Saturday, February 14, 2009

Daytona 500


For the first time in Daytona history, a Petty will not be racing in the Daytona 500. "King" Richard, his faher and son have been present in every Daytona 500 race up to today. I just want to say thank-you to the Pettys for giving the race fans so many great memories. Gone are the days when drivers like Richard would win races by 2 or more laps. I hate restrictor plate racing and wish they would just let these guys "run what ya brung".

People we liked


Jackie Stewart was my favorite driver along with Mario Andretti. "The Flying Scotsman" as he was called raced in the 60's and 70's with few equals. His determination to bring safety to the sport is unparralled. When he retired from racing, he became a commentater on ABC's Wide World of Sports along with Jim McKay and Chris Acanamackie (probably didn't spell that right). His Scottish accent only added to the excitement of watching the Grand Prix of Monoco. Cheers 'ol pal.

People we liked

George was one of Jonny Carsons best recurring guests ever. Half the time he was blown out drunk and swapping jokes with Dean Martin. Later in life George was a spokesman for Fox Photo. This was when people still bought film and had photos developed. There were "Photo Huts" in every parking lot. Even in the 70's, he kept his trademark 'flattop' hair, which is one reason Rick and I still laugh at the guy, he was just friggin' funny.

Partridge Family


"C'mon get happy..." Well here it is in most of it's glory. Shirley Jones head got cut off but we were going for the photo of Susan. And for all you girls, David Cassidy. David in an interview seemed really grounded with his place in history when he said, "do you know how lame it is to be remember as the guy who made 'pucca shell' necklaces popular?" See, even David jokes about himself.

Speaking of country..


This little F'er has started coming around since Janet and I hung the bird feeders this winter. We named him Ray Charles cause the dude crows all day long instead of just at sunrise. He lives somewhere nearby and for comic relief I chased his ass around the yard this morning. I thought Janet would piss her pants laughing at me. Whatever...thats how we roll.

Moonpie delievers


Rick has waited long enough for me to get off my dead ass and send him his Moonpie goodies. I'm sending Rick a coffee mug (moonpie chronicels logo) and beer stein with the picture of the "gang of four" on the side. Cafe express did a great job and I invite all to visit the on-line store. By the way, this is what a post office looks like in the 'country'.

Friday, February 13, 2009

I just got finished watching 3 episodes of That 70's Show and relized something. Rick was Hyde and I was Eric. Rick was that kid who wasn't impressed with the social scene as the world saw it and I was home with a kookie mom and a dad who called us dumb-asses. But that was also a great time to be a teenager. Blow a doobie and the watch Barney Miller with dad. We laughed our ass off and dad wasn't sure why I thought the show was so funny. We cruised in the Buick stationwagon full of kids and just jammed out to the tunes. Blane and I had moms hand-me-down wagon and it was great. "hangin' out, down the street, same 'ol thing, we did last week" was our mantra. It was a simpler time with simple pleasures. A quart of Olympia beer and some weed, we had it made.

Moonpie One: Pages 15 & 16

Before we get into today's look at the actual pages, I wanted to say that this one felt either really weird, r really apropos for this day when Vance was looking at the possibility of not coming home tonight. These pages reflect the time just before and just after I went into the Army and was in the position of, basically, being incarcerated by the US Army.
Though we didn't hitchhike to Memphis, I did go on to have many solo hitchhiking adventures; once across the country, and many little trips in the Washington/Vancouver area. Interestingly, my son, Gabriel, is now semi-stranded up in rural Washington in a move quite similar to something that would have happened to me.
Anyway, on with the story....
So, this page is a continuation of the previous Page Image. We were writing down WHY we were going on the trip. It starts out, kind of serious sounding:
Vance had started with "Im really not sure why I’m going. It could be because…”

Here is where it all picks up...
"I know the town. Jesus. What am I saying. Rick doesn't know it yet, but I don't think I'm even going to have the cash funds. Shit. Rick will be mad!"
Then Martin adds:
"Don't Know."
To which I now add. WTF! He's just read what Vance wrote and he writes "Don't Know"? Like he's still planning on going? Please.

