The Double Trey -The Triple Duce-The new Forty?

Oh hi there.  It's Texino hiding in a hotel at Callao, Peru down South America way.  How I come to be holed up in a hostile hostelry where the day to day seems to revolve around draping one's self in a flag, donning the silliest hat you can find, and marching off into the mountains  chomping a big chaw of coca, is a story for a different day.  Suffice to say here I am on the eve of my 60th year on the planet trying to make some sense of that pressing matter.

Now, if you are anything like me, and you must share some ideas or you would not be reading this, you probably thought you would never get as old as you are now.  That may be 30, 40, 50, 55, 60 or even higher.  Still those numbers are the milestones we tend to mark

as varying degrees of  age.  Of course you have 21 and 18 and 16 but those tend toward fun things like driving the car and buying the spirits and people rarely if ever say "God, 21 years, where did the time go?"   I  must say, however; that since not one of the male members on my father's side ever lived out his 50s, I honestly did not think I would make this date either and therefore, did not make any plans what so ever.  Looking back, I have had some nice birthdays and some normal birthdays. No really bad birthdays because I don't think much of holidays anyway so I don't put a lot of stock in making a huge deal over stuff like that.  I like giving presents to people for no particular reason other than they might enjoy the gift.  It's hard to buy me things anyway because my tastes run high.  I mean, I'd like a porsche automobile or a cruising sailboat.  I really have no trouble excepting the fact, I'll never get this stuff for my birthday.  I am a bit more concerned, however over my lack of getting anything published in book form or gaining further respect as a musician.  Of the two, the writing does seem to be the one where I might possibly gear up some success.  The trouble there is, owing to the discovery that the root of my melancholy has to do with Parkinson's Disease, the feel good medicine I am taking is, bit by bit, forcing the spontaneous entertainment that can be "Texino" back into the tin can that is Tommy.  What to do?  I just don't know at the moment.  Besides, I'm busy thinking about some stuff.  Like what?  Well, like the people who I love.  Some of them have been around for pretty much the whole ride.  Some of these people I love, I have not seen in years and years; maybe since we were little kids who grew into teenagers and went away to different schools.  But they were the first people outside of my family circle who I had feelings for and when we swore blood oaths of friendship forever, I believed them with all my heart.  There are others who for one reason or other couldn't make the trip. I mean they died.  I suppose Mother and Father could, in theory, still be around, but I told you no one in Dad's family lived to be 60 and though Mother's people were long lived, Mother herself ended up being forty forever.  I missed the old folks who brought me up and educated me away from school so much, that in the years after they had passed, I would work the sums of their ages wishing them back until, well if Granny were alive now, she would be 126 and that is just a little far fetched even for me.   Then in the last 10 years or so, those twin sharpshooters, Cancer and Heart disease have started sniping away at my generation and a couple of exotic diseases have drifted through the ranks like chemical warfare.  I guess life's like that.  "That" being analogous to just about any sort well known life ending situation.  I have also heard that "Life is what you make it" as well as "The Golden Years are Hell"  I got a great deal of this information hanging around in the back of ambulances chatting with older patients of and on over the past 30 years or so and I met some wonderful folks indeed.  If I learned anything at all there it was this.  Age is a sneaky bastard who will just  roar up on you like an express train.  (If you know what an express train is you are probably already old.)  Don't believe me?  Well just look back at those mile stone birthdays I listed.  See how many have come and gone and how quickly the time between has flown.  It just keeps getting faster too.  Why?  I just don't know.   

Well, as you can see by today's graphic, I'm being watched Los Indios de Fedoras and they have me pined down at he Hotel Columbus.  Guess that will be my birthday HQ.  If you find yourself in the neighborhood drop on by.  Knock three times and give the pass word.  The pass word is, "Swordfish."  Love you?  Yeah I mean it.

usurious- ursine? 9/18? I can't bear it!

