I was in attendance at your performance Friday night in downtown Fort Worth at the opulent Bass Hall. We met briefly in the lobby when you did your meet-and-greet; I stood patiently in a long line, got you to autograph your book “Nothing Sacred” as well as one of your DVDs and all I could spit out were the words: “Thank You Sir”.

We shook hands, I gathered my autographed swag and moved along towards the hall’s exit. You looked tired and exhausted after your performance and there was a long line of other people waiting behind me, so saying anything else to you seemed selfish at the time.

Ever had someone insult you and then later after it didn’t matter you thought of the perfect come-back? I’m sort of having that feeling now.

How does a man say “I love you” to another man without coming off as gay? But I do love you.

Under the guise of being a stand-up comedian, you stand up on stage night after night and speak more unabridged TRUTH than any politician could ever lie about speaking.

Your words slice through the hypocrisy, lies and utter bullshit the rest of us shrug off daily.

I know you are a busy man; you have little or no time for Twitter, Facebook or reading insignificant pathetic little blogs such as my own and you will in all likelihood never read these words but I want to put them Out There anyway. Someday the world will view you with the same esteem as the late great George Carlin or Mark Twain, but until that day arrives and at the risk of repeating myself I just want to say once again:

Thank You Sir

I’ve been letting the website slip on my priorities list; haven’t updated since November and the pangs of guilt are just now clawing on the screen door to my mind. Or is that the cat wanting in?

December 2011 was a busy month for me; someone or something was constantly demanding my time and attention and now it’s New Years Day once again. Everyone is asleep, the stores are closed and my neighborhood is as silent as a crypt outside this morning. And on the first morning in a week when I didn’t have to get up and go somewhere I find the solace to sit at my well-worn keypad and type.

So now what?

I don’t really have any File23 “exclusive” breaking news or bombshell to lay on you today, so if that’s what you’re waiting on you might as well go back to Facebook, Reddit or that porn site you spent so much of 2011 on right now. But according to the Mayans calendar the world is supposed to end this year in either October or December depending on who is doing the interpreting of their calendar. The Mayans certainly aren’t around to explain it, but there are lots and lots of individuals out there who are ever so happy to jump on the bandwagon and explain it.

I don’t have an answer to this that is either going to reassure you or capable of igniting panic-stricken riots. A few months ago Jesse Venturas “Conspiracy Theory” show on TruTV broadcast this episode that I gotta confess upset me enough to the point of not being able to sleep the night it was shown:

I know a few individuals who are sitting on huge caches of guns and ammo waiting on some real-life ROAD WARRIOR scenario to happen as if they will be the lucky ones driving around in a hijacked Mustang or Dodge Challenger scavenging for food and gas and as if they would be the only armed individuals running around out there.

I suppose they think will be the first ones to break into the local WalMart or Target or perhaps they think they will take over a local shopping mall ala DAWN OF THE DEAD and I presume they think they will be the only persons fully armed and prepared for this apocalypse scenario. Even if they live in some secure fortress-type setting, how long do will it take for them to get tired of eating MREs or to simply get weary of sitting in the dark with no TV, stereo or Internet? They might well just wind up sticking that gun barrel in their mouths and pulling the trigger due to boredom.

How much water do you have stored? We all use a lot of it daily just to flush the toilet or take an occasional shower. Ever tried to pick up a five gallon can of anything liquid? It’s very heavy, just like ammunition.

A 500-round box of .22 caliber bullets is called a “brick” for a very good reason; it’s as heavy as a real brick. How much ammo can you REALLY carry on your imaginary MAD MAX trek across the country? Not to mention the combined weight of an AK47 and a shotgun on top of a backpack of personal possessions. Those types of scenarios look great in the movies but would only crumble along with the rest of the world.

The rich elite powers that be might just decide to wipe the entire slate clean with a few well-placed nuclear explosions while they are safe and secure thousands of feet below the surface of the earth in converted missile silos or inside of a hollowed out mountain.

Los Angeles, New York, Chicago… all gone in a matter of seconds. No hoards of wandering hungry refugees to be a burden to anyone anymore; they would all be reduced to shadows. A memory.

Me, myself and I would all like to think that this is a Y2K-type hype meant to swell the coffers of your local Cabelas, gun stores etc and nothing more. The End of the World I predict will become a temporary Big Business. Or maybe there is something to it. Or maybe we will all laugh about it this time next year; I sure hope so. In the meantime I will just leave you with THIS little track record of failed End Times predictions:

http://www.religioustolerance.org/end_wrl2.htm

And in the meantime I suppose I should say Happy New Year to you. I hope it is…

But try to ignore it as I may, I had a moment this morning that reminded me of how easy I had it. Actually more than one.

