ouch

whilst reprogramming my brain at the foundation eliot suggested that i have my teeth checked. taking dental advice from a man with absolutely horrid dental hygiene could be construed as bordering on insanity but as i earlier stated, i’d do anything for eliot. a few days ago i showed up for some cleaning and scaling only to be informed that i had 3 teeth in need of repair, fucking fillings! today i showed up and endured 90 minutes of torture only to be told that there were 2 more teeth in need of repair. i didn’t book an appointment. i’ll ruminate on this for a while.

in the last post i posed the question, “can a person be cured of a condition he never had?” i’m disappointed that no one offered me any help on this stumper. of course i wasn’t asking this question for my own benefit and of course i didn’t check myself into the nut house for my own benefit either. there is a certain pipe smoker who will remain unnamed that i was trying to assist in overcoming a period of darkness. if this person could only swallow his pride and seek my help there might be a glimmer of hope for him. i am of the opinion that a person cannot be cured of a condition that they do not possess. it’s up to the person in question to realize that there’s nothing to cure. most trained medical professionals are loathe to admit this, after all they’re in the money making racket and there’s nothing better than a patient who cannot be cured. molly coddling is only good for the first 10 days, then hit the patient over the head with a wooden mallet and let the chips fall where they may. (that's why i checked out of the nut house on day 9)

so here is today’s big question:

is one year of enjoying candy worth the aggravation of 3 hours in the dentist’s chair? if i had to pay for the dental work the answer would be easy, fuck no. but since the dental work is free it’s a tough decision.

i love you sons of bitches,

back from the shadows

alright you sons of bitches i’m back after a grueling 10 day investigative reporting assignment in the nut house. the nut house can be a lot of fun for the first few days but the loonies begin to get on your nerves once the novelty wears off and you realize these goofballs really are nuts and some of them are downright dangerous. i’d like to thank sonny for passing along a few messages and not telling his mother where i was. she’s been trying to have me declared legally incompetent for years but it looks like i’ve dodged another bullet. the back yard is full of holes, almost as if some fool has been looking for buried treasure.

doctors greenberg, silverstein, cohen, abramson, applebaum, dershowitz, finklestein, goldberg, greenbaum,lipchitz, rosenberg, reichman, turtlebaum, silverman, shapiro, weinberger and zimmerman all agreed that they had done all that could be done for a man in my condition. then the doctor in charge, a mister troutberg, declared: "You were sick, but now you are well again. And there's work to be done." all these doctors seemed to have something in common but i just couldn’t put my finger on it. i’m hoping that one of these days i can pin point the common thread.

have i been truly cured?

was i truly ill?

can a person be cured of a condition he never had?

yes! i wasn’t nuts, i just thought i was nuts and doctor troutberg told me i was well and that’s good enough for me. but he’s the one who is truly nuts if he thinks i’m interested in any work that needs to be done. now that i’m an expert in mental illness, i’ll answer any and all questions that interest me.

i love you sons of bitches.

ps. there's a fortune to be made in the headcase racket.

update

I received a note from my father today. I'm pretty sure he would like me to share it with the sons of bitches he loves:

hello sonny, que pasa?

i was going to write sooner but eliot says i’m a wonderful person and i shouldn’t worry too much about how much other people are worrying about me. i don’t know if i can take the pressure of being a wonderful person, i’ve never faced this challenge before. it’s a lot easier being an asshole than being a wonderful person but i really don’t want to let eliot down. i’d do anything for eliot.

i don’t know how long i’ve been here because it’s hard to tell if i’m really here or just daydreaming again. this isn’t the best daydream i’ve ever had but i’m sure it’s not the worst daydream i’ve ever had either. so far your mother hasn’t shown up in any of my dreams and eliot says that’s a good thing and to call him tout de suite if she shows up. i always thought it was “toot sweet” but eliot’s right hand man, quite possibly the best writer on the planet, says tout de suite is way better because it makes people think you are real adroit. i don’t have the heart to tell him that being wonderful is pressure enough and i’m no where near ready to be adroit.

eliot has put me on fly patrol. his office has lots of flies and those little rat bastards are having the time of their lives feasting on the leftover pizza and hungry man meals. when i do my job correctly, the time of their lives is very short , very short indeed. eliot has taught me the two best ways to kill flies; the cleanest way to catch and kill a fly is to get a glass of soapy water and get the fly from below. wait for the fly to land on the ceiling and then place the glass of soapy water under the fly and watch it fly directly down into the soapy water. the second way is to use an elastic band as a weapon; pull the elastic band back, take aim and release. you have to sneak up on the fly and get real close but that's easier said than done. the down side of this method is it can leave a real mess on the walls. eliot’s walls need a real good scrubbing.

the bad news is i’ve almost ran out of fish and eliot becomes totally fixated on some guy named trout every time i say fish. the big rule around here is “god damn it, you’ve got to be kind” and i find it a lot easier to be kind after a little fishing trip. there’s another rule about not screwing around with the red phone but i can handle that one without any fish, my kingdom for a bag of fish.

the darkness was beginning to lift but suddenly i’m right back where i started. when you have a faulty electrical system things can turn on a dime. hello darkness my old friend.

say hi to ruby for me.

love, dad.

