finnegan's wake

on Sunday, the family of the house of usher celebrated a life.

showed some movies the bastard had never seen.

translated these events to the wife as she doesn't know the massive as much as some do.

took the piss as well.

nemo was a storied guy.

and the best way to celebrate a life is to tell the stories.

especially the ones never told.

the babby got to play with her family.

which she doesn't do as often as the bastard likes.

and I came to conclusions.

ASIDE: the chairman and the prince of darkness adjourn to the inner sanctum to chat. what about? none of my business. I just took care to keep the babby out of their space. grown ups need they time.

the bastard takes his at night. he takes it with the voices.

they do this as the prince has always taken an interest in the welfare of the chairman. I've always been glad for this.

you see. it's because the bastard didn't have mentors growing up. he had adults telling him shit.

not listening to shit.

not shepherding him through his career. I woulda been a damn insurance salesman if not for sheer force of will and a damn good skill set.

nah.

the bastard instead has contemporaries or perhaps professional betters. benevolent souls who have offered the benefit of their knowledge and experience and during the hard times, a drink, a kind word, and for some, a carry over the worst.

and for that I'm grateful.

this is what I learned at finnegan's wake.

—the bastard

the pipes...the pipes are calling

"Lo there do I see my father. Lo there do I see my mother and my sisters and my brothers. Lo there do I see the line of my people, back to the beginning. Lo, they do call to me, they bid me take my place among them, in the Halls of Valhalla, where the brave may live...forever."

nemo was a painter.

nemo drank diet cherry pepsi because he was diabetic.

my mom says i look like him.

nemo was the second born.

so am i.

nemo is the first of the magnificent seven to leave the fold.

he left this morning, in a hospice in cape coral.

my dad tells me he didn't go there quietly and i'm glad in a way. 

i'd prefer to run before i go down if i can.

most of all though, his name was danny and he was my uncle.

rest well.

—the bastard

down with the ship

so the bastard has this uncle...

and he's not doing so well.

well, he's dying really.

and now the mind reels

when captain nemo used to live in shirley which may as well been in florida anyways,

sitting on his barstools as a kid.

him sneaking us point fives which wasn't my first taste of beer but it was more sanctioned than sneaking a sip of dad's bottle of schmidts on a friday night.

nemo sneaking the mofo onto grandpa's boat knowing full well that the dinghy was overloaded past capacity.

nemo spinning tales of sticking his fingers in the mash to piss off my aunt.

nemo sharing the attic with dad because they were 7 under one roof.

the magnificent seven as mom refers to them.

here's a tale. 

dad and nemo are sleeping in the attic on the hottest night of the year and all they have is a fan.


the fan blows between their beds to keep both slightly less than sweltering. and doing it badly.


dad falls asleep.


wakes up in the middle of the night in a pool of sweat  to find the fan had been turned away from him.


begrudged, dad decides to sleep out on the porch instead.

upon the retelling of this tale, nemo lets out a throaty laugh that sounded like an old prospector.

but louder.

so loud.

so infectious.

captain nemo laughs like a man who loves living and now that he's dying the bastard can't help thinking that he'd give anything to be able to dish more dirt.

tell more stories.

make us all laugh about how well he fucked with his siblings.

and how much...

despite it all...

they'd love love to hear him tell it right now and laugh about it along with him.

—the bastard

judge not…

… lest ye be judged.

the bastard spent all day in a conference room

with his editorial peers for lack of a better turn of phrase.

judging what will for one category be

the best magazine in said category.

and I've discovered one thing that I could never share with my evil ant overlords.

in many ways, we're all doing it wrong.

not in ALL ways but, some.

and it was frikkin illuminating.

just file it in the book that I'll write one day about my time here.

I wish I started sooner so I could remember all that I forgot.

—the bastard

lissen mistah tuhkee…

thanksgiving came to Brooklyn early this year.

and the chairman was serving it up; good eats style.

complete with lattice apple pie.



and missile attacks



and a good time was had by all.

this is a good thing.

it's like getting an extra bit of turkey before the main event.

except I feel like hell because I'm full of food.

good show chairman. good show.

