farmer's market.

rock the bells.

or at least the bell jars.
it's a ridiculously busy summer stretch of time.
up here, it's autumny like a mutha-b!tch,
and there a brutal batch of massachusetts moms mobbing up
the entirety of the woodsly goodness.
the valley is packed to the rim,
like a bowl of sh!t-salad overflowing with frumpy dumplers.
dang.
it's sure to be congested causeways and hard-style headaches
from now until september.
fresh greens and fresh pottery,
that's really all i've got to try to acomplish today.
there's  farmer's market full of do-gooder honkies
plying their green goodness over in the uber-whitest of mountain villages.
i'm headed over to scoople up on some bread,
some bowls, and some hobbit mugs an' that-
we've got to take time where we find it.
like guerilla army skirmishers.
irregulars, i believe, is the polite term.
time taking renegade life livers works just as well...
i'm sayin',
there's a full slate of slap-happy zaps to blast out afterwards,
but that's not ever very enjoyable.
so before i enter the wrench-works for the day,
i've got a good morning of stoneware and organic veggies
to requisition and procure by whatever means
cash, cajolery, conscription, or coercion my ninjas.
we doo-doo what we've gotta.
and we've got to get some crispness and some leafiness,
and a hand-thrown clay crater to hold 'em in...
***********
y'know,
with only five folks in the Fortress last night
it sure seemed kind of empty in this old house.
of course,
after a wild week of waxing and waning wolfery,
long car rides, longer nights, hardest times, and hottest fire,
it stopped seeming like very much of anything
the very split-second my melon hit the pillow.
goodnight moon.
and then oblivion until daybreak-
word up.
and with a good night's sleep,
the lightning-striking viking vigor is back in full effect.
that means more really realness. documented.
i said it, i meant it.
it's all really happening-
if you're having life problems i feel bad for you son,
i've got 99 problems but FOLK LIFE ain't one;
never quiet, never soft.....

brazen braggadocio.

(*author's note: this is real-life documentary post #888. that's some sh!t)
my asia-traveling giant-sized ninja,
mr. michael holmes,
took some glamour shots of our humble Fortress.
y'know,
to showcase the incomparable scope and scale of
what taking it to eleven in the woodsly goodness looks like.
and duders,
it looks pretty dang-flippin' good through those magic lenses.
it's cool, i'm not a reedy, tweedy, greedy pete;
i thought you mutha-lickas might want to scope up on the teleport, too.
what am i, anyway?
an A*-hole?
no way.
check it out:

so flavorful.
that's on some better-than better homes-type action an' that.
plus,
here's a nighttime-visible voyeur shot of the evening gardens:

this is the spot, kids.
where the really real world hangs out, i mean.
the hot spot.
a house filled with my peoples,
a home filled with hottness,
an edifice filled with stuff.
it's ALL really happening,
right here in this very very luscious chill-spot;
every day, in every way,
i'm thanking my lucky ones;
ducklings, stars, charms, numbers, rabbit's feet, whatever.
i'm surrounded on all sides by mutha-uckas worth knowing about.
these glimpses into the secret universal planagram's big picture
are exactly what i need to keep keepin' on.
a little tiny baby shot of the surety of the most righteous paths.
we're on that jauns;
never quiet, never soft.....

splendor.

what?
a surprise visit to the green elephant?
yep.
late nights in portland, maine
sharking some gluttony up on a last minute decision.
we headed there rolling mad deep.
because that's how hamden does it.
deep.
peoples upon peoples.
and they were all of 'em my peoples.
now that's somethin'.....
i can't express my gratitude in grandiose enough terms.
my oldest and most bestest friends are the ones i miss the most.
they're gone again, of course.
never quiet, never soft, never enough of all of it...
too much is the right amount;
and instead of saturating my senses with warrior poetry,
i'm left wishing for just a taste more of the hot hot fiery hottness.
like this:

c'mon.
that's a just-stache.
and a tractor.
no good?
oh, stop.
well, okay then,
how about this?

boner-poppin' lightsaber gay'splosions.
...you know you really like it.
active participation is the name of the game.
and if it's totaly stupid, then we want in.
Folk Life & Liberty, my duders-
everything we doo-doo is so much better
than anything you've ever even thought of.
that's the trademarked move-making masterworks
of the Hamden Warrior Crew, y'all.
i'm just sayin',
you can take those berserker barbarian battle-beasts out of hamden,
but the hamden IN 'em is indelible, y'heard?
eleven.
at all times, by any means possible;
never quiet, never soft.....

having a blast.

fuego a-go-go.
solar lanterns.
torches.
sparklers.
my peoples.
that's how it gets done.
eleven, all the way, from sun-up to glowing embers.
Folk Life & Liberty gets it in, ninjas.
where were you guys?
we were at the fire.
teleport?
check it:

luxurious.

furious.

bi-curious?

spurious.
(like an ostrich, and pony boy, mixed together, huh?)

terminus.
***********
long nights, good times, everything else.
grilled deliciousness, across the board.
from our early mornin' breaka'-breaka' panniecakes,
complete with syrup-stretching blueberry compote sauce,
to magic choco-loco tofutti drumstick blops for deep-dark dessert.
...everlasting hamden hottness.
harvest, maple, jess, jim, lea, holmes, the cucch,
and a special guest appearance or two throughout the day.
that's real life, duders,
in vacation-paced parcels of spanned time.
of course,
my weekend's all over now,
and it's back to the grindhouse for my A*.
everybody else is still hanging out,
and having fun,
and sharkin' up on that vegan glutton explosion.
unfortunately for me, though,
this is daddy's house,
(that's SO what she said)
and that means it's daddy's job to pay those bills.
awwwwwwww man.
hard-styles slid into our rural reality.
just like that.
work. work. work.
i doo-doo that doo-doo buttery fiscal responsibility-type sh!t.
movie checks don't write themselves, y'heard?.
still,
we're nobody's bobots,
and tonight's another 'nother other night for big fun.
it's always happening.
the woodsly goodness never quits;
never quiet, never soft.....

apples without feet...

...never fall far from the papa-tree.
no, for real,
we've got 'em started early-

what, what?!
these two bad apples got all dressed up in my clothes.
on their own, y'know,
to be funny, i guess.
what better way to get up and at 'em in the morning?
whilst holmes and the cucch were making pannie-cakes,
these two were steady rocking the hard-styles and fresh garments.
i never noticed how i dress like an old man,
until i saw the same clothes on two young girls.
ouch.
***********
rocks.
and rocks.
and rocks and rocks.
aaaand....
...rocks.
hamden,my ninjas, in the house,
and outside too.
picking out rocks,
munchin' up snacks,
reading books,
cooking up some treats,
and generally repping the hard hottness.
so many good things.
a whole day's worth of fun,
and worthy peoples,
and Folk Life.
it's happening so hard,
i'm halfway missing out just typing this;
never quiet, never soft.....

weirdies.