At first I thought this was just another one of my father's pranks, but I am now concerned.

toodle-loo

Today was a long time coming but it finally came. My dad called me at 4:00 this morning and announced that he was sick and tired of being sick and tired and had made the decision to seek professional help, I was tasked with chauffeuring him to a better place. My dad’s idea of professional help and my mother’s idea of professional help are polar opposites. My dad seeks a spiritual rebirth while my mother wants to pump him full of drugs. Dad has always loved drugs but he has never trusted his health to the medical industrial complex. I guess one man’s meat is another man’s poison.

It was a bitter sweet moment when dad emerged from the house with his tattered alligator suitcase that once belonged to his grandfather, my great grandfather. In contrast to the tattered suitcase he was wearing his best suit and had a brand new pair of adidas gazelle sneakers on his gnarly old feet. He just stood in the doorway like a cigar store Indian until mother gave him a good shove and slammed the door. As I approached him it became clear that he had been crying. Was this really my father?

I took the suitcase from his feeble hand and was surprised by the weight, it was a lot heavier than it looked. Dad noticed the look of surprise on my face and whispered in my ear, “pennies from heaven son.” I managed to stow the old suitcase in the trunk of my trusty corolla and we were on our way but there was only one problem, where were we going? Dad handed me a scrap of paper with an address and we were on our merry way. The address turned out to be the greyhound bus depot.

My poor old dad struggled to get out the car and retrieve his suitcase from the trunk of the old corolla and then we just stood staring at each other for what seemed an eternity. I noticed more tears streaming down from his once bright eyes. he gave me a very tender embrace and once more he whispered something in my ear: “If I don’t make it back alive, tell your mother that there’s fifty pounds of gold hidden in the basement and 3 tins of hundred dollar bills buried in back yard. That should drive the old cunt nuts.”

As I watched dad enter the bus depot, it was my turn to shed a few tears and I noticed a scrap of paper he had slipped into my shirt pocket. It was the address of this blog along with his password and a note saying he loved the sons of bitches who read his blog and a request for me to tell his story but that will have to wait for another day when my grief has abated.

I’m going to miss the old reprobate.

woe is me

fuck me, it's friday evening and i'm sitting all alone again. i should be out carousing and having the time of my life but i don't have any energy or enthusiasm for the things that used to excite me. i can't put my finger on the problem because i'm having so much trouble concentrating these days. i can't ask my poor wife for help because she's really tired of me being so irritable and withdrawn. sometimes i feel as though there is no hope for me. i just want to crawl into bed and pull the covers over my head but it's summer and it's too fucking hot.

it's just not fair. i've accomplished everything i ever dreamed of when i was younger but i'm unable to enjoy the past successes or find any new interests to build upon. a few people have suggested that i seek medical help but that's something for people with no education or skills to rely upon. i've always been a respected member of society and can't stand the thought of my colleagues detecting any weakness or defect in my character. goddamn it, i'm billy pilgrim and i'm stronger than this!

there was time when i used capital letters in my writing but now i have no pride in my writing or for that matter i have no pride in my appearance. i no longer bother trimming the beard that i was once very proud of and no longer see the point in ironing my shirts. i am quite confident that the rosewater foundation could be of help but i'm afraid of failure. the rosewater foundation is the only light i can see at the end of the long dark tunnel i'm currently stuck in but if i seek help from eliot and am still unable to escape this funk, then there will truly be no hope for me so i'll not seek eliot's help at this time. a man always needs a back-up plan in case of emergency and eliot is my plan b.

perhaps this is all a pile of rotting chicken shit ruminating in declining brain. perhaps i'm really not an important part of the universe and perhaps i've over estimated my importance for decades and only now can i face that fact that i'm not special, just a lonely old man with an inflated ego.

livia soprano seems to have it all figured out. so if anyone is reading this who has experienced similar feelings the following clip should help. if you're too down in the dumps to watch the whole thing, pick it up at the 2 minute mark. that's where she hits the nail on the head.

i love you sons of bitches, i just wish i could love myself.

highway robbery

deadwood was robbed!

the writer's guild published their list of 101 BEST WRITTEN TELEVISION SHOWS OF ALL TIME. deadwood came in at #32 which didn't really rankle me too much until i saw some of the shows that were ranked higher. to say that mad men or any of those fucking sitcoms with obnoxious laugh tracks were better written than deadwood, aka shakespeare of the west, is nothing short of blasphemy. if i was a big shot muslim leader i'd put a fatwa out on those fucking guild writers.

the sopranos was ranked number 1 and coincidentally i happen to be watching the sopranos for my 15 minutes of bliss before retiring for the evening. season 1 was great but season 2 is definitely inferior and the slide continues in the following seasons. this is the 3rd time i've watched the series and after season 2 i'll be taking a long break. in my educated opinion, uncle junior and livia are the stars of the series and their dialogue is certainly worthy of the praise but i find myself fast forwarding through a lot of carmella's bullshit. father phil made me want to puke. so it goes.

donald and the tomatoes are doing very well in the warm weather.

i love you sons of bitches.