the end

the end is here, ninjas.
the end of july.
the end of vacation-time house living.
the end of convenient contact with all ya'll, even.
the end of the line.

that makes a new beginning inevitable.
tomorrow isn't just august, already;
tomorrow will be the first morning we wake up in the new hottness.
woodsly goodness, plus neighbors.
it's sort of a throwback for us.
our normal selling point on locations is their remoteness.
it saves us a lot of late night visits from the authorities.
heavily armed berserker barbarian battle-beasts,
blazing burly bonfires and late night hard-styles?
c'mon.
what i mean is:
we don't usually mix well with anyone who isn't a warrior poet.
sadly, how many worthy battle bards are ever even there out there, y'know?
but, i'm confident that we'll make an A+ effort.
between the chainsaw logging,
cordwood stacking,
and general loud and hard moving magic,
we'll probably go completely unnoticed as we sneak into residency...
i'll be sure to start flying our somali pirate aids awareness gay pride prayer flags.
that'll encourage a crystal-clear 'hey, welcome to the area, neighbors!' vibe
out into the cul-de-sac,
for sure.
there goes the tranquility, kids.
along with the neighborhood.
we're doin' our part to keep property values down.
put that in you mil-rate and chug it.

this is it.
never quiet, never soft...

done and done...

okay,
we're homeowners, for real.
all the way now, and have assumed ownership,
and starting tomorrow we begin inhabiting our epic Folk Life Fortress.
narrow victories are still victories.
y'know what they call the dude who barely squeaks ahead
crossing the finish line a millisecond before his competitors?
...the winner.
it's so true, too.
to the victors go the spoils,
and the soul-crushing mortgage payments.
as my homeslice mitch wrote by way of congratulations:
"welcome to your new master, the bank of monthly ass-rape."
ouch.
must be a sperm bank, i guess...
of course,
i'm not sure it's actually ass-rape, per se,
since i signed up for it;
on about two hundred thousand pieces of paper....

i guess there was some behind the scenes drama, too!!
scandalous.
while we were home stressin' about the situation,
all kinds of 'are-you-kidding-me' action was unfolding.
i mean, real deal human conflict,
with hard-style law enforcement involvement an' all.
lawyers were callin' realtors,
police were ruining everybody's good time,
and ex-husbands and wives were hatin' on each other.
i was mostly waitin' around on the last day of vacation....
fortunately for jess and i,
we arrived this morning at OUR house,
and it was 2 legit to mutha-lickin' quit.
that's right.
OUR house.
sooooooo,
tomorrow, we're officially done with our vacation,
and woodsly goodness residents in perpetuity.
that means that all the old and busted doo-doo buttery disasters,
inside the house and out,
need to be addressed.
where my handy-mans at?
i need painters, scrapers, scrubbers,
scoopers, plumbers, carpenters,
and assorted good-vibe infusers.

and,
we'll have no phone or internet for a week.....
real life is looming.
daruma has his other eye filled in.
we've got a bucket of cleaning products
and i expect to use 'em up in the first two days.
dirt dirty, dirtiness.
i'm a mess with home improvement;
never quiet, never soft....

oh, c'mon.....

yeah!
so, we closed on our first home, sorta.
i'm serious.
totally serious.
we read through two million pages of paper,
wrote checks that removed the entire summer's income from the bank,
and signed and initialed all the x's and dotted lines.
but did we get the keys to the castle?
F* no.
turns out,
most mortgage lenders are of the personal opinion that
you just can't buy a house that the seller hasn't moved out of.
i know.
it's been a months long process,
with at least a four weeks of pretty definite plans,
so obviously,
you don't start packing a single solitary possession,
until the day OF the closing,
around 9 a.m....
nice.

dear secret universal plan,
you got me again.
good one.
love,
xoxoox,
albie.

it's never easy,
but what ever is?
it's also
never quiet, never soft...

the deep breath before the plunge.

holy sh!t.
at one o'clock this afternoon,
jess and i go over to the title service company,
where we'll be meeting with many business suited individuals,
to finalize all the big-time grown-up serious real-deal action.
the Folk Life & Liberty Fortress is really happening.
we're actually buying a mutha-uckin' house......
...and making it a home, too.
that's some big busy business, for sure.
so now,
in the early shirley mornin' hours,
we're waitin'.
patiently, even,
for the confirmation calls from our mortgage broker, pat jones;
our totally kickass realtor, rich johnson;
and whomever the F* else needs to buzz us about whatever's clever.
we've got a walk-through to walk through,
and some burly banking to balk a bit at,
but otherwise,
today is the day.
and it's a really good one.

this bit of personal pride brought to you in part
by the woodsly goodness,
the tatzappin' vacation concession of mt. washington,
the number eleven,
and generous contributions from the secret universal plan.
gratitude, ya'll.
word;
never quiet, never soft...

from scratch

what the F* is jar sauce?!
that was yesterday's most winningest favorite quote, my ninjas.
referring to some non-italian's best effort at makin' a gourmet gravy for their rigatoni,
with ketchup and oregano,
because they had no jar sauce!
jar sauce!?! what the F* is jar sauce?!
and ketchup?!!!
my nana would whoop your candypants ass if she heard that noise.
there's so much wrong with that crap culinary course anyway;
but to hear the distress in my buddy's aunt's voice,
recalling the affrontery to from-scratch foodstuffs,
decades after the incident,
i had to remember what it means to doo-doo the really real sh!t.
box mix and jar sauce?
oh, HELL no, ya'll.
put that instant doo-doo buttery box mix back on the shelf.
never mind all that 'just add water',
that's weak sauce,
in SO many ways, too.
i endorse and support taking a leading role in your own life.
that means a little extra effort in all the little easy things throughout the day.
every day.
even eatin' treats requires that active participation.
i'm not sayin' we should all spend seven hours in the kitchen before breakfast,
and it's even plausible that that luxury pasta sauce
in the specialty section of the grocery store
just may be good enough to hide in a lasagna,
but for a stand-alone red gravy,
you gotta sautee, simmer, and stew.
i'm sayin',
my sugarlovely baby-yeah ladyfriend makes a mean sauce, mutha-uckas.
that's a fact.
it's the difference between a keeper and keepin' lookin'...
word.
i'm rockin' shout-outs to home cooks who get busy from scratch.
participating in the creation of their own sustenance.
that goes for gardeners growing their own goods, too.
to all the fresh slicers, dicers, mincers, parers, corers, peelers, and preparers;
keep keepin' those mashed potatoes lumpy.
all ya'll reppin' the coarse arts,
keep reppin' that roughness...

