Wed June 30 2004

Ouch
But my kidneys are pronounced "stable" by the surgeon/urologist. There is more to come and the dood said I had to go to another facility because they didnt have what it took to finish it there. He has yet to say exactly where, but he intimated the University Hospitals in Iowa City. Im maintaining a vicodin numbness. I cant desribe peeing except to say 'fire' and I've ground about a quarter inch off what teeth I have left. Tim e-mailed me tonight and i urged him to send his rough music ahead so that I can get to work sketching in the melodies. I have a lot to do and I've been lying around in a painful haze it seem like for months now.This all started around the second week of May and its now the last day of June. I need to do a thousand things. I've got to get my CD down to Mike Hall tonight. I've got to get it to CD baby by at least Saturday.But if its next week then I guess its next week. I want to get stuff done and its tough bein ill. My yard needs to be mowed, my SUV needs body work, My toyota needs attention mechanically and I was GIVEN parts of one that was in a fire. The parts I need are great and will work fine and they are ok...didnt get smoke on em. But when yer yer own mechanic there you have it.
The Urologist said that he'd gotten 80% of the stone in the passway. He said what he'd left was as big as an olive. There are 11 more in there too. Yee haw.
Bowe

Just got Home

Im home and sore as hell. They must drive trucks up there to remove kidney stones. My abdomen hurts. My back aches. He said he got 80% of the one blocking my ureter. He did it with some kind of laser and a small air powered jack hammer. Imagine. I dragged my ass to the medicine chest and downed my last two vicodin. I feel like i've been wacked in the gut with a baseball bat and i've got a good dose of the clap. Sheesh.

Rain

We've been in drought like conditions for several years. Its so strange to hear the raindrops on the airconditioner casing. I'll leave for work in a little while. 12 hours at the fantasy factory. Home of the great bonus.
Irony is my undoing.Im always looking for it I guess. I cant get over how much the situation has bettered itself in my life. Then to have bad health follow good economic news. The music is getting better all the time as well. I really appreciated being trusted. In the industrial world and the music world.
I got two fine notes from my wifes minister last night.They were extremely conciliatory and friendly. I was glad. I so hate controversy. I cant stand alienation, disenfranchisement, and obscurity. It goes without saying that everyone is paying attention even if I am not. Leroy Williams stopped by last night and Mindy spoke with Him. I'd already gone off to bed. Leroy is my African American friend. I have so little depth. I just feel so shallow sometimes. Its amazing how others can tell you youre worthless and you wind up believing them. Others who are sadder than you, and want you to be experiencing the sadness that they are experiencing. Leroy didnt do this but an older friend of mine did.
Another friend brought up something I'd said 20 years ago the other night while we were talking. I was something I'd said when I was drunk. I told that person..."Ya know I remember saying that...but after fifteen glasses of beer I could imagine anything and say it...."
Gotta put my sox on and hit the highway.
later, Bowe

Sunday and Cloudy

June 27th
My Big Brain is stifling me. (thanks Mr. Keneally)
Join forces with the ones who love me so.
No atheist can be convinced that a God exists. Except to actually have an encounter with God. Then the movie changes. Like every other human being I've always wanted to live. Some struggle through schooling and then get a position and claw their way to the top. I think with the exception of a couple people, that I'm aware of anyway,the bitterness of the hard work makes them fiercely covetous of that high position and they rule their domains with an anger either overtly or subvertly that has a negative ripple that flows downward to the next generation of those climbing up.Then the anger gets compiled like compound interest on the next batch of successful people.
Then some people just constantly struggle. Other people cannot see the despair, they just see the outward appearance. Some in consular positions have a tendency to advise the struggler to lighten up. Just like that. Just do it.
The difficulties lie in our own minds. The mistakes lie in our own minds. I 've been told by towering intellectuals that Im an idiot. In a lot of ways they are sooooo right.I dont have the patterns of logical deduction down. I cannot see every perspective.There are those that are by their intellectual prowess, able to corner every situation and analyze it to defense or destruction. I've always had my emotions in the way. I didnt develop any of the intellectual abilities that I was born with via the educational system. I used drugs and alcohol to numb the emotional pain that I felt ever since I was a small child. I must have been attention deficit as well. I always had a movie going on in my head when I need to concentrate on studies.
But success can be measured by more than monetary increase. Do you have a calm and stable home? Do you have people in you circle you can confide in? Can you trust your spouse? Will you child tell you the truth? Can you go to work knowing that you superiors trust your judgement? Can you say that your peers respect what you do?
I can say that the mystical aspect of this life does have to be accounted for. Even if the intellectual community poo poo's it. I have experienced it. There is something (at least for me) that is at work outside of the three dimensions. (and superstring theory demands 10 dimensions in the universe). Survival of the fittest is sometimes usurped by assistance for some outside force. That is the force that I recognize as God. I was informed by that force that Jesus Christ is the diety that makes life possible for fools like me. Throughout my life I've been able to see that force at work.
I can be a critic. I was told by a cynic once that anyone can be critical. I think after having gone through substance abuse rehab and years of sobriety, that the alcoholic personality develops the criticism because of the endless self beating that they do after they sober up. Lets see what wrong today. I criticised my City Council for spending a lot on city decorations especially in the downtown, where the major traffic is to the Gambling Riverboat. But I was driving the other day around town and it is better that we spruce the joint up. It look much better than it did in 1984 when I first moved here. I was just angry because they had increased my property taxes to do this and then put more demands on me taxwise, for education, the police force, the firedepartment.
The definition of "Church" is subject to the definers. I railed against it as a business. I was at a black Church last night in Freeport, Illinois that raised 10,000.00 in an half hour to give to the ministry. There were less than 50 people there as well. The ministry at that particular African American Church are firm King James Version fundamentalists. And they are emotionally wild and screamy. The congregation is gregarious and touchy feely. The building looked like it could have been an old Methodist church....by old I mean like 1950's....
Bowe