I think the funny thing here is that, despite not having any money, I probably would have ended up going. And then winding up starving in Oklahoma City or something.
A bit further down and I add an entry (sans any commentary on no one going.)
May 6 [19]76 no chance for me (Rick) I have to go in order to report for the army! yup. I told them to send my papers to memphis. 6 days to leave.
I'm not sure that date is quite right. Or the math. I entered the army on June 22nd, 1976. At some point here, I'll have to relate my trip to Memphis. The thing is that, despite the fact that the expedition failed, I did actually go there. I set foot on Memphis soil.
The next entry is from Vance.
Date:? Rick has gone. a solom day in Turky town. Shit. Vance.
On the next page, we have the green-penned reports from Vance regarding my absence. I'll comment on the overall meaning of this after all of the text is presented.
Date:? Rick ain't thrivin' on bootie camp. he even went a.w.o.l for three hours. has I recall, it was to get the roach clip I got him as a going away present!* Gezz! What a FRIEND. My very own Begal** Buddy! "Want to buy a cookie?"
*For the longest time, i couldn't remember the curcumstancse of this AWOL incident, although it couldn't have been too severe, as I didn't get busted. Just today, I remembered it. The roach clip (The Star of David roach clip mentioned in an earlier post) was taken from me. it was on of those things where some guy wanted to see it, and then decided he was going to keep it and his was bigger than me.
** "Bagel Buddy." Bagels had gotten big in Albuquerque a few years earlier and I was a fan. (Plus they were Jewish food!)(See previous post regarding my infatuation with the Chosen People.) Anyway, Vance and I had plans to someday open a little Bagel and Brew place.
Next entry:
Date:? It's been so long! Rick's fucked up on the army.
I'm fucked up on life. And martin's fucking in his Pinto! I hope rick comes home from boot camp before school.
So, what are the implications here? What are these two pages about? Fuckin' adulthood smacking the shit out of you, that's what. Here's the deal. When you graduate from high-school, you may not be mature, you may not be responsible, but you are a fucking adult and, like it or not, you've got to put on your big-boy underpants and get on with it.
For me, I had the shit whipped into me by two black drill-sergeants who were just two-years out of the bush in VietNam. I cried like a fucking baby through the whole thing, but when I came out of boot camp, I was thrust into a world where... Ummm... OK, I was supposed to acting like a man, but the world of the military is surreal and so who knows what I was doing. I didn't have to pay rent, or buy meals, and to that end, it was like living at home, only with stricter parents and shorter hair,
Vance, on the other hand was left sitting there wondering what the fuck just hit him. one minute he's skipping along merrily, ditching class and smoking pot in the dugout at Eldorado High School, and the next he's got to do something resembling getting his shit together. Here on these pages, Vance is trying to run backwards in time.
Neither of us knew what the fuck that meant. We didn't really have any great examples. Jesus. our role models were the members of Monty Python's Flying Circus.

Friday the 13th


I now LOVE Friday the 13th. I never even went in the courtroom today and my lawer said to go home. I'm trying to decide which expression of these three did I have on my face when the lawyer said that. Let me use this to explain something. I have drank and drove for YEARS and everything seemed o.k.. Hey, thats just how we rolled. It just never seemed to be anything wrong with driving around with a cooler on the front seat and poppin' tops. I can't do it anymore. Stick me with a fuckin' fork, I'm done. I will not preach about this but just be careful. This shit has cost alot of money and the wife was ready to launch my ass. My court date was changed to another time with a differant judge that my lawyer can deal with. I get to sleep in MY bed tonight.

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Time out for a Joke

In honor of my Scottish heritage (that's my tartan above -- Clan MacFarlane) I'd like to present two of my favorite Scottish jokes.
A bloke walks into a Glasgow library and says to the prim librarian,
'Excuse me Miss, dey ye hiv ony books on suicide?'
She stops her tasks, looks at him over the top of her glasses and replies,
'Fook off, ye'll no bring it back!'

