Hazardous Shoals and Reefs

*


Although I think I love to be alone, I find that I am not very good at it. Perhaps from a lack of practice. Perhaps.


Today I watched about ten minutes each of three movies. I drank three beers. I ate hot dogs for lunch. I watered the garden. I cleaned the house and did laundry and I took apart the Okeefe & Merritt stove and cleaned her from stem to stern. I took off the grates and soaked them in vinegar and baking soda and scrubbed them down, took off the stove top sections and did the same number to them, then took the grillevator and the oven racks and the drip pans out, ditto. Wiped down the inside with vinegar and soapy water, cleaned the floor under the stove and behind it, got the broiler pan shiny, the pull out crumb trays, the oven knobs, then the heat vents. Once I got the baked on crap and the grease off all the inside, I wiped down the outside again until she was all glistening white and silver. She's still got the wear on her, the simmer caps and burner heads are worn and no longer shiny, the porcelain is cracked and threadbare in places, but she is a thing of beauty.

Then I had to wash the floor in the kitchen and give all the countertops a good bleaching and rubdown, cleaned and polished and dried out the sink, put everything away, started pacing again.


Left to my own devices, I will sterilize and make lifeless everything in my path.

Then I will put a simple bowl down on a bare table and call it good.


*


Cleaning is my yoga.


*



The dog regards me from her spot under the dining table with a half raised eyebrow before sighing and going back to sleep.


Nothing to see here.


*


I don't like social engagements. I don't like small talk. I won't go to a party if you put a gun to my head, unless you promise to do just that, and then pull the trigger.

What I do like is one-on-one: long, deep talks over beers or, best, walking through woods or along the edge of the water, or over a table strewn with some killer eats. Not just one-on-one, I'd say up to four people altogether. Beyond that, I grow bored. Everything skims along the surface.


I prefer the deep waters, and time enough to explore.


*


If you are reading this, I more than likely think of you as my friend. I don't get many strangers around here. And more than likely I don't give very much of myself back to you, at least not in the traditional intertubes way.

Don't mistake it for lack of regard, or unfriendliness.


It is just a character flaw I hold in spades.


You ought to ask my relations what they think of me. I don't return their calls, won't go over to their houses for dinner more than once or twice a year, am always begging off invites to this or that. And I love them. I truly do.


But I am kind of flinty, and self-involved, and selfish.



*


Then I find myself alone and wonder what the fuck.


Ha.


*



Not really.




*



I am at peace with myself, even with my dissatisfaction.



I am what I am.


There is a measure of strength and goodness in me that counterbalances my stinginess and small-heartedness.


And the truth is that I put my money down where it counts most to me. I love the woman on the verge and the wild woman of borneo with a fierceness that burns away all half measures. I'll wager they know it, too.

*


Time for another beer. I wonder what the floor under the washing machine looks like right now?



***


Namaste.



***

They Speak With One Voice or Remain Mute

self portrait as deranged twins

*

The woman on the verge is traveling east to be with her mother and the monk and the entire cast of the Floridian Puerto Rican Telenovella "Cada Quien Puede Hacer De Sus Calzones Un Papalote."


*


In other news, I took out the toilet, replaced the wax ring, replaced the guts, and reseated that bitch firmly. It will now flush obediently and hold still where it belongs.


No more trying to get away in the middle of the night.


*


Today is left over pork sandwiches with kimchi and pickled onions and saam and ginger. We've eaten enough garlic in the past two days to keep us vampire proof for about eleven thousand years, and I'll bet we don't catch cold again till we're dead.

*


The woman is afeared she'll come home to a starved and neglected bulldog, her drunken and disheveled husband passed out on the sofa.


I told her I probably wouldn't make it all the way to the sofa.


*


Ha.



*


Just kidding. I think she knows what I'll really be doing: pacing and nervously cleaning the house, over and over and over and over and over and over.


Did I clean under the stove burners?

Did I clean behind the refrigerator?

Did I dust the eaves?

*



I am a wreckage.



*



Namaste.



***

It Will Be Wonderful By and By.

*


Too hot to run the oven all day, so I jammed that pork shoulder into the crock pot instead and decided I'd do a mess of pulled pork sandwiches. Then I remembered David Chang's Bo Saam, so I made a big batch of cabbage kimchi, some pickled red onions,  Chang's ginger scallion sauce, and did the rappini up in a miso and mirin sauce with a drizzle of sesame oil.

Now the house is redolent with the smell of the slow roasting pork and my hands smell like garlic and ginger.


*


The woman and I are watching "Trolls 2" and good god almighty what a movie it is.


