FireVaney

Hours later we’re back at Diner Deluxe for more. Ernie says, before it was this place, it was another place. But that’s most of Chicago—nearly everything’s something that used to be something else. Take a boat ride down the river that winds through downtown, and the tour guides will draw your attention to all these architectural ghosts.  For Ernie’s second Diner Deluxe dinner, he orders an egg skillet with pancakes. That, he washes down with an Oreo cookie milkshake. Ernie says it’s good—no, actually, it’s a great shake. And this, Ernie says, is because it’s an end-of-shift-made shake. We’re our waiter’s last table. I don’t remember if he was male or female or both or neither. The first one, from earlier, was definitely female. Understand, between our first and second Diner Deluxe visits, Ernie and I got business-serious busy with the baking of our brains.  For my second Diner Deluxe dinner: mozzarella sticks. These are three times bigger than my best-ever erection. And when e...

I…  myself,  hand deliver,  to you,  where you,  “work,”  red roses.  I do so every day of the  “work” week.  Friday nights, I… present to you, a new, sparkling diamond ring, or, if not that, a pair of new sparkling diamond earrings. Or, if not that, a new sparkling diamond bracelet. Always Friday nights: a new sparkling diamond something .  Saturday nights, I… present to you, a new, radiant golden necklace, or, if not that, a new, radiant golden watch, or, if not that, a new, radiant golden brooch. Always Saturday nights, a new radiant golden something .  In my Hummer limousine, colored Day-Glo fuchsia, with the open-air hot tub, and always, with your preferred chauffeur, Jacobs Jacobsonzweigsberg (preferred because he has only one arm, is blind in one eye, lazy with the other; but more so because he’s an unabashed cracker of dirty jokes, a connoisseur of rare tuning fork timepieces, and an inveterate BASE jumper); yes, I escort yo...

Those of us seated at the far end of the table spend most of Jacques’s birthday dinner discussing what makes for real art, why I’m too old to drop acid, who the Bong Boy * is, and when at least three of us are going to try hallucinogenic mushrooms. We reach no solid conclusions, we set no firm plans.  And it looks like I’ve made a mistake with the Super Blowing Ball Series II UFO. As Jacques unwraps the gift, Mr. Wench proclaims, “Uncle Fun strikes again, huh?” I thought Jacques would dig it. It’s a rare, or seemingly rare, or at least somewhat unique, sci-fi-esque toy. I figured he’s had his fill of Star Wars stuff. But he seems a bit uncertain as to what to make of the gift. Ah, well.  Ry makes a cameo. He’d made himself scarce after he broke off a wedding engagement, twice , with one of our number. I hadn’t known that he worked at this particular tapas bar. (Whose idea was it to come here, anyway?) For obvious reasons, he would not wait on us. He said doing so might resul...

The conditioner of air – a small, albeit noisy window unit – makes him sleepy. That is, it does, whilst in operation. This is a good thing. That is, it is, until he has to wake up. The conditioner of air, whilst in operation, always makes him wake up groggy. But at night, if he’s restless, all he has to do is blast it, and he’ll fall asleep. Every time, this’ll work, like a dream, this’ll work, no matter how stressed out he is; no matter how much he can’t prevent himself from dwelling. He spends most of his waking hours dwelling, which is to say, in a way, that he spends most of his waking hours dreaming. And perhaps this is why he never seems to dream when he sleeps. At least, he can never, or almost never, recall the dreams he’s dreamt overnight. He’s just jotted the following observation down on his notepad: “I have tremendous difficulty living in the present tense.” He Recalls Yoda’s wise words to Luke in The Empire Strikes Back : “All his life he looked away… to the future, to the...

[ PART I ] The object of this exercise—this one you’re currently running your eyes across—the object is this: relevance. Rather, “relevance” is the preferred object. “Pertinence to the matter at hand,” as the American Heritage Dictionary will tell you. The “matter at hand” being: my life.  And yet, it is entirely possible that, generally speaking, I’ve nary an inkling. Inkling deficiencies notwithstanding, I take some pleasure in wielding the words “nary” and “inkling” and “wielding,” and “notwithstanding,” even if misapplied. And, nae, there’s nary a thing you can do about it. You can’t un read it. Can you? At most, you can hope to forget it. This raises a question: Do people with regret-filled lives at long last find peace and happiness once dementia takes them?  Cut me some slick, Mick, Rick, Dick, Nick, Vic, I’ve been up nearly twenty-four hours.  So he called his “pal” yesterday. (Note the illeism.) This is the same “pal” he hadn’t heard from since [INSERT DAY MON...

