Saturday, July 19, 2008

TODAY IS MY BIRTHDAY

'TODAY IS MY BIRTHDAY'
Birthdays are great...When your five...
Ok that's a bit extreme...Until your twenty-five..
That's the year the 'over the hill' cards start flowing in.
The 'quarter century' mark...The year society has determined your birthday no longer to be a celebration of you, but a joke...on you...
Previous to the twenty-five year demarcation point birthdays are filled with gifts,
balloons, cake and ice cream..Smoking candles magically containing your special 'wish'...
Did you know, if you don't blow out all the candles on the first try, the wish doesn't come true?
.....Always a catch...
I mean come on!...Shouldn't a birthday be the one day of the year a individual doesn't have to pass the 'success' meter in the eyes of the world?
....Always the pressure...
Well today is my birthday and I am here to tell you, I quit!
Like a fool, I've played along with society's birthday brain wash over half a century...
I can't believe it took me this long to wise up....Maybe I just sold out to the 'your special day' stroke..The assurance of a little bit of extra cash coming my way...The odds of 'getting a little' from the old lady always go up birthdays....Yea, I am sure of it...I caved into the self centered glitter ball...
I rode that birthday jet fighter right the hell up there...90 degrees straight up to 56 hundred feet and that's where my plane stalled....Next year? I am 55..The year after that, 54 and so on until my 'death day'...
How come we only celebrate one of those?
Cuz society is done with us then...No more need to tell us year after progressive year how we should be viewing ourselves...How others are viewing us...How we should behave. How we should not behave... What we should be thinking..What we shouldn't be thinking. How much more we need to contribute to get that 'success' meter in the 'green'...
Well I say "who cares"?....We're all going to be six feet under the green anyway...
Yea, today is my birthday...I almost got there...I woke up today and for awhile it didn't click..The programing didn't kick in...I think it's cuz for a few years now I've been subconsciously doing a 'birthday intervention' de-programing thing...
It takes a long time to 'debug'....It seeped up this year though...To a conscious level..
That's why I am writing about it...I think it's a positive thing seeing my birthday plane shuddering...It's engine fanning out... Coming to a complete stop...Watching it begin it's majestic tail spin, down...
Gun's blasting....Wiping out the years...A hundred hits making a hundred holes in the expectations of conformity...Yea baby, yea!
Today's my birthday,..and for the first time in a long time, I feel I am heading in the right direction..

Monday, April 21, 2008

Troops

The wars in the Middle East have touched us all, however my thoughts and prayers go out to those of you who have loved ones involved on a daily basis...You march with them literally "in their boots" via an emotional, spiritual, protective bubble of loving concern, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day...Military service, especially in the gravest conditions as our brave hero's face today, is a selfless act each soul makes in the decision to participate, giving at the very minimum, a portion of their young lives too...The personal commitment these men and women make is one of tangible love to not only their immediate loved ones, but like a stone dropped in water, a rippling sacrifice spreading across the entire United States, and the world for that matter, in perfect, unending, protective resolve....
...Ones political, social, personal "view" of the state of the world today is irrelevant in regard to this....Political Science and the battle to control the pendulum of the popular conscience consent of the American people is always "subject to change" and amounts to dust in the wind when compared to the sacrifice of the individual...Centuries fall by the waste side, empires rise and fall, social values come and go, but the short condensed microcosm of a human life time,..the commitments, choices, values, one individual makes....That,... is what gives "meaning" to the concept of "humanitarianism"....The final totality of the human race, will never be accurately weighted by any simple means of "mass" conscience...It is the individual that makes us unique...It is the individual that makes us valuable...
...And so, it is to the individual's in our armed forces I wish to salute....To their choice...To their commitment,...to their sacrifice of love.

