who the hell am I?

I'm Texino and I write stories. Sometimes people request my friendship on social networking sites and when I accept, they act like it's a pretty good deal.
I must have made them feel a certain way through my writing. If that is true then I'm doing my job. Other times I write stupid and obvious lies about Bluegrass Players who I consider Grand Falloons. A Grand Falloon is a type of person made up by the humorist Kurt Vonnegut Jr. and it means just what it sounds like. I break a lot of laws and spend more time on the hill that out to sea. It's for the better because I am getting old. Still I want to make another tour. They have taken my major priviledge to drive, but I have a 49 cc motor scooter and if I should pack it wisely and take back roads, I might see some things left to see which will teach me some lessons I have not learned. Like the importance of corn to the economy and if there is any new love to fall into or if I am just a fool for thinking I'm still worth a fuck.

The Poor House

I am aware that I have shown signs of moral bankruptcy in the past but I always managed to pay the dues associated with that itchy plight. Now, I'm faced with a full financial collapse. They simply do not pay Texinos the way they did when we schooled like big tuna with manuscripts fresher than the best grade fish flesh. Oh the price of fuel and the invention of automated long liners. Then you make the mistake of fishing for what would eat your own carcass should you bunk with D. Jones on a perfect stormy night. Once you take that bug money, it is better to go to the hill and buy a house with the wind at your back. And I did that and 30 years of near perfect citizenship brought me in touch with a different breed. Then: Lord did the heavy past en bay me with casual duties and one day I looked up to find 30 thousand squid full and fine and demanding their share of the voyage of my life. What kind of captain doesn't pay off? Well no kind of Captain at all. And then this steady procession of old mates walked off the plank into the fog where, unlike the snowy churchyard not one can answer your whispered question and your loudest calls are swallowed and beaten senseless beneath the billowed blankets.

Ah, what a war!

She make look clean, but she's also forty feet tall! If I was that woman, I'd teach those men to make assumptions about my character. Take that sailor. Swallow him whole and when he tries to climb back up my throat, slug down a double scotch and see how he handles that. Anchors Aweigh Swabby! Hey Mr. Businessman, how's about I check your lungs with a big deep kiss? Heck, he folded up like a piece of cellophane! Say there soldier, let me give you a little love bite on the neck! Oops! his head came right off. So you see while the Armed Services tried to scare men out of having healthy sexual intercourse and catching easily treated diseases, giant Frauliens cruised the east coast killing service men by the score not only in the ways mentoned here but casual use of Zippo Lighters or mistaking the little men for match sticks or ciggarette butts. While the defeat of the giant Axis Alices has been a closely guarded secreat since the second war, great creedence has been given to rumours involving submerine warfare and midnight swims.

It's like the song says-

What song? Doesn't matter. They all get around to it eventually; sadness, loneliness, heart break. The opposite of good. For some reason, perhaps because I am reaching the end of my life, I find my self shuttled into that invisible corner where no one knows you when you are down and out. It's like the song says.

As a tween, I was sent to deportment classes. Learned how fill out a dance card and how to dance it; how to sit and how to walk; how to eat and have all around good manners. I would have benefited more from a course in diesel mechanics. Actually,I did learn quite a few manual trades in the Army but it being wartime everything had a modicum of violence attached to it that did not translate into civilian life i.e. "weld up a box so we can put it on some prisoners head and whack it with sticks." I was playing the bad boy before I went into the service and it was doing me pretty good. When I came back, I really was the bad boy and suddenly no one wanted to know me.

The thing is, I should learn to make friends with a lower class of person. But I don't. Instead, I pal up with the sort of chaps and chicks whom I grew up with. (remember, I know the rules of deportment) and therein lies the rub.
I get exposed as being rough and coarse for real, and that just doesn't do.

So now I am as down and out as is possible. I haven't eaten a full meal in ages
let alone seen a glass of wine. Are dinner parties illegal now? Well of course not, but who would want us at one? (They're broke for God sakes) Me, a poor sport? Well, no. If I had something and you had a need, you would have it. How many computers and instruments and other things have I given away or sold at fractional value just because someone would benefit? People who know me know the answer.

Do I deserve the life I have? Well yes I do. Really. I have the reason written down some place, but if you read it you wouldn't believe it. It's right out of the twilight zone and that tune has no words.

An inconvenient friend

It often seems that the friends I make, the ones who seem ready to love me for the whole go round decide at some point that I am somewhat along the line of a good meal but too hard to get at; like blue crab or something. Think about how tasty those crabs are; then think about the last time you had a mess of them over the house. The shells hurt your hands and the Cayenne gets in the pokes and slices and then the trash doesn't come for days and lessons are taught by the blue tail fly. Don't fret, someones mamma's going to see those maggots on the black trash bags. Then it comes down to the reasonable gathering where Poppa pulls out the years grouper crop and a fish fry is put on.
Good food good company. No mess. No pain. No one to ask the wrong question in this happy group. No, because they all sailed safely through the 60s happy in the knowledge that they were secure and the men they knew were safe and smart and they lit fires on beaches and spoke codes and fattened their futures and worst thing was they forgot, because it didn't mean a thing to any one's plans until it proved an inconvenient mess when a guy like me slipped through and then had the gall to exhibit symptoms of a horror that could not be controlled or over looked. How dare a person behave the part of a separate reality and what were we thinking anyway?
Well the problem is easily solved. Just pretend there was never anything there and it will go away.

