there.” The only sound after his stern admonition as the tapping of our feet and the cursing under my breath.
I reached the end of a hallway feeling like my head was spinning. Not really dizzy, but constantly spinning. Grumpy the young douche-nerd opened a door speaking to someone on the other side, “I have a very uncooperative Mr. Justin Thyme Hilltop here sir. He never shuts up and he is now your problem, not mine. He’s all yours Dee.” The door opened wide so I walked inside, or actually outside. I found myself on a beautiful mountain about half the way up. Surrounded by gorgeous greenery of tree’s and shrubs, the sound of running water combined with an assortment of indefinable sounds made from various animals. An old man with long white hair complete with matching silvery beard stood in front of me. “Hey, are like Gandalf or something man? Is this Middle Earth here?” The old man smiled warmly like…..well like Gandalf actually, “No Justin, I’m not Gandalf, I’m certainly no magician or wizard and this is nothing like Middle Earth. This is Interface Mountain, I am your Sherpa, Dee Bays. Its my job to lead you back to the Mainframe after discovering your rightful place. Hopefully you can be re appropriated correctly.” I chuckled, “You’re who then and this is what now? Sorry old dude but I didn’t get a word of what the hell you just said. All I wanna know is are you the one who can tell me what exactly is going on here?” The old man had very old eyes, much older than even he himself, yet they were incredibly calming. It was as though those old eyes were a separate entity that seemed to put me at ease. Old dude placed his arm over my shoulders, “It’s okay Justin, or do you really prefer JT?” I smiled, “You can call me whatever you want but I prefer JT. How much longer do I have?” The old dude let a small laugh slip out, “Are you in a hurry JT? I can speed this up if you want?” I was pretty sure he was teasing me but just in case I answered with fear and desperation, “No,no,no, seriously, I’m in no hurry. Its just….Well my head is spinning and I feel confused.” Old dude began walking up a mountain path signaling for me to follow, “You head is spinning because of the buffering JT, it’s a side effect of dying. It will go away once your operating system is renewed. When someone dies their faith dictates their destiny, and you my friend to use a Zodiac analogy, are an Existentialist with Buddhism rising. Therefore your destiny is to reach a sort of nirvana of your own through serenity. You don’t get to reincarnate exactly, no heaven or hell for you but you get to see what really happens at the top of the Hill of Life, Interface Mountain. Some get to believe they are in heaven or hell, some Jahanna or Jahannam, still others get to believe their fates are to be placed on various cycles of life. But in the end it’s all the same, everyone goes to the top of the mountain.” I thought this over in an attempt to make sense for quite some time as I aimlessly followed him up the mountain path heading toward the sound of running water which was getting closer and closer.
Within minutes we reached the source of the sound, a running stream, where old dude sat down. “Sounds serene, yes JT?” I sat as well, “Yea serene, but why would I want serene now? I mean I’m dead right? So why wouldn’t I want to take one last fast ride with blaring rock music? What’s so cool about serenity if that’s what I’m always gonna have now?” He looked at me with a hint of curiosity, “I think you are misunderstanding JT, you’re not going to be surrounded with serenity, your going to be surrounded by nothingness. No serenity, no rides, no music, nothing! This is your last chance to enjoy the feeling serenity brings so enjoy it. Once you complete the climb its just over. Nothing, kaput, nada. Your life has ended my boy and there’s no turning back, no other worlds, nothing. Everything ceases.” Suddenly those warm comforting eyes seemed cold and dispassionate, “Well then why the fuck are we doing this? Just let me fucking die for Christ’s sake!”
The old dude stood up speaking in an exhausted tone, “Maybe its best if you finish your trek alone. You’re in such a hurry to finish dying just go on ahead by yourself, stick it yourself!” He handed me some kind of cable wire, turned and walked away. Feeling a strange aloneness I began chatting myself up, “Who fucking needs him anyway. Stick it myself? What a dick, doesn’t even speak English right. I’ll stick it myself all right. Maybe I won’t even go up the mountain, maybe I’ll just run down the stream. The fuck with him man, I’m outta here.” I turned and began following the stream towards the bottom of the mountain. “Fuck Dee Bays, I’m going where I wanna go dead or not! Stick it myself?! I‘ll stick it where the fucking sun don‘t shine baby. One last ride downstream, to hell with Interface Mountain.”