Wierd

I went to work last night. Because of my situation I have to train another person who although he's had the school, still needs some hands on stuff.
I'm just glad Im still as lucid as I am. Well, maybe Im not. Im not sure. More tomorrow.
Bowe

Tuesday Afternoon

Im just beginning to see,
Now Im on my way
It doesnt matter to me
chasing the clouds away....
(thanks Mr. Heyward)
OK. well where do I begin? Years ago I was alone on a back road in upstate NY. I was thinkin about lonliness and dying and I was just 21. I thought about how I'd rejected the love offered me by several people in my life and how I'd been rejected by people who I thought I loved. I know this sounds mushy but believe me it gets worse.
I was picked up by a minister who was with the Reformed Church of America the Dutchpeople. He proseletyzed me and I became a "Christian" and after several difficulties in the little dutch town I ran off to join "The Children of God" in Virginia Beach, Virginia. I'd read about them in Time magazine and I wondered if that was maybe where I fit into the 'God' picture. A bunch of hippies running round reading their bibles and praying and living communally. I mean that was pretty much what I'd been doing for 3 or 4 years to that point. (living communally) I didn't work much and I didnt like work at all...Anyway I wound up in Virginia Beach.
Through many situations I was not able to contact the children of god but I wound up at Rock Church. It was an independent charsimatic church at the Beach and they were fundamentalists who were penecostal in their worship. Also they were reformed drug addicts. (that was up my alley as well)
I read the king James version of the Bible daily. I memorized all the passages pertaining to the charismatic doctrine and I felt I'd met God when one day when I was traveling with this black man who was going to jail for a while for flim flamming and some other petty crimes, I went through a astral-projection type experience.
I was in a volkswagon beetle with him, he was driving. I was shotgun. I felt myself get lifted out of my body and go up through the roof of the car. Then I kinda blacked out for a lil while. Then I was simply an eyeball in an upper corner of a tomb. There was a body on a slab near me, but down and a hole in the tomb and the sun was shining brightly through the hole. It was like a doorway. I saw grass and dandelions growing by the doorway as well. Anyway the figure on the slab sat up and smiled at me. He had long black hair and he ran his fingers through it. He was naked. He got up and he'd had some linen on him, he tossed that aside and walked naked out that doorway. I then swooped back down into the car where the black guy was screaming obscenities at me. All I could remember was the scripture that read "you will find me if you seek me with your whole heart." I finally gathered myself together because I was laughing with the extacy I was experiencing... and he said "mutherfucker! Do you know what you said to me???" I said uh..no I was't here for a while...He said "What? What chu talkin bout" "DO you what you said to me???" I said no. He said he was gonna hit me. I said "well, like I dont know whats goin on but I was just 'not here'. He started to calm down. He said, "you said I was gonna go to jail..that in jail I was gonna convert to christianity and preach the gospel there.." I said, "well, I wasnt here for that part..." He and I went to where we were going and he took me back home. I'd gone with him at the request of a lady who ran a commune on the beach and had a 'ministry' for blacks, the homeless, and anyone that "God" Sent her way. I remember thinking that day that "Christ actually walked the earth. He actually was a physical being and all that is written about him is true."
Anyway I wound up backslidden ( a condition the bible describes as not going forward with God) and married in New York State. (alcohol) After that divorce I moved back to the Midwest where I was involved with other women alcohol...then I met a and married my second wife. She and I lasted about 50 days. With the last arrest on Dec. 25th 1987 I entered treatment for alcoholism and I havent drank since that time. I gave up smokin pot and pretty much all the carnal stuff and i just was eating myself to death. I met my third wife at A/A and we have been together all this time. She is a fabulous woman who has her own relationship with God and really has not hasseled me at all when I've gone my own way. But today I got a call from a black man who is a prophet in the Church. He is an humble man and has his own demons that have been conquored. But he does walk in the office of prophet. Its plain to see by his life.
I have been bitter. I have been angry. I have questioned everything about the bible and God and said unequivocally that is it shit. I am 100% wrong. I am 100% sure that I have just avoided the things that God initially intended for me and walked away from them to do what ever I want to. Well this black man was God talking to me on the phone. I had recently insulted a Christian and told him to call God up and tell him what an asshole I thought he was.... God called back. Um soooooooo. I gotta do some changes in my attitude. I want you know if you read my blog, that I am going to try and do what "God" wants. I'm certain he exists and has had times with me, and that I have done his will in the past. Im certain I belong to him, and that he will see this country through this bad time and we will wake up to a brighter day....I dont have the answer 'how' except that we need to pay attention to what he speaks to us indiviually and pray for the ones who dont know him and the ones who do know and wont listen.
MO LATER
Bowe

Monday the 21st of June

Sheesh.
Its past the Vernal equinox! My My how times does fly. Well Im begining to get accustomed to the terminology. They gave me pills to soothe 'spasms' which boils down to penile pain scrotum pain and back pain when one pees. Its really indiscribable. But in straight forward and unadulterated terms that what it is. I made it through two work days at the plant. Two twelve hour shifts. It was incredible too. I must ran to tha can 60 times in 12 hours. Only once was it occupied. Then I ran outside.
Well Im hoping now that these stents are allowin my kidneys to empty more completely and that they may regain their 'functioning' status.Gawd nose i been going enough. I jes hope this doctor knows what he's doing. He seems to have a handle on the situation. He even took the time to call me at home. I like that. Unless its a sign of "whoops". but then hey. Everybody makes mistakes.
Tim wrote me a couple e mails but flits in and out of time. So I need to like know if he's coming up, and when is he sending the advance rough music to work on? Like?
Hello? Are you out there???
Bowe