A Parting Glass

It's sad to reach an age where something once so large in one's life starts, through a series of sad goodbyes, to implode like a bright star and shrink to a compressed memory, shared now by a few scattered friends.

Fred Foster Davis, F.F. or Filthy Fred as he was universally known; not for lack of hygiene, but for his abiding love for ribald folk song, has died and left a big gap in the circle around the warm fire of friendship. As we slide down the metaphoric pew to fill his now cold seat it seems that each shadow takes on the face of someone too dear to lose.

And how dear was Fred? In '83 and Fred showed up needing to borrow a car to drive to Fernandina in aid of some sort of vehicle exchange over on Cumberland Island. I gave him my yellow Wagoneer, an old veteran but drivable. Fred was back in two days to recruit me to help him tow a Volvo back. I said OK, fine and the day was set. The next morning as we were ready to leave, Fred mentioned that I might find the brakes a bit "tight." He was right, of course, as he had replaced some major components while he had the car. He just did that kind of thing. You borrow a clunker from a friend, find the fluid reservoir a tad low, so you put some fluid in and watch it. Not Fred; he rebuilt the whole system. You know, as a favor for the loan. That was just the kind of guy he was, plus he liked order in machinery . As a life long sailor, he had the ability to make or fix anything. Looking back, I find it hard to think of a time a whirlwind visit from Fred did not result in some repair to the lights, plumbing or car. I'm half certain if he house sat for a month a remodel of some sort would be effected. Really.

Fred died down island in Nevis. He had property there and after losing his wonderful 53' steel hulled ketch,"Curlew" to a hurricane, he had given up life as a charter captain to split his time between the Eastern Shore of VA and the Caribbean.

Our history goes back 35 years and the adventures abound.
In fact the last time I saw Fred, maybe 5 years now, our paths crossed in Beaufort, NC. during a Pirate Festival. It went from a quiet visit with other friends to a highly questionable activity involving reefer, rum and a functional canon. Did not see him again though I figured it was just a matter of time. Now this. Fred leaves a new wife and an ex-wife, Mary. Mary is a story herself and a good friend. The new wife? I did not know about, but I'll wager she has spirit.

So Fred, about to seek treatment for Cancer in Brazil, I'm told, fell to that terrorist of disease while being given oxygen and morphine at the Alexandra Hospital in Nevis and lies buried so far away.

Fred Davis, dead at 65. Too soon for a man so full of work to do and robbed of his days as a elder, sitting some dock yard with stories to amaze the children and a tot of rum near by. But, that is only the future as I saw it. Perhaps he did not look ahead and just lived point to point, like a good navigator.

My friend Dave, another good one, held a pledge with Fred. It was the kind of thing people say, when they really do not consider the truth or consequences of the bargain. The bond was, whomever died first, the survivor would sing "The Parting Glass" at his funeral. It didn't turn out because Dave did not get the news, none of us got it, until yesterday and that was too late. David went home and sang it by himself.

Now if you don't know The Parting Glass, it's a sad Irish tune sung at closing time, and the last part goes: "And if it falls unto my lot, that I should rise and you should not. I'll softly go and gently call, good luck and joy be with you all."

The song is actually about drinking, not dying, but it doesn't take much for it to become an allegory to everything I have been saying here. On that point, I'll shove off in hopes that you will find the "Parting Glass" and hear it for Fred. From there on you will have it to sing to yourself when you are lonely or sad and you might find it of use.

Monkey talk ( Another chapter in a series devoted to the study of animals and their characteristics)

I like to think that I am a friend to all animals, however; the truth is, I have a distrust of both the bear and monkey.

I often think about the initial choices we make regarding our trusts and fears.
I'm talking childhood zen here, the sort of thing that just shouts to your fresh brain that red is candy and sweet potatoes are to be avoided. You make deeper choices as well, like are you a dog or cat person or both, or is your father the sort who would have killed and eaten you if times had been hard. (Bears do this) You are also taking sexual notice at this time. That makes sense as you are the recent product of a sexual union. I grew up in a woman house and the visions of soft curves and pretty feet were early additions to the slide show behind my eyes. I had animal exposure too. Carted to the National Zoo strapped into my stroller like a jet pilot, I was wheeled to within yards of the actual "Smokey The Bear." This was supposed to be a lark but, in fact, it was the product of a horrible domestic misunderstanding. A local TV show for children, which centered around life in the forest, featured a man who played a guitar and sang a song about Smokey the fire prevention bear and how he came to get that job. I loved the guitar but, as I lived in the city, did not really relate to the story,. In fact smokey was represented as a stern creature who wore a drill instructor's hat and admonished in a rumbling robotic voice that "Only YOU can prevent Forest fires" and I just could not figure why it had to be ME since I had other plans for my life. My keepers, on the other hand, insisted that I loved the bear and that's why I was freezing in a stroller watching a scarred bruin watch me. I was wheeled to other sites as well, but to me, the most intimidating was a trip through the monkey house.

