confessions of a nasal mist addict

I just have more money than talent.

A dear friend introduced me Saturday last as “a guitar collector.”  After the hair on my neck settled, I gathered my composure and let go of the paradigm.  The thought lingers like a festering wound.  I search my soul and dictionary.com to find solace and medicate my affliction.

My pain isn’t fully assuaged, but I’m getting better.  I currently own eleven guitars, all with the exception of my first, I play in regular rotation.  Most collectors don’t play their guitars, in fact some don’t even play guitar at all.  They simply accumulate.  Maybe it’s the beauty of the workmanship, maybe it’s the prowess of the prior owner or maybe it’s just a piece of history.  These guitars are stored in their cases or in a glass case and displayed like art or some materialistic manifestation of their owner’s mettle.  Their priorities are different than my own. 

I don’t exhibit the classic traits of a “collector.”  I shop for deals whether it’s e-Bay or regular retail.  That usually means dents, dings, scratches or missing parts.  A true collector turns his or her nose up at such blemishes and shortcomings. 

My choices are driven by a desire to emulate a particular sound or style, not to round out an assortment that I’ve logged into an Excel spreadsheet that with photographs is stored in my safe deposit box.  I also don’t post pictures of my guitars on geek sites dedicated to the same…geeks.  My guitars are often modified with non-OEM parts that might improve intonation, or simply produce a different sonic array.  “Artist Signature” guitars like my Gretsch Brian Setzer Nashville 6120 (the name alone was a consideration for not buying the guitar) are quickly stripped of any “name-branding” parts.  I bought this guitar and others like it solely for the tone it produces and the parts employed to do so. 

I could rattle on about those parts as well as those of my other guitars.  I’ll be the first to admit I’m a Guitar Geek, but once again I’ll remind you dear reader that of late my mission has been learning and carving out my own particular style and sound.  I have a box full of parts that have been added and/or subtracted to achieve that goal.  I’m not relying on my guitars value as a means to fund my retirement, I don’t carry extra insurance, post pictures of them on the web or trade them like baseball cards.

I play these guitars.  I’m fortunate enough to earn an income that allows me to have several as well as the modifications, amplifiers and effects toys that makes what could be work, fun.  And granted without that fun this  major mode of learning might go by the wayside.  When my talent finally exceeds or at least matches my money, then I may start collecting.  But I’ll always play and I’ll always be a player.

Now that’s a sentence worth a fifty minute hour and $175.00  I’ll get back to you on that. 

Fuck this, I’m going to the bar.

Posted in op ed head

1.       I’m deathly afraid of toothpicks, especially en masse.  I’m afraid someone will spill a box and I will inadvertently say “694” out loud.  I’m an excellent driver.

2.       When people ask me where I learned to cook I reply “In the kitchen.” That’s not my sardonic wit speaking, I learned by making a lot of mistakes.  We learn from our mistakes.   Just ask my parents.

3.       I’m a member of the 99^th Percentile, and my therapist has agreed to testify.  I pretty much know what you’re going to say before you do.  Surprisingly, this time saver always leads to punching.

4.       I don’t have any children because I can’t.  It’s a violation of my parole.

5.       Everything I know about love I learned from my dogs.  Don’t get me wrong, I like cats.  They taste a lot like chicken.

6.       I never had (or have…) any guilt about masturbation.  After all, you’re having sex with someone you love.

7.       Most of my wonder years were spent in a Catholic Nunnery and Orphanage.  Please see #4.

8.       I’m not bitter because I’m single.  Actually, it’s quite the opposite.

9.       I didn’t join Ralph’s Club for the discounts, I was just lonesome.

10.   Everything I lack I make up for in denial.

Posted in fact based on fiction

It’s been some 60 years since George O. penned “1984″ and almost 25 years since we all denied the presence of “big bro” (as it would be called in today’s vernacular); but gender aside “big bro” is alive and living.  Much to our chagrin.

A case in point(less) is Mickey D’s attempt to tell this Texan (no…I am not southern, although I spent several years in what is undoubtedly the core of the American south) that fried chicken with a biscuit is breakfast and with a bun (and maybe a pickle or two) it’s lunch.  I can honestly attest to the former being “not” and the latter being “certain.”