it just hasn't waned enough yet.
the moon, i mean.
the otherworldly satellite is illuminating the night-time skies
just a little tiny bit too much.
it's blue light glowing bright until daylight strikes.
you know all about the gravitational pull, huh?
yeah,
well it's high tide inside my skin an' bones.
like dangerous floodwaters, and japanese sea-salt harvests.
wide awake and worn out with waterfalls of fury.
the sandman couldn't find time to put the sleep dust in my see-balls,
since he was probably busy sandbagging an aortic avalanche
with a dam of dirt dirty debris all around my blood-pump.
(that's some internal organs jauns, right there)
at least, that's what i tell myself,
at 5a.m. after a fretful, fitful,start and stop flop-fest of restlessness.
no sleep.
the ebb of a full moon.
and a whole posse of hamdenistas headed up this way.
my peoples will all be in residence at the same place tonight,
spanning time together for the first time in years.
that's fresh.
the loudness and the hardness are understood to be present already.
all roads worth going down are the ones least traveled,
as my main ninja robert frost would agree.
and the road to the Folk Life & Liberty Fortress
has got to be the one all y'all have been on
the absolute least number of times.
the road not taken, ninjas.
that's some wolf den migration-type business.
maybe even some lone wolf action.
the Fortress remains,
although after a hamden warrior visit,
we'll see how it's doing tomorrow.
***********
in just a couple of hours,
it's road trip time.
a ride that will include mantique shops,
garden centers,
and artisan galleries.
wit the return trip composed of ferrying my friendliest filial frauleins,
there's a good chance of sweet lunchie treats as well.
otherwise,
it'd just be a suckie car ride to somewhere lame,
and back again.
the special spots are what make it good.
(that's what she said)
we're braced and barricaded to bear the brunt
of a brutal home invasion.
it's all actually very exclusive, really.
invitation only, an' that.
it's all really happening.
that's pretty much the whole point;
never quiet, never soft.....

that cold north wind.

talking about the weather.
again.
-
there's supposed to be some kind of brutal
east coast heat wave boiling me alive right now.
as i type, i'm supposed to be suffering heat-stroke,
and dehydration,
and probably severe sunburn as well.
except that instead it's flippin' chilly outside.
because the answers are blowin' in on a steady, strong, gusty gale.
cool breezes and cold winds,
and a whole heckuva lotta rustlin' hustle and bustle.
stormswept full-moon full-frontal pressure mechanics.
highs, lows, hots, and colds, colliding against the wall of granite
that borders our idyllic vale,
and buffeting it with berserker barbarian brumal boreality.
it's so windy,
the cloud-coverage is moving along the horizon
helter-skelter and constantly reconfiguring,
almost fast enough to cause vertigo.
big changes are headed our way,
they always are, after big winds.
we'll see, i suppose,
once the boughs stop bending long enough to have a look.
***********
it's all tribal.
huh?
i mean, tattoos of solid black, tedious, gaysplosive spikes.
i know, i know-
you'd NEVER get any of that stuff.
but some people still do.
even armbands. ...and it hasn't been the eighties,
even the late ones, in twenty-something years.
(and it won't be the eighties again for seventy more, either)
tribal armbands with the obligatory kid's name snuck in?
that's taking it eleven, on a scale of bad to worse...
for the third day, in a row, i'm taking it to the limits.
the limits of good sense. good taste. and endurance.
black spikes are, yet again, the order of the day.
my menu only has one thing on it.
today's special?
black spikes of sh!t-salad, slappy-crappy, bandy-armed armbands.
big ones, too.
i'm still on it, though;
those winds aren't blowin' in any movie checks, y'heard?
i've still got to provide the full-service skin/self-esteem attack
in exchange for those pieces of eight.
doubloons, mutha-b!tches!
the rocks may be 'appropriated',
but those plants still cost loot.
wu-TANG! 'lickers.
i definitely doo-doo that capitalist sh!t.
triiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii-iiiIIIIIIiiiiiii-iiiiiiiiiiiibal!
(make sure to read that with a deep southern accent)
you like it.
***********
it's the weekend for us woodsly good ones.
tomorrow is another road trip,
to asscrackachussetts,
to scoople up harvest and maple.
and then it's country stores and garden centers all the way home.
it's summer time.
that's what's good.
even in the leering, jeering face of black spikes,
it's good;
never quiet, never soft.....

moonchildren.

the full ones are in full effect.
i mean it.
the fullest face of our fresh duder,
looking down, without even a hint of condescension,
on the pack of pugnacious, pugilistic, feral, Folk Life fenris ninjas.
that's that berserker battle-beast ulf-action;
the one that happens every 28 days, y'all.
no,
not the relief-that-you-aren't-pregnant one,
nor the rage-monkey-fast-zombie one,
but the other 'nother other equally bloody carnal carnage event.
the full mutha-b!tchin' moon werewolf sh!t.
i'm sayin',
that madman in the moon is lighting up the late parts
with a bright blue beam of loup garou goodness.
that's half the reason for all the sirens serenading the scenery last night.
the other half?
a willingness to give in
to that wild animal-type, hard-style poundage.
for berserker barbarian battle-beasts,
a circle of shining silver in the sky is a call to flip out,
and burn a bunch of stuff,
and axe-chop, and generally go apesh!t-bananas.
i'm sayin',
infinite natures and moon cycles both revolve around the same axis;
converging on a pivot point in the great northern woodsly goodness.
spinning right round, in a circle baby, right round, round round...
if you can't feel it, you're kind of missing out.
those of us who are subject to fits of lunacy have an ancestral clock,
timed out to ring at awesome o'clock,
every full moon , and a day or two on either side, as well.
what time is it?
yeah.
it sure is.
***********
so, check the teleport-
i know some peoples who entertain regularly,
but whinge about over-packed houses,
and mother-in-laws, and what-all.
awwww, man.
y'know what the difference is between an inn and a Fortress?
at the inn, people come to visit-
at a Fortress, mutha-flippers seek asylum.
they're there because they can't go home.
and so,
i can't hang out with a single sliver of sympathy.
i've got my live-in 'roommate', (you know it)
residing rentlessly, restlessly, and relentlessly.
and with no stop date in sight.
three weeks' worth of weak sauce?
please.
i've already weathered seven.
in a row.
and next week,
my old old roomie, mr. michael holmes,
the infamous norwegian bachelor of bellwether belligerence,
and my other old roomie, the cucch,
the doughnut and pizza, sweet-treats fun-boy,
and my kids, the two hungriest small ones i know,
are ALL also coming up to hang out.
at the same time,
in the Fortress.
that's four more hamden warriors in one place,
large and small, far and wide,
and waaaaay too much hamden for the woods to handle, i'm sure.
seven people in one house.
without any residential planners,
without any nice-guy neighbor's homes to help stem the stayover overflow.
duders,
we do it all by our lonesomes,
harder, and louder, and fresher.
woodsly.
goodsly.
all the time;
never quiet, never soft.....

can you feel it?

