I am now walking through school zones. The kiddos have returned to their summer graveyards of autumn/winter/spring glory and gala. I pass them on their way to band practice in the wee morning hours. I see them home in the afternoon.

Today was a two man-one girl crew. James and I lined up at 6:30 with the young Mexican girl, that has been attending for about six days now. As of 7 a.m., James (Yames in the words of Rogelio) was convinced that we were all staying at the Hill for the day. As he trimmed some dumpster secluding bushes and I swept via ritual de la habitual, he shouted over to me regarding his idea of how the day was going to unfold, how it would go down.

Of course, it did not. It never does on the chain gang. Things change from blink to blink as to keep the convicts on their toes more so than any Baryshnikov teacher had ever hoped for.

After my sweeping, I was allowed to use the blower in order to clean off the concrete paths that property line kiss the many building that are the main attractions of history and heritage on the Hill. I know how to use a blower. Gas or electric, they are the same. I began to blow from the gates of sweepings boundaries on out, as I thought it to be a good game plan to cover the ground efficiently. I guess I was wrong. It took me a few seconds to figure out air flow and direction of blow, as well as the trigger idiosyncrasies. Any tool trigger is not the same as the one you have used before. Looser, tighter, ask Jenna Jamison.

I was revving up and down for a minute or two and working my way closer to the office building which is housed in the old Serrano Ranch Adobe structure that originally ran the land around the park. Sure as shit, Rogelio came out a running with arms a flailing, “Reechar, Reechar!” He took the time, with patience, to explain to me that it was not like riding a motorcycle but it was like using a broom. He then demonstrated with barely any throttle used and an almost concrete French kiss closeness between the nozzle and the cement. Damn, I thought I was going to saddle up on the dumb ass thing and right it through the black mining hills of Dakota. I am so glad that he stopped me. To think of the trouble I would have been in if I had arrived at the bike show riding that. I admit, I did not think it was a broom though. I thought it was a blower and was trying to use it as such. When in doubt - kiss the Heffe’s ass and repeatedly say that you are wrong all of the time.

At 8:45 I was told by James that we were leaving so I packed up, double checked with Conception, and got seated in the van of labour transport. James and I sat there, with the middle bench between us, till 9:25. With each minutes passing, and eventually seconds, I became so worried that my stomach sunk. I thought for sure that they were looking for us and the Sheriff would soon be there for the two of us. Things are weird on the CWP. Conception then came and told us that the plans had changed and that we should come take morning break. At 9:45, I became Rogelio’s man slave boy of solitude grunt. The girl and I were to stay at the Hill. James went on with Conception to the Ranch. I have know idea what his day was like. I am sure that I will have details tomorrow night.

I did lots of hedge trimming today. I clipped and cut like a dog groomer, a dog groomer that was not there, but at the Ranch. At one point I handed a pair of shears to Rogelio and he thought I was trying to stab him. He got his rabid pit-bull/cock fighting last breath and murderous intensity behind his glare and then pushed the point of a pair into my throat and asked if I was, “trying to yab ‘im”. This is the confusion of my days.

I was let out early, at 3:30, if that holds any water in the bucket of trying to stab your Heffe.

My day was a pretty tedious jaunt of clean up after our lunch break end at 12:30.

I have never spent the day with Roy at the Hill, all day.

I met his boss woman, a big ol’ dyke in work boots and Army Ranger pants. She smelled liked a woman with all of her perfume, but with all of her ass and manliness, I wondered.

I walked home hard and solo today, knowing that I would be home early enough to jot down my day.

Why are elementary kiddos let out of the house wearing shorts and cowboy boots to school? Is that considered fashion, hip, or appropriate? It is something to only be seen in food stamp lines in days, that are obviously, far gone. They look like derelict munchkins. Poppers. Vagrants. "You've got to pick a pocket or two". Fagan is in search of these little rag-a-muffins looking for refuge inside the walls of school that should, most defiantly, be banning that ‘look’ for pre-teens.

