"Here comes the end...here comes the end of the world..."

Well, here we are once again!  It is Sunday morning, and I am typing from my desk at home as I prepare for another work weekend.

As you all know, Hurricane Sandy is coming, and oh, this part of the nation has gone into its regular gyrations of screwing oneself into the ground with the impending FRANKENSTORM!

I want to know who in the media came up with this latest load of ignorant shit.  They knew full well the below average population would go mad, rush out to the stores etc., etc.

Usually this happens in the winter time; from my years in Washington, and my sister will attest to it, if a snowflake even THINKS of hitting the ground, DC reacts like it's under nuclear attack.

Around here in Pennsylvania, almost the same thing.  

Just in case you wonder, here's the current Hurricane wind speed probabilities.  Reminder that a hurricane force wind is a sustained wind of 74 mph or above.

I'm not expert, but the feeling from me is that Sandy will be a tropical storm before it gets here.  The conspiratorial bullshit idea that a storm from the west will make the FRANKENSTORM could occur, but snow?  Come now; the temps are not going to fall anywhere near freezing in this area.  Upper elevations, sure, it's possible, but again it's all about whipping the senseless masses into a frenzy.

http://www.hpc.ncep.noaa.gov/qpf/zoom/hltimages.shtml

Now that's a link to projected rainfall over the next few days.  Yes, I think we're gonna get some wet weather; we may get some flooding, and some wind issues.  It happens; we survive, we wake up the next day, and we keep on going.

I will admit to making a few precautions of my own, just regular stocking up of a few things.  Better to be safe than sorry, true...BUT THAT IS WHERE OUR COMMON SENSE KICKS IN AND EVERYONE ELSE'S FLIES AWAY!

I had to go to a nearby supermarket in a shopping center of some size yesterday to pick up a prescription.  I had no need to get anything else at the moment, because I was headed to work.  It was like rush hour on I-83 or Route 30 (for those in other parts of the world...think, "Kenmore Square after a Red Sox game."  That should help.)

The store had a fair to moderate number of people buying things out, but it didn't look too bad.  Then I saw the woman rush by with a big shopping cart layered with plastic bottles of water.  Gonna be thirsty, sometime along?  The Lowes was crammed with people, the parking lot jammed up with everyone laying in their supplies for the End of the World as We Know It...

This is what everyone does...I don't know who started the "bread, milk, toilet paper" scam, but it makes supermarkets and grocery stores wealthy.  The populace, who have never known real privation (if their internet connection goes out for more than 2 minutes, they howl like raving valkyries), stock up for the BIG ONE.

Last night, I decided to drop into one near Harrisburg to pick up the extra stuff.  Two bags, all I needed; empty shelves.  No water jugs, but for two.  Cases and cases of little bottles everywhere; even the artisan and pretentious water was gone.

Yes, someone's kidney are gonna collapse, aren't they?

Didn't go down the toilet paper aisle, but it didn't look as devastated.  There was still bread on the shelves, in some sections.  I think there was a run on doughnuts, though...hmmm...

Not so many there that time of night, but it was amusing.  

I wonder if they have bunkers like we used to back in the 50's and 60's for when the Commies bomb us.  Around here, I'd not be surprised.  Make sure the AK-47's are locked and loaded, and there's five years of ammo ready, while you're at it there...I was on jury duty with a religious whackjob woman who was going on and on and on about canned water, three years of dry goods in her underground whatever...you would not be surprised to know this is "normal" around these parts.

Or do people do this, perhaps...as a big adventure?  As fun?  Maybe this is their form of fun...they don't have the life they wanted, so this is how they excite themselves.  

Being a broadcaster, how's it going around here?  The TV stations are all in their 2012 Storm of the Century mode yet again.  I'm sure they've all staked out their territory, at the markets, the Home Depots, the Lowes', the hospitals, and their favored spots by the side of the road, where the low-level wannabe reports can do their impression of Jim Cantore every 15 minutes.

Radio-wise...I can't imagine there's going to be much.  Since most stations are now automated, and on satellite programming, there is little in the way of local, real radio any longer.