—the bastard

…and now the circle is complete

now the boy has caught the bastard's robot problem from him.

because robots are strong.

and once they get their metal claws on you,

there's no breaking free

—the bastard

be here now

dear daughter,

here I am driving the i10 past this mountain on my left

when it's on my right,

I am missing you

when it's on my left,

it is your brother I miss.

for today,

I am coming home to see you in all of your small wonder.

and I won't miss you as much then.

but right now,

you ride beside me and tell me that it's gonna be okay.

see you soon.

love,

—the bastard

phone check...

"ring ring"

"ring ring"

"hello?!?"

"phone check."

"whu?"

"hi i was just doing a phone check."

it never mattered if the conversation really continued and sometimes maybe it would have but, every time grandpa got a new phone, he would re enter the numbers into the phone and then proceed to call said family member to make sure he entered it correctly.

he was an interesting fella.

taught me how to row. taught my cousins how to steer a boat in open water. taught most of us how to life a big goddam dock into and out of the harbor.

more often than not, the bastard got out of doing this as the dock became a reality when i was an antisocial teenager and i hid out alot.

but today's father's day and he would have been 86 by now. and he'd still be soing phone checks.

the chairman called up stuck in traffic and we talked about it a bit.

maybe get a family event together for his 10th anniversary of not being on this earth.

the family doesn't get together that much anymore.

at least not without a fuck ton of effort.

but maybe if we do, we could all wear wide brimmed hats to the event.

the man sure did love the sea.

—the bastard

...on the fall of the house of usher 6

...special wedding edition

the the one of the chairman's sister got married this weekend.

and we all went but we decided to go hunting as well.

the chair had told me that his mother's side of the family do their best to keep their very important guido roots held up on high.

and yesterday was no slouch, for the bastard spotted his prey before the ceremony even started.

QUICK SIDEBAR: one of the editors of killing stuff monthly had gone caribou hunting in alaska and had to be flown in by bush plane and he had remarked that as he flew over the valley, there were hundreds of caribou just hanging out in the valley in plain sight. the thought here was that one could really get jazzed because you knew that a kill would be inevitable.

and this was how the bastard felt as he was about to spend several hours near his target. i was so jazzed. the chairman was jazzed. hell, even the mofo(r.i.p.) was jazzed. fish in a barrel, it was.

this character was majestic. his formal wear decks complemented his awful matlock suit quite innappropriately.

but the chairman's family could not take credit for this for their only enyertainment value of the day was when my ladyfriend pointed out this large headed gentleman who had struggled to take his suit jacket off for close to 10 minutes after the ceremony. coincidentally, the chairman had pointed out his date's drunkeness to me later as i pointed out how she looked like she was wearing a red silk garbage bag as a dress.

but none could take the day away from our guido matlock. our hates were off to him as well as his date who either dressed him or had self control enough to not ask him, "are you sure you want to go out looking like that?" good for them. good for their bad taste. and most of all ,good for my disdain.

—the bastard

...on lessons learned

...from rocky one to rocky three


so my taxes came back today.

and i sent the money out.

and the bastard is poor again.

well not really. it just sound more melodramatic when i say that. but, the lesson here is, when you do a sizeable amount of freelance, pay your estimated taxes so that you aren't shocked when you are greeted with a nice sum that uncle sam wants from you.

lesson learned. back to square one.

back where we started

here we go around again.

day after day

i get up and i say,

i'm gonna do it gain.

cheers. drinks are on me. cause i spilled them on me.

—the bastard

atlas shrugged, the smoker's pole...

...and other dumb shit the bastard did this weekend

"hey bastard, whatcha eatin'?"

"i dunno, what are we eating'?"

"let's got to the california pizza kitchen at the atlas park mall."