Pain (Not in my heart)

Well this could be it!
My kidneys are failing and Im in pain most of the time. If I'd known I was in this kind of jepardy earlier last month I'd have gone to Mayo. As it is. I'm just gonna do what they say. Im freakin goin to work tomorrow. I have to or we go under. What a trip!
Im speechless.
Bowe

You cant believe what they do

OK
Im still loaded with kidney stones.
He went in and found one blocking the ureter that was as big as his pinky finger and about an inch long. He said at that point my kidneys started to shut down. He put in a stent and they rolled me out. I freaked when he told me that my kidneys shut down. Im pissin a lot more frequently and man it smarts.
Its not good.
He just called me a few minutes ago. He wants to know if Im pissin more now than ever before. Well, Im pissin every fifteen painful minutes so I cant say about the volume.
(What a topic!) I wouldnt wish this on my worst enemy.He says the blood will be there as long as the stent is in. Sheesh.
This blows.

Tomorrow

Tomorrow
I will be under General Anesthetic.
I will be stented
I will be blasted with high powered ultrasonic waves
I will be loopy for 24 hours
I will I hope have No Kidney Stones in the right side.
I freakin hope.
Bowe

Oh you cant tell one snail from another
a sister looks just like a brother
a father looks just like a sister
You cannot tell mrs from mr.
(a poem recited with the 'mexican hat dance' tune as its pentameter...my apologies to the author for forgetting her name)

I had a dream...Crazy Dream

I walked past Gilded Funery displays of hieroglypic statues. Glass and gold lame' curtains housed the atifacts. I was int the rundown part of the city of death and had been to two churches prior to my rolling up the the tenement that housed the spirits of my deceased mother and father. I had a key and I walked up the rickety stairs to the apartment. It was high and stood rickety straight in the partly sunny partly stormy sky. There was a football game on Tee Vee and a small radio. It was rundown but liveable. There was beer in the refrigerator. I got a beer and a blanket and went back downstairs. I had arrived on some kind of wagon that was pulled along the broken cement streets. It had vanished.I laid down on the concrete on the blanket and what sun there was warmed me. Yet there were black clouds all on the horizon... I remembered thinking.."my family...they'll miss me..I need to call, or get back." Yet it was peaceful there. It was as if we were a real family and not the mess that had existed in another time and space. I went back upstairs after fearing that local gangs might disturb my tranquility. And there were horrible aspects of the dream that my mind blanked out. Storms, birds of prey, and fear and blackness disturbed by lightning. Then my parents came home with the groceries. I helped put them away. My father was pleasant like he'd never been before. My mother was quiet and sane like she'd never been. Then I awaoke. I was sad but content. Maybe they were together. Maybe it was poor but happy. I remember looking down out the kitchen window of the tenement. it was several stories down and there was nothing but grey concrete. Gray concrete. Gray concrete.
I remembered I'd never felt so peaceful about my father before. It was like Catholic heaven. Where you live just opposite what you did when you walked the earth. I noticed that they had no great burdens to bear or share. There was no fear even of the nasty gathering storms. It was the strangest dream of them I've ever had. It was as if I'd died and gone to be with them. It was like the ONLY way we could be together. It was soooooooooooo isolating yet unifying. I cant explain it. I dont put much stock in my dreams because I dream them all the time. I dream in technicolor and stereo sound. My dream life is like a new movie each night or day. When ever I sleep. Im so glad I have that.
I had another dream about by dad about six or seven months ago. That was one where he was living in a cheap motel. A huge cosmic disturbance happened and suddenely a giant red planet that was glowing with molten lava was hovering just to the side and near the motel. My father was scared but I was not. I reached out to touch the embers of the surface that had cooled. I woke up.
Dreams
What a strange world.

Monday Monday

They cant operate on me till Thursday. How Depressing. How awful to carry this miserable pain another four more days. Plus I dont know what recovery will be like. They say two days, but of what? Two days of pain? Man oh man oh man. Im going back to bed...