It started for me personally even before I woke up; I had a nightmare last night. A ne’er-do-well ex-friend of mine had moved back in with me; a genuine friend of mine gave him the moniker “the tar-baby” and it fit. This guy was a career mooch; always standing around with his hand out, always needing a place to stay and always had a sob story that would just break your heart. In my dream last night he had taken several valuables of mine and moved out while I was at my job.

I woke up in a sweat, angry and ready to go shoot this person; as I laid in bed I went from the dream stage and slowly woke up and realized gradually that I was upset over nothing. None of this had really happened; I fortunately hadn’t even had to speak to this guy in years. Everything was okay; relax…

Got up, dressed and went to my kitchen and fixed a pot of coffee. Fed my cat then went into the front yard to get the paper. And was the paper there; it was three times the size of our Sunday edition.

As I picked it up the weight of it made me picture the newspaper carrier having to pitch one of these after another onto porches while driving on this chilly morning with one window open. Made my left arm and shoulder hurt to even think about that one. The paper was one-fourth newspaper and three-fourths large clumps of raw advertising.

I got to sleep late this morning and wake up without the irritating chirp of the alarm clock; my newspaper carrier didn’t have that luxury. This reminded me of the unpaid bill from them I had laying on my desk in the living room; I made a mental note to pay that damn thing.

I usually take my sheets to the laundromat on Friday or Saturday, but I decided to take them in this morning and do it so (A) I wouldn’t have to be on the road on Black Friday and (B) they were predicting rain on Friday. An Asian family runs the laundromat I use; I just assumed they couldn’t care less about our holidays and would be open. After all they always struck me as being pretty work-driven people. I loaded up my truck and drove to the laundromat only to find it dark and with a “CLOSED NOV 24” sign in the door. Guess I assumed wrong…

As I drove back home I noticed I was getting low on gas just as I was driving up on a Conoco station whose dumpster I had only used about a million times on the way to the laundromat. Noticed his lights were on; he was working on Thanksgiving Day. Felt a twinge of guilt about the million or so times I had used his dumpster and pulled in and put $20 in the tank and got that money order for the paper carrier. The gentleman on the other side of the bullet-proof glass was from some indiscernible origin; Middle East somewhere I guessed from his accent but he wished me a Happy Thanksgiving which I returned to him. Pumped my $20 in the tank and drove out of there feeling somewhat vindicated.

Everyone on my Facebook page was either complaining about Thanksgiving or wishing each other a happy one. This could be the last Thanksgiving I spend with my Father for all I know; I’m going over to my family’s house with the best attitude I can muster up about the whole ritualistic pattern to it. But I am thankful; my life’s had its ups and downs and I can’t thank or blame anyone but myself either way. I’m currently and unashamedly comfortable with Thanksgiving; I’ve quit hating it and have learned to accept it. And nightmare or not last night, I’m thankful for not having to awake to the sound of that alarm clock….

Two months ago I was packing a suitcase and getting ready to leave town for nineteen days. Over eight months of planning had gone into making those nineteen days happen. For nineteen days I tossed my usual life aside and lived like a whole different person. I walked into restaurants wearing a tie, stayed in four-star bed-and-breakfast resorts, sailed on the open seas amongst Orcas big enough to take a bite out of the boat I was in. For nineteen days I left my cares behind lived a much simpler life; breaking my routine once in a while is much more than a good thing, it’s a great thing.

Eight months of planning, nineteen days and nights and then I went from driving roads carved into snow-capped mountains back to Texas overnight. The differences between the US and Canada hit me hard from the nineteen days of not talking to or having anything else to do with one solitary policeman in Canada to being hassled by the LAPD in the LAX airport for the heinous crime of taking photos. LA- a city with a multi-billion dollar porn industry where warthogs like Ron Jeremy can become millionaires for doing it with 18-year-old girls wearing braces but if I pull out my Canon at the airport I’M causing problems? Screw you LA: I’ll be back to spend my precious tourist dollars there real soon.

Left the grocery store the other day without my safety belt on and got about two blocks out of the parking lot when here came the red and blue flashing lights accompanied by a siren. And don’t even get me started on those damn red light cameras; I didn’t miss seeing those things one little bit. But the differences between the US and Canada hardly end there.

There’s the trash everywhere here; that one’s really getting to me since I came back. When I go for a walk around my neighborhood I can fill up a plastic grocery sack with aluminum cans in mere minutes. Mind you it’s not like I would eat off the streets of Vancouver but when I go for a walk here I am utterly appalled at how people here fling beer, energy drink and soft drink cans around like it’s their God-given right. And those at least I can sell by the pound; what really disgusts me are the tons of plastic bottles, and other litter I see all over the place. Despite any criticism I have of America it’s still my home and I take more pride in it than to drive down the street tossing trash out the window; is locating a trash can or open dumpster THAT difficult? What little trash I saw on the sides of the road in Canada I would wager was tossed there by tourists and not the people who live there.
And it would be really nice to walk through a parking lot without seeing a used diaper wadded up into a stinky ball and left for someone else to pick up, especially if its within visual sight of a trash can or dumpster (which they usually are) I didn’t see that sort of thing once the entire nineteen days I was in Canada.

