perfect…

a lifetime ago…

the bastard was in a crappy restaurant with his old brother in law…

the scowl

the scowl worked in food services for years…

and his two most important maxims for surviving a meal…

A: if your food is not to your liking, don't send it back… they will spit in it or worse. better you should order something else off of the menu because they more than likely won't know it was you and not spit in it and you will more than likely get a nice meal. 

and

B: do not give your service a hard time until you get the check. that is the transfer of power. the waiter no longer has control of your digestive system and you can say your piece by tipping what you saw fit.

I used to date a girl who loved to fuck with the wait staff at this Pizza Hut we used to frequent like mental patients. in retrospect, I can only imagine how much fecal matter lived in my supreme personal pan and how much piss was in my coke. 

now:

I'm finally calming down…

I've had a shit evening that started at 1am when I decided to emai the super for what seems like the 25th time in the last two weeks that my hvac hasn't been fixed…

granted, it hasn't been all that warm out since summer tucked tail and ran but, I want all of my stuff to be in working order regardless…

we paid good money for this jib joint…

but after three emails, it was for naught and I was kind of seething when I decided I would break form with the deal the wife and I have when she goes away on business and ordered takeout from the bar behind us…

it was cheap…

and it's behind my home…

so I figure, "what the hell?"

over an hour later, I call them up and ask what's up…

oh we're bagging it up now sir…

20 minutes later, I get a call from the delivery guy asking me where I live…

and the bastard just loses it…

I live behind your bar

on the corner?

no you fuckwit… is your bar on a corner?!?

behind the bar?

yes behind the bar

and so finally, my repast shows up and I head to the elevator to get some din din. 

only the elevator and I had a disagreement…

it wanted me and it to spend some quality time together.

so…

there I am stuck between floors, wishing that I had just made pasta two hours ago hitting buttons and hitting the alarm button to "shave and a haircut, two bits"…

and thats when I left my body. 

eventually, the elevator releases me from her embrace so I can walk up from the basement to lose control and punch he delivery man in the face. 

but... I thought better of it and just yelled at him a lot.  

and i went upstairs with my cold chicken and soggy fries and my disdain for it all…

and I still had to give the babby a bath…

so dinner was a dish best served cold tonight. 

at least my living room doesn't feel like 80 degrees anymore

—the bastard

I'm not the phony… you're the phony

i was recently watching this video on the mofo's YouTube channel…

and it got me to thinking about the nature of creativity… 

as well  as the nature of creativity vis a vis large cities vs small cities…

there was a time here where you could make your stake…

do something great…

and then become isolated and die of a heroin overdose. 

but there are too many meathead investment bankers are pricing the creative class, so that can't happen now. 

and it got me thinking about how pollock didn't become the artist he could be until he moved out to the hamptons…

which can't be done either anymore because the Hamptons are full of meathead investment bankers who price the creative class back to the Stone Age. 

so that can't happen now. 

discuss. 

—the bastard

the unbearable lightness of bastard…

when the bastard got home to tonight…

the traffic landscape was all asses and elbows. 

I had forgotten that the river to river festival was doing fireworks tonight. 

so flash forward…

the wife just turned in…

the boy is chilling on his computer…

the bar has gone silent…

the baby went to the mattresses as well. 

and here the bastard is… 

just chilling in his balcony remembering what he asks for for Father's Day every year. 

"what do you want for Father's Day?"

"for everyone to shut up for a little while"

sure, it doesn't sound kind but, I'm not a kind man by any stretch. 

but I can't help feeling a certain level of serenity right now as I've entered my 10th minute here in the grand duchy of shutupistan. 

I could cry right now but it would totally fuck up my silence. 

happy Father's Day to me. 

