Hey Joe

Day 3

Taken at 11:15 PM and posted three minutes to midnight. I'm off to drink some champagne.

Happy New Year all.

Disposing of the evidence

About 50 lbs worth of old tax documents, bank statements and anything vaguely incriminating, went up in flames last night.

If they have any hopes of pinning the rap on me, they'll have to sift through 50 lbs of ash. Good luck Caruso, you flaming haired jackass.

Day 2

Sunday - 4:45 PM. Beginning to resemble a stumblebum.

Beard: Day 1

It's been growing since my last shave on Friday morning. This pic was taken at about 4:00 Saturday afternoon. We'll see how long I decide to go before it bugs the hell out of me and I have to scrape it all off.

Does the entertainment get anymore exciting than this?

Chinaski to the rescue

After spending the past several weeks reading Are We Alone, today i finished it and have moved on to Hollywood by Charles Bukowski.  My mind having been expanded beyond the limits of time and space; questioning the truth about life, our very existence and purpose, I need the simple, straight forward truth that is Bukowski; what you see is what you get. there are no questions, just what is.

I have to admit that much of Are We Alone sailed clear over my head. I've come to accept the fact that I am not nor will I ever be, one of the great thinkers, the men who are able to make sense of the theories and ponder the big questions and actually come to some sort of conclusion beyond "Gaak."

For the next week or so it will be life Bukowski style, wine, women and song. But if you think Buk wasn't a big thinker, then you probably have not read him. For between the lines of excess are scattered more than a few pearls and nuggets of truth and wisdom. And the brain doesn't hurt so much after reading him. That's usually caused by the booze.

Watch out Dave Grohl

In order that his drum set not get lonely, we bought the boy an "axe" for Christmas.

He's already taking drum lessons, so guitar lessons may be in his future. Frankly, I think the guitar is too sedentary for him. The drums allow for lots of thrashing around and noise making, both of which are right up his alley. I took a few guitar lessons years ago and it's pretty f*cking tedious, though I suppose as with most things, it's much easier to learn when you're young. We old folks just don't have the patience to sit there and plink, plink, plink away at something; playing Mary had a Little Lamb or some s*it. We want to ROCK from the word go. Which I suppose is why most of us are so good at air guitar; no lessons required.

At nine going on ten, he's recently discovered the likes of Green Day; the God's of garage bands everywhere. I think he wanted a guitar because he likes to play rock star and a guitar is more fitting. It lets him get out front and shake his skinny nine year old hips at the imaginary girls in the stadium that is our garage. I understand this desire. My hips were once skinny.

The other night, Boy Next Door (BND) came over with his brother's axe and an amplifier. I helped them plug everything in and then beat a hasty retreat inside before they made a ham-fisted attempt to play along to Holiday; NDB on guitar and the boy on drums. It was great.

Maybe I'll get to spend my golden years as a roadie; f*cking awesome.

Next stop, Pauperville

I'm sure that there will be more than a few bloggers, reporters and columnists commenting on this, but I just couldn't let this go down without throwing in my 2 cents.

I certainly won't be losing any sleep over Paris' sudden transformation to stumblebum, but I can't help pondering what turmoil her wee little brain must be in at this moment. Pampered and privileged since birth, accustomed to the lifestyle of the truly rich, assuming an inheritance somewhere in the neighborhood of $100 mil, only to have it slashed to a measly $5 mil. She must have shit a brick when she got the news.

Let's face it, while $5 mill is nothing to sneeze at, it ain't no $100 mil, particularly when you're talking about a lifestyle of living high and fast and not really having to think about where the money's going, or where it's coming from because it always just keeps coming. If she doesn't alter her living habits she'll burn through that $5 mil pretty quickly. So now, instead of being a jet-setting heiress, she'll simply be well-off, comfortable as it were. She'll still be able to afford most anything she wants, but she'll actually have to consider where her money is going, and perhaps keep track of it?

This will require thinking. Can you imagine?

The Blunder of Thunder

So yesterday was Boxing Day. For those of us not from the Great White North, Boxing Day is, as Cookiebitch, stealing from Wikipedia explains:

"…a traditional celebration, dating back to the Middle Ages, and consists of the practice of giving out gifts to employees, the poor, or to people in a lower social class. The name is attributed to the Christmas box, the verb box meaning: "To give a Christmas-box; whence boxing-day."

So where are all my gifts? Joe is:

• An employee
• Poor
• A member of a lower social class, (white male)

I should have been besieged with gifts.

Be that as it may, I am quite thankful that as a result of my poor organizational skills and the font of knowledge that is Cookiebitch, I avoided what could have been a faux pas to end all faux pases. For here I thought Boxing Day was a day to celebrate pugilists by delivering a haymaker to a loved one! Thank God I didn't follow through with my party plans where guests would have been invited to come dressed as their favorite boxer. That would have been truly embarrassing, particularly when folks arrived to find me in blackface as The Brown Bomber, Joe Louis; AWKWARD.

On the plus side, there are still 364 days in which to enjoy beating the stuffing out of family and friends.

No peace in Pakistan

Benazir Bhutto

1953 – 2007

Benazir Bhutto, leader of the Pakistan People's Party, was killed today in a combination murder/suicide when her attacker shot her and then blew himself up. At least twenty other people were killed in the attack.

Just another bright, sunshiny day in the Middle East.

Coal or goodies, enjoy it either way

I'll most likely be checking out for the next 48 to 72 hours, so I'd like to take the opportunity to thank all of you for reading my mildly entertaining posts for yet another year. Merry Christmas to all. Do your best to relax and enjoy the rest of the season.

Joe