*


If there is anything better than a lazy Sunday at home, cooking and cleaning and eating a mess of good food and watching a stupid movie with the woman you love, I don't know what it could be.


*


Namaste.


***

Lunchtime In The City of Lester's Loneliness

*


Another weekend for food. I'm going to put a big old pork shoulder in a salt and sugar rub and set it in the fridge overnight and start cooking it low and slow tomorrow morning. Serve it with a peach sauce, and a salad of arugula, pecans, and gorgonzola.

Today it's quick and dirty tequila shrimp on brown rice with panfried black bean coriander cakes, garlicky rappini, and ice cold beers.

It is hot as blazes today, hot as its been all year, hotter than it ever got all summer. So we're gonna eat out on the back deck in the dappled shade of the maple that is filled to the rafters with chattering birds.

The dog has been walked on the east west ranch, and given a proper bathing.

The house awaits its cleaning, although it may have to be patient.

The woman is out in the studio, making something beautiful and strange.


*


You guys should come over. Bring some crabs if you do.


***


Namaste.


***

On The Playground

the first rule of fight club is you don't talk about fight club

*



Sometimes your feelings overwhelm you. Joy or agony, you might not be able to tell for sure. All yo know is you are in the grip of something against which you've got no defenses. Sometimes the best way to fight them is to surrender.


*


But sometimes when you surrender you get your ass handed to you.


*


Maybe it's better to go down swinging.


*



I go round after round with my own stubbornness, my laziness, my pointless anxieties, my half-finished plans. I fight till I'm bloody and other times I won't step in the ring. You might have to come to the locker room and drag me out, or maybe I high-tailed it out to the nearest saloon.

I ain't all I expect of myself.  I know it.


I fall short.





*



My guess is that everyone feels the same at times, and that includes the people I think are all squared away, kicking life in the teeth and sipping champagne.



But I harbor my own doubts about this conjecture.



*


What I know is that even a busted human usually feels better just by going outside for a while.


It works for me.


*


The world is a flat-out wonder.


***



Namaste.



***

On Peliliu Island

*

I got brought in to help out another agency on one of their unsolved murders yesterday, spent the day in their shop, getting the lay of the land, copies of the reports and evidence and interviews and crime scene, autopsy photos, etc. After a few hours I took it all back to my office and sat down and read everything, slowly, just letting it kind of wash over me, jotting down notes and questions as they occurred to me. Today I'll watch the interviews again, looking for what's wrong. Although that's not quite right. What's wrong just kind of jumps out at you from the background noise, like it sits a few millimeters off the page, hovering.

There are days my job is a deep pleasure and I know that I am in my place in the world. It might be an ugly place, but it is mine entirely.


*


Namaste.



***

Agamemnon and Diane

*


We want so much to love and be loved, but we destroy those who endeavor to love us.


*


We do it out of ignorance and fear. On our good days.


*


I am no stranger to inflicting pain on my beloved, I  do it all the time. Insensate, I thrash and rage and draw blood, metaphorical perhaps, but still....and I bear the marks from my beloved on my own soul.

The two of us are lucky in that we have used the bonds that enslave us to bind us tighter together, in a rapturous bliss of love and despair and longing and freedom and stupidity and neglect and passion and, and, and.

We are all fragile creatures, diffident and unreliable.

But we love in our small ways, and row for shore, and that, in the end, is enough.


*


I am blessed to have found my helpmeet.


Nor will I quit her, or let her flee me.


*


here is a poem for today by my good friend Alan Dugan, whom I do not know, but admire greatly and imagine he would be glad to have my friendship if he knew me, but not too well, and if he had not died seven years ago, which he did:



Love Song: I and Thou

Nothing is plumb, level or square:
the studs are bowed, the joists
are shaky by nature, no piece fits
any other piece without a gap
or pinch, and bent nails
dance all over the surfacing
like maggots. By Christ
I am no carpenter. I built
the roof for myself, the walls
for myself, the floors
for myself, and got
hung up in it myself. I
danced with a purple thumb
at this house-warming, drunk
with my prime whiskey: rage.
Oh I spat rage's nails
into the frame-up of my work:
It held. It settled plumb,
level, solid, square and true
for that one great moment. Then
it screamed and went on through,
skewing as wrong the other way.
God damned it. This is hell,
but I planed it I sawed it
I nailed it and I
will live in it until it kills me.
I can nail my left palm
to the left-hand cross-piece but
I can't do everything myself.
I need a hand to nail the right,
a help, a love, a you, a wife. 


