...on endings

...and beginnings

i don't know about you but, i think that nothing tops off a weird day of packing the nice lady's moving van so that she can get on the road at 5am tomorrow morning to begin a new chapter of her and my life, or rather begin our new life apart than to get the call that here is a death in the family. you heard it right. marriage, done. wife, leaving. death, in the family. right after we finished packing the van. life does have a funny way of sneaking up on you, it does. not gonna post for a while, i just can't for now. it's just too much.

—the bastard

...on the right idea

so the bastard is taking the 1:30 home this afternoon and yes, we over here at killing stuff monthly get a half day on friday's during the summer. it makes up for the nights i will have to spend in the office in the future. anyway, i cam across this guy on the connecting train and it made me think of this law that the british are trying to pass banning male toplessness. apparently, alot of men, like most men throughout the world, get to walk around topless while woman cannot. and i don't think that's actually the impetus for the law. it's not about the unfairness of it. the bastard thinks it's the eyesore factor. they need to discuss laws like that here perhaps. i mean come on man, it's hot out and all roll your shirt down. NO ONE needs to see that shit.

oh the icing on the cake was when gutzilla here started talking to himself. the minute i walked on the train and saw this nut job, i was soooooooo hoping he would start talking to himself. yay!

—the bastard

goodbye to all that...

...or on the home stretch



well this morning, the bastard was standing on the platform completely enjoying how much fun it is to sweat in the morning while your clothes are still new to the day and you wish they would stay nice all day but mother nature had different plans. fucking summer. i've never done the summer well. i thought it was because i was fat. i lose 40 pounds and the sweat is still there. it must be genetics. oh well i'm bald too, that ain't because i used to be fat either. but i digress. above, please behold the last monthly ticket the bastard will ever purchase on the long island railroad for hopefully a great while. i stared down at the gravel on the ties and thought this and i thought, "good bye to all this."

goodbye to suburban jackasses who build little forts around their seats so that they can have a seat to themselves. and good bye to the unfriendly pallor that decorates so many of my former passengers. you showed me that a poor old irish woman from woodside can be more friendly than all of your sorry asses while dodging the fare

goodbye to the delays that made me think about buying a damn parka because you can never seem to show up on time. goodbye to all you lemmings who made wandering through your station a daily obstacle course as you stared blankly into the schedule waiting to find out what train you had to take home to your prefabricated cess pool. this is goodbye to all the bobbing and weaving i had to do every morning through, not that the city won't be any less crowded because the bastard won't be taking the long island railroad anymore but i have a shorter walk from the subway to the door and i'll be dodging considerably less people from suburbia who may have been working here since the year of the flood but walk around as if in wonder because it's your first trip to the big city. GET THE HELL OUTTA THE WAY JACKASS!!! and most importantly i say goodbye to 10 months of my soul being eaten by a commute that i didn't want to have to take.

well it isn't all that bad. while going through the archives, and yes this will read like a bastard's long island railroad greatest hits, i came across this little gem. i must also say goodbye to mr october. thanks for being on the platform, reg. i always could use an ear during this crappy crappy time in my life. thanks and goodbye to all of that.

—the bastard

better get hit in your soul

well the unfortunate thing for me was that the mingus big band didn't play his classic song of the same name. you see, mean gene saxomafone is in from las vegas visiting family and along with seeing clerks 2 with him last friday, he palnned on seeing the mingus big band while he was in town. you see when charles mingus passed, his wife kept his music alive and breathing in a city in which all popular culture is slowly shrinking due to the need to build more luxury loft apartments for people with strollers. not that i have anything against having children because the bastard has a child as well. i just find it interesting that on an island where the streets are narrow, too narrow for wealthy suburbanites pricing regular folk outof their own city. but i digress.

the band went on short a horn player and 2 sax players. one of the two sax's showed up and the tenor of the band changed as this guy wanted to play more obscure tunes. the drummer lost his cool and walked off the stage and the pianist had to fill in for the rest of the set. shit was fast and loose, and i'm going to have go back again to see what they do the next time they play. and i think i have enough tuesdays left in me that i can do this again a few more times before i'm through.