"ok"

so this was the beginning of some of the bastard's most idiotic feats of driving for saturday.

now let me preface this by saying, no, the bastard is not a very good driver. the mofo has built an entire comedic routine around this which also consists of the bastard being gay, a yuppy, even though i lack the two out of three of that tryptic, (hint: the bastard is neither young, nor is he professional but, he sure as shit is urban), or annoying or whatever else is built into the routine at the time for maximum "my brother is a jack off because..." effect.

oh yeah, i also used to throw my combat boots around the bedroom we shared growing up along with throwing my laundry over his head while he slept too (i was drunk and that was where the dirty clothing went) but, i digress,

i'm not a good driver.

and i had been huffing paint fumes since i got home on friday night. the landlord finally finished repairing and painting the flooded remains of the bastard's apartment so i was a little hopped up on goofballs at the time when he decided to take the long way to the atlas shoppes. figger it was a 40 minute drive to get to a place that was essentially 10 minutes away.

oh yeah and i almosr hit a kid blowing through a stop sign that the chairman pointed out afdter i decided to stop listening to him.

oh, and i clipped my mirror getting into the parking lot because i decided that i was too mad at blowing the stop sign and killing kids to read any of the parking signage that the chairman had taken the liberty of reading but i digress, i almost killed a kid.


and i killed a teenager with a trident on my way to the california pizza kitchen.

but more importantly, the bastard had never been to the atlas park shoppes. it kind of looks like godzilla had eaten part of this art museum up in the berkshires called massMOCA and then ate part of the woodbury commons outlet mall upstate and then proceeded to vomit it all up in an empty lot in glendale, queens.

oh well, the pizza was good. then i went to a party where everyone had an iphone. it was kind of creepy, but fun.

—the bastard

...dearth

hell is round the corner where i shelter.
isms and schisms, were living on a skelter
if you believe i'll deceive common sense says you are thief
let me take you down the corridors of my life.

—tricky "hell is round the corner"

so it's that time again.

the time where the bastard loses sleep.

when the bastard has his busy season.

when the bastard does the devils work.

when the bastard crams tons of magazine pages out the door.

and then loses his cool and breaks shit.

apparently, i noticed that this is also the time of year that i keep regurgitating lyrics from tricky's catalog of work. i don't know what it is about him but, it always illustrates how i'm feeling when the bastard is in it. up to his eye balls in work. i'm never going to sleep again . at least not until february.

so what i'm saying is,

it's going to be a little thin for a while.

but, look for me jumping through a plate glass window near you. right before i cut your throat.

—the bastard

...on the fall of the house of usher 5

a couple of weeks ago, my father had informed me that the house was finally closing. not my childhood home but the family's house. the house where we all congregated for the holidays. the house where afterwards i would get headaches from the smoke of being stuck in traffic and listening to the doo wop shop with don k. reid. the house that the chairman started his career in after he moved back from the wilds of connecticut and decided that there had to be more to life than a workaday job and a fucking pension. the house where uncle acid played sgt peppers by the beatles on 8 track until the damn thing exploded.

no.

wait.

that was on vinyl. we destroyed magical mystery tour somewhere in the middle of blue jay way. anyway this was the house where alot happened and now it belongs to some chucklehead from arizona i understand.

i hope that now that it's over, shit can be put aside. one can't go back in time but, a bastard can hope for shit can't he? i also hope that the new owner finds my goddam star wars figures. we buried them in the sand on the beach like 30 some odd years ago and we never saw them again. also, open letter to the new owner. dear sir, treat the damn place with respect. someone's family grew up there.

—the bastard

...on airing out

wake up.

groggy.

nose stuffed up.

it's been a bad allergy day.

is that my knee popping?

yeah. it sure is. i get off the train and wade through the swarm on periphery alone. i can't see so good when i wake up. one night i waltzed out of bed to use the can and on the way back i had started to fall asleep and i hit the doorjam to the boy's room with a loud thud. i might have woken the boy up.

wait.

that was before the boy. either way it hurt. but i digress. i woke up, i mean when i really woke up this evening, i had a cup of coffee in my hand and i was walking out of the store and as the door swung open, that really good part of the who's a quick one while he's away is in my ears. you know the part with the bee's in bill murray's room in rushmore. everything slows down for me when i hear that part. it's one of the bastard's more favorite who songs.

but that wasn't in my head. i was thinking about the dearth of bobs in my life these days. over the weekend, the nice lady informed me that bobby had died. but, i'll get to that.