Oh hi, it is Texino.  Do I have less than perfect credit? Well, I guess I do since I have no SS# or job.  Therefore, I was not surprised to get this offer for a "Second Chance" unsecured-Master Card from some bank in that, Nevada of the East, Delaware.  I say Nevada, because there seem to be very few rules at work in "The First, but not the smallest state.  How do I know Delaware is not the smallest state?  Well for that tip, a big Texino Thanks goes out to Ms. Mary Emerson, a very close relation of mine who, on four separate occasions between 1958 and '60, sang this lyric during a succession of automobile trips: "Poor Little Rhode Island, Smallest of The 48." "Providence one day, stole my heart away." and that was, as they say, all she wrote. Even though Rhode Island is a well known "Mob" State, we are talking about Delaware here which is mobbed up in a completely different manner altogether, in that, for some reason or other, all sorts of shady business goes on there daily and no one seems to give a tinker's damn about it.  Let's talk about the First Bank of Delaware and their "innovative solutions."  OK? Fine.  Now we have old Texino here and let's say the kid is broke and needs "Credit"  You must have credit, right?  Everyone says so.  Used to be you could not pay by check without a credit card and DL for ID.  That's changed, but it's only because they can see if you have a history of bouncing checks and some places have a machine that treats your check like a debit card and yanks the dough right out of the account and gives you the check back.  Still, lots off people love to use credit cards like money and do not realize that it is really hard to pay them off.  In fact, if you have found it difficult to pay your credit card bills, the companies will make it almost impossible for you to do so by invoking small print clauses which let them run the interest up to like 33%, so you will end up paying them a few hundred bucks a month for ever.  People, being basically honest, do this.  Banks being legally dishonest, encourage it by trying to make you feel like dirt and when you are feeling good and dirty, they will come at you with something like this "second chance" card.  Let's have a look at this baby.  A gold Master Card. BFD.  Gold card means nothing.  OK. Now the interest rate is right at 20% so right off, 5 cents on every dollar you charge is going to be paid in interest before your balance drops and that is only if you pay the balance every month.  You won't because if you had the money to use a credit card the way it is supposed to be used, you would not be getting this offer. It even says on the ad, "If you have good credit, this may not be the best card for you" and what that means is, because you have bad credit,  you are going to be punished and the bank, assuming that you are a dummy, plans on getting away with it and here's how.  They charge a $99.00 setup fee, an $88.00 fee for something else, plus a $120.00 annual fee for which they kindly charge you $10 a month.  So, you are going to go into this credit contract by paying the bank around $300 to have a credit card with a $300 limit of which $261.40 will show up as charges the first month and since we assume you were broke to start with–––well you see where I'm going.  You get the offer, think Oh boy, a little break!  But no!  A big trap!  I'm calling usury which is fucking illegal, yet, for some reason it is legal here.  This is no different that the "vig" you pay a loan shark, and if you need a better explanation, google "pay day loans" which are pretty much modeled on loan sharking as practiced by Rocky Balboa in the movie Rocky.   Now to me usury sounds quite a lot like "usury" and anything ursine would be to do with your bear-like creature and we all know that any terror we ascribe to the bear is not misplaced.  What prey-tell, does September the 18 have to do with anything?  Oh that.  Well anyone, like me for instance, who follows the internet conspiracy topics, looking for material should be aware that for quite sometime the forces of good have been at work dismantling the evil creature from Jeckyll Island or as the semi-sane among us like to call it, The Federal Reserve Banking System and today is the day bar none 100% positive that we will be switching over to the much nicer treasury banking system and, check this out!  Due to the hassles involved with records and stuff, the folks in charge have decided to just wipe the slate clean and cancel ALL of your debt!

That's right.  Your mortgage, credit cards , student loans- every last little thing.  Now is that nice or what?  New banks!  New money!  It's all set.  I've been reading about this for months now and todays' the day; no fooling and you can set your clock by it.  Me?  Well I live in Panama, so I don't think I get any beans from this.  The rest of you coyotes, have a blast and when the check comes just smile and walk out.  Your money's no good here.  I mean really. No good.   According to experts like Patrick H. Bellringer (Yup it stands for Henry) of fourwinds10.com the new treasury banks will be open for business today.  Of course, when Pat says President Bush is really a shape shifting lizard, he means literally a reptile who can appear in different forms.  Hmmm, maybe that's a bad example.  OK, Pat says that we are not really fighting a war in Iraq.  You see, Spacemen in star ships have placed them where all the normal stars would be (the star ships) and they are just making you think we are fighting a war.  In reality all the troops are taken up into these space ships and well–– you need to google Mr. Bellringer and get his take on the world situation.  He is quite positive you see.  I guess I need to go to the bank.  You all be good and don't spent it all in one place, OK?  Fine.

TT                           

Texino, is the moon flat, and could you explain creation for us as well?

