keep your head up, howler monkey. we're all living weekend to weekend to a certain extent... and if the weekend isn't soon enough, declare a religious holiday and do something fun (one of the bonuses of never stating to anyone, even yourself, anything binding about your religious beliefs).

in related news, the cardinals game yesterday was perfect. great weather (just the perfect amount of cool), cold beer, and an astounding victory with five home runs. no wonder espn thought no one would want to watch our game as compared to the other first round playoff games. motherfuckers.

requiat in pace, Rodney.

oh yeah, and fuck bush.

today is the first day of baseball post season, and i will be there. for anyone who would be, be jealous. anyone who wouldn't, just be happy for me. i'm going to say cardinals 8, dodgers 4. i'm also going to be knocking on a wooden rabbit's foot with my hat on inside out and every crossable digit crossed.

in political news, fuck bush. that's right, fuck him.

he did it! kerry did it! he attacked the right thing! stick and move, stick and move! i don't normally put links in a post, but here. if either one of the people who read this blog haven't had a chance to see or hear this, this is the best i can pull off for the moment. i was trying to find the whole speech in its entirety, but what are you going to do.

our presidential contest is neck and neck,
with candidates spewing lies and dreck.
we must stop our bumpkin warlord,
but the other option leaves me bored.
why a luke warm moderate instead
of a firebrand heart and a cool head.
how about a liberal to rally behind
someone who uses their nimble mind
mass produced choices are a limiting few
(sorry, mr. nader, this job's not for you!)

vote for me, next election, and i'll tell you what
a hybrid car in every garage
and two beers in every gut.
-g

played football with a bunch of guys in their late thirties on saturday. went to the driving range with a certain howler monkey yesterday. my hands feel like oven mitts, and my quads are creaking. god help me, i'm an old man at twenty-six.

i hope that everyone's labor day weekend was as good as mine. i especially hope that the forty plus mosquitos who did their parts in the long standing quest to make it easier for me to get drunk. a note to the red cross... if you see one of those mosquitos, grab the fucker, as she has at least a pint of my at least somewhat rare blood type. a note to the moquitos... i saw you staggering around after you bit me. that'll teach you. also, if one of you fuckers gave me west nile, you'd better hope i die from it, because i've got connections, and i'll find you. (editors note: we here at gthedamned realize that very few if any moquitos will ever read this last bit of rant, if for no other reason than it takes at least fifty of them to turn on the average computer.)

i have been shut of cigarettes for over two weeks now... just so you know.

those god-fearing-god-damned republikkkans are really doing their damnedest to piss me off. voluntary ignorance is right up there on my list of ways to kill any respect i might have. rudy giuliani, mayoral hero of the new republikan moderate movement, has, in one speech, gone from being reasonably respectable to the same sort of lying scum that i had rather hoped he was better than. the quote from his speech at the republiklan rally last night in particular that stuck in my craw was the one that said that our president can see past today, and tomorrow, and into the future. this about a man who had enough foresight to start a war without an exit strategy, and the final determination to say a year and a half ago "mission accomplished" (meanwhile how many have died since then?). if george w. bush has a vision of the future, then he has no vision of either the present or the past. i'm not saying that john kerry is the best choice for our country, but if we let this moronic visionary have another four years, there is no telling how much trouble we'll get ourselves into. you and i are a part of w's vision of the future. we are the help.

sorry to get so political, but it's been quite a while since the blog had this kind of slant, so it just kind of poured out.

just blogging to say welcome back allison and yes, you should sleep with the howler monkey. since the two of you are probably half of my readers, i will say no more...

the management and staff at geronimothedamned would like to thank both of our readers for letting us know that they still care enough to devote several seconds of their time to the cause. from all of us (inside this head) to all of you (outside this head), thank you. it's good to feel loved.

on a different note, tomatohead, aka jordan, is nearing the end of his long journey. here's hoping that seattle is good to him.
in related news, who's to say what's up with the bastards karamazov. initial recordings have been laid down, all that remains are a few more songs and some post production. look for the bastards cd before the end of the year.

business, business, business. hate to say so, but i have to go to work.

i knew it.  nobody cares about poor little g.   (sniffle)  i guess i'll just have to go kill myself or something...

(the above message was intended for ironic purposes only.  had this been real self pity, you can bet your ass it would not appear on this website.  self pity made public is whining, and whining may well require capital punishment when my reign of terror begins.)

the show was a success.  we will try to perform it, in slightly modified form, at another date to be announced.  also, coming soon, bastardskaramazov.com for all of your excited interest and interested excitement.
 
just to fulfill my curiosity, could anyone who actually reads this drivel post a comment?  i know it's a lot to ask, but i would like to know if i am the only one who actually reads this blog.

four days until the comedy event of the summer... the bastards karamazov present a smutcar named deflower at the way out club, tuesday, july sixth. doors at 8:30, show at 9:30.
my anniversary is also this weekend (well, this long weekend). it's hard to believe that siouxs! and i have been married a year already. actually, it's mostly hard to believe that she has put up with my ass for a year of wholly matrimony. to that end, if anyone should see my beautiful bride (or call or e-mail her), congratulate her on her infinite patience. (not to get lost in sentimentality, but) i love you, suzi.

in this time of tumultuous change, there are still a few things that you can count on. one of those things is that the bastards karamazov will have another show. though it is as yet unnamed, the bastards will be performing tuesday, july 6th, at the home of bastard comedy, the way out club, at 9:30 pm. the cover is still only five dollars. five dollars. think of it this way. we're saving you from going to jack'n the box and pushing yourself one step closer to cardiac arrest. we're keeping you off those dirty cigarettes. all proceeds go toward buying the bastards smokes.

ok, honestly, i'm not sure if i have anything to say in this post, but i'll try for the sake of beating my month habit...
the family was in town this past weekend. it was a pretty good time, i must say. we took them to the zoo (however briefly... it was hot out there), the city museum (for the stl uninformed... please visit the city museum sometime, and not just the bar, though that is pretty damned rockin' as well) and dave and busters, where i proceeded to get the whole family hooked on running the ponies (derby owners club... a good way to blow fifty bucks). all and all, it was a good weekend, but i'm still trying to get my brain back up to normal function, and i'm still trying to erase the southern accent that my mom is always kind enough to lend to me when i see her from my speech. seriously, i had less of an accent when i was a kid than i do now.
haven is still the cutest kid in the whole damned world, but is proving to be smart as well. he knew, without being able to read or count (he's two) which was their hotel room from a line of identical doors. he also figured out how to unlock said door from the inside by watching someone else do it once. the kid's a friggin' genius. and so fucking cute it makes you just want to gather bunnies and ducklings, then throw them at other kids.
it's nearly thirty minutes until i have to start work. i should get some work done...

whoa! blogger, what hast thou wrought?! can't say i was ready for a change (which in reality probably took place weeks ago) to the blogging system i know and love. it's thrown me so far off, i almost forgot what i was going to write about. first of all, alissa (see link to the side, but really, if you've ever read my blog, you probably know alissa) was in town last weekend, and st. louis was temporarily a better place. second of all, alissa, you can buy me drinks all you want, but if you dare say it's a repayment for your part of the bar tab at the karaoke bar, i will have to mock you. hard. (seriously, until my fourth aa meeting, i will buy you drinks without a second thought, at least until the bar tab gets into the triple digits).
ok, now the real reason i got on blogspot... i wish i could give you a date, but the new bastards karamazov show is going to be freaking awesome. avante garde, cutting edge comedy that isn't afraid to say what it means, or hit on your mom after a few pitchers of boilermakers. look for us to announce multiple dates at multiple locations. if you or anyone you know owns a bar with a sound system and a stage, let us know. if you or anyone you know likes to get drunk with funny people, let us know that too.

clocking in at just over a month it's...... geronimo! that's right folks. i haven't forgotten either one of you. it's just that i've been so busy lately, what with the kidnapping and all. i mean, like it or not, you gotta feed those hostages every day!
to be honest, i really am only writing this so that i can not write again for another month. i'm not really a diary type person, and i'd usually rather get a laugh in person than hear someone tell me they thought the blog was funny. i wish i could promise more posts, more regularly, but i know that i wouldn't keep that promise. instead, i'll make a promise i know i can keep. (ah-hem) from this point on, i promise that each and every gthedamned post will contain at least one (1) multisylabic word. gthedamened is not responsible for misspellings. for that i would blame the drugs.
until next month, or something pisses me off real good...

the day of a show may cause
-fluttering stomach
-incurable lust for nicotine
-desire to be anywhere but work
-lack of focus
-need to last minute prop shop

needless to say, i am a victim of the above ailment. the show is going to kick ass, but until i hear a good laugh from the audience, i get a shit load of this. if you haven't made plans, you have now. if you have, break them, or better yet, relocate them. nothing makes a romantic moment more special than three overeducated and undercivilized gentlemen of the world poking fun at human foibles and genitalia. come one, come all, bring the kids (just not inside, please). bring grandma. she'll piss herself, and if she can hear well enough, she might just enjoy the show, too!

the kc was a rockin good time, as it turns out. i got to see several old friends, including kingston, the new topographer, and insomnia. to at least the first two listed above, it was spectacularrrr to see you again. (and new t. -- you should steal your dad's car. it looks great on you!)
i really think i should have majored in piracy.
now i have two weeks as acting office manager, since the real one is in new zealand. should prove to be fun, if i can hold my sanity intact.

come see the bastards karamazov one week from tonight at the way out club, 9:30 until they kick us the fuck out.

the bastards karamazov will be performing their first ever live solo show, march 9th at (where else) the way out club on the corner of jefferson and gravois, starts sometime after nine. for details call 781-2464

whoo hoo, i get to go to kansas city. party-time.

let's talk about salt, people. not table salt; that will have to be another rant for another time. no, i mean that modern marvel, road salt. first of all, when the sign on the back of the truck says stay back fifty feet, do. it's not only hell on a paint job, but will also whitewash a windshield like that was the purpose.
it's the driveways that i need to comment on, though. when you lay down salt on the driveway, it usually turns out to be a good thing for everything but the grass on either side. however, let me implore you to stop at a certain point! once you get to the point that you are slipping on the salt as badly (or worse, since it isn't expected) as you would the ice, it has gone too far. think before you salt. a message from the national you fucking moron council.