Scuse Me, while I kiss this guy

At Work I will blatantly give a homely co worker a kiss on the cheek. I know this awful but some of them deserve it. No one has yet complained however, but I have come away with totally greasy lips. The joke then it seems was on me.
I called my bosses today and explained that Monday Im having the procedure on my body for to rid me of the stones, and that I might not be at work Mon night. Everyone was cool and told me to go go go and get the rid. I have very good relationships there and I hate it when it seems like crap goes south and I cant be around. It took 14 years to get to a place of trust and sensibility. Basically cause Im so freaking goofy. But being goofy hasnt hurt my credibility because in matters of business, I can be counted on. I just have a sick and twisted sense of what is funny. I believe I inherited that from Joseph my father. Its so odd that my name is King and my dad was Joseph, I should live in Jerusalem dont cha know? I can cure headaches too. I've got hundreds of affimations to that effect throughout the community. Its an old thing I learned through the Whole Earth Catalogue years ago when I
I I I I I was an Hippy. I was the epitome of the Hip slacker generation for many years, except I was catholic and felt guilty about it for years and years. Then some Dutch people turned me on the the Calvinistic work ethic and I became a work a holic who could never get a decent job. But hey we alllllll ol make mistakes don't we?
Yo see I've been afflicted with religion ALL MAH LIFE. In one way or another. SOmetiMeS I could behave in a manner that seem in accordance with church doctrine and the holy writ but I'd always find a way to stumble into an adulterous situation, or a bar, or an opium den, or a police station. I have the knack.
Now that I've become a stable member of the GDP circle, I rarely have time for introspection, except to admit that "damn I'm good!" (Which in reality is rarely the case.) When I was a ramblin hippy I was all art music and spirituality. Now Im all bottom line and whats new on the bills list? I really dont like this incarnation, however I have grown accustomed to eating the way we do, sleeping in a nice home, and having the fine medicine I need to ward off death from diabetes, cardio vascular disease, and rickets. Kidney stones, gout, beri beri, bengi fever, and encephelitis. All the scourge of the working man. The Money I need is THERE to cover the charges, all because I play the game.
Musically, I haven't had a good idea since 1972 when I wrote "Sweet Flower Colorado Morning" after never having been to Colorado in all acutality. But like Van Morrison says, songwriting is as fictional as any literature. Not every songwriter writes from personal experience. I have, and got dissed for it! The critic said I sounded like a drunk confessing. (!) and actually it was EXACTLY what I was doing with that particular song. I thought it was wonderful just to be criticized publicly. I was at that time, of the opinion that any press was good press. I have however, come to a different contusion since that day. Its amazing that soooo many good musicians are dead! I just discovered that Nicky Hopkins was dead! Sheesh! John Cipollina! Dead! Sheesh! I thought these musicians were just loungin somewhere livin off royalties... Hey, Maybe they are! Maybe Jesus sets up a nice Island for minstrels who get into the top 100 in their lives and then die young. Nah... never mind. When yer dead, yer dead. Just like when yer hot yer hot!
Just IMAGINE...

thanks, john.

Bowe

Ouch,Man this sux

Well
I got Xrayed today and I have stones lodged in my ureter, in my kidneys and who knows where else? I saw the Xrays and Yep sure nuff dere dey are. Monday theyre gonna blast them with ultrasound. I gotta wait that long. I aint in a great deal of pain. Just enough to remind me I'm in this situation. They gave me some 'ultraset' its like percocet except it has some asprin in it too I think. I get wierd head rushes from it and body wave rushes. It really doesnt help with the pain all that much except it diverts your attention I think. I've been trying to pass stones too big to pass for nearly a month now. Wayyyyyy too long. Maybe Im just accustomed to the pain now. I noticed that all week I had periodic stretches of sharp pain in my back accompanied with that nausea that I recognize as a stone moving. But nothing like the initial onset, no sweating, and real gastric assailment. So I like vaccumed three rooms of the house today. We both work and we share the cleaning jobs. It didnt really hurt all that bad but maybe since I KNOW for sure now that I cant pass these things, that they ache even more.
The Urologist said that she could insert a stent in my ureter to open em up so they'd pass. I dont know if I like that Idea at all. I mean, I know where they have to start, and thats like real uncomfortable.
Kids, take care of yourselves when youre young. You may, like me, make it to old age and ya dont want this crappy suffering. Heart trouble, diabetes and now freakin Kidney stones. Sheesh.
Bowe

Meet you on the dork side of the room

Well Friday is no longer Saturday. Friday is Friday tomorrow cause they added a shift to make up for Sunday nights early out. I'm cool wid dat. Mo Money. I can never get enough of dat. Rain all day. But I was in the depths of the Monster... sucking dirt and sweating to the oldies....
Tomorrow more of the insame.
Bowe

I'm Comfortably Numb

Tuesday is Sunday.
Tuesday is Sunday because Wednesday is Monday and Thursday is Friday. Friday is Saturday and Saturday is Saturday and Sunday is Sunday and I go back to work Monday night. Capece?
But enough with the dates. I m soooooooooooooo pissed off today, Its such a nice day and I I I I I I I I i I've not gotten what I want to get accomplished done. But I did get some unplanned things done and I feel good about dat. But its a tenative good. I still have to fix that broken cah doah. Friday I'll begin. Its better to begin when there are three back up days to handle any suprises. At least thats what I keep tellin miceelf.
Where is the Love? Where is the old "just do it" spirit?
Tim my brother in law is coming here to record soon. He says he has some musicians lined up to play. I have a couple if his blow it off...Its just a squeeze. He wants to play live too. Hmmmmm but whatever. I want to. It'd be good to have someone to play behind with the attitude he has towards music. I hope I can get some of the African Americans to play and sing backup too. We could be great. Time will tell.
Also the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle will tell as well. And so wont the theory of general relativity! Fabulous.
Bowe