The few that do have local programming (I'm talking commercial outlets here), may lay on some extra coverage and all that, but there isn't much left for actual reportage.  

There are state-oriented outlets that might do better, and in the bigger cities they have enough staff to be on top of it.  There will be some work on the NPR affiliates, but hopefully it will be measured, and not as alarmist as the rest.

Will this be a FRANKENSTORM?  I don't think so; a little discomfort, a little lost power, but oh, the wailing creatures of comfort and habit will howl if their power goes out!  Satellite dish got skewed by the wind?  OH NOOOOOO!!!  WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE...!!!

And when the power comes back on, they'll rouse themselves from their coma and be on the horn to their Congressman demanding action.  

We all do get way bent out of shape on this stuff.  It goes back to my feeling we as a nation don't have a clue about real privation or suffering, unless...you lived through a natural disaster, a real one.  Hurricane Katrina, and you were in New Orleans.  The earthquake in San Fran. in '89...the tsunami that hit Fukushima last year...that kind of thing.

We don't know what it's like to be hungry...really hungry, starving even...to have no light, heat, power, etc.  Of course we try to make people think we know, with post-Apocalyptic TV shows, movies and all that.  Most of which either does not scratch the surface or makes it all so fanciful.

We do not know, and we should not make light of it.  Somehow this mass consumption and mass buying mocks the whole thing, because we don't know when to stop.  Or shut up.

Sometimes, we do get a fascination with the weather, because we ourselves do not have anything to do.  Often that is because we're in it; we are relatively safe, but cannot do much.  

I remember the Great Ice Storm of 1998 all too well.  My then-wife and I had just moved to Maine the week before.  Layers of ice, everywhere; I'd never seen anything like it.  It was seriously dangerous; I could not even drive the short distance to the station I managed, because everything was stopped.

"Ya got powah?" was the mantra, and it was for real.  We were lucky; we did not lose it, but huge swaths of the region were knocked out.  

This was a real, serious storm.  Everything stopped.  And it stopped for days.  I think it reminded people, especially those with the short memories about nature, and what it sometimes can do.

Kaitryth and I watched the Weather Channel a lot; I admit it was fascinating to watch how the channel handled themselves. Back then, it was 24 hours of weather, not a few hours of weather, silly talk shows and fake reality shows like it is now.  What a fucking joke it now is.

Anyway, you can get drawn into that, as long as you remember where you are.  

So that being said, I foresee a storm with some significant power; we're gonna get dumped on, and we might lose some power lines, some roofs, etc.  I hope not; I never want to see that, and I don't want to see anyone lose their stuff.  But it does happen.

I do not know where I will be; I could be called to duty, or I might be about here.  If so, I suppose I'll do my own reporting and see how it all goes.

And stand back and watch the world go made for something that is a pin prick to third world residents.  Oh, it could be fun...fun indeed.

Bloodletting

I'll bet that got your attention, didn't it?  ;-)


Well, I am not sure how much of this I should even blog about, but we are all rather public individuals now, aren't we?  I also write this to let my friends know everything's cool, and not to worry about me.


Alice let me go yesterday...you can say dropped me, dumped me, broke up with me, whatever.  That's not really the case.  She has let me go because she has seen enough of me to know that I am not the right person in her life at this time, for that.


Not so much anything I've done, for we are good friends, and that does not change.  But she is the first person to either have the insight (or the balls) to say what needed to be said to me.


No one, save one unnamed person a long fucking time ago has ever really told me what I needed to know.  It is not that I'm a bad, terrible, awful person, no.  I just have "things" that need to be dealt with.


I have been well aware for nearly two years that things in my life have to change, but I have not approached them very well, not because of fear, but because I didn't even know how to begin.


Some of these are personal matters, and even I am not going to put them out here, though I may explain them later.


The feeling I have had for nearly two years is that I have become fed up with a lot of circumstances, and I am the one that must change them.  I'm not getting anywhere.  My growth has stopped.