----------

An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman are sitting at a bar with a pint of beer in front of them. The Englishman notices there is a fly in his beer and asks the bartender for a new one.
The Irishman, fishes the fly out, tosses it over his shoulder and keeps on drinking.
The thrifty Scotsman picks the fly up by it's wings and shaking it over the glass, growls "G'wan ye wee devil. Spit it oot!"

--Remember, if you can't laugh at yourself, you have to laugh at someone else.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Hot Babes and Celebrity Girlfriends: The Season Finale

Tonight on Celebrity Girlfriends, we look back at the earliest remembered girlfriend when we had a concpet of this. The immortal Raquel Welch.I remember sometime around 1970, and Raquel appeared on the cover of TV Guide. My cousin was down visiting for the weekend and we fawned over that cover as though the Blessed Virgin had appeared.

There was just something about her that was different from the other sex-goddesses of the day.

By the way, in modern parlance, a "celebrity girlfriend" is a celebrity who, if they came and asked you, you would have to leave your current spouse/girlfriend. It also applies for women with celebrity boyfriends.

Monday, February 9, 2009

What we've done for work

"It's real slow, just mostly street people are out," said Rick Raab-Faber, a Taxi-driver who was hoping to find some business at the airport. "It's boring. I feel like falling asleep." ~ Albuquerque Journal Article

"Damn that Rick! He knows he's not supposed to be sleeping in the cabs!" ~ Albuquerque Cab. Co. Owner, Baheej Hindi, after reading the above-mentioned article


A real one this time! (OK, Vance's typewriter repair gig was real.)Back in the mid 80's (85-88) I drove a cab in Albuquerque. Oh the stories I could tell. Volunteering to drive an all night shift because a customer gave me several lines of meth packed into a capsule. Snorting coke off the radio. Smoking a joint and being so stoned that halfway through the run I forgot where I was going, but was too embarrassed to look down at my trip-sheet to see. Driving three guys around town who were trying to cash $30,000 in cashiers checks -- proceeds from a gold theft ring. (I didn't find out that's what was going on until a month later,when John Law showed up at my door.

Actually the girlfriends I had during this phase where some of the more interesting ones. One was a psychopath with a black-powder pistol, a parakeet, and a death wish. The other was a dancer at an adults only establishment.

This was pretty much the last time I had hair too.

Incarceration prevention


Show the little woman this and you'll never do a day in the can.She'll be sure of it.

(Image courtesy of Percy Trout)

Constant sorrow

The little woman is on the way to work right now so we can go see my lawyer. Court is on Friday the 13th, what luck. Anyway, all should go well, but if you don't hear from me for a while, well .... My sister-in-law says I'll be fine because of my gift of gab and the ability to adapt. We'll see.

"I detect, like me, you're endowed with the gift of gab."---

Ulysses Everett McGill

Celebrity girlfriends..

OK, I'll take the heat for this one but I can't help it! Kristy McNipple was too cute. She was the total 70's teen. Maybe a little too goodie-two-shoes but I saw "Blue moon Junction"....I can still see her in cowboy boots with no top on. As Garth and Wayne would say, "shhwing!"

Sunday, February 8, 2009

Hot Babes and Celebrity Girlfriends

BUT... on a serious list of wet-dream fantasy celebrity girlfriends, I'm talking ones that you'd marry and introduce to your mother. I'm talking ones who you wouldn't be embarrassed to have the life-size kissable poster from Tiger Beat on your bedroom wall. I'm talking trade a stack of Playboys for. Number one on the list of hot babes of the 70s. (cue Angelic Chorus. Cue lights) Susan Hallock Dey (born December 10, 1952 in Pekin, Illinois) AKA: Laurie Partridge.(You know what I'm talking about, Vance! Come On Get Happyyyyyy!) For you youngsters, The Partridge Family was a TV show about a widowed woman who tries to make ends meet by having her children form a band. They dressed in maroon velvet and white lace and traveled around the country in a crazily painted school-bus. Laurie "played" keyboards, "sang," and whacked the tambourine. The show was loosely based on the real life family band, The Cowsills.