(two non-political posts in a row. can he go for the record?)

first there was ice, falling from the sky overnight
then there was snow all morning, to insulate the ice
then there was lasagne
then there was sleep
then there was an anxious radio listener, hopefully listening to school closings
then there was a disappointed radio listener
then there was no school anyway
but there was still work.
drunks don't take snow days.
now there's going to be more snow, and they don't plow our new neighborhood with any more regularity than they did the old one. does it get any better than this?

hateful demokkkrats are going to cost us four more years of that joker. if there can't be at least one unified front by the other evil corrupt political party, we might even see an abolition of term limits in the next four years. then we're really fucked, aren't we?

Let's go to the moon again, folks. think of how great that will be. we could live there, even if there is no life on the moon as yet. we could use the moon as a cheaper way to get to mars, what with the lessened gravity and all, even though there is no rocket fuel on the moon. and once we get to mars, why don't we just take that short little hop to heaven? we could thank jesus in person for all the help he's given us, in stealing elections, in bringing a highly technological war to an already downtrodden people, and in driving on a emotion centered populace over a cliff that they could see if only they would look with rational eyes.

that said, come see our show on monday. it's going to be the best one yet.

the bastards karamazov will be performing once again at reverend brim stone's lunar menagerie, this monday, jauary 19th at the way-out club, corner of jefferson and gravois.

i am way too sleepy to be at work, even though my caffeine is finally starting to kick in.

well, i've beat the month. now that it is blessed january, and i have nothing more than a lot of paperwork to do, i hope that i'll have time to update the world (at least the billionth of a percent that read this blog) on my day to day goings on. actually, strike that. i shouldn't bore the few people good enough to pay attention to my ravings... gotta work. more later

good god this is going to be a long day. my back hurt when i got up this morning, and over the course of today, i have to deal with 1800 cases of wine. i hope we get good temps. i also hope that plenty of people come to the third rev. brim stone's lunar menagerie, monday, dec 15, at the way out club (corner of jefferson and gravois). finally, i hope that you all have a good day, right up till let's say three fourteen. from there on out, you're on your damn own.

i realize that i'm slacking off on my posts, but it has been rather busy at work, what with it being the holiday season and all. i never guessed that people need to drink so much to deal with the holidays. i thought it was just me. it seems that between shopping, eating, family get-togethers, gift giving, and decorating, not to mention the weather, which is the primary reason for all of the holidays this time of year anyway, nearly everyone could stand a quick belt. it's not quite 8 a.m., and i could stand a quick belt right now. if this were a holiday, to hell sith standing, i could sit a long protracted journey into an alcohol fueled fantasy world, filled with bourbon elves and reinbeer. just imagine: one shot for every ornament hung, while slowly working on an eggnog (less the egg and the nog, thanks) and wondering how long it will take dad to crack into the bushmill's we got him for christmas, and if he plans on sharing it this year. a roaring fire, irish coffee, kahlua and milk for the kids, gin and vodka cocktails cooling in the snow, and grandma fortifying her tea with just the slightest nip (of tea).

sweet dreams...

well, i hope everyone had a nice thanksgiving. i did, on the whole, though there wasn't nearly as much drinking as there was the last time we did thanksgiving with suzi's family, two years ago. drinking beer all day and eating so much that drunkenness is next to impossible is a wonderfully gluttonous pastime, but one that can only be practiced a few times a year.

how is it that there are twelve days of christmas, but only seven deadly sins? what are you supposed to do the other five days?

i don't have a whole hell of a lot to say this morning, and you might be asking yourselves, why then must you subject us all to tales of your tedium? to which i reply this. were any of you to endure my version of boredom for even a second, your heart would be cauterized. that's right. i'm not bored or boring, i'm performing a valuable service to all of mankind (which, alongside my other goal to transform as much grain alcohol as possible into water for the health and safety of humans everywhere makes me a pretty indespensable, don't you think?).

the stl can be such a fucking drag.

just a quick post to make everyone jealous... i got to see chris rock live last night, and with about six thousand exceptions, you didn't.

dear god, to be in great britain right now. imagine with me, if you will, a land in which protesters are actually permitted to see the person and/or corporate menace that they have an issue with! real press being given to liberals and consservatives alike! and not one gun in the hands of the populace or the police! if only i had time to pack...

television is proof that the rich hate the poor. keep them pacified. keep them stationary. should the bastards desire information, filter it and spin it and keep them ignorant. keep them thinking that cops brutalizing criminals is reality (as well as people dating for huge sums of money and people eating live insects for smaller sums of money). keep them buying, keep them fat, keep them docile, keep them in wait for the cage rattling that brings forth the spew of ignorance and filth some have the nerve to call patriotism.

i guess i'm a little scathing this morning. the show is tonight...

this is why i'm a sucker...
the man has not been able to (completely) keep me down
i've taken on (video boxing) the heavyweight champ witout a scratch
i've stood my ground against opression, racism, classism, and several other isms
and one little rhinovirus can kick my ass
tad's ride, i'b sick! bud tad's not why i'b a sucker...
i'm posting from work.

i'm such a sucker sometimes, i believe my own bullshit.

coming off of a good rehearsal, i would have to say that the next baskar show is going to rock thy nads off. those of you without nads to rock off, it will rock some of the recently rocked off nads onto you. November 17th, at the way-out club on the corner of jefferon and gravois, nine o'clock, post meridian.

one of our dogs got ahold of a chicken beastbone and some ribs. i think she's going to be ok, but jesus fucking christ.

thank god for republikkkans!
praise jesus for george w. bush, our hero!
may john ashcroft sit at the lord's right hand for all eternity!

if it weren't for those dears at the republikkkan party, we might not have noticed. we might have walked right past, never noticing as the snake bit our collective heel. you see, it seems that the iraqis are much more cunning and evil than we thought. it seems that they have hidden their weapons of blah blah so well, that our boys haven't found them yet! those bastards! however, this is national news, international if the other countries know what's good for them! that's not the shadowy ninja of unamericanism that we need to focus on right now. we need to turn our sights away from iraq, the united states' own highly checkered past, the republkkkan lust for pure power and the ability to overlook any injustice that makes that power possible. thank you, christ the king for showing us the true insidious danger that we need to be protected from. it seems that those hate-mongerin demokkkrats have been talking about our boys apparent inability to find the afore mentioned blah blah anywhere in iraq! for shame how can you scandal-sowing enemies of freedom do such a thing when what your country needs is for you to shut up and take it like a man? (that goes for you in the bleeding heart bleeding monthly set too! take it like a man for your country!) our friends and protectors have always kept us safe before, right? remember when the averted the crisis of the philandering president? or when they saved us from that guy in the middle east, the one with the mustache? remember?

thank god for demokkkrats...!

well, it's four thirty on a friday, and here i sit at the office. suzi has the car so that we can get the various inspections we need to renew our plates. needless to say, she is the responsible one in the marraige.

i'm pretty fucking hungry right now, having skipped lunch and then labored manually most of the afternoon. i realize hunger primarily when i have time to, but i feel fairly certain that other people can tell when i'm hungry before i can. one example might be you, who as you read this blog, feel that i'm making even less sense than usual. you'd be right of course, as hunger is the only way i know of (apart from strong drink or drugs) to elicit from me such a stream of consciousness type piece of writing.

i'd better eat something soon.

i'm shockingly awake right now, but also shockingly uninspired to write about anything but politics. i write entirely too much about politics, so i think i'll save you all the bourbon of hearing from me ramble on and on about how i feel toward republikkkans one more time (no, i didn't say bourbon, you should get your eyes checked or something, rummy).