Now I knew a bit about Chimps because there were two of them on the television. There was J. Fred Muggs and there was Zippy the chimp. Both of these animals wore clothes. Zippy did tricks and Muggs just sat around and sometimes he smoked a cigar. Chimps like to smoke. I instinctively disliked those monkeys. Sort of like the sweet potato knowledge, or maybe because Zippy The Chimp Dolls of all sizes were in distribution and lay in doctors waiting rooms and on preschool toy shelves. These were horrific in that, while they seemed furry brown and cuddly, they had naked ears and hard rubber faces which totally robbed them of any chance of love. It would be of great interest to analyze a person who actually did become emotionally attached to a zippy doll just to see what sort of person he or she had turned out. Regardless of my predispositions toward chimps, one look at the naked apes in their pseudo environment of sex and violence was enough for the boy and has remained constant into manhood.

I'm here on this monkey business due to the recent story of the face eating Chimp up in New York. Pretty gross indeed, yet because I know my enemy, I can tell you that this sort of destructive attack is not uncommon. In fact, in the last year I read of a couple who had a long standing relationship with a chimpanzee and during a visit to the animal, who was now living in an open environment with other chimps, another chimpanzee attacked the man and ripped his testicles off as well as causing other significant trauma. These villains who go about on "all fours" literally have legs for arms and can tear someone to pieces. I remember a story by the famous Animal expert Frank Buck, who described being temporally blinded by the venom of a spitting cobra. In order to save his eyesight he had to call for help, yet the only telephone was in an office located across the room and to get there, buck had to pass the cages of several chimps. In chilling detail the author described having to crawl in a prone position keeping as close to the floor as possible while the chimps, sensing his injury madly reached for him, there fingers nearly brushing his clothes. Buck escaped, but he made it plain beyond doubt that the terrible chimps would have murdered him in an instant, even though he had treated them with great care and kindness. Chimps. Somewhere down the dusty hall of horrors where the light of my adulthood seldom shines, there is the memory of some long lost kine scope showing Zippy dressed in a doctor's get up, complete with one of those reflectors on his head. In the "gag" he is supposed to be an escaped chimp who has put on the get up. You know how it goes. Patient sees the doctor, the doc says "I'll send in the specialist" Zippy shows up, patient freaks, doctor returns, patient says specialist is a monkey-hilarity ensues. Well OK, but in real life, I think that's pretty screwy and if my doctor ever says, "Ill be right back" I make sure I've got my pants on and I'm ready to bolt. No doubt, chimps are blessed with super speed as are bears. I don't know what the human to chimp + bear ratio is, but I fear it is too high. On an evolutionary scale, I'm supposed to be above a monkey, yet the only product of my superiority that is evident is my ability to get my hands on an Army .45. Well and good, but I'll wager a chimp can shoot a gun too. My advice on that is to do like I do when traveling in chimp territory. I carry a life-like replica of a pistol which I can recognize due to the fact that the tip of the barrel is colored a bright red. If I am challenged by an armed Chimpanzee and can't get the drop on the bastard, I simply pull a bit of the old monkey see-monkey do and placing the "toy" gun in my mouth pretend to pull the trigger. Fair fight? Hell no! Like I said,I get along with animals just fine, but when it comes to ball ripping face eating Chimpanzees, well the tables closed and all bets are off.

The next subject in this series will be, Bears, an abomination before Almighty God!

Let's talk about The Shriners, OK? Fine

You know who the Shriner's are, right? Wear a Fez, drive a little car, have a big parade for no apparent occasion? Those guys. International do-good organization is what they are. The Shriner's, AKA The Masons, are a secret society who have something like 33 degrees of membership. Shriners come from all walks of life, but I am not certain if Black People can join or if they have their own Shrines. (I have seen Black Shriners but not in a mixed group) Because the Masons are a secret order, a lot of mystery surrounds what goes on at the Lodge. Now, I'm not sure how one gets tagged to join up. I don't think being an actual mason is necessary, however; The Masonic orders are big into the compass , square and apron as symbolic artifacts in their rites. The Masons have been about for a real long time and, by the way, George Washington was a Mason and I believe he laid the corner stone of the Capitol. In fact lot of the early big shots in the USA were Masons and they managed to get some of there junk put on the money and it's still there.

Of course, whenever there is a secret society afoot, people are going to want to know what goes on. The Masonic orders can be pretty tight lipped about this and it is alleged that anyone who might do a run and tell all on The Brotherhood would face some pretty substantial grief for his trouble. This must have some degree of truth because a lot of people would be interested in finding out if to get to the highest levels of the "Craft" it is truly necessary that the candidate do such naughty acts as sacrifice a child as well as a bit of rape and cannibalism. I guess, if the brothers have that sort of information on a fellow, he would be loath to tattle.