—the bastard

1460

the bastard bought his first pair of 1460's in 1993 at a store called 99x...

i think it's gone now.

anyways, i destroyed them. bought a pair of green 6 eye work boots and wore them until the insides were peeling off of the shoe.

bought a pair of 5 eye olive colored shoes and shouldn't have gotten rid of them. i'd still have them.

goddam house cleaning.

i thought about it over lunch today and i think in 19 years of wearing doc martens, i've worn and destroyed more than 15 pairs of boots and shoes.

for the last few weeks, i've been wearing my latest pair of casualties every other day.

holes in the sole...

side walls are splitting...

insides are peeling...

i've been working these shoes for just over 2 years...

so it's time. new pair. i decided that after 15 plus pairs i'd get a for life pair.

they offer it for idiots like me who decided that at the ripe age of 41 that they have no plans to change their day to day footwear.

so here's a fucking boot guy that we'll replace when you break it.

sole goes out? we got a new pair

sidewall splits? here's a new pair jerk

set them on fire? well maybe notsomuch but a bastard can try.

and so, an experiment begins. i hope these guys never go out of bidness.

—the bastard

the bastard ain't a man to put the cart before the horse…

… but I think the media is having us on








last night. the bastard sat in his living room with three fingers of rye on ice waiting for the world to end.

the news: there's a hurricane on yo!

the bastard: oh SNAP. rilly?!?

the news: yeah shiteyes. there's gonna be rain and shit and the east river is gonna run roughshod on your ass. and there's gonna be 100 mile an hour winds

the bastard: oh wow guy. I best shit my pants now

so there you have it. when I went to bed, there were saying 75 mph winds.

when the bastard woke up, the national weather service said 45 mph winds but the news is showing footage of the same block in Howard beach that flood when there's is any strong rain and saying 80 mph winds.

I'm seeing a discrepancy here.

stupid sensationalism. stop scaring the shit outta people.

—the bastard

…on winging it

the bastard has some generous friends at the office.

and once in a great while some wild game falls into his lap.

sometimes it's just being in the right time and place for it too.

this time around, I had some pheasant I needed to get out of the freezer before it became a thing. which would then become a thing wasted.

and the bastard hates wasting things.

so when I found a recipe for pheasant banh mi in the "other" magazine's February issue I decide this was how the pheasant going to get done.

truth to tell it was more prep than cooking.


took some meats. don't get squeamish on me jerks. meaT isn't something that comes in a styrofoam container all the time.


added a jalapeño but I would have preferred a scotch bonnet.

zip zip zip. scare the crap out of the baby with the sheer screaming power of the food processor

make patties.

30 minutes at 300° and it's all good in the hood.

I also hooked up a sriacha mayonnaise to go with. 3-5 tablespoons to a half cuppa mayo.


and boom goes the dynamite. turns out that this bird while short on meat was the gift that kept on giving in the portion department.

on a side note, i've been keeping up with Sherman since the korilla truck day and I think I'm going to be picking his brain about food things asian with game. might be an inneretsing endeavor

the bastard is thinking about venison bulgoggi now. tah

—the bastard

…on the other shoe

stomach viruses are a real bitch.

the baby had one all week.

now the wife has it.

so the bastard is waiting for the other shoe to drop.

any minute now, the sword of damacles will drop on me.

and with it bring the kind of business that will make a man believe in a god.

and pray to it for death.

so I did what comes natural to any jackass who's waiting to get sick.

I hopped two trains and a bus to get my car looked at because it's over 1500 miles due for maintenance.

can you folk in the back of the room see the idiot up front?

bleeargh

—the bastard

…on vacations

you ever get the feeling that you should have stayed in bed?

your home state?

yeah. me too.

you see, the baby has a stomach virus.

and we made the decision that riding said virus out would be better in a two bedroom house in a sprawling development in west palm beach would be a better plan than flushing three airplane tickets down the toilet and enjoy said virus in our not so sprawling 350 square foot studio apartment.

not the best set of options but, I stick by my decision.

it's sunny and the baby is sleeping and for five minutes, a bastard can get some peace and quiet.

