First off, in honor of today being officially proclaimed Riot Grrl Day in Boston, I'm going to discuss Bikini Kill for a moment.
I first heard Bikini Kill immediately after hearing Minor Threat for the first time while on a road trip with my friend Shaun when I was in eighth grade. Something that struck me immediately about them was that they were a contemporary band, aggressively and directly confronting contemporary issues. It's easier to yell anti-Nazi, anti-Reagan, and anti-drug slogans in a room full of like-minded white boys than it is to confront and challenge an entire gender. That was and is the definition of hardcore to me. If you do not listen to, appreciate, respect and support what they did as a band and what they continue to do as individuals and musicians, you are not hardcore.
Bikini Kill helped directly inform my worldview as a humanist. If nothing else, they helped me to understand that as a white, middle class male in the United States, I need to acknowledge that I have had some really shitty attitudes toward women, minorities, gay and trans people ingrained into me and that I can do better. Thank you for calling me out on my shit, Bikini Kill. You helped me develop critical thinking skills in a way that no school ever could.
And now, on the opposite end of the spectrum, let's talk about KISS, which is what I originally set out to write about here.
I recently started listening to the first few Kiss albums after my autistic son, Frankie, began singing "Rock and Roll All Nite" and hearing my friend Gina defend them.
I never especially liked them when I was younger.
My first memory of them involves staring at a picture of the original lineup in the back of what I believe was the third issue of Muppet Magazine (I did my homework here. Muppet Magazine came out in 1983. The picture was of the band in make up. Kiss stopped wearing make up on September 18th, 1983, when Lick It Up was released. Ere go, it was issue 3, which also had a Star Wars inspired cover, making it extremely likely to have been the issue in question). My mother told me that they were evil or something and I'm pretty sure my sister told me that they were lame, so that was the end of it.
I'm pretty sure the first time that I actually heard their music was while watching Dazed and Confused in '94. I remember liking the idea of Kiss at that point, but this was tinged with the knowledge that they had been performing without makeup for over a decade and had devolved into a forgettable buttrock band.
Their reunion and return to wearing makeup in 1996 didn't do much for me. By that time, I was pretty much only listening to East bay punk and just saw it as a cash grab.
And then they just didn't go away and have continued releasing albums, touring and bragging about how many women they had slept with for another twenty years.
But really, now having actively listened to Kiss, Hotter than Hell, Destroyer, Rock and Roll Over and Love Gun, I get it. Kiss were all kinds of awesome in the '70s.
Yes, every song is about fucking or having at least one penis. There's an element of misogyny to the music that is hard not to cringe at, but there's far worse examples out there. But if you can get past that, and just listen to the songs as examples of '70s glam rock, they're pretty fucking awesome in all their ridiculous stupidity. The majority of their lyrics amount to "Euphemism for sex / Same
euphemism for sex / Something that rhymes with Venus / let's get undressed / I
have a penis / AIDS doesn't exist yet". Their first album has a fucking instrumental track called "Love Theme
from Kiss" that is literally an instrumental track for fucking. Yes, their shit is that stupid.
Of course, if their ode to statutory rape, "Christine Sixteen", doesn't make you throw up in your mouth at least a little, there's something wrong with you. But then again, Thee Headcoatees' "My Boyfriend is Learning Karate", Agnostic Front's "Public Assistance" and The Long Tall Texans' cover of "Get Back Wetback" piss me off, too. It's a document of a moment in time when our culture was still pretty gross. I prefer to confront such material, let it get to me for a moment and move on.
Ultimately, though, Kiss are a lot of fun. I just prefer to think that their tour bus exploded in 1978 just after they finished filming Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park, thus preventing the next thirty six years of suck.
Friday, April 10, 2015
Friday, February 13, 2015
Seduction (NSFW)
Ah, Valentines Day! That most dramatic of days when the emotionally insecure either throw meaningless tokens of affection at their romantic partner in an act our modern parlance calls "pitching woo" or blubber about their lack of a woo pitching target.
As you no doubt know or at least moderately suspected, before getting married, I was widely regarded in some circles as one of the great gentleman masters of seduction.