Personally, I have a hard time believing nice Mr. Fowler down the street (a known Master Mason of high degree) would do any of that nasty business, however; there are two major obstacles which keep my suspicions engaged Viz the Masonic Order. #1 is their affection for Arab paraphernalia and #2 they perform as Clowns in their own circus. Now it is well known that Arabs are often employed in the snatching an ill use of young boys and this is something not unheard of in the Clown Conspiracy either. Therefore, until the Masons come across with some heavy evidence to the contrary I cannot release them from suspicion. OK. I was just thinking about The Masons and that is what came out. My head is stacked full of information, so if you need any, don't Google! Ask Texino!
Bye for now.

Real Time Internet

I just realized that I was able to view the unfolding drama of the US Airways Flight 1549 crash entirely on my laptop and other that watching some streaming video from a NY TV station, did not have to deal with the confounded broadcasters nattering rumor back and forth. It was truly a relief to be able to put the puzzle together by looking at live shots and reading breaking text released by people on the scene rather than having to listen to the baffled newscasters interrupt one another and then speculate as to the situation. I fully realize how difficult it is to handle a breaking story cold and you can really see how hard some veterans work to keep from falling on dead air. That's well and good. I'm just happy to have a high speed connection and the ability to data mine. Equipped to this level, I remain confident that I can get the goods on any story without the distraction you get from the news folk who can turn from serious to light hearted in an eye blink or cut to commercial advertising and miss an important event. I sometimes get annoyed by the web and its wide open spaces of worthless junk, but for someone like myself, who wants information and deep back ground on a regular basis it is true magic of the modern age. Magic that allows me to see the miracles of my own life time, for now that I have struck the gong and entered my time of diminishing seasons it is evident that the last 60 odd years have brought us so much and the fact that I can prove it with a few clicks of a button and then broadcast it to the world in my own words makes me feel like a ripple that will eventually show its power as a new wave. That's cool.

It can't be just me

Anyone out there seen The President recently? G.W. Bush, I mean, and when I mean seen, I mean observed him on the TV. OK? Fine. Now has it occurred to you during your observation that the guy is just sort of, nuts? I'm cheating a bit because I was watching a video montage last night and it showed President G.W. Bush speaking and responding, the general riff that a president does, and truth to my mind kept cycling back to "out of control." Now I know about out of control. I'm always saying the wrong thing and getting people mad when I didn't mean to, but neither do I go around starting wars for no reason, nor do I torture people; at least not in any way they can't escape by deleting my words or turning off my music. Sure, I ran a pig ranch in Vietnam, but I worked with people whose job it was to come up with the desired answers from some of our prospective ranchers. Let me tell you if you want someone to to say no is yes or black is white, it's an easy deal if your contestant has a high % of belief that you are in fact The Guy. Point being, this wholesale brutality as practiced by Secretary of Pain Rumsfeld's army of a few was not necessary. There are just cooler ways to get your info.
You know, I think one major issue with Bush is he is trying to fill in the blanks. Blanks that his Daddy was so great at using to get his points across. I mean if you listen to W trying to explain the whole Mission Accomplished fiasco on the aircraft carrier, it's gibberish. Bush the Elder could have gotten the whole issue covered by saying: "Carrier Landing- bad idea- gave wrong impression- not prudent." I suppose if you take W's words and "Bushellize" them, one might bring his presidency into a whole new light. Worth it? Naw.

TV is unfair to criminals

Well, it is, because almost every single tine I look at a news paper, I read about lawbreakers getting yanked off the street for committing the type of behavior T.V. bad guys pull off each week. Take the hit man, for instance. On TV, you just get Harvey Kitel. In real life you will either be set up by the cops or the Hit Person will sing like a bird if the cops ask him one question. How about your car chase? OK? fine; a guy is really intent on not stopping for the police, so rather than take his plate # and catch up with him later, unless he is on a murder spree or something, the police set up a road block with two cars touching together at a vanishing point. The villain has seen this move on TV 1,000 times. Just speed up and hit the road block dead center and the police cars will just spin out of your way. Right? Well yes, if they have had their motors and transmissions removed. If not, it's a-kin to striking a tree. Why do banks have those velvet ropes to feed you to the next teller? To make sure they get a shot of you with the security camera before you try and rob the place. If you try to get anything more that the loose cash, they will put exploding dye capsules in with the money and since the cops have been hauling their adrenalized butts toward you from the second you showed your hand don't be surprised if they blast you to bits with automatic shotguns as you walk out with a couple of grand. Hardly seems worth it, but hey those old British bikes cost a bundle to keep on the road. Faking your death. Always fails. Killing your wife. You will be the prime suspect from the get go, so you must be a real psycho killer to pull it off. How about safe cracking? Gem Robber? or Art Thief ? Romantic to be sure, but to pull that sort caper successfully you would need talents that would pay you a good wage without resulting to crime. I guess drug dealer can be a only money maker for the average Joe, and once you get up into the big money the chances that someone might burn you are just too great. Old Texino's been in the slammer a couple of times and I would not care to go back for any reason cause life is too short and you don't want to end up with a five or six year hole in yours. Well I started out to make fun of TV and ended up being a moralist. You can't know what I might do these days. I take my pills, but I have hallucinations. People walk through the room. I find myself getting up to do a task that has to do with an imaginary situation, plus all manner of medical stuff keeps popping up to try and scare me. I have now out lived any man in my family by 5 years. Does that make me a wiser person than my father or the Two grandfathers whose pictures look like extremely old gents who could have only lived in the Black & White days of noir. I'll be damed if I ever come up with that answer, however; the fact that those gentlemen share degrees from Harvard, M.I.T. and the U.S. Naval Academy and I have been but a common ambulance driver should hint strongly in some direction. Well that ought to get it Take good care of your tools. Texino 1/09

