blinded by the light

well, the bastard likes to do this before the clock turns 12 and the apocalypse happens. it's been a busy fucking year for me. this year was the first calendar year i sat as the AD of killing stuff monthly but there's more.

some folks left the fold.

the bastard ran into sam watterston not once but, twice.

with a heavy heart, i left the thorough borough for a grab at happiness.

the bastard saw some shit about zombies.


i had some parenting moments that were hard.


i crashed the bike.

the bastard discovered that there is devil worship going on in fresh direct's ad department.

secret oatmeal alien invasions.

rolled it with the homies.

found the greatest happy hour in america.

i bitched alot about my loss.

shot some guns.

i got robbed.

the mofo and i drove to kansas city and back and if i kick tomorrow, i can go to ground saying it might have been the best ride of my life in a four wheeled box.

and it ruined the bastard for barbecue for the rest of his life.


but we got home in one piece.

the chairman reminded me of the memory of a good man and how we are rudderless without him sometimes.

i went shopping with a viking. and it made me wanna steal.



went on holiday with my lady and the boy. we felt like a family.

got back to nature.

met up with old friends and was surprised.

got a beer in st louis again.

i got my faith restored.

postponed the universe.

went shooting some more.

we had a baby. A BABY. again.

got a trident.

watched some guys make a difference.

almost got into a fight in the old hood.

and a place that was near and dear to the bastard went out with a whimper. or was it new management.

so it wasn't a bad year. pretty damn good by my standards except for the crashing and the down economy.



i ended the year going to the burg to see the chairman's new digs nd they were majestic. and there's more to come. see ya ten minutes ago jerks. some silicone sister with a manager mister told me I got what it takes.

—the bastard

happy new year, and get out the way jerk

overdressed, the bastard shoulda took the lil woman's advice.

fast book to the subway.

6 train pulling in and I'm on the wrong side of the turnstyle.

tall guy in my way

"Jesus christ on a bicycle", I utter half a step ahead.

"I love you too, buddy", he retorts.

points for cleverness doesn't count, so the bastard plays it blunt.

"fuck you asshole"

yeah, I can play it blunt.

give it away to the universe, my ass.

in order to pay karma back, the bastard let's some kind faced woman on the L train first.

pay yourself first, I always say. or maybe the boss of all bosses did. who knows?

—the bastard

ten years after the bastard's fall...

...or i've fallen for ten years and i can't get up.


well jerks, left hand rob has gone and done that shit to me again. the bastard has been tagged in a meme of some other person's design and i have been tagged. now this is the point where the bastard can already see the trustie formulating a comment in the comments window that reads, "oh bastard, why you gotta be all bourgeious and all?" either that or he will just type "meh". it's also the sort of thing the mofo would ask for a dislike button to hit repeatedly.

anyways, the meme is as follows:

It's the "of the decade" meme! Basically come up with 3 categories and who you think wins that category! Be creative!

Like what I mean isn't just "best comic book of the decade"... like "best moustache of an comic creator of the decade" or whatever.. it can be serious (best Asian male film character of the decade) or not or whatever.. it doesn't have to be about comics, or games or whatever.. it can be about nething (worst hair of a world leader, weirdest food trend... etc etc)

and tag 3-5 other ppl! And then they come up with 3 categories.. etc :] The main part is to be creative!

starting off in rob's fashion, i must start with full disclosure: it has come to my attention that left hand rob has voted the bastard to be the most dangerous blogger on the eastern seaboard. i mean COME ON, look at how i've completely blown up the eastrn seaboard of this great nation and i have loosed many minor explosions in central and southern europe. if that doesn't convince you, i've been in a death race with rob down i-95, in the chairman's subconcious, i took out sara silverman AND fiddy cent. and i dumped a screaming death machine all over the bqe.

worst of all, i'm a journalist so you gotta trust me on this.

ok here we go.


menace of the decade: well the survey results aren't entirely in but i'll let you the viewer decide. it's a neck and neck between


bears


and robots.

now bears are tough and all i can see how you'd think they have the upper hand but robots are strong, and once they get their metal claws on you, there's no breaking free. your call kids but i don't see a smith and wesson 500 taking that shit out and a bear'll go down like old soviet union after a shot or two.

dying trend of the decade: everyone talks about the death of print but the bastard has t say, i think it's the web that's dying i mean, they don't even pay me to do this and killing stuff monthly STILL has plenty of trees to destroy so i just see all this death of print stuff as a minor setback.

