tampering.

i made these.

and they are sexy.

and they are brass.

and that's even sexier.

victorian pipe-fittings,

fittingly affixed to fix pipes, my ninjas,

cogs, and plugs, and threaded rod.

(and also lamp parts)

yeah. yeah. yeah.

but what are they?

tampers.

for tamping down the contents of a pipe.

y'know,

a pipe.

no,

not at all like the oft-frozen ones under the fortress.

a sherlock holmes,

ancient mariner,

santa claus and frosty kind of a pipe.

and no, stoners,

they're not secretly little one-hitters, either.

i can't hang out with that kind of pipe.

the tamper, as it's name implies,

messes with the ingredients,

and ultimately packs 'em in,

so they burn better, and hotter, and longer.

that lets the flames activate the smoke rings inside.

ghosts, my ninjas, swirling in grey haze all up in here.

i've been using a stick for months.

it's really more of a twig at that.

i think it's pine from the front yard.

that'll be retired, but not burned,

as a reward for good service and merit.

and now,

i've got a set of fashionable manly metal pusher-downers.

my wife picked up the tab on the pieces, too.

letting the material fast continue,

and keeping me busy for a little minute, yeah?

subtly getting me out of the way-

now that's a good woman.

***********

what do you know about blue monday?

or as i call it: yesterday.

statistically,

it's the most depressed, depressing, miserable day of the year.

which makes today, what? like, the second or third?

nice.

i didn't do a single tattoo yesterday.

or much of anything else...

which was pretty depressing.

poor me, yeah? literally.

we say recession nowadays,

because depression only refers to feelings, tropical storms, and dents.

sorry economy,

but when things suck, you get to go to recess,

where i always was pretty unhappy as a kid, too.

damn you, kickball!

so i guess it's true.

it feels true, at least.

maybe i would've mentioned all this yesterday,

but i was just too bummed out.

oh, c'mon.

maybe there's something to it, though.

maybe,

as resolutions waver,

bills pile up,

warm, dry weather remains elusive,

and the post-holiday realities set in,

the sun-shiny cheer of a new year

is really just as much of another chance to fail.

or at least, not to succeed.

that's a hard-style true story.

i'm not talking about us.

of course not.

we're worthy warriors.

we're bold favorites of fortune.

we're living real lives.

blue mondays, fat tuesdays, prince spaghetti wednesdays,

it makes no mutha-flippin' difference, now, does it?

heck no.

i've got brass pipe tampers for crying out loud.

it's impossible to be in a sad mood with those.

they weigh way too much.

that's balance, and ballast, for upright righteous world walking.

when you've got the bleakness weighing you down,

i'm sayin', kids,

you need a counterweight to counter counterproductivity.

double negatives, ninjas, after all, are super positive.

world-weary woes and weak-sauce can't compete with

rural repetetive rhetoric, yeah?

never ever not dope.

see?

always dope.

that's word.

double-negs, like i just said.

counterpoints and rebuttals to all the

hardstyle humdrum hegemony.

recess is over;

never quiet, never soft.....