 Sure thing kids! The Moon? Flat? As a pancake! That's right, and so is the earth. In fact both are coin shaped and have highly similar magnetic properties that repel one another just enough to keep them hanging up in space. The fact that these bodies are artifacts means that they are artificially made which gives perfect credence to the idea that "God" made them. I know that this information will be very difficult for geocentric science folk to take in, so I'll just leave it for you to chew on with this caveat. If you want to accept any divinity in the creation of your universe, this is where you will end up. Otherwise, you are just bacteria clinging to a rock in the cold darkness.  How's about that?   Earth and Moon as giant bill boards starting to make a bit more sense?  Thought that they might.  So, what's on the back, you ask?  Lots of towers and complex machinery if you must know.  How does it go?  Atomic power is the answer to that.  Aren't we worried about some kind of 3-mile Island thing?  Short answer, no.  The planetary geologists will tell you the Earth is a sphere surrounding a molten core as hot as the sun or something.  Naw! It's just Nuclear Fission in the big reactor. God?  The Generational Optimum Development outfit who goes around populating areas in a space time continuum for who knows what reason.  Probably why people build terrariums and aquariums or keep exotic rabbits.  None of this stuff flies in the face of conventional science or anything,  you know?  I mean other than our earth and moon being rocks as opposed to being big artifacts.  And like I said, if you except the role of the artificer then you can have your God and your science too. You know the idea of a somewhat flat or convex earth has been around forever and doesn't preclude the existence of anything.  Even people who go into space just see the disk of the Earth with part of it always in shadow.  Now geo science would have you believe that it gets dark at night because the place on the earth where you stand has turned it's back on the sun and actually does it for the better part of 12 hours.  OK?  Well when scientists send probes to actual planetary rocks like Mars and Venus, the temperature at these "terminator points" where dark and light meet will vary by hundreds of degrees while here on earth it just cools down a bit; exactly as it would if the moon were moving around the one face of the earth as a second hand moves on the face of a clock.  Of course in this case, the moon's shadow would be a pie shape with the pointed part in the center of the clock face and the wide part moving slowly causing darkness to fall but not taking any part of the world away from the sun's radiational cone, as doing so would freeze every thing solid in a matter of minutes.  Oh horse feathers! You say. Fine.  Just remember that your learned ancestors a very few times removed had no difficulty believing this theory, and it is only on the word of the cold calculating anti artificers that todays belief lies.  Horse Feathers, you might say.  But there is solid horse sense in the belief that people similar to ourselves but with a different ideological bent, brought this physical universe into existence.  Certainly something to think about with your ice cream and cake.*

*Now the question: Do I believe this, or am I just making up a plausible sounding science fiction or maybe even the basis for a cult where the leader and his loyal few, become really rich both socially and financially?  Donations for my good works...etc  Now that's scary.  

Making Good Money-Internet

I received a curious email today from a Mr. Davis who writes that I may be surprised that he is in touch, but I have been recomended to him as a man who can be trusted, and therefore should not be alarmed by the fact that he would like me to work a little business deal with him for the tune of $52,500,000. I must say that's quite a bit of money even for me.  What's the deal?  Well Mr. D. is a government functionary, though he does not say whose government, but never the less the clever fellow has hit upon a fool proof scheme of sorts.  Here it is.  Davis ordered some "construction supplies" for "The Government" and in a masterful stroke of genius he "over billed" the companies involved the sum of !!!!!!! You guessed it 52.5 Mil. ANNNNNNND!!!!! They Paid It!  Boy do I like it when the little guy gets the brass ring!  Well almost gets, would be more the case, and here's why.  Davis just can't get the money, however; he can get the money if I get involved in some way and don't betray him.  I'm going to quote Mr. Davis: I have sent you this email not without fears as to what the consequences might be, if you choose to betray me, I have a lovely family and this is an occasion to provide them with new opportunities, do not betray my confidence.  I expect you keep my offer private whatever your decision. Do not betray me. I await your response.  I guess I've sort of slipped up here, hell I may as well have said the guy's email is davis_sampson@myway.com. I swear to God, I must have lost nearly 2-300 million bucks this year alone because I won some lottery I don't remember entering and couldn't pay the special "fees" involved or make bribe payments or whatever.  I am certainly worth a lot on paper and that is for sure!  I mean with my lottery winnings and inheritances plus "standing in" as next of kin for countless civil engineers who, with their entire families die in these Nigerian car wrecks and plane crashes leaving several millions behind.  Those things add up.  So, if I've blown it for Mr. Davis Sampson of The Government of some place that will be $52 and one half million dollars short come this 09/30, God knows I'm sorry!
 

