DAY 85: Friday, January 1, 2010:  You tried sky diving once, and came out in China.

Tonight is a blue moon, and we won’t see another one on New Year’s Eve for about twenty years.  Actually, the goddamn clouds are making sure I hardly see one tonight, and the camera only caught a round blur in the snow-loaded clouds.

Speaking of loaded, I’m celebrating this once-in-a-very-old-dog’s-lifetime event by swilling actual Blue Moon Ale, and even though I deny any affiliations with fortune tellers, witches, warlocks, or Stevie Nicks, I am definately superstitous, and like most superstitous flakes, have my stupid-ass reasons.

Let’s start with the hatred thing:

Really bad things happen to people I hate.  Really, really bad things.

Fortunately, I only hate a select few, but they have gone down in massive flames, and other than pure, unadulterated hatred, I had nothing to do with it.

First, there was a kid I played hockey with in Maine for a season.  He hated the hell out of me for no other reason than my blonde hair, and loved to tell people I was an albino, which just caused confusion.  We had a fight in the dorm once, and I hit him with a left jab that put his nose in several different directions at once, but that only made things worse.

He died in a car accident, just a few years later.

Then there was the slum lord in Rhode Island, who wouldn’t help pay for all of the landscaping and improvements I made, which included painting the entire interior of his rental shack.  Not even a slight break on the rent.  One winter we lost the heat seven times, and he took forever to get a drunk “handy man” out to fix things, temporarily.  I could go on and on about him, but the hatred was very intense.

After we moved away, his wife burned their house to the ground and jumped off the Jamestown Bridge.

This past year started with me getting let go, after nearly ten years of making a scumbag look good, and I hated him with a passion.

His wife kicked him out during the summer, and he was forced to sell some of his land to keep afloat.

And so it goes.

Now . . . it could just be that these people pissed me off, as they did many other people, and set themselves up for fate or karma or whatever weird, indecipherable system is in place. 

It could be pure coincidence.

It could be the coming of the blue moon, and my name is Beezle Hey Bub, and the dawn of all evil is now upon us, unless I find Key Master Gozer or some other crazy shit.

Or not.

OKAY THEN!!!  HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Blue Moon in Clouds Tonight

DAY 84: Thursday, December 31, 2009:  A tribe calls your rear “Many Moons.”

DAY 83: Wednesday, December 30, 2009: Even your muscle car is putting on weight.

DAY 82: Tuesday, December 29, 2009:  They stapled your stomach shut, but the staples broke.

DAY 81: Monday, December 28, 2009:  The static from your thighs power a large city.

I was just thinking that if I ever owned a football team, they would wear ref uniforms to confuse opponents, or maybe cheerleader outfits, to confuse everyone . . .

I used to work and live above an old three story seaside bar on the coast of Rhode Island, which was a famous whorehouse during WW II.  During my tenure there, it was owned and managed by Bob Gunny and Sterling Smith.  Gunny was a handsome, ex-surfer-turned-successful-businessman with a georgous wife and great demeanor.  Sterling Smith was a retired train engineer who looked like the Cheshire Cat, after he ate the Cheshire Canary.  He had a sly grin, and usually perched high up on a corner staircase, where he could survey the second level club area, looking over heads all the way to the front entrance.  Howie Smith was the bartender/bar manager, who could juggle bottles and glasses with insane speed and dexterity, years before Tom Cruise tried his luck in the movie Cocktail.

It was the early nineties; you could still smoke in a bar, and there was a massive exhaust fan up behind Sterling, set high in the wall where the stairwell turned upward to a third floor office and boarding rooms, one of which was mine, for sixty bucks a week.  I lived next to an old sleight-of-hand artist named Joe Hirsch, and his wife Genie, who pulled rabbits out of hats and assisted him with other stage props back in the day.  He had turned to lobster fishing for a living, and Genie cleaned rooms at the Old Dutch Inn on Point Judith, near the Block Island Ferry. 

During busy hours, there could be six-hundred people jammed into the main club and downstairs tavern, which opened out into a parking lot that bordered waters of the Atlantic Ocean.  Between checking bouncers all around and keeping bars stocked, I would be perched just below Sterling on the stairs, watching for trouble or a signal from the bartenders for beer cases or specific spirits.  That big honkin’ exhaust fan behind us would pull all the cigarette smoke into our lungs, so Sterling and I would be inhaling the equivalent of several packs of cigarettes.  I would be spitting black when the night was through, after a complimentary open bar that often went to sunrise.

One night, in a twist of genius and sick humor, Sterling and Howie handed out brand new, bright pink tee shirts to all the bouncers.