homemade is just plain better.
that's what's poppin'.
homestyle home run home cookin'.
by hand and from scratch, each and every batch.
flavorful as F*!
not just in my mouth, either,
but when i eat it, i wanna flippin' taste it;
never quiet, never soft.

emotions...

mixed and otherwise,
emotions have been the name of the game.
lately, over at the tatzappin' blastoff studio,
when it comes to pickin' out some pictures to zipzap up,
folks have been runnin' to one extreme or the other.
completely meaningless images are abundant, and that's cool,
but so are the intensely personal portrayals of milestones and memories.
the semi-important as-long-as-it-looks-cool stuff is in short supply.
i'm sayin',
either the barbed wire hot fire is gettin' spit,
and it's one-two-three, gimme some money,and get lost,
OR
the deep-wounded heart strings are plucked up;
which makes for some seriously moist-eyed skin sessions.
today saw a batch of both kinds of clients,
and for once, as surprising as it turned out to be,
i actually gave a sh!t about the sad stories...
probably because it actually was congruent to connectivity and communication,
warrior poetry, and keeping it real.
i did a portrait today,
which isn't that big or unusual a deal,
except,
i tattooed my friend frank's face on his father's arm,
as frank recently passed away after being pretty sick for a bit.
i even rocked out a little turtle and banner combo for his fiancee.
i'd been tattooing frank for years up here,
and gotten to know the guy for the stand-up kick-ass awesome fella he was.
accordingly,
he amped up the studio to his peoples back home,
who rolled up from somewhere in massachussetts for just the afternoon,
just to have the tattoos done by their boy's artist.
the whole family came up to support each other an' that,
and i couldn't have found for a nicer group of folks to span time alongside on a muggy monday,
or even any other day, for that matter.
holy mutha-uckin' smokes, right?
i was compelled to behave like a regular human being, even;
and that was a new experience for me, at least.
word up, my ninjas, that was some really real business.
add in some good old italian moms and pops,
a few traded kitchen tips, and secret recipes for pasta fagioli,
and a ton of hugs and kisses afterwards,
and a seriously intense experience resulted.
lasting human connections.
not usually my strong suit.
today, though,
today was the day.
i am grateful for the time i have been given,
and for those i span time alongside;
never quiet, never soft...

the last sunday in july.

y'know about the renaissance, yeah?
the rebirth of art and learning and culture and all that.
that whole stretch of time was spanned so damn freshly,
with some pretty F*d-up duders gettin' pretty F*n' F*-d up;
whilst managing to produce a prolific patch of progress,
and several museums worth of artistically exposed genital allegory.
those dudes got busy.
really busy, in fact.
and in between drunken homosexual orgies and swordfights,
they all still managed to live some pretty elaborate and full lives.
not that homosexual orgy swordfights aren't fulfilling, yall,
c'mon, obviously that much stabbin' is brutally battle bardsly...
the key was to be dope at a whole pile of stuff,
and therefore master multiple forms of hottness.
and that multiple-hottness mastery, over time , gave usage to the term
renaissance man.
which doesn't really apply to the rebirth of anything anymore,
or to duders who invent, write, and get syphilis either;
(with the exception of ben franklin)
it's just another 'nother other 'nother way of determining the just be dopeness.
because,
if you're doo-dooin' every single thing you have to, want to, and need to,
and it's all really happening as hard and fresh and loud as it can,
then,
it stands to reason that your standing as a worthy
real-life-living warrior of bold and fortunate flavor
is in assuredly mutha-uckin flippin' full efffect.
that's the truth.
you just gotta represent that renaissance resonance, ya'll.
i know i do a LOT of sh!t,
and i certainly like to think i'm better than just barely
fair-to-middling at more than most of it.
that may just be wishful thinking and conceited horn-blowing,
i mean, really, after all,
i haven't invented anything awesome or even gotten siphylis.....yet,
but i'm sure feelin' more like a swordfightin' arthur-maker these days.
me and my peoples have a lot going on over here;
impending homeownership (cross your fingers, ninjas),
and busy-as-F* tatzappin' weeks,
and a financial maelstrom of banks, checks, lenders and sellers,
and cooking and reading and writing.......
i could use a quick squeeze of rebirth, ya'll.
less naked, and wet, and pink, and helpless than the first one;
but rather a righteous reawakening of exactly what it is
that i actually LIKE about what i'm doing all the time.
renaissance man?
maybe not.
berserker bararian battle-beast?
time-spanning life-living warrior poet?
move-makin' money-takin' rump-shakin' flamboyant Folk Life founding father?
hell yeah, mutha-uckas.
just be dope at what you're doin';
never quiet, never soft.....

a busted pile of a day...

accountability.
that's some grown-up sh!t, my ninjas.
admitting when you're wrong.
owning up to you own mistakes, missteps and missed missions.
taking resposibilty for your actions and their outcomes.
it isn't any kind of easy,
but it's some true-life really real test-of-adulthood action.
it's really just another variation on just being dope,
or failing that,
F*ing right off....
sometimes, being dope is really mutha-flippin' hard,
but acknowledging your own fallibilty is even harder.
mistakes don't define you,
unless you let 'em.
rather,
how you proceed after F*n' up is even more important.

miscommunication is twice as awful to professional wordsmiths.
that's the 'uckin' truth.
and those miscommunicated misunderstandings, ya'll,
when occurring in the tattoo world, are the supremely worst kind.
the absolute worst ever....
full-blown stomach-sick, hot ears, panic attack horrible.
sometimes,
underarticulated ideas constitute a minor mishap,
or a semi-permanent problem.
making it right, however,
while almost inconceivably more humiliating,
and cripplingly hubris destroying,
and frustrating for everyone,
and a complete bummer, to boot...
is the mark of a truly competent communicator.
the good news is that while culpability is split down the middle
between the getters and the 'zappers,
there's almost always a way to figure it out.
if at first you can't be dope,
but F*ing right off doesn't appeal to your ass either,
well,
you better turn up the magical medicine magic to eleven,
and get busy doin' the right thing.
whatever that entails.
that's accountability.
and accountability is manly, b!tches.
that may even explain my sexy beard, huh?
you may have already guessed as much,
but there's some non-situationally specific personal narrative here.
suffice to say my manlines is in full-blown overdrive over here.
and i think there's a happy ending.
at least, i feel like there should be one.
to err is human, they say,
and to accept it, improve on it,
and bring the 'uckin' thunder
is barbarian battle-beastly.
right or wrong, i'll take responsibilty,
every single time;
never quiet, never soft....