Secrets of musical youth

OK, who is that man on the right? You know him. He's a singer and song writer who has been around since the 60s and had several hits in the 70s. Pretty big hits for a folksinger too. He's from Canada and he's not Ian Tyson. Know who he is now? That's right, Gordon Lightfoot. Trouble is I know Lightfoot and he's a stocky chap with curly hair and a beard. Look at those ears! Something is wrong! Now observe the fellow on the left. He's from the same generation as Gordon, but other than a bit of gray he doesn't seem very old at all does he? The big difference of course, is you do not know who the other guy is. That's the big deal you see; large scale popularity will kill you. So take a tip from Tomas. Play for the fun of it and eternal youth and beauty will certainly come to pass.

But he never saw a train

I was thinking about the our third president, Mr. Jefferson, and all the amazing things that happened during his life time. Born in 1743, he lived in well into the 19th Century, passing away July 4th 1826, 50 years after signing the Declaration of Independence from Great Britain. A lot of folks talk about the genius of Jefferson, but when you look at historical time lines and juxtapose them against Jefferson's Ideas and inventions, Jefferson comes across as a bit of a bumpkin, for while he was imagining and east-west water route to the west coast through a land populated by Woolly Mammoths and camels, the Europeans were engaged in an industrial revolution. Were Jefferson more scientifically inclined, he might have brought the machines of industry to the south balancing out the agrarian nature of the place and perhaps preventing the Civil War. Instead Mr. Jefferson spent time reading Scripture and deciding what words Christ had actually said. Jefferson was not particularly religious in an evangelical sense, however; he was a big fan of the historical Jesus as a living and moral man. A paradox that jumps out at me is the fact that Jefferson had great respect for Native Americans but seemed perfectly at ease with keeping African slaves. Go figure. So even though Jefferson said it did not bother him if his neighbor had one God or 20 he was not much good for the Negros and if he had paid more attention to that we would have had plenty of Black Presidents by now and I wouldn't have to be so worried about some nut killing Obama or had to go through civil rights thing while I was so impressionable. Oh well, that's life.

Their Names and horse's ages

The first time I ever heard Galway Races done where I could understand the lyrics, was way back in the Newport years. Those days, and the good they carried, are frozen in a block of memory so crystal clear that I can take little sips at any time and never ripple it's surface or cause a distortion to it's truth. I suppose that right this minute the thoughts of people I'll never meet are whirling like atoms around my happy mote that still haunts the streets of the old town, and I worry that death may come and cause a collision that will flash for an instant and my shiny bits of time will flush down a small black hole and disappear with a soft "pop". I've had other bright moments you see and were they to flop into another dimension with out me it might be less than a heavenly sort of thing. So, I am thinking about the Newport Days and hearing my first Celtic fusion band. The were called JSD for Jim, Sean and Des, but they were a five piece and were booked into a local club to warm them up for their first US tour. Oh Lord how they blew us away and what with Newport having and actual Irish section-The 5th Ward-where Gaelic was spoken, by Tuesday night the bar was full to bursting. Looking back I fear the group were probably disappointed as they traveled because I doubt they received such response and support in other cities. I'll leave that to find it's own truth, and just touch on pulling an all nighter with the boys at their hotel. We drank Scotch and I explained blues, while they told me why the Beatles "Black Bird" was special to anyone from "The North" and in the end, I traded my Cowboy Shirt for a pair of elevated boots. As I stumbled home in the dawn not so much the worse for drink but more from unfamiliar footwear, I knew for a brief instant that some connection had been forged and though I would never see those people again I would know them forever. That brings me back to my fear that death may destroy all my bright memories in a mini black hole and leave me a drift with my sins. Doesn't seem fair at the moment. I guess will have to maintain my grip on good memories and if we do fly down some cosmic drain maybe they will burst open as a new reality and I will have another chance. Wouldn't that be cool?