In the Court of the Crimson King

Its like totally stupid. All the fuss made over Ronald Regans death at 93. He succumbed to the effects of alzheimers. Well. Yes. But that was a tragedy he faced as was disabled by while he was in his 80's. That was the tragedy. That he croaked at 93 is like. Remarkable. He was spoon fed, his ass was wiped by the hired hands. He lasted Allllll that time coming and going in and out of the here and now. That was the tragedy. Not that he died at 93. My mother-in-law has it and she's in a place where every now and again she'll respond to something said. Sometimes she'll answer the phone. She'll say "hello" and respond to your first question if she recognizes your voice. Then she'll abruptly hang up. But tbats like 'lucid'. She, the rest of the time just stares off somewhere, or looks into your eyes angrily. My mother in law before this onset was the sweetest, cookie bakinest, wouldnt say shit if she had a mouthfull woman ON THE EARTH. A Lutheran and poor, she was barely educated, but she ran the pack at the Abbotts. And deflected Duke the Dad when he needed it. She was still attractive even into her early 60's and she'd go on long walks to keep her figure. Then the Alzheimers hit... She went on furious food buying binges, stashing hundreds of dollars worth of junk food in a myriad of places around the house.Then came the huge weight gains...Then came the silence. IT WAS DEVISTATING for the Dukester. It rips up my wife, and Tim. Michael is silent to me about his feelings. And Bec lives wayyyy away, and doesnt talk to me much anyhow. I sit with her sometimes when Duke is here doing something. She grabs her purse and stands up. When this first began I'd say, "going somewhere honey?" and she'd sit back down. Now we all just say "grandma, ya ought to sit down," I remember one day a year ago when Me and Hannah, and Grandma were at Subway. Hannah went in to get the orders, and I was outside in the cah with Grandma. I was listenin to the radio and I yawned. "Are ya sleepy honey?" she asked me. And that sorta startled me... "No Grandma", I replied. Then I yawned again. Again she said "are ya sleepy honey?" and I again said no. Then a third time and the same response except this time I said "yeah Grandma, I must be gettin sleepy... I keep yawnin..." But its like soooooo sad and soooooo down. When she sits for a long time she has this curl in her hair on the right side in front that she just twirls. Thats it. She has to be reminded to take a bite when were eating. But she can still put it away. And I hope she's comfortable. I used to rant a lot especially around Hannah, "pick this up...pick that up.." But it freaked out Grandma, and when we were in Colorado, Grandpa upbraided me in public about being a public nuciense with my nasty attitude and habitual picking at Hannah because she'd slighted me. So I've even shut up about dat too....Well gotta go go go ....
Bowe

Midnight Monday

Got sent home early again tonight. At this rate I'll not be able to pay the mortgage. Good thing I still have vacation hours...Ya gotta take the ups with the downs. I have four kids: the oldest is 28, this Nov. then 26 October, then 16 in Sept, and 13 in August. I performed this feat with 3 different women too. I steadily regressed a month on each kid and separated the first two by two years and the last two by three years. It was my plan all along to do this. I am after all a genius. The first two women divorced me because I am totally not able to be lived with. Plus the first wanted to support a guy with a drug habit, not an alcohol habit, and my working for a living was a problem for her. At least thats what she told me, but she lied so much, who knew? The second one divorced me because I told her father she'd had sex with a black person, and that really pissed him off. Well. I was drunk, and she was seeing a co worker. She had me thrown in jail and HE wanted them to throw away the key. Wed only been married two months. She loves men! What can I say. Anyway it was all fot the best. Except there were children involved, and child support, (which I can happily say I'm now caught up on all my arrears.) And there for a long time (about five years) I drank beer everyday until I passed out. Then I'd find some way to get more and get some more. I smoked pot too, but that made me EXTREMELY sentimental. So I quit that at an early age. (like 35 or so) After my second divorce with court appearances facing me I entered rehab for alcoholism. I haven't drank a drop since the day I was last arrested Dec. 25th 1987. Fortunately for me, I've found out that living sober is possible and it is also possible to have some fun too. I am still a wacko but Its under control pretty much. I started drinking seriously when I was about 16. Ma would pass out and leave a few behind. Id drink em for her. (No sense wasting it, when she sobered up and decided to rehab herself, and pour them down the kitchen drain) So when I finally had my last drink at 36 years and 5 months of age, I had pretty much drank continually for twenty years. Doctors told me I had cirrhosis of the liver, nowadays I've got diabetes (all that sugar! alcohol turns to sugar in the system that turns into tryglycerides, that turns into a beer belly), I've had two heart attacks, and cardiac bypass surgery. (a quad) I eat too much still, I dont exercise enough but I do do it sometimes. I swore off doughnuts because Im personally convinced that they will kill you quicker than meat will. Every one I know who died of heart attacks was a doughnut and Icecream junkie. I used to be as well. Beer and doughnuts. Sheesh....
Anyway I once upon a time lived in the Adirondack Park in Upstate New York. Had I known my first wife's avocation was to be true white trash, I would have tried considerably less hard to earn a living,albiet I still needed beer money. And baby needed a new para shoes. I remember the time they shut off the electricity. It was in midsummer and we would have been fine. But she screamed so loud her voice carried a country mile. Yes, she had the upper hand in the relationship because of certain of her genuine talents...(she has false teeth) and I wanted us to be a 'family' and was always looking for some way to get rich so that I could hand my sons a fine something, someday. But I was missing the point entirely. She wanted to SUPPORT a drug addict, and live on an Indian Reservation. LIKE DUH! Im half Lithuanian, and Half English! NO REDSKIN here. I just didnt know it and went on on the assumption that she wanted what I wanted. That was to get rich early in life and hand down something to the boys sometime. AND be drunk most of the time too. Hey! President Bush did it for godsake.
She left me for an Indian (native american) who drove the big rigs, until he lost it all to oxycontin. Now they live on the reservation, and shes and accountant for the place and they get a break on the rental for that reason. Wife number two, who i sired a daughter by, is still at work at her sales/account position for a prominent local appliance dealer. Ya cant talk to her she's a liar too. Out of one side of her mouth comes words, out of the other side comes more words but a different song. AND she can play classical piano, flute, bass, etc... but she cant jam. She has to have charts. She once directed two church choirs and was president of the local philharmonic. But she gave it all up to raise that lil girl. AND she had me sign a paper sayin that i would not be invited to her birthday parties and anything else AND I wouldnt owe any child support if I'd just sign these few papers.... I did. I signed, I was deeply indebt to the state of Maine over my back support to the first wife. SOOOOOOOOOOOO for twelve blissful years I lived my life knowing nothing of this childs life, etc....
Then one day there was a ringing at my doorbell. I was my EX! She had this tall young lady with her. She introduced me to Kelly. I was astounded! She looked like pictures of my mother when my mother was a young girl. Far out. Dope. the bomb. Kaboom. Well the ex called me aside and said the kid HAD been a model student, religious, obedient cheerful, etc... until recently. Nowadays she was stealing money, charging stuff on moms credit cards, sneaking off and smoking pot all because she didnt know her dad. I found out later that at 12 she'd been having a lot of sex, and enjoying it too... sort of remosefully, but nevertheless enthusiastically. Now that age is the time when sex is pretty new. And that makes it all the more exciting... etc... et al. So I statred paying some child support (it later turned out NOT to be enough, NOT even close) and having visitations at my home with wife number 3 (who I'd been married to for 11 years at that time) and daugher 4 who is the apple of my eye and all the things the others havent revealed. It was alas not to be and when the child was 14 I was in court in Illinois. Where if you revoke your parental rights the custodial spouse can REINSTATE you if her lawyer deems it a good and prosperous deal for her and the daughter.... It is real expensive at this juncture and because I insisted on therapy for the child I never see the child. Everything is just as it was for those 12 blessed years except now Im about 4 grand lighter a year. America. God. Justice. Lawyers. Sex. Results. Dumb?
Open your dictionaries right now and there beside the word STUPID, is my sweet face....
Bowe
Be sure to listen: http://www.freewebs.com/rexio/