Several months ago, a certain women's magazine that tends to dabble in bad romantic advice asked me to write an article for other men regarding the act of seduction.
Initially, I declined. After all, I am out of the seduction business and a true master of woo does not simply pass on his techniques in widely circulated publications, lest he ruin manhood for all other manly men.
But then, I thought about... the ladies.
Hello,... ladies. You probably cannot see it,... ladies, unless you have installed a hidden camera in my bedroom to catch glimpses of my urethra, but when I said "...ladies" (and I always say, ladies out loud when I type), I paused, cocked my head just slightly, and raised one of my eyebrows... seductively. And you, no doubt, are in the early stages of being in heat.
You're welcome, gents of ...ladies who read this.
As a gentleman master of the act that a Tijuana Bible I found stuffed in a mattress in the basement of a creepy abandoned building in Auburn referred to as "El Seducto", I have learned that the first thing I always must do is think about... the ladies.
(Seriously, gents, you now owe me like two dozen hi-fives here because her buttocks are probably inflamed like a mandrill's face with passion after just those four paragraphs.)
So, ...ladies, if you wish to leave your gentleman lover some pointers about reducing you to some kind of quivering wad of desire that is simultaneously arousing and repugnant, read on. But be warned that this advice is not in any way safe for work, not only because it is filthy, but also because YOU MAY VERY WELL LOOSE ALL SELF CONTROL AND START LIKE TOTALLY MAKING OUT WITH THE NEAREST TALL OBJECT LIKE A MOP OR ARTIFICIAL PLANT!!! In fact, it was deemed so unsafe for work that the publication attempted to have it suppressed.
TWENTY TIPS FOR IDEAL SEDUCTION WHICH ARE GUARANTEED TO LEAD TO SOME FORM OF INTERCOURSE*
1. Leave clusters of your unwashed pubic hair between the pages of her books. Every single woman that has ever been or ever will be alive loves male pubic hair - especially the scraggly ones on the testicles that stick up like Larry Fine's coiffure. The sight of your strange, jaggedly angular ball bush peeking from her copy of "Sisterhood of Sappho" is sure to get her wanting wanton slathered in your greasy duck sauce.
2. As demonstrated in that last tip, find your own word to euphemistically use to refer to her genitals. Or just flat out refer to them as genitals. For example, the phrase "I want to make your genitals foam with scrubbing lust bubbles" can could be construed as downright dashing under some circumstances. Meanwhile, just call your penis your ding dong. Ding-dong has been scientifically proven to be the most erotic word for penis is English and Esperanto.
3. Send pictures of her cat's anus to her cell phone and tell her it's yours.
4. Show her how you like to masturbate. I'm not referring to the actual stroke technique you use, mind you. I'm talking about the shameful, depraved, sad-sack guy shit that you do while masturbating, like making laser noises, talking dirty and aggressively to pictures, and depositing your load in yesterdays socks.
5. Keep an entire dessert cart next to the bed. Women like options and won't find the fact that you actually own a fucking dessert cart in the first place at all disconcerting.
6. Role playing can add some sizzle to ant sexual encounter. A few of my personal favorite scenarios ars "Raffi Backstage", "Feeding Time At the Vulture Orphanage" and "I Had Too Much Pasta, Baby!"
7. Show her that you are confident in your own masculinity, but also willing to get a little freaky by trying on some of her sexier undergarments. Yeah. She'll definitely appreciate that, especially the next time she tries to wear them and discovers that they are all stretched out and covered in your hair.
8. Take a bath in front of her. Make eye contact with her the entire time, especially when you wince while washing your swampy asshole.
9. Save the condom from the first time you consummated your love in a champagne glass filled with vinegar and keep it next to your bed. It's little, sentimental things like that keep them coming back for more.
10. Send her text messages throughout the day reminding her that you really think that it's about time you two try anal. Those in the know call that sexting.
11. Bring a sense of adventure to your sex life by bringing your sex life out of the bed room and into the great outdoors! Places where geese are abundant, feral dogs rummage through your pants to find those small slivers of uneaten jerky you keep in your pockets and the air smells strongly of horse shit and burning tires are sure to set her genitals ablaze with hot, burning pre-sex urine.