Circle in a square

About 100 years ago I drove my sporty Corvair to New York City to play folk songs in Washington Square. This was done on a Sunday and many other musicians were about it as well. While Washington Sq. is indeed that, the performances were done about the circular wall of the empty fountain's pool.
It was pretty large and you could easily find a spot far enough from the other pickers to afford you a little bubble for your music and it would be just fine, unless some Spade with a horn came bopping by and temporarily broke it. A Spade used to be a hip name for an African American; certainly cooler than A Club. Anyway, in those days it was important to identify people
with some sort of modifier. I think it had to do with smoking pot or something. I should mention that this guy Mike had come with me. Mike claimed to have lived in Greenwich Village before and was certain he could find us a spot to crash. (sleep) I was not too sure about Mikes ability to pimp my musical talent for room and board, but he was full of big talk and we were in New York on a Sunny Sunday and I had a D-18 with new strings.
I set up on the wall and started to play some guitar features in the style of Lester Flatt. People gathered and seemed to like the music. I sang Carter Family tunes that Joan Baez had made popular but I had known for many years and since I was shy and sort of country, they stayed to listen. At least they did until Mike came back and started working the crowd. I should mention that I was like 17 years old and Mike was 18. For some reason he had gained the attributes of Norman Mailer and Earnest Hemingway in that he was a fast talking he-man sort of guy and pretty much the opposite of the free spirit hippie movement that was starting to happen. I had made some friends while playing but once they got a load of Mike, they found pressing engagements elsewhere. Listening to Mike was a weird trip anyway. He claimed to have hitched cross country and back while writing a novel. Unfortunately the novel was lost when some guy who had given him a ride ditched him out in the desert at a gas station, taking the the nearly finished manuscript and the rest of Mike's stuff and tooling off down the two lane with the goods. All this plus the fact Michael claimed to have actually lived in the "Village" should have made him about 25 instead of 18. On the other hand, Mike was one of those Italian kids who start shaving at 12 and he was in fact a fairly tough kid. I figured that from a safety stand point it was probably wise not to ditch him even if he was queering my social progress with women who might like country folk singers and had apartments. I got tired of playing and went for a walk. About 3 pm on the big circle, I came upon David Grisman and some guys playing bluegrass. They had a big crowd and I figured I could fit in due to me being an actual VA. picker and them all being from up north and Jewish besides. Well I got my 18 out of his box and started to strum along. I was having a swell time until some chick taps me on the shoulder and tells me I'm playing out of time. I wasn't, but that old time rythm I used sounds different than your regular flat picking since you pick a bass note with your thumb then brush the chord then do a little strum as well. Never the less, it killed my buzz and left me feeling unhip and hungry. Mike was on my nerves too. He kept up this rap like "There's where I used to take my laundry, I wonder if they still have my shirts?" You got to remember, I was in High School with this dude, so I have to wonder when exactly was he able to pull off his young Hemingway/Keroac years? Some folks just try too hard. In later years, I ran into Mike off and on. Last time was in some bar. The years had piled on him enough to support his stories, but I knew that his marriage had failed and he was selling office furnature. I don't know about you, but to me, at least, some people you know just seem grown up their whole lives. Hell I remember kids from my grade school who looked like little old ladies or men and I bet now that they are little old ladies and men they look just the same. Well, I'm going to leave myself in NYC and just say that we got home OK. Maybe, if I had not had Big Mike, I might have found some direction and friends. They way things worked out I went back and played music in the studios and through the years I did have some high times in the music game and I'm still about. It's just another day I remember.

Texino's Christmas etymology # 46-The humbug

To be fair, Humbug is as Christmas as, "Fa la la la la".
Fact is it's a fine term which can be brought to bare in any conversation and should be used far more often in daily use it being a noun meaning deceptive or false behavior. Perhaps President Bush is one. Of course the use of Humbug we hear the most at Christmas is "Bah, Humbug" which, of course is just a Dickensian term for "Bull shit." Actually the act of calling something a humbug is a pejorative as to it being false, a scam or fraud. It that light it seems to fit Christmas to a "T". Therefore the proper way to discern the meaning of "Bah, Humbug" would be, "Bah, It is a Humbug or perhaps "It (Christmas) is a confounded hum buggery that drives the foolish classes into debt from pure sentimental rubbish!" It should be remembered of course that the merchants depicted in the writings of Chas. Dickens were not of the retail class and therefore had no real interest in promoting the season as such, due to it still having a sense of the Pagan right of seasonal passage attached to it and the gifts given were often symbolic as well as frivolous amusement. It is quite important that we notice that aside from the "God Bless us, everyone" spoken
by the deformed and possibly retarded "Tiny Tim" Cratchett there is a definite lack of Christan religion in Dickens story. In fact, Tim's call "God bless us, every one", could easily be an entreaty for every God to bless us. Using that theory, then it certainly would not be safe for Ebenezer Scrooge to enter the slums and visit the Cratchett home. No, a small raise in salary and a new coal scuttle would be appropriate there. After all, Scrooge had family he could share his awakened kindness with, people of his own social standing Therefore, the only version of the Dickens Carol that is believable is the one in which the near sited Mr. Magoo plays the role of the scrooge character. Magoo has proven through the years that he can enter any situation that would be certain death to others and escape unharmed. Plus he is funny and in no way is he a Humbug. Now getting back to the lesson. A Humbug is something false; a scam. Saying "Humbug" or "Ba, Humbug" is similar to saying bullshit in a nicer way. Also to prevent the story of A Christmas Carol
becoming an allegory of good humor a common decency, remember that Mr. Magoo is in it an impressive number of times.