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Chat "Lingo"

Believe it or not, LooseCanon's never been much of a chatter. Now with the Bikers Funhouse site I am chatting with "friends" everyday...The thing is...I don't understand the abbreviated lingo. I think I got "LOL" down...It's lots of love, or maybe lots of luck, or maybe it changes depending on what's in the massagers mind at the time...A lot of times the messages I get have three or more letters staring at me never to be explained, leaving me a bit anxious...I don't know until I read the note if I am getting a love stroke or a fuck off (I mean "FO") stroke....It's not that anyone has "FO'd) me,...in fact everyone has been really nice and supportive, so maybe I'll learn to relax about that and just look forward to opening my messages.....As soon as I just get to that mellow state,...that's when I'll get "FO'd".
Sometimes I "get it" right off, like my Fairy Princess laid on me the other day,...."omfg",....It was like I was in tune with her mind cuz it was right there in my head...Most of the time though, I stare at those kind of letters for what seems to be....too damn long....trying this, trying that...until I say fuck it and move on...
A lot of folks send pictures that get posted in my comment section on the main page...These pictures are a example of the new visual communication that seems to be sweeping the world...I was watching TV. at the nursing home the other day, and I noticed how advertisers use "A picture is worth a thousand words" concept to make a statement...It's fast, sensational, and kind of shed's some light on us as a society...
Eight years ago I worked for a telephone company here in California setting up Digital Subscriber Lines. More commonly know as DSL...At the time I was on a tiny team of twenty folks in an office of five hundred service reps. Our little group was viewed by many as S.E.T.I. is by scientist in the field of astronomy....Out there...not really producing much....
We had just one thing going for us that kept the Corporate office off our backs....People want to go faster.....
..I didn't say anything about the nagging concern that kept raising it's ugly head in the back of my mind during my entire five year "career" at Pacific Bell,SBC,AT&T. After all one doesn't want to bite the hand that feeds ya....But now that's a part of my life that is gratefully over with and it's okay to say it...
Hard line telephone companies are doomed to failure.....The advent of wireless communication was the future back then and a industry with all their infrastructure built on lan lines has no viable means to compete. The best AT&T can do is buy into a piece of other companies wireless industry and pathetically try to hold on to a disintegrating customer base with lame marketing technics like "all your services on one billing"....
Anyway, I wonder if there is a "chat lingo" dictionary out there that novice's like me can master ...It would be kind of nice...If I fill out a job application I could put "chat lingo" as a second language once I got up to speed...
I got to get "LOL" down anyway...It's as common as spit..Shane says it's "Laugh out loud",....Okay that makes sense,...but so does "Log off Loser"...
Maybe I am more adapt with numbers opposed to letters....69 for example: I see this "flag" waved on user names in epidemic porportions....I guess with the "Baby Boomer" glut of the population, this is a reflexion of the post Hippy era...Still it's a but confusing to me,....I like Jimmy Hendricks and all,...but who'd of thought "IF SIX TURNED OUT TO BE NINE" would be so popular a tune after all these years?

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Tokyo Rose

I work a lot of weekends and usually are scheduled days off during the middle of the week....Thursday's off is a lock....I have "family" obligations that require most of that day....So, I still get one other day pretty much for me...
I bought my Yamaha Virago 920 three months ago, a gift to my self I am still paying for but worth the additional sacrifice....Well, Shane doesn't agree since theres no food in the fridge, but what the hell, he weights 275 and can afford to starve for awhile.
I work in the afternoons and get done at 10pm....I was so stubborn about riding the bike when I first got it I rode to work a couple of times when the afternoon weather was mild...The ride home those first couple of trips gave me pause as to reflex on my own grasp of "common sense". Alpine (little town I work at) is about 40 minutes from my place....It's elevation is 2500 feet and my place is 3500 feet with the route home topping 4500 feet over the mountain passes....Leaving work the temperature in Alpine was about 30 degrees.....
...I was raised to appreciate nature and understand we are all a part of.....One of the reasons I like motorcycles is the stripping away of the buffer that exists in automotive modes of transportation...I am a rider that would never consider a fairing or windshield attached to my bike....For one, I think they suck as far as looks go, and two, what's the point?....Why not just drive a convertible and put the top down.
So, as I am riding out of Alpine I am feeling the cold,...I am like,...."man this is going to be a cold ride home"....As the elevation starts to climb I can feel every change in the degree of temperature...Even when I top a rise and slide back down into a little valley I can feel the difference....At 3000 ft. theres no difference anymore and my hands are vise gripped to the bars while the rest of me is doin cold shock spasms like theres a short somewhere and the voltage generated by the alternator is flowing through the handle bars and I am a perfect conduit...My right hand a positive pole sucking up the current and my left the negative side completing the circuit....
I pass the Border Patrol check point at 4500 ft....They have a big bon fire going all huddled around it and when I cruise by they're staring at me until I vanish around the bend...It's down hill from here dropping to the valley floor at 3000 ft. and the cold air has settled down here....naturally.....I swear to God I am "super glued" to the fucking bike and am having a hard time finding the flexibility to "lean" into turns...
...I make it though...obviously or I wouldn't be writing this.....Sitting in the driveway, it takes me a full minute to find the mobility to put the kick stand down...
....Like I am with women,...a glutton for punishment,...I do this again within less than a week....