bob was my father in law. he's been gone a couple years and i never eulogized him because, well, i don't know. i was dealing with alot of other shit at the time. but bob was a good man. every now and again, and i don't confess this to anyone i roll with at all that when i roll out of a bar downtown, i half expect to see him leaning against a utility pole like the first time i saw old bob (he'd fucking kill me if i ever used the word old anything with him) asking me if i see anything i like. he was the first actual adult i ever grubbed a cigarette off of. he was the first person i ever felt comfortable discussing politics with. he was the first person i ever felt cursing at the dinner table around (and my family must love me for that) and i miss that. he loved life and he never even let death see him scared as he stood out there on northern blvd dying of lung cancer, smoking with me at his niece's sweet 16 party knowing it might be his last but, who the fuck cared. coincidentally, he always fell asleep on furniture and since he was asleep the last time i saw him, i didn't feel right waking him up.

bobby on the other hand was a big drinker, and a big liar. and while he was a likable guy, he also wasn't. he left a trail of bodies in his wake in the form of ex's and kids (not that many kids to be completely fair). bobby smoked like a chimney, like berber carpet and loved cars. whenever he fell in love with someone new, he would get a far away look in his eye and speak as poetically as an high school educated auto mechanic with marbles in his mouth could. sometimes, i thought he was the kind of relative that people in his family loved but, didn't really like. but i liked him. hell, i'm sure some people liked him some of the time and some people liked him all of the time but he made it hard on himself. the drink puts a strain on your family and breaks you body slowly. and it broke him. he had been in and out of the hospital for a while since my divorce and i hadn't seen him in a bit. but i found myself thinking about him on the way home tonight. i think about how he set me up with my first decent cup of espresso. i think about his ugly ass house in staten island that he always opened up to me and what a decent guy he was when he was sober. i wonder if he's out of pain now.

in the front door, sme crappy liz phair song that i like is on and i'm sorting the mail and trying to finish up my day and i don't want this anymore. i go into the liquor cabinet. well actually it's also where i keep my cereal. and my napkins. and probably some rats too. who knows? but i find hte whiskey and a brand new shot glass that old school brought me from st louis and i pour once.

to bob.

i pour twice

to bobby.

good night bobs, i don't have anymore of you in my life and i won't be getting that back and i'm a little less for it.

—the bastard

...on the dumps

actually the bastard is fine, i was trenching through the unwritten drafts portion of the blog and came across this pic from the mofo's collection of stashed work. he hasn't posted lately. you see, he gets up early in the morning and stuff.

—the bastard

slog

lemme axe you a question.

have you ever had one of those nights where you wake up like you've been shot out of a cannon and you can't get back to sleep for at least two hours so when you finally do you wake up at the regular time feeling like you've been hit in the side of the head with a black jack?

yeah, me too. the bastard is trucked and i have the devil's work dogging my heels. it's gonna be a busy day shiteyes. busy day indeed

—the bastard

...on fly whips

so the bastard has been taking to watching sucker free countdown on mtv2. coming out of the stop n shop yesterday, the chairman was explaining the state of the hip hop nation. this all stemmed from the fact that the number one song this week (which is i'm throwed by paul wall) is god awful. maybe it's just my taste in hip hop. then again i haven't bought anything with a beat since pre millenium tension by tricky. anyway, the chairman says that nothing really good comes out until late spring or november. either said label is trying to catch the christmas market or they are trying to put out this summer's hot jam. oh well. i guess that's mass marketing for you.

so i was noticing that there was this mini van parked under the bastard's window. and the mini van was rockin' it's own gangsta logo. apparently even soccer mom's have crews. apparently even soccer mom's are HAHD. one could even argue that maybe somewhere in the greater forest hills area, there is a soccer mom who's out there rockin' her own fly ass grill. ridin' around, king of the town, i always got my windows rolled down. oh wait, gotta get the kids to soccer practice and then to the pta meeting...i'm throwed

—the bastard

...on weddings and funerals

"hey bastard, long time no see. sorry about your grandfather."

"it's okay tony, it wasn't your fault" the bastard quips back with one of his many sordid coping devices, "actually, i'm just glad he's out of pain. how have you been?"

"not bad. the kids are really growing up. patty is doing a great job with them"

"that's great. it's been such a long time"

"i know. it's kind of sad", piped tony. "it seems as you get older, you see your relatives less and less."