As I approached the El Toro High School, I realized the hip thing for teenagers to do is to walk around barefoot everywhere.In California, you can even go barefoot into the grocery store, I hate this practice - I find it vomitous. I almost threw up. How foul is that? Never mind, it’s obviously a painful trek.

As I passed the High School, the frosh-soph girls track team began their practice on the opposite side of the street. It was hard to not take a gander over at them bobbing and jiggling about. I wished I was a male counterpart to their team. I am not. I am the fat, smelly, bearded guy that they run from.

I though of my daughter and watched the sidewalk.

I kept up with them the whole way.

I am a big man, walking in jail clothes.

I wish I was a freshman girl running for the High School team.

I would have many ribbons and statuettes.

They even met me at the corner of Trabuco and Los Alisos, just before my final walking phase home.

The black bird cawed at them.

I was amazed at my progress in the 'walk'.

I have ankle to calf definition like no other at this point. Cankles no more!

My felt boxer kick backs for home are fitting so good.

Where is the weight falling from?

I don’t feel much thinner.

I walk and rock on tomorrow.

Willie won’t be back, but I hope that James is.

I will write a farewell to Johnnie this weekend, he has left the game and maze behind. I hope he is well with his kiddos.

Where, Oh where, is the cheese …

A mere and meek 110 hours to go! I can not believe that I have made it this far. I was expecting to drop dead during some of these days. 290 down to 110. Two weeks from tomorrow, I will be done with this phase of rehabilitation. This is a punishment that I never want to face again. I will not face it, unless I am the man barking the orders with the cool hat and shades - a perverse Federale ala America, looking for the angle to get ahead and get rid of the accused.

As I prepare for my 2-5-4 set of work days ahead, I reflect back on what actions allowed me to be here, where I stand. Big mistakes. Bad mistakes. I am lucky that this is why I am here. I have been quite the rebellious, ‘go fuck yourself’, adult. I guess, not that much of an adult.

My twenties were book ended with very tumult times of turmoil and tedious tantalizations that led me astray from becoming the man that I now am. There was a good six years of being much more grown up than I needed to be for my age. I missed a lot because of that. I had an identical set of years from kiddo to pr-teen. Years lost. I tend to be too grown up for my own good or dangerously immature. Every thing is a phase shot through the phaser, as Capt’n Kirk and Jerry Garcia marvel at the outcome. No Buck Rogers here, just heroes of ludicrous nature and phasing. Phase on! Phase out!

Ironically enough; I found a ring today as I swish, swoosh, swept the front stairs. I thought all of the trash had been collected from the planters but much to my dismay I missed some, or it magically appeared while I swept with my cocky arrogance. Either way, I picked it all up and as I returned to sweeping I found a wedding band. It was the same simple ring of 14k white gold that had become my symbol of commitment when I had married the first time. I wondered if it was mine. If someone had snuck into my home, under the guise of karma, under the wing of the black bird, and placed it there for me to draw a few lessons from the file for further analysis. It went into that dainty little coin pocket found on the right side of jeans, just above it’s older brother - the real pocket.

Today was hotter than coked-out whores at a swinger’s club in Rio. Too hot. Dangerously hot. It must have been about 102 degrees by lunch. 105 after. Of course, all temperatures listed are in Fahrenheit, not Celsius, so that should comfort any concerned international readers!

I continued to be the weeder wiggler known as the Hula Ho. Today it was in the full blazing, gasoline vision, desert hallucinations, of the open sadistic solar blaze girth of the fire ball death sphere known as the Sun. I would have preferred being a spit fire rotisserie Human delight somewhere in Cannibal Land. At least, if the latter was the case, I knew I would be accompanied by a fabulous sauce for dipping and maybe some side dishes of culinary delectability. I would look good on a bed of riddichio. I felt like Bugs Bunny in the Tasmanian Devil’s boil pot thinking that it just might really be a bath. It was not. I cooked all day and no mirepoix was added, even thought that is what the marabous seeks.