12. Write a rap about your lover's body. Work the words Carolina, heinous and mirthing mavity into every other line, then try to get Ja Rule to do a verse. I'm sure his schedules open.
13. Watch pornography together. See what interests her. When that ultimately fails, masturbate alone and sob.
14. Be open and honest with your feelings, especially when you feel like she doesn't have sex with you often enough. She'll find your childish lack of empathy towards her own needs refreshing and will definitely tell you exactly what you can do with your needy peen.
15. Doubtless, every woman fantasizes about having sex with a giant, anthropomorphic penis! With that in mind, construct a giant penis costume out of scraps of flesh-colored nylon and cotton batting, and then thrash about in it on your bed like an epileptic worm.
16. Some foods are natural aphrodisiacs. A floppy six inch lettuce, bologna and cheese sandwich from Subway, for example, will no doubt conjure thoughts of your droopy penis in her subconscious, making her moderately hungry for mediocre, unsatisfying sex. Or, if you want to spice things up but also show that you are passionate about animal rights (and animal rites, har har), slice open the casing for a soy chorizo and dump it's oily, musky contents out onto your chest and plead for her to "feed your mutual needs".
17. All women want their lover to be a true gentleman! With that in mind, start dressing in white suits with powder blue ascots, fanning yourself with a horse racing brochure and refer to her erogenous zones in solely clinical terms. No woman can resist being told that the mere thought of her pubis is giving you the vapors.
18. Arts and crafts time may not sound like a great gateway to debauched sexy times, but that's because you're stupid, Stupid. Trust me, it can be very sexy. Smear glitter glue on your happy trail, leading down to an emerald banana hammock you fashioned out of pipe cleaner. Boom. Yeah. I just blew your mind. Now get ready to craft some sex.
19. They say that the brain is the woman's biggest erogenous zone. While that may be true, your biggest erogenous zone is your penis. Remind her of that by placing subtle reminders that you have a penis on your clothing. Just to clarify, though, do not place things that remind her of the time you actually had a penis that was on your clothing, as that was weird and uncomfortable for both of you. When she sees your reminder and recalls that, yes, beneath your man jeggings and Pat Buchanan man-thong, you do, in fact, have a penis, she will immediately think about your penis and all things she associates with it. Hopefully, one of those things might be limp, sauteed mushrooms.
20. If all else fails and you get desperate, remember that women are human beings, even if you barely are, and that if they actual find you sexually attractive, you probably shouldn't listen to anyone's ideas about seduction besides hers. Above all else, do not ask your parents for advice.
*Sexual intercourse is not the only guaranteed form of intercourse. Intercourse in this instance could be defined as anything from a look of mild revulsion to holding her hair while she projectile vomits the surprisingly inexpensive and indigestible meal you bought her at your nearest Steakhouse Steakhouse Restaurant.
As you no doubt know or at least moderately suspected, before getting married, I was widely regarded in some circles as one of the great gentleman masters of seduction.
Several months ago, a certain women's magazine that tends to dabble in bad romantic advice asked me to write an article for other men regarding the act of seduction.
Initially, I declined. After all, I am out of the seduction business and a true master of woo does not simply pass on his techniques in widely circulated publications, lest he ruin manhood for all other manly men.
But then, I thought about... the ladies.
Hello,... ladies. You probably cannot see it,... ladies, unless you have installed a hidden camera in my bedroom to catch glimpses of my urethra, but when I said "...ladies" (and I always say, ladies out loud when I type), I paused, cocked my head just slightly, and raised one of my eyebrows... seductively. And you, no doubt, are in the early stages of being in heat.
You're welcome, gents of ...ladies who read this.
As a gentleman master of the act that a Tijuana Bible I found stuffed in a mattress in the basement of a creepy abandoned building in Auburn referred to as "El Seducto", I have learned that the first thing I always must do is think about... the ladies.
(Seriously, gents, you now owe me like two dozen hi-fives here because her buttocks are probably inflamed like a mandrill's face with passion after just those four paragraphs.)