When I left Texas August 19th the state was in the grip of a record-breaking heat wave. While I was gone 90% of the state was in flames; wild-fires were burning out of control and being fought by volunteer fire departments (as if they had nothing else to do) Meanwhile our Governor was flying around the country campaigning for President.

When asked about what he was doing about the fires his response was: “Texas can burn without me” All he had to do to make the yokels forget about that arrogant remark was crack a stupid joke about gun control and using both hands (“Hyuk!”) Gawd forbid our Governor should put together some kind of socialist state fire department but then again they paint those fire engines red for a reason…
If your typical Texas wasn’t such a slack-jawed, slope-browed knuckle-dragging Troglodyte they would have been organized a recall campaign and gotten rid of this useless, self-serving piece of office furniture; this is just another reason I don’t want to live here anymore.

The night I flew back in a fierce wind was blowing from the south; my yard was full of trash and dead leaves, and both of my cats were visibly pregnant. But no one had broken in and cleaned out my house for me while I was gone so things could have been worse. I had ONE day to relax then it was back to my menial job. The next day I had to cough up my rent as well as the cash for four utility bills.
When I am standing in front of one of my machines at work, I daydream and hard. I think of sitting on a balcony overlooking the ocean and drinking a cup of tea. I think of watching a whale breach the surface of the ocean, or watching a bald eagle fly over me. I think about sinking my teeth into a Tim Hortons BLT breakfast bagel. I think about waking up next to Someone Special and putting my arm around her. And I’m working over-time so I can make these things happen again.

Two months ago today I was running around like a chicken with its head cut off trying to get ready to leave the country for two weeks. Packing and re-packing my suitcase, rounding up my passport, shoving books into a back-pack etc. It was a hundred degrees in the shade, I was running the air conditioning non-stop. Two months later the trip has been taken and I am right back in the same rut I was before I left.
Get up, brew coffee, make a sandwich, go to work…get off work, cash my check, pay the bills, eat dinner, go to bed. God what a routine.

The only difference between now and two months ago is the temperature has gone down a bit and it’s rained a couple of times.  Sometimes my life seems like those repeating backgrounds in old Hanna-Barbera cartoons.  I just want the background behind me to turn into Canada and keep it that way….

(click photos to enlarge)

August nineteenth I got on a jet at about 7am and left the hundred-in-the-shade Hades-like climate of Texas and a few hours later stepped out into direct sunlight in Vancouver and a temperature plunge of no less than forty or fifty degrees.

After three straight months of 100+ temperatures I had forgotten what actual green vegetation and water that wasn’t evaporating right in front of your eyes both looked like. Trees, plants and animals that weren’t dying from dehydration as you watched; these things still existed? Blue skies, blue water and green grass and trees?

For two weeks I ate from a combination of four-star restaurants and as well as out of a picnic basket, we stayed in three different bed-and-breakfast lodges / resorts and gave the horrible other fifty weeks of my life the slip in a major way. I flew thousands of miles from home with no cellphone or laptop,armed with just $200 in American cash, $400 in Canadian currency, one credit card and an ATM card.

I traveled by jet, train, bus, a ferry (and other assorted boats) and automobile. Went to places on The Island with “K” we had never gone before with names like Comox and Telegraph Cove and explored rain forests, beaches, waterfalls and rocky cliffs. We saw bald eagles, deer, orcas and hump-backed whales, sea lions, river otters and even a black bear. Woke up more than once to the sounds of seagulls or geese and one morning in particular at 4am, a tsunami warning because of a 7.1 earthquake off the west coast of Alaska.

Did some of the scariest highway driving I’ve ever done in my life this time around. Drove  through a dense fog on unlit narrow two-lane  roads  and on another night was driving  more unlit, and pretty much unmarked winding curving two lane roads carved into steep cliffs. People were rocketing around me on blind curves like I had a flat tire because I was driving the speed limit. I just KNEW I was going to see someone being taken out. But I have no regrets about those two weeks other than I wish they lasted longer.

I ate poutines ( fried potatoes with cheese and gravy), my first ever bison burger and hand fulls of wild blackberries straight off of vines growing right off the side of the road. Drank gallons of Tim Horton’s coffee, Tazo tea and an occasional Coke (we kept a case of bottled water in the trunk of the car).