This is not good; I know for example that the mindfulness that I have tried to live my life by is like a camera shutter:  it clicks on and off.  I don't even know it's happening.


Alice has seen between the clicks.  She also has been where I am now; she knows she can't stop what's happening to me, I have to.  


So anyway...we had this very long talk yesterday, and I know how much it hurt Alice to do it, but she had to, for her own sake. She did give me some of the tools to at least figure out where I'm going.


I'm sure...right now, someone reading this is thinking, "OMG, who is this woman that's fucking with his head?"  


That is not happening.  I'm making the decisions.  There is no guarantee that Alice and I will ever be anything more than friends, and I'm not eyeing any prize, either.  I'm eyeing what I have to do.


So yeah...on my way home, having zero sleep because I was at work at 3 am before all this...what do I do?  When you go through these things, you have all kinds of interesting and strange shit running through your brain.  All the fun emotions:  anger, depression, sadness, fear, relief even.


Well, I have strange ways of dealing with things, and I suppose I allowed my brain to take a break from it by just, as Alice said, "being good to myself" a little.


I went shopping.  Haha!  Funny, isn't it?  Actually, I did need to get some new clothes for work anyway, so that served a purpose.  I'm not a terribly frivolous person (though anyone who has seen my CD and guitar collections would say otherwise).  There was other errands to run, so I detached my brain a little from the furor to get shit done.


I also cleaned...cleaning is a good way to burn a lot of excess energy, and I needed to do it (again, if you've been to my house, you'd say that too).


The Dresden Dolls "Yes, Virginia" CD is quite a lovely soundtrack, at 11.  Go listen on Youtube if you don't know them. You will either be amused or deeply offended.


Also dug out a ton of shit in my house that needed to go...always good to clean things out.  


So that being said, there are a lot of other things I need to do.  It doesn't mean stop anything I enjoy doing or any of that...I just need to get my head together, and get rid of some things.


So yes...stuff needs to change, and it's me, mostly.  None of this is the end of my life, but I also need to move forward.  Not my writing, not my music, not anything outside of me.  It's just me.


If you don't see me or hear from me, it's not that I'm being anti-social or telling you all off, hardly that.  Just doing what I have to.


This is not your classic, "OMG, she left me and I feel like shit and I'm going to kill the bitch and I'm going to drink myself into oblivion and I'm gonna die..............whaaaaaaaa..."


FUCK NO.


I hate that shit.  That's in the movies.


Stop living like your life is one, for fuck's sake.  


Anyway...time to move on...thanks for reading, hahaha...

The Week, Stuff, the Weekend, the Super Bowl, Beth/Chip's Wedding, and the Who...

It has been a long and busy week...a new routine means getting up in the morning.  Odd, doing that after nearly 2 years of not having to.


I have been busy, very busy...TrafficTalk has kept me so in the DC area for the afternoons, and slowly we are getting a bit of traction in the blogosphere.  


Doing another mad edit of "Out Among the Stars."  It's slowly taking shape and getting a little better, but there's much more to do with it.


It's been weird, all of it...right now sitting in the Deatheria Mall parking lot while Kaitryth does her shopping.  My semi-pro driving job still exists, as her Neon is pretty much dead.  But it looks like she and Chris will save the house, so all's good.


A rare Saturday off, but there's a reason.  Tomorrow, during the sleet, freezing rain and snow promised for the day, the Silver Saturn will hopefully take me up the hill from my house to Rocky Ridge Park, where Beth and Chip will finally get married!  Oh, such fun...it won't all be "outside," but it shall be a joyous day, and we'll see lots of peeps we have not seen in too long.  Congrats in advance, you two!


Sunday, I will be working for KYW/WITF, and oh joy of joys, I get a couple extra hours, and I'll get to watch Super Bowl Ecks Ell Vee and do updates on it.  Oh joy...


I don't even care who wins this game.  I think the Steelers have the inside track to win, but the Packers have a very explosive team on both sides of the ball.  Should a great one...or a total blowout.