This last weekend I had Saturday off work and was looking forward to riding...
The Santa Ana wind had finally settled down enough later in the day to make it possible.
I've been having some trouble with Tokyo Rose's battery so I bought a new one...The outfit I bought if from had to fill it with electrolyte and put an initial charge on it...So I picked it up from them "all ready to go"...
I installed it and for a couple of days it was all good...I went out to start the bike Saturday and the instruments wouldn't even light up....
Being a "Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance" kind of guy, I do my own work on all my vehicles, and so checking this situation out I notice the battery is only half full of electrolyte....It's not even covering the plates....This piss's me off, cuz,.....I could "rant" on right here about the decay of personal work ethic values prevalent in every industry in the country, ...but,...that's another blog for another time...
...The point is...if I am not diverse, creative, and problem solving orientated addressing this situation,...I am fucked..
I try filling the battery the rest of the way with water and hope theres enough "acid" mix to charge it....Nope...I can jump start it now with cables and a "extra" car battery and the bike runs, but what happens if I have to shut if off "out there" some place when I am riding?...."Make sure you stop on a good down grade" I think to myself, or maybe by this time I am saying it out loud "talking to myself"....Yea, that's it, I can always "bump" start it in third gear to get the motor started!.....However, there is this nagging fear and mistrust swirling around back there in the mind of LooseCanon. I keep remembering the model name of my bike....Virago.....I didn't know what It meant when I bought it, so I looked it up...."A noisy, scolding, domineering woman"...".A large strong aggressive woman"...."A shrew"....."A discontent, malicious woman"......In other words....A BITCH....
What the fuck they have to "tag" it like that for?..... Do I really want to trust a bike named "Virago" to start up for me with a dead battery by doing a free fall bump start?.....I thought about it...I really did think about it....
...Yea, about this time I am starting to feel sorry for myself....gettin kind a pissed.....Nature is not cooperating with the high wind condition,...fucking bike is fucking with me....and top it off,...ain't no woman fucking me either....
This is when a man has to make a decision...Stand up and fight back, or go inside and curl up in a fetal position for the rest of the night....Me,...I am too old to curl up....age takes it toll on the elastic ability of the muscles...
The back of the "bitch" has a luggage rack I strap a duffel bag on...I carry extra shades, clears, camera, gloves, a extra helmet, (women's size).... ya never know,....a bottle of whatever I'm drinking...So I dump everything out of it and decide, fuck it, no battery issue is going to defeat my goal of riding this thing today...I put the car battery inside the duffel bag and the jumper cables in there too...I use the car battery and the cables to jump start the bike to the bike's battery,...Theres enough "juice" in the battery to support the alternator and the bike doesn't know the difference.....Some times I guess you just have to use reverse psychology on women to get what you want....I don't know, it's hard for me though, I feel like I am not being honest...In the case of "Tokyo Rose" however, I don't have any remorse....I got out there Saturday around 5pm, the wind had died down as is typical of Santa Ana blows between 3pm and 9pm...It was all I'd hoped it would be...Felt great, and "Tokyo Rose" loved it too....I could tell you know, the way she seemed to kind a purr along, not stressed, or freaked out......Maybe "Tokyo Rose" is a lot like many women my age today....They've had to get tough to survive...I think maybe just the fact she realized there was a problem with her battery and I "her man" took the necessary steps to insure her safety, enable her to relax, let go of some of the masculine exterior she's had to build up layer after layer over the course of her life.... and just for a time,allow herself to feel feminine again...