I witnessed Canada’s medical system in action first hand as “K” developed an itchy red left eye that got progressively worse and I drove her to an “after hours” clinic that was open from 4pm to 9pm. We had to wait a couple of hours but a doctor did examine her and prescription eye drops were waiting for her in about 15 minutes at a local pharmacy. An eye specialist showed up the next day at a hospital (on a Saturday morning mind you) just to examine her eye again.

We walked through rain forests where ancients trees lay fallen and new trees were growing right through them. The vegetation would be so thick it was like shutting off a light switch; the sunlight would be cut off almost instantly as we walked deeper into the forest. Like I child I would climb across huge boulders to take a photo of a waterfall or a flowing stream. Climb down a rocky cliff and then scratch my head how to get back up to where I climbed down from.

We walked down the main streets of small towns that were as hip, trendy, cool and as weird as Austin wishes it was. Dread-locked young men rode by us on mountain bikes and skateboards, heavily tattooed and pierced girls with cellphones walked by us while we ate at a Cafe next door to a movie theater that had been closed since 1957 and every building on the street looked like it dated from the 1930s.

The sunrises and the sunsets both equally warranted fishing out my Canon, sometimes I would take a new shot every few minutes as the sky changed colors. Blue sky. Pink sky. Purple sky. Red sky…

We would find something to wonder at every time we went for a a walk. “Wonder what’s over here?” could lead to an all-afternoon hike down a path through the woods or down a rocky beach next to a flowing river. Ever been to a Chinese/Japanese cemetery? Neither had I until we drove past a sign for one; we stopped and marveled at the intricate tombstones.

For two weeks each and every day held a new surprise for us. Some things cost money, others were free…but as long as those two weeks took to arrive, they passed quickly. A little too quickly. Before either of us wanted to admit it, it was soon time to re-pack the suitcase and say Goodbye.

Getting on the ferry and turning my back on “K” and Canada wasn’t any easier this time around. The morning I left on the ferry was a beautiful morning with a majestic sunrise. The flags were all flying half mast for the recent passing of Jack Layton. The entire country was mourning the death of the man who led their Democratic Party and stood up for the working man. I got on the ferry and left Canada and its beauty behind me.

My flight included a layover at the Los Angeles LAX airport. The news on the airport monitors was Texas On Fire and Governor Rick Perry traipsing around the country running for President; not one word about Jack Layton, however. One week before the ten year anniversary of 9/11 America’s flags were flying tall from the top of the poles.

My gate at the airport was within not one but two Starbucks and not anything as edible as an InAndOut in sight. I walked into the Hudson News and saw a whole wall of books by Guy Fieri and Paula Dean; I was starving to death and they were NOT what I needed to see. Looking out the terminal windows bored, I snapped a few photos of the LA sunset and some colorful clouds.

Was sitting and reading when the two uniformed LAPD cops approached me; it was about 30 minutes before my flight started boarding. “Would you mind stepping this way, please?” I gathered my two carry-ons and we walked away from the other passengers. No room with the someone strapping on an elbow-length glove, but they walked me over to a wall. Had to answer numerous personal questions for a full 25 minutes and let them search me and my bags simply because I quite legally took a few photos in the terminal. Let them go through the pics I took and offered to delete any photos they were uncomfortable with. As my flight started to board they finally seemed convinced I wasn’t a terrorist, thanked me for my “co-operation” (as if I had a real choice) and allowed me to board as the other passengers eyed me suspiciously.

“Welcome back to America” I thought as I slumped down into my seat and wondered to myself exactly why I bothered to come back. Looked out the window just in time to see the airliner flying right through a completely circular rainbow.

After what I had just been through I wanted to think this was an omen of better things to come….

Work was an endurance test this week; just getting through forty hours keeping a straight face and not going just out-right bat-shit crazy was nothing less than torture. Sunday I cooked pinto beans in a mixture of barbeque sauce and molasses and Monday through Wednesday this week I ate my own pinto bean burritos . Heated flour tortillas on a pan on the stove and shredded the beans into a pulp with my food chopper, then heated them on the stove. They were actually pretty good with some lettuce, chopped tomatoes shredded cheese and salsa mixed in with the beans and rolled up in the heated tortillas.

But by Thursday afternoon I had racked up forty hours and to my relief they didn’t ask me to come in on Friday; I sprinted out to my truck in a hurry to get out of there. It was 108 degrees that afternoon according to the local AM news radio station as I sped down the freeway and it felt every degree of it. It has become a daily practice to fill my insulated coffee mug with ice water before I leave work; it’s the only way to survive the drive home this summer. Dinner was already on my mind when I pulled into my driveway, but that wasn’t happening until I took a shower first.