high tension.

so,
we're constantly overbooked at work.
it's not exactly a bad thing,
but it sure is stressful.
always running behind means staying late,
ruining dinner plans, getting all tense,
and tatblasting as hard as you can until your thumbs go numb.
add in the 'awesome' ideas some folks have,
and it almost makes me want to go back to bein' a fancy little baby-bop blaster again.
almost.
y'know the dudes;
only zappin' their own styles and reppin' the spoiled brat attack.
that business is not the truth.
at least not the really real rural honest to woodsly goodness truth...
still,
there were two wang-danglin' weiner guys in the studio today.
and that can be some ugly truth.
i swear, ya'll.
the barbed wire armband crowd is out in force, too.
it's like that movie gremlins or something,
and someone must've gotten 'em wet, i guess.
times are happening.... strange ones, even.
i've done a whole ass-ton of ass-whoopin' tatzappin' these last few weeks.
i'm tired, ya'll.
what i need is a Folk Life & Liberty fortress to call home,
to lay my head down and hang my hat.
that daruma with the one eye i'm wishin' on must be listening,
because we got some turbo tasty tidbits of good good news today.
it looks as if the secret universal plan is decoding itself into a fresh saga
of berserker barbarian battle-beastly thunder and lightning.
by august we should be relocated, again,
and this time,
it could be the folk liveliest scenario yet.
i need a vacation from this vacation,
and i sure as sh!t need a break from this breakneck ballyhooing tatzappin'.
times, yall, like i said;
times are happening;
never quiet, never soft....

the stillness.

it's pretty quiet at 5:30 a.m. in the woods.
almost no noisiness even makes it inside...
yeah,
there's a bunch of b!tchsap birds bleating,
but otherwise,
it's tranquility all the way;
my kids are back home in weak-sauce connecticut,
one of our dogs, hamden, is at a sleepover with jess's sister,
and the rest of my peoples are asleep, snugly, in their bedrooms.
it's just me and the noisy-ass old refrigerator,
watching the sunrise,
and making moves.



ya'll remember daruma?
he's a mad old indian meditater,
and the founder of zen buddhism in asia.
he's also, and maybe more even widely,
best known for being protrayed as a red wish doll shaped like an urn.
(i have a daruma tattyblasted on my knee)
the way the dolls work is:
you fill in just one of his empty doll-eyes when you make a wish,
and when that jammie-jam comes true,
you reward the little hoppity-blop by filing in the other one.
i got one the other day,
and he's givin' me the 'one-eyed willy' stink wink right now.
i'm hopin' to fill that second peeper in a.s.a.p.,
as i really need some wishes fulfilled....
vacation is almost over,
and we're waiting on all the last minute stressful final forms, functions,
failsafes, and foundations to doo-doo all the factfinding
and funding founding and financing for our Folk Life fortress.
that type of real-world adult activity will have you up and about,
sleeplessly appreciating the sunrise on a thursday morning, for sure.

these days, my ninjas.
i'm sayin';
never quiet, never soft...

car rides and pizza nights.

harvest, maple, and the cucch joined me
for a very dark, very rainy road trip,
across the kancamagus highway's narrow and twisty mountain passes.
jess manned the fort and held it down on the homefront last night,
just so we could come home to a few delicious slabs of homemade pizza.
that sh!t is really darn tasty, ya'll.
but, meanwhile back in the hills;
we had a specific misson in mind when we left,
and we executed our plan with diligent determination.
the girls finally, after years of woodsly visitation,
saw a mutha-uckin' big, brown, lanky, skanky, awesome
and in all other ways impressive MOOSE.
without natural predators in the mountains of new hampshire,
(besides massachussetts s.u.v.s)
moose pretty much just sit there on the side of the road,
munchin' up wet leaves and not givin' a flyin' F*.
as a bonus to their indifference,
we were about two feet away from a young cow,
for a whole chunk of minutes,
until other carloads, full of pantloads of waterabies showed up,
just to horn in on and scoople up our magic.
even those doo-doo buttery ruiners couldn't diminish the freshness, though.
it's kinda terrific, y'know, watching these kids flip out
over the jam-packed treats and tricks of the woodsly goodness.
another 'nother generation of Folk Life livin' is in the fixin', my ninjas.
on the way back, we rolled up on an even bigger beastly browser,
but he escaped into the woods before the girls could glimpse him.
whatever.
their first black bear appeared after bread and puppet,
their first moose before pizza night....
if i had to pick out a perfect ending to an amazing visit
with two very rad little people,
that'd be it.
thanks a big fat bunch for lookin' out, secret universal plan.
never quiet, never soft....

family day.

it's tuesday.
y'know what that means?
it's family day over here in the woodsly goodness.
me and my peoples all have the day off,
and we have to make it count for somethin' special.
harvest and maple have been super great.
i mean it, and forgive the gushing reviews,
but these two mornin'-glorious girlies are flippin' rad.
no bullsh!t, no disobeying, no ruined meals, no misbehaving, no drama.
at all.
only two marvelous miniature model citizens spanning quality time;
strictly big fun and tight hugs and good feelings every day.
add in my two best homies runnin' right alongside them,
and i've had a pretty muthalickin' luscious week of kinship and comraderie...
where's my viking great-hall, ya'll?
because i'm tellin' you ninjas right now:
this has been a valhalla'va good week.
maybe we should get some halva to top it off.
nut-butter paste candy?
what?
now we're getting a little off track.
how many puns is too many puns?
well, the one with the halva, i think, is a little obscure....

anyway,
it's family day.
and it's the last full day of this particular visit with my kids.
so it kinda has to be doooope.
we went to the movies and saw ice age 3,
and it was actually pretty darn good, too,
even with all the glorified momification of parenthood
being browbeat into almost every frame of film....
simon pegg voices a weasel, and that couldn't ever be bad, either.
that said,
today's the day.
maybe even a little more than every other day.
i'm tryin' to make the magic happen, ya'll.
there's talk of vegan omelettes for breakfast,
so we're off to a good start.
i'm a lucky sonofagun, my ninjas;
never quiet, never soft...