Monday, April 14, 2008

Puppet Masters


Nursing Homes appear to me to be a subculture all their own...Well maybe subculture is not a strong enough word...Nursing Homes appear to be existing in a parallel universe....
I decided many years ago that when my time on this planet was drawing near it's end, I would simply go to some remote area, dig my own grave and bury my self alive in it.
Oh yea, I'd rather have a Viking funeral where my bod is afloat on a cool looking boat and all my friends would take turns shooting ball of fire arrows lighting up the night sky and go out in a blaze of glory....But, I've only had one friend that would go to all that trouble for me, and he already died. The only "blaze of glory" I can honestly expect is cremation....Every ideal created in my mind always gets so "watered down" in reality...I think for my next lifetime I am gonna choose to remain incarnate....I think it's a better choice for me...
However, I am rambling...The first visit I made to the Somerset Nursing Home I walked in the door and an old woman (about 200 years old) held out her hand and requested I give her .50 cents for the soda machine...I happened to have two quarters and gave them to her, happily actually as her face lit up like a kid on Christmas making her look half her age....I thought, how cool,...such a small price to help make this poor souls day a little brighter....
....I have been going to the nursing home now for almost two months trying to stick to a regimented schedule for the benefit of Shirley's state of health...I make it there at least every other day, usually stopping by for a hour before going to work....The 200 year old lady never fails to get her .50 cents from me. I call it my "toll" fee to enter the place. Others have tried to jump on her gravy train, however I am not that "nice" a guy....
...The problem is the old lady doesn't have that great a memory....She gets my toll fee and heads off to the vending machine all "Shirley Temple", sucks down her can of pepsi, and forgets she drank it...If I am still around the place she appears again holding out her claw.....
....I politely explain to her I already gave her allowance for the day and that's when she turns into someone else...
"You cheap son of a bitch bastard mother fucker!"....Okay then...I could punch her teeth down her throat, but,...turns out she doesn't have any.
Theres a courtyard in the middle of this little slice of heaven where all the smokers hang....Shirley smokes cigarettes and so do I (please, I've heard what your going to say already) so I take her out to the courtyard and we hangout there....Donna doesn't smoke, so after I get Shirl outside I go back and bring Donna out but keep her away from the rest of us to protect the innocent. I feel kind a bad cuz Donna's always separated from the rest of us in our little circle hacking, choking, sucking, blowing, firing up, stamping out.....Now that I think about it, Donna is probably sitting over there feeling sorry for us....
Yea the stereotype little old lady in a wheelchair, all smiles, and full of good thoughts despite her disability is all true...As long as I am there doling out grits and using up my bic,.. lighting the little buggers for them like a good "pool boy" should. When I am not around and Shirley wants to have a cigarette she gets panhandled from the time she leaves her room till she gets back...They (the staff) got a rule...Don't give other patients your cigarettes unless you want to lose your own cigarette smoking privilege for three days....She get's called a "fucking bitch, whore, ass hole," cuz she just brings out one cig at a time....
Initially this kind of behavior was very upsetting to the point when I would arrive Shirley (If you don't know who Shirley is, read Balboa Park to get up to speed) would be in tears...
She is getting the hang of it now, learning to say no, and fuck off in the same complete sentence...
Then there's the few "bad apples" employed to care for the inmates. California Nursing Assistant (CNA) duties cover a broad spectrum and "compassion" in my opinion should be the major requirement when entering the field....A "compassion" evaluation standard testing procedure should be given periodically, kind of like a surprise piss test other industries can do when they have certain issues they know are prevalent...
Shirley has 25 years of expertise in the nursing field, and nobody can slip any shit passed her...We had our first quarterly meeting with the staff at the facility the middle of this week, and voiced our opinions....I believe some heads are going to roll.
This place isn't the last stop for those anti-socials that can't seem to get along. A fellow the other day tried to hang himself on a light fixture cord...That was his second day at the place....They took him away, somewhere...else...
Wilma gets around for herself pretty good...She's about 4 feet tall and doesn't need a wheelchair...She putts around fine with a walker. About 80 years young and strong too...She got a one day pass to visit with her family....They picked her up on Saturday and Saturday night the Somerset folks got a call from the family.....As soon as Wilma got "home" she grabbed a bottle of booze, a pack of smokes, and locked herself in her room....It's Monday as I write this and she's still in there...partying...
The landscape around the place is well maintained....It gets watered everyday by one of the inmates....His name is Bill....Bill loves to water, yesterday he watered one area to the point it turned into a wading pool...It took three aids to get the hose away from him...They took Bill away too...I wonder, who's going to do the watering now?....