After a nice cold shower I fixed a glass of tea and inventoried my dinner choices. As usual the good stuff was still frozen (forgot to pull out the roast again; whoops) Three frozen chicken breast dinners were staring me in the face; I could thaw them outside I guess…what else do I have? I had an entire box of Angus hamburger patties and buns but no fresh lettuce and tomatoes. Still had beans but was out of fresh tortillas; but then I spotted a package in the back of the fridge that I had picked up as an impulse purchase earlier in the week: a five ounce beef filet wrapped in bacon.

Further inventorying revealed I just happened to have a big baking potato. Instantly I turned my oven to 450 and located a roll of aluminum foil. Split seconds later it was wrapped and in the oven; now to go outside and start a fire in the grill. Insert the sound of screeching brakes here; this is the point my enthusiasm hit the brick wall. According to my porch thermometer it’s 105 degrees and that’s in the shade, mind you. Shit! Am I crazy? Am I insane? What kind of mallet-headed moron is out starting a nice hot fire in this heat? THIS kind of moron; that’s who. Well a hungry moron anyway; I’ve got a steak to cook.

I took a phone and a large glass of tea outside with me and put on my sunglasses. Took a deep breath and opened the door. The heat hit me in the face like a punch; my air conditioning had spoiled me. Felt like I had crawled into the oven with that baked potato. Unlocked my storage bin and dug out the charcoal and put some into my grill and soaked the coals with starter fluid. Tossed a handful of hickory chips on top of the coals, put the lid on the grill and bolted back in the house. That was about all I could take of being outside; forgot the matches anyway.

The ten cubes of ice I had in my glasses had melted into tiny little lumps in mere minutes; I poured the entire glass of watered-down tea down my throat and took another deep breath. Found my box of wooden kitchen matches and poured another glass of ice tea and got some fresh ice out of the freezer. Took another deep breath and opened the Door To Hell once again. Wham! The heat was relentless; even at 8pm it was still over a 100. Stepped outside, squinted then lit a match and touched it to the coals.

The flames leaped up into my face, then turned to heat; guess I used enough starter fluid. Forgetting I lived in a duplex for a moment, I made the Frankenstein Monster noise as the flames jumped up towards me and flailed my arms like Boris Karloff. My Indian neighbor next door looks around the corner at me from the carport on his side confused: “Are you alright?” My attempt at explaining the joke to him goes nowhere the longer I try to explain it to him. “Okay I was just asking” as he understandably disappears back around the corner.

Mortified, I return to the grill and dump another handful of hickory chips to the fire. The coals are turning white around the edges; the fire seems to be starting alright. I bolt back in the house to my glass of ice tea and the creature comfort of my air conditioning. We are in the thirty-something day of 100+ degree temperatures and about the break the 42-day record of 1980. Back inside I unwrap the filet from its packaging and put it into a bowl and sprinkle it with Adobo seasoning and soak it in Worcestershire sauce and put it back into the fridge. Then I take a big gulp of tea and go back outside to check the fire.

The hickory chips I put on the fire are blazing; looks like a good bed of red coals are getting started. No point standing around out here; go back inside and screw around on the computer for a few minutes and drink more green tea, then take the steak back out there a few minutes later. A good red/white bed of coal await me and the steak; dump the steak on the grill and it makes a satisfying sizzling noise. The smell of cooking beef fills the air almost instantly; I close the lid to the grill and head back to the house.

I’ve cooked these filets before and have always found them challenging. They are a thick cut of beef and it is a fine line between rare and burnt black. The bacon wrapped around them makes it hard to tell if the meat is cooked all the way through. Tonight I am going to do this right and keep and eye on this; going to flip it every three minutes. And oh yeah; I forgot to set the timer…whoops. Run back outside and check the filet. Flip it over; not burnt but just starting to look cooked. Another couple of minutes on the first side wouldn’t hurt. Go back inside and forget to turn on my kitchen timer again. The phone rings. “Hey man what are you doing?”

“Cooking a steak” I reply as I hang up the phone. Hey what’s that smell? Smells like….steak…oh shit… Bolt back out the door, open the lid and flip the filet over. Good news: it’s not only NOT burnt, but it looks delicious. Whew! Close the lid and go back inside. This time I actually remember to set the timer for three minutes. This soon turns into a routine: flip the steak. Go back inside and drink tea. Go back outside; flip the steak. Repeat…A few minutes later the steak appears cooked but not burnt and the bacon wrapped around it begins to fall off. I can see the steak appears to be cooked the way I like it with no pink visible. Stick a fork in it and put it on a plate and bolt back inside.

Dig out the potato from the oven and slice it open. Then I put butter, salt, pepper and shredded cheese on it and let it melt as I slice up the steak. The steak is perfectly cooked; I have outdone myself this evening. A little Heinz 57, put a piece in my mouth and chew. Yum…..

This week may have sucked during its best moments, but tonight I have a new Best Moment. This is the one that was worth working its way up to. The one that made the entire week worth living. No beans for me tonight. Its Steak and Tater Night….

