Sunday, July 26, 2020

drinkdrankdrunk: "Miss Texas" by The Midnight Rider

while we’re on the subject of outlaw students, I guess I should break down the life/times of my all-time favorite advisee…..veronica was born in texas, is long/lean and weighs roughly 99 lbs…..she looks like a heroin chick and for all I know, she is one…..she looks like the kind of girl that a biker couldn’t keep satisfied for long (if you smell what the rock is cooking)…..that’s not to say veronica isn’t sexy-as-fuck, but i don’t think my stubby/little turtle could do the job….for most of the time that I’ve known veronica, she’s had a long-haired, survivalist boyfriend that looks like a professional wrestler….the dude is actually prettier than professional wrestler, edge, but I think that’s what I’m gonna call him……veronica’s edge is 6’4” with rippling muscles and tattoos covering roughly 75% of his body…..edge is something of a gun nut/aficionado and I’ve never seen him when he wasn’t packing heat (including my office and inside the local walmart)…..is he a drug dealer?----well, yeah……are there 100 plus guns in his house including assault rifles?-----I would guess over 200, but I’ve only seen 10-12 pistols plus hand grenades and an ak-47 (and that was at a cookout at his parents’ house)….and I don’t know much about the edge’s politics, but let’s just say that he’s not a fan of the government…..i don’t necessarily have one specific story for veronica, but I’ll try to do a random sketch….veronica graduated with a 4.0 and should have been the valedictorian, but the cashpoint powers-that-be didn’t want to present her with the award at graduation because she had gotten a d.u.i the week before…..she also got felony possession of a firearm because she was driving her boyfriend’s truck and there was a pistol in the glove compartment (he was too drunk to drive and having a gun in your vehicle when you’re drunk is a felony in illinois)….the shitty thing is that some member of the liberal arts faculty (my money is on swede hansen) sent a poison pen letter to the vice president arguing that “a felon doesn’t represents the values of cashpoint university” (and half of our students are felons from chicago who pay their tuition using government grants)……since I was veronica’s adviser, my boss called me into his office and asked if I thought she deserved the award-----I responded that she had the highest g.p.a. and dean bell ultimately decided to put it to a vote of the graduation committee…..veronica won and the committee decided (perhaps sarcastically) that I should present the award to her at graduation----and right before I went onstage to give the speech, the fucking lesbian nun took me aside and whispered in my ear to “act normal”……the second veronica story that I wanted to tell has to do with a halloween party/bonfire that her boyfriend’s parents have thrown every october for the last 27 years……the first time I went, I slept in my car in the front lawn----and when I woke up, there was a dude passed out in a tent to my left and a dude passed out on the grass to my right….the party served as a drug/arms dealer convention as fun-loving criminals from 3 states made their way to goose lake……when I first arrived I asked the edge if he thought the police might show and he responded: “no dude, the police around here are scared of us because they know we’ll fucking shoot them if they come on our property”…..the compound itself was divided into three sections; 1) the small/main house, 2) the old people’s barn and 3) the young people’s barn…..i don’t really know what the main house was like because I was never allowed inside (I think that honor was reserved for the family and their giant/guard dogs)…..i was prolly 45-years-old at the time, so I generally split my time between the 2 barns……the old people’s barn was full of fat/crazy uncles hitting one-hitters and talking about other people’s wives’ titties…..the edge’s obese mother held court in the center of the space----pouring white russians and loudly proclaiming that she’d rather eat food than give her husband blow jobs (note: this wasn’t just at the first party I attended----it was at every party that I attended)….in between the 2 barns, there was a firepit…..there was a band the first year, fire dancers the second and fireworks the third (it seemed the family had blown a good portion of their savings on court dates that year)…..to make up for the fact that there were only fireworks that year, several partygoers went to their trucks and returned with an assortment of firearms (including an assault weapon) which they would fire indiscriminately into the air…..my favorite moment at the firepit occurred when a random dude sobered up after passing out on the ground only to discover that people were laughing at him for pissing his pants…..after screaming at us and challenging everyone within earshot to a fight, the dude dragged a