it's 32 degrees out today. close enough to spring for me. all the windows open. a hundred years of hibernation.

as i said...

... "over my big dead body"

i'll let skip finish the night. i'm off to shovel more snow.

(end the winter, someone)

Margaret - Tiger Rug /skip spence

It's Margaret, the daring songwriter

She's got muscles in her eyes

She's got everything going for her there

So take a ride on her pen, step inside

...

Well, there goes Margaret, the daring ice skater

She skates the truth on the ice

If she wasn't so daring and dashing

Her lips would be chapped at half the price

...

...

It appears I sent you off to treatment

With the tiger by the tail

If he could be free

He wouldn't have stripes on him, like jail

Jailer comes in twice a day

And feeds him a hunk of meat

That is just the same

As you get out upon the street

Jungle's home

Why isn't he free?

Just because his head is doesn't mean his limbs are

That can mean the same as the monkey on a tree...

I'm paying for something, this is some kind of debt for sure. I have memories that aren't from movies or from anything else I've ever seen. The problem is that it takes so long for me to turn my big fat mind around. Like those time lapse films where a city could rise and set a thousand times and I'm just getting ready to possibly consider it... I remember streets that people tell me I've been on, i can see the moss and the damaged trees, but only like it's being described to me. I don't actually have memories of anything. And since I've started keeping a calender where i physically cross off each day evrything only becomes more apparent, never any easier. If i could just claim bankruptcy on all of those former lives perhaps they'd let me move a bit quicker today. Sunday. Going to the movies, going to Tinseltown. I'll finish this up later...

a wake for a family member today. i didn't attend, but not because i don't care, it's just that i don't really have any connection with any of my extended family. I've been to a family picnic or two, years and years ago, but it seems there has never been any interest in this house about ...well about anything at all. i have cousins i haven't seen in years and a cousin or two i don't think I've ever met. i have an aunt that randomly shows up, and that's about it. a grandfather, now dead, that i never met. and another grandfather, now dead, that seemed like he was 100 when i was ten. it's all very disconnected. my father who just recently started talking to his mother again after years of silence and my mother who erases phone messages from her mother and pretends like she never got them. never wonder why i live in one corner of one room and am scared to walk to the end of the driveway... but at least i can never cut my brother and sister out like that. sure, we didn't all get together and like each other until we were in our twenties and needing to borrow money from each other, but that's what family is for....

i have my family. no matter how small and strange it is. and by the way can i borrow twenty, I'll pay you back next week when my..........

album of the week

Something / Anything Todd Rundgren

it's a mess but worth a couple of listens. some of it can make you cry. it's tugging on me today.

I'm pretty sure the only wake I'll ever attend is my own. goodnight...love you all.

The difference is...

I'm not fucking around anymore. If I spent a third as much time writing as I do thinking about writing I'd have completed a thousand manic volumes already. I'm not a kid anymore. And the useless feeling comes from within. The only way to change is through action. Version 2.0 promises absolutely nothing, but as the winter drags on I know something has got to give. Something new is being born. I'd love to have something better but i'll settle for something possible.

BARTLES AND JAMES 2.0 COMING SOON

St. Valentines Day

years of graveyard shiftwork and insomnia have ruined staying up all night for me. i fear i'll never have that feeling of being up at an odd hour again. it used to be something special. is there a cure for that. can i get my middle of the nights back?

***

Sure- life is a massacre. but today is a SNOW DAY!!! and i've been up about 36 hours now. i'm doing my best ta' hold onto this feeling. this is a great feeling. it's hard to embrace life when you live in a hole- but i try- and i try!!!

milk and bread???

The latest from wroc-tv's Scott Hetsko, founder of prince based meteorology and my personal hero, is that today's winter storm ranks a "7" on his "milk and bread-O-meter". This is a scale where 1=Finish What You Got and 10=Stock UP. I'm a bit confused by a ranking of 7. Should I interpret this as meaning I should finish some of what I Got and maybe stock up on a little bit more. Does the kind of bread make a difference? I can't drink regular milk, what about lactaid? Is this all I will need in case of a major weather emergency? It reminds me of KOIN6 in Portland, and their Rate The Day system. If they rated the day a "3" I would carry that feeling with me all day, quarter of seven and the day was already shot...Janet Lomax wouldn't give me this kind of shit, Kevin Williams doesn't fuck around... (but then again they don't measure snowfall in terms of miniature pop stars)

We Hardly Knew Ye

Well, I don't think it's funny when people die. And I don't think this is funny per say. Just weird really. Rumor is the son who killed himself is the father of her daughter... Sounds far off but "they" don't have a clue what the hell has transpired with this family.