—the bastard

...you know, it figures

last night, the bastard has the house to himself. the rents went on their yearly trip out to greenport which is not to be confused with greenPOINT. who the hell wants to spend 5 days looking at hipsters and the 2 gaping holes in the ground where the gas tanks used to be? then again, why you want to go to the same goddam place every year for vacation. i tell you, i don't understand these old people. well, i know what your saying, "hey shiteyes, you go to las vegas every year", and that's true. but the bastard goes because it's business and because it's free, so go to hell.

anyway, i didn't take anything out of the freezer because they put everything in the freezer. this way mum can eat leftover beef stew that she made during the fucking cold war(get it? freezer? cold war? ahhhhhh go to hell, ya jerk). since everything that's been cooked in the last 10 years is on ice, i opted for the take out and a bottle of chianti left over from the shrink's 60th birthday party over the weekend and the mofo's copy of the usual suspects.

strangely enough i woke up well rested, not hung over and running on time. got ready, in the usual way and left at the usual time (more or less) only to find that the one day that i'm not rushing to get to the train, it arrives on time and is pulling out. next one isn't for another 45 minutes so i go back to the house to wait it out in air conditioned goodness when i run into mr october.

"get a load of this october, we missed the train"

"what?"

"i think it was on time"

"impossible, the railroad's so late, you can set your watch to it"

"i don't know what happened but i just saw the train pull out and it said it was heading to flatbush"

"you sure it wasn't the 7:42?"

at that, the bastard spins his heel and walks right back towards the platform with mr. october. sure enough, like clockwork the 7:55 shows up at 8.

"what did you decide to go home and go back to bed"

"nah i was just going to go back and wait for the 8:40. or vic my mother's car and drive to the subway. or give up and go to bed"

"you know i don't understand why they don't just call this the 8 o'clock and not the 7:55."

"i don't know either october, the railroad never made sense to me. i'll take the stink of the subway any day of the week. more options"

"well you picked a helluva month to move back home. it's gonna stink down there"

"wouldn't have it any other way.

—the bastard

...on the u turn

...or how the bastard likes to thwart mother nature

so yesterday morning after a week long culmination of not getting to bed at 1AM coupled with my thursday night dinner of tequila with scoop and susie kansas, the bastard hasn't made it to work on time save for once all week. and friday was no different. i get the connection in jamaica and what was sunny(ish) 10 mintues away in queens village was notsomuch with the sunny. i grab my ride on the manhattan bound and find yet another guy from long island whose bag needs a seat and i had to take "that" one. shut up, everyone's gotta have a hobby and abstinence doesn't really count now does it?

anyway, i tuck in and "boom", the bastard goes down like old soviet union. sleeping straight on til we hit the tunnel so i didn't notice rain starting. once getting out of penn, it's pissing out and all the working girls from longh giland have forgotten their umbrellas. you'd think that for 10-15 minutes a day everyone could take their eyes off of bloddy american idol of whatever teh hell is lobotmizing america these days and check the goddam weather. then again there were two homelss guys doing brisk business selling umbrellas they've found on the street or whatever for 4 and 3 bucks respectively. so since this vestibule was full of very whiny people and it did smell a great deal like pee again, i decided to pull the u turn and rethink this shit. truth to tell, i had an umbrella but it was raining like the hammers of hell. so i hop on the uptown 1 train, take the east bound 7 train and take the downtown 6 train to where it dumps me 35 feet from the front door of killing stuff monthly's offices. i get out umbrella in hand and the rain has stopped. it may not be nice to fool with mother nature but. it sure as shit is nice to thwart her, sweet. more this weekend jerks, i feel the muse moving me. must be all the coffee...or is it the angel dust? you decide

—the bastard

parenting gives you super powers

the boy has been coming to work with me for the past two days and i realized something. you get super powers when you take your kid to work during rush hour. you suddenly have the strength to check some gigantic asshole who refuses to get out of your way because he's too "HAHD" to be a decent commuter. hope it hurt too...you dick.