I’ll harken back to a few years ago during the no carb craze (a phaze we’ll all surely regret, not unlike rap music and the big hair 80′s) when KFC tried to tell us all that fried chicken was healthy.  KFC also tried to genetically engineer a three breasted chicken about the same time her sister Bella Taquito introduced a “light” menu.  Say what?  You think I’m at Taco Bell because I’m trying to lose weight?  Hell no, I’m stoned and I’m hungry.  And of course today, PETA takes issue with KFC’s memorable marketing “We do chicken right…”  I’m waxing poetically off point from my original intention, which is not attacking our fast food nation (the bastards pay my bills), but reminding you that you don’t have to be a victim.   That, like destiny, is a choice.

 When I’m driving in my car

And a man comes on the radio

Who’s telling me more and more

About some useless information

That’s supposed to drive my imagination

Thank you Mick & Keith for reining me back in. (All of life’s questions have been answered in a song…).  I strangely feel somewhat satisfied.

So whether it’s chicken in a biscuit or Techroline to clean your machine, take a cue from the aforementioned Mr. Orwell and put on your tie-dyed peace sign t-shirt and “question authority.”

Posted in op ed head

Una noche a Siete Grande…

We drank whiskey.  We laughed.  We played pool and told stories.  We dined.  We were fooled by what we thought was a Manchester accent of the north and saddened to learn it was from the southeast shores.

And I wondered if her raspy words were a permanent resident or one of post bowlage yelling.  I secretly longed for the former as I loathed the latter. 

“She has snake hips.”

“I think Hillary can bring us the change we really need, Obama’s all smoke and mirrors, he doesn’t have the experience to execute.”

“So, I’ll bet she knows how to do the snake dance.”

“Hillary?”

“Ken Bob…you’re not sharing.”

“No, the waitress.”

“What? The waitress knows Hillary?”

“No fool, the snake dance.”

“Hillary does the snake dance?”

“I have issues with sharing, it all has to do with Sister Mary Margaret and my time at the Sisters of the Sacred Heart Orphange and Nunnery.”

“Is she the one who hit you with the cane when you sang that song?  How did it go?  Something like “Jesus doesn’t love me, this I know ’cause the Rabbi told me so…”

“Yeah, she’s the one and that’s the tune.  Make sense now?”

“Say three Hail Mary’s and five Our Fathers.”

“How about a Praise the Lord and Pass the Mescaline?”

“Whadda you mean change?  I thought you were paying with a credit card.”

“Change comes from within.”

“Besides, you work for LAUSD.  Whadda you know about change?”

“It’s like the old ‘How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb?  Only one, but the bulb’s gotta wanna change.”

Posted in fact based on fiction

i never let morals and ethics get in the way of doing what’s right.

last night a very dear friend possed one of those imposing questions lightly laced to the left with a little judeo christian judiciousness.  not one to pose questions of rehetoric i sensed he was longing for engaging conversation.

“so you wake up one morning and some guy in a big white house in washington says you have to report here for eight weeks of training where we’re gonna teach you to shoot bullets and kill somebody with a bayonet. THAT REALLY SUCKS, DOESN’T IT?”

i softly responded with a yes, but “… i think we have a responsibility to protect our country.  i’m okay if someone has a moral or ethical dilemma with killing and i’m a big believer in conscientious objection.  but the alternative of no military would be the end of our freedom.  our country does best when we’re fighting for something and it doesn’t have to be war…how about the civil rights movement, or even fighting against war.  and we must fight for our freedom too.  but doing nothing is a free ride on freedom’s coat tails.

we went on to trade stories of days of yore, our respective draft registrations in the 70′s and that fateful moment in ninth grade social studies when i realized that within a short three years i might be in viet nam because the college deferment program had been, well, deferred.  i offered that if i had drawn a low number in the draft i would have joined just so i could chose which branch and maybe my role; but that i was not opposed to being the boy with the button for the bombs, belaying my bayonet or bouncing a few bullets off my fellow man.

i’m no john bircher and i’m about as far left of the religious right as you can get.  however, i tend to vote conservatively and hold similar ground on social and fiscal matters.  but i’m also a proud card carrying member of the ACLU and believe there’s beauty in democracy’s imperfections.  everything has its balance.

if someone else doesn’t want to be the bad boy (or girl…) in bumfuque no-mans-land that’s okay.  but if the government sez you gots to go, lets go.  and when we’re in basic we’ll both learn to march and salute, we’ll both get physically fit.  when the time comes for me to go to the practice range, you can go mess around in the mess or motor pool.  maybe the day will come when your driving me to the front or feeding me when i’m hungry, that’s your part. 

and i’ll do my part by risking my life defending your freedom to make that choice.