best new invention of the decade has got to be: the baby jacket


i mean come on! the bastard has it in two colors and who the fuck NEEDS a carriage. just tuck junior in your jacket and go about your business.

you wanna go to the bar but you have to watch the kid? baby jacket.

you're freezing your ass off and you need a little extra heat: baby jacket.

a little snack for the road? baby jacket

and didn't i say it comes in two colors? BABY JACKET

this decade's newest best superfood? you guessed it,


pigs in a blanket. the bastard doesn't need to add to this. obviously.

and to top it off on a mor factual note. the top bastard-centric moments of this decade have been, he has had it all fall apart and managed to keep it together. i mean who wants to kill themselves after having a bunch of bad shit happen to you. i managed to lose a job and find another that's turned into a decent career and managed to have my son move 2500 miles away and still say, "i love you daddy" when we speak on the phone. i had a second child, and that's pretty goddam miraculous if you're close to the situation. i didn't die on the highway. who wants to die when i can see how this shit ends.

i'm feeling lucky. so the bastard is tagging the maw, the constellation, jodi, and skelle top to keep the magic going. don't disappoint. you know, because i disappoint easily.

no

really, i do.

—the bastard

...on throwaways

after an yuletide evening the bastard can best described as well met, my ladyfriend and I settled down for a spell and the bastard tooled away on the virus.

I came across one of those "quizzes" people do on facebook that I did in the place of blogging one night.

Smoke?
used to. sometimes at the craps table

Drink?
yup. double chocolate stout right now

Do Drugs?
nah

Brush Your Teeth?
sure

Sing?
yeah. sometimes more than i should

Dance?
i try but i suck at it

Draw?
i used to to more often but you know, air and light and time and space

Write?
more than i should sometimes

Pick Flowers?
not in a great while

Listen to Oldies?
depends on what you mean by oldies

Drive?
used to love to drive. now it holds no mystery for me. i miss the bike

Speed?
yup

Steal?
all the time.

Shop?
i used to more often but now, it's more like for groceries

Cook?
sometimes

Go Down?
sure

Watch Cartoons?
lots and lots, most of them are subtitled

Eat Spicy Food?
hell's yeah

Listen to Your Parents?
rarely. maybe that's how i turned out this way

Fight?
i fight like hell. and lose most of em

but it was mostly the answers to steal and fight. my ladyfriend quipped that I must really love myself.

and the bastard retorted, "quite the opposite actually but, sometimes I like what I write"

—the bastard

a christmas carol

quite unlike my brother, i don't particularly enjoy the holidays like i used to.

the gin has dimmed my good memories over time.

i seem to have the good fortune for remembering the bad ones.

even though i am the luckiest bastard on the planet.

it's a personal failing i think.

hell, father christmas is my favorite christmas song.



i dunno what it is.

however, it's different this year as the bastard is a new father again.

i still will be missing four christmases with my son this year.

so it's never not gonna be bittersweet.

the year's accomplishments will never be complete enough.

and i'll always be missing something. but at least this year, the bastard has the love of a good woman and a little smiley faced monkey who always lights up when she sees me.

and it makes the hole a little smaller this year.

and for that, i'm glad.

merry christmas. i hope you all get what you need this year.

—the bastard

unaccomplished

the bastard doesn't know how it arrives here like this.

he was trying to top off the finishing touches on his Christmas shopping.

the thing of it is.

I live on the rock of manhattan and this is souch more nightmarish than a mall.

that's correct.

the bastard prefers the mall.

you know your obstacles in the mall.

your obstacles do not stop to take pictures of the goddam tree in Rockefeller center

your obstacles are not sitting with you in the car like they are in the bus and the train.

abandon ship bitches. mission unnaccomplished.

—the bastard

guess what i saw

now the bastard will get to a proper christmas post later but,

i came across this on the old crystal set recently and it made me think of my brother's recent post about the biz and how he never got his due even though he was such a crucial figure in hip hop.



that said, the biz gets some beer money thrown to him by the fine folks at radio shack. nobody beats the biz.

—the bastard

dig

the bastard is tired.

spent today digging out the car.

it wasn't as bad out today as it was last night.

and it'll be worse when this stuff freezes.

it's like frikkin lead.