I do NOT care that Christina Aguifuckilera is going to moan the National Anthem, nor do I give a fuck that the Black Eyed Dimwits are doing the halftime show.  As it's at Cowboys Stadium, the running bet is Fergie will wear a Cowgirls Cheerleader outfit...that may, or may not be worth watching.  Note I said "watching."


Even more sickening...Obama will be interviewed by O'Reilly.  That will suck balls, because O'Reilly is a coward at heart and won't try to interview Obama...and Obama's too professional to tell O'Reilly that is a misogynistic dirtbag who has no moral fiber or character.  Add to it, Obama has this "I'm Cool" mentality that either makes people love him or hate him.  Who the fuck cares?


I don't.


My real life is a bit more important than all that, thank you very fucking much.


So yes...I do have to consider the making of a living again.  I'm not starving, nor in any financial trouble, thankfully.  I can hold off the bill collectors for now, and they don't have to know how I'm doing it.  My credit rating is sound, for what I don't know.  No need to buy a house, or a car or anything big.


Well, except one thing...I had been eyeing this Who box set, behind the registers at the Office for a while now, but I didn't know what it was.


Got my 40% off coupon, my Borders Bucks and my 10% off 'cause I'm there...I was first in line at checkout (lame, I know) to ask if I could see it.


Oh my...God.


Box Set, German Import of Live at Leeds, considered by many to be one of the greatest live recordings ever.


Not just the Leeds show (all of it, including all of Tommy); the Hull show that they did the next night; a vinyl reissue of the original, six-track EP; a vinyl 45 reissue of Summertime Blues/Heaven and Hell; a poster of Townshend, a 60-page book, and fuck knows what else is in there.


Got it for 50% off...yes, I rock.  And that box sure as hell will.


I've been trying also to stave off the Black Dog; it's been creeping back, but not with much success, thankfully.  Certain little aspects of my personal life it's nipping at, and I'm doing my best to keep it at bay.  


Urg.  It's not fun.  I've been doing so well for a while now.


I do realize that my personal life is not a very good one; other than I still do smoke on occasion, I think healthwise I'm all right.  I don't have the money or the incentive to do things that other people do, i.e., bars (don't drink), clubs (boring), movies (even more boring...all I see now are fucking remakes in the theatres, fuck that), and other shit people do.


Yes, I hang at the Office a lot, because it is where I can sit and read, edit, write and enjoy very well made coffee/espresso drinks for very little money and enjoy my time around the human race.


Now, we hear that Borders is facing bankruptcy.  Not total closedown mode; more like 150-175 stores may go down.  Not this one, hopefully.


Oh well...that's life in the breakdown lane, as my old radio friend Jess Hamilton used to say.  Away we go.

A Maine State of Mind...

Day 1 in Maine...well, my sister and bro-in-law were quite happy to see me, as usual.  That's good, I guess.  

Life in Maine, so different, even in comparison to PA.  Then again, I must remember my sister is like 18 years older than me.  She's the eldest of the bunch.  Her bedtime is 8 pm, but we ended up talking til 9 about stuff.  

Life in Maine...Rob went off to his studio and I've no clue what he's painting now, but I caught a glimpse of a creation that he tried to sneak through the kitchen.  Brilliant painter.  

Time now for a SHAMELESS PLUG:

http://robertwieferichartist.com/

Check it out!  The man's awesome.

Now, I'm chatting with Riz, author of the always loud and proud, "Letters from the Disgruntled Fringe," which you can also find here on the blogspot.

I'm to see her in Portsmouth tomorrow, to meet at the Friendly Toast (THE ORIGINAL) for another writer's confab.  I've also been dispatched by her and Alicia to seek out a Tim Horton's, and bring them Candy Cane Donuts.

My friend Mika has a close one in Alberta, who is a devotee of Timmie's, and sings its praises.  So we'll see.

Anyway, it's chilly but surprisingly warm (relative term) up here.  It was raining, and nearly 50 degrees (F) here last night!  Not gonna reach that today, but the sun is out.