Posted in op ed head

all the world is a tuxedo and i’m a pair of brown shoes…

somewhere along the path, perhaps when i came to the fork in the road less travelled and took it, i unconsciously chose to walk to the beat of my own drum.  which by its very nature is different.  frosty berra cliches aside, i’m different than 99% of the people i meet.

at least that’s what the doc i paid $300/hour said.  jungian theorist, a lifetime subscriber to myers-briggs type indicators. yo ken bob, you an  intj.  off the chart j, significant nt combo meal in my mind and archetype i.  i battled his alphabet soup diagnosis, almost as much as i battled the side effects of his prescriptions.  the dreams were great, but that twitchin’ & bitchin’ cost me too much sleep and a few friends.

so i bought a hot tub and regularly embellish it with the occasional eighth or quarter and a shot of basil-h.  i bought a bunch of guitars and listen to my good friend nico rhetorically question me, crunch cake crumbles around my lips: “…are you taking good care of your self?”  i respond with a borrowed a line from Tom: “oh my my, oh hell yes, honey put on that party dress.  by me a drink, sing me a song, take me as I come cause I can’t stay long.”

my last dance used to come from the bourbon beating i took every time i woke up in echo park.  but homey don’t play that no more.  she weren’t no good for me no ways.  i’ve replaced that source of dysfuktion with a few trips to el mercado de roberto, a vox ac-30 and a little dance with delillo’s underworld, or turning a few pages of keats, shelley & yeats.  that’ll put any man back a few steps, set eem on the straight an’ narrow, walkin’ god’s path.

god’s path…my road travelled, uh-huh, yeahhh…sure.  oh yeah, mmm-hhh, you betcha, darn tootin’. totally.  after all, i’m really just a mutant hamter…with brown shoes.

Posted in fact based on fiction

i’m pissed at nabisco.

rat faced bastards.  some things are just best left alone.  like the packaging of “Milk’s Favorite Cookie“.  assholes.  couldn’t leave well enough alone, oh no…some packaged goods dweeb and his or her new mba is phuqing with me and one of my favorite institutions.

and it’s gonna put me in an institution.

i’m not sure exactly when it happened but sometime over the last little while Nabisco (for the uninformed that’s the National Biscuit Company, more aptly named Nabastardco in my feeble mind…) has in their infinite wisdumb chosen to change the packaging of Oreo’s.

and to add insult to injury they’ve strategicly placed a dose of what surely must be some misguided judeo christian inspired judgment in the form of a stop sign graphic with instructions to “Open with Pull Tab on top!“…and even jacked up the judgment with an exclamation point. 

aaaarrgggh.  moo-te fu-kay.

the pain continues with a new logo in those cloud-puffy letters and more do-this-don’t-do-that instructions all under the guise of providing me with a product that stays fresh longer. 

Snack ‘n Seal

Keeps cookies fresh! 

SEALED Slit appears when opened

Lift  EASY OPEN PULL TAB

stfu…you korporate kweers.  i may be under the influence of America’s Favorite Herb, and that’s what’s probably led me to the aisle at the ghetto ralph’s on lincoln at 10:30 on tuesday night, but i don’t need help in opening a bag i’ve been opening by myself since the latter part of the  50′s. and what’s up with this petroleum based plastic container inside?  where the hell is that lovely brown corrugated cardboard divider i’ve come to love so dearly?  now i’ve got more work to do taking the time to sort your recyclable from the rest of the crap in my trash can.

besides, i liked it better when the cookies got a little bit stale. that way when you dunk them in cow juice they soak it up a little more and i get to enjoy that little magic moment when the cookie lands on my tounge and gets pushed up to the roof of my mouth dissolving to hit every tetrahydracannibal tweaked tastebud in my mouth.

oh no…now they’re fresher…and that means i’ll be picking cookie out of my teeth for two hours when historically that big gulp of cow juice that cleansed my pallete also washed the excess from between my choppers.  are you in cahoots with the dentist?  is this a plot even bigger than the kennedy assasination?

hey…nabastardco, take a lesson from Phoster Phuqin’ Pharms.  they’ve dumped their styrofoam pallettes for individually packaged portions.  brilliant.  now the famous chicken wing weekends my dogs have come to love are more efficient and not only do i not have to feel guilty about the styrofoam packaging in my trash, i also don’t have to use another petro product in the form of the plastic bags i was using for freezer storage.

i guess that’s the yen & yang of packaged goods.

Posted in early wordz