Too hot. Too hot, Homie. Run for shelter. Run for shade. You can not run anywhere when you are on the chain gang, the program, the CWP, the incarceration on wheels. It does not happen without more charges, headaches, and existence disturbance. None of those are worth the actions of insanity driven run away, run about, walk about. I would never consider that action beyond the humour of the thought to get me through the vision blocking, soaking wet, shirt drenched, soggy pants life, liberty and pursuit of happiness that I proudly pay with blisters and fluid depletion. Gatorade needs to advertise more for convicts.

Other great ideas that come from the minds of convicts, are the CWP Gong Show; with all of our talented conversation interactions and song singing to get through the day without spontaneously combusting from heat and anger. The other is the weight loss program, available from June to September. I think that if that were started up, that Counties across America would be kicking Jenny Craig’s ass up and down the deserted blocks at the Ranch. Ah, the tax money to be saved and the money to be earned by all of us on behalf of me and my fellow fatties that are lacking motivation beyond that of pew sitters wondering where they are and what building houses their Sundays!

At lunch, I was offered up some of the cacti fruit, two halves, each from separate sized fruits. The innards were a gelatinous slime fluid of seminal quality that coated a pocket of what looked like rice noodles packed tight and sprinkled generously with little black seeds of poppy-like size that were the flecks of crunchy texture diversity to break up the palate questioning slime and gush. It tasted a hell of a lot like a kiwi. It was delicious. I thought about Jim Morrison as I consumed it. I had a ‘Man of LaMancha’ moment. When I returned from lunch, the heat did not matter, I was full of energy and overeager zeal regarding both attitude and the work at hand. If the fidero man known as Conception had not given it to me, I would have thought it an illegal substance. It was like sucking down quarts of lithium water from a spring while chewing coca leaves. Both very legal but not necessarily thought of as such. We all consume that Lithium, by the way, everyday, all of us - except the purified vegans of self-sustained nature. Most of which we are not! At least fun was had by all.

I was the Hula Ho master of the Universe when we returned from ‘luce’. I could hoe the whole friggin’ world. I sang songs, worked through the blinding sweat drops caught on the glasses, and managed to prevail in hoe efficiency all afternoon. I kept yelling and singing in a half kidding voice of baritone spelunk, “Ride the snake”.

I rode that snake all afternoon but upon afternoon break, at two, I was dead ass tired. The snake had left the building. Ta-da-da, Ta-da-da-da.

I saw him slither away with a rhinestone glitter cape of flared collar fabulous complete with huge ass goggle shades that wouldn’t let in the ass beating sunrays if they had wanted too. Blu-blockers anyone?

Everyday is more and more like entering Peter Jackson’s mind for a romp through his most amazing film, “Heavenly Creatures”. All of the clay men of the kingdom dancing and swirling with the girls through their impending psychosis.

I have so few days left and the weekend is almost here.

Keep me away from the cactus.

Keep me away from the Sun.

Wrap me up in ribbons and lace (maybe even bacon, like the hotdog) and call me ‘sweetheart’ as you tuck me into bed.

No, keep me in reality.

Call me ‘sweat heart’.

Like ‘Brave Heart’  but without the make-up or the killing.

Tomorrow always comes, just like Ron Jeremy …

I wasn’t going to dibble dabble on this screen for a week or so and just let it all settle into my sand swept beach of a mind. I decided that it is probably good therapy to write and clear the air of my brain with those beach waves of negative air ions that are touted as such desirable and needed relaxation helpers. I write on.

During the first two hours of incarceration work that I do everyday, we rake. I actually start off with a good healthy sweeping of the front walk and a trash scan of the parking lot. I have all of the corners and lines set up to sweep, efficiently and effectively, from and to. I get it all down to a concrete licking eating status in about 45 minutes, depending on the neglect that the walk has suffered over the previous weekend or how hard the wind was a’ blowin’ the night before.

I move and march my way, with garbage bag for debris in hand, to the rack of tools to turn in my brooms and dustpan for a rake. I have tools that I have picked and tend to work well for me. The rakes are pretty much all the same but the brooms are very specific regarding the favor ability paybacks that they offer up to me as I push the dirt through their baleen. I grab the rake and my already filling plastic receptacle and work my way to the most needed raking area that is not occupied.