all good things,

must come to an end i guess;
today,
it's back to another weak-sauce workweek of indifferent waterbabies.
yep.
tattyzappin' the fat masses of mindless massachussetts meat-'tards...
while i'm sapping out the traces of my swelling soaring spirit
instilled from a fully fresh Folk Life experience,
harvest, maple, and jess are headed to storyland for some amusement.
luckily,
since i mostly hate up hard on little kids and big crowds,
avoiding that scene means i'm not totally missing out.
but,
in the interest of showing ya'll what YOU totally missed out on,
check out a little glimpse of what the inside
of the constantly rearranged,
always improved epic bread and puppet museum barn had to offer:

i said it before, and i'll say it again:

whatever you were doing that made it so you didn't get to glover,

you mutha-lickin' missed the mark,

and majorly missed the F* out;

you get another shot at the hottness, though;

next sunday, and the next, and the next,

all the way through the whole month of august, too.

do what you must to make it so,

even to the extreme of losing whole portions of body parts if necessary.

but make sure you get there.

trust me,

you need it, you really do;

never quiet, never soft...

a better life.

every year,
it stays so mutha-uckin' turbo flippin' dooooope!
just another 'nother thing about that rural real life, kids.
a field full of fresher-than-fresh hottness.
and hairier-than-sasquatch armpits.
checks and balances, ya'll, i'm sayin'.
and,
peter the leader did NOT rock the stilts.
disappointing?
a little.
but, i mean he's eighty for cryin' out loud,
and he still danced harder, sang louder, baked more,
and generally directed the entire event.
i guess that's still pretty righteous for an octogenarian....

me and my team of delightfully gracious girlie-girls,

and our homeboy jim packed up a cooler with treats,

while our buddies, the rovetti family,

piled in their family minibigbox vehicle with grandma in her car behind them.

then,

we ALL wagon-trained across the woodsly goodness.

into the green mountainy greatness of the northeast kingdom we drove.
vermont feels different, my ninjas.

it feels better.

miss maple knows what time it is;

it's time to get busy cheering, clapping, oooh-ing an' ahhh-in'.

the cucch journeyed up the whole way from connecticut.

yeah.

he drove up to vermont from wallingford,

and then back with us to the woodsly goodness.

that's battle-beastly road warrior spirit.

heck,

we even bumped into some other other other mt. washington valley duders...

we ended up rollin' pretty deep,

in full flippin' far-reaching folksy effect.

harvest always brings the friendly pants, even when she's in a dress!
i couldn't ask for better little genetic emissaries,
and i am grateful like a mofo for the tme i'm granted to span with 'em.

the secret universal plan was lookin' out for it's warrior poets, ya'll.

we had some times, and they were all good.

the bread and puppet circus, pageant, and museum.

perfect weather.

no traffic.

tight music.

good peoples.

active participation.

Folk Life.

Liberty.

really real life-lovin' poets and puppeteers.

you should've flippin' been there.

no jokin',

all ya'll who took it easy like sunday mornin' seriously missed the F* out.

word up.

never quiet, never soft....

tea and toast.

whaaaaaaat?
a whole day of dedicated dopeness just happened.
me and the kids went dress shopping,
and hooked up a pair of super-fresh psychedelic-print paisleys,
(which is the ultimate attire for fields of puppety bread an' that)
we got enough snacks to choke a horde of hippies with the munchies,
(which may happen sooner than we think)
i heard about some colt firearms trading deals,
(which is what's up with hot lead dispensation)
after all, i like my 'peace' more like 'piece'.
i tattyblasted a freehand half sleeve's worth of american bald eagle.
and,
it's taco night.
that's how summer gets it poppin' my ninjas....

tomorow we go to glover, vt.
if you've got the day off;
or a sick day coming,
or a sh!tty job you can quit,
and a car;
or a thumb and a hitchhiker's will to travel,
and an atlas or uber-keen sense of direction,
then turn off the sodapants,
and turn up the thunder to eleven,
because that bread and puppet jawns is about to go off.
one dose of life-affirming turbo hottness coming right up, yo.
it's nice to see a few hippies get a little somethin' somethin' right;
at least once a summer, anyway.
they still smell like oniony armpits from half a field away, though.

at any rate,
unless you're a lame-ass,
or waay too far away,
or have some type of terminal illness,
you know where the flavor is at tomorrow.
(it's glover, vt., dummy)
if you're an awesome active participant,
we'll probably see you there.
i'll be the handsome devil in the wizard hat,
with the acid-trip janky joplins at my side;
never quiet, never soft...

straight-up street shop.

i did eight tattoos yesterday.
in a row.
in just five short hours.
as hard and fast as i could.
i even had the last hour before we closed to cool my jets down.
nice.
obviously,
i only did little tiny infant baby-sized mini blasters.
i'm sayin';
two of those zipzaps took only five minutes each,
while only one took almost a whole hour.
glorious rockstar tattyzappin' it was not.
but it was some porkchop rockin' walk-in hustle.
first they were all like:
"do you want to eat some sh!t?"
and then i was all like:
"heck yes i do!"
and then i ate the sh!t-salad sandwiches.
all day long, like a gluttonous punishment buffet patron.
in fairness, the folks were ALL super turbo friendly and nice for sure,
and i couldn't ask for better short-term small-scale single serving scenarios;
it was just my turn to turn it down from eleven to seven...
i know,
hardly the career-defining burners that the youngster 'blasters dream of,
but definitely defining my career as it exists today.
i doo doo that doo-doo, because that's what i do.
i work.
i'd like to say i work really hard,
but it's more accurate to say it's hard to work this real.
that's some sh!t.

the spirits and memories of the woodsly goodness.
there's a project that needs finishing.
along with a bunch of other half-done doings and goings-on.
transient temporal travel, ya'll.
semi-settled situations;
this vacation isn't exactly working,
this has not been a working vacation,
although i'm still working on it,
at work and at home....
summertime berserker barbarian battle-beast blitzkriegs.
busy busy busy busy.
as much razzle-dazzle as drizzle-dribble,
...and drivel.
there's next to no time,
and no flippin' way to stretch out more living into these moments.
we're full over here.
aside from some nerdy novels about dragons and dungeons,
our whole world is stored elsewhere.
that's a hard style.

it's friday night here in vacation town.
i've got a trio of ladies who demand BIG fun.
it's up to me to make it happen.
while we grown-ass mutha-'uckas work the skin trade all day,
the young'uns will be spanning some more horseplay (literally)
with our homegirl casey at the barn.
the night-times however, are our times,
and we'll be sure to bring some lightning-striking viking raids
right to the doorsteps of the other other vacationers.
if last night's lightning storms were any kind of signal,
then the full force of valhalla is gonna be brought to bear,
in the form of friday night fun,
by me and my valkyrie vixens.
we're turnin' it back up, my ninjas,
to eleven;
never quiet, never soft....