TBC

Hey Man Don’t Have A Heart Attack!

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heart attack

I was sitting alone in one of the doctors rooms after my first stress test. I could have saved them a lot of trouble because the minute he mentioned stress test I was at 1000% stress level. My heart rate shot up to a million beats a minute and I couldn’t breath. When he suggested I get wired up and prepared to take a cardiac stress test immediately I was already off the scale. The suggestion morphed into a statement in a flash and before I knew it I was laying on my back having my chest shaved by a young nurse. Unfortunately it lacked any of the grandeur of a nurse patient fantasy and went directly to more of a tense horror movie mode completely by passing any intimate after hours flick sentiments. To begin with she applied some rather cold gel and not warm oily sensuous substance. There was no disrobing unless you count the fact that I removed my shirt exposing the hiding spot of all the cholesterol I have indulged in the last few years. Instead of a teasing slightly hoarse voice she had a very matter of fact tone about her. “This may be a bit cold Mr. Hilltop.” Hmm, no first name basis either! After lathering on the cold gel she placed suction cups with colored wires on my now hairless chest to fully complete the diminishing of the mood. I took note of where the red wire was in case I needed to make an emergency cut to avoid explosion. They always cut the red one. Right? Or is the green one? “Okay honey, you’re ready for the treadmill.” Still not in a hoarse sultry whisper but rather far too businesslike. I ambled over to the treadmill and got in place. The doctor came back in, turned a few knobs, and it was off to the races.
He started me off at a slow trot and gradually increased my speed. Feeling uncomfortable and nervous to begin with I was having difficulty negotiating the floor moving under my feet so I held tightly to the handrails for support. “JT, try and take your hands away from the rails and just walk normal.” Shit! Busted. I did my best but found myself unable to control my balance and I was surprised at my lack of co-ordination as well as how easily I became winded as the test progressed. Now I’m freaking out because my chest is wired, the treadmill is kicking my ass, I am running short of breath, and the doctors writing notes with a face that looked far too concerned to have any calming effect on me. Jane get me off this thing! If this is really a test I didn’t feel I was getting very good grades today, wish I had studied more. How did I end up in this predicament anyway?
Obviously I’m here because I was having stress issues. I found myself in this cardiologist office because I was having difficulty catching my breath and felt light pressure in my chest. After prodding his cold stethoscope all over my chest and back while making me gasp for breath my primary doctor was concerned about something so he decided I should be a heart specialist’s problem and not his. He made me an appointment at the cardiologist center and that’s when the stress began to spike only getting higher as the visit progressed. Being chef I was used to high pressure but this put me over the proverbial boiling point. I was a chef/co-owner on this one particular venture so the pressure cooked all that much higher. Add to that the fact that my prep kitchen was a flight of stairs away from the service line, and the storage rooms were on the opposite end of another staircase, the height of service was high pressure plus an abundance of running up and down stairs at warp speed. No wonder my breathing was labored. At first is was just a night here or a night there, but it eventually escalated to a daily routine of not being able to fully catch my breath combined with constant pressure in my chest. I sensed something was off, but no worries, I’m young and invincible. Nothing scares me. Well up until the doctor mentioned cardiologist anyway, that’s when I became a gelatinous bundle of frightened nervous energy.