couch out of one of the barns and proceeded to drag it into the middle of the bonfire…..then, as the flames licked at his bare feet, the dude jumped on top of the couch and again challenged everyone at the party to a fight…..i honestly believe 90% of the people at that party could have beaten his ass (on top of the raging bonfire), but the crowd seemed to view him as comic relief and ultimately just let him scream it out…….i don’t really know how to describe the young peoples’ barn other than to say that IT WAS THE KIND OF PLACE WHERE OFF-DUTY STRIPPERS WENT TO UNWIND AFTER THEIR SHIFT…..it was halloween too, so sluts in fishnet stockings were doing lines off of every available flat surface…..99-lb veronica was dressed as a saloon girl and wearing a corset that was so tight that it made her tits appear larger than her head……as soon as the edge saw me, he put me in a bear hug and within 30 seconds, I was doing lines of adderol off a table next to a dead cow’s skull (that was being used as a decoration)……the walls of the barn were painted black and were covered with dayglow graffiti featured demons/devils/faceless cowboys fucking big-breasted barbie dolls----it was like the space had been decorated by hank 3……veronica introduced me to one of her friends (a stripper from davenport) as her professor and for the rest of the evening, the chick (whose name I don’t remember) followed me from barn-to-barn rubbing up against me and sitting in my lap…..she was 19/blonde/covered with piercings and I knew after the first 30 seconds that she would have fucked me…..at the ending of the evening she asked where I lived (i.e. she wanted a “ride” home), but I made up an excuse…..and you might ask why a fat/lonely/45-year-old professor (who hadn’t been laid in 3 years) would turn down an 19-year-old stripper?-----well, ultimately I think it was the picture of her 4-year-old son……that and the fact that I got the feeling that if she knew where I lived, she’d come back over christmas break with her boyfriend and steal everything that wasn’t nailed down…..i guess I could have fucked her in my car, but I think part of the fun for the stripper is fantasizing about the john’s life/house/money…..i still have a picture of her sitting in my lap and sometimes I beat my meat on the toilet seat thinking about what it would have been like…..i heard the edge fucked her a few weeks later and that led to veronica fucking the edge’s best friend in the edge’s bed to get revenge…..as the night progressed, I would eavesdrop as partygoers in the young peoples’ barn discussed their brushes with the law----most had spent a night or two in jail for minor drug offenses, but there others who had done hard time----I was obviously intrigued, but also couldn’t run the risk of appearing to be too much of a groupie…..one dude had defended his girlfriend’s honor by caving another dude’s head in with a tire iron (and it turns out the first guy’s girlfriend had been cheating on him and the victim had been telling the truth)…..one dude had broken into a walmart at night to steal electronics and another had run out of a pharmacy with a handful of oxycodone…..there was a redneck girl who had broken another girl’s nose in a fist fight and a hillbilly who had spent 2 nights in jail for (repeatedly) hunting squirrels out of season in some rural wisconsin county…..if there were 42 people in that barn on that particular night, I would guesstimate that all 42 (both male and female) had spent at least one night in jail as part of their criminal careers……perhaps you’d like to know what happened to veronica after she graduated in the fall of 2014…..i don’t know the particulars, but she eventually broke up with the edge….there was a major car accident in which the edge was under-the-influence----the car was totaled and when the edge finally woke up from his medically-induced coma, the police were there to arrest him…..veronica went to trial for her earlier drunk driving/weapons charge and the judge sentenced her to drunk driving school (among other punishments)……while at drunk driving school, veronica met the owner of a construction company (who, as luck would have it, received his d.u.i. on the same night)…..they hit it off and before the weekend was over, the dude offered veronica a job as his administrative assistant in iowa city…..did he want to fuck her?----I’m sure he did……do all the construction workers at that job site want to fuck her?---I’m sure they do…..i’ll conclude with a snippet from the letter of recommendation that I wrote for veronica after her graduation: “In our personal conversations, Veronica has shown herself to be a kind and generous individual. She is a person of utmost integrity, one who is self-reflective, hardworking and modest. I believe Veronica is a wonderful representative of the ideals that [Cashpoint] represents and I would certainly give her my highest recommendation.”