less rain, more thunder...

we didn't find any edible mushrooms!
instead,
we happened upon acres of wild blueberries.
a few scoopled-up handsful heaps later,
we munched 'em up properly.
(that means we washed off tany possible animal pee)
too bad about those barbarian boletes being absent.
the conditions just weren't right.
of course,
after this early a.m.'s torrents of raindroppin' science,
we may see a change in the myconid atmosphere up in here...
i've got my fingers crossed in any case.

dan bounced out late last night,
after two days straight of balls-out backbreakin' laborious toilin,
scraping and priming the future headquarters
of the newhamden warrior poetry society of northern new england!
yeah,
we've got some interesting prerequisite conditions facing our faces.
but,
if we take the physical challenge,
and fight through the financial fracas,
we may just be able to end this doo-do buttery vacation frustration,
and head towards a home.
as in;
where i hang my hat and where the heart is at an' that.
thanks to dan's epic level friendship,
a few dollar dollar bills,
and five gallons of priming paint,
we're that much closer to maybe making the magic happen,
and founding the first Folk Life & Liberty Fortress!!!
all ya'll mutha-uckas better be sending out the good vibes
and positive thoughts, and all that vanilla skylining
secret universal planning appeal.
headquarters, my ninjas.
i'm sayin'....

in other news,
goggles factored deeply into how much lakeside fun we had yesterday.
and so did little fish and a frog.
we hit up the bookstore for a second day in a row,
got some more serialized printed matter,
and read our little brains and eyeballs right off our heads.
add in some grilled oyster mushroom and wheatball pasta for dinner,
and a batch of sunshiny leisure in between,
and you've got a day that was well nice, indeed....
today is a work day,
so casey is takin' charge of the minis for a bit.
there's talk of horses....
little girls just loooove horses;
never quiet, never soft...

mushroom huntin'.

armed with our foolproof guidebook,
'mushrooming without fear',
my sweet seedlings and myself are headed out on a journey.
woodsly woodears and boletes aplenty....
that's the goal of of our scavenger hunt
through the greenest glades in the goodness.
wild mutha-uckin' mushrooms,
fresh from the fields, leaves, trails, and stumps.
grilled nature for dinner?
sounds pretty flippin' tasty to my 'buds, ya'll.
we already tuned up a heapin' helpin' of pannie-cakes,
and saw the cucch and wizard dan off to work.
there's a real full-fledged dormitory campground feel over here.
tons of people,
piles of hustle,
bins of bustle, an' all that.
we've got the next stretch of spannable time reserved
exclusively for some daddy o'dad-type quality time.
father-daughter forest foraging.
that's wizard walkin' woodsly word-up worthiness.
and it's all really happening.

the sunscreen is applied,
the bug spray is slathered in gratuitous globs,
we've got our baskets,
our books,
and a whole day to get busy with this vacationy funtime.
fun is how you make it, my ninjas,
not just where you make it.

i'm here.
and i'm ready.
we're all here, even;
a little tribe of Folk Life photographers,
big-action banjo practicioners,
hard-style harmonica harpers,
and mixed-metaphor monikered men and women and children.
this is a helluva crew of peoples.
my peoples.
this is how fun gets made.
this is how moves get made.
this is where it happens,
and how.....
never quiet, never soft....

anticipation.

drivin' and cruisin' and travelin'.
road trippin' down the seacoast.

i tattooed an ex-X'd-up adult onset non-edge fella.
that sh!t is so weird to me.
he got a broken heart with arms,
and a sXe time X on it's hand...
commemorating the first 31 years of not drinking,
after deciding to start to drink,
a full decade after turning 21.
craziness.
is that even a real thing?
damn, damn, daaamn.
i'm sayin',
i don't meet many people who never ever drank any alcohol,
and fewer still who make it to thirty teetotally dry.
the duder was pretty cool,
and super nice and laid back,
but man,
i was sorta bummed out by his concious choice to switch teams.
even though it doesn't involve me at all.
how many lifetime members of the non-drinkin' club are there anymore?
it gets a little lonely over here....

we spent the day in portsmouth.
we saw our peoples;
we saw the whole new batch of tattyblastin' inkzapper shops, too.
i didn't visit any of 'em.
i don't doo-doo that kind of sh!t if i can help it.
we saw the ironic tightie-pants hipsters and obama hopers, as well.
it turns out,
no matter how much hottness the architecture
of the brick and steel cityscape offers me,
the filling in that flaky pastry crust is just not delicious.
sorry, cities...
but i've got Folk Life & Liberty in my heart.
and that's only found in the woodsly goodness.
it's true.
i've got this whole week of word-up warrior poetry
to further demonstrate to both of my little kidlings
that where we're at
is where it's at;
never quiet, never soft...

gettin' ready.

startin' tonight,
and continuin' into tomorrow,
we've got a deluge of houseguests coming on up.
the woodsly goodness is about to swell it's numbers,
getting even louder and way more awesome,
with a climactic crescendo crashing in by wednesday.
the dealys are headed up here for dinner,
with house-paintin' manliness on their minds.
early shirley tomorrow,
while they get crackin' on THAT big burly bonanza,
me and my other peoples are goin' to 'assachussetts.
....that part isn't so dope,
but,
we'll be rendezvous-ing with the two best things about ct.:
harvest and maple are finally arriving!
we're making the turdtastical journey down to waterbabyville,
just to grab the beautiful miniature magical princesses
for some vacation hotspot funtimes.
we'll stop in portsmouth.
lunch at the friendly toast?
uh-huh.
and a full week of freshness, too;
horses, lakeside swimming, movies, hikes, barbarian bonfires,
and breadsly puppetry?
oh, hell yeah.
BIG fun with little kids.
and a whole house-full of homeboys and girls.
that's how it goes.
there' no playin' the wall over here, ya'll.
active participation is the name of the game.
i've got a core crew of warrior poets,
and we're slamming and jamming and cramming
every well-lived stanza of savage stormswept gypy goodness
into each and every single second.
i'm grateful for these folks.
together, we make better moves and bigger pictures.
the whole is greater,
and that's sayin' somethin',
since all these parts are pretty flippin' rad.
recognize.

taking it to eleven, mutha-uckas.
we can never go too far.
never quiet, never soft...

little bastards.