All of the 20 foot wide paths are of sand or a super light gravel mix (for irrigation purposes, the tiny stones sometimes get mixed in) and the leaves color coat their serenity in hopes to be raked up by the convicts in order to end the disturbance caused by their presence. Raking leaves across sand for collection, without the micro rocks, is difficult to achieve come pick-up time. Today, as I raked, I came up with a very interesting scenario, or parallel, to distract me from the mundane acts at hand.

I am working a giant Zen Garden. I have all of the meditation and peace that anyone who buys one of those ludicrous little coffee table futilities achieves; I get even more, or so I would say. The tines of the rake glide through the sand and leave their gentle little grooves of distraction and depth. I move the leaves from line to line, row to row, until they pile up and allow me some clearing quantity of clean-up. Do not pick up the earth. Do not remove the soil or sand or gravel. Earth costs money, no matter how fine it has been crushed. Leaves come back. Sand would require a MasterCard Purchase Account Number and a lengthy interaction with a supplier. No one wants that. No convict wants that lecture or the evil looks that would result from that scenario of actions.

I am allowed my half hour or so of tranquility known as ‘raking’ before we depart for destination.

I know these posts are kind of becoming redundant, but each time I write again, I have found that I am learning or understanding something greater than I would have previously thought or thought of.

We got to the Ranch today, black bird in tow, and I prepared for a long hard day. It was not, at first, just more raking. It led to the infamous Hula Ho and all of it’s wiggle weeding prowess all day long. If you work it hard enough it sqeeks and dances with it's magic motion, kind of like a fiesty, horny matress. We were making the grounds of the old main house look groovy, neat , prim and proper for anyone who might become a guest. No one is a guest at this hellish decrepit pit of non sense.

A park supervisor, of previously vacationing status, had returned today and I met him and his handlebar mustache. His name is Conception, as in to conceive. He gave me an avocado for breakfast. I guess that is good eats. It was. He walks around eating the fruit and vegetables of the Ranch and observing the proper, or improper, spray patterns of the irrigation system, the sprinklers, and then he corrects the heads accordingly. He wears a Fidero and a mean pair of waders. I have heard him to be trouble, but as I dealt with him today telling me of the sexual prowess achieved by masticating cacti fruits and how Mexicans use it for libido, not candy like Americans, I actually almost liked him. He is, however, more difficult to understand than Rogelio, or Roy, the main Heffe.

I hoed all day and the Sun hurt. It was okay though as the day went fast, quick as virginity in action.

Willie was detoxing from a weekend bender on the ‘shit’ and disappeared for half hours at a time. While he rode the lawnmower during the grass trim phase of the day, it was like watching ‘Mowing with Bernie’. His sunglasses and his lack of motion (when he did move, it was heretic and sporadic jerks and twitches) led us all to think him either dead or asleep at the wheel. The lawn was clipped and groomed, none the less.

James was back and made lite of the day as he raked behind my hoeing. He does make the hot summer sweat days go by that much quicker.

Johnnie was back, as well, and he gave me a ride home. He finishes his ’sentence’ tomorrow. He said that he would miss my rants and humour in the mornings and afternoons, as he is very quite sure that he will never get my musings from anyone else in his work world and they make him smile and laugh and get through the day. I said 'thank you' and told him to read this blog if he wanted to hear me. I also said that a number exchange was going to be definite. He agreed and smiled.

We took a fourth extended break at the end of the day, due to the heat. We all moseyed and hobbled up to the van to leave the Ranch and head back to the Hill. I had eaten a bacon wrapped hotdog with mustard, relish, and onions and peppers from a food vendor at the farmer’s market that is on the Ranch property every Tuesday from 9 a.m. till 1 p.m. (yes they do have amazing produce for dirt, dirt cheap) for lunch on Johnnie's tab. It was deliscious! I will be bringing some money come next Tuesday! That hotdog had actually made me weary and exhausted, which was to the contrary of it's intended purpose.