Anyway, after the treadmill torture left me wheezing and achy the nurse unwired my chest and led me into another room instructing me to sit down. I’ve been working in restaurants my entire career but for the life of me I can’t figure out why the servers are called waiters. Waiters should be another term for doctor patients because with all their waiting rooms and procedures doctor are the supreme beings of making us wait. So I sat while supposedly the Doc was grading my tests. I hoped he graded with a curve because I could sure go with some good news about now. Twenty minutes later the nurse came back in the room with some papers for me to sign. She placed one of her hands on mine to comfort me speaking evenly in a tone laced with empathy, “Mr. Hilltop, The Doctor wants you to retake the test. He is a little concerned with the results but wants to have another try. We have two options here. If the test runs okay we can schedule you for a more detailed evaluation, but if it doesn’t go well we will need to consider keeping you in the hospital over the weekend for observation.” She may as well have delivered the news with a baseball bat because I was floored, had just been metaphorically knocked upside the head with a Louisville Slugger. I opened my mouth to try and respond but I was choking on emotion, thinking not about me or my potential death, but I was concerned what would happen to my family, how would this effect them with me not being there for them. I have two grown children who are old enough to cope, but my baby girl was only five and she relied on me for many things. My wife could cope mentally, but emotionally we were both very fragile. We had lost our first child at the age of two only six years ago and had still not fully processed that. But that’s what goes on in your head, the nurse says hospital and you hear hospice, she says observations and you hear funeral viewing. I was certain what she was telling me is if I fail this make up exam I will get left back and never graduate. Either I pulled it together and passed this test or I’m headed straight for my death.
The mind is a strange thing. I felt blood rushing to my face and a profound sadness set in. I was convinced I was going to die soon, the doctor had come by to confirm what the nurse had told me stating with as much compassion as he could that I had has a mild cardiac infarction. (They use various medical terms to throw us off, he knew if he said heart attack I would have freaked, but what he didn’t know is I watched a lot of hospital centered TV shows so I knew an infarction was an attack). Tempered as it was it still was hard to process. They left me alone to cram for the make up exam and instead of studying the dynamics of treadmills I found myself pre-occupied with death. Mine! As an existentialist I accept the fact that my death is inevitable, but as a human I was more focused on what it would mean emotionally to the people who care about me. I thought about the effect it would have on my children, my wife, my family. The pressure was no longer in my chest but in my eyes as my tear ducts swelled up with a profound sense of void. I wanted to cry in someone’s arms but was all alone, in the abyss of doctors waiting rooms. My death would likely cause some emotional breakdowns and it troubled me that I would be the cause of pain to my family. I thought about how deeply I loved everyone, took a long full breath and went back to the treadmill to kick some ass in the next test.
Having been through the test once I was much more comfortable, and armed with the fact that I share so much love I took the test from a much stronger standpoint. Now I know I didn’t ace the test, but I also knew I had done well enough to earn another opportunity to see my family. I was scheduled for a nuclear stress test which eventually confirmed that I did in fact have a mild heart attack and ha to make some life adjustments. I took the news much more positively, vowing to make every attempt at regaining my health and living a healthier lifestyle. Fifteen years later I’m still alive and kicking. I discovered that life is worthwhile because there is a thing called love. A mysterious unexplainable concept that fills us with good feelings. There are times for all of us when we think its over, or maybe it would be better if we were gone and not a burden to our loved ones. We aren’t burdens, we are wings that help our loved ones soar. They need us as much as we need them and that’s what makes it so damn beautiful.. That’s what I learned from this episode, this infarction of my life. At times I still get down on myself, feel myself unworthy for one reason or another, and often times even wonder if its all worth it. That’s when I think back to that moment, the one in which I discovered how intensely powerful love is, how important we are to each other. Give your love freely and frequently, don’t wait until its too late. Our true strength lies within each other. PEACE

The Devine Tragedy, Episode II

On By Terrapin - The JourneyIn Uncategorized2 Comments

river

Go To Hell
J.T. Hilltop

Real horrors? Is he telling me this is the bright side of town and things get worse from here? Really? There is a hazy stench rising of the ground that’s filled with disease ridden rats and bugs, the walking dead are wandering aimlessly, and I’m negotiating my way ankle deep through a swampy slush of what I can only assume is a mixture of vomit and defecation. I really don’t think I’m gonna enjoy this you’re dead now go to Hell thing very much. I’ve always believed that when I died it would just be over, a big nothing like a never-ending nap or something. Now it seems I’m being taken on a tour of never-ending disgust and pain. Virgil grabbed my hand and led me through the throngs of the lost souls, swatting away all the bugs and kicking the deadly vermin as we walked. “We are about to go through Hells gates to the river Styx where we will take the ferry to the Rings Of Hell Proper and begin our journey. There are nine levels of Hell, each worse than the one before it and as we descend we will either be allowed passage or our journey will end on whichever level we are denied entrance. If we make it to the bottom you will meet your final judgment by Lucifer. It would be best for you to do as little speaking as possible, we will encounter many tricksters who will try and use your soul for trading.” I was about to ask him traded for what when we approached the iron gate. In a firm and deliberate voice Virgil bellowed “Aperi portam Hades” and the gate slowly opened inwards. Virgil looked at me with the first glimpse of compassion I’d seen since dying, “its time JT, lets go.”