unless you're a diligent and devoted disciplinarian,
chances are,
i hate the mess outta your kids.
welllll,
to be fair,
it's usually more of a hate-by-proxy,
as it pertains to their being an extension of you.
having humped someone up without protection
isn't the equivalent of a license to be a rude A-hole.
stop lookin' so surprised.
they would've given it to you when you left the hospital, dummy.
yeah, i know,
that's a little baby bit of meanness, huh?
caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaare!?!
so,
what makes me hate up on your little a-hole replacements?
why the hard-hearted hard styles?
it's so easy to explain, you should already know;
summer vacation dinner.
that's all the reason i need.
summertime vacationtown restaurants should all change their names.
the new eateries should be called:
ruining adult's meals until september.
because that's what's poppin';
that's how it happens,
and that's when it stops.
if you've got an antsy two year old,
and somehow think it's a great idea to wait twenty minutes,
before being seated,
before appetizers and drinkies,
and can delude yourself into thinking that the situation
won't spiral out of control super quickly,
you're an insane inconsiderate asslicker.
get those jalapeno poppers to go, d-bag.
that goes for your precocious seven year olds,
a.d.d. four year olds,
punk-ass ten year olds,
and especially for mannerless, no-power, non-authority parents.
it may not occur to all ya'll miracle-makers,
but i don't actually want to chat with your kids, at ALL,
or have 'em stick their fingers in my pizza,
or watch them run wild and rampant throughout my meal.
i secretly wish tragic consequences to befall your little boogers.
(it's so true.)
and it's not like i'm at chuck.e.cheese.
i mean,
then i'd be asking for it, really.
i'm just sayin',
if i'm at a thai restaurant,
and your litle assblasters are eatin' chicken fingers,
maybe, just maybe,
you could've skipped showing them the diverse cultural eating experience,
and f*ed your fat asses to the fast food family 'uckfest,
and let me enjoy my chive dumplings in peace.
i still hate your kids,
but it's not their fault,
it's yours.
i'm just sayin',
use your head,
do your job,
or a little 'takes-a-village' b!tchslappin' may have to go down.
no foolin',
i will horrify your small humans into a coma.
....and then order dessert.

undisciplined kids and mommy-mom-talk parents
can all pretty much F* right off.
hard.
this kind of rant is how me and my sweet ladybird
talk dirty to each other.
it's hard-style pillow talk,
based in mutual distaste for doo-doo buttery ruiners,
F*n' up my sh!t,
and F*n' up the precursory eats and treats that compose that sh!t.
we and my lovely one hate ALL the same stuff;
that's what romance really looks like;
never quiet, never soft.....

density's child....

thickness.
i love the thickness.
especially in sourdough toast every mornin'.
something about the stout and sturdy slabs of stuff
makes me get goin' good.
i like rhinos.
i like turtles.
i like tanks. (the mobile metal military monsters)
and all that kind of burly overbuilt battle beastliness.
maybe it's just overcompensation for being a spindly spidermonkey man,
or maybe not,
but either way,
the gargantuan gorilla girthiness of the thickness is how i get busy.
thickness, my ninjas,
is almost always better than thin.
that's word.
thick as thieves an' that.
that's on that ali baba jawns....
it's well nice an' all, ya'll.
recognize.

i had some time to span today.
i think i crammed three days worth of tattooing into six hours.
pretty much,
i shoved a whole heap of zappin' inside out.
and still managed to get busy squeezin' in some walk-ins.
hard work is in the works,
and there's only room at the inn for hard workers.
so that's how it goes.

today is jess's ma's berfday.
we munched up some tasty thai food to celebrate.
pan-fried chive dumplings!!!!
holy sh!t, mutha-uckas,
thems was greasy grit-grimy goodness embodied.
times are being had,
spanning those otherwise unbridgeable expanses,
one mighty miniature moment at a time.
never quiet, never soft....

fried a.

everybody's workin' for the weekend.
i'm just workin' all weekend.
i'm also guilty of vanilla sky-ing a bunch of otherwise random events.
including 'country roads' by the late, sorta great john denver.
a couple of times, even.
c'mon.
i mean,
how often do YOU bump into that classic rural barn-stormer?
i know...
and what's even weirder?
i never ever expected to nod my head to some redneckity tunes
with all due seriousness, in a completely non-ironic way.
i guess i really am getting old.
and a little bit lame, to boot.
nice.

tomorrow,
before work commences to F* my A* off my body,
with hard acts of doo-doo buttery ass-biscuitry,
i'm hittin' up the extra-crakery summertime farmer's market.
oh yeah.
weird lettuce and clay mugs and dope-ass bread.
all in an idyllic victorian township.
no sh!ttin', ya'll.
there's even a whole batch of socks-n-sandals acoustic jammie jammers.
you can bet your bottom britches, b!tches,
i'll be requesting a rousing rendition of country roads...
let's hope those turbo-whitebread organic homo-sapiens
know how to rock it properly,
or i may have to albie rock the mic,
or whatever they're using to publicly address the public,
and belt out a standing-ovation worthy chorus on my own.
with or without an amp,
the level of active participation is headed to eleven.
local crafts and farmer-supported agriculture, yo.
it's poppin' off.
i'd better get to bed early or somethin'...

adulthood, my ninjas.
who would've thought i'd be into it.
and yet here we are,
after all of this;
never quiet, never soft....

THOR!

i get psyched every thursday.
mostly,
i just always assume that something rad is going to go down.
i mean,
it's after hump day,
and before the weekend for most regular folks,
but,
it's also thunder day,
and that is dopeness indeed.
i'm sayin',
i was mutha-futharkin' barbarian berserk today.
i tattooed runes and viking dragon heads on a pagan high priest.
vanilla sky like a mofo, ya'll.
that's word.

my wee young 'uns are comin' up next week.
in the meantime,
the workload at the tattoo shop is packed to the limits.
longer days and even later nights seem inevitable.
that's good though,
because daughterly july times ain't cheap, y'heard?
aaaaand,
next week we're takin' extra time for hangin' tough.
what does that mean, exactly?
well, my special friends and fellow Folk Life livin' peoples,
it especially means one thing:
bread and puppet circus time.
the besy sundays of the whole entire muta-lickin' year.
hairy hippies,
giant puppets,
and psychedilc school bus cheap art sh!t.
unless you're an a-hole,
you will be contacting me to make plans.
clear your schedules.
gas up your cars.
and put on your straw hats.
active participation is what's up.
i need that life-affirming big BIG bigtimer breadsly 'uppetry.
so do you.
our time is what we make it,
and i'm makin' time for being alive;
never quiet, never soft....