barbarians.
bearded babblers.
brutal battle-hardened bier-burning bashers.
the last bastion of burly busy-businessmen...
a restart button, with wild animal instincts.
it's always the same, over and over.
ghost rings, smoke rings, concentric overlapping circles,
repetitive ripples of spirit and memory.
y'know the cycle, yeah?
sh!t gets 'tarded,
worthy warriors burn it all down.
***********
tourism, on both sides of the trip, lets ninjas know what's up.
whether suffering the suburban window-shoppers up here,
or hanging out in the gridded-out griddle of whatever big or small city,
one can't help but notice the unfortunate truth:
civilization is only as civilized as it's least sophisticated citizens.
it's a two-fold problem, really.
the fat american sports-fan F*-tards, littering and loitering and lingering,
not to mention reproducing at a top-40 chart-climbing rate,
are expectant of easier, suckier, lamer convenience and distraction.
that makes every concentration of culture and community
surrounded by a swamp of suckling suburban spurgeblasters.
and what's even more damaging?
warrior poets.
huh?
yep.
because we know the difference,
between old bustedness, and new hottness, and half-measures, as well-
and disdain the company of the fat masses of meat-loving man-mountains,
AND the green-friendly delusional make-a-difference D-biscuits alike.
because both sets of waterbabies aren't livin' that real sh!t.
the mainstream is full of A*holes,
and most cityfolk agree with us on that, at least...
but good restaurants and music scenes aren't enough of a reason to
shutter away from what's really going on.
as long as berserker barbarian battle-beasts are around,
all city-livin', left-leaning, do-gooder sauce-suckers are proper F*ed.
that's word.
all the priuses and organic fruitslappin' co-ops in every sh!tty city
won't negate the savage stormswept gypsy cataclysm.
barbarians.
at the gates, an' that.
the imminent full-moon's bringing out the really real ninjas-
howling hard-style children of nature, y'all.
furious, inflammable, ferocious, and fearless.
fortune favors the bold, mutha-lickas.
every time the educated and the ignorant get too complacent,
it is the duty of the borderland barbarians to show up, blow up,
and wreck all the sad, soda-pantsed sh!t-salad that gets mistaken
for the good stuff.
the socks and sandals, yoga-stretchin',
canvas-grocery-bag-types can't compete.
neither can the sweatpantsed and team-spirited flat-screen softballers.
wild animals are the order of the day,
and wilder animals rule the nights.
full moon werewolfen polarity-charging tidal wave thunder.
no voting, no recycling, no continuing education can shore up the walls.
nor can fantasy football, dunkin' donuts, nor a sweet car, nor hair gel.
bearded weirdies and mountain men, y'all.
that's what's up.
every time.
-
in the meantime.
it's a full moon eve,
in the woodsly goodness,
at the Folk Life & Liberty Fortress.
the hair-raising hot fire howling begins at sunset.
the biers are piled high,
the boughs are broken and the fuel is prepared.
long nights, kids.
waxing, an' that.
bigger, better, more;
never quiet, never soft.....

high standards, low expectations.

another day, another rock hunt,
another stone-chipping or boulder-rolling injury,
or two,
and another finished paperback.
it's all the same, all the time.
at least, until it's finished, or it changes.
how's that for a profound thought?
'it is until it isn't.'
not quite the heavy-hitting philosophy i'd hoped for.
but i'm alive and well, for now, in the natural world.
i am until i'm not.
an active participant in an stormswept savage gypsy summertime.
a warrior poet in the woodsly goodness.
and that's something, for sure.
check it;
there are now whole swaths of mulchable, arable, fertile freshness
taking up the spaces in-between roadway and driveway.
with plants and plinths enough to impress any druid anywhere.
it's all coming together at a cost beyond money:
between tatty-o'zapulating and gloved-up granite grabbing,
my hands are crabbed and cramped,
and indeed, the teeth therein are chipped;
along with the flayed fingertips and the gnarled knucklebones.
my toenails, nightly, have enough dirt under 'em
to grow a whole field of potatoes. probably yams, even.
it takes a good deal of scrubbing to remove the black dirt,
and even then,
my inner black-ness is more than skin deep.
it'll take more than a soapy pumice and loofah combo to change that.
and duders,
my ankles look like sandblasted beef haunches.
bloody and beat the F* up.
a whole week's worth of work, in improper attire has seen to that;
manly capri pants and boat shoes are NOT work gear.
who knew?
now i've got some harshed-up lower legs,
raw, and wrecked, and scattered with splinters and shrapnel.
i'm just sayin',
before work, it's work.
during work hours, it's work,
and after work?
delicious dinner.
then some until-dark-type work.
manliness, in flower garden vs. tourist tattoo shop format-
knicks and scrapes and methodical monologues.
real life.
the same, in spite of the wind.
i'm four novels into the 'temeraire' series.
most of y'all would not like 'em.
so far, book five also rocks the party.
more of all this.
up early tea-time, mid-morning gardening,
late-morning errands, work, work, work, until later,
and then eats, gardening, and reading until late.
it's a steady bass-boosted rythym i'm rocking.
drums an' that, ninjas. just like heartbeats.
-
i am alive.
like i told you.
sweaty, breathless, dirt-dirty, and grit-grimy.
sore, swearing, and cultivating coincidences as well as calamities.
happy accidents, and unhappy on-purposes.
it's ALL really happening.
***********
it's 8-and-a-half in the a.m.,
do you know where your shovel is?
never quiet, never soft.....

shovel it.

duders,
sometimes real life is just not all that exciting.
i mean, c'mon,
i've reread the last few weeks' reports-
mostly,
i just hang out in my epic garden,
feeling smug about how more elite my jauns are
than everybody else's.
i presume that days and days of descriptive diatribes
about the granite state and it's constituent elements
isn't so very interesting to folks who'd rather read about
tattoos and food or whatever.
too bad.
gardens are what's really happening.
that's on the real real.
check the teleport:

rocks!
aaaaaand,

more rocks!!
aaaand,

even more rocks!
getting there is where we're at,
and also where we're headed.
y'know, all almost, but not quite, an' that.
despite the heavy toll of truckload after truckload
of heavy-type mutha-lickin' rocks,
still more flippin' rocks are a decidedly necessary accessory
for hooking up the whole hottness...
and probably more plants, too.
this is a herculean effort on the part of me and all my crew.
there just aren't enough sunny hours for doo-dooing
all the permacultural botanical business what needs doing.
i'm just sayin',
we spent two days off, full to bursting with heavy lifting,
sunburn, scrapes, slices and shreds,
rain and and sweat-soaked clothes and shoes,
and all-consuming shovel and pick progression.
wheelbarrows, and worn-out gloves, too.
and then ma nature opened the heavens
and itsy-bitsy spider spouted so much m'-b!tchin' water.
right at my A*-hole and down my driveway.
seriously,
water knows where to go,
and how to get there,
and has no trouble deciding itself a course of action
for dramatic, dynamic devastation.
if a path of easy meandering is not provided,
water makes a big deal about it,
and wrecks your sh!t.
what i mean is:
nature washed away a big chunk of freshly raised garden bed.
and she flooded a whole other 'nother part of the super circle.
too much juice, too quickly, was the culprit-
drainage.
yes, drainage.
that's what we needed, ninjas.
so my soaked-through self slogged into the muddy waters
and created some channels.
erosion is the better part of poor drainage, it turns out.
in addition to half the garden getting a righteous rinsing,
most of the road washed out, too.
that's some fortress type sh!t for sure, duders.
impassible dirt tracts,
and cavernous culverts,
and water-miki-fikin'-falls for your face.
we've got the high ground.
and the gardens.
and a whole lot of hard feelings.
if the woodsliness wasn't so dang GOOD,
i'd almost be bummed out a little tiny bit.
half a day lost to cloudbursts and lightning strikes.
naturally, i did hang out for a few minutes with my steel spade,
hoping to provide a conduit for an electric bolt of inspiration,
but the zaps connected earthwards farther south of here.
better luck next time, i suppose.  
perennial perpetuity.
it all keeps happening.
nature + hottness + participation x infinity =
never quiet, never soft.....

henges.