—the bastard

unified theory…

11:16 pm
bastard: your unified theory of martinis is correct. two is enough to constitute trubble.

bastard: three is nigh disastrous

11:33 pm
mofo: But the cuban. The cuban!

bastard: the Cuban was impressive. but I am drunk and watching mi-5

12:01 am
mofo: I deconstructed eggplant parm and made tabboulleh tonight for nat and i. Martini and wine followed. No mi-5.

bastard: make no mistake. mi-5 had everything to do with martinis and tabbouleh. eggplant was bertuslicuni's fault entirely

bastard: what have aye Dunn to deserve this flat and flavorless manhattan?

12:23 am
mofo: You find gOod tabouleh in manhattan the eggplant parm is a tw original. Its going to be 23 degrees here tonight so chin up.


3:47 am
bastard: chin up indeed. I've been tits up on my couch since before your last text. nai nai

—the bastard

dearest fhills…

…up yours



now don't cry baby.

it's not all your fault.

but the bastard has to tell you off.

you see,



all I wanted to do after a long drive in the shit was to park and go back home.

but no,

I had to dig a snow bank out of my way.

it's not your fault baby. the bastard is just tired.

shoveling tons of wet snow can do that to a man.

—the bastard

hook…

the bastard has a confession to make.

he's a terrible motherfucker.

but I think he may be ready to let himself off of the hook.

and maybe he'll let a few others off too.

it's just time.

also,

I may want "everyone" by van Morrison played at my funeral.

—the bastard

buried alive

you know…


it's times like this that the bastard finds the need to call bullshit on the global warming…er…climate change…er…moving the goal post movement.

although it is pretty, my block is buried and subsequently, my car.

but it'll still be pretty until I get a ticket for being unable to move the car.

then my hate will be great.



now to the digging of the snow. and me without my shovel.

—the bastard

something always has to happen when you wanna do nothing

I really wanted to do nothing today.

I wanted to relax.

and think about nothing.

but you can't do that in 350 square feet.

so off we go to do something.

fucking yayz. (o_O)

—the bastard

…on tunnel vision

so many dead trees.

so little time.

I think the bastard ceded defeat to his wife on two or three separate disagreements when I got home because I just couldn't care.

all I see are pages and pages and pages.

it took me 40 minutes to believe I was home eating carne asada and not my one flesh as I gnawed it off of my leg trying to break free from an imagined shackle attached to my desk.

and I'm not even halfway there.

I'm not even in the goddam tunnel at this point.

—the bastard

asses and elbows

you see,

there's a reason why the bastard likes the window seat.

first and foremost, I don't have to check my elbow everytime the goddam drink cart rolls by.

secondly, the bastard doesn't have to look at you.

yes ladies across the aisle, I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings but mayhap you should keep you frikkin hooves in your shoes.

no one wants to see your filthy frikkin feet.

unless you're some manner of foot fetishist.

which the bastard is not.

thirdly and most importantly, the bastard likes the window seat because

HE CAN CLOSE THE GODDAM WINDOW!!!!!!!

this means you jerk. the bastard has been up since 3am and he would have like a small bit of frikkin sleep but that's not at all possible with you reading your fucking tourist guide to fucking Guatemala with the rising sun as your reading light.



god dammity damn.

at least there's coffee on the plane and mötörhead on my phone.

—the bastard

PS: fml! the woman with the window seat apparently likes to sleep with the window open. hell really is traveling with other people. just as well I suppose. the caffeine is doing it's job now.

this is why the bastard can't leave town

"there was a little accident today while you're at work", the wife began to explain, "and I have some bad news"

"okay, now let the other shoe drop"

"well… the baby got into the cabinet and she dropped the coffee press."

"ok"

"and it shattered into a million pieces"

"does the baby know that if I can't have coffee, that there is going to be fucking murders?"