20% chance of fire.

jeez.
rain.
insomnia.
extra work.
complications and dire situations.
hard styles, hard times, long nights,
and all of that doo doo buttery business is poppin' off.
circumstances, happenstances, and distances.
times is tough, my ninjas.
i spent this day.
to the very last dime,
i went for broke;
and was thusly rewarded for my efforts.
that's right,
i don't have any money in my pockets.
but i DO have a pair of golden boxes,
no, not filled up with pandoran glitter-magical hope.
they aren't hope chests.
they're boxes of unbelievably tasty vegan chocolates.
yum.
and anyways,
all the left-leaning liberalists have cornered the market on hope.
despite all indictions that it isn't worth a damn thing.
like the cucch said yesterday:
we need six-month-marker obamalama t-shirts;
a real-life status report shepard fairey sh!tshow slogan:
"hope harder, spare some (loose) change"
and maybe spare some deep kim-chee for the impending i-disaster
of crashing computers and long-range missiles...
somewhere, probably over the rainbow,
a duder named kim is gonna blow the F* outta the rainbow state.
that's some asian extreme action, for sure.
keep hopin',
keep changin'.
like it or not,
it's all really happening.
the good news?
vegan omelets are a possibilty for dinner, though.
and that little glimmer is the silver lining of this cloudy-ass day.

unlike some other other folks,
i'm rarely incorrect.
it's not easy, either,
but it's just What Is.
blame it on information and experience,
but this really real, real life reality
is a brutal bobardment,
and the rubbly remains of each day
are a steaming, streaming, screaming scorched-earth
source of spirits and memories.
i'm talking about wisdom.
i'm growing it in daily doses.
i'd say there's an 80% chance of accruing some right now.
never quiet, never soft....

seven-seven

so,
me and my peoples rocked our day off together.
and we did it so hard.
we decided to go to the green elephant,
in portland, maine,
and completely F* up their menu.
taking no prisoners,
munching up everythin right down to the garnish, even.
no sh!t, we tuned-up eight different appetizers,
and four entrees,
in about twenty minutes total.
that's vegan championship eatin' at it's most accomplished.
our server pointed out that we were the MOST accomplished gluttons
in the entire history of the eatery.
fatty boombatty as 'uck,
except on the inside, mutha-holes!
recognize.
that's not leftover fireworks, that's thunder.
we brought it back with us in lieu of a doggy bag.
speakin' of doggie bags;
what could be the downside of such a terrific trip?
well, irony is a sunovagun.
while cookin' down the backwoods highway lanes,
on our way from the woodsly goodness
to the dead-ocean scented fishy sh!tty city,
there was an accident.
yep.
no,
not a twenty-car pileup.
not a hydroplaning off-road collision.
not even a flat-tire skidder.
it was something even more destructive
(considering my animal-crazed pet-lovin' ol' lady, i mean)
i bashed a dog in the face with my car.
i'm serious,
a carful of vegans headed to a vegan restaurant
colliding with a canine cannonball at about 50 miles per hour.
like i said.
really, the stupid lucky litle a-hole ran into my car,
straight from out of the woods.
the craziest part?
the dog bounced off the side of my car,
then almost got squished under a truck,
ran around going completely batsh!t bananas,
and then sat down licking it's whole head.
licking it's head?
yeah.
licking it's head;
which happened to be chock to the nostrils with porcupine quills.
where was the porcupine?
splayed across the OTHER side of the street.
Q: why did the husky cross the road?
A: to get revenge on his A-hole porcupine nemesis,
and attempt to crap up my evening.
sooooo,
a policeman-type fella happened to be right there
and took proactive participation upon himself.
jess and casey leapt from my almost stopped car
jogged down the street,
and ponied up to the injured suicidal dogtard
in order to flex to their amateur veterinary muscles.
no broken bits,
no gory gut gouts.
lucky dog.
he's at the dog hospital, i guess.
the quilly pincushion muzzleloadin' seemed the worst of his injuries.
my car was fine.
the ladies were a bit frazzled,
but a big bold bellyful of incredible edibles cured it right up....
what a day.
what a day.
what. a. day;
never quiet, never soft.......

full moons.

have you seen the epic orb of lunar destruction
floating around in the starscape these last few nights?
that's some super-high-tide tsunami lycanthrope action.
it's that japanese expensive sea salt harvesting kind of jammie.
i'm sayin',
it's on that 'joe vs. the volcano' kind of thing.
word up,
that big cheese-man in the sky is full as F**;
and i've got some wolfen tidal moon fever, my ninjas.
like the beginning of thriller-type jammie-jams, duders.
battle beastliness and burly, surly moods are what's poppin'.
the moon is no mutha-uckin' joke, ya'll.
and i'm not laughing.
my grumbly mumble-blasting attitude
is not winning any congeniality prizes, either.
i'm in attendance at metaphysical warrior poetry slams,
and battle bard symphonies.
in other words;
i'm positively off my tits
with were-creature double feature thunder bringing.
eleven.
on the sixth.
for 24 more hours.
that's the combination unlocking a whole chestful
of stormswept, raging, tidal-waving raving lunacy.
that's moon craziness,
in flippin' full effect.
recognize.

i'm also tattyzappin' glen,
the weiner guy,
except,
i'm blastin' up on his ass-piece.
so there's another 'nother full moon happening today,
in broad daylight an' everything.
that's two full moons, and two asses.
or at least an A-hole, zipzappin' a moon under the moon.
do the math; it totally adds up....

so now i'm feelin' cheeky,
whether i like it or not.
i'm an ass-man,
but not exactly on a man's ass.
oh well,
beggars can't be choosers...
let's hope nobody doo-doo's any other other freaky sh!t.
that's NOT a metaphor;
never quiet, never soft....

i'm at the fire....works.

ka-splode!

yeah.

america, mutherhumpers

boo-ya!!

that's how it goes, ya'll.

we celebrated pretty hard.

i chugged down nine thick black inches of long dirty tube.

a cigar, ya'll....

c'mon.

we ate some elite pizzas,

courtesy of the cucch and flatbread,

and we even worked a little bit beforehand.

america-type industriousness, gluttony,

and celebration.

word.

we had a three day birthday weekend,

and it rocked my socks off.

i'm grateful for all the folks we hung out with.

i'm grateful for all the good stuff we did.

i'm grateful.

that's it.

never quiet, never soft.....