stone mutha-b!tchin' circles, y'all.
all shapes, all sizes,
and with a series of site-specific specimens
especially selected to inspire and impress.
you know,
to take it way past ten on the scale,
to eleven, as it is my wont to do so often...
i must've moved a literal ton of stone yesterday.
at least.
i took two trips out and away to eaton, nh, and back again.
up a burly hillside, all dirt roads of clearcut brush and brambles,
in straight-up rural 4x4 redneck fashion.
except,
instead of heading up there to rip down a 30-box of brewskis,
i was in the get-busy business of robbing some epic rocks.
that's how i doo-doo that hard-style landscapery-type sh!t, ninjas.
i range far afield, to fields of boundless boulders,
plethorae of plinths, (pluralized, 'lickers)
piles of pylons,
and unlimited lithospheric protuberances.
that's a lot of rocks, neighbors.
and a great way to enjoy a day off:
deep in the woods.
on top of a mountain.
in northern new hampshire.
it's good here, kids.
i'm sayin'.
-
my buddy jim rode shotgun beside me on roundtrip #2,
and saved me from squashing myself underneath a
too-big/too unwieldy slab of igneous ignorance.
i'd overestimated my flagging reserves of manliness.
presuming the berserker fury would last the duration,
and see me through any and all attempts,
on the part of gravity,
to drag me down in defeat.
i neglected one invariable fact about big-A* mineral masses:
those jauns are so heavy.
still,
me and my duder brought home the prized quarry.
from the quarry as it were.
hmm?
yep.
good guess-
i AM a super-sore-spindled, worn-out mess today.
shocking, indeed,
that my meager muscles would've been taxed
to the limits of good sense and physical endurance,
all so that my garden can be at it's most excellent.
we've got the cromlech hottness accounted for, now.
curb appeal, my worthy watchers and readers.
that's what's up.
and when the final stages of this multi-tiered
theatre of loud, fresh, hardness are all laid plain and fertile,
i'll be the one over here at the fire pit,
burning sh!t like a victorious conqueror of lawns and front yards alike;
all mother nature's favorite son, an' that.
you like it.
-
despite the aches, and pains,
for which my body is crying out for me to coddle,
today is a tilling and shoveling day.
fighting back against the weak sauce.
that's a rule up here.
every day in every way.
i can't promise there won't be a rock hunt in there, too.
there will definitely be some shoveling, regardless.
dirt is good.
plants really get busy with it.
and the third phase of the fortress groundskeeping is in full effect.
its almost garden party time.
if you aren't ready,
you'd better get so;
never quiet, never soft.....

neither steak nor cheese.

oh my!
tuesday is in full mutha-flippin' effect.
and that's just what we needed.
did i tell you guys my father-in-law gave me a chainsaw?
yes. he did.
you know what that means, right?
hard sawstabatulating.
sawing, stabbing, spatula-flippin' fury.
saws are like my hands-
they have teeth.
and this one has a chain of bobotronic biters,
with which i'm dying to shred everything in sight.
-
so,
we've got this dead tree, yeah?
he's hanging out across the street,
full of holes from bugs and woodpeckers,
all barkless, hollowed-out, and busted-up.
i like 'im. a lot.
mostly,
because he just hangs out being dope,
and a little bit haunted-spooky, too.
and also, because with the fluctuating weather,
hot, then humid, then cool, then wet,
it's the perfect season for my special hot-sh!t situation.
you know the one, ninjas:

mushroom business!
c'mon.
a whole broadside of billowy bright white mushrooms.
that's my jammie-jam.
because it's good.
ifyou don't like mushrooms, well now,
you most probably are an A*hole.
the truth is a hard room to mush in.
***********
check the teleport-
my big rock is planted in a soil-socket.

upright and at full attention,
like a primordial sundial, or a tooth-
that's my main monolith, b!tchslappers.
now just envision some sweet 'n' sz'huan ivy underneath,
and all around the bottom parts.
...like elf pubes, duders.
wangus khan, kids.
that may be his sweet stoney name;
my pop-outtie poker,
protruding like a righteous raging one...
***********
oh,
it's finally clematis time, too.

yeah,
we got the vines and the trellises and all that crackery sh!t-
neighbors,
nature is winning the prize so hard.
flowers, and fungi, and feldspar.
we got all the hot hottness jauns keeping it real.
the garden center is calling my name,
trying to lure me in and stick me for my hard-won papers.
i'll go, anyway, and willingly fork over a debit,
subtracted from my movie checks in effect.
the secret rock spot in eaton, nh, is on the way home, too.
today is the day;
never quiet, never soft.....

free for all.

STEEP.
yeah.
that's a F*ing good word.
and i'd like to think that i fit all the applicable definitions.
c'mon.
it's so good, though, duders.
(steep)
i was thinking about it whilst trying to roll a rock
up a no-joke serious incline.
and then again when i was rocking out my daily dose
or early morning pre-blog tea and toast, today.
steep.
steep.
steep.
steep.
STEEP.
STEEEEEEEEP!
saturated thoroughly, mutha-lickers.
look it up.
i mean, you know it already,
but get a little extra.
it's good for you.
***********
city wolf, country wolf.
you know the old story-
each wants what the other has,
but secretly is super lucky for what they've already got.
yes, yes, y'all-
of course,
in the real course of events,
the city wolf gets trapped up and skinned for being a nuisance,
and only pretendians and biker-types get busy with the rural wolf.
and ranchers, however jolly in other circumstances, shoot 'em all on sight.
what?
c'mon.
didn't you guys ever see that cartoon?
jeez,
you KNOW;
it's all trading places, an' that.
that's well and good, if you're an A*hole.
city folks are all on vacation up here,
ruining the sh!t out of it with traffic-jamming lines
outside of dunkin' doo-doonuts
and fatback fast-food F*tardation.
no big surprises, really.
tourists aren't dope.
and they can keep their sh!tty cities, too.
i'm sayin',
late-night restaurants and public transportation are poor substitutes
for the non-stop hottness of snail's-paced mountain living.
real life, real-real.
city people still only go to ten.
no matter how loud or hard they try to take it....
that little something extra that they're missing?
it could be Folk Life (and Liberty)
now,
this here rural wherewithal-within-and-without werewolf,
and by that i mean yours truly,
is super lucky for the woodsly goodness i'm surrounded by.
and all the bikers and ranchers and city-dwellers can suckle it.
hard.
that's no joke.
i'm home again, home again, jiggety-jig, b!tches.
it's already monday.
that means i've got a whole weekend's worth
of happy hunting ahead of me.
hunting?
yep.
hunting rocks.
there's not much of a fight once you catch 'em,
but dang if the can't hide better'n' any big game out there.
i'd mount one on my wall, i suppose,
if i had a plaque sturdy enough.
they'll have to settle for a display of my prowess
in the garden, surrounded by flowers.
that's lauds and lauds of accolades, yeah?
oh, c'mon.
steep, ninjas.
my driveway, my tattoo prices, my morning beverage.
and everything else too;
never quiet, never soft.....

sweat and tears.