Third rate romance

Last Night I washed the filthy walls of the unit I inspect in. It was like greasy mud. it took cans of cleaner, and rags, and paper towels. Production ground to a halt when the mill went down. We ran all the crap in the yard that could be reworked, and everytime we went down I'd wash the walls. I never finished cause they sent us home at 2:30 am. I never argue with that. I just go. I love sleep and well you can read about how frustrated I can get with my job. I crashed about 4 am and slept till noon. I love it. I heard a very old song last night by a band called "Crazy elephant" I cant recall the title but I remember the bass line and the drums... It was wayyyyyy ahead of the music of its day. It was great blend of the two and was sooo funky. Kinda Pre-Average White Band-White band. They also played Chuck Berrys "Roll Over Beethoven" Which was a 'cut' aimed at the old Maestro. Classical Music is still fabulous. Its soothing, and shocking, and aggrivating sometimes, but its still totally wonderful. Nigras rarely listen to it roun heah. But if I have a long ride I tune in NPR and mellow out.
Delta Blues is bad as well. And listenin to the "Louisanna Gator Boys" play the song "How Blue can you get" gives me the same woody. Beethoven may wanna roll ova but if he could he'd rock. I just know it.
Bowe

be sure to visit and listen to: http://www.freewebs.com/rexio/

The Sun is US

I dont hate anybody today. And I washed out my filthy mouth with lysol. Mom would have been proud. I worked all night and the first night is always the worst. I made it. 12 grueling hours with two two hour intervals of wall washing because the system went into grid lock. But such is the nature of the manufacturing realm. Ya gotta roll with it.
We are energy and matter and we absorb food and change the food into energy and then we go from highly ordered low entropy, to extremely disordered high entropy. It takes a lot of high entropy to get the low entropy high order of orderliness. These are scientific observations that have been proven with tests, both locally and beyond. Our Universe is NOT local. It is here and there. We are the Sun, and the rain, and the song that you believe again. (apologies to Buck Storm) I have to go back in 3 hours and twenty three minutes. But I slept for nearly six hours and can make it on that quite well. Tomorrow I'll be snoozin all day howeva. But thats ok. Its posed to rain and be nahs stay.
The older I get the worse I get about everything. Im less patient, more prejudicial, easily offened, and constantly angry. Im so glad I dont drink. Im problem enough. Thats what Keith says that they'll say when he's buried.."Problem solved". They'll probably say that about me too.
Bowe

