so...where the hell was biggles...when you needed him last saturday...

then: sous chef...

that's me...

chopping up an onion for tonight's fare...

listening to benefit from jethro tull and chopping onions...

michael collins, jeffrey, and me... 

those aren't tears...

it's the fucking onion.

it's a shame that it had to be you.

"what are you listening to", the wife asks

"jethro tull", i reply.

"why are you listening to this?"

i ponder for a minute and i realize that there is an entire piece of my life that i never shared with my wife and respond, "because jethro tull is the single most important band i've ever listened to in my life"

you see: i listened to tull alot

A LOT.

and after my first marriage dissolved, i couldn't listen to them anymore.

i had become too old...

too numb...

too drunk...

too damaged...

too... not the man i was. and i couldn't let ian be there to help me when i needed a lift. 

but recently: i realized i had been cheating myself all this time 

there is this other band that had been filling the hole 

they reminded me of green fields...

and the old lands...

and it was good...

and while eluveitie is quite good and saved me in a way...

they weren't tull. which was why i started listening to them again.

last january: i went to see mötörhead and my boss had remarked that you need to see all of the bands you love before you can never see them again.

which is how i ended up with tickets to see ian anderson perform thick as a brick 

two weeks ago: really don't mind is you sit this one out...

it was as if i was never gone. 

42 minute of the most important song of my life and while i know it was ian railing against emerson, lake, and palmer, it's my song. and i was glad to have it back in my life for one night only on the upper west side.

i hope they tour as jethro tull one last time.

it might make it all better one day.

or not. but for 42 minutes plus prostate jokes (there were A LOT of old hippies there) i felt better.

—the bastard

adventures in bureaucracy…

a day without bullshit is like a day without sunshine…

—sun tzu

so the bastard is at the DMV because apparently the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing.

you see…

there's this web site the state requires you to sign up with to change your address before you can have the DMV issue you a new license.

so I did this…

over a year ago

but apparently, ny.gov failed to tell other state organs that I moved.

so even though the DMV knew enough to send me a new license, they couldn't put 2 and 2 together to know that perhaps my vehicle registration may way to go there too.

oh and this crazy man is pacing up and down like the damn Sasquatch ranting about many things.

yay.

—the bastard

...on shilling

ok jerks.

it's shameless self promotion time.

the bastard takes photos.

the bastard also sells them.

you should buy some and make me rich.

go here in order to do so

DO IT NOW! there's whiskey to buy and you need to fund this

—the bastard

we can be heroes… just for one day

I know it isn't much by the way of kids toys.

but it's the babby's.

and she dropped it on the way home from the park on Sunday.

and the wife thought it was lost.

you see…

the wind in long island city is so strong that I expected her little magic wand toy to have been swept out to sea by the time I went searching for it at sundown.

but lo and behold,

there it was…

right on center blvd…

just hanging out there…

waiting for me. and for a moment, I felt like a decent guy.

—the bastard