She's held up pretty well, but she lost her allure when she tried to shed her good-girl image.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go to the bathroom and I'm taking my laptop computer with me. Where the hell's the Kleenex?

Hot Babes and Celebrity Girlfriends

Let's face facts here, folks. A celebrity girlfriend list from boys of the 70s would be a farce if it did not mention this woman here: Farah Fawcett Majors.Check out this site at www.farrahfawcett.us to find some fascinating facts on the cultural status of this poster. In other posts, Vance and I have talked about fashions of the 70s. "Farah Fawcett Hair" was huge! I have to wonder if it was the hair that had us creaming our jeans... or was it the nipplage? Or was it that we knew that if the girl was wearing her hair like this, the nipples weren't far behind?

One of my best remembrances about this poster (aside from a heavily hashish induced night in Germany) was a Camaro that used to come through the drive-thru at the Hofbrau when I worked the package store. The owner had this posted varnished onto the hood of the car.

In case you wonder how Farah fared over the years, here's a shot from 2006. I guess it's safe to say "she didn't go and git all fat an' shit." This photo is actually not too bad. I've seen some where she was looking pretty rough.

Inspiration

I had a lot of religious influences over the years, but none so factual as this bit of wisdom known as Deteriorata.

_________________________________________
You are a fluke
Of the universe.
You have no right to be here.....
Deteriorata! Deteriorata!

Go placidly
Amid the noise and waste.
And remember what comfort there may be
In owning a piece thereof.

Avoid quiet and passive persons
Unless you are in need of sleep.

Rotate your tires.

Speak glowingly of those greater than yourself
And heed well their advice,
Even though they be turkeys.

Know what to kiss.....and when!

Consider that two wrongs never make a right
But that THREE.........do.

Wherever possible, put people on hold.

Be comforted that in the face of all aridity and disillusionment
And despite the changing fortunes of time,
There is always a big future in computer maintenance.

Chorus

You are a fluke
Of the universe.
You have no right to be here.
And whether you can hear it or not
The universe is laughing behind your back.

Remember the Pueblo.

Strive at all times to bend, fold, spindle and mutilate.

Know yourself.
If you need help, call the FBI.

Exercise caution in your daily affairs,
Especially with those persons closest to you.
That lemon on your left, for instance.

Be assured that a walk through the ocean of most souls
Would scarcely get your feet wet.

Fall not in love therefore;
It will stick to your face.

Gracefully surrender the things of youth:
The birds, clean air, tuna, Taiwan
And let not the sands of time
Get in your lunch.

Hire people with hooks.

For a good time call 606-4311;
Ask for "Ken."

Take heart amid the deepening gloom
That your dog is finally getting enough cheese.

And reflect that whatever misfortune may be your lot
It could only be worse in Milwaukee.

Chorus

You are a fluke
Of the universe.
You have no right to be here.
And whether you can hear it or not
The universe is laughing behind your back.

Therefore, make peace with your god
Whatever you conceive him to be---
Hairy thunderer, or cosmic muffin.

With all its hopes, dreams, promises and urban renewal
The world continues to deteriorate.

GIVE UP!

Reprise

You are a fluke
Of the universe.
You have no right to be here.
And whether you can hear it or not
The universe is laughing behind your back.
___________________________________________________________
Performed by National Lampoon on "National Lampoon Radio Dinner," a 1972 recording by Blue Thumb Records. Lyrics by Tony Hendra.

Who's your daddy?

