This Ain't No Disco

You will be missed Shef, you really knew what this whole rivalry was about, hitting some fans and intimidating everyone into thinking you want to kill them. Shit, I would watch you at bat in my living room and you scared the shit out me.

Too bad you signed with the yanks, I remember your press conference like it was yesterday. I thought that shit would last, oh well. Only thing to do now is to hit one of their starting pitchers with a baseball bat....by the way the guy that pushed Shef in this picture lost his season tickets. There are roughly 35K seats in Fenway and about 30mil people in New England. Just sayin.

Ooh Yeah Kool-Aid!

Owwee this is nice, like steppin' into a sweet bachelor pad or something. I like it all, I like it all.

Well I guess it's time for some predictions for this upcoming season of baseball love and rivalry hate, here we go:

1. A-Rod will be traded to some unsuspecting team more than half-way through the season, the bullshit here is that the yankees will probably get something decent in return.

2. After thinking hard about the final division standings, Sox did finish 3rd last year, after some thought, Sox by five games.

3. Mussina= Time for an injury=yanks will be screwed

4. Dice-K will get 20 wins, Schilling will get 15, Wakefield 18, Beckett 10, Papelbon will be closing by the all-star break.

5. Clemens will be playing golf....on his days off in the rotation for the Sox. That prediction all depends if Clemens gets HGH in the mail on time. Seriously his head has doubled in size, look at Bonds and Stallone, look at their fucking heads!

6. Who is that annoying broad that announces yankees games?.......she will be fired.

7. matsui will hit 50 Hr this year, Ortiz will hit 60.

8. Fuckin' A-Rod will win the MVP even after being traded, this is the nature of the beast.

too much Pacino

in the last 48 hours i have watched all three Godfather movies and the movie Heat.
i agree with what most people think about the Godfather trilogy:

1. the first one is great
2. the second one is greater
3. the third one shouldn't even be called a Godfather movie. it really isn't. i try hard to not be swayed by public opinion, but i have to say "yes, it does blow..."

Heat is a 171 minute movie that should have been 81 minutes long. if you squint you can see where this is almost a great movie.
The Pacino/ De Niro diner scene is one of the greatest moments in american cinematic history.

all this leaves me wanting to see Dog Day Afternoon again, which is without a doubt Pacino's greatest role. yet, no matter how great an actor Pacino may be, this is way too much Pacino for any 48 hour period. HOOH-Hah!!!

***
in other "movies i've watched" news: i just saw Babel, and christ it's depressing. i also caught the last part of The Great Escape , you know the part where almost all of the escapees from Stalag Luft III are recaptured and killed.
(and if that is a spoiler -then shame on you if you haven't seen The Great Escape by now- it has got to be in the top ten of the best things ever according to me)
my left leg is permanently asleep in my quest to see EVERY movie that's ever been made...
***
i just saw The Prestige, and i think i said the same about The Illusionist, it makes me wish i was a creepy magician at the turn of the (previous) century. i'm interested now in finding out more about the production of these two movies. i mean they are similar in many, many ways. from subject matter, to release date, to incredibly hot actresses (scarlett johansson/ jessica biel) to ... well, to a whole bunch of other similarities, i'm sure.

There is one area where The Prestige certainly stands alone. Not only has Nikola Tesla finally been featured prominently in a story, but who is that playing Nikola Tesla?????

that's right- it's David Fucking Bowie! ! ! beat that , Illusionist.

class doesn't always beat trash...

It's all right. It's only grapefruit league baseball. I wish i could have seen this one, but apparently the YES (yankees entertainment and sports) Network has better things to do than broadcast Yankees games. I wanted to see Pavano pitch, I mean I think most homes were still on gaslight the last time this guy pitched in an actual game. I hear he did fine. We'll see.