Huge football and rugby players with mohawks, tattoos, and more piercings than a busy pub dartboard were suddenly wearing bright pink tee shirts, which was funny, creepy, and smart.  They could spot each other in a heartbeat, and even the most hardened Grand Banks fisherman didn’t want to be tossed out by a man in pink.  It was just plain wrong . . . and yet, so right.

It could be a brutal place, and I remember some crazy ass fights.  There’s a long scar where some guy I knocked down grabbed a broken bottle and carved deep into my calf, while I was fighting someone else.  Without health insurance, I poured whiskey into the wound, wrapped it tight, and propped my foot up on the dashboard of my old monster Buick Electra, elevating so it wouldn’t bleed. 

I drank myself to sleep, listening to the ocean surf, and the next morning, I suffered more from a hangover than the cut, but I was good to go.

Another night, some fisherman pinned Howie’s hand to the bar with a knife.

Wearing bright pink was our sick little payback, and it was funny in court, when lawyers referred to “assailants” as the “large gentlemen wearing pink.”

We had our moments, and like any old adventure where your selective memory edits for content, we really did have some great times.

Howie bought the place and changed it into a nice seafood restaurant, and my room is now an intimate seating area.  Sterling Smith suffered a serious stroke years ago, and may not still be alive.  Bob Gunney is missing in action, and everyone else went with the tides.  Joe Hirsch died years ago, rest his soul.  I never could learn his incredible sleight-of-hand tricks, like pulling a napkin from over a whiskey glass, to see that it had disappeared.

The stories about that place could fill volumes, but here are a couple pictures from just after my days at the great Bon Vu Inn, a historical and legendary Rhode Island institution.  Enjoy! 

PRETTY IN PINK - VINNY THE BOUNCER AT THE BACK STAIRS

DAY 80: Sunday, December 27, 2009: Your shadow has its own stars.

I’d like to have a few stars . . . Uma Thurman, that hot little sportscaster woman on the local “Patriots All Access” football review . . .

Oops.  Here’s a shout-out t o my lovely wife!  Queen of the world!  Thank God she doesn’t read my blogs!

The big news is that Scott Oglesby and his family is alive and well in storm-ravaged Spain.  Let’s hope he gets water and everything else he needs ASAP.  His well-being is a great Christmas present to our blogging community, and I’ll end on that fine note, and try to have something to make him laugh tomorrow.  Have a great rest of the weekend! 

DAY 79: Saturday, December 26, 2009: That’s not dirt on your sneakers, it’s the town.

Here’s some Christmas Images of dogs and kids and treats:

Gwen Opening Gifts

Treats

Dog on Chair

 And that’s some Christmas scenes . . .

DAY 78: Friday, December 25, 2009:  You tried a seesaw once; the other kid is still airborne.

Ha!  It’s Christmas, and they want you as the “bottom ball” of a snowman . . . tell ‘em you’re gonna roll over ‘em to make some holiday pancakes, and indulge!  This is no time to diet!  Happy Holidays . . . I promise a good post late tonight, for tomorrow’s blog; a special report on those “Special Christmas Gifts” for the kids! 

THE FOLLOWING IS A SPECIAL REPORT FROM THE ONGOING HEALTH INSURANCE BATTLE:

Just like that, our young and crazy-driven prez has extended COBRA, and I’m good for fifteen more months, covering the family with health and dental for a little over 300 bucks a month.

It was an absolute pleasure to call, cancel, and get a full refund from the plan I had bought, and even though they trashed my accounts without offering to pay for the errors, they still had to “check with a supervisor” before ”giving me a break” for the full refund. It was a fast escape from the clutches of pure, evil greed that appeared to be running the country, but maybe things are changing for the better.

You go, prez.  Kick some more fat cats for me and clear the way, so I can find work and try to do the right things.  I just don’t want to be looking over my shoulder every minute, for someone to put the knife in.

THIS HAS BEEN A SPECIAL REPORT FROM THE HEALTH INSURANCE FRONT . . . VAGUE ATTEMPTS AT BLOG HUMOR WILL CONTINUE SHORTLY, AFTER THESE WORDS FROM ANOTHER BIG ASS HEALTH INSURANCE COMPANY . . .

DAY 77: Thursday, December 24, 2009: You accidently dated a beach ball. 

I just watched The Hangover, and had a great laugh.  I’ll work on something for the weekend.  Here’s a  big shout-out to the best: Bschooled, Donald Mills, Scott Oglesby, Fundamental Jelly, and the amazing Capitalist Lion Tamer, not to mention the others I’m catching on to, and will get to in the next months.  You are all amazing and talented.  Have a great holiday!