(sigh)

it's seven thirty; do you know where you are?

shouldn't i be tired an hour earlier?
I sure enough wanted a beer earlier
i awoke earlier
i ate earlier
we've wrested that extra hour back
for now

bastards karamazov at rev. brim stone's lunar menagerie #2 nov 17, at the way out
be there and be square
we don't care, we're suave and debonair
you're the fucking square

i'm feeling a little bit revolutionary again...
why can't we travel to and trade with cuba at this point? does it not stand to reason that without the support of a more global form of communism, that cuba is on the downward slope? isn't it fairly obvious that cuba will no longer be can no longer be a castro-ist communism without castro? how old is that guy, anyway, 106 or something? let's open it up, smoke some fine cigars, draft some new cardinals, and reap the benefits of a remarkable drug and medical therapy industry.
who know what evil lurks in the hearts of government? not even the shadow can fathom that much...

i think of myself as a baseball fan (at least for the past two or three years), but who do i cheer for in this world series (which i have yet to watch one game of)? on principle, i would root for the mormon tabernacle choir over the yankees, but, then again, teal has no place in the world of professional sport (nor national or municipal flags, houses, men's clothing, kitchen appliances, or high technology products). For similar reasons, i cannot support the charlotte hornets, though they are the closest basketball team to the land of my birth.
so, i guess, in this particular case, i'll just have to cheer for freak meteorilogical conditions. go, asteroids!

I heard a country song on the radio in the warehouse the other day (not by choice, mind) that set my blood a-boil. (very quickly, let me clarify. i don't mean country like patsy cline, johnny cash, or hank williams sr., but rather modern country, which i call the nash-vegas sound. the nash-vegas sound is really just boring tempo rock and roll with a twang that it shouldn't have. either play real country, or switch to rockabilly, or shift a little and be alt-country. don't just stand there scratching your balls and be proud of how much of a ignorant redneck you are.)
anyway, the song included the line (forgive me if i paraphrase) "and you say we don't have to worry about bin laden, have you forgotten?" then went on to sing the joyous prasies of our war in iraq and the ongoing struggle to gain order there. and goddamn it, i haven't forgotten anything from the eleventh of september. i was against going to war before we did, and still think it was a bad idea. i think most people are beginning to agree with me now that we've discovered no weapons of anything more than individual destruction. i still want to see the trial of osama and anyone else related to the fateful day, but i don't like everything else that goes on in the name of "homeland security." i imagine the fbi already has a file on me for the seditious statements i make here, and john ashcroft probably thinks me a treasonous anti-american, but i'm more american than he is, because i still believe in the things that this country was born in. give me liberty, or give me death, motherfucker.

I'm really over this thinning hair thing. every time i wash my hair, i come up with enough hair entwined in my fingers to weave a barbie wig. i still have a good amount of coverage, but not nearly enough depth. the particularly anoying part is that almost no one in my family has ever lost ther hair. my great-grandfather had three types of cancer (two of which he beat) and a full, unruly, and snowy mane. my grandfather (his son-in-law) had quite a forehead, which made him appear to have a receding hairline, but i've seen the pictures, so unless it started receding when he was not quite yet a pre-teen, i'm pretty sure that's just the way he looked. here it is, 2003, and I, product of the best genes eastern tennessee hill folk have to offer, and given an hour, i could count all of the hair i have left in slightly over an hour.

and yet i could shave every day. sometimes i think there is a god, and that he's just a fucking clown with a seltzer bottle.

well, since ahnold is gov., perhaps i should officially anounce my running for prez in 2016. you should really vote for me. true, i don't have any movies out, but just wait, fucker,

well, the show was a success. we were apparently the most entertaining part of the variety, though our performance nerves did tend to speed us along too much. I broke character three times during one sketch, but that sketch was a whole lot of me talking.

this is an astounding week of work. we're taking in wine at an unbelievable rate, and moving it out not quite so fast, but still at a good healthy pace. i, like suzi, will be glad when this week is over.

this post has no humor. at not quite 8 am, neither do i.

so the show is tomorrow. this will be the first performance of baskar, and as such, i am drinking guinness. also, as such, i am drinking, otherwise it may be difficult to sleep.

it's really hard to look cool carrying 20 sheets of posterboard.

all hallows eve fast approaches. back home in the bible belt, my mom's church (theone i used to go to) holds a biblical themed costume thing where they give away candy to the kids. some costume ideas i wanted to see.

one of lot's virgin daughters accompanied by the men of sodom

the kids who got mauled to death by (divinely inspired) bears for making fun of elijah's bald head

barabas

judas and his 30 piece silversheckel orchestra

non-southern baptists burning in hell

at least then, they'd have got the spirit of the celebration right, if not the message.

he just could't resist a terminator reference, could he?

i think that everyone in this country would have a better day if they talked to at least one australian a day. seriously, they always seem to be having a pretty good time themselves, and even if they aren't, do you have any idea how hard it is to sound depressed in that accent? did crocodile dundee ever sound upset? just try it. make up a word that sounds like australian slang (try to use a "ch", a "wah" and no less than two z's; it's a piece of fucking cake). now say it, out loud. now say "good onya!" now look out your window at the passerby who have stopped to watch you (aka some lunatic) talking to yourself. don't you feel better already?

well, the wedding was pretty cool, all things considered. i got to give my mother away, which was something of an odd experience (well, i "brought her to marraige," which is the decidedly more enlightened way to put it).

haven can say my name.

the show is less than a week away, and i can't get ahold of tomatohead. nonetheless, baskar reigns supreme, or will this coming monday night, 9 to midnight at the way out club.

jury duty was mind numbing. the only thing that made it moderately appealing was that there was absolutely nothing appealing about it, at all. in no way.

oh yeah.

we've been a week now without the man in black. the world is a colder, darker place, and a new ghost rider has been added to the sky, but i hope this one is drunk on the finest sour mash and driving around in a '55 caddy, chasing the angels back to where they belong. rest in relative peace, johnny.

server problems seem to be fixed.... for now.
today, suzi and i are going to drive down to tennessee (well, tonight, rather) so that we can see my mom get married. i must say i'm not exactly thrilled by the prospect, and i really wish she had given me a little bit more lead time so that i could have bought us some reasonably priced plane tickets (though they are a little hard to come by for knox vegas). i really hate flying, but at least it would be over in less than two hours, as opposed to the eight hour commitment that we have ahead of us. i still need to change the oil in my car, so that pushes the leave time that much further back. i am taking off from work early, but even that is somewhat dependent on what all there is to do here today. fortunately, fridays are usually a slow day around here, so i don't think that will complicate things too much. listen to me, just bitching away, without getting to the real problem. i can think of any number of men i would rather my mom marry than rick. there, i've said it. now that it's said, i hope they are very happy together, and i hope everything goes well for them both.
there had better be some good damned drugs in tennessee. that's all i'm saying.

well, we move shufflingly hobbled into the new over-technologified future...
we just installed a server at work so that the kansas city branch could access our files remotely, and it has been nothing but trouble from the get-go. needless to say, of course, not one of the people who i work with, myself included, is highly computer literate. the consultant who we called in, as seem most consultants, was virtually useless in explaining anything to us in english, spanish, turkish, or anything that didn't sound like binary code to me. further, since most consultants tend to assume their own godhood, he didn't seem to fathom anything wrong with the system, and yet error messages by the virtual truckload have been unceremoniously dumped on our virtual doorstep, leaving us no recourse but to put on our virtual galoshes and slog through the virtual muck. virtual clusterfuck, anyone?

this is dumb government.

the alcohol and tobacco taxation division rejected one of our labels because it included in the text on the back the word "potent". they were afraid that this might lead people to believe that it had "intoxicating qualities" or some such nonsense. who, especially from the board for alcohol and tobacco, could ever think that the average american would think that a wine might have intoxicating properties?

sometimes i wonder what the percentage of idiots is in all of human life. i'm thinking 96, 97%, but it's probably way higher.

come see the bastards karamazov performing live and intermitently monday sept29 at the way out.

i'm shameless, i know, but what can i say. i want the bodies in the room so i don't feel so crazy talking loudly in various accents.

i'm never sure if my blogs are going to post anymore. anyway... about the marraige thing... i was having chest pains today. i think they may have been brought on by the fact that my mom is marrying a racist. i mean, really, what are the odds. my mom is getting married in the south. my stepdad is going to be a racist. most of my family is racist. my mom is probably more prejudiced than she would ever let me know. i'm not saying it's ok, but my mom is a grown woman. she can do what she wants. i hope they're very happy.

oh yeah. tomatohead wanted me to tell everyone that there is a show coming up for the bastards karamazov. we're the comic relief in a sort of a closed mike. call it a semi-intellectual variety show, if you will. poets, prose writers, a film-maker, and more. including, of course, baskar. bkz. three names already, and this is our first gig. we'll see what sticks. if anyone wants to come, or knows anyone who might want to come, or wants to tell any strangers about it, the show is at the way out club way out club (i never know how to imbed a link, so i hope this works) on jefferson south of 44 from 9 to midnight monday september 29th. i dont think they mention the show at this posting, but hopefully theywill son, and if not, at least you can get directions. we really would like you all to come, but since i'm pretty sure there are no readers of this blog living in this city, i'm not counting on it. in fact, if anyone at the show is there because they read it here, please tell me about it during the show. everyone else, you are expected to fly in. and boy, are your arms tired!

so my mother's getting remarried this month. i just found out about this yesterday. if nothing else, i'm glad that i no longer have to say things like "my future stepbrother" and other such bullshit. mom hasn't been married since my dad died in 1985 or '86, so she is obviously a little bit cautious about the whole thing. i'm glad she's cautious, because my stepfather (very soon to-be) can be a bit of an asshole, not to mention a drunk and a bigot. well, we all have our faults, i guess, some larger than others. as long as i never hear haven utter a racist remark, i'm fine with the marraige. honestly, the guy's a diabetic and drinks morning noon and night. i don't much expect him to be out living my mom or anything. i don't know, but i need to get to work. more later.