Gotta admit you had me fooled. I thought you were the company owner; you sure carried yourself as such.  Always out of the office and out on the floor a few minutes before breaks and lunch to see who was working and who wasn’t. And oh the way you were always walking around with that I-Phone pressed to your ear: “Oh look at me; I’m so much more important than the likes of you. See? I’m on the phone!”

Yes you were certainly the Cock Of The Walk.

When it was announced that we had new owners (AGAIN; like this was something new) and you came over to where I was working and started bitching at me because I wasn’t Doing It The Way We Did It Back East I knew locking horns with you was inevitable.

Oh I made my best effort: I smiled when I felt like kicking you in the crotch with a steel-toed shoe. I called you Sir when I felt like calling you an asshole. I showed up for work every day before sunrise when it would have been so much easier to ignore that alarm clock and roll over and go back to sleep. I groaned through your boring-as-church meetings (which were nothing short of an endurance test) without telling you how much your voice sounds like Lewis Black imitating Jerry Lewis.

And I certainly don’t think I’ll ever forget the day you chose to wave a part that I messed up around at everybody during a meeting and just had to inform the entire company that “this was scrapped by the water jet operator”  Oh you didn’t mention me by name but everyone knew who you were referring to. You displayed all the tact of a “Denver boot” that day. But you sent more than one message to the entire shop; I’m pretty sure that if anyone there had any doubts about you being a prick those doubts got laid to rest.

If you had a problem with my job performance I guess it would have been beneath your dignity to…oh I don’t know…say… come talk to me about it. You know like I’m a adult. Or a person. You know; talk to me Man To Man.

Not rag on me in front of the entire company like we’re in goddam middle school.

Then they rounded us up this morning to announce you were No Longer With The Company. Well golly gosh gee…what a loss! Oh I’m sure the REAL owners will replace you with someone even more annoying if that’s possible, but I’ll miss YOU like that flat tire I had once on the Airport Freeway at 5pm. Or that lump my hernia caused. Or as much as I miss Bush & Cheney being in the White House.

But that’s okay. I’m an adult. I will move on. I’ve been with the company for over 20 years; I’ve withstood a whole zoo’s worth of owners and their inner circles of lackey and toady sub-management. To me it’s just like riding out a storm. This too shall pass. Ho hum….

Maybe someday we’ll run into each other again.

And whatever happens after that…well…you can’t fire me anymore.

See this thermometer?

I’ve got this mounted in an upper corner of my carport in the shade; the sun never directly shines on it. And no this photo hasn’t been enhanced in any way; it’s over one hundred in the shade. (click the photo to enlarge it) It’s been like this every day this month; we are close to breaking the record.

When I drive home in the afternoons from work I can SEE the heat hanging like a London fog hanging over the paved concrete of the freeway. Even when nature attempts a summer storm the heat slices it like a butchers knife and the rain splits north and south of where I live. I haven’t had to mow once this summer; my yard is brown and the grass crunches under my feet like spilled breakfast cereal.

My air conditioner is working overtime; on the weekends I get up early so I can shut it off and open up the house for a few brief hours. This gives the AC unit a rest and save just a little on my electrical usage. The house next door to me keeps the sun from directly shining on my house until about 9am so every weekend for a few hours I open up the house and drink coffee until it gets too hot. That’s when I throw in the towel, close the doors and turn the AC back on.

In the photo below is both the way I survive this heat and possibly the only thing I do like about our Texas summers: sun tea brewed with Wild Sweet Orange Tazo tea.

It takes just mere minutes out in the direct sunlight before the water starts looking like tea; sometimes I will leave it out for two days and it gets really brewed to the point I almost need pot holders to pick it up. Then I have to put it in the fridge over-night or it will melt ice cubes as fast as I put them in a glass with it.

There IS one more thing I like about living in Texas during the summer now that I think about it:

The ability to fly away from it….

I live within a mile of where the city puts on a gala month-long event each June called the Concert In The Garden. They put up a stage in the Botanical Gardens near where I live and sometimes they have regular bands (Old 97s, Asleep At the Wheel) and more often cover bands ( an Elvis impersonator, a band that does Eagles covers, a Led Zepplin cover band, a Beach Boys cover band etc.) and other nights they have the whole city orchestra over there playing either classical music (1812 Overture with real cannons) or movie themes (Superman,Star Wars etc) Oh and Hey City Of Fort Worth – I’ve got an idea for a budget cut; hire Dread Zepplin and give the Led Zepplin and Elvis impersonators their pink slips? That way you can pay one band instead of two…

Three nights a week (Friday, Saturday and Sunday) somewhere between 9:30 and 10pm each show ends with a fireworks show: I can hear them even with the house locked up tight and my 120-watt stereo turned up. They use mortars to launch the fireworks and there is no mistaking that someone is shooting something outside; I can hear them in the distance even with my 100-watt home theater cranked up loud. If I step outside and look eastward there are too many trees between me and them to really see the fireworks, so if I want a good look I’ve got to walk a few blocks eastwards.