Funny how what we intend to be good can turn so disgustingly bad in just moments. I needed fuel. My tummy was upset all day in the heat. Home was what I needed.

Our words can be like that hot dog, as can our reactions to words be the same.

Words = Hotdogs?

Now, I know I am nuts!

I saw some great home-made honey and a delectable stand of hummus and pita with falafel. I figure, if I bring about twenty bucks, that I will feast like a King for days.

For days.

Kind of reverses the diet thing, but at least it is vegetables.

Keep you good and regular.

Beans are the magical fruit.

Call any vegetable. The chances are good that the vegetable will respnd to you.

Can you see the vegetable responding?

I can, since they are all calling me.

Stop calling, you damn turnips!

No blood from you!

I need not the hassle, just the nourishment.

Detriment comes in all desired delectable devouring.

Too bad we can not mute the rutabaga.

Till the next etch-a-sketch of my mind …

I have begun the journey into what makes me up, who I am, why I do things a certain way or say things with a variant hue of colour. I do not think it is singularly because of environment and upbringing but rather a Velveeta melt of microwave magnificence that we pick and take from. A buffet of idiosyncrasies.

I was typing a response to a Private Message today and found myself with the typical closing of ‘Godspeed’. Sometimes it is just the capitalized word ‘SMILE’. I wondered where it came from, in regards to me not the history of the phrase or statement. I then began to think of all the things I say, the phrases I use, which are strange phrases indeed.

I say things like, “the crack of dawn’s ass”, “the mentality of a newt”, I call people by names that have nothing to do with them at all. My daughter’s name is Morgan Abbagail. I call her: Mrs. Magoo, Gooners, Hambone, Crazy Larry, Ready Freddy, Princess (which is not so uncommon or uncanny), Silly Gillie and Giggler. She loves it all so much that if you ask her what her name is she responds by making them all her middle names along with Abbagail. Of course, she giggles and smiles as she recalls them all into her lengthy Nome de Plume.

I pull some of my phrases from song and book. I pulled some out of my ass. Some are from my Dad. My Dad is an AMAZING man who has contributed more to me, both good and bad, than anyone else on Earth. Some are from friends. A smidgen of them are from jokes. An eye dropper full are from video games. I have even called a few up via the draft of my imagination, my own little world that no one would care to recognize never mind live in.

Right now I call my Lady by the name Charlie. My Dad calls his wife Ralphie. It is odd, huh?

I grew up with many nicknames. I did not go by my real name until about seven years ago. My real full name is Richard Earl Knowlton III. One of the first real British families to descend upon and formalize the presence of white men on the continent of North America was that of the Earl of Kent, Richard Knowlton. Even more odd, huh? If you Google me you find a maze of genealogy that is about this Earl, not me.

When I was knee high to a grasshopper, my Dad liked to fish a lot. He was an outdoorsman in New Hampshire and lake fishing and gun ownership was as much of a requirement as chamois shirts, groovy hiking gear, and a fill at the local watering hole on weekends. He had begun to call me ‘Troutie’, as in the fish adorned with the call tag Trout. When my Mother’s Father received a birthday card from me when I was about three and unable to write, my Mother had signed it for me and attached the new nickname as the giver’s identity. My Grandfather opened it and exclaimed, “Who the Hell is Trudy?”. My Grandfather was a basketball player for Michigan State and was in WWII, along with being a hockey and football fan, he did not understand why his Grandson had a girl’s name as a nickname. I think he wanted it to be something like Spike or Butch, something you would call a bulldog, complete with leather collar and metal studs. From that point out my Aunt and Mother abbreviated it down, with the help of my Uncle, to ‘T.T.’ which was the name of a star football player on the high school team that my Uncle played on and my Aunt had cheered for (they were one year apart in school - one and half years from birth). My Mother was about 23 when this was occurring, so it was all groovy by her and the two doppelganger consonants mirror kissing each other were cute enough and sexually ambiguous enough to be appropriate for a little boy in the 1970’s. My Grandfather just knew it was better than Trudy or Troutie or whatever it was in his head after I handed him his card and went to play with my weebles.