...but no blood was shed, at least.
we're back in the supreme hottness, kids.
thirty-five hours of iron-will forged heavy-handed hammering,
2100 minutes of griddle-hot mettle bending,
126,000 grueling split-up seconds
of constitution-draining constitution state cavorting.
but really, who's counting?
oh yeah,
that includes eleven hours of cumulative car travel,
through ALL the mutha-b!tchin' suckiest parts.
you like it.
furious. ferocious. fresh.
-
relatively regular relatives, all friendly an' that,
combined with combustively chaotic temperatures
and hostile environments.
reunion business is big business.
coming back to see all the peoples?
that's good for you like chocolate and vitamins.
but it just HAD to be in connecticut.
that's like breaking back into prison to see your old cellmate.
dang.
it's never easy,
reppin' on that prodigal son sh!t.
i'm like that fish tale.
y'know,
the one about the one that got away.
he's always bigger, better, and more beautiful
when he's not around to disprove the boasts.
no jokes down there, ninjas.
it's a hard style living in the lowlands.
us mountain folk aren't made for that kind of urban outfitting.
word up.
but,
when in rome, or new haven,
you doo-doo like the doo-doo does:
we did manage to hit up mamoun's,
and a slice or seven at pepe's.
because we are not A*-holes, after all;
we're gluttons.
and we saw every-dang-body we could in the super short time
we were there,
and hit up all the necessary spots in short order.
because like i already told you,
we're not A*-holes.
we're gluttons.....for punishment.
that whole state is like a mish-mash of morrissey lyrics.
pick any line, from any song,
and i'm sure it applies,
right down to sunny sundays and cemeteries.
bam!
for your face.
c'mon.
oh, take it easy, ma.
(she reads this thing, neighbors)
i had a nice family visit in the south of hamden.
then we did our thing,
loaded up the car with so many extra treats,
and traipsed all up and over the weak sauce.
a swell swollen belly of broccoli and onion apizza helped a lot.
***********
home is still where the house is.
and our Folk Life & Liberty Fortress was waiting for us.
there's nothing and no place like home, duders.
we're here.
it's all just happened,
and it all keeps doing it.
time flies,
traffic crawls,
blood, sweat, and tears flow.
families and sh!t;
never quiet, never soft.....

on our way...

...home sweet home.
-
which is to say,
home is mostly where the house is.
and that's in northern new hampshire.
woodsly goodness cannot be replicated,
not with a forest full of charter oaks.
c'mon.
however,
southern connecticut is still our destination.
neither very sweet nor especially our home.
a sour, sore-spot of bother, b!tchbags...
driving, and driving, and driving.
and when we're done driving?
wifely family-times.
sure to be big fun, y'heard?
with plenty of little kids who aren't related to me,
and their parents,
who aren't either.
at least my pop-in-law and his lovely wife,
Tom and Betty,
are hosting the gala event.
they're always up for making us all feel welcome.
...even in connecticut;
and even in the presence of little kids who aren't mine.
which, you can rest assured, is my most favoritest thing.
nothing says 'worth the trip from anywhere'
like a bunch of cake-faced shrieking miniature sports-fans.
at a cook-out.
with icy-cold beers a-flowin'.
and burgers an' sh!t.
...in connecticut.
then,
when we've filled our open hearts and minds with all of that,
until there isn't any extra room for anything else?
it's still even more driving,
to HAMDEN, mutha-b!tches.
that's taking it to eleven.
hard-style, 'hood-hittin', never quittin' ninja-town.
recognize.
land of the narcoleptic brobdingnagian.
(that's the sleeping giant, suckas)
and,
a bunch of other 'nother people and kids
who ARE made out of the same stuff as i am.
that's correct.
we're hitting up both sides of the aisle today.
that's actually a triple threat.
breakfast in the awesome,
lunch in old lyme,
and dinner in hamden.
remember your trigonometry, duders.
that sh!t is obtuse.
c'mon.
reunions,
with families.
family reunions.
we're closing out the evening in my hometown.
after a whole day of dutiful, doting, daughterly dedication,
with heroic husbandly sauce on the side,
we'll reverse the proportions,
and then rest up for a return trip on sunday.
that's a whirlwind breakneck tornado visitation sensation.
and it's all really happening.
the car's packed,
the water-bottles are filled with the good stuff,
(the water in waterbabyville is weak sauce, remember?)
and the loud, fresh, hardness is headed home,
home away from home, that is;
never quiet, never soft.....

...in the free world.

(keep on albie-rockin', that is)
-
hey there neighbors and friends!
it's a rocky road of grand granitey goodness, again.
so many rocks. so many roads.
talk about experiencing familiar surroundings in a new way.
no longer am i paying any attention to traffic laws.
F* that noise, ninjas.
i'm on a rock hunt.
i need that sweet, sweet granite, y'all.
and since rocks do very little to attract attention to themselves,
it's up to me to scope 'em out,
scoople 'em up,
and make some ingenious igneous utilization of the felsic freshness.
y'know,
like sticking a bunch of heavy stones in my garden.
(ingenious?)
after all,
ye cannae have a rock garden if you d'nae have any rocks...
unavoidably accurate assessments, kids-
to that effect,
some duders from work helped me haul out
a 4-1/2' spike of molto-magnificent
super-thick stone monolithic manliness
from the woods out behind white mountain tattoo.
no jokes, it's a big 'un.
it should probably be noted, as a matter of real-life,
and as a true story, told truly, an' that-
neither of my burly helpers were tattooers.
ben and wayne got gnarly with the dead-lift hulk moves, though.
a desk manager and a body piercer, kids.
those guys got way rugged.
why?
most of  tatblasters at the studio are either delicate, girls,
or delicate girls,
excluding your favorite cookie-baking barbarian, of course;
...because tattooers are diaper-babies,
and hate getting sweaty helping others.
yep.
i've just come at you mutha-b!tches with a hard truth.
as a rule,
tatty-o practitioners get down with a singularly self-serving
sebaceous-stimulating sort of perspiration almost exclusively.
but that's NOT the worthy warrior way, though,
now is it?
uh-uh.
and if nothing else, the lightning-striking viking Folk Life
way of doing things intends a specific spate
of gratitude and generosity.
i guess it was a good thing that it was just us three at the studio.
i crept out of a super-slow day, into the woodsly goodness,
and excavated the gray granite hottness prior to the big move.
then me and my duders used our muscles, or the closest facsimiles thereof
and we got that big, bad mama-jama onto the back of a pick'em up.
nice.
***********
i saved myself a couple of cookies, kids.
rock blocks are in high demand up here,
and i distributed dozens of my dope dollops to my duders.
and kept that last batch for my babes-
we need a little road trip reward, after all.
wait...road trip? whaaaat?
oh yes,
you lucky dogs,
we'll be in connecticut for the whole real weekend.
a family reunion for the wifey's dad's kin, clan, and crew.
(of which me and my seedly saplings are a part)
we'll be seeing as many mutha-flippers as possible,
and munching as many treats as possible,
in true human/shark hybrid fashion.
keep moving, keep eating, or you die.
it's pretty much as straightforward and simple as it gets.
and a better fate than death awaits us anywhere.
even connecticut.
...barely.
it's SO the F*ing worst.
but it's ALSO chock full to the nutmegs with our peoples.
that's pure bitter-sweet-type hard-style sh!t, my ninjas.
the kids are going back to their nest,
and we'll be visiting our own former eyries, to boot.
two days away from the workplace,
working harder, with longer hours,
with a brutal commute, and no pay,
in the waterbaby waterpark of doo-doo buttery weakness.
connecticut, here we come-
you'd better have some kickass rocks is all i'm sayin';
never quiet, never soft.....

rockin'.