And due to a combination of laziness and the fact that on a 100+ degree day in Texas it doesn’t really “cool off” much outside immediately after sundown, I just found it easier to ignore the fireworks than to walk that grueling quarter mile or so in still-upper-90′s humidity. One night a friend from Austin was spending the night on my futon when mortar-fire erupted from the east. “What was THAT?” my friend wanted to know. “Oh just the goddam fireworks.….” I growled at him not because I’m such a stick in the mud I don’t enjoy a good fireworks show but because they do this on Sunday nights as late as 10:30 pm and I was a little burned out on nightly mortar fire at the time.

The local noise ordinances basically say no one but city-sponsored events can use a PA for live instruments or taped music or long story short: Hey Fuck You We’re The City. “You “little people” that have to get up at 4am can just go start your own damn city if you don’t like it.”

Or something along those lines. Noise ordinances are written for a reason: I’m not such a knuckle-head that I don’t understand this. But it’s funny how every time my late friend Kelly Parker (RIP-he brought the likes of Fugazi and freaking NIRVANA to sleepy Fort Worth back in the late 80′s/early 90s) attempted to open a club, this was one of the MANY excuses the city would use to shut him down. (“It’s too loud!”) But the city out firing off mortars late at night near a residential area is okay….oh that’s right; you’re the City…gotcha….

But back up to the next to last paragraph where I growled “Oh just the goddam fireworks…” at my friend; this was a life-changing moment for me in a small way. It made me realize that the inner Beaver Cleaver that really wanted to see the fireworks was being over-ridden by my inner Al Bundy. The excuses started automatically:
“It’s too hot!”

“I gotta get up early!” (even though I can hear them in bed)

“I don’t wanna walk that far in this heat; part of it’s uphill!”

See a pattern here? And most of them centered on the letter “I” as in Me. Wearing out the letter “I” on my keypad just typing this. But what I’m getting at is I have since learned to not only stop ignoring the fireworks but to embrace them. Don’t really want to admit how many rolls of 35mm film I’ve gone through just to find out how little I really know about operating an old-school 35mm SLR but it was more than one roll. I never could successfully capture fireworks on film. But digital cameras make it easy; now I’m snapping some beautiful ( and only slightly psychedelic) still photos AND video of the massive fireworks displays by my house. Like a boot-legger three nights a week I carry two tripods and two cameras a short distance from my house and set up over-looking the park to my east.

I set up one camera to shoot still photos and one camera to shoot video on tripods next to each other and have a found a good spot to do it although finding a good place on the 4^th of July to do this can be tricky. Everybody comes out for that one for some reason and brings their families with them. Usually I just carry my equipment there on foot but on the Fourth I usually take my truck to mark my turf so to speak. The rear bed of my truck actually works as a makeshift platform to photograph our of as well, putting me slightly above head level of anyone around the area. Last year I drove over there really early (45 minutes or so) and there was already a crowd at my “secret spot” much to my disgust.

So now it’s gone from hobby to obsession; but it’s a great way to exercise my photography skills. And what the hell; we’re talking about a free fireworks show here after all I can complain about it or enjoy it, it’s really my choice. They’re only doing four more shows, then the weekends will get quiet around here again. And this year I think I’m going to actually miss them. Hate to admit but the shows ARE pretty cool, especially considering they’re free other than a little wear and tear on my Vans and are practically in my back yard.

Was tearing down my tripods and getting ready to leave the other night after another excellent display and feeling slightly remorseful knowing that I had just watched one of the last shows for the year. I had just stood underneath huge colorful plumes of explosions in the sky and looked around. There was one other car in the parking lot across the street whose engine was starting: I could see a lighter firing up a cigarette inside the front seat. Show’s over. Move on. There’s nothing to see here. Their headlights came on and the car roars around the corner. Now it’s just me all alone on the street with my bag in one hand and a tripod in the other.

I was hearing music from the CLOCKWORK ORANGE soundtrack in my head as I walked down the dark street back to my place. Stop at one point and turn around; no WEST SIDE STORY-gang behind me (“Hey Meester what’s een the bag?”) No Sharks, no Jets and no droogies following me; I was the only person on the entire block. Just me and a stray cat I saw in the shadows next to some nearby apartments watching me walk by. Laughing at myself now; I grew up walking these same streets as a teenager. I should be walking them as Barney Fife and not as Mr. Chicken. Turn a corner; almost there. Up an incline (“cough, wheeze…”); around one more corner and I’m home.