[ PART II ]  We regret to inform you that the stimulative effects of the 10:00 PM Venti Mocha Frappuccino, two glazed doughnuts, and half a butterscotch pecan scone are, at this time, wearing off.  Time to brew a fresh pot…  Mister Coffee’s brewed Breakfast Blend will, with any luck, motivate the digestive tract to shit out much of last night’s consumed fat. Maybe that’s not how it works, but a fatso can dream.  Try going to the gym today, after staying up for so long, and you’ll likely give yourself a stroke. Not the worst thing that could happen, no, so long as said stroke wipes-out the memory of ever having met a few too-deeply-imprinted individuals…  The game plan, now, it’s to remain conscious long enough to fix Pop breakfast.  John Ottman’s score for X2 just ended. Mozart’s trio 5 in E Major, Op. 542 just began. It’ll be followed by Mozart’s trio 7 in G major, KV 564; followed by his trio 4 in B flat KV 502.  But is any of this relevant?  1...

 [ PART III ]  Time flies when you revise a single stupid sentence twenty-seven times. I’m kidding. I don’t keep track of how many times I revise a single sentence, whether stupid or smart. Talk about true madness! If I ever get to that point, swear you’ll have me committed. Pinky swear. But if you happen upon a clean and tastefully padded room, with a clear view of a nudists beach, I might be up for that.  People I know woke up forty-five minutes ago for work. Some of these people, I’d like to know better, but doubt I ever will, seeing that I avoid them now. Which brings us back to fear.  And by now, the coffee’s likely cooled off. Which means I won’t have to pour in too much “French” vanilla creamer. For what little it’s worth (which is very likely less than a tenth of a penny) I simply cannot stand the taste of “French” fat- free creamer. No, I’ve got to use the “French” fat- full creamer…  Damn, just poured in too much damn creamer…  That the sun’...

[ PART IV ]  I’ll go look out the window for the paper. If it’s there, at the mouth of the driveway—‘cause if it’s there, that’s always where you’ll find it—I’ll go grab it.  I’ll slip the plastic sleeve off and lay the paper on the sofa. If I don’t put it on the sofa, or on the coffee table in front of the sofa, Pop’ll never find it. But then where else would I put it? He spends most of his waking hours sitting or lying on the sofa.  Pop’ll spend several hours looking at the paper. He never mentions a thing about what he’s read. Perhaps it’s his impression that I don’t follow the news. Untrue. What’s true is that I’ve never cared for the feel of newsprint. But what is the point of reading the newspaper? Is it to pass judgement on the state of things? Most newsworthy things occur elsewhere. Those who make the news rarely have time to read it. A weather forecast is useful, but more so from any other medium. A newspaper is but a morbid and unfulfilling sort of entertainmen...

[ PART V ]  The coffee’s finished,  and I wanna take a dump.  So that’s going to happen…   …and so it did.  Do you sniff what you wipe?  Howard Stern once proclaimed,  “on the air,”  that he did ,  which is why  I don’t  listen  to him  anymore.  All those stupid  ideas  he seeded my brain with…  Good.  Sky’s looking less cloudy already.  Damn.  There it goes,  graying up again…  Perhaps the quest for relevance is an exercise  in futility.  Does it matter?  Matter only matters to matter.  And what’s the matter with that?  15 June 2005 

Trees don’t want the grass to eat peas when it rains. As to exactly why, the most recent findings are inconclusive. There are many theories. And there are times when the smudges on my glasses (my eyeglasses and my wine glasses) don’t trouble me at all. At such times, I wonder if I am not going batshit crazy. And then, I think, to myself, I think, sometimes aloud, I think, if one can think aloud, I think, what does it mean to go batshit crazy? How, exactly, is “batshit” maddening? My guess is that somebody, long ago, ate some batshit, and somebody else was witness to this; and whoever it was who had eaten the batshit, apparently lost his (or her) marbles. But then one, such as yourself, might wonder: Was the eater of the batshit not crazy before he ate it? What would move a clinically sane somebody to eat batshit? A dare? Blackmail? I suppose a batshit muncher could be starving, but that might be indicative of other issues. You can be mad and starving, and then, you can just be pl...