I have a cookie

It brings me back to you. It makes me feel safe. And ever so secure.
Pop
I sat on the rug
Wham
jus biding(bideing)(Christ, English) my Senator Joe
zap
when in from the rain
came
Joni in pain
I have to stay up all night tonight. 12 hours and watch a line go by underwater. Its my day job. It pays the mortgage. It pays the child support, It pays the grocery bill. It bought my guitars, amps, (well part of the inheritance money bought the musical equipment) and pays the electricity bill and the gasssssssssssssssss billz. I have to listen to people complain that my life is better than theirs. They dont do this directly however. Its always indirectly. I chew gum and they want a piece. Like Im the fuckin Bank of America and can supply everyone with chewing gum. Most of them smoke cigarettes and when whey come into my work station they light up and relax. I had an heart attack a couple years ago so they figure that I need the smoke to mellow me out. I tell some of them to get the fuck out. I am that rude. But they dont leave they just laugh and say "oh you dont mean it." I fuckin mean it. I hate people. They need shit continually, and they want more, and they want it now, and they don't say thank you unless it makes them look like theyre socially wonderful. (How's this for raw cynicisim?) Jesus died for people. What a dope. Ahhhhhhhhh
I like the people in the African American Church. I like my kid. I like my wife. I like icecream but I cant eat it anymore. diabetes. heart disease, arthritis, bills. Suicide seems like a great idea sometimes. Im in therapy. I pay a shrink to listen to me and come up with solutions. I tell him shit like Im telling you now. I cant stand analyzing shit anymore. I just dont fucking care. I want to blow off everyone and live in the woods. Lock the door. Throw away the Tee Vee, the computer, the medicine. This is obiously post vacation depression. I've agreed to work more overtime. They think I dont pull my weight at work in the overtime department.And believe me Im fucking fat. So I agreed to pull my weight in overtime hours for a few months.
I used to cut scrap on straight days. I was kind of the company joke. I may still be, but I didnt care. I worked 6 to 2:30 days, and sometimes on saturday. Any shit job that came up I got and I got shit from my bosses everyday. I just blew it off, thought about music and sex, and cut scrap. Well when I hired on, I was a radiographer (industrial) and I became a level II Ultrasonic inspector. I wound up in the Lab, up to my ass in alligators, and when I fucked up a mill certificate, due to inadequate training, I got booted to the yard. (Storage area, where forklifts run pipe all around loading train cars and trucks) I did shit jobs for seven years cause they all thought I was wayyyyy wierd. Then in 2000 I got into an argument with my 'team leader' and wound up BACK in the Mill as "yep" and Ultrasonic inspector. I have to work 12 hour shifts. but I only work 15 or 16 days a month. and half of that at night. I have an heated/air conditioned unit although its extremely dirty and filled with 'mill scale' it smells like a sewer because the water used to test the pipe is recycled and gets stagnent. Its also attached to the only two bathrooms in that end of the factory and some of the people who work there must also graze when they arent at work cause when they shit it smells like a stockyard in my unit. And I sit there for 12 hours straight (I eat a sandwich at the 6 1/2 hour mark for my break) I watch a weld pass under a stream of water and between two or four ultrasonic shoes and when theres a defect in the pipe, lights go off and a horn sounds. I mark the thing sometimes cutting samples with a gas torch or a plasmaarc for destructive tests and proof that what I'm sayin is what is there. without fail between the hours of 2 and 4 am or pm it doesnt matter I get sleepy/hypnotized and have to put cold water on my face or get up (yes I'm seated) and walk around. I drink bottles of water all night and bet up to piss pretty regularly. At my age and with my health problems, I get stiff joints quickly so the walk around the corner to the urinal sometimes is slow and painful. All of this buys me a 100,000.00 house in a nice neighborhood, but one that need tons of maintenence. I bought the house because of the location. Trees, nobody right in your window, in fact I live next door to my doctor. And he's downhill from me. I can roll my heart attacked ass down the hill and ring his doorbell for CPR. Cool eh? People at work want my job. They say its better than their job. Everyday I get some fucker whining that they want to be trained at my job, that they started to be trained at it and then they got pulled off...it never occurs to them that they might just SUCK at setting the shit up and doing the job. You do after all have to do more than just fucking sit there. They just are pissed that an old stupid fuck like myself gets to sit in the airconditioning every shift and listen to the radio. Well fuck. Ya cant really. Pipes are clanging, machines are spinning, conveyors are whining, saws are cutting, bundlers are bundling, etc....Fucking people are whining.
My father hated me and told me so while he was alive. I stood for everything he hated. Long hair, disrespect, rock and roll. He was a bureaucrat. He wanted me to be one and when I got thrown out of the Army in 1970, (for the good of the service) He rarely spoke to me unless it was necessary. But once the tole me I should become a preacher. They get lots of money for just talking. It was a racket you couldnt beat. He told me about my great aunts, (grand aunts) and how they were holy rollers. They go to a healing service on Sunday and throw away their eyeglasses cause Jesus healed their blinding eyes and then on Monday Uncle Sam Hitchcock would have to take them back down to the revival tent to fish through the pile of glasses to find em again cause the healing wouldnt take. My father told me that he used to have to stay with em (there were three old ladies and Uncle Sam) and in the middle of the night Ethyl would yell..."Sam theres a burgler!" and Sam would say, "there aint no burgler" but he'd still have to get up and look anyway.All that paranoia made my old man afraid. He told me he'd think..."Christ! what if there was a burglar?" But that I should become a preacher cause Im a con man and I would fit right in.
Im an idiot. Im a reject from everything. Im an attempt at a person. Im an attempt at a life. But just like there are millions of bacteria and millions of galaxies, I have my day. Its shortening up and soon I'll be no more. I never did anything heroic, I never did anything henious. But Im certain I was capable of either, and could have. I guess I never had a family until this one. Me my wife and daughter. My wife and I have been together for 16 years now and I like her company, and my daughter is going to be 13 soon and is changing but we can still communicate. I have music. I play music, I listen to music, I live music, I admire good musicians wherever I find them. I try to support good music, and I buy cd's. I heard a band in Milwaukee last summer at Summerfest, Ecuador Manta. I paid 4 buck more for the CD than the guy wanted and put a good size tip in the suitcase because those fuckers could make fine music. However the CD did not reflect the music of that particular show and although its good, its different. My wife ordered me a pedicure. I gotta go take a shower and get over there.Diabetics have trouble keeping their feet on their bodies and pedicures supposedly help. I guess. Its my first. We'll see.
Bowe

Friday equals Monday

It begins my work week. It also ends my work week Saturday. Then working on Sunday begins my next week which ends after I work wed-thurs. gruvy eh?
Im a total failure. I tried to fix a broken door on my SUV and ruined both the door and the fender. It was amazing. I thought I had my problem solved and wack. I couldnt get the door back open without bending the fender in and the door out. I was sooooo stoopid. Anyway the cars got 150,000 miles+ on it and its really no big deal. But I hate I absolutely HATE fucking something up when I KNOW I could have fixed it. I just made one bad move and it cost me dearly. Now I cant use the door at all and and and the side of the vehicle looks like total shit. Man, I've been beating myself since 4 oclock over dis and I still feel awful. Duh. Ya dont get smarter with age. Its a lie.
Bowe