So, ...ladies, if you wish to leave your gentleman lover some pointers about reducing you to some kind of quivering wad of desire that is simultaneously arousing and repugnant, read on. But be warned that this advice is not in any way safe for work, not only because it is filthy, but also because YOU MAY VERY WELL LOOSE ALL SELF CONTROL AND START LIKE TOTALLY MAKING OUT WITH THE NEAREST TALL OBJECT LIKE A MOP OR ARTIFICIAL PLANT!!! In fact, it was deemed so unsafe for work that the publication attempted to have it suppressed.
TWENTY TIPS FOR IDEAL SEDUCTION WHICH ARE GUARANTEED TO LEAD TO SOME FORM OF INTERCOURSE*
1. Leave clusters of your unwashed pubic hair between the pages of her books. Every single woman that has ever been or ever will be alive loves male pubic hair - especially the scraggly ones on the testicles that stick up like Larry Fine's coiffure. The sight of your strange, jaggedly angular ball bush peeking from her copy of "Sisterhood of Sappho" is sure to get her wanting wanton slathered in your greasy duck sauce.
2. As demonstrated in that last tip, find your own word to euphemistically use to refer to her genitals. Or just flat out refer to them as genitals. For example, the phrase "I want to make your genitals foam with scrubbing lust bubbles" can could be construed as downright dashing under some circumstances. Meanwhile, just call your penis your ding dong. Ding-dong has been scientifically proven to be the most erotic word for penis is English and Esperanto.
3. Send pictures of her cat's anus to her cell phone and tell her it's yours.
4. Show her how you like to masturbate. I'm not referring to the actual stroke technique you use, mind you. I'm talking about the shameful, depraved, sad-sack guy shit that you do while masturbating, like making laser noises, talking dirty and aggressively to pictures, and depositing your load in yesterdays socks.
5. Keep an entire dessert cart next to the bed. Women like options and won't find the fact that you actually own a fucking dessert cart in the first place at all disconcerting.
6. Role playing can add some sizzle to ant sexual encounter. A few of my personal favorite scenarios ars "Raffi Backstage", "Feeding Time At the Vulture Orphanage" and "I Had Too Much Pasta, Baby!"
7. Show her that you are confident in your own masculinity, but also willing to get a little freaky by trying on some of her sexier undergarments. Yeah. She'll definitely appreciate that, especially the next time she tries to wear them and discovers that they are all stretched out and covered in your hair.
8. Take a bath in front of her. Make eye contact with her the entire time, especially when you wince while washing your swampy asshole.
9. Save the condom from the first time you consummated your love in a champagne glass filled with vinegar and keep it next to your bed. It's little, sentimental things like that keep them coming back for more.
10. Send her text messages throughout the day reminding her that you really think that it's about time you two try anal. Those in the know call that sexting.
11. Bring a sense of adventure to your sex life by bringing your sex life out of the bed room and into the great outdoors! Places where geese are abundant, feral dogs rummage through your pants to find those small slivers of uneaten jerky you keep in your pockets and the air smells strongly of horse shit and burning tires are sure to set her genitals ablaze with hot, burning pre-sex urine.
12. Write a rap about your lover's body. Work the words Carolina, heinous and mirthing mavity into every other line, then try to get Ja Rule to do a verse. I'm sure his schedules open.
13. Watch pornography together. See what interests her. When that ultimately fails, masturbate alone and sob.
14. Be open and honest with your feelings, especially when you feel like she doesn't have sex with you often enough. She'll find your childish lack of empathy towards her own needs refreshing and will definitely tell you exactly what you can do with your needy peen.
15. Doubtless, every woman fantasizes about having sex with a giant, anthropomorphic penis! With that in mind, construct a giant penis costume out of scraps of flesh-colored nylon and cotton batting, and then thrash about in it on your bed like an epileptic worm.
16. Some foods are natural aphrodisiacs. A floppy six inch lettuce, bologna and cheese sandwich from Subway, for example, will no doubt conjure thoughts of your droopy penis in her subconscious, making her moderately hungry for mediocre, unsatisfying sex. Or, if you want to spice things up but also show that you are passionate about animal rights (and animal rites, har har), slice open the casing for a soy chorizo and dump it's oily, musky contents out onto your chest and plead for her to "feed your mutual needs".