As the years went on it was abbreviated to just ‘T’ which I was called by most of my family, even to this day. My Dad rebelled against his name shunning and when I was about seven, began to refer to me as Andrew Squiggmon, or just simply Squiggy or Squigg. To this day he does, as well as my corn eating Step-Mother and my Step-Siblings. I am the Squiggmon, coo coo ca choo!

When I moved back to California the second time, complete with lots of lazy video game fat and my Massachusetts accent, I was dubbed ‘Tex’ when I did Summer training, or two-a-days, for football. That was the Summer between Freshman and Sophomore years. They had had a Senior who was from Texas who left the year before. Him and I were built the same way and had a goofy slang sling. Voila! New nickname, but still with the T. I have it on my class ring and when I wrestled for two years of varsity, it was a bad ass name to instill fear in my opponents.

When I started University, in Amherst Massachusetts, I was graciously provided the new nick name of Tigger. I was even taught the ‘Tigger Song’ on a drunken stumble home from a dorm that first week. That one stuck with me well into my twenties. I still recite the tune as a unofficial mantra of ‘calm the fuck down’ if I start getting uncool, heavy, or pissed. Of course, it all was string cheese stretched and torn as it was another ‘T’ name. Anyone meeting my family just heard the ‘T’ and knew the name du jour and assumed it an abbreviation. They never knew the real abbreviation story. I have only told about seven people the real story behind the ‘T’ simplification. Now I am older and telling the whole damn world.

Now I am just Richard, or R.E. as I am affectionately called here on BS.

It is funny because I have never liked any of the multiple, numerous, expanding and expounding natural nick names of my birth nominate. I do not like Rich, Richey, Ritchy, Rick, Ric, Ricky, Dick, Dicky, or Dickie. They do not work for me. Richard is my name. Back in Boston, Rich and Richey are the favourite abbreviations of non consent. It really makes me mad when people take liberties with my name just because they have so many options and they like one better than the one that I give upon introductions. The only, ONLY, two people that get away with it and not have me hears nails, of both metal and finger variety, going down the chalkboard are my Lady and a sculptor/fellow poet friend of mine named Scott Litwak. I tolerate him because he is a genius and I love my Lady so damn much that she could call me ‘Shitsack’ and I would ask her what she needed or wanted.

All of my phrases are just my communication eccentricities. I mean who really says ‘that thing goes down like prom night’ or ‘I will be in and out like prom night’ to anyone? I say things like ‘faster than a peep show’ and I consistently still use the least original, but equally not used, ‘right on!’

I talk as I write. It is no different. Reading this is a one way conversation with me, a monologue of intrinsic fortification.

I say ‘slacks’.

I reel at my use of my Dad's coin ‘ballsy’ as in ‘that friggin’ restaurant is ballsy’. I also use his molestation of the word kinky, in his mind to mean ‘interesting’ or ‘unique’. If a restaurant has an unusual dish my Dad will say, “They have a noodle thing that is kinky”. I also use his Mother’s Bostonian alpha drop accent version of the Scottish/Irish/British word ‘corker’, except when she would say it, it came out as ’cocker’. She would say, “T, that sweater on you is a real cocker!”

I miss my Nana.

She would have a full dinner down at seven on the chime of the grandfather clock in the evening, all seven courses with candles lit. Every night. I wish she was still here to cook for the Gooners and Charlie.

I am spent and still have the energy to type on. It was like being at a dinner club every night. Ruth Knowlton was an amazing woman. Like I said, I miss my Nana even though she could be a crazy, anal retentive, superintendent of domestications; she was my Nana and had more love than everyone. She took pride in everything, even if no one would see or thank her. She would take pride in my clean folded jail jeans.

So, how do we develop the lexicon that we use?

In this day and age, where we are far too Global for our own good, how do we distinguish where our sayings come from?

How do we redefine colloquialism?

Can we remain original?

The same thing happened to fashion as we moved from the seventies to the eighties.

Cookie cutter rubbish makes me and my language much more perverse and obscure. Should I be that isolated through a simple exchange of words and day sum up tallies?