—the bastard

...on pee pee and poo poo

...or reason number 27 why adult swim should be it's own frikkin' channel

what the hell man? you know i used to get into these discussions with stevus christus about aqua teen hunger force and how great a show it is. i never thought so. it has no storyline. it's just a bunch of 80's riffing and a string of absurdist situations strung together and while it's sometimes laughable, it's never very funny or good for that matter. that's why i prefer the venturew brothers. sure there's a lot of old riffing but, at least there's a plot. call me crazy but i've been seeing these bus ads for weeks and my spidey sense is telling me that whatever show this is, it stinks on ice.

—the bastard

...on the b list

...and other musings under the shadow of the chrysler building

i'm to meet larry lah at grand central and his lady for dinner and then perhaps some drinks, and then perhaps i fall down. didn't work out som much. i got there early and grabbed a smoke. yes, the bastard has been smoking lately. being a man in transit is a solitary boring existence so i took up with old hobbies. keeps me from throttling people too. anyway lah gets in 5 minutes after me but i'm outside, in effing flavor country and it always astounds me how people do the hand wave around smokers. now to be fair i used to do it to the shrink when i was a kid, and i had even more disdain when he sent me to the store to buy him a carton at....hmmm....i'll go with the age of 12 this week. anyway i got over that and now i smoke because i want to find the coolest way to kill myself. but i find that people do the stink wave not at the smell of the cigarette but at the sight of it. almost like a nod to how they feel more superior for hating cigarettes. long tangent, i'll move on.

lah and i head out of grand central because when he's early, he likes to scope out where he eats and he asks me

"so how do you feel about robbo's news"

"his what?"

"you didn't get the text message?"

"the what?"

"his wife had the baby and sent a bunch of us a text message"

"really? didn't get it. i guess it wasn't a priority what with having a new baby and all." i shrug, light up and look at japanese restaurant menus on lexington avenue

i've long suspected that i was what you call a "b-list friend" to a lot of my friends. also known as a "second tier" friend or "that guy you call up to hang out when your cool friends are otherwise occupied". it happens. it's the nature of things. and i'm ok with it. i mean hell, my only a-lister has been the nice lady for the last 16 years and with our marriage coming to a close, it puts things in perspective on who's going to call you back last saturday night after i left you a message and you know exactly who you are. i think bruce springsteen said it once that he was a pessimist so that when things don't work out, he wouldn't get disappointed. i'm more of a realist, life happens people get busy and everyone's got their own shit to shovel on this rock. i'm just shovelling my own without an a-list.

congrats on the new baby robbo and bird lady. hope he grows up to throw paint like his namesake. see ya when i see ya.

—the bastard

god dam! this guy can snore

that's all i got. sure as hell kept me from sleeping on the train this morning

—the bastard

you know...

...umbrellas are bloody useless. i am totally soaked. it's hard to look dignified when you're dripping wet. the worst of it is, as the train pulled into queens village, it started to clear up. god dammity damn!

-the bastard

perfect day...

ahhhhhh, almost there. the eyes are heavy and the guy that just sat down next to me doesn't seem to be much of a bother. back to my nap. what the hell is that? great! little guy has a paper. i'm so tired. maybe if i do the fake itch scratch i can passively send the message. great. works. wait, he turns the page and it starts all over again. you know, the bastard learned how to fold the ny times in the 4th grade, this guys old enough to know this. why does this have to happen with assholes and their newspapers. and why is it that this always happens to me when said reader is reading the fucking sports page? i never understood that. just fate i guess. i grab a corner and tug.

"sorry"

"thank you"

innevitably, it keeps on happening, and now i just can't sleep. on the plus side i get off in two stops. so like any other passive aggresive, i get up at my stop and swing my bag square into his chest.

"hey. could you watch where you swing your bag?"

"i could", replies the bastard. "i could also choke the life out of you."

little man who's probably heard worse looks at me incredulously and then back to his paper. you know, i've been trying to put back into the kharmic till and i guess i fell off the wagon. got out onto the street, it's a perfect day. except for that whole choking thing.