AMERICA is 233 yrs. old

happy birthday america!
i can't wait to watch a whole gaggle of fat idiots
eating hot dogs and waving flags all day.
nothing says patriotism like a drunken 3-day weekend.
go team!
still,
i do love fireworks.
thanks asia!
and speaking of;
last night's 'splosions were 'ucking extravagantly elite.
right outside our fine dining dinner party, even.
and the food was off the flippin' hinges, too.
grilled hen of the woods 'shrooms in olive/roasted tomato/capers sauce?
oh hells yeah, b!tches.

dear england,
thanks for shakespeare, the bbc, and the beatles,
sorry we handed out some musket-slaps all those years ago.
but if we hadn't,
we'd all still be talking like mincey little minky-boys.
1-0, suckas.

tonight, my ninjas,
we get it poppin' with even more hottness.
it's also not raining again.
two days of humidity that isn't freefalling out of the cloudcover?
in a row?
so nice for my face!
and there's even more fireworky freshness scheduled to go down.
we're lucky.
i'm especially lucky.
my crew showed up and brought the berfday noise for my truest love.
i am grateful for all of that.
and especially for the ladyfriend i span these times with.
bombs burstin' in air are a fittin' skyscape
for the big blown-up beatbox bumpin' barbarian breakbeats in my chest.
my heart is full, mutha-lickers.

a war of independence, ya'll.
NOT a revolution.
remember that.
the declaration of independence.
independence day.
not revolution day....
revoltions are short lived.
you just end up back where you started.
revolving.
round and round and round.
and that's some weak sauce.
sorry carhart A-holes,
but it's so super sad and true.
independence is waaaay longer lived, usually.
because the goal isn't to get rid of some crap,
but to operate outside of the crap.
just be dopeness, in word and deed.
whether or not there is some lame busines goin' on,
we just doo-doo our own other other freaky sh!t.
c'mon;
that's some live free or die sh!t.
that's some Folk Life & Liberty sh!t.
that's some warrior poetry and really realness.
that's self-reliance and serious go-for-yours get-nice action.
and it's when will smith and bill pullman blow up aliens.
word.
the woodsly goodness is maintaing a deafening decibel level.
we're maxed out, in the red (and white and blue)
independence, my ninjas.
it goes to eleven.
hard.
chinese fireworks are gonna get on it.
just like the rest of america,
even our patriotism is manufactured elsewhere.
i get it, i got it.
but i'm not gonna get wth it.
we're celebrating independence day.
independently.
maybe some not-dogs.
definitely some stink-stick cigariousness.
but all within eyeshot of the star-spangled skies.
we're keepin' a close watch on the 'revolution'.
round and round and round, ya'll.
we're here,
we're doo-dooin' it,
giving proof through the night,
oe'r ramparts and everything;
never quiet, never soft....

big berfday baby!

holy sh!t!!
the sun is out shining tight and bright.
no foolin'.
it's awesome.
even ma nature is reppin' jess's berfday!
nice.

berfday treats!

that big ol' badas steamer trunk is part of the hottness, too.

160 year old box.

that's what's up.

oh, c'mon.....

my special lady is 30 years old in a row.

and our homies from ct.,

holly and dan,

drove up in A-hole hellhole holiday highway-times,

just so as to surprise my sweet honey with a day-early pop-over.
that's some bestest friend kinda sh!t, mutha-uckas.

our other 'nother friends casey and april are hangin' with jess right now.

we've got a network of fortune's worthiest wonders,

all already ready to doo-doo that freaky sh!t,

with candles and frosting and everything.

recognize.

did we eat some vegan breakfast explosions?

obviously;

the picture shows how fresh and flavorful our day has been so far.

and we still have extra-fancy dinner and fireworks tonight, too.

and, cucch made an elite vegan cake.

and, there's a summer fair downtown today.

today is the day.

if you aren't here,

you're missin' out pretty flippin' hard.

we're gettin' the busiest;

never quiet, never soft......

seven-deuce.

i must have a special gland, i think.
no,
not a musky dusky stinkbomb spray gland,
i'm not yet a skunky monkey,
or an ass-blastin' territory marky-marker.
the gland i'm referring to possibly possessing
is a far more specialized organ.
the depressingly miserable movie picking gland.
seriously.
i haven't picked up a film that didn't act as happiness ipecac
in months.
as soon as i read the back of the box;
(yeah, i said the box, not the online plot synopsis
....i'm not crackery enough for netflix)
i think to myself, "hey, this might be good".
and it never is.
never ever, even.
instead, i suffer through hours of dearthy mirthlesness.
with happy endings only in the sense that i'm happy
because it's finally over.
and you know i can't not finish them jawns...
time after time.
it's so out of control that i'm considering radical surgery
to remove the offending apparatus.
worse than golgi-type sh!t;
art-film intervention is what i need.
some mindless bro comedy, maybe.
something.


in other news,
tomorrow is the big day.
the anniversary of my truest love's nascence.
i'm psyched.
and i'm grateful.
i mean,
i couldn't ask for a better better half.
whole heartedly, even, at that.
there had better be cake, ninjas;
never quiet, never soft...

rabbit, rabbit, dagnabbit.

RABBIT, RABBIT!!!
it's july!
month number lucky seven.
named after my homeboy;
y'know,
the one who dropped the science when it came down to it;
fortune favors the bold.
that's some sh!t, ninjas.
in fact,
that's the big action.
the super summer startup month.
i need an orange julius just to mark the calender flip.
word.

just be dope.
thought i'd remind you that you have a choice.
from sun-up to dusk,
from your first breath until your death.
being dope, or F*ing right off.
it's important to choose the right one.
i'm just saying.
it's july;
the month when patriotism ,
and red white and blueballs start swinging around all big and bad.
i'm personally reppin' Folk Life & Liberty.
that's real life,
larger-than and small scale,
at the same time.
just being dope,
every single day.
i mean, that's how us berserker barbarians get busy after all.
livin' free and dyin' hard an' that.
death is not the worst of evils.

the most important adult in my life is having a big day soon.
jess's birthday is on friday.
don't forget.
i'm excited to mark a major milestone with my sweet honey lady.
i can't promise i'll be supplying balloons,
but i can't say that there won't be any, either.
i'm sure i can rock some type of hindenburg berfday blastoff.
full of hot air and spitting hot fire;
by the time the last candle goes out,
we'll all be ready for a slice;
never quiet, never soft....