A bit O Bathroom Humor w/Babs

I used to wonder what "heat lightning" was. Then I looked it up, and they told me it was just lightning flashes from actual storms far away reflecting on clouds near by.  I didn't really believe it til I got radar on this computer.  I mean now I can turn on The Weather Underground website and if I hit the right button I can see the storms with their little knife like arrows prowling around like a bunch of delinquents.  If I don't happen to have the computer on right at the moment, one of my early warning poodles will hear the thunder long before me and 80 lb of dog in your lap will get your attention if nothing else.  So with dogs in my lap and computers running, I'm starting to sound like Irma Bombeck or something.  Well, I'm not her, unless, of course, she, being dead, has over taken me somehow.  I wonder what Martha Stewart's up to today?  I doubt if she sleeps very late.  How do I know? Well, I know a great deal about "Marty" and I know she sleeps in a single bed in the converted attic of her country place where a servant might once have slept.   The lady is all about entertaining but that doesn't include "The bedroom." We are, after all, not living in France!  No I doubt if M. bestows her sweet favors on some lucky dinner guest and that's why we are not privy to well, The Privy, or the Sleeping Chamber.  I was thinking about asking Martha to accompany me on an ocean voyage aboard The Yacht Pelican's Pouch. Just the two of us watch and watch as we sailed down the well worn longitude to the Antilles.  I know that Marty would bring all the right gear and show up for her watch a tad early in a bulky fisherman's sweater with a steaming cup clutched  securely in place and make sure she had the course and all that.  I also know that she would also be happily snug in a quarter berth reading in the special golden light that only lives in a sailboat duing the evening hours.  A quarter berth is a snug little spot toward the rear of the boat that you enter feet first and just your head and shoulders poke out.  You might not even notice it if no one was in there.  Now, I'm quite aware that more than a few do not share my attraction for Miss Martha Stewart of Connecticut, US.  In fact, many have expressed an interest in the oddly proportioned singer and actress, Ms. Barbara Streisand of NYC, NY and say she is "The Kind."  Well other than professing a like of ice cream during he early years, Babs has always struck me as wacko.   Kind of an intelligent Cher. Or maybe just a Jewish one.  It's very possible that Cher may be the better actress plus, as far as I am aware, she has never resorted to the weirdness of a Laura Nyro song to get on the pop charts.  Away with all that and avast!  I want to talk about some serious trouble in the rest room.  While I am not one to dwell on the matters of what a person does "off stage", at the same time, I can deal with it. It would seem, however, that while my gal pal Martha has issues there to some extent, your buddy Babs is a total fruitcake on the subject!  What do you mean Texino?  Been snooping around the ladies' again you naughty fellow?  Short answer?  No, however; I did read in the yellow press that Ms Streisand pitched a MAJOR fit up there in NYC during the filming of some movie where she was the producer, director and co-star (right- Babs don't co-anything) She pitched this fit because, get this, When she used the toilet in her trailer/motor home on the location, she had to turn around in order to flush it, thereby  facing the possibility of Seeing what she might have left in the bowl. Excuse me!  I mean aren't you supposed to take a passing interest in what you pass?  It can sort of tip you off to some deadly diseases you know.  Don't mean you need to become too fascinated with the stuff or anything, but come on, let's be a grown up.  Anyway,  never a slave to irony, Ms. Streisand who, BTW, was playing a Shrink in the film got her way and a bigger trailer, and life goes on don't cha know. I'm not certain what Martha may have pulled during her recent imprisonment, but since she could not hire out someone to go for her, I guess she just had to deal with it.  As far as dealing with it, think of the money that could have been saved if Barbara would have used the porta-potty!  That way her "Stuff" would have fallen in with that of the commoner and she might have even learned a small lesson; something you should try to do every day anyway.