REVOLUTION! there are more of us than there are of them. every day the middle class come one step closer to bankruptcy. REVOLUTION! the merciless cycle that tells us debt is good must end. your credit limit is not equivalent to your self worth. REVOLUTION! the lies perpetrated by your government must be stopped. the war on terror doesn't require imperialism. INFORM YOURSELF!

i understand that virtually no one who reads this blog needs to be told any of this, but i'm feeling a trifle political this morning. i'll write again soon.

The honeymoon story continues. yeah, even unto this day, this dozenth day of august. (By the way, happy birthday Alissa, yesterday, admittedly, but as a Birthday present, you receive Capital letters. G'head. Try to find any others on this blog.) today, we discovered our phone bill from "da island." seven phone calls. five under five minutes. two hundred fifty fucking dollars. for the love of god. (see, i didn't even give god caps.) i can't even talk about it anymore.

it appears blogger has changed formats since last i posted. as have i. that is correct, ladies and gentlemen, geronimo the damned is now geronimo the married man. other than the ceremonial jewelry (the only that i wear, unless i am feeling saucy and insert my earrings), there is very little change to the man himself. i suppose i should fill anyone in who happens to read this chronicle of laziness.

the wedding was a great success. suzi and i wrote our own vows, and i hought they sounded really good, despite the fact that both of us had hard time getting through them without choking up. nearly everyone who did readings for us had the same problem. it might have been confused for a funeral had not the guests of honor been producing steam from every hole in every garment (have you ever worn a tux in july in st. louis?). everyone invited seemed to have a good time at the affair, and the reception was killer. those attending saw me dance far more than i expect to in the next ten years. they also liked the food (which, perhaps i mentioned, i planned, and the a large extent, cooked). as to the cooking,not that anyone mentioned will actually read this, but mad props (gotta love the cutting edge lingo) to kingston, tee, the chocolate goddess, skipdawg, bill, liz,and anyone else who i may have forgotten. the afterparty was also good, but owing to the long week that my bride and i had leading up to it, we were not as up to party as we migt have hoped. we stayed at the chase park plaza for a cool 240 the night of the affair, and now i must say that i would like to live there. alas, i am neither rich nor connected.

the honeymoon, scheduled to begin on monday and end the following sunday, met neither expectation. due to misinformation from our travel literature, we were unable to leave the country without a notarized copy of my birth certificate. we made it t saint martin/sint maarten on tuesday, hungry, tired, and dying for a smoke, the latter of which we were able to take care of right in the airport while waiting to claim our bags. thefood was great, the waverunners spectacular, and the two hour long timeshare presentation only a little annoying. we went snorkling, swimming, sunning, sinning (oh, wait, we're married now, i guess it was ok), and then we showered. the sunset on saturday night was so intense that it broke our hearts to ave to leave the next day. we awoke early, both to check out and to make the most of our remaining few hours. with minutes to spare, we arrived at the rental car place to drop our trusty burro off, only to be informed that the airport was close, so we might as well keep the car. we checked right back in (they were kind enough to comp us a free night) and found out that a volcano three or four islands away (monserrat) had discharged an enormous quantity of ash into the air, making visibility at any altitude but ground level zero. monday, the ash had settled to the level that it was clogging the jet engines and further delayed us another day. everyone at the airport was bitching about the delay to any airline employee who came within shouting distance, and it was only through the calm that i was experiencing from spending a week on a tropical island that i was able to refrain from lighting both passengers and their luggage aflame.

i'm getting tired, so, more to come.

suzi is on her way back from texas, where she went to see her cousin get married. we are getting married inside of two weeks. i miss her. my bachelor party was pretty fun, i guess.

sorry about the low-key semi-depressed tone. i am a social creature and with suzi out of town, i haven't been feeling too social this weekend. i have had to drink myself to sleep (which differs from most of the time in that i usually just drink until i sleep. i haven't realy been eating well, because i cannot bring myself to cook a good meal for just me. jesus i'm pathetic.

i have been to tennessee and back again, this time with suzi's mom and little sister (and suzi as well, of course). highlights include:

-eight hour drive at speed limit turns into ten hour drive at 40mph, due primarily to rain, fog, and the odd hundred fify foot drop off of the side of the highway.
-suzi goes to bridal shower. i go to todd's.
-suzi gets her final fitting for wedding dress. i drop my aunt off at a kenny chesney concert.
-suzi and i go to laura's house, watch family guy with laura and todd.
-eight hour drive at speed limit takes seven hours at eighty.

why i even tell anyone about the details of my life, i don't know.

my cousin adamn droped out of my wedding party. he was to be a groomsman, but now it will be my cousin josh. adamn didn't bother telling me or anyone else that he didn't think he could come. it's ok, it would've been like frankenstein's monster out for a night on the town.

well, i don't know why my last post is not ere, but rest assured, you one or two people who still occasionally check the status of this lifelog, i did not go over a month without posting. my last entry concerned mainly the visit that my mother and grandmother made in honor of suzi's bridal shower. my little brother will be extraordinarily cute in a tux. he will officially be my little brother on the 27th of next month.

i have been staying off the grass lately, and i think it has helped my typing skills immensely (of course i just made two typos in that last sentence, well three now). my spelling, however, continues to deteriorate. i was proud in childhood of my spelling ability, which was then only furthered by being forced to take latin for two years in middle school, but has since gone downhill. since the advent of spellcheck, i no longer see the point. anything important enough to be spelled correctly should also be typed, as my handwriting, though legible and (i think) pretty cool, is not exactly going to win any penmanship awards, even if i tried to pass it off as the work of a second grader.

wedding preperations are in full swing. we ordered our rings yesterday and finalized what we are going to do for the ceremony. we have one hundred invitations completed but for the adressing, the guest list cut down as much as we could manage, and at least an idea for the menu, which i am going to be handling by my masochistic self. i have help, of course, but i am still going to have to work my ass off (a good thing, since i have been foolishly missing kitchen work).

danny is moving to chi-town. jordan might be too. skip is moving across town to chesterfield. in two months, i might have one friend that i'm not married to.

we may have killed the bastard today, but the war must go on. we haven't made election year yet. at this point, i'm starting to think that we should make that election season, as in three months, but perhaps tha would lead to big government.
goddamn, i can't type right now. my fingers are too cold, i suppose.

re: last damned: it turns out we did retreat some, but they couldn't tell us for fear that we would give away our position to the iraqis.

we changed positions in relation to bagdhad three times. perhaps i should say locations instead of positions. most of us have retained our positions since before there was a war. i personally still hate the idea, but i hate the reality even more. anyway, early this morning, we were fifty miles away from the capital of saddam's evil oily terrorist communist dictatorship. later in the day, we were as close as twenty to twenty-five miles from the epicenter of torture and baby-eating. around five thirty, central time (six thirty, god's time), we were thirty miles from the hellhole of misery and pain and freedom-hatred and violence and brutality that is Husseingrad in two places, and yet (and yet) there was no mention of any retreat on our part.

i'm not saing that this whole thing is a Wag the Dog, but think of this. it only takes one truth to hide ten lies. for every confirmed p.o.w. whose parents are trying to be brave for the cameras, how many untruths are perpetrated on the masses?

too damn political. i can't fucking help it. kingston and i threw a frisbee around in the warehouse today. the news was on, but i didn't care for the first time in weeks.

how can pbs piss me off?

by airing a two hour or more (i missed the beginning) documentary on the history of the iraqi conflict that could have been written by a republikkkan igno-mancer (let's translate that to spin doctor speech writer secretary of state), that's how (isn't my command of proper sentence structure staggering!?).

i really need to kick my news habit. i watch or listen to approximately five hours every day. most days i have a mild rage at the state of world affairs bubbling in my stomach. this is interspersed with periods of volcanic eructations of molten spleen at hearing the latest news about the war, or the president, or the economy, or john goddamned ashcroft. by that i mean i yell at the radio a lot. also the tv. and ... the laptop. i'm so ashamed.

i promised myself i wouldn't post my anti-government rants on the web anymore, so i'll stop now, but let me just add this...