rock-hoppin',
rock-shoppin',
and rock-droppin'.
rocks.
rocks every-flippin'-where.
the granite state, my ninjas.
new hampshire.
we've got a lot of rocks just laying around.
and driving around, i guess, too.
like attracts like.
mr. albie rock represents on some real deal rocks.
hard.
hard rocks, rocks in hard places, rolling rocks, and rocking rolls.
we doo-doo all those different rocky balboa jauns.
and if you see me in my pick'em-up truck,
you can bet your bottom dollar i'm out there
scooplin' all up on that rocky situation.
a weekend's worth of heavy-handed, gloved-up,
helper-haranguing, hot, hot days.
moving those heavy heaps;
those boulderly blops;
and those gargantuan granite slabs.
our farmerly family friends, casey and cyle came by,
with vegetables and all-around good gardeny treats.
two days in a row.
and holy smokes, my duders;
moving rocks?
two bearded barbarians, mutha-b!tches.
heaving and huckin' and haulin'-A*,
like a couple of  sweaty, semi-swarthy fortress fortifiers.
dark spots, bright spots, and so many different crack-a-laks
of gray granite, pink granite, conway granite, feldspar,
quarts of quartz, and whatever the F* else.
neighbors,
the big gaping maw of our mounded-earth mouth-like semi-circle
is studded with a savage smattering of serious spikes.
shark-mouth meets rock-biter meets tremors meets dune.
look it up.
because THAT, kids, is exactly what's poppin'.
big miki-flippin' rocks, y'all.
they're no joke.
garden design is what's up.
-now ask me about my spaghetti spindle-arms.
go ahead; ask...
yeah.
they're sore, tired, sweaty, and rubbery.
but not so much so i didn't knead the ever-lovin' livin' sh!t
outta some epic super rock blocks.
that much rock-related reality NEEDS some delicious cookie treats.
and we've F*n' got 'em.
dozens, even, an' that.
***********
i keep a spare set of gloves in every vehicle i drive.
my normally delicate hands are getting calloused,
but my work situation renders them thoroughly moisturized.
softened up one tatzap at a time.
hence the rugged man-glovage.
i'm sayin',
warriors never know when battle might be joined,
and rock-riding writers can't predict the presence of
sweet, soil-sprouted spurs of 'spar.
...but we sure can anticipate 'em.
i'm ready.
i've GOT the gloves.
my darling daughters and i even went on a scouting mission.
we spotted some righteous rocks, ripe for wrangling.
rocks and stones, neighbors.
standing stones, sitting stones, hearts of stone.
no kidney stones, though.
only non-stop rocking.
it's who we are, it's what we do,
it's what we've got;
never quiet, never soft.....

nature wins.

hey, neighbors.
we experienced some epic nature-type business yesterday!
seriously,
we got eyewitness firsthand views of some
evolution, transformation, starship troopers,
dinosaur-mutant sh!t.
we all saw it.
we were there, man.
a saw-clawed, chitinous, tank-creature popped out of the earth,
climbed up a tree, split his skin off of his body,
and got ready to rock fleeting week of sawmill serenades,
and the hardest of hard-style insect pounding.
i'm telling y'all-
cicadas are what's up.
after a seven-year underground itch,
broken mirrors or whatever notwithstanding,
our dirty, deep-earth duders are poppin' out in full force.
an armada of airborne battle-beasts, big as birds, an' that.
we've got a whole cannister of exoskeletal sheddings up here.
the trees are like laundry lines for godzilla-caliber,
deadly enemy monster skins.
hanging out to dry and that type of stuff, y'heard?
anyway,
it was well-documented.
we saw it.
it happened.
it wasn't pretty,
but it was pretty flippin' awesome.
the right place,
the right time,
aligned and assigned a worthy, watchful reward,
courtesy of the secret universal community action planagram.
hold on to your cheeks,
a whole holy helluva lot of facemelting fury is headed your way;
check the teleport:

as big as my thumb, and breaking apart at the seams-
but,
why's he blurry?
because he's making moves, mutha-b!tches...
no time to pose like a stylish babypants-
gotta get up a tree and sh!t.

c'mon.
bulging, backbursting, bug-blasting burliness.
there was throbbing too.
or pulsating.
some kind of awfulness, at any rate-
horrifying and fascinating, (mostly horrifying) at the same time.

duders, you KNOW that's gross.
like a double-shrimp land-creature or something.
and yet you KNOW we were lucky.
you wish you'd been here getting 'sgusted by this sh!t, huh?

uh-huh,
just try and act like you wouldn't spray puke in every direction.
i'm just sayin'.

could it get any more disturbing?
wait...
...are those wings?

yep, they sure are.

c'mon. c'mon. C'MON.
my ninjas, believe me-
incredible. magical. 'sgusting.
and then they fly around afterwards.
nightmare city, mutha-lickas.
on the real.

there you have it.
new hottness, and old bustedness.
in Folk Life real world real-time.
nature wins;
never quiet, never soft.....

tea for the tiller-man.

more shoveling?
more planting?
more tilling?
more hard-style garden partying?
...of course.
more is the whole point.
and too much is the right amount.
we've got that.
and i've got two full-to-the-brim days ahead of me, y'all.
with my daughters, in the garden, making moves.
more moves.
for sure.
re-renting a tiller is on today's list of to-dos.
that means less lawn and more callouses,
and more flower power, to boot.
quality time is something to be appreciated.
especially since there's never enough of it.
did i mention the garden is shaped like a circle?
a righteous radius of spirit and memory.
a quality-time capsule/time-encapsulated capture-ring,
a net of networked earthworks,
a radical grassroots down'n'outpouring of roots and shoots,
a semi-secluded swath of serene scenery.
a natural amphitheater of amplified infinite natures.
y'know: ghost circles.
full of life,
surrounded by concentric life cycles.
beginnings, ends, middles.
i got that.
made with love, and with dirt.
me and these peoples i fly with, kids-
spirits and memories, an' that.
Folk my Life, b!tches.
***********
tonight's a green elephant night.
that's right.
family dinner at the super-fancy vegan feast spot.
gluttonous asia-fusion sz'huanitude.
we doo-doo that soy-predator sh!t.
SO hard.
portland, maine.
with my friends and family.
after our gregarious gardening,
and hard-partying yardening.
long roads,
good times,
real life.
days off.
all good things;
never quiet, never soft.....
p.s.:
don't forget about
NEVERQUIETNEVERSOFT, b!tches;
click it up and pop-out the hardest ones.
reissued o.g. t-shirt designs.
get a couple, immediately.

choco-frosting, 'ellow cake.

hells yeah!
what makes it all better,
when it's been hot and hard and long?
(that's what SHE said?
im speaking of a day of doo-doo buttery zip-zaps, obviously...
yes, indeed.
it's cake.
the magical cure-all for what ails you.
hands hurting from tatzapping all week?
sore back and empty wallet from the garden adventures?
late nights and hard styles from summer vacation frustration?
try the cake, duders.
it'll set you right, and align your sh!t with the universal plans...
look:

boom-shaka-laka, sucka-lickas.
double-whipped homemade cocoalicious frosting,
and fluffy yellowish cake.
second time is the charm, my ninjas.
in just one week,
in the woodsly goodness,
we've perfected the recipe.
cake.
super-delicious, super-thick slabs of sugary sweet celebration.
oh man,
you know you really like it.
on the real,
check the whippity-whappity choco-slappity sludge
we spread on that sz'huan-style circle:

so light, delicate, delectable, and semi-melted marshmallowy;
all aerated and oxygen-rich an' that.
not to mention fattie-boombattie in the big brown business department.
and it tastes pretty flippin' bangin' at the same dang time.
i'm kind of in love with little things.
or big things in small packages.
or simple pleasures.
or ALL of that.
or something.
at any rate, im lovin' every forkful of face-chomping shark-gluttony.
less chewing, more eschewing proper table manners,
and a filthy bellyful of stinging frostingy flavor.
now,
let me tell you about vegan buttermilk.
it's neither butter nor milk, but it is important.
lemon juice, vanilla soymilk, and oil.
whisked with the briskness to gather together into pure thickness.
huh?
does that really make a difference?
whaaat?
what are you? an A*-hole?
c'mon.
of course it does.
don't be custarded. (that's custard-'tarded, y'all)
look inside this cakey hottness:

now you just try to tell ME that that doesn't look like
some loud, fresh, moist deliciousness.
9" x 5" x 47#.
(that's forty-seven pounds, shorthanders)
okay, a slight exaggeration, but if you've had vegan cake before,
then you probably know what time it is...
...heavy o'clock.
dense, like a mutha-b!tch, for sure,
but still some crucial birthday batter-up type action.
if you don't like cake,
well, you're not invited, anyway.
that's a fact.
the whole day went to eleven, and so did dessert.
i'd not have it any other way.
***********
it's our friday here in the Folk Life world.
the tuesday weekend is almost ready.
we're here.
we're ready.
surrounded by trees and kids.
and cake.
summer somehow seems to screen us from all of y'all.
the waterbaby 'saucery just can't compete with all this nature.
city living in summer?
i can't hang out.
really real life is too busy happening,
in the gardens,
one shovelful of soil at a time.
take small feel-good comfort in public transportation,
and specialty grocers;
but remember,
nature wins.
every time;
never quiet, never soft.....

the eleventh.

always lucky,
is the eleventh of every month.
today's no obvious exception.
it's my ma-in-law's berfday, too.
( i baked another 'nother super-sz'huan cake.)
wait up a second....
sz'huan?
yeah.
pronounced shwahn.
derived from szechuan,
which in addition to being a region and cooking style of china,
is also hamden warrior shorthand for both regular and homo
sexuality and/or sexiness.
huh?
yeah.
it's a thing.
sometimes,
the idea of dead birds and chimneys being so sexy
just isn't covered by appropriate vernacular-
especially when it has nothing to do with reproduction,
but rather a tingly sense of super-hottness everywhere
except the ugly bits...
my new bathroom sink?
sz'huan.
the new garden?
super-sz'huan.
you get it.
and sometimes a semi-coded reference to preference
is also the more tactful route.
especially if the object of speculation
ISN'T living out loud and proud, i mean.
in that instance, however, a soft Ss hiss is imperative
to distinguish onefrom the other.
sessh-shwaan
here's an example. check it:
is that situation 'omo-szechuan?
sounds like a menu question, right?
and in a way, it so is.
those new toe shoes?
szechuan.
yoga pants?
clearly szechuan.
there's subtle distinctions,
but we're speaking a very nuanced inflective english here.
maybe even english-ish.
almost, but not quite, an' that.
szechuan.
never ever said 'zit-chwaan',
or whatever culturally correct pronunciation calls for.
unless we're in asia or an asian restaurant.
...the dialect of dopeness takes precedence, my ninjas,
in almost each and every scenario...
in a sense, it's very nearly the worst-case scenario every time.
and since we rarely find uses, in common competent conversation,
for UN-abbrev'ed words, (c'mon)
it's been shortened to just sz'huan.
and believe me, mutha-b!tches,
my secret recipe of cakey freshness is totally F*ng sz'huan.
you like it.
***********
it's the eleventh.
that's something.
it's sunday.
that's another thing.
it's all really happening.
that's the most important thing.
i've got some turbo-szechuan tattoos to do,
and some ultimate sz'huan cake to frost.
honest work counts for more.
that's word;
never quiet, never soft.....

catch a break.

the clouds have opened up.
nobody up here is bummed out about that at all.
not at all, at all, y'heard?
the streak of searing scorchers has been stopped.
rain, rain, rain.
washing away the red brick dust and debris of our new chimneys,
soaking the newly planted treats in the yard,
dropping the inhuman ovenlike temperatures to a reasonable level.
we love the rain, in small doses of dopeness.
pitter-pattering on the metal roof,
spattering the dense leaf-cover like tremorous heartbeats,
and dousing the doo-doo butter with a deluge of drips-
wetness as a direct result of waterdrops actually falling from the sky?
that's A-okay.
wetness from ambient humid oppressive hot hot heat?
that can F* right off, yeah?
consider the situation fixed. repaired, remedied.
the skies are darkened,
but moods are brightened,
and it's about dang time, too.
***********
tea, toast, and nintendo?
c'mon;

plaid dresses and making messes, y'all.
we're in our assigned seats,
and the morning rituals are in full effect.
i mean,
we've got family breakfasts to munch up on a little bit,
and a whole rainy saturday to endure.
i've been tattooing harder than ever,
with less to show for it than usual.
we've been out until dark tending the gardens,
and having a heck of a good time in between all of that.
this is a pretty good one.
a good life, i mean.
i'm grateful for the time i have been given;
never quiet, never soft.....

too hot, too tired, too much.

more plants!
more dirt!!
and more big fun....
that's no joke.
even our gardens have got gardens by this point.
green and leafy, ninjas.
that's how we like to see the whole wide world;
y'know,
all alive an' that...
heck,
we've even got gardens underneath the trees.
that's right.
below the broad branches and prickly needles,
we've got a whole other 'nother kind of a garden;
a shade garden.
astilbes, lungwort, goat's beard, hostas, and creepy creepers.

see?
now imagine how much cooler that hottness will be,
full of flourishing and flowering,
out and away from all the scorching sunshine,
nestled in the shady soil and covered in mulch.
nature was going to win anyway,
so we've decided to cast our lot with her,
and let all the weeds and weak sauce wither,
whether we weed or water whither or wherever.
word.
***********
berries.
i mean it.
that's what we're getting ready to plant.
a whole mess of different razzle-dazzlerberries,
a couple of blueberr's,
and a few sweetly juiced-up blacker-than-blackberries, too.
a small and comfortable summer, neighbors.
that's what it looks like we're participating in.
no viking forays,
no berserker bedlam.
berries, maybe,
and flowers, for sure.
otherwise,
it's happening, for real,
on a small scale in an intimate environment.
because Folk Life keeps it comfortable.
as in:
i've got a pair of perfectly pleasant little girls,
a wholly exceptionally worthy wife's worth of womanly hottness,
and a pick'em-up truckfull of plants that need interring.
small and comfortable, kids,
but despite the lack of girth,
we're more than making up for it with
loud fresh hardness...
...for your mutha-b!tchin' face, 'lickers;
never quiet, never soft.....

on garde(n).