I would be far better off being Arnold Ziffel as opposed to Maynard G. Krebbs.

No more sniffle, riffle, and whiffle.

No bats or Charmin squeezing!

I will keep talking and hoping that people get it.

I may mix and mess them up but I am doing it intentionally to get a bigger point across.

Five down in three.

I MUST be insane.

Nope, I am pisser, a real ballsy cocker!

They call me R.E. Knowlton III and I know my Dad's Father is proud to have his name carried strong.

Write on, read on, right on ...

This waking up early thing and I do not mix. I was just afforded two, yes two, consecutive mornings to bask in the splendor of my absolute favourite avocation of sleeping in. I was up by nine yesterday. I arose today at seven. Tomorrow I have to continue the death rise at four, a.m. that is. Another missed opportunity that I can not explain.

Numerous years of working graveyard shift, in addition to weight gain and loss and gain again, have left my serotonin levels and bursts, or lack thereof, a tad manic and unpredictable. I do know that the best sleep I get is from about 3 a.m. to 9 a.m. It is my Michael Stipe smitten sleep, this is the sleep that I am now placing adds on milk cartons in order to find. Come back good sleep, please! Please buy some milk and help me find my slumber, gloden as it is not now.

I ate good last night, two inch steak gushing blood and covered in salt. ‘How would you like your steak, Sir?’ “I want to be able to put a band aid on it and have it walk away!’ It felt good to be with my Lady again and she partook in some of the ‘Chain Gang Guacamole’ that I made for her. If you are looking for a good recipe, just let me know and it is yours to delight with. My dreams were not of frightening consequence. Lately, there have been severed heads on buzzing circular saws with bizarre bars and houses and lands that I have visited before, but only in my dreams - or nightmares as it were. Sometimes I wonder if this is really the dream and not the other way around. I had been hoping to Rip Van Winkle my way to at least ten. Since I must go back to bed early tonight, it must be better this way.

Mantra One: “Things have a way of working out”.

Mellow enough does the day become while listening to the “When Harry Met Sally” soundtrack and zoning out at the cats wrestling and wrassling around in the joy that their Mommy is home once again. I have a movie to watch later in the day. I am writing this. I am washing my convict jeans so I have an impeccable prisoner appearance for the start of my week. Taking pride in the little things that no one will ever notice is sometimes all we have.

Simple secrets skate on the thin ice of annotated shopping lists remedied in a rush of out-the-door.

On this holiday of labour celebration and reward of leisure, I am actually wanting to be working. I guess that is why I am tic tacing on the keys. All this prose is some great therapy and a huge knob polish for my writing skills and lexicon vocab vortex, but I was really thinking of a break today. Not so much McDonald’s but rather Kit-Kat.

I have always admired the writing skills of Leslie ‘Les’ Claypool, the founder of the thrice three trio band of funk, metal, and fusion known as Primus. They were originally called the Primates but there was another San Francisco group with that name back in the mid to late 80’s when the group started out and dampened the soles of there bare tootsies. They changed it to Primus, which is actually a sort of Acme brand in England, which worked well for a bit of free advertising for them - or so I would think.

Les’ bass playing and vocal characterizations are top notch, but his lyrics are so unique and intriguing that you can’t help but to rewind the medium of playback and listen closely, ear to the speaker like a little boy waiting to hear what the Shadow knows, so you can savor each little savoury alpha combination that will assuredly roll around in your mind until they spill back out as lyric licorice that you share the awe with a friend who has not heard them, or heard them with the accuracy that your obsession has detailed.

Hemingway is looking at me right now and he is pissed that I have written a run-on that long. That is his turf, damn it!

After conducting my recent interview with Mokie Joe, I remembered one of Mr. Claypool’s songs that I have not heard in a long time but always enjoyed.

I remember having to clean the pool and do the yard work all through high school. I would strap on the headphoned tape deck dispenser of mundane mediation/meditation maker and sing, sing, sing, and sometimes scream along with my ear candy as I made the family’s backyard refuge real spiffy and neat. I hated that pool. But I loved Les Claypool. Music has always been my intervention from reality and allowed me to ride hopes and dreams higher than I ever could have achieved on my own. Every note, every word, every little cymbal sizzle has charged on and powered up little laser beams of get-off in my head. They are called protein peptides and damn does music make them make me happy, happy, joy, joy.