THERE IS AN AGENDA BEING ENACTED UPON YOU AT ALL TIMES. BILL GATES IS IN ON IT. MICHAEL EISNER IS IN ON IT. MICK JAGGER IS IN ON IT. SO ARE RAY ROMANO, AUGUST A BUSCH III, JESSE VENTURA, AND THE ULTIMATE WARRIOR.
YOUR LIFE IS YOUR OWN, AND THE GOVERNMENT ONLY PROTECTS YOU FROM OTHER GOVERNMENTS.

MY throat is pretty sore now. can't believe this old soapbox held my weight.

i can't believe i got a mention on the new topography (see link to left... imbedding one takes time for a computer illiterate cro-magnon like myself).

i hope that the new topographer feels better soon. she's so hella hella cool, it's like icyhot.

i can't believe it's not butt. if there hasn't been a pornographic film with that title, i'll eat your hat. you'll need to mail it to me.

a new delivery driver has been hired. his name is andre. he seems pretty cool. i gave him an altoid tangerine sour and he looked at me as though i'd told him legos were candy corn.

i hope i'm not the only one who used to have candy corn fights the day after halloween. not fighting over, but with, for those who didn't.

surprise, surprise, sur-motherfucking-prise. i'm pretty sure i invented that. if anyone can prove otherwise, i'm expecting a call, or maybe just a bullet to the back of the head.

well, my pot-smoking friend (and technically, subordinate) got fired today. i really hate losing people that i like to work with, especially for stupid reasons like failing a drug screen.
rich people really creep me out. i had to deliver to the st. louis club today, and it was like a fucking high-rise crypt. i had to check in with security. i also had to find the fucking place, which occupies the top three floors of an office building across the street from where suzi, the new topographer, tigra, jordan, and i all used to work. to think, they were so close, but i never knew. that explains the frequent chills i got in the hot ass kitchen.
or maybe that was all the heroin.

the irregularity of my writings in this little open cranial window has become apalling. some thoughts on recent events.

my half birthday, february 14th, has come and gone again. no one got me anything, but suzi and lw both wished me a happy half birthday. i don't expect people to celebrate my half birthday with me unless it's in protest of the certain other over-commercialized greeting card manufactured chalk heart chomping candy and rose buying spending up all your money in one futile gesture of materialistic affection event that also takes place february 14th.

i am worried that the guy i work with, cliff, isn't taking his drug test seriously. he's given himself a week to clean up. even taking the detox stuff i gave him, i still have to wonder...

i hate being sick. yesterday i was at the grocery store to pick up some essentials. i was there for over an hour, and it would seem that i was named official crazy dude talkin to himself; i think i saw him looking for a bag of frozen breasts. to my credit,this store was all kinds of ass backwards. you walk in, then take a left? what kind of world are we living in? why is the bread nowhere to be found (atleast not near produce, where it should be), why does the meat keep going around a blind corner, and why in the name of god does a store with no more than ten linear feet of shelf space for crackers need a complete aisle, left and right of ICE CREAM!!!! it's not that i don't like ice cream, but seriously, people, aren't y'all fat enough? aren't I?

that'll do. dismissed.

i have realized that the last entry made a jump that many of my three readers could not understand. my friends do not labor for a living. i lift things and get paid for it. i also can't type that well, so this is the whole of this entry.

ladies and gentlemen, the test is over and the debauchery is just begun! after indulging all weekend in all of my remaining vices, i returned to work, somewhat dazed and with a belly-full of yogurt. anyone who knows me well knows that this is perhaps the fourth time in my life that i have eaten yogurt. the strawberry chips and nestle crunch beads helped it a great deal, but it still didn't serve as a satisfying breakfast. how is it that you, you, yogurt eaters out there do it? the stuff can be tasty, sure, but a breakfast? oh, right. everyone who reads this blog uses their gifted minds in ways best suited to their talents. i don't have any. that's right. i forgot.

so, apart from some respect i might have for his guitar playing, i have always thought of pete townshend as one of britain's most tourist attractive assholes. and now, perhaps, he is also a pedophile. i still have nothing against the who (except perhaps casting elton john in tommy), but i find the whole situation to be sickeningly amusing. talking about your generation, pete, sexual repression does have a tendency to break out in later life, you know. perhaps grown up porn is too costly, and child porn is the real bargain. it's a substitute for a normal sex life.
i hope that this whole thing is not true, but only because child pornography is disgusting. i hope that our boy pete goes to gaol just for being a dick.

i like my job. i like the people i work for and with. why, then, oh why, do i find it all so boring?

i should just be glad to have a job in this troubled economy. ask anyone who knows me and they will tell you that i have an entense hatred for all things govern-mental. republikans, being slightly worse than demokrats, have been my subject of ranting for these past two years. how is it that the poor are fooled by dictatorship wearing a common man disguise? since when did trickle down economics work? how can a tax cut help the american people or the government if the government is throwing money hand over fist into a possibility of war that no one will drastically benefit from?

enough of that. on the bright side, i get to take my drug test soon, so i will be able to return to my less than wholly law abiding ways relatively soon.

peace, love, and devil worship, y'all.

today, after my van was loaded up, i made my first solo trip into the wilds of west county. for that matter, it was my first solo delivery run for pinnacle, but that's neither here nor there. i got lost a total of four times on five stops. i made six phone calls from the company cellular phone (only one was to home; suzi isn't feeling well and had to call in to U City high today) and only one was while moving (an act which i condemn in others, so those of you with phone and cars, be warned). i unloaded forty-two cases of wine by myself for a st louis retailer, only to be informed that the asshole blocking my path to be closest to the door was the store's owner. i returned to the warehouse to have nothing to do, so i made space for things coming in on monday at a decidedly leisurely pace. my trip home took an hour and forty-five minutes because of traffic, having to stop at the store, and a delivery that i foolishly volunteered for.

the moral of the story is...........
Shut your damned mouth........ and never volunteer (appy-polly-logies to harry harrison)

i haven't been posting enough for a certain pixel11 author (or so i'm told), so here is a short post.

work is tiring. i like it well enough, but the days are long. as usual though, my work ethic will carry me through (reminder to those who knew me in school... this ethic only applies when i am being paid).

the drug test has been postponed until the end of the month. self denial while in tennessee, all for naught.

i have had two beers in the last four days, a new record since before i began drinking beer.

the bastards karamazov may produce a cd before they actually ever perform.

that is all for the moment...

well, damn. it seems that i have not posted in two weeks. how the time flies when one has gainful employment.

happy new year, to all. let's see, some late 2002 highlights...
-i did not pass my drug test. the boss called me into his office that fateful friday morn to show me the paper that had been faxed to him that morning. he told me that he was not bothered by my lack of passing, but that i would not be able to drive a van by myself until i passed one. this put a grin on my face the size of a canteloupe for the rest of the day. i get another chance, and for those who might care, i have not indulged since the night after i found this news out (a sort of last hurrah, if you will.)
-the guy that i was to replace in the new year quit before he could be fired. we don't know the full reasons why, but he did manage to take three hundred dollars worth of wine on his way out the door. it was a strange scenario, to say the least.
-the very next day, i got to put my immense forklift operating skills to good use. having trained to use a forklift (meaning joyride and try not to break anything with the forks) as a wee lad in my mother's produce market, they felt i was emminently qualified for the job. it was pretty fun, though still not as good as hotwiring a bobcat with a chainsaw tool with schaf and rutweasl.
-christmas at suzi's parents was fun. i drank for twelve hours straight, but never succeeded in actual drunkenness. funny how well my liver functions sometimes, but convenient the next day at work, i can tell you.
-haven has approximately ten teeth, which he grinds as though he is looking forward to dentures. he bites now, but not me. he is still cuter than he was before, a phenomenon i cannot yet understand.
-for christmas i received four fleece pullovers and the only sweater that i have ever really liked. also, a food processor, so we can take that off the wedding registry.
-my friends at home are well, or at least as well as can be expected. my best tennessee friend's mom gave me some xanax to get through my non-smoking spell. if only my mom did more drugs... (sigh)
-new years eve was a little anticlimactic, but perhaps all the better for it. i felt relatively good today, especially after sleeping until eleven.
-there is more ice falling from the sky, meaning i will have a lot of fun driving the twenty miles to work tomorrow. woo hoo.

tune in next time for the next exciting installment of... the life and times of a twenty four year old with more brains than sense!

drug test... complete (results tomorrow or monday)
first seven and a half hours of work... a little boring, but good
soreness today... not as bad as i might have expected
bosses... good, pretty good, and kingston
next four hours of work... hoping to take the soreness away.

hef gud daey, heckl.