17. All women want their lover to be a true gentleman! With that in mind, start dressing in white suits with powder blue ascots, fanning yourself with a horse racing brochure and refer to her erogenous zones in solely clinical terms. No woman can resist being told that the mere thought of her pubis is giving you the vapors.
18. Arts and crafts time may not sound like a great gateway to debauched sexy times, but that's because you're stupid, Stupid. Trust me, it can be very sexy. Smear glitter glue on your happy trail, leading down to an emerald banana hammock you fashioned out of pipe cleaner. Boom. Yeah. I just blew your mind. Now get ready to craft some sex.
19. They say that the brain is the woman's biggest erogenous zone. While that may be true, your biggest erogenous zone is your penis. Remind her of that by placing subtle reminders that you have a penis on your clothing. Just to clarify, though, do not place things that remind her of the time you actually had a penis that was on your clothing, as that was weird and uncomfortable for both of you. When she sees your reminder and recalls that, yes, beneath your man jeggings and Pat Buchanan man-thong, you do, in fact, have a penis, she will immediately think about your penis and all things she associates with it. Hopefully, one of those things might be limp, sauteed mushrooms.
20. If all else fails and you get desperate, remember that women are human beings, even if you barely are, and that if they actual find you sexually attractive, you probably shouldn't listen to anyone's ideas about seduction besides hers. Above all else, do not ask your parents for advice.
*Sexual intercourse is not the only guaranteed form of intercourse. Intercourse in this instance could be defined as anything from a look of mild revulsion to holding her hair while she projectile vomits the surprisingly inexpensive and indigestible meal you bought her at your nearest Steakhouse Steakhouse Restaurant.
Friday, January 30, 2015
The Duel
Driving in Portsmouth, New Hampshire presents a distinct set of challenges, even on a good day in a compact car. The city's narrow, one way streets and overabundance of uppity, traffic-oblivious gentry require you to be on constant look out for pedestrians and you need to know the route you are taking like the back of your hand. You also have to be on the lookout for those drivers that have become so hopelessly lost in the maze of one-way streets and back alleys that they have stopped even giving an iota of a crap about common sense and traffic laws, and will do anything to get back to the turnpike. Wednesday afternoon, I encountered one such person.
Portsmouth had been battered pretty heavily by Tuesday's blizzard, though their cleanup efforts had been mores successful than those of my beloved Portland's. The main roads were clear and salted, and they even had cleared off the commercial loading zone we use. After visiting my destination, I made my way back to the van, thinking that wasn't so bad.
I was about to turn left onto Porter Street, when a car came zipping by, going the wrong direction. Porter is a one-way street, little more than a back alley, barely wide enough for the van. Apparently, there is an obscure clause in New Hampshire's weird, Libertarian laws, nestled somewhere towards the end of the "living free" portion, right on the cusp of the "or dying" section that apparently negates the meaning of one way street signs on days following blizzards for the elderly and feeble of mind. I say this because a minute later, as I was well past the point of being able to do anything besides move forward, I came face-to-face with a minivan, driven by an Orville Redenbacher looking chap, again headed the wrong way.
I stopped, and waited for the other driver to start backing up. He didn't. Instead, he looked sheepishly at me, clearly aware of the fact that he'd been caught doing something incredibly stupid, but unwilling to do anything to rectify the matter because New Hampshire.
No, I did not flash the Old Hoss at him. Were I in my own vehicle, I would have, but I try to remain professional when on the road. Instead, I gave him the universal pointy speak sign for "Sir, you are going the wrong way down a snowy, one way street and have a much larger vehicle coming towards you." You know the one. You stretch your arms out to your sides with your palms up like they are weighing something while swinging your head back and forth like a king cobra to signify "I am deeply exasperated with you. What is your intention?!".
He continued staring at me, now with sad, puppy dog eyes.
I pointed to the one way street sign behind me, then pointed at him and motioned for him to move back.
Nothing.
More gesticulating followed. I tried to indicate that I was on an incline, in the snow in a much larger vehicle and there was no possible way for me to safely back up, which can be translated as "slope-hand car backwards-slash-too big-narrow alley-you clod."
Nothing.
I repeated the gestures, this time more frantically.