We entered a sort of vestibule of stones with billows of smoke or something rising from the ground, but it was too dark to see real clear. It was cold and musty smelling of earth or moss. It had the feel of what I imagine a rainforest would be like, cool but humid with an omnipresent sense of danger. I didn’t see any snakes but I could hear hissing and sense their slithering movement. They paid little or no attention to us but my fear trembles assured me something was out there and I was aware of every movement . We walked for five minutes until we reached a riverbank. “We wait here for the ferryman then we will cross to the first circle. That’s when your final journey will truly begin.” I took Virgil’s advice and said nothing. After ten minutes of hearing or imagining spooky noises while trembling from the slithering of unseen snakes a boat arrived.
Standing on the boat with a long stick in his hand was a huge figure, all of ten foot tall. He had powerful muscular legs, and an upper body that made Hulk Hogan look like a wimp. Even his head was huge, but it wasn’t exactly human. The skull was the size of a beach ball with long pointed ears, as long as a rabbits but the look of a mythical elf, and enormous bulging red eyes. He looked to Virgil and with a mocking arrogant tone stated, “The dead one can come along but you must remain here, at least until you die.” His voice was deep and raspy, laced with sarcastic anger, “Choron, I am this dead ones guide, I must take him across to his judgment. As the prince states, ‘So it is wanted where the power lies’, I am on divine mission. Take this obolus as payment for your trouble.” Virgil handed the ferryman a coin and with a shrug of his shoulders he motioned for us both to get in, “Sit there amongst the blasphemes and keep your peace. Only a lunatic would cross this river without being dead.” Virgil sat next to me and whispered, “Say nothing, don’t be alarmed, its not the most pleasant ride but it‘s quick.”
Not the most pleasant ride? I’m dead, just trudged through a marsh of grossness with bugs and snakes everywhere and he’s warning me about the unpleasantness of a boat ride. The irony caused me to smile until the rocking began. Did I say rocking? The boat was going up and down and sideways at such a vigorous rough pace that nearly everyone in the boat tossed their cookies. The bottom of the boat filled up quickly with vomit as it got unbearably hot causing me to sweat profusely. The stench coming from off the water was beyond repugnant. Willows of decayed manure and stale urine sprayed up off the water and settled in on my head slowly trickling down my face. The smell was not just vile, it was thick, filling my nostrils with a smoke like substance that reeked of rotted old fish wrapped in decayed cabbage leaves. The air was literally thick of sweat, flatulence, and vomit and just as quickly as it got unbearably hot it turned to a freezing cold solidifying the sweat and whatever remnants of vile liquids covered my body. I gagged for two minutes before passing out completely.