Freeport is a very small town...the center is dominated of course by the monstrous LL Bean, and all things grow away from there.  I've made my short walk up from Susan and Rob's old Vic home to Mexicali Blues for hippie garb (new headscarf and other neat things).  Lot of outlet stores here, and much to everyone's shock...considering the town council hates all things commercial...

...A JOHNNY ROCKETS'?

In Freeport?!?

Oh well, they've got nearly everything else but a fucking Walmart, so why the fuck not?

Outlet stores are weird.  They look like the regular stores, you know, for the Calvin Klein stuff, and all these high-end snot stuff sellers.  

There is a Morebucks, a Ben and Jerry's, and a Mangy Moose.

The latter you probably don't know of.  There are only two in the world, here and in Colorado.  Great place, all things Moose.

Oh well, I have a new scene to write before I can move, and I also have to see where everyone is.  Susan is off to yet another doc's appointment, so I have no transport.  No worries, enough to do here today.

Relaxed, believe it or not, I am!  I am happy here...I miss New England, I fucking do.

Oh well...off to it.

"Sing Along with the Common People..."

Well, let's see how this works...looks pretty bold to me...a day of traveling about, taking Kaitryth on her errands.  Now that her poor old Neon has finally shit the bed for good it seems, K. has been able to run about with fellow covenmate Kera to do stuff.  


I didn't mind, as I now realize that I have so little life going for me.  No serious or unusual things, just here and there, and I got lunch at Chipotle by her...all well and good.  


K. is doing well, despite all the madness that has gone on in her life. Her new living arrangement is shaping up, and Mantas appears to be getting along well...when they get back together, don't know, but they seem to be in good positions.


Listening to Bryan Ferry's new CD, "Olympia" in the car, and a Pulp hits collection; hence the "Common People" reference.


Asked by K. about the band.  Yes, will Ahltyrra do it again?  Right now, it looks like a three-piece, perhaps a four if things go right.  Eventually we must get back to work on the music, and I am hoping to take steps in that direction soon.


New song yesterday; my first in a long while.  Need to figure the music, but I think it will be fairly basic on guitar.  Most of my stuff is; it's the band, Dan and others who have made my music richer than it was at the start.


Book stuff...after the brain-melting I went through this week to whip SDS-3 one more time into shape, I am finding my mind getting interested in a storyline that I created about two years ago.


This is going to be very different, and it's going to take a long time for me to get this to work.  It is disjointed and senseless right now, and I have to build around a series of twisted characters.  It's back to creating my own universe again.


I already tried that once, to semi-disastrous results in the 90's.  Again, I still look at the manuscript and wonder about it.


Too much else before me...I think I'll let my brain ramble on, with regard to this new thing...I have stuff in hand right now that must be dealt with.


What life I have...or not...K. asked a very good question:  "So, what do you do when you're not writing or working?"


Oh shit.


Not much; I occasionally do chores at the house, feed the cats, clean a little...fuck, not much at all.  


There is that thing..."A writer writes, always," which comes from "Throw Momma From The Train."  A terrible movie, by the way.  I was not impressed by it.  But that is a trueism.


I also recently considered this as an exercise, and I may still bring it up to the coven sometime:  Count every person you have contact with on a given day.  Anybody you speak to and/or interact with:


Some days I can count them on one hand.  That's not good, is it?


Makes you wonder...even amongst a sea of people, as I am now at the Office, we are all adrift or marooned on an island of our own making.  Some days, I need that; others, I don't.


***


Other strange things:  while we were shopping, or rather K. was, we went into a calendar shop...normally I stay away from the mall, unless I have something I have to buy specifically.  Found a classic game...Mille Borne.


Remember that game?  The French racing card game; I was introduced to this in 1987, and it had already been around 25 years.  Retro weird game; just decided to get it.  Game night with the coven might be fun again...this is a cutthroat, competitive game and is actually fun and makes you think.


***


I digress.  Must move on...get back to some of my ideas and see what other trouble I can cause today...heh.  Sing along with the common people...


...oh, btw...thank you to my friends in Europe who are reading my blog!  I think I know who two of you are, and there is another over there...much pleased to know I'm being read.  (Happy Smile...needed)