The Midnight Rider prefers to remain mysterious.  You could visit his website, but he won't say where it is.  You could read his books, but he won't say what they are.  You could email him, but I'm pretty sure spam@gofuckyourself.gov is not a real email address.  In a world where everyone is repping their Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, sex tapes, line of clothing, new microbrew, and overall brand, I find that refreshing.  I am happy to have the Rider ride on drinkdrankdrunk.

Sunday, July 19, 2020

Lawn Letter

I wrote a letter recently thanking a local newspaper writer for pointing out the dangers of lawn chemicals.  The newspaper published it, which was nice of them.  Once again, please don't poison yourselves and the rest of us just because you have a fetish for a certain way your yard can look.  Please learn instead to enjoy clover, dandelions, and the rest of stuff that grows in a yard beyond grass.

OK, you can tear out Canadian thistles.  I hate them also.  But do it manually.

To be fair, they have some benefits, as does poison ivy (birds like the berries), but they can both grow somewhere else other than my yard.

Sunday, July 12, 2020

drinkdrankdrunk: "Write About What You Know" by Victor Schwartzman

Sidney wrote poetry, short stories, novels and screenplays.  He decided to write something original, and started with the basics by writing a list of fundamental plots:

--Man achieves goal

--Woman in danger rescued (old)/Woman in danger rescues herself (new)

--Two people achieve romance despite obstacles

Sidney was surprised the list was so short.

But for the past three thousand years, the stories of all literature, plays and films boiled down to those three plots.  Everything else was a twist.

Sidney realized that if he could create a new plot, his fame and success would be unimaginable.  Two weeks later, the notebook screen remained blank.   He could not come up with a new fourth plot.  Worse, every twist he thought of had already been done.

Then it took an ugly turn when his friends suggested he follow the writer’s Golden Rule:  write about what you know.  To write original, start with what is original about you.

His deliberations eventually grew quite uncomfortable as he tried to think of what was original about his work, his thoughts, himself.  Days flowed by.  Ultimately, Sidney concluded there was nothing original about him.

He was not religious but prayed to God for an answer.  To Sidney’s surprise, God replied.

“I understand your concerns, my child.  Rest assured, it is not you that is not original.  It is your entire world.

“Millennia ago, I created the Earth.  Then, I created a copy.  Your planet is the copy.  I knew copies never turn out as well as the original, but I had hopes.

“The original Earth is fine.  Never been a war and there are colonies on Mars.  Your Earth, I’ve thought more than once of shutting it down.”

“Why haven’t you?”

“Still curious, my child.”

“Can you help me?”

“It would ruin the experiment.  Oh, one more thing.  When you die here, there is no Heaven or Hell.  You’re just dead.”

Then God left.

It was very quiet.

Sidney now understood his entire world, his whole life, was God‘s disappointing experiment. 

Sidney looked at the blank monitor.

Write about what you know.

With the knowledge life was meaningless, Sidney wrote a self-help book.

It was quickly published and sold millions.

When he sat down to write the sequel, Sidney wondered:  How can I make this original?

Victor Schwartzman is a Canadian writer with whom I used to be in the Underground Literary Alliance.  I am quite happy that he is still writing and willing to share some of his work on drinkdrankdrunk!

