King of Beasts?

I took this picture, at great risk, in the Jerkwater Junction Municipal Park and Recreation Center. This park has been the play place for local children for many decades and is equipped with a sad collection of broken-down playground equipment dating back to the fifties . Under the stately oaks and beechnut trees the ground is littered with hypodermic needles, beer cans, broken teeth and disappointment.

Among the rusted jungle jims, monkey bars and other relics stands a plastic, yellow Merry-go-Round Lion which has withstood years of abuse from generations of white trash children and drunken teenagers. He is bolted to a base of paint-worn tread plate, forlorn and decrepit, gazing out across the dismal park with hollow, vacant eyes, a steel rod driven through his skull in a kind of blunt force lobotomy and polished by untold years of grubby fingers and runny noses.

Things worsened for the lion 1984, when a thirteen year old ruffian kicked the poor, inanimate beast’s left flank with the vengeance of pre-pubescent frustration. The blow shattered his thin, outer shell letting his very essence bleed out on to the dusty ground of Small Town Amërïkä, leaving a hollow, soulless vacuum. So here he sits to this day, like some sad figure in a Greek tragedy, his face weary and tortured. A wretched inmate, trapped forever in existential misery.

What’s up with those eyebrows?

The assembled moms watching their children at play were becoming uneasy with the bearded stranger, sitting on a park bench sipping Nyquil cloaked in a brown paper bag, like some malevolent character from a Jethro Tull tune. I figured my time spent contemplating the plight of this regal carnivorous caricature was up. I returned home to ponder my own existence.

Thursday Afternoon Beer Run & the Price One Pays for Looking Sexy

It's finally warm here in the vast RedState Midwest with temperatures in the eighties. I've broken out my summer wardrobe, feeling good and looking sexy. I went for a late afternoon beer run on my trashed-out, wrecked, and recovered Superglide, like an innocent, free-spirited, fully-circumcised schoolboy, wearing hot pants, a skin-tight wife-beater, cheap sunglasses and Budweiser trucker hat. Picked up a six pack of imported Mexican beer at the local rural liquor outlet and loaded up the sissy-bar mounted backpack ready to blast home on fumes and sweat-dropped beer-bottle condensation. As I hit the solenoid starter switch, I burned my leg on the straight pipes, leaving a small hunk of burnt flesh on the blued chrome.

I've been burning my leg on the same spot for thirty f@#kin" years, and still haven't learned not to ride in shorts.

Took the whole six pack to recover from the pain, shame and anguish.

Urban Sprawl

I knew it would come to this. These trips always have their high and lows.
Inland, Central Florida is just a flat, overcrowded turd with endless  strip malls, hot asphalt, stop lights and retail, suburban redundancy.
Miles and miles of traffic. Dismal, blue-haired drivers staring vacantly at their dashboard, pull out in front of hapless riders, like soulless, geriatric zombies, then putter down the road at twenty mph.
Octogenarians, dying manatees and bottlenosed dolphins flop on the sidewalks while estate lawyers, feral dogs and scavanging  pelicans wait patiently to dine on the nourishing, fat-laden carcasses.
Liquor stores, pawn shops and fast food outlets line the streets while leather-faced tweakers drool spittle and failure through sun-blistered lips.

Supposed to rain tomorrow.

Hump Day Honey

I think I'm in love again.

Truth

Confessions of a Seafaring Nyquil Abuser

I sometime see mice crawling across the floor where there are no mice
and smoke drifting along walls of painted flowers.

I feel the hot breath of wounded bison at my feet
and grieve for their unborn offspring.



Frequent urination has left me confused and ambivalent.

Happy Groundhog Day

Though their weather predicting ability has been greatly exaggerated, a fat young groundhog, fed on succulent clover, is very good fare. I find its delicate, gluten-free flesh superior to that of rabbit, squirrel and even some of the widely touted, wild-caught marsupial species.