"yeah i know. and even if you try, you can never keep up"

"i know. it seems like the only time you get to see your family is at weddings and funerals"

"very true"

yeah. weddings and funerals. i had this conversation with tony in june of 2000 at my grandfather's funeral. tony and his wife, my second cousin used to babysit me when we were young. when the mofo was still in diapers. we'd go out to my great aunt's house and marvel at the plymouth duster she owned and hang out in her pool and the three of us would skewer tony and he would take it because, he loved my cousin and hell, how bad could three kids skewer a man.

the bastard remembers this conversation because, tony died this week from lymphoma. i'm going to his wake tonight. i'm embarassed to say that i never knew he was sick. i'm embarrassed that the last time i saw him was at my great aunt's funeral. and before that my grandfather's funeral (his sister in law came to grandma's instead. family schism. long story. another time perhaps). and before that, my wedding. that was over 10 years ago mind you.

there was truth to his words back then. and it sticks today. i'll see these people tonight. and i haven't seen them since the last joy/tragedy. all i know is tony and i won't ever be able to have that conversation again but, i'll always remember wanting to get the hell out of the conversation to go have a cigarette that day. maybe that's why i feel embarrassed. because i'll never be able to wash that feeling off.

i hate funerals. my mom's family is dying and they constantly come together and try to keep it together. i guess that when the wagons are being circled is when you feel like locking arms, because you know the end is coming.

—the bastard

...on the fall of the house of usher 4

so the phone rings this morning and it's my father, the shrink. now the shrink called me yesterday too. he told me that he wanted me to come over for dinner last sunday but he couldn't get it together and that's cool, the bastard hasn't been so much with the phone calls to the rents lately, life has been going on around him and it gets busy. the shrink understands this. the shrink is also getting used to the fact that the bastard is dating again (yeah, i meant to tell you that but, i didn't, so there) and that's a good thing.

but i digress, so the shrink calls me up this morning and he tells me that the house is sold. i asked, "our house? no wait, grandpa's house."

"that's what your brother said"

well, these things happen. one would think that the natural progression would be that the grand parent's house was the item to be sold but we all kind of want(well i at least kind of want) the rents to move out of their place. the old hood is constantly in flux and one would think that your parents would eventually abandon your childhood home for greener pastures. i guess we'll see about that one day. the mofo tells me that the north fork is where they might go. it's where they go for their anniversary every year. it would be nice that in the face of the family's house sinking into the mud to become the house for some other family. 12 johns will now go away soon just like the family's old headquarters in bellerose. it becomes the stuff of family stories, "remember that time at the big house (what we called the bellerose house) where the three of us argued with the three of them over something stupid that children argue about?" remember misty and bonnie (grandma and grandpa had irish setters), and how they scared the crap out of us? remember that fucking great dane they had at 12 johns and how i tried to ride him like a horse when i was nine? the boat? not the blue one but grandpa's first boat? remember the salty smell on the back lawn in the morning at low tide? yeah, i remember. hell, i couldn't forget.

—the bastard

...on the fall of the house of usher 3

and so it ends. the family treks west for greener pastures. the cycle ends. and so it begins. the family heads west for greener pastures. the cycle begins. now that the bastard's family has headed out and i back to the box i call home, the lowe, has left parts forest hills for the west and his apartment will be the artist's new base of operations. this has been a long time coming for the artist as he has been holding down the basement of 12johns for a little while. even longer than he lived at the family's house, the artist has done his time for the family. many docks were put in and taken out of the harbor by the artist (and whichever other chuckleheads from the family that showed up that day) which is why the mofo and i have acquiesced control of the grandchildren which my dearly departed grandmother referred to as "group 2" in her end time delirium (but that is another story).

so the artist has also arranged that i pass my landlord's (the stutterer) number to his sisters with the interest being our family repopulating the q-borough. starting with forest hills. i figure what the hell, if you find a vacant apartment on your block why not try and fill it with someone you know rather than have some hipster move in and make you feel old and uncool and of course price you out of the neighborhood with trustfundy goodness. this'll be real interesting for me. i never really visited my family very often before the troubles and i visit them even less now that they are done (mostly because the old man needs to come to grips with it and i don't want to do it for him). but now i'll have family on the block. we'll see what happens.

—the bastard