"I'm not sure"

so a change of shirt and out the door I went. up to 3rd avenue to the Starbucks.

no dice.

up to park ave.

no dice

undaunted, the bastard walks to the Starbucks on 5th and boom.

paydirt

now let's dispense with the fact that I went to a major coffee chain to find a goddam press. up yours shiteyes, I'd have to walk clean across this crapstand to find a home goods store that I can buy a press at.

and let's dispense with the bastard's hoi paloi fashion of making coffee. hey guy, up yours.

your moms

that's right, I'm talking bout your moms.

the press takes up less space than any other coffee contraption and besides, there's this guy at my office who looks like fucking old fezziwig from a Christmas carol who has a coffee setup in his cube that look like a frikkin steampunk movie vomited in his cubicle. so someone else walks the earth with a greater sense of coffee snobbery than the bastard ever could.

but I digress.

I realize that I could never NOT live in a large city like this. the fact that I can walk 5 minutes from my doorstep to replace my coffee maker tells me that I cannot leave. that and the fact that the first time I tell cooter about his moms, he might stick a shotgun in my mouth.

did I mention that I was preventing fucking murders?

—the bastard

…on street fares and other things that make the bastard hate

come on.

the bastard's been good.

he moved to manhattan to stop being pissed about the commute but, sometimes dear city, you throw me a bone.

or a flaming bag of dog crap.

anyways, last weekend was the last of our fair mayor's summer streets program

which I hate; wait there's more.

the wife and I decide to go to the park but we have to pass park.

you figure, no cars, no problem.

wrong.

without the tyranny of the automobile, the bicyclists became the top of the food chain.

and as the top of the food chain the onus of obeying traffic laws was on them.

but they didn't.

as the top of the food chain, the onus of being considerate were on them.

but it was lost on the vastness of two wheelers.

now there is no reason a man needs to use a baby carriage as a means of leveraging his way across the street.

but I did. and I keep a hand free for the expectation of hand throwing which didn't happen fortunately.

the bastard didn't want to waste his Saturday in a cell when his brother in law was grilling across the river and chilling beers as well.

thing of it is this, my brother has had more than his fair share of shit with the four wheeled contraptions that "plague" bicyclists.

but some days it seems the plague is merely their desire to ignore people and traffic laws because they got to a respectable enough speed and, oh damn, here's a red light, nah, I'm gonna keep going, it's not like we get ticketed.

and BAM! your dead and some jackass is chaining up a freshly spray painted white bicycle where you went down because you thought this was a good idea, bro.

that said, I postulate the modest proposal the critical mass is wrong. we need cars on the road to keep you guys in check.

no good? eat a bag of dicks.

—the bastard

holy crap!

malcolm mclaren died.

sodden bastard.

i wonder if john lydon will be dancing on his grave later this week.

—the bastard

...on epidemics

it started out like this.

my ladyfriend was out for a solo mission with the bebe.

and for the life of her, she couldn't get anyone to hold open, let alone open a door for her and the fucking Cadillac of bebe carriages.

then finally some woman opened a door for her with her sleeve.

now you may have read about the h1n1 virus and the bastard understands that it can't hurt to play it safe but, there is such a thing as playing it too safe.

people walk the streets with surgical masks on.

wait.

no.

dust masks.

thus is a pic from the elevator bank on the bastard's floor.

really?

really?!?

I think too many people have read "the stand".

it would figure though if this virus got all out of hand.

ummmm, i gotta go wash my hands now.

—the bastard

broken down...

... and tired.

the bastard had an evening out with the kids.

it does well to feel less like an old man.

broken.

inside and out.

actually, it was a good night.

sometimes shot lines up and I can pull magic bits of conversation out of my ass. and tonight was one of those nights.

but now it's late, and i feel old and busted.

like it's only a matter of time. good thing I didn't get a milkshake.

for then, i'd be a dead man. now I just function and wait for the day that the wind hits me in the face again.

—the bastard