CON
* i have to take a drug test tomorrow.

not that i'm a stoner anymore or anything, but i have been known to indulge in a bit of grass (perhaps i shouldn't tell the nation.... oh, wait, all five of my readers already know this) from time to time. i start part-time work tomorrow, and after i get my paperwork all filled out, i get to go donate some urine to the cause. i'm already planning a day of water flushing, but my body fat level has risen since the last time i had to take a drug test, meaning i now have a residual level, in all probability.

also, since i will start some new daily activities tomorrow, i don't know how often i'll be able to post in the near future. we'll just have to see. i think that you will all be fine without regular updates on my lilfe, but if not, i hope none of you feels the need to do anything drastic, like kill yourself, me, or the nearest republikkkan. scratch that last. go right ahead and do what thou wilt.

quick haven update... the trial was friday. it willbe at least early in the new year before anything is official, but at least my mom has custody now.

perhaps i'll tell tomorrow of my adventures in the warehouse world.

I got a job, i got a job, i got a motherfucking job!!! it doesn't start untol the first of the year, unless i'm lucky, but i got a goddamn job! and a better one than i had before, i might add. starting january 2nd, i will be working for a distribution company for better pay, better hours, a better benefits package, and no annoying customers! i don't want to give out too many details, just so as not to sour the deal, but it's for real. a good job, out of the restaurant biz. nine to five. and best of all, i won't even have to change my shaving schedule, as i will be mostly behind the scenes.
PROS
* Discounted alcohol
* Insurance
* more money
* i have a job
* blake still wishes i would come back to the chocolate bar

CONS
* a good deal of back work, which will hopefully get me back into shape.

sounds good to me.
i have a motherfucking job, ladies and gents. and the world is a better place.

i interviewed yesterday for a job with adecco temp services. i hate temp places, so i submitted my resume to work for enterprise rent-a-car today. through stltoday.com, i was notified that my profile fit a lot of jobs. once in a while, the internet does something good for me. imagine that!

i still need a job. i drove by a temp place this morning that offers same day pay. i should have known better, as this is a common ploy to pick up homeless employees who can be robbed blind by the company, but call me naive if you will. when i drove by, there was a fight going on outside. i decided that it wasn't the best of places for me to apply, primarily because i didn't think i could take the guy who seemed to be winning the fight. i don't know if that was the way it worked or not, but, as new guy on the totem pole and a skinny young looking white boy to boot, i didn't want to end the day with a black eye, a busted lip, and no job.

on a related note, i heard on npr that st louis has been rated the most dangerous city in america! take that detroit! we're number one! come on down to the middle of the country for an ass whoopin' you 'll tell your children about!

back to the job search....

my favorite part about my last post was the fact that it was almost entirely composed of a link to the new topography. i'm still learning how to do all this shit, so be patient. the fact that i got a link on there at all is pretty amazing to me.

i still need a job. my friend rich recomended me highly to the company he works for, but the position won't be open until the beginning of the year. i need a job right now, preferably one that will have me getting paid before christmas. it would be nice to buy things for my friends and family. it would also be nice to have a meal out once in a while.

this is about all i feel like writing today, because i need to go look for a job. fucking economy.

inspired by the beauty that is <"liz"/a> (i hope that link works), i think i'll write a short treatise on my feelings toward mice.

i fucking hate mice. they're nasty little balls of hantavirus waiting to happen, they eat anything and shit on anything, and i really hate to see them crawling out of various holes (keep your minds out of the gutter, loyal readers and perverts). in our apartment, though we aren't quite sure where the mice live, we do know that they have selected our gas stove and oven as their vacation palace. this might sound amusing, not to mention a problem easily solved, but neither is true. it's really unnerving to see a mouse crawl out of one of the openings around the burners, and only slightly less so to see one crawling in. as to the problem having an obvious solution, two problems there. one, i am incapable of killing anything larger than a mosquito. i don't know why. it is a longstanding compulsion, and i don't expect to ever get over it. second, it's hard to catch the little fuckers near the stove eyes, since when they see or hear me, they generally take off for the bottom of the stove, and even if they just sat there, i wouldn't go close enough to them to do the job, for obvious reasons, and if i got around every other complication, i couldn't handle seeing the dead mouse on the stove. finally, the oven.
our oven has not been used for baking or any other purposes since before i moved in over two years ago. "why ever so?" you might ask, after which i might punch you. then in answer to your silly victorian sounding query, i would explain that the current mouse problem is just one of many that we have had in this apartment over the years. it usually seems to be just one or two mice, but since all wild mice look pretty much the same, who really knows. there may be dozens queued up right now in the stove and oven waiting for a chance to steal some food, i don't know. anyway, the reason the oven hasn't been used is because many of the mice that lived there also died there. we have chanced to turn the oven on only twice in my two years, and in both instances the apartment was filled with a smell that can only be described as "the mummy's curse in missouri." this is because the mice that are dead within still linger on, in the warm dry environment that is our oven. undoubtably, there are little mouse shrines and sarcophogi entombed therein, not to mention the mice servants that were probably sealed up to serve their masters in the mouse after-world. in any case, i'll never know, because i'll never open the oven. i like to bake, but i hate corpses as much as i hate live mice, and that weighs heavier upon me than my desire for casseroles and cookies.

one last mouse story for those who aren't disgusted yet. about a month ago, a mouse became trapped in our kitchen sink. it was empty, and the walls to sheer for the little beast to climb. though he tried like a motherfucker, he would have starved there had we not intervened. i wanted th mouse out of the sink as fast as possible, but i neither wanted him in the house nor dead, so we had to come up with a catch and release plan. suzi put the cracker box in the sink sideways. after he raced into the relative safety it offered, i turned it top up. with two foot barbecue tongs, i carefully carried the box across the street to my neighbors yard, affectionately known as "that fucking jungle." no doubt the contractors working on the house attached to that fucking jungle were amused to see a grown man carrying a cracker box with barbecue tongs held at arms length, but i successfully released the little bastard. he ran happily off into the fucking jungle, no worse the wear, and i felt like a hero.

a note to liz (if she still sees my page at all): be glad it's mice. that means there are no rats. i don't know why, but i've been told they never occupy the same building.

i've got several ideas for better mousetraps, should anyone like to beat a path to my door.

well, the trip southward was good, but a little boring. haven is cute as always, but the contraversy has died down for the moment. we arrived at one thirty, an hour and a half later than we thought we would. my mother was asleep on the couch as always. if we arrived at ten o'clock, she would be asleep. if it were three in the afternoon, she'd be snoozing on the couch.

all is well in the lou. good night all.

had another interview with the st. louis public library system yesterday. they seem to like me in the human resources department, or maybe they just don't like the supervisors. anyway, i'm not holding my breath.

leaving for thanksgiving today. 500 miles to knox vegas. should arrive about midnight. i should call my mom. and pack. and shower. and feed the dogs. so why am i here telling you all of this? because i'm a procrastinator extraordinaire.

happy thanksgiving. eat way too much, and then think about the starving people in the world. i hear they taste like pork chops.

that's just what i heard.

things are not always what they seem. the job today didn't work out.

loyal readers (all three of you, thanks to the reverend dave clary), my streak of bad occupational luck is not yet ended. as i stated last post, earlier today, i didn't get to go in to do some painting as early as i thought. instead, i waited for a later phone call from nancy. ten o'clock, no call. ten ten, no call. ten twenty, no call. ten thirty, i decide that perhaps i misunderstood, and that she wanted me to call her. i called, and she was still running the errands she told me about this morning. she told me that i should go ahead to her house, where her nephew joe was working. the gate would be locked, so i should go around back and yell "joe!" to get his attention. this is not something you might see your average geronimo doing on a regular basis anywhere, but least of all in south st. louis.

i went to the house, finding it very easily. i went around back, hoping to see the elusive joe. instead, i found her next door neighbor.

Neighbor guy: (looking wary of stranger skulking around his back yard) how are you?
G: not bad, thanks.
Nei. guy: WHAT ARE YOU DOING?

i explained to neighbor guy that i was supposed to work for the lady who lived next door. he recommended that i go knock on the front window, so i thanked him and did just that. i was greeted by joe, who pointed me at some window frames and said that they needed a coat of primer. he also mentioned that since it was getting nice out, we could move the operation outside. this was great. in st louis today, it did not get over 43 degrees. i do not own a lot of warm clothing. i worked for two hours, getting a thin coat of primer on all of the aforementioned window frames, as well as a reasonable amount on the windows themselves. i went inside to see what joe was doing so that i could help. joe's job consisted of sitting on the fucking couch, drinking a fucking pepsi, and watching Allie McFucking Beal. i sat with joe for about one minute to drink a glass of water (i hate pepsi), and then nancy arrived. she immediately left to get food. when she returned an hour and a half later, she proceeded to complain about all of the work that i had done so far.

i worked until 4:35, doing a job i knew nothing about and had no instruction on, and then left.