Thursday, April 10, 2008

Ramona

After reading some of my blogs she asked me to do this..And so, by her request, and as it is my honor to do so...
She was sixteen, I was nineteen working on a Honda cb350 when she walked into my life...A neighborhood girl, right for my size, healthy, with all the right curves and still somewhat "Tomboyish". She was itchin for it, and if I wasn't so innocent back then I would have recognized that and maybe been her first....Anyway at the time I was in love with another girl from the neighborhood...That was probably a defining moment in my life, a moment when a soul elects a course of action that continues for a lifetime. My soul elected to be a "one woman" man...I've never played the field because there's always been someone I felt I would be cheating on...
...Mona and I remained "friends"...She always felt comfortable giving me details of her sex life,...which honestly made me uncomfortable.....She told me how she lost her virginity one fine day to her boyfriend Barney....They fell asleep on her bed and when she woke up he was fondling her breast...She said it like,....because he was feelin her up she had no choice in the matter. It was obvious to me, she had a choice in the matter..Couple of years later she is Mrs. Barney with two kids. I guess it was a couple of years after that she divorced Barney and moved back to Diego, and we started hanging out together.
Mona said one of the nicest things to me any woman ever has..."It's too bad we didn't have children together, because our bodies "fit" together so well...
We moved into a couple of places together and I became and instant "daddy". Other than the obvious sexual attraction we had for each other....(The woman wore me out every night)...We had and continue to have a special kind of friendship..A constant sort of easy laughter and lightness surrounds me when I am with her...I have always been able to just be "me" never having to "try" to impress or worry that what I said or do at any givin time would cause a rift or lessening of her love for me...That folks is a blessing...Thank you Mona.
Today we are friends...I test her though...I try to fuck her, she know's I am going to try to fuck her, and she's patient with me about it....I on one hand hope my flirting with her allows her to take some ego boost for herself, on the other, I may owe her an apology for treating her like a "sex object".......She's not going to get it.
The same reason Mona and I didn't stay together back then, are just as relevant today....Mona wants me to "give"...
I've thought about love a lot over the last year...I have come to a kind of formula about the different kinds of love we humans experience.
1. Friendship
2. Unconditional
3. Romantic
Friendship and Unconditional love are about "giving". Friends give friends a part of themselves. It's a give and take relationship.
Unconditional love is "giving" without the expectation of "taking". The most common example of unconditional love would be the love of a Mother for her child.
Romantic love however is not about "giving". Romantic love is all about "taking". It's a self centered love. It's about being hungry for someone, and them hungry for you. One doesn't "give" them self to their partner, one feeds them self on the partner. It's why romantic love is lusty, and the love making is "hot".
Romantic love is the kind of love I seek this time in my life....Friendship and the "giving" form of love is what Mona seeks ......I know what she will say when she reads this..."How wonderful of you to be so pretentious as to believe you know what I want.".....You see why I love her...
In fact after she reads this and she responds, I might do a "part two" just to give ya a detailed description.....of her feedback.......Remember Baby, you asked me to do this...Hee, hee....That'll teach ya to be careful what ya ask for....

For me to engage in romantic love with a woman who is seeking security, friendship, conditions, commitments, that all are part of friendship, would be disrespectful, and deceitful. Ramona is a fine woman, she deserves the "kind" of love from a partner she seeks......And I,...... deserve the same.
Anyway, for all you friendship "giving" kind of guys (no freaks please) out there that are looking for "the one" beautiful, sexy, funny, smart, make your pee pee fat, kind of chick, with lush auburn hair.....maybe I could set you two up.......We can discuss my "finders" fee at a later time, as the important thing is to get you two love birds together!!!
Sincerely,
Cupid's little buddy

Monday, April 7, 2008

The Love Of My Life



The love of my life is near,...here,...right here,... in my soul,....
Thoughts of her dictate my heart beat.
She is illusive, a constant wet dream flirting between conscious and subconscious....triggering my smiles, my laughter, my response to life,....my reflexion,....my pain, my compassion.
She deprives me,...she uplifts me,....she hurts me,...she fills me,....causing my soul to ache, causing my body to tremble....
...I have nothing to give her...and she the same....
...There is only the constant burning, throbbing desire to "take"...Take her body to feed my body, take her soul to meld with mine....My love is a selfish love, a self centered love, bordering on decadence, full of lust, concern, and worry.....
She is my yin,...she is my yang.....She is the vesicle by which I launch my vision to the world..
She is the beginning, the end, and the bell that tolls the hours of my day.