Der Bingle

Hi it is Texino and I am trying to write something, anything, but I am not having much luck because  Bing Crosby is on the TV close by. "Bing" is starring in a film that requires him too use his considerable vocal talents, however; rather than camping it up with the noxious Bob "Going to live to be 100 years old" Hope who at this juncture may still be in The UK boxing beneath the name "Packy West," Bing is pitting himself against different musical genre some which he can handle i.e. sappy ballads, pop tunes of the day and whistling interludes and some which he cannot; specifically singing Jazz with Louis Armstrong who, in the 1930s was Commander in Chief of Negro Music.  We get Crosby sing/saying "Come on Mr. Trumpet Man!" Armstrong plays some trumpet riffs to which Bing has a very stiff and white person answer that sort of goes "Bom boom  bombom boom bom bom" To which Mr. Trumpet Man replies "Zat zoot re bap be bop bop a re bop." Remember, I am not watching this movie, but I have a queasy feeling that as Bing is singing "Now you've heard that Trumpet Man..." he is dancing around waving his index finger up in the air.  You know what I mean.  I still don't know the name of this film but I'm thinking it is one of those vehicle movies where a studio puts a lot of well known people in support of the star. Like Louis Armstrong and I'm certain I heard Shirley Temple in there and the Harmonicats as well. Now it's over.  I'm still at a loss, so I'll just talk about what a dick Bing Crosby was.  Was he a jerk?  Hard to say since we did not hang out. Turns out, he was probably pretty decent for a big star.  I think that Bing was pretty complex and like a lot of successful men of his time just did not make a good dad.  I mean not only was Bing a famous singer and actor, but due to his vision in the recording industry, we got magnetic tape recorders and video tape and all kinds of cool stuff.  In other words he worked hard to improve his business.  Something else.  He may not have been able to keep up with Armstrong as a Jazzbo but they were good friends and evidently they both smoked a lot of pot starting back when it was legal and advocated it's decriminalization.  Bing was a big Republican, but not stupid.  Remember seeing him on those Orange Juice commercials back in the late 60s?  Minute Made?  He was big into that business too. Not stupid.  He had a bunch of kids from two marriages.  Boys and girls.  The first bunch had four brothers who tried to make it in show biz.  You probably remember one of them, Gary.  He was a cop on Adam-12, an old TV show about cops and sometimes he played a character on Dragnet.  Usually a jerk.  The other three?  Can't say except for two blew their heads off with shot guns, one more brother died of the coroner wouldn't say what and Gary died from smoking too many cigarettes soon after writing a book about what a shit his dad was.  The book really hurt Bing's image as a family man, but Bing was good and dead by that time.  I'd venture the book had more to do with the fact that the boys got a small amount from a trust set up by their mom who died in 1948 and Bing, seeing that they were disinclined to "work" in the real world set it up so they could not get any inheritance from him until they were in their 80s (none made it)  That "Der Bingle" thing?  Well, Crosby couldn't speak German, but he could act it, and that's what he did overseas during the war.  He would entertain the troops and then he would read propaganda over the radio to the German guys.  I think the Jerry's liked his singing too, so maybe he won that war.  He was a decent actor when you think about it.  Look at him in those Father O'Malley flicks.  What a slick priest!  Goes round extorting money from mean rich men and making choir boys out of hoodlums.  Got to admit, he was smooth.  Could have been all the pot. Well the movie is over and all I got was this dumb rap about Bing Crosby that's not even funny or that informative. Oh yeah, Bing was friends with Les Paul and gave him his first tape recorder; Lester put that to good use that is for sure.  Now don't sit here ruining your eyes reading my nonsense. You all go out and have an ice cream or something.

tt.

Summer's over you say?

It's best not to listen to anyone these days.  That is, unless you enjoy being stung with a toothache-like nostalgia; likely to abscess  your brain, kill your heart, strike you blind and make your dog forget you.  For if you listen the least little bit, this may be the matter.  Summer is over.  Oh large charge Texino, it happens once a year every year and has done so since time was O'clock.  Yeah, I know, but down in the jungle where the coconut grows, save for a bit more rain come November, it's always summer .  The average is 88 or something.  That's great in Poor February when you drop ship in Baltimore and fly home via San Juan.  Man, every-time I do that, all I have to do step outside between planes get slammed by El Tropico and I'm smiling for the six months I'm on the hill. Yeah it's great, until some radio poet starts in on the sweet finality of a season's end; some place where they happen like a clock, and I get thinking because I have not always been a  monkey man.  No I have not.  In fact, I can cast a memory quite a distance in aid of catching up, and I easily remember how cool nights could sneak up on August and put the chill on my summer heart.  Sure, that stuff happened to me.  Tentative hands in June,  fireworks by the 4th, and then you could live and die in 60 days; The shelf life of a Summer Love.  Good fun, a few disagreements, some bad choices but no horrible memories. Then in September, the wind would back around, blowing one more year off my page and rattling the halyards of 200 odd boats waiting to be cradled in the yard or sailed away to a different season. A season not so innocent as True Summer. Something any Skipper would notice in the eyes of  would be shipmates lurking the docks.   You have seen them before, they come in on the one ferry, just as the other leaves with those you will not see again.  A sad piece of irony? Maybe, but then it was time to sail East for South and Summer the Winter in the islands.  The years pass and things settle the way they do.  That doesn't mean some old habit won't present itself as a argument against what you have become.  It doesn't hurt to kick the tires of these old memories either, you don't have to buy them to try them.  OK?  Fine

TT