Alan Dugan
Son of a Bitch Poet

*



Namaste.


May you find what peace is yours in this life.



***

Double Rainbow All The Way Across The Sky

(from this isn't happiness)

*




The Tearful Dishwasher's Precise and Compricated Weekend Pran.





*




I advise you to seek similar diversion.




*


Okay, so, "Double Rainbow All The Way Across The Sky" and the song by Vektor Music, who, by the way, I freaking LOVE, and "The Bed Intruder Song" and, again, the cover, by Vektor Music, have become the theme songs for 2010 for all of us here at Casa Azul.

If you have not watched them, I don't know where the fuck you've been, but go watch them and then come back and tell me what you think.

Also, if you don't know, check out the original "bed intruder video" first.


I am enraptured.


*



Today was walking the dog on the east/west ranch and cleaning the house and cleaning the fishtank and having weekend breakfast, which is toast, two over medium fried eggs, some hard, bitter cheese, and two links of smokey chipotle chicken sausage. And a pot of thick, dark, hot coffee.

I am living it, I'll tell you what.


*


And I have found the Miele multimillion dollar vacuum. In a soft turquoise color. It brings me a deep pleasure.

It likes to rock the party, as Jemaine would say.


*


And, Oh MY GOD!!!! I LOVE MY WIFE!!!!!   She freakin' rocks the party!!!!!



*



Have a goddamn good weekend, or I'ma come and find you, homeboy.


****


Namaste.


***

A Bad Angel on a Mistaken Mission

*

Who are you who lives in all these many forms?


You are death, who comes for all men.


*


We don't know any better.


We move forward, blindly, with the best of intentions, with our fears and our desperation.


Mown down like grass before the scythe.


*




You act. You choose one door, the others are shut behind you. On scant information, on ghosts of mirages, on enigmas wrapped in riddles, you wade into the darkness, your arms sweeping before you, your toes reaching out for something solid.

Among the alligators and the beasts of the swamp, the dankness and decay.



*


But you have a shining holy light within you.



*




It might show the way.



****

I couldn't begin to tell you the number of times I've thought that I could probably get killed in the next second or two or three. The number of times I've held on a doorway, waiting for someone to come through, or the the number of doorways I've gone through, waiting for what's on the other side.

The difference between making it and not making it is negligible.

It almost don't have to do with you.

*


I remember this one time in particular, this guy was holed up. He had a 7mm mag on the other side of the door, we all knew it, and we'd shot in some smoke and some gas and what not, we were all masked up, a bunch of us hunkered up at the end of the hallway past his kitchen and livingroom, just the closed door at the end of the hall....and the thing is with that 7 mag, it'll just go through your vest like a hot knife through butter. We could have been standing there in our altogether, for all the difference it would make.

I remember thinking, well, you just won't know till it's gone through you is all. And by then you'll either have your brains scattered all over that back wall, or you'll go down with a femur shot or a gut shot or something, and you'll either be okay or you'll be fucked.

In the meantime, lets keep that old muzzle pointed down range, and if he steps out, why, you just let him have it.


*


Turned out he blew his own brains all over hell's half acre.




We jumped some when that shot rang out, I'll tell you what.



We went on in, I almost stepped on half his soft palate, six teeth still in it.


*


I miss all that.


*



Namaste.



***

Our House, In The Middle of Our Street

*

This is our living room. It includes a dead cow, skinned and laid out; a Kwan Yin head, an English Bulldog, a copper engraving, a Canal St. subway sign copied from the Woody Allen movie "Husbands & Wives", a model of a human skull, two needle points, a monkey or two, lots of books, and hardwood floors.


And some blue-ray DVD loading on the television screen.


*

This is the home in which I live.


This is my little refuge.


It is the inside of my heart.


*



You should come over some time.  We'd love to have you.



We hate everyone else, but we'd make an exception for you.


I can almost guarantee it.


*



Today I sat in a three hour meeting trying to convince my boss we had enough to go on this guy who killed his ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend several years ago.


My entreaties fell upon deaf ears.


*


I will yet sway him.


*


I don't give a shit about most things. But if you murdered someone in my goddamn town, and I know it?





Well, you are going down.



*



In other news, I don't know.


Maybe you can tell me.


*


Namaste.



Except for you, you know who you are.



****

Souls XI

*

I'm trying.


*


The world is an outlandish place, really. I don't know why some folks get dealt all aces, and others get a handful of twos and jokers and lose the rent and then get beat up for cheating.

Not that I'm supposed to be the one to figure it out.