Thirty minutes later I have a video on YouTube and photos of tonight’s momentous occasion to boot.

From thousands of miles away “K” and myself say “3,2,1…go!” and watch the fireworks “together” and hearing her “ooh” and “ah” over the phone makes my aching legs and feet stop hurting for a few minutes. As I lift my throbbing feet into the safety and the comfort of my bed a few minutes later I drift to sleep in minutes, something lately I’m sure I can do in the same length of time as of one of my videos…

It’s funny how addictions start in seemingly innocuous ways. My current one started last month when “K” called me all excited about something she had discovered on the shelf at her local grocery store thousands of miles away. She had purchased several jars of some fruity-sounding salsas made with what were in my mind some very nontraditional ingredients: pomegranate, peach and pineapple for example.  And if you insist on it being really hot they make a Ghost Pepper salsa from the Indian Bhut Jolokia pepper:

Now you have to understand that as a Texan I immediately think of salsas as being tongue-scorching HOT as opposed to oh…I don’t know…just a salsa that TASTES good. Red-hot salsas served with chips have long been a traditional appetizer at most Mexican restaurants here in Texas and it’s always been sort of a redneck machismo to see how much searing-hot salsa one could “take” before a meal.

Most Mexican restaurants (or if you want REAL Mexican food, the taquerias)  here have a mild (usually green) and a hot (always red) variety to choose from but my point being is “hot” and “not as hot” are usually the limit of terms most Texans use when thinking about salsas.

And I like hot stuff mind you. I love making chili with a combination of Wick Fowlers, my own choice of vegetables and peppers from my brother’s garden. And my chili has a sneaky “creeper” effect especially when I’m mixing up the varieties of peppers (jalapenos, banana peppers and Thai peppers) It tastes good, doesn’t “bite” so to speak. I keep eating for a few minutes and then it sneaks up on me gradually (“Man this is HOT”) Got some in my freezer right now that will bring tears to your eyes if you’re not used to it.

Then “K” read  the label of the new salsa she found to me and told me the salsa (Mrs. Renfros) was made right here in my home-town, Fort Worth. “Mrs. Renfros”….”now WHY does that sound familiar” I thought to myself. Their website only had a PO Box to write to so I turned to the phone book and found an address and phone number. Then driving to my job early one morning it hit me as I was rounding the way-up-in-the-air southbound ramp going from I-30 to I-35…..

Okay, okay I admit the photo sucks; it was five in the morning and I was shooting through a window while driving uh…50 mph….(speaking of morons who text while driving….) but the red blur is the red neon sign for Mrs. Renfros. Turns out I drive by their factory four or five times a week. When “K” opened hers and ate it she purred like a cat as she told  me how delicious it was and that I needed to look for this ( another addiction “red-flag” right there; get your friends hooked too)

I don’t bring home a lot of chips and hot sauce because most of the time I will eat them instead of any actual dinner. Worse yet I will put aluminum foil on two cookie sheets, start lining up chips and slicing cheese and peppers while I heat up the oven and then consume nachos assembly-line style until I’m full instead of eating a proper dinner. So for these reasons chips and salsa usually don’t make it to my shopping list; if I want chips and hot salsa bad enough, I could just go eat dinner or lunch at a Mexican restaurant. But Memorial Day was rolling around and I had three and a half days off. What the hell; I went driving around town looking for it.

According to Mrs Renfros website they make nearly 30 varieties of salsa including one made with ghost peppers if you like it REALLY hot. Since it was manufactured locally,  I wrongly assumed it would be easy to find; their site says they ship their products not only to Canada but the UK as well. First place I went to (Tom Thumb; owned by Safeway) only had the Black Bean and a Habanero varieties but not the three I was looking for. Second place (Kroger) had the Peach (Yay!) but I had to drive to yuppie Central Market to find all three of the ones I was looking  for at $3.69 a jar. The last place I looked in accordance with Murphy’s Law ( Albertsons) also had all three varieties for (drumroll please) forty cents a jar cheaper ($3.29) Why I no go there first?

Purchased a large bag of tortilla chips and started my little taste test. The Peach flavor was Oh-My-God good; I couldn’t stop dipping chips into it until I hit the bottom of the jar. The jar was history in mere minutes; likewise I made short order of the pomegranate and the pineapple varieties upon opening those. I love this stuff; I could pour it over eggs, hell I could pour it over my Cheerios.

Guess there’s no turning back for me; I’m hopelessly hooked on this stuff, can’t …stop…eating…next thing you know I’ll be pouring this over my burgers. Is there a 12-step group that can break the strangle-hold Mrs Renfros has on me? It’s all going to be a continuous one-way non-stop bunny-hop straight to Hell from here, I can just feel it in my bones. Damn you Mrs Renfros, why did you have to make this stuff so GOOD?