20 days until the Yankees 2007 Championship Season opener...

are we still doing this???

the snow is slowly melting away. after months, it seems. and I'm spring cleaning. wearing windex as an aftershave. since they tore up the woods to make way for some new high power transmission lines all the wildlife has gone away. i saw some satellite pictures and it made me sad. when we were kids we were explorers . now it's gone. and they removed that black bridge that crossed over the parkway, how many drunk kids have urinated off that bridge onto the cars passing below??? that was the link that allowed the trail to go all the way to the lakefront. they've cut it all away. i hate being able to see the houses behind ours. they are strangers over there. they live in a different town. I've never trusted anyone from charlotte. almost as bad as someone from irondequoit. fucking creeps. but that's not what i was talking about. all the windows are open , it's a heat wave at 42 degrees. tonight is godfather 2. i watched number one this morning. I'm just looking for anything to fill time. i guess most people go to work. or something. i don't care what most people do. i never have. I'll fix this later***

and my day was just made. i was out back taking note of some patches of green showing through white on the lawn in shirtsleeves smoking cigarettes throwing snowballs at the fence when i realized something so fucking wonderful...

...birds. the sound of motherfucking birds. the tweety ones. the crows. sparrows (whatta' those sound like?). the call of geese(gooses) somewhere in formation, it's overcast so i can't quite see 'em, but that's awlright. the silence of this winter is broken. finally. time to move on.

...and i've been thinking about new hobbies. i'd love to take up fishing. if only fishing was something different than what fishing actually is. the whole bit with the pole and the string and the boat or the shore and the water, that's all fine with me, the peace and quiet and no real need for concentration or any real effort at all- perfect...
it's the fish part that i could live without. fish are fucking creeps- i mean if i could catch fish sticks, now then we'd have a deal...


*** i got the baseball mitts out. but there's no one to play catch with. the real brother james is in vegas and my imaginary friends don't have any arms...

this is when good things happen. i am out of negative thoughts...

this morning i can smell coffee. i haven't been able to smell anything in a long time. today is different. like something has to happen. daylight savings time is weeks early this year. I saw God's shadow on this world...

hungover doggies

i wont even bother with a month in review. at some point 8 days ago i crawled into a new drunken low, and i refuse to ever sober up or climb out again. for all the time i spend on reconstruction i find much more pleasure in tearing it all down again. and hiding. just booze. and madness. and silence. and since they found jesus that makes us all american jews. based on the fact that all americans are(were) christians, which they are(were), no matter how much they argue to the contrary. found out there is a south belmont road neighborhood association. who knew? also found out that all of the old loud buzzing and crackling transformer lines in the backyard are going to be replaced with new loud buzzing and crackling transformer lines. i've always been pretty sure that those lines have disrupted my head in some way. the winter has gotten the better of me. i should promise myself to never spend another winter here. but promises dont work. i'm going to spend another day or two in this new drunken low and come out on monday and try to scrape something back together...

Trust is like Glass

I was talking to a man about a lot of things today. I don't remember his name, he was European I think. We started talking about how George W. Bush was trying to get us all killed. He said an interesting thing, "My father told me, Trust is like glass, it keeps you from the cold and it keeps you safe, but once you break it...rebuilding trust would be just like piecing broken glass back together, possible....but."

Well, we broke the glass again as a country, thank you Hollywood for constantly rebuilding it with your heartwarming movies and blue jeans. It is truly a terrifying mistake to think a war based on greed had enough people fooled at the beginning, "What is worse is that they keep finding people from other countries like Sweden, places in Africa, even the American they found in Afghanistan," he said.

"It is like if we started playing volleyball in our suburbs, pretty soon everybody would join in, 'oh, you're playing volleyball, can we play?' You know we put up an advertisement for everybody that hates us to take a shot on a designated area that is Iraq." He was fuming now, I was trying to sell this guy a car by the way, but I couldn't help myself, I kept fueling his fire. It was good to see someone flip out like that.

That's a funny way of putting it-- War on terrorism is like volleyball on a sunday in the suburbs, trust is like glass.

just booze. and madness. and silence...

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.