Another full moon rises over the east coast and I am told of my fathers passing by my mother who is in Arizona tonight. My father, she tells, me passed in 2005 and I was not aware if this information. The man pictured above was my step-father, Tom Deniston, an officer and a gentelman. He passed away last year and I went to the funeral in Santa Fe. But my 'real' dad was not present for the last 45 or so years of my life and now I find out that he is in fact gone. I've wondered about this for the last ten years or so. I hated my dad for being such a dick to my mom and my brothers my whole life. But I was older than my brothers and had actually spent time with dad and grandpa back in the day. Rolling out of Lincoln, Nebraska with a cooler full of beer and a trunk full of loaded shotguns for a weekend ride in the country. I was maybe 5 years old then and this seemed to be the high life. I couldn't wait to get in the 'ol Thunderbird on Saturday and head out. I would hand daddy and grandpa the can opener for their beers and we would roll down country roads for miles on end with the dust flying. In those days I spent every Friday or Saturday night with grandpa and he would let me stay up to watch Gunsmoke on TV. The weekend would start with a haircut at Walt's barber shop and then dinner at Kings diner. Sometimes, on saturday, dad would show up and it was like something special. See, dad was usually in jail on the weekends, thats how they did it back then. You could work all week but then you had to go to jail to pay off the debt you owed society on the weekends. We would ride for several miles and then we would come upon a covey of pheasent and the car would slow to the side of the road. Dad would tell me to hold his beer while he got the gun from the trunk. Blam....blam, blam. "Go get 'em boy", he'd say and I ran like the devil to get the kill. I was so proud to be part of this weekend ritual, dad and grandpa stone blind drunk and me fetchin' pheasant. In a blur everything changed and dad was gone for good. At 6 years old I was the man of the house and it wasn't good. My brothers would ask me for breakfast and I would pour out Puffed Wheat. They would say, "where's the milk?' I'd say, "don't wake up mom and just eat it." I hated those days and I cussed dad for putting me in that position to be the father. I had no skills at 6 years old but I did my best. When my mom meet Tom and he married her, I was relieved. I handed over the responsibility to him and he took it with pride. He adopted us three boys and gave us his name. The rest is history as they say, but I was so happy to be relieved of the burden. I met my 'real' dad years later in Denver and he didn't do any better then. I was with my friend Mishal and he scared the hell out of her by screaming at the top of his lungs at his then wife for no reason after a day trip to Boulder. Thanks dad. Now, today I know he is gone, and I could say that I don't care. But, that would be a lie, I do care, and I don't know why. Good bye Jim, you bastard. Thanks for nothing.

Celebrity girlfriends...

I dug Tanya Tucker for some reason, maybe because she actually sang at the Caravan in Albuquerque when she was still a teenager. Liked her gruff voice and satin pants. She lived, worked and played hard, I have those same demons myself. Hey, I think she just might have been fun to party with. But no, she had to hookup with dick nose http://www.glencampbellshow.com/ and we all know how well that turned out. Anyway, when all is said and done, it was just a fantasy.

Hot Babes and Celebrity Girlfriends

Joan Jett was one of my celebrity girlfriends back in the 80s (before people really had a concept of "celebrity girl or boyfriends." I mean look at her! She's a bad girl.... the kind you don't take home to mother. She super-freakayyyyy.

Get her and Chrissy Hynde from the Pretenders together and, look out!

Nowadays I'm into the Kates. Mainly Winslet (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind version is my favorite),but also Hudson (I dug the "Almost Famous" version of Kate H.) and Blanchett and that other one whose name always escapes me until I see her. Apparently Kate Winslet was in a movie titled "Hideously Kinky," which I must see.

UPDATE: I remember the fourth Kate. Kate Beckinsale (she played Ava Gardner in The Aviator, and Flora Poste in Cold Comfort Farm.)

Free Kisses!

Wow! A chance to win one of 10 Gremlin's. When these cars came out, I thought they were soooooooo cool. When was the last time you saw one (or any AMC vehicle) on the road? Even in New Mexico, where our dry climate preserves cars, you don't see these things.