Selling Apples

I grew up hearing about the Great Depression. You have probably heard about it too. Well we are sort of heading for another extended financial disappointment as we speak and, so far, the main difference I have detected between then and now is a distinct lack of financiers jumping off tall buildings and spattering them selves all over Wall Street. I think that was pretty common back in 1929 because these guys had let down their clients or couldn't make margin calls, the sort of stuff that honorable men couldn't face. Well today, these same sort of men and now women as well, are just walking away from these huge failures and some are taking big bonus checks with them. Failed banks are taking big handouts from the Feds and stashing the cash while hitting their consumer credit customers up like loan sharks.
Back in the depression years people worried about losing their homes and going to the "Poor House." I don't think they have poor houses any longer but people are still fixing to lose their homes. Makes me wonder where they go. Me, I have a fairly decent sized car. Another icon of the Depression, besides bankers leaping to their deaths, is the picture of guys selling apples. Now with the things the way they are, I think a person would have to sell a lot of apples to make an eating wage. I don't know where you can get a deal on any apple fruit, but I could lay my hands on some Tangerines for free. Thing is, if I went down the street to try and sell them, I'd get busted for vending food without a permit from the heath department or a vendors license which they won't grant in this town. Bottom line I sell tangerines or, apples I go to jail. I might get some press out of it, but I am not doing this for kicks or to get my name in the paper. I would just like to make some eating money. I could eat apples and all that but I have the cats and the dog to feed too. I can't even play my mandolin on the street for tips. That's against the law too.
This is ridiculous ! You might say, hey Texino, get a job! Well, I am disabled and I can only make a certain amount of $ above what social security pays and I make that fixing computers. Hard Times my friends. The shame of it all is someone always has it worse There is always the guy pushing the trashcan at the end of the parade. His job is to pick up the horse shit, most parades have it. When you think of it, horse poop doesn't look so bad. It almost looks packaged. Some lumps of dirt with some straw woven in. The town near by depends on the horse business and there are a score or so horses clopping about every day. They used to have a guy go around with some trash cans. Low end of the totem and all, but I would do that kind of work rather than sell apples. When I was a kid up in VA. A man would come around each year at strawberry time. There were two men actually. One drove a black pickup with wooden slope roof over the racks of fat red berries in the bed and a big "clock face" scale swinging from side to side hanging off the rear. That man drove the truck really slowly while his partner, a black man with a jumbo voice, would call out "Strawberries" a block or two in front.
Soon, a woman would come out and the voice man would wait for the truck and while he did, more women from the big houses or the back kitchens would Snow down on the big voiced black man with the jolly charm and an impromptu fruit market would take root for a bit and then move off. I could lie in bed on a Summer's morning and hear the strawberry man coming like some slow parade. You'd hear his music and then forget it till it came back a little closer and then fade and then return. His voice was ghostly in the way the bumps and drags in a haunted house can stay at the edge of your audio range but rarely challenge you directly. That is to say the strawberry was only real when you realized "Strawberries" was a question and answered the role call by going out side and saying "Here!' Now that's a bit like apple selling and a step up in respect to street sweeper. But wait! You can't sell fruit like that now, too many cars, and as far as horse shit sweeper the horses wear a canvas construction to catch the droppings. Talk about being SOL. Well, we will just have to get a hand on the situation and make some new low end employments for the new year. Watch this space for more.

An unwelcome drift

I have been attacked by the mail box. No, it is not a crush of Christmas cards.
It seems that my electronic bank thought it would be a great joke if they held up the delivery of two credit card bills by one day. The credit cards in question took this error with such umbrage that they upped my % rate by 21% making it right around 30% rather than the 9% it had been and, by doing this they created finance charges which put me over the limit and now rather than owe a combined payment of $98 it's like $700. I suspect they are using the new math but I can't prove it. Now the point of this is to advise you not to do this your self because those credit card people are laying for the tardy individual and even a prudent mariner like myself can strike their iron clad reef of unreasonable rules. I tell you when I speak to these people it is like hearing a Dada piece done in Esperanto. Since many of you never talk to the actual Texino, you may not realize that I have the devil of a time making my self understood. Therefore when I try to discuss my situation, I am taken as a fool or at best senile and the credit devils employ a demeaning sort of small child talk. This drives me mad and after on of these sessions it is not uncommon fo me to take leave of my emotions and fall very far into dark depression. I am starting to wonder just how far you can drop before you automaticly die of shame and dispair. I have considered this option from the standpoint of the British; "For Gods sake old man, just be done with it and let the rest of us real chaps keep the home fires burning and all that." Right now their adive seems very reasonable . On the other hand, there must be a good reason for us breaking away from the crown in the first place. I'll probably give the suicide this a pass and try to work it out some other way. Thats what the prudent mariner would do. So long as you can trust your ship you will weather most storms.