*


I will say this for misfortune and disaster and loss, despair and agony, unfairness and stupidity: exposure to enough of it can lay the groundwork for real wisdom.

If you are always happy and your toast always lands butter side up, you may not suffer as much, but trust me, nobody's gonna want to hang out with you.

You'll be boring.


*


So, the world is a magnificent, wild, and beautiful place that is the playground in which you and everyone you have ever known and loved will be slaughtered. One after the other. This isn't being maudlin, this is the brass tacks. Wake up, sister.

It is an abattoir.  But it has hot and cold running water. It has Robert Downey, Jr. It has sex! It has great food! There's movies, fer chrissakes.



*





You are doomed anyway, so seek adventure.


Have a goddamn good fucking time at it.



*


And bust your heart loving. Just tear that bitch to pieces.


*


Namaste.



***

We Strike For Shore in Our Small Boats, Though We Won't Make It.

*


Last night I dreamed I was back in the Coast Guard.


I saw my old captain, Ltjg. Alexander.

I saw Nob, the old cook.

The sea was dark and heaving beneath our gleaming white cutter.


I was happy as a pig in shit.

*



Something in me does love the harsh sea.



Though I know her, and should fear her better.


*



Today I am making Pho. I have made a stock with chicken stock and garlic and flame-charred ginger and sweet onions and star anise and cinnamon and fish sauce and lime juice and soy sauce and brown sugar and serrano chiles.

I will yet add mint and basil and cilantro and red onion and green onion and caramelized pork chops and whatever the hell else I can find to throw in there.


*


Here it is:

*



I have cleaned the house until it gleams and ditto for the dog.




*




We are all for the boneyard.


Let's eat good in the meantime, shall we?


*

Namaste.

Bullet and Buddha, Casa De Lavaplatos Lacrimos Y La Mujer En El Borde      

****

Eats

Bun Nem Nuong- The traveler's lunchbox

*

Last night we made Bun Nem Nuong from a recipe at The Traveler's Lunchbox.

And it kicked ass!


The only difference was I made the pork into little oblong patties that I grilled in a cast iron grill pan so it got nice sear marks on it and didn't look as much like, well, what it looked like in the photo.


My wife has turned me from a peanut butter and jelly, hamburger and pizza, chicken nuggets and beer guy into some other kind of creature. If you'd told me when I was five that I would eat something made with fermented dead-fish tea and garlic and ginger and hot peppers I would have killed myself before I turned six.

Luckily, I had no idea.


It all just snuck up on me.



*


Now I will eat anyfuckingthing.


If it's good. 




*




Today I tried to replicate these daikon kimchi pickles that the woman used to eat all the time in Korea. I used David Chang's recipe as a jumping off place. We'll see in a couple of weeks how they turned out.


I'm learning how to use my knife, too, which is pretty fucking cool.


I mean, you gotta get your killin' on, even if you're in the kitchen, right?



*


Next up?


Pho.


Pho-sho.


*


Namaste, and pass the rice wine vinegar and some of those fried crickets over here!



***

Leviathan

*

Today we ate at the Thai place on the embarcadero. It was foggy and cold outside and cramped and crowded inside and the food was steaming hot and spicy as hell and there was a lot of it. I cried and sweated and my nose ran and my lips got numb.

Then we went to The Bay Theatre and watched George Clooney kill people and boink hot italian broads and look tortured and give everyone the silent treatment, including us.

We went to the thrift stores and I found a toy whale for three dollars and brought it home.


*


Mark it down as one of the good ones.


*



It only seems they are without limit.



*




Namaste.



***

Fighting Fighting

*



"Sometimes you eat the bear, and sometimes the bear eats you."

The Stranger
The Big Lebowski


*


I admit to a certain kind of depressive, anxious, moody outlook on the world. But that's not all that's going on, not by a long shot. I got a deep and abiding love for being alive, especially right now, on this planet, in this body, under this big blue sky and in the midst of all of this reckless beauty and mindblowing abundance.


I got it better than about 99 percent of the humans that are alive right now, or ever were.



I got a smartphone, for gosh sakes.



*



I think about what it was like to live a long time ago. Not a hundred years ago. Not five hundred. More like five hundred thousand.


Spears and snares and gathering berries and telling stories by the fire of an evening  and dying young of a broken femur or a tooth infection or a saber-tooth tiger mauling or falling out of a tree or drowning or just starvation. Or getting hit in the head with a big rock.


I would have done okay back then, I bet.


*


Except I am a slut and a lazy s.o.b. and would probably starve.


*




And there wasn't no Coen brothers back then, so.....



*




Namaste, my friends.




***