Finally, the light bulb turned on. He started rolling forward again, edging towards the entrance to the parking garage to my immediate left, until he couldn't get proceed any further.
I slammed my head down against the wheel, screamed some Spanish obscenities about his mother's occupation, then decided to cut my losses and push on through. While I did not actually collide with his vehicle, I came within less than an inch of it and got stuck in a snow drift.
I backed out, and looked at him for a moment, hoping he got the picture, but he no longer felt like making eye contact. After two more attempts, I managed to get up on the sidewalk and roll past without crushing him.
I didn't look back, but I think it's safe to assume that he drove down a man hole.
Portsmouth had been battered pretty heavily by Tuesday's blizzard, though their cleanup efforts had been mores successful than those of my beloved Portland's. The main roads were clear and salted, and they even had cleared off the commercial loading zone we use. After visiting my destination, I made my way back to the van, thinking that wasn't so bad.
I was about to turn left onto Porter Street, when a car came zipping by, going the wrong direction. Porter is a one-way street, little more than a back alley, barely wide enough for the van. Apparently, there is an obscure clause in New Hampshire's weird, Libertarian laws, nestled somewhere towards the end of the "living free" portion, right on the cusp of the "or dying" section that apparently negates the meaning of one way street signs on days following blizzards for the elderly and feeble of mind. I say this because a minute later, as I was well past the point of being able to do anything besides move forward, I came face-to-face with a minivan, driven by an Orville Redenbacher looking chap, again headed the wrong way.
I stopped, and waited for the other driver to start backing up. He didn't. Instead, he looked sheepishly at me, clearly aware of the fact that he'd been caught doing something incredibly stupid, but unwilling to do anything to rectify the matter because New Hampshire.
No, I did not flash the Old Hoss at him. Were I in my own vehicle, I would have, but I try to remain professional when on the road. Instead, I gave him the universal pointy speak sign for "Sir, you are going the wrong way down a snowy, one way street and have a much larger vehicle coming towards you." You know the one. You stretch your arms out to your sides with your palms up like they are weighing something while swinging your head back and forth like a king cobra to signify "I am deeply exasperated with you. What is your intention?!".
He continued staring at me, now with sad, puppy dog eyes.
I pointed to the one way street sign behind me, then pointed at him and motioned for him to move back.
Nothing.
More gesticulating followed. I tried to indicate that I was on an incline, in the snow in a much larger vehicle and there was no possible way for me to safely back up, which can be translated as "slope-hand car backwards-slash-too big-narrow alley-you clod."
Nothing.
I repeated the gestures, this time more frantically.
Finally, the light bulb turned on. He started rolling forward again, edging towards the entrance to the parking garage to my immediate left, until he couldn't get proceed any further.
I slammed my head down against the wheel, screamed some Spanish obscenities about his mother's occupation, then decided to cut my losses and push on through. While I did not actually collide with his vehicle, I came within less than an inch of it and got stuck in a snow drift.
I backed out, and looked at him for a moment, hoping he got the picture, but he no longer felt like making eye contact. After two more attempts, I managed to get up on the sidewalk and roll past without crushing him.
I didn't look back, but I think it's safe to assume that he drove down a man hole.
Tuesday, January 27, 2015
January 27th, 2015
I guess this would constitute and actual blog post.
...
There's an honest-to-god blizzard raging outside. We're getting somewhere around 2 inches of snow an hour with 15-50mph wind gusts. Earlier this morning, I bundled up in my ordinarily ludicrously impractical collection of cold weather gear (that occasionally doubles as a wasp fighting costume), and wandered out into the squall. I looked like a 6'3", M81 woodland camouflage Jawa in jeans, traipsing through blowing snow.
Shortly after I came back in from my stroll, the wind managed to blow open one of the windows in our kitchen, causing snow to explode out through the plastic seal.
As I was in the middle of shoveling up the mess with a spatula, my phone rang. it was Matty (one of the District Managers), calling to tell me that the company had decided not to open at all today. There was some talk that we might have been attempting to open at noon yesterday, but it was never a sure thing.