EPILOGUE: suzi's sister's friend had a birthday get together at blueberry hill. suzi's other sister showed up with her new girlfriend, who got me the job. this was the most butch woman i've ever seen, and as i said last post, me and the lesbians, we're like this (crossing fingers). she said that nancy called her saying that i wouldn't work out. ha. i spent a day ready to walk out, and she effectively tries to lay me off again. ha.

well, a merry gofuckyourself to you, too.

i have a job (at least for the moment). i get to put my construction experience to good use as i get behind the wheel of a paintbrush and putty knife (all in one day!). i was supposed to start at seven thirty this morning. nancy (i have a feeling that this is a lesbian contractor. more on that later) told me to call when i was ten minutes away from the jobsite. as it happens, i live less than ten minutes away from the jobsite. i stopped into the apartment, wearing my shitty jeans and work boots and ready to go attitude, and i made the call. it seems nancy was "working" late into the night and was barely awake (blogauthor's note - as i do not know nancy from more than a phone call, my quotation marks around working represent only my cynicism, not actual knowledge of her drinking habits). she told me to hang out at the house, and she would call me around ten (there goes my nine hours today). so here i am, still rarin' to go, tying up the phone line at 8:40.

back to the lesbian contractor comment. the area i live in, soulard, and the area i used to work in, lafayette square, have a much higher than st louis average population of gay and lesbian couples. from my experiences serving them as customers, as well as personal friends, i have learned that i get along very well with lesbians. almost ridiculously well. perhaps this is because i'm a non-threatening guy. i emphasize guy because i see it as very different from man or male. i hope all this translates into a good working relationship, as i would then have a fallback position shoudl i decide to take another job. one of the beauties of construction type work is that there is nearly always work for those who don't apply drunk.

tightening my laces and rolling my cigarettes up in my sleeve...

i need a job. badly. i really can't take being at home any more. god damn i need a job.

damn this machine! i wish that if my posts weren't going to go through they would at least be saved somewhere so i don't have to go back and try to reconstruct what i said. anyway....

i went to tennessee with suzi this weekend. that means friday we drove down, talked to my mom for a fewe minutes, then went to bed. saturday we went from relatives to relatives, then over to my friend's house, then to bed. sunday we had breakfast with my mom and rick and his children, then we drove back to the stl. the high point of this whoel trip was Haven. he has grown a lot, he has a number of teeth already in or about to be, and he will probably say a real word very soon. he is six months old, which i understand is very young for a child to start talking. however, since i said my first word at six months, maybe it's just my mom.

i had my library interview yesterday. it went well on the whole, but....
-i was the first one interviewed. as far as i can tell, you never schedule the person who looks best on paper first, because you rarely hire the first person you interview. at least, i never did.
-i couldn't think of any questions. i never can, because the only one i ever really need to know is what the job pays, and i feel like an ass asking that at the interview.
-they are going to try to make a decision in THE NEXT TWO WEEKS! meanwhile, i need a job so badly, i'm almost ready to go to the fucking mall and ask to be a goddamn elf. i need a job so badly, i'm ready to fiinally ask the age old question "do you want fries with that." i need some work, starting as soon as possible. a strong work ethic is killing me!

but, other than that, couldn't be better.
-g

the complete story of the Haven saga thus far

last october, my cousin got married to a guy that most of our family didn't care for. for the sake of anonymity, let's call my cousin Fucking idiot (to be abbreviated f'idiot) and her husband runt. at about the same time as f'idiot and runt's wedding (same time of year, not same time of day), f'idiot got pregnant. runt had no part of this. however, runt also did not notice for nine months that his wife was pregnant. (i am so glad that morons like this aren't mixing with my gene pool, yet, but more on that later).

in may, i recieved a call from my mother, informing me that f'idiot had just had a baby. as neither i nor anyone else in my family knew anything about the pregnancy (she lives in a different part of tennessee than my mother), this came as something of a surprise. even more of a surprise was that the baby was hispanic, and thus, not runt's child.

f'idiot claimed that she had been raped but had not spoken of it because she was ashamed (we have learned the truth since; she was having an affair with a mexican man at work). runt was furious, and refused to see her or the baby at all. after two weeks of such foolishness, my cousin was at her wits' end. she wanted to be with her husband (god only knows why), but she also didn't want to give the baby up for adoption. to make matters worse, runt called her one night and told her that he had just swallowed a large quantity of pills so that she wouldn't have to make the decision he had forced on her, that of the baby or him. f'idiot, in shock, sent an ambulance to get him. he was taken to the hospital, and his stomach was pumped, unfortunately.

my mother, though something of a control freak, is the type of person whom you'd want around during any emergency because of the way she handles herself in a crisis. during this crisis, as always, she was ready to take the steps that needed taking. she drove to f'idiot's home town, where f'idiot was staying with runt's mother, her husband still not willing to see her or the baby. young Haven was at this time two weeks old, and still being breastfed by his mother, but my mother offered to take him for a week or two until the whole mess could be sorted out, upon which time, she hoped, she could return the baby to his mother.

with Haven in Knox Vegas with my mom, f'idiot and runt could see each other once again. they were reconciled fairly quickly, so it seemed that all would be fine. however, f'idiot only called my mother to check on her son one time in the first two weeks, and when she did, she seemed none too ready to retrieve him.

two weeks turned into six, with only two more phone calls about Haven, then six weeks became three months. it seemed that f'idiot had forgotten about the fact that she had recently given birth. by this time, my family in knox vegas had grown rather fond of the child. they decided that since he was going to be put up for adoption anyway, one of them should be the adoptive parent. my aunt and my mother were the most likely candidates, and since my aunt already has three children, my mother volunteered. i was to have a baby brother, something that i had wanted so much as a child.

because they were married at the time of his birth, runt and f'idiot both had to sign an adoption form. f'idiot being a habitual liar never told runt about this, and thus the form never returned. if the matter was to be taken up in court, he would either have to sign or take a paternity test, thus taking him out of the proceedings. after months of trying to get in touch with him, he was served a court order at work, and he signed the form. it looked as though all would go well.

today was the second court date that was supposed to be the finalization of the adoption process. friday would have been, but as the judge is a stickler for rules, my mother and her attorney decided to postpone until today. runt and f'idiot were in the courtroom today to protest the adoption. runt now has thirty days to get himself a lawyer and try to reclaim custody of the baby. he stated that he and f'idiot were trying to have their own baby now, but since his wife was raped (remember, she was nothing of the sort), they wanted custody of the child so that they could give him up for adoption to strangers, so that they would never have to see him again. actually, to clarify, runt has never seen the boy, and this whole thing is to get back at f'idiot, my mother, and the rest of my family.

and if i were to kill him, I would be the one to go to jail. jesus!

wellity, wellity, wellity. i held auditions today for a new sketch comedy troupe. my last attempt a group failed miserably. this one was a modest success. we started with three members, and now we have four.

i really wish i could properly tell the sergeant slaughter story. i really wish i could work alliteration like that into my day to day life.

i need to smoke a cigarette. good eve.

well, read the last entry and use the contact link above, since i can't imbed a mailto link. damned computer illiteracy!

ladies and gentlemen, friends and neighbors, boys and girls, sadists and masochists, your good friend geronimo has gone on the public dole! well, ok, not exactly, but i did just file for unemployment on-line to allow myself time to find a job that i may actually like! any suggestions? i could do with some intellectual stimulation, not to mention a reasonable rate of pay. e-mail any suggestions to
that is all for now......

well, i don't work at the chocolate bar anymore, so this is the last time i will mention it.

on saturday, at the end of my shift, the owner called me and the pastry chef outside to the patio. he sat us down and told us that the hardest thing he had ever had to do was to let the two of us go. i, however, didn't wholly fall for it since only a few months ago, he staggered in off a bender and told me that he was thinking of laying sarah off. i was one of the many voices to talk him out of it. apparently, the absence of my opinion made the matter easier to accomplish. he gave us each two weeks severance, a pittance, but better than nothing.

today is jordan's birthday, so i have to get going. perhaps i'll post some more tomorrow.

today, at work, my fourth set of customers were a pair of women, i would guess them to be fifty. one of them had a libree and eyebrow piercing.

I remember my dear old grandma
her darlin' old wrinkled face
with about ninety extra holes,
stainless steel all over the place.

she was so sweet and kind
always sympathetic
but she stayed away from the fridgidaire
cause her face was so magnetic

CHORUS
all of grandma's piercings
are so special to me
her jangling ears and her shiny nose
alternative and free

lower lip and eyebrow
she had a double and a triple
she sewed my pants with the needle
she first used on her nipple.


grandma liked the pain
from the needle going through
her ears and tongue and belly button
and her solar plexis too

grandpa rarely said
that he liked her less or more
but once he told me after church
she tickled like an old west whore

chorus

grandma passed away
a year or two ago
like a pincushion in a casket
i'll really miss her so

we put her in the ground
buried her with a tear
take my metal detector to the cemetery
i can just feel she's near

chorus x 2

ok, so since both of my readers have requested such, one in person, i will post again. don't get too excited, i get bored easily, and most of my life is not interesting enough to share (or so i'm told).

news from the front
haven will be officially my brother november 8th. my mother sent this news along with a new picture of the lad, and he is painfully cute. though he is really my first cousin once removed, we actually have the same dimple (on our faces, you sick fuck!). last time i talked with my mother, she put the phone up to haven's ear so that i could talk to him. this may well be the dumbest thing i can think of my mother ever doing, but i suppose it is cute to an extent. haven is six months old, and doesn't quite yet grasp the concept of the telephone unless he is truly advanced (which wouldn't surprise me, but i'll not count on it).