I came to for the third time since dying laying on the opposite side of the River Styx. “What the Hell is going on here Virgil, you tell me I’m dead yet three time now I have passed out. Be honest man, is this a bad dream or a bad reaction to drugs?” Virgil stared at me like I was an idiot, “Passed out? Is that what you think is happening to you? My son each time you pass out as you say is another death, and each time you die on this voyage you come closer to your final death, the death that will be your final judgment. The fact you have gotten this far is amazing given your past. You must negotiate your way to Satan’s pit getting past him if you want to escape everlasting pain, torture, and ultimate discomfort. Now when we get to Limbo you will meet Minos who will tell you which levels of Hell Proper you’ll be allowed passage. If we survive all the rings and reach the pit we may be able to climb the mountain of salvation. Its conceivable you may very well earn entry into Paradiso, which believe me is far better than any of the alternatives here. But don’t get yourself too excited, very few ever get that far. I can tell you this my boy, you will not awaken any more times, the next death you enter will bring you to your eternal destiny. You must use all your wiles and skills if you have any hopes escape the horrors of Hell. Be prepared JT, there will be tricksters around every corner attempting to use you to gain their own freedom.” For a moment I honestly thought it was my own father speaking to me, giving me the advice in my death he was never able to in life. Use my skills, he said. What skills? I’m a gifted chef and story teller, I’ve gained some street smarts, but that’s about it. What kind of food do demons like? I began to worry for the first time since I died.
“I’m just curious Virgil, why are you taking this voyage with me? I mean what’s in it for you?” Virgil handed me some bread an a cup of honey flavored liquid, “This will give you sustenance, finish it all. I was assigned to you an have no idea why. Normally I am assigned to poets of grand scale. Perhaps it’s a mix up or perhaps you‘ve been chosen to tell of the story to reach the people of your era. You are living in a complicate epoch in a world that seems bent on self destruction. Maybe he has chosen an average story teller such as yourself to bring the message.” I pondered his words, “What o you mean average story teller? I’m just kidding Virgil, I understand what you’re saying, who were some of your other assignments?” Virgil was smiling now, I won him over, “I knew you were kidding JT, you forget I know everything. I have traveled with many great poets, authors, an artists. I’ve been at this a long time. No more talk, eat an gain strength, you will most certainly need it for the trials ahead.” I ate and drank in silence preparing myself for what lay ahead.
Virgil started walking down a path that descended towards a cave. I stood up following behind him as we entered the mouth of the cave. “This is Limbo JT, the first ring of Hell. It’s not really even part of Hell, its kin of a waiting room. The cave is filled with non Christians, the anabaptized, the moral less souls. They do nothing but are tortured by their own minds, having eternal insomnia with nothing to divert their minds. But believe me, that’s the easiest torturing of all Hell. It’s here in Limbo that the dead are given the levels of Hell that they shall either suffer in or pass through. The Assigners name is Minos, who will be your first test. If you impress him with your virtues and good deeds he may assign you to only one or two levels, and perhaps not anything too horrible. Anger him and he will send you to the depths of disgust and despair. Be on your toes son.” I took a long deep breath, “I’m ready, I will put my best foot forward.” With that we entered into vast open cavern.
It became clear enough to see everything in the cave, and the most striking thing was a giant of a man sitting perched upon a large flat boulder about ten feet above the ground. The man was about twelve foot tall wearing nothing but a dirty tattered cloth wrap which allowed his huge muscular frame to stand out. Long brownish hair in tight curls cascaded across his shoulders down to his chest. He donned a crown of thorns that seemed to mock Jesus. Time to work my charm, “Good afternoon Minos, my name is Justin, I was just telling Virgil here…” In a booming thunderous voice he cut me off, “I know exactly who you are you ignorant piece of shit. You dare to approach me calling me as a friend? You have always been a self centered sneaky conniving little shit too often drunk or stoned to have completed anything worthwhile in life. You are nothing but a fraud, a liar, a cheat, and a blaspheme. You deserve severe punishment you syphilis of a human being. You deny God so you shall spend your eternity with the other Atheist wastes in ring seven, the ring of violence. Have fun getting there JT, I’ll have fun watching you struggle you worthless shithole.” I began to protest but before I could even get a word out Virgil had grabbed me by my shoulder and firmly pulled me away, “Do you not know when to shut up JT? Take your assignment and get out before you get an even worse level.” I thought about what Virgil was saying. Worse? I don’t like the sound of that!