Sunday, July 5, 2020

New Song!: "The Whistleblower Takes Up Harmonica"



Woo-boy!  It's a tough time politically right now.  I may be the only one who feels like this (and maybe not), but it seems like everyone else has gone nuts.  The Left seem to think we can all survive hiding in our houses for months on end from a virus (um, that will just bring even more problems when the economy and other things collapse as a result) while the Right think the Left are all killers because they don't join them in gargling bleach or whatever else Trump goes on about.  What's been so disappointing is to see so many supposed freethinkers fall in line and stop thinking critically and just follow the party line of their tribe.  For example, if you think Andrew Cuomo's declaration that his COVID-19 orders would all be worth it if they saved even one life is inspiring, then you need to think a bit about what he would do if anyone ever approached him about preventing auto accident deaths (the answer is he would shut down the roads--does that make sense to you?  Do you think we could survive very long as a society that way?).  Meanwhile, people like me, seemingly rare, just try to carry on, don't panic, and still have a bit of fun (note:  we're all going to die anyway; have a good time before you go).  At this point, it's gotten so confusing that matters of right and wrong and heroism are all garbled.  Years ago, Michael Jordan was a hero for playing a game while sick.  Now he'd be viewed as a creep endangering others (it apparently was food poisoning so facemaskers can still cheer him).  Good grief!  Well, now he joins Edward Snowden in the grey no person's land.  Snowden and other whistleblowers actually take human rights seriously, yet we live in a country where he's still wanted for treason, so he has to be sheltered in what's basically a dictatorship.  It's so depressing that I can imagine many people just say forget it when it comes to do the right thing and just fall into line with whatever other people are doing, pretending to themselves that it is the right thing (and 9 out of 10 times, it still ain't hard to figure out what the real right thing is).  If you think walking around the supermarket looking like you are about to perform surgery is a-ok, then go on with your bad self, but don't try to convince me that it's doing anything much beyond making you feel better about a situation that you have little control over (and if you don't believe me, then maybe you'll believe the World Health Organization, who wrote, "Many countries have recommended the use of fabric masks/face coverings for the general public. At the present time, the widespread use of masks by healthy people in the community setting is not yet supported by high quality or direct scientific evidence and there are potential benefits and harms to consider (see below).").  This song is for anyone who does the right thing anyway even when everyone else is headed in the wrong direction ("It's totally safe to go back in that burning building.  Get back to work!").  Your anti-social behavior may save yourself or even us all.  Authority figures and the masses are not always wrong, but they are definitely not always right.  Think for yourself.  The lyrics are below.  It's the same deal as always.  If you like a song, then feel free to cover it if you're in a band or whatnot.  I love to hear covers of my songs, so please let me know about your version.  If you start making money, then send me a check/we can work out a deal.  Similarly, if you want to use a song for your Youtube video or whatnot, then just let me know.  It's usually fine by me unless it's a commercial product or whatnot (and then it's likely fine as well--I just want my cut).  Find out first though.  Write me at wredfright ATATAT yahoo DOTT com.

The supermarket is awash in fear
And I'm just trying to buy some groceries
Everybody's wearing a mask
Looks like they're going to be robbing the place
But they're looking at me like I'm the criminal
Because I don't have anything on my face
Joseph Goebbels would be amazed
At how quickly people today fall into line
All an authority figure needs to do is scare them a little
And they never even bother to use their minds

The whistleblower is taking up harmonica
Because there's nobody to blow a whistle to
Still plenty of people to blow a whistle on though
What's a poor whistleblower to do?
Do the right thing, and you're the one they'll send to jail
Say everything you said was just fake news
Meanwhile nobody else really gives a shit
It's enough to give a whistleblower the blues

My Bilderberg invitation must have gotten lost in the mail
That's OK; I never wanted to rule the world
I just wish people would stop taking of pictures of themselves
Long enough to realize that freedom is more than just a flag unfurled
Underneath all the corporate and government propaganda
It's hard to know what's true
But my bullshit detector is still working
And I got it pointed at you 

Written June 2020
Recorded June 2020


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