—the bastard

a walk in the white

there's a short list of things that can shut down thus city.

a big assed snow storm is one of those things.

so at one in the morning, the bastard decided to take advantage of the time to survey the damage.

actually, there has been a rash of busted windows on our block so the bastard wanted to make sure that he was going to write about the snow and not how some junky from the thriving methadone clinic down the block from us didn't bust my window and take the shovel out of the trunk to sell on Astor place tomorrow.

but, all car business aside, it's bad out there.

not buffalo, new York bad but, new york yuppy bad.

the kids out partying were stranded.

fighting over cabs that couldn't get out of the damn snow anyway.

the bastard will never know if some jerk named brandon ever got up from the frozen tundra to help his female traveling companions hail a cab that'll never come on 2nd ave.

the bastard doesn't care.

he just knows that his car is safe for now encased in a foot of snow.

and people he has disdain for who are fucking stranded.

and that on some level fills him with the christmas spirit.

deck the halls with some jackass

fa la la la la

la la la la jerks!

—the bastard

wither the fhills?

now,

one of my most bittersweet decisions I made this year was to leave my beloved thorough borough for the rock.

short walk to work. but it's a short walk through jerks.

anyway, I got the call last week that the chairman has left the q borough under cover of darkness.

greener pastures.

this leaves the mofo on the metro. my family on the eastern frontier.

so I ponder,

wither the fhills?

wither the most thorough of the boroughs?

the bastard says no.

I still keep one foot in queens because like MacArthur, I will return.

every week to get the car.

and who knows, maybe my ladyfriend may get sick of the rock and want to leave.

dumber shit has happened to me this year alone.

—the bastard

...on side projects

so, there has been a bit of a dearth of content these days.

the bastard and his not so merry band of magazine peeps were engaging in the yearly awfulness of producing the gun show daily.

sent the last of those pages this evening and with that poured out some whiskey to the crew with much thanks.

but what about the nighttime bastard?

you gettin lazy on us?

well young shiteyes, lemme tell you about my reoccuring ailment

robots.

yes robots are strong.

and when they get they claws on you, there's no breaking free.

I first started putting these things pictured in junior high school when a kid named Raymond hooked me on the otaku.

and I built until I discovered girls.

then I started again to divert myself from my inability to find work after college.

and now after the the bastard told the trustie about them and he got hooked.

so he bought me one for christmas.

excuse me.

the "holidays".

and it went so well, I think I might futz with it some more.

currently, the bastard has a munny from kid robot that my dear friend heavy metal acquired for me from the designer ( thanx so much h.m.)

and now the bastard gets to play with a new medium.

looking forward to it.

I'm never gettng this time back anyway.

—the bastard

bittersweet symphony

cold comfort

is

an empty bus

on a shitty night

in queens.

heading back

to a shitty night

in manhattan.

it'll all start feeling like the damn holidays when the neverending ship ends.

and maybe for a minute it'll feel like christmas.

funny thing is

every time I kicked the bike over

it felt like christmas.

—the bastard

this just in...

...apparently,

all of the h1n1 is located in Stamford

that is all.

—the bastard

simple...

today was supposed to be our first snowfall of the year.

and it was in a fashion.

the bastard thought of moments that really exist in the back of his brain now of a time when snow wasn't a pain in the ass to deal with.

which more or less was when I was a kid.

and I pictured that knowing full well that I was gonna get grey shit and salt on the road.

but, it's nice to think about a simpler time,

while waiting for bullshit at the entrance to the midtown tunnel to clear up.

hoping like he'll your daughter doesn't wake up freaking out that she's in that frikkin carseat again.

hmmmmm. to simpler times.

—the bastard

I'm in the band lindy

so, needless to say

it isn't a good year.

well it depends on how you look at it

the bastard has the love of a good woman,

and a brand new baby girl,

and a job.

but, nothing but lint in the pockets.

so it's sort of a glacial existence.

what's a bastard to do?

yep, you guessed it.

get the band back together.

once upon a time, when I was a younger man, the bastard screamed into a microphone instead of at you.

and thanks to the virus that is facebook, I have reconnected with my bandmates from 1987ish?

the drummer wanted to get the band back together for the hell of it.

it made me think of the song, "common people"

you dance and drink and screw cause there's nothing else to do.

but this is something else to do.

so it'll be great fun i think.

—the bastard

baggage

weary from the business of the day

the daily,

the newstand,

the bullet mag,

our intrepid bastard looms west to head east.

less transfers that way.

I speak with my mother for a bit about the family business and i realize bow insulated the bastard is from the holidays.

ands just blocks away.

and here I am lugging,

well,

luggage across town.

and discussing baggage.

the bastard likes not knowing things he finds.

ignorance is bliss

but,

this bag sure is a pain in the ass to move around.

wheeley luggage, my ass

—the bastard