Don’t overindulge, and remember; if you plan to celebrate with wine or spirits, appoint a designated driver. Groundhog Day weekend is the second deadliest Holiday on our Nation's highways and byways.

1979 KZ 750 Twin

That’s me, in an extremely gay shirt, fresh out of The United States Army in front of my parent‘s home in Los Angeles,(jealous brother standing in the background.)

I bought my first “big bike,” in Indianapolis when I got back from serving overseas. The bike was a 1979 KZ 750 and cost $1995.00 brand new in March of ’79. It was a twin and not as fast as the parallel fours,(the KZ 650 and the wicked fast KZ 900) but had plenty of torque. If you shined up that flat, vinyl seat with Armor All, got on board and hit the throttle, you nearly slid off the back of the bike.
I left in March of '79, on my shiny new sled for my next duty station, Ft. Polk Louisiana, to serve out my remaining six months. The temperature was in the thirties, but being young and dumb I took off with no windshield, a three-quarter helmet and woefully inadequate clothes. I nearly froze to death, but managed to continue by following about fifteen feet behind semi-trucks to break the wind. Really dangerous but again, young and dumb. The weather finally warmed a little when I got to Tennessee, but then rained pretty much the rest of the way. I arrived at Ft. Polk tired and wet but in one piece.
The bike was my only means of transportation for about four years. I got out of the service and rode it all over the country, including two trips to the west coast, sleeping under rest stop picnic tables and on the side of rural back roads. I wrecked it several times including a night time, road rash-inducing slide along the pavement, an eight-foot drunken drop into a ditch and finally going over the rear of a Buick in Oklahoma City when the driver pulled out in front of me.
I don’t remember how many miles I put on it, but the air-cooled Ricer went without a problem the whole time with only valve adjustments, new forks and front rim, (after the Buick incident) and countless chains, sprockets and tires.
I sold it, along with my soul, freedom and sanity, when I got married. I often search the local papers and Craigslist trying to find it, hoping to be reunited.
Maybe some day.

The Truth About Bath Salts

Bath salts gained a bad reputation after last summer’s report of a deranged man shot by Miami police while making a meal out of some homeless dude’s face. Now I'm not opposed to consensual cannibalism but I was always taught better than to misuse a cleaning product.
What many don’t realize is that bath salts have been around for over a century and have many legitimate uses. Take for example dear departed Grandmother Hermit. She was a strict Baptist and a member of the Steamfitter’s Union Local 353. Grandmother was righteous and upright, a woman of impeccable virtue. She would bristle at the telling of lies and tremble with rage at the utterance of profanity. Woe be to the child who dared use vulgarity in her presence. I can still recall the horror of being bent roughly over the Kitchen Sink Altar as a sacrificial offering to the God who abhors filthy language. The bitter taste of dirty hand soap forcibly shoved past my unclean lips in order to cleanse the palate of my iniquity. The gagging and coughing as I gasped for breath between sharp rebukes and numbing blows to the side of my head from Grandmother's swift and terrible hand of righteousness. Make no mistake, Grandma was the last person to use a product in any way other than how the Lord had intended.
Despite her charm, virtue and rock-solid strength, Grandmother had an Achilles heel along with bunions and Plantar fasciitis. To ease her aching feet she would spend her evenings sitting in the living room listening to The Lone Ranger on the radio with a bottle of Johnny Walker Red and a copy of Popular Mechanics across her lap, soaking her sore feet in a tub of warm water laced with Epsom Salts. The salts would soothe her aching bunions and cause pleasurable electrical sensations in her ankles and nipples.



That’s not Grandma in the picture, I just like the bubbles.

Abuelita Rides Again

Don't let Martha's kind face and white hair fool you. Once she hoists her arthritic leg over that saddle she'll rip out of the nursing home parking lot like Satan on bath salts. Out on the Interstate she'll free herself from the restraints of clothing and allow her bronzed breasts to flap in the breeze like the ears of a happy basset hound.