—the bastard

overheard

"You're a big pair of meanie pants."

That's great, what they're saying, it's great!

mofo

...on signals

Invisible airwaves
Crackle with life
Bright antennae bristle
With the energy
Emotional feedback
On a timeless wavelength
Bearing a gift beyond price ---
Almost free...

my father, the shrink is a big fan of shortwave radio. it gives him something exotic for free. it's the same reason why he will buy a vhf rabbit ears that will help align the planets. he doesn't have to pay for cable and he gets public television that airs on cable without the benefit of a rabbit ears. but anyway back to the short wave. the shrink liked short wave because it would enable him to listen to radio one from the bbc in the privacy of his own home here in craptastic queens. the bastard prefers to get on a plane and fly to great britain to here bbc scotland (those jokers do the worst renditions of ther scooby doo theme). anyway, the old man would run upstairs after dinner to turn on the short wave and catch the bbc or radio free europe or some other crap. made you wonder if he actually wanted to spend time with his kids but it was later explained to me by him as a matter of planetary conditions. you see, as the sun goes down, apparently radio waves bounce off of the ionisphere more efficiently so dad would blow off hanging out with his children to get the best signals.

i didn't think about that much until i was taking this picture. you see, the bastard lost his cell signal the minute we entered adirondack state park. it's off the grid. way the hell off the grid and there are NO signals. perfect for rayne o'brian who would actually have work coming through on his crackberry otherwise. but, i woke up on saturday morning with a voicemail message and i didn't know why. i had no signal. maybe i got the message before we got into the park and i just didn't realize it. anyway, i'm taking this picture on the back og the island and suddenly, the phone begins to vibrate that i have text messages. on this one rock on the island at sundown, i have a signal. no where else in the vicinity is there a signal. it's dusk and i figure it's the ionisphere. whouda thunk? so i did what any other techno weenie would have done. i answered my text messages and stuck around there to see if anyone would write back. signal wasn't there the next morning. go fig. stupid atmosphere, be less tech friendly.

—the bastard

...on ones

...and zeroes

you know the mofo has a point. the bastard was looking at the first month of this mess a day or two ago and i can't believe that i've had the attention span to continue doing this crap. i'm also surprised that i actually had the time to do this. i remember i was chatting with old school once and i mentioned the blog to her and she asked how do you have time to maintain one on top of my job at making bullets look good monthly. well, one year in, i can now tell you how in four easy steps. first, get a collaborator which i have in the mofo. second, get separated from your spouse or dump or get dumped by your girlfirend/boyfriend/moose. third, get a digital camera. and finally, make your own time shiteyes. can't sleep? write something down. deadtime at the office? write something down. would you rather claw your eyes out rather than play fantasy baseball on the internet? write something down. internet porn just not cutting it anymore? write something down. you get the idea. that's how the bastard managed to have time for this. so there you go, it's as simple as that. but then again, right now i don't have time for this crap. i need some coffee. go to hell, jerkface.

—the bastard

tale of the 600 year old brush

Let me tell you about this brush. It has been sitting at the QV Mo Headquarters for longer than I can remember. Upon rediscovering it during my jaunt back last week I thought about the times I used that brush, when I had hair, and how the bastard and the elder used that brush, and apparently pa dukes still uses it for the 13 hairs (nuff respect to Tom the barber)on his head. It really gave me pause that a brush could last that long,especially after the amount of use it has gotten over the years. It is a good old brush, and every time a new brush was introduced into the fold this brush would stand it's ground not to be overshadowed. There have been several other brushes but this one is the thunderdome brush. It will last forever.

I waited until my arrival in NYC to buzz my head with the bastard's clippers, I used this brush to get the hair in line in order to insure a quality cut. This brush still has it's place.

mofo

just in case you were wondering...

...The ONYX is here!

mofo

and happy birthday to all bastards

Hey, bastard, it's the old motherfucker here. Thought I'd let you know, it's been a year since your first post. Go out, celebrate, get yerself a cupcake.

mofo