I wanted so badly to be a writer or a musician or both. Mokie’s answers about his Dad and Family, as well as his journalism career and criticisms of the Main Stream Media, led my brain jelly to spread out so thin and expand back, like a vibrating gelato, that I became aware of this song again.

This is the poignancy of the story as conveyed be Les:

"The Pressman"

~

By the light of the lamp I sit to type-my notes on tab at my

side

I don't see the sun much these days

A fluorescent tan covers my hide

How much impact shall I have this time?

My goal today is to reach the deadline

I write between the lines

I deal with fantasy

I report the facts

Give them to me, please

Ham and egg salad on white bread keeps me company on nights like

this

A pack of mentholated cigarettes keeps my air nice and thick

When I write, words flow like coins from a candy box

Get out of my way

I've got something to say

The pulse is beating louder now

The cramps in my hands grow more intense with each

Tik, tik, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap on the keys

My social life is at an end so it seems to be

Why don't I trample on your lawn today?

I'll take skies of blue, turn over skies of grey

I write between the lines

I deal with fantasy

I am the pressman

Acknowledge me

Mother always told me never stray too far from home

The little lady said, "Boy, you'll never have to be alone,

Because,"

You build with fountain pen

You create the memory stain

You are the pressman

Stand up straight, boy

~

This is made me want to write more than ever. It made me want to know more about media. It inspired, along with Hunter Thompson and Frank Zappa, me to be the poly-sci junkie that I am today. Thank you Les, thank you indeed!

This has led me to lay down two other sets of lyrics that I think humourously apply to the bringing up of the first song as well as offer some readers a bit of funny bone tickle tackle, as I poke a bit of fun at myself as well. Both are Claypool sculptures of serious serenity and sarcastic inflection.

"Mr. Knowitall"

~

They call me Mr. Knowitall

I will not compromise.

I will not be told what to do.

I shall not step aside.

They call me Mr. Knowitall

I have no time to waste.

My mouth it spews pure intellect.

And I've such elegant taste.

They call me Mr. Knowitall.

I sup the aged wine.

Oh I could tell such wonderous tales

if I should find the time.

I must be Mr. Knowitall

For ideas they come in bounds.

I am Mr. Knowitall

So spread the word around.

They call me Mr. Knowitall

I am so eloquent.

Perfection is my middle name

And whatever rhymes with eloquent.

~

Some would find that funny as it also plays up nicely against my last name, Knowlton, and anyone who knows my Father would surely bust a gut into a messy pants fiasco if they heard him talk and then heard those lyrics.

"Nature Boy"

~

I pull the blinds then I take my clothes off

Dance around the house like nature boy

My genitalia and pectoral muscles aren't quite what I would like

them to be

But you don't see me

No one can see me

I pull my blinds

Fill out my income tax form

Pen in hand I write so legibly

I have my kitty. His name is Allowishus, I stroke him

But you don't see me

No one should see me

I pull the blinds

For the sun glares off my tele and I find it quite so

irritating

I have my videos-loads of Ren and Stimpy

Bottom-a bit of pornography

But you don't see me

No one should see me

~

Call me nature boy, the pressman, Mr. Knowitall. I don’t care what you call me, as long as you call me.

Half the time I am amazed that I get all of these trinkets out of my head. I wonder sometimes if I am possessed, some would say I am.

I find it funny that I get so hot that I crank up the AC just to be able to throw a blanket over my torso.

I am an odd duck. Quack!

If it walks like a duck and it talks like a duck, it might just be ‘young broke and republican’.

I am not sure I can determine that though.

I know I am hungry again.

I hope some good grub dive of dining will have my monies in exchange for the sustenance on this holiday, this day of labour.

I suppose I have better odds today than on Christmas.

Maybe I should turn off the AC and try to be sane …