Flash

See that girl? Her name is Flash Bathory and she's dead at 19 years old. No one seems to no what happened to her other than she died in her sleep.
Now dying in your sleep is a decent way to go, providing it is your sleep and not brought on by some sort of central nervous system depressant that makes you forget to breathe. Flash passed back in September, in Texas. Now I'm fairly sure that Texas is a state were you can find out stuff like cause of death in public records. Problem is, I am pretty certain that Flash is not this girl's given name and Bathory is a common name of choice among the Shred Metal community due to the legend of Countess Elisabet Bathory of Hungry, aka The Blood Countess. Seems the her highness liked to torture people and was from some place in the Dracula part of the empire. If you go to You Tube, you can hear Flash play her guitar. Thing is she is playing the same song in every video. She has some nice licks, but if you understand how shred guitar is played or you are a player yourself, you might not be as impressed as some people seem to be. You ought to check it out an see if you can spot the component parts. I bet you can. Still, I think Flash had potential. So damn young too. If you look at her stuff from the NAMM convention of 07 she is all baby fat (and playing the same song) while this year she dyed her hair really red and started to get a shape. (but not a new tune for the NAMM show) Friends post online about how she was always jogging and eating health food or vegan. I think some music people thought she might break out and become a force on guitar. Unfortunately , she was not advanced enough to go into that gang of young genius that claims, Robert Johnson or Jimi Hendrix or D'jango, Christian and the rest. She should have put off the death for at least 5 years because it would not hurt to have a girl guitar hero.
I went to Flash's web site. It was well done and spiked with hope. Even though her family had put up a notice about her death, it didn't cover up the buttons to check her calender, buy her CD, go to "Myspace" or leave her a message. All that stuff, ready and waiting, but the clicks go nowhere at all. Why am I writing about Flash Bathory? I'd never heard of her until I saw a notice of her passing in an advertisement put out by the guitar company whose product she endorsed. Not a real well known outfit either. Well when it comes to sudden or tragic death, I'm drawn to a quote from a Terry Pratchett story that goes "Man isn't dead as long as his name gets mentioned." Although as I get older the litany of names gets longer, I do my best to mention the ones who may have vanished but need to stay alive in someones heart. You probably do it too.

Esperanto sprewing flea wrangler

Recently I was over to Sam Marley's Fat Alley. I was just hanging out. In case you don't know about Sam's, it's a kind of 24 hour news stand that's lots bigger on the inside than the outside. Like a Tardis but larger outside. Anyway, the thing moves around by teleportation and it's got lots of cool stuff to do inside. For instance, there is a underground railroad terminal which is used primarily by zombies who need to travel unnoticed and there are some traditionalist black people who use it to summer in Canada.
While I was there, an Esperanto club was holding a congress of some sort and for entertainment, they had brought in a Flea Circus. Now I thought perhaps I'd learn some Esperanto because I don't speak many languages other than Spanish, German, Russian, Farsi, Chinese, Vietnamese and Gaelic. When I heard the people shout "estas pulo cirko " well I was really glad I had come. Mi neniam ..isis viditan pulon cirkon, so I was anxious to see one in action. Now there are two types of Flea Circus. One uses fleas and the other uses little magnets because puloj estas tre malgranda estas facile tromp homoj kun etaj magnetoj en ilia pozicio. Works every time. Still some cirko use puloj and harness them with tiny gold wire. They will pull little chariots and kick little soccer balls. The balls are soaked in oil of camphor and fleas don't like it so they will kick it away. (the fleas are held in place)
ial la ideo de pulo cirko alportas min la willies, but I got used to it and I'd say I'm a pretty decent Flea Skinner now.
Otherwise, things are pretty quiet at Sam's. He makes a ton of money selling dope to movie stars and cigarettes to kids. Plus being able to teleport zombies all over keeps him in good with the spooky folks. I'll tell you one thing. There is a room in that place that must be 100' long and it has racks down both sides that hold those aluminun briefcases; the kind you always see full of money in the movies. Anyway, those racks are full of those cases 10 high and 10 across and they just keep going and they are full of money. In case anyone has notions on that cash? Well Sam's nephew Zombie Bob Marley hangs out in that room with a big bad shotgun and Zombio Bob frapos vin dise kaj manĝi viajn cerbojn en Jamaika Minuto. I think you can follow words like "Mangi" and "Cerbojn" (Eat Brains) See Esperanto is easy and fun. Truth be said here, I am not too sorry to leave those fleas, although I did learn quite a bit about the flea circus world.
I am trying to play some music but I am limited to nylon strings right now. That's OK. I like the sound. I can do some mandolin as well because the strings are close set. Those steel string acoustics, I'm fixing to sell them cause I just can't work the strings any more. That's me for now.