go angels. i was pleased to see the giants lose last night, but i must say that rooting for the team that didn't beat your adopted home team takes some of the fun out of the world series. nonetheless, it was a good series, and i probably would have posted more if not for it. well, even though that isn't true, it is a nice lie we tell ourselves nonetheless, right?

i have got to get out of the restaurant biz. the lack of intellectual stimulation is killing me. i have memorized everything i need to know about the job, down to the prices with tax of every item we sell. this is no way for a reasonably intelligent man to live.... but i hear it's hard all over. it does seem though that all of my friends have decent jobs that require more head work than leg. maybe i shoulda got me one a them degrees!

my sketch comedy auditions are rapidly approaching. the group is to be called the bastards karamazov, after a sketch i wrote with andy von crankenhaus. i have written a few things for the audition and hopefully later use. no church groups, please.

finally, i am always late to the new revolutions, i just started playing the sims. suzi is much more deeply addicted than i am, but i know i have a problem. i can't go without my artificial people too long.

there is no rest for the wicked, but at least they have better sex.
G

so.... the last post i made didn't go through. i wonder why? do you think it's because i used the word TERRORIST? peut etre, peut etre non pas.

to the best of my recollection, my last post had to do with, surprise surprise surmotherfuckingprise, the chocolate bar. a new anecdote.

on of my top five worst customers. probably number three since my first restaurant job at 15.

horrid bitch: hi, i'm looking for some chocolate
G: (thinking "what does the sign say outside? the asparagus bar?") ok, you'll have to be a little more specific than that
hb: (scoffing) you know, a box of chocolate?
G: we have boxes of our truffles
hb: i don't want truffles, i want chocolate
G: well, all of our pure chocolates are over here.... (guiding the horrid bitch)
hb: God, all you have is dark chocolate? don't you have any milk chocolate?
G: this is milk chocolate
hb: is that all you have? i hate dark chocolate!
G: well, milk chocolate isn't really that complex, so we only have one var...
hb: what i'm looking for is (brand name i have never heard of). do you have any of that?
G: i can't say i'm familiar with...
hb: it's a chocolate with a hazelnut filling.
G: like a truffle?
hb: yes.
G: our lafayette square truffle has a chocolate hazelnut filling...
hb: fine, give me a three pack
G: here you are
hb: i don't want that! i want a box of chocolate!
G: (looking at box with chocolates inside in hand) ok......
hb: i can't give that as a gift! i need a big box. give me a three pack of the l.s., but i want it in a box (describing dimensions erratically)
G: you only want three?
hb: you obviouslydon't understand what i'm saying. i want a box of chocolates...

this continued for several minutes. if she ever comes back, i'm calling the police to report the crime that i am about to commit on her.

alright, i never know who to trust in the world....

the only person i work with during the vast majority of my daytime chocolate bar shifts (i am call am manager not because i manage the staff, but because i can manage without one), sarah, is a passive agressive backstabber. damn it all, why do the people i like have to be hatin' and shit? this is the second time she's put her own feelings into someone else's mouth (the pm manager, meg) and then quoted them to me to avoid a confrontation. i'm not that much of an asshole! i can listen to constructive criticism!

if you have any constructive crit for this blog, fuck off
(or send it to maggotbrain@excite.com maybe that worked?)

thanks to alissa for linking to me. perhaps now i'll have a reader that i didn't tell to read my stuff!

fuck 'em all but six, and save them for pallbearers.

not that i have ever had a single reader or anything, but i'm sorry for staying away for so long, but, you know, you didn't make much of an effort either, you know.

news.......

suzi finished her first week of teaching. she loves it. even after i make my billion, she will probably still want to teach. it's people like this that could have made me like school.

i have a meeting tomorrow on my day off. the world is a shitty, shitty place sometimes.

and i accidentally said fuck to my mom on the phone.

sigh

i have made a long journey into the land of my birth, and it was good. suzi and i went to tennessee for a week ending today. a few highlights.
--- Haven. my new little brother, Haven, is among the best and brightest infants in the sport today. his bold competition has made him a true standout in a spectacular field for the last four months. i haven't seen a baby this ridiculously precious since north hampfordshirecester, 1939. the child is actually my new little brother-to-be from a "springer-guest-to-be" cousin of mine. (yes, i admit to being of trailer trash stock, but how i want to think i have risen out of the mud!)
--- my accent (the one that i never had until i moved to st. louis) has returned, just to prove i'm still pretty muddy.
--- i have a scanner. as soon as i get a cord for it... and find out how to post photos, i'll have some pictures of Haven.
--- suzi and i already miss Haven, and it's only been eleven hours.
--- my mom is getting remarried. i'm happy for mom, i like his kids, but (for the sake of anonymity, we'll call him) nick is not who i want raising my baby brother. (on second thought, let's not insult the devil and santa that way; let's call him) lick works at the produce market at which my mother used to work. he is crass, boorish, and a drunk (says the young pot to the old kettle). lick is going to be my new stepfather. (shudder) "Y'onna buhr?"
--- i didn't get to see my surrogate mom for more than a few minutes this trip. she's my best friend in town's mom. she rules.
--- mom and i get along better when we're both drinking. it's great. we get along pretty well anyway, but now, we have a tie that thins any and all bad blood (eventually): alcohol.
--- (Parentheses are fanfuckingtastic [which if i may {and i may}], is a word of which i was at least one of the original users [to the best of my knowledge {fanfuckingtastically speaking (if nothing else, i should try to copyright that bullshit)}]).

--- i'm pretty tired, so i think that this will be the end of the list. goodnight

well, today was my last day of work at the chocolate bar before my vacation, and i am loving that. i don't have to go back there until a week from tuesday. i don't have to talk about single origin chocolate, fantastic home-made desserts, or chocolate covered strawberries for over a week!
this is something that has been weighing on my mind for the last, oh, say, nine years. why, non-food service persons, would anyone be rude to the person who is going to be handling something you intend to eat? where is the logic in fucking with someone wielding that kind of power? i don't do gross things to people's food, but i damn sure could if pressed in just the right way. i know lots of servers and cooks who do, so why do we as an industry take so much shit?
"there's something very interesting about this cheesecake... i can't quite put my finger on it"
-g

so since i haven't posted it yet, if anyone wants to send me an e-mail (which i sincerely doubt, as this is hardly the most interesting blog of the last two you've read), my address is maggotbrain@excite.com. if that link doesn't work, i'll try to put one up that does, soon, i swear. ok, probably not. i get enough email i don't really want.
so, who's up for some drugs, eh?
sorry about that. there have been times in my life in which i allowed drugs and alcohol to get the better of me. after elementary school, though, i learned to handle myself a little better. now i live a nearly vice-free existence. i'll be right back, i have to get a beer and smoke a cigarette.
(insert pause. you should go listen to a medium short funk song, which should clock in at about seven minutes.)
as i was saying, the key to drugs and alcohol is moderation. wait a minute, i've never said anything like that in my life. so i don't know if i've mentioned it, but when i'm at home, i smoke on the front porch. this is because suzi is a recent non-smoker, and no one likes a whole house reeking of cigarettes, even me. now, i get to go outside and feel the loving kiss of the 93 degree st louis night. thank dog for air conditioning. thank doug i don't feel like writing anymore.

hello again from the chocolate-hawking world...
My name is geronimo. it has been for the past six years to a large number of people (basically everyone who has met me in a social or academic context in that time). for those of you who are curious, it is not the name that i was given at birth. i chose it late in high school as a replacement for a name that i thought didn't fit me. when i got to college, i started telling people that that was my name. they rarely if ever asked questions, but rather decided that it was cool to know someone named geronimo.
thank you for sharing, geronimo. does anyone else know what it feels like to be more than one person at a time?

just a few more things i forgot.
the chocolate bar, my place of business, was mentioned earlier, but the link never materialized. sorry about that, blake.
also, i went on a float trip this weekend. nine of us rented rafts and floated down the meramac river. suzi and i were in the only two person raft, but since each raft only got two paddles, we actually moved the fastest for lack of weight. some impressions:
i am from east tennessee, home of the ocoee river. if you haven't heard of the ocoee, you must have missed the white water events for the '96 atlanta olympics. when i think of float trip, i never expect that a lot of floating is going to be done. i think excitement, rapids, warnings, and guides. i don't think beer and cigarettes and eating while on river. this midwestern existence is killing me.
guy on the canoe with the rebel flag tattoo: she's a pomeranian. we just shaved her for the summer, and she was in the water. she loves it when we shave her. that's why she looks like that.
i don't know if he meant the rat standing on the bank near him, one of his two children, or his wife.

souxsie and i babysat her niece tonight. i like babies. they taste like... no this is a kinder, gentler geronimo. those motherfuckers bounce like superballs. no, again, just kidding. i really do like babies, strange as it may seem. and once i get warmed up to them, they generally like me too. baby emily was no exception.
i love beer.