Great cans, beautiful face, suspect brain skills, I will miss you Anna Nicole, you are an inspiration to many...growing up in a trailer, get famous, get rich, get to enjoy it for five years, then sit back in pergatory and watch other people fight over your money. Ah, the circle of litigation (life).

"sometimes i could just choke myself with laughter..."

*only thinking in small doses. no more chemicals. or alcohol. just a multi vitamin and a touch too much coffee.

**the empty and useless core of winter. the next couple of weeks are always the worst. not until april is the way i feel. with such a lack of chemicals in my system. i'll stay in bed just because being vertical frustrates me.

***but something told me my luck might change...

i've accomplished something without even noticing. and i feel better evryday.

****winning the world is the easy part. my problem has always been what next? earlier today i remembered my egyptian funeral. a hallucination that turned into something completely different.they put me on a boat and shipped me down the nile. how did i forget it. it wasn't a dream... that was how i won the world...i told myself i wouldn't forget those kinds of things. but i always do.

finally reached that empty core of winter. it's snowed about one-tenth of a prince already, and it's not even noon. i've been behaving and taking my vitamins. i've lost all inspiration...

****

from kucinich.us :

"I remember where I came from. My priority as President will be to create economic opportunities and prosperity, to rebuild America’s cities, to repair America’s neighborhoods, to restore America’s industry, to renew America’s schools, to reclaim America’s health. I will ask our Democratic Congress to pass a single-payer not for profit health care plan, Medicare for All, a Universal Pre-Kindergarten bill, a Rebuild America’s Infrastructure bill, and legislation to create a cabinet-level Department of Peace and Non-Violence, which takes Dr. King’s dream and makes it an everyday reality."

i like the idea of the cabinet department of peace and non- violence. i saw nader on the daily show last night and he is just creepy. was he that creepy in 2000??? i can't deal with 17 months of hillarys and obamas and bidens and all the rest of these con-artists. with these to pick from (if i would even vote) i'd vote for giuliani. thank god for Kucinich, and the only thing to keep my interest in any of this bullshit.

Clearing My Brain II

-Here at the Bartles and James Corporate offices I've been working on fun stuff to do. I keep a scale by the toilet. Before I have to take a bowel movement break, I weigh myself. Then after God's work is done I weigh myself again. This is quite possibly the most important work I have ever done!

-The Super Bowl was boring, but Prince is still heavily underrated in many categories of Entertainment. Interesting correlation here, Prince is from Minnesota and his favorite color is purple. The Minnesota Vikings have had purple uniforms since their inception. Anyway's great halftime show...best since Michael Jackson's like a decade ago.

-Tax time...I need money Uncle Sam, direct deposit motherfucka.

-You wouldn't believe what I do for a job these days, in fact I keep waiting for somebody to tell me to leave.

-Went to a great house-warming party the other night, house was great and all that, but the best part was that I got the chance to reconcile some hurt feelings with old roommates. That was a tough time for me and them, I'm glad we got drunk and hugged it out. I'm done living with good friends that shit never works out for me.

-DJ on Full House could have been a lot hotter, total snafu on the casting there. I don't care if she's Kirk Cameron's little sister...we are living in a different time I guess.

there really isn't any love around here. where is bartles? where is james? i used to like it here. let's get back to it...

watch THE SARAH SILVERMAN PROGRAM

cough syrup hallucinations and stubbed vaginas

because 6 out of 31 ain't bad...

I was aiming for a completely sober month. I'll accept this 6 out of 31 ratio as a modest success. I am in the early stages of another great reconstruction. I am always either climbing up or falling down. I never enjoy any time at the summit. No one ever does. Once you reach it you can plant your flag and snap a picture or two but the oxygen is way too thin up there. YOU HAVE TO COME DOWN. I was almost surprised by this calender. I've never had a ratio like this, at least not in the last seven years.
***
and i'm in an usually good mood today. even better, it's a calm and centered good mood. i just caught myself reading deepak chopra for christ's sake. i credit this mood to a request my father made of me this morning. he asked me if i might help him drag a couch outside to the curb for the garbage men in the morning. i thought, "fuck that!!! i'll do it myself", it's funner that way. there is something cathartic about throwing a couch off the front steps and dragging it through the snow. this was our cat's couch. she basically spent the last month of her little life camped out on the thing. not to mention the fact that the couch was 17 years old and just downright nasty. from this day forward evry morning will begin with the removal of some piece of furniture from this house. drink of the day: diet dr. pepper. i've said it before, and i'll say it again, any drink with phosphoric acid is a drink for me. translated: if it's good enough for institutional toilet cleansers then it's good enough for my guts....

***

not since elian gonzalez or my new years '99 y2k multicast have i been more excited by such a ridiculous news story. and thanks to these two jack-offs and their cringe-inducing press conference i finally have a name for my generation:

GENERATION DOUCHEBAG

thanks guys...