I called all the scheduled staff and let them know that we weren't opening. The sheer disappointment in their voices could have easily been misconstrued as tired confusion by a lesser man, but my keen understanding of the human condition told me otherwise.
....
So, it's been a few years since I posted much of anything directly related to my actual life. Here's a quick update for those of you with brain veins itching for an shot of that sweet, syrupy black tar Cargile:
__ Katie and I have been married for five years now. We're living in a rented house in Westbrook, ME near the Gorham town line.
__ Our son, Frankie is four years old. About a year ago, he was diagnosed as falling somewhere low on the Autism spectrum. We're still working our way through the labyrinth of DHHS to try to get him the help he needs. Things were pretty dark for a while, but we're starting to adapt.
__ I'm still working as the warehouse manager for a local record store chain. Due to staff shortages, I've been doubling as a delivery driver one day a week since October. For what it's worth, I really enjoy driving, especially the North run up to Bangor and back. It just makes for some really long days.
__ I don't have much of a social life anymore, outside of work. Frankie's condition makes it difficult for him to cope with change and requires a fairly lockstep schedule, one in which my role in tucking him in at night is pretty crucial. By the time that is over, I have about an hour and a half before I need to be in bed to get a full nights rest before working another 10+ hour day.
__ My musical taste remains in roughly the same trajectory. I listen to a lot of punk, country, blues, psychobilly and old R&B stuff with a bit of doom metal and stoner rock mixed in.
Current Playlist:
__ Kepi Ghoulie -Kepi Goes Country (entire album)
__ Nick Curran and the Nitelifes - Doctor Velvet (entire album)
__ Dog Party - Lost Control (entire album)
__ The Cramps - Look Mom, No Head (entire album)
I guess this would constitute and actual blog post.
...
There's an honest-to-god blizzard raging outside. We're getting somewhere around 2 inches of snow an hour with 15-50mph wind gusts. Earlier this morning, I bundled up in my ordinarily ludicrously impractical collection of cold weather gear (that occasionally doubles as a wasp fighting costume), and wandered out into the squall. I looked like a 6'3", M81 woodland camouflage Jawa in jeans, traipsing through blowing snow.
Shortly after I came back in from my stroll, the wind managed to blow open one of the windows in our kitchen, causing snow to explode out through the plastic seal.
As I was in the middle of shoveling up the mess with a spatula, my phone rang. it was Matty (one of the District Managers), calling to tell me that the company had decided not to open at all today. There was some talk that we might have been attempting to open at noon yesterday, but it was never a sure thing.
I called all the scheduled staff and let them know that we weren't opening. The sheer disappointment in their voices could have easily been misconstrued as tired confusion by a lesser man, but my keen understanding of the human condition told me otherwise.
....
So, it's been a few years since I posted much of anything directly related to my actual life. Here's a quick update for those of you with brain veins itching for an shot of that sweet, syrupy black tar Cargile:
__ Katie and I have been married for five years now. We're living in a rented house in Westbrook, ME near the Gorham town line.
__ Our son, Frankie is four years old. About a year ago, he was diagnosed as falling somewhere low on the Autism spectrum. We're still working our way through the labyrinth of DHHS to try to get him the help he needs. Things were pretty dark for a while, but we're starting to adapt.
__ I'm still working as the warehouse manager for a local record store chain. Due to staff shortages, I've been doubling as a delivery driver one day a week since October. For what it's worth, I really enjoy driving, especially the North run up to Bangor and back. It just makes for some really long days.
__ I don't have much of a social life anymore, outside of work. Frankie's condition makes it difficult for him to cope with change and requires a fairly lockstep schedule, one in which my role in tucking him in at night is pretty crucial. By the time that is over, I have about an hour and a half before I need to be in bed to get a full nights rest before working another 10+ hour day.
__ My musical taste remains in roughly the same trajectory. I listen to a lot of punk, country, blues, psychobilly and old R&B stuff with a bit of doom metal and stoner rock mixed in.
Current Playlist:
__ Kepi Ghoulie -Kepi Goes Country (entire album)
__ Nick Curran and the Nitelifes - Doctor Velvet (entire album)
__ Dog Party - Lost Control (entire album)
__ The Cramps - Look Mom, No Head (entire album)
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