Yo Hody

Thursday in corn country.
My God its grate to be alive. It is fine to breathe the fresh air of freedom, feel the mosquito bites, and know that morels will NOT be found due to the cold, that the season is OVER and I didnt eat any. That thousands of dollars worth of sprayed and veneered corn crops have been washed away by the intense rains, and that beans will have to suffice.
I have an aquaintance who was once my boss. He is also a cattle grower. Well He was until his back went out and they had to operate on him. He used to drink mass quantities of Budwieser Lite and smoke Marlboro cigarettes. And at work he drank volumes of coffee and walked alot. Now he walks nine miles a day. Hes lost a thousand pounds and looks great. (Well he is bald, thats kind of a negative)anyway...Last night i dreamt dreamed dreampt in my sleep i had a movie. I was at work and we were having a corporate visit. Then the handlers of the CEO were wearing Grey and Black hardhats with the company logo on the side in borders, kind of like the NEW YORK JETS used to have the name on their hats. Well anyway they looked like Nazi helmets from the 30's (1930's) and all the handlers had black suits on. The CEO who normally says hello to me because we go back, looks at me and doesnt speak. I get intstantly paranoid that he's thinking Im more incompetant than I am already and that its the the the...end. Well Im driving this forklift up this ramp to park it in some special place when these two guys from Chicago who are new hires are having sex in a closet with some blonde secretaries. I asked them hey whats up? and they ignored my question, and My OLD Boss came up and gave me a load of shit over my not parking the rig where I was supposed to when I was supposed to. Just then another new employee came up to me and said "why do you piss him off? He'd leave you alone if you'd just shut your mouth." I replied "hey, I've worked here for fourteen fucking years. I know how to survive this shit." And then I thought..."no I don't! What the hell am I talking about?"
I dont know much
But I know I love youuuuuuuuu
that may be all I need to know.
Listen to my music.
"Santa at the Gulag" via cdbaby.com/cd/rexstratton
and it gets mo betta.

Closin In On Thursday

And I aint got shit accomplished. I need to fix the door on the Exploder and get the front end realigned. Sigh. I had all that beautiful time in Colorado, and now its back to the grind. I went over to Nathaniel Johnsons Church (Second Missionary Baptist Church 438 N.4th street Clinton, Iowa) and I had a reunion with him. I played guitar for his worship team in 1998-990 and 2000. then I quit after thinking, that if there was a God there wouldnt be all the mess there is. So I put my band together as quickly as I could and began to make money playin music as I could. I wound up spending more than I made and tapping my toes on the floor waiting for musicians who'd made a committment to show, not show. The musicians I met via the African American Gospel Circuit were so superior to any street musicians I jammed with or played in a band with I decided to swallow my pride and see if he needed a guitarist this summer. He did. I took him to his favorite restaurant after the wednesday night service (I was there for the final screaming prayers) and bought him dutch apple pie (hot) and we had decaf. We never stopped talking from the time we greeted each other until I left his garage at a quarter to ten. He'd taken me to Mississippi a few years back to play revivals in some of the poorest communities I've ever seen, and told me that he'd just got back from another week down there. He got a new Caddilac. ( a 2000, and the seats move 12 different ways!)
They are going to Louisianna for a week and the 13th he wants me to go to a church in Illinois and play guitar with him his bass player and his drummer. I love that particular church cause they are also called Second Baptist and in 99 when I played there they preacher told me "Bro Rex, you eva leave Second baptist in clinton, then you get ova heah to Second baptist in Dixon!" I cant remember his name but he's dope. Anyway the phone STILL hasnt rung but my e-mail wish was that many people would by my CD at CD Baby.com entitled "Santa at the Gulag" or download it at netmusic. Who knows? When Bootsie barked maybe thats when somebody bought a copy? They never tell me anything.
Oh and Jesus? Im really sorry about that stuff I said about you. I didnt make the movie,and I wouldnt go see it unless they put a gun to my head. Thats not my favorite part of the Bible anyway.
Bowe

The Phone still didnt ring

However the dog barked.
Maybe he has a secret message for me...nah...

Clap for the wolfman

It seems like everything is the same but the faces change. Some realitive sent me an e mail that said my phone would ring if I made a wish and forwarded the e mail. Its one thirty am here. If my phone rings it'll be John my youngest son who'll be stoned and want to whine.
President Bush got a Sunni guy to be president of Iraq. I thought that Hussein was a Sunni guy. I thought the Shiites were the good guys. White turbans and all.
Some GI's have returned from Iraq and said here that the news media only covers the negative stuff and never the good stuff that the US is doing over there. Like repairing the water system (that it blew up) and building schools for the kids. I asked myself over and over...what good could come from this war in this place. Well the only answer I could come up with was, that it concentrated the enemies energies on throwing our Army out of Iraq and thus took the heat off our own country and those of our 'allies' for now. So at least one thing made sense to me. And that was that the military by taking the war on terror to the Iraqis kept it from the New Jerseyites. Odd too how every news media person is covering Uranium mining, Uranium storage etc... Can they keep this vigilance up? I doubt for very long.
One day Osama is gonna be the bomb and kaboom. He's layin for a moment. I remember reading about Arabs and vengence forty years ago, and how they would poison someones clothing and kill them that way. Remotely.
The phone still hasnt rung.
Im a true skeptic, doing personal research. Either that or Im full of shit. Im not certain which yet.
Bowe