holy crap!!
cyle knows his way around a shovel, ninjas!
i had some duders come over yesterday
to sweat a couple quarts of humanity right out,
and maybe move some of my heroic dirt mass around.
mountains of loam and raised beds-
delivered dirt and purchased plants-
they aren't going to landscape themselves, it turns out.
believe me, i know;
i actually waited to see if they'd start.
once the waiting period was up, though,
it became clear enogh that active participation was needed.
so we got busy;
i even rented a tiller.
yeah.
a tiller.
i tilled 'til i couldn't till no more!
(and shredded my hands off in the process)
jim and harvest and maple all helped, too.
and then cyle showed up and got butt-nasty on all the planting.
hoses, and holes, and heaps of humus.
dang.
we ran out of plants well before we even came close.
y'know,
coming up short on the yardages of yard-dirt.
there's still some healthy heaps, neighbors.
even a completely untouched dune, too.
and we need more plants.
...believe it or not, that's good news.
luscious landscaping, mutha-b!tches.
it's happening.
tall grasses and ground cover are next on the menu.
and mulch.
always more mulch.
***********
we've got holes to dig,
holes to fill,
grass to mow,
grass to rake,
plants to water,
plants to buy,
and a whole lot of real life to live.
home improvements, an' that.
my brain case isn't even working at half-capacity.
i may have boiled off some vital nutrients yesterday.
hard work yard work, kids-
now,
i don't normally doo-doo that kind of thing,
and my spindly arms are feeling the fury today.
did i sleep as hard as i ever have?
yep.
did i sweat out a nile's worth of juice?
yep.
is it still stupid hot out?
yep.
am i still tired as F*?
yep.
do my darling daughters give even half of a flying sh!t
about ANY of that?
noooooooope.
they're kids, y'all.
it's not their job to care.
it's their job to have big fun,
and to put adulthood in perspective;
from that vantage point,
grown-upness kinda eats it. hard.
great news.
if you duders are lookin' for me,
i'll be the tired, sweaty, sore, hot and hairy fella
tatzappin' a torrential tide of turdbiters.
i do tattoos.
sure.
whatever and wherever on whomever-
sometimes that means i nibble on some poop,
so to speak.
gimme some money.
g.s.m.
click your ink caps together three times,
and repeat the magic words.
gimme.
some.
money.
those leafy jauns aren't gonna buy themselves, right?
grown-upness.
hard times;
never quiet, never soft.....

seven and seven.

chimneys!

i mean, c'mon.
that sh!t looks luxurious, huh?
(rhetorical, ninjas-i know it does)
hard, hot, heavy blue-stone slab-tops,
and semi-crenellated terraced corners.
that's what's up.
making my home my castle, but on the real-like-
y'know,
adding to the visual lusciousness of our topside battlements.
putting that fortress effect to the Folk Life & the Liberty...
details, details, details.
eventually,
all these little ones, and big, and bigger ones'll all add up
to something huge.
a full-blown palace of woodsly goodness.
the headquarters of the hottness.
a place for worthy warrior poets to pilgrimage to.
a destination, mutha-b!tches.
uh-huh.
***********
propers and respect go to larry and cousin dave, neighbors.
those duders have got that manly man-power up here.
metal roof masonry in 104 degree heat,
coupled with the refracted steel solar oven siding?
that's a hard style.
and a sweaty one.
-
there's a special sumthin'-sumthin', y'all,
a feeling of being a lucky duckling,
when you roll up on something so fresh,
like a pair of exquisite smokestack hottness attacks,
and realize that it goes to eleven,
and that it's all yours.
i am grateful for this life.
i am grateful for this time.
that's no joke,
i'm not blowing smoke up all y'all A*s-
that's the super-sexy new chimneys' job;
never quiet, never soft.....

rogue forecast

it's hot.
really hot.
bone-charring, dehydrating, old lady heart attack hot.
it's humid too,
but the air isn't stagnant-
there's a little bit of easy breeze, at least.
but,
even the breeze is hot.
...like breath.
and that's pretty 'sgusting, kids.
i'm just sayin',
the northeast is reppin' temperatures like the deep south,
and it is sweaty out.
yep.
the weather is sweaty.
or partly sweaty with a chance of greasy.
100% certainty on that sweatiness, though.
it's gross.
it's the dominant conversational topic up here;
old people,
fat people,
and military people, y'all.
the holy trinity of weather discussion.
try and guess who from each group said what:
*"it's hotter in iraq, 192 degrees in the shade, y'queers",
*"it wasn't ever this hot when we were kids,
and everything only cost a nickel",
*"my crotch is like a bamboo steamer right now,
good thing too, because i'm hungry."
-uh-huh.
complaining.
that's a new england tradition.
we love it.
so hard.
when it's hot, it's too hot.
when it's warm, it isn't hot enough.
when it's cold, it's waaaay too cold.
there is just no 'baby bear' up here.
y'know, not the actual cubs, of course, but the idea.
i mean,
there is no 'just right'.
that's new england weather.
that's new englanders.
that's what's up.
***********
duders,
the chipmunks are getting munched on.
all that feeding my wife did all springtime-long?
yeah, well, now they're fat and lazy.
...and also pretty flippin' tasty, it seems.
in addition to whatever night screamers are out stalking
those striped ones,
there's a goshawk on the prowl.
and it sure doesn't play around, my ninjas.
a 'munk a day, every day.
right down the hatch.
little warblers and whatnots chase him off from their spots,
but he doesn't leave without a snack.
that's barbarian banquet science right there.
chipsters get what they've got coming, i guess.
it'd bum me out if it were poison,
or traps,
or cats.
but it isn't.
it's the natural order, in perfect working order.
dive-bombing death from above.
F* the dead ones, neighbors,
the dead(ly) birds have got way more hottness in 'em.
***********
this day is done before it starts.
there's to be waiting,
driving,
rendezvous-ing,
and then some more driving.
it's destined to be full-dark before i'm done.
and if i'm not done 'til then,
then that means nothin' else gets done...
all done.
already.
and we're sweaty.
which is to say,
complaining and irritable,
furious, ferocious, and damp.
no good.
in the woodsly goodness,
amidst the flora and the fauna,
in an atmospheric armpit sauna;
never quiet, never soft.....

how do we go to eleven?

...with sweet claude's cookie tofutti, ninjas.
and cake.
and strawberries in simple sugar syrup.
why settle for just one or another?
the object, of course, is MORE.
THAT's how we counteract calorie-burning bike rides to town.
uh-huh.
a sharp, sweet, sugar-spike after the fact.
replacing the burnt-up ones with a legion of new hottness.
back up your back ups, y'all, that's what's up.
how else can a night of righteous pyrotechnics
get taken up that extra notch?
i'm sayin'.
we had a whole spot all to ourselves-
perfect views,
clear avenues,
peace and quiet,
and all in the center of the village, too.
a crew of worthy real-life duders
enjoying the spectacle of america,
and it's congealed, corpulent constituent populace,
with a critical eye toward the furious, spurious congregators.
nobody even tried a little bit to hang out near us-
even with a gentle bow-tie,
and my flagship randonneuring bicycle,
complete with chrome fenders and copper calipers,
my accessibility was at an all-time low;
the smog-monster stench kept ALL the little kids away,
and everyone else, too.
just like we planned.
plus,
while the rest of the gape-faced mouth breathers
were waiting in line after line of post 'works traffic,
sippin' sodas and sweating with each swinelike step,
we were already home.
bikes, mutha-b!tches-
like late-night ninjas,
with no reflectors, and no rules.
a straight shot down the main streets-
drop handlebars and hard-styles;
i mean it.
bikes, neighbors.
bikes made it all possible.
you know it.
gas pedals down, platform pedals up.
wu-TANG!
***********
it's the warrior's work week end again.
already.
a lot of folks have today off, too.
but not us.
as usual,
i'm zappin'.
hard.
and tomorrow,
it's an all-day road warrior rogue road trip,
to 'assachussetts...
awwwww, man.
after independence day,
it's time to go pick up my two dependants:
yep,
the duo of daughterly dopeness,
harvest and maple,
are headed home to the woodsly goodness
for a Folk Life infusion of a better way of livin'.
the power of a powerful example, ninjas.
this is what's happening,
really;
never quiet, never soft.....