Give me 30 minutes of your time.
Scroll down my sidebar and click on KONY.
This madman has to be stopped.
Now.
Please help to make this asshat so famous that he can’t walk into a McDonald’s and order fries without being noticed.
Read his ‘Disney-like’  Wiki Page HERE
Kony needs to be taken to the Chateau Eternity.
Extra topsoil.
End of story.

~m

When I first started working in Boston nearly 8 years ago little did I know of the cast of characters that would eventually cross my path.
At the cigar store where I work I have come to believe that every day is just like Halloween.

There were people like Bill the tobacco eater.
His name will tell you all you really need to know about him. And no, I’m not lying.
Bill has always been partial to McClelland pipe tobaccos.
Don’t know why but I guess they just taste great.
Not sure how the people at McClelland would feel about that.
Bill also had the facial pallor of a year old corpse.
Maybe you’re not supposed to eat this stuff.
Then there’s Snuffers, a strange ogre-like man that snorted more nasal snuff than any human being on the planet.
During the summer months he would come into the store wearing sandals on his feet displaying brownish toenails that were not unlike box cutters.
I remember thinking that the guy could climb trees with those toenails.
There’s Mr. D who depending on the day of the week would speak with a slow southern drawl, ala Colonel Cornpone (even though he had a regular Boston accent)
On his Colonel transformation days he would call me, ‘Maakul’. [Michael]
Sounds almost exotic, doesn’t it?
D has admitted to us that he sometimes wears panty hose around the house when he’s alone.
Bet that does wonders for the property value of the neighborhood should some unsuspecting eye see him traipsing around the house wearing a sexy pair of black fishnets.
I know, TMI.

If I really thought about it I could come up with many more names of folks that should honestly be living in the Odd Fellow Home.
There’s Bucky the gap toothed hooker, Head Wound Harry and Creepy Fedora Boy and on and on.

This brings me to Mr. B.
I met him in the first month while working at the cigar store. He was an older gentleman in his mid eighties by the looks of him and was an avid pipe smoker (of the meerschaum variety), a ladies man (really) and one great joke/story teller.
On one particular visit he pulled out a magnifying glass from his old leather satchel, winked at me and said, “Watch this.”
He stepped outside of the front door of the shop into the sunshine and proceeded to light his pipe with the magnifying glass as curious passersby pointed and smiled at the most peculiar Mr. B.
There was something really likeable about the guy, endearing even.
If you didn’t know him you would swear he was deaf as a haddock but it was usually because he often forgot to turn his hearing aids on.
Before he would leave he would always tell us a joke.
In his later years he would pull out a tattered wallet for his ‘cue cards’ as his memory was slowly going south.

A Mr. B joke he once told me:

A woman comes out of the shower and looks in the mirror.
She’s real flat-chested and says to her husband ‘What can I do to make these bigger?”
The husband says, “Get a little piece of toilet paper and rub it up and down between your boobs for a month and they’ll get big.”
“What makes you think that will do it?” says the wife.
The husband says, “It worked for your ass . . . “

I wish this little story had a happy ending and who knows, maybe it does.
I found out the other day that Mr. B died a year ago in December.
He was 91 years old.
I hadn’t seen him in a while a thought about him the other day.
Google confirmed my suspicions when I found his obituary still online.
I’ll remember him for many things but mostly because he never failed to make me smile.
I have a sneaking suspicion that many people felt the same way.
Funny that I’m not calling him by his full name.
He has more videos telling his jokes on YouTube than I will ever have. [Truth]
Farewell, Norris, my old friend.
I tip my baseball cap to the ever present one on your head.
Heaven just got one hell of a cool guy.
Rock the white clouds, you sweet bastard, rock the clouds . . .

I came home from work and went upstairs to change into my oh-so-comfy ‘Cinnabun fat’ clothes.
As I took off my shirt I noticed that my armpits smelled/reaked of rotting onions.
Onions?
WTF? [how about some garlic?]
I am usually meticulous regarding my personal hygiene and stinky garbage pits make me run to the shower.
But I didn’t work out.
I didn’t work in a coal mine.
And I didn’t even stretch my legs, or even my eyebrows.
Hell, I didn’t even stir a hot chocolate from Starbucks which can require a massive amount of energy.
So where the hell did this stench come from?
Homeless shelter smell, I am not.
Tomorrow morning I will shower for twice as long.
Will it help?
Only my armpits will know.
And the previously crying people on the commuter rail home as well . . .

~m

ps. And Miss Hathaway? Nice pits . . .

This song is deeply personal to me.
Interpretation is as always a unique thing.
Jimmy Webb has inspired me for many years.
His writing style, lyrics and unmistakeable piano chords make me yearn to
write again someday.
‘Mistress’ has been recorded by many people over the years but no version gets to me like
Webb’s.
As I said, the song is embedded deeply into the tapestry of my life.
A secret and a mystery I will take to the grave.
This is the beauty of the written song . . .

Because they gave up their tomorrows, we can have our todays.
To all the men and women that have so unselfishly given of themselves, we offer a
prayer and a heartfelt ‘thank you’ for all that you have done for our beautiful country.
Although some of our freedoms are being compromised by a government that has too much power and might,
your courage and willingness to serve will be forever remembered.
To all the living soldiers abroad and all those who have sadly passed away, we are remembering you.
God Bless all in harms way.
Happy Memorial Day, folks.
As you’re stoking up your grills and icing the tall boys, look to the sky and say a small, “Thank you”.
Pax,

~m

My nephew Ryan sent me this link.
I’d never heard of Brett Eldredge before.
The story is quite simple and one that our family is all too familiar with.
‘Katherine’ mistakes Brett for her son Raymond who died in Vietnam.
As Eldredge says, “And that’s alright by me.”
For anyone coping with Alzheimer’s or working in a nursing home this song should be heard.
God bless the all the Raymond’s of this world of which there are many.
Lord knows, I used to be one . . .

Waiting to be forgiven is a lonely and melancholy place.
Taking the train to wherever might just suffice.
For tonight . . .

~m

Unconscionable
Apathy that’s palpable
As [St.] Anthony bleeds . . .

The last time I saw you, I gently closed your tired eyes and
somewhere in the lingering distance the church bells played their melancholy melody,
a dark but fitting soundtrack for the raw and rainy Tuesday night that it was . . .
I kissed your all too cold forehead and covered you with the prayer shawl they
laid out on your bed, a sign of warmth, solace and a loving, sympathetic God. [?]
The physical connection I’d come to take for granted was now severely severed, frayed and ultimately final.
I never liked the word ‘final’.
I cried, wondering why some people had to suffer so much in the endgame, like you did.
The crucifix hanging on the wall opposite your bed answered my question, I guess.
I sat next to you in silence, Pamela and me,  maybe you,  listening to the fingers of the rain tapping on your window,
the Morse Code of the Great Beyond, perhaps, beckoning.

The last time I saw you, I cried because all that was left was the ‘goodbye’.
As my heart cracked open with love, I took you into it hoping you would never leave me.
Although you got your much deserved wings, in my heart, I know you never left.
I never did either, Walter . . .  Dad.

Sweet peace, my father, the sweetest of peace.
I will see you in my dreams . . .

~m

Red Ivy, on me
disgusting, invisible
blood, splatters, body

~m