parades.

seven hundred and ninety one.
that's the number of turbo-nerd pages of literary dorktardedness i've read,
from tuesday night to wednesday night.
i'm fighting back against the savage squandering of my grey matter,
sacrificed to the demonic dance of digital cable television....
by immersing my whole head into commercial-free concentration.
how much geeky fantasy novel reading is too much?
eight hundred pages worth, obviously.
clearly i was within the legal limit for dungeons & dragons.
i'm currently suffering differing degrees of just be dopeness, for sure
what can i say?
i'm more than a litle bit lame.
but,
i've also got some schematics sketched up in my braincase
for a three-wheeled full-size puppet tricycle.
who knows how to weld, my ninjas?
i'm ready for the Folk Life & Liberty flagship to begin construction.
i'm sayin',
a long, tall easy rider, with streaming flags and a big-ass big head all up on it,
leading the way for a whole parade of bold and worthy mutha-uckas....
i've always hated parades, yo.
probably because of how weak-sauce watching a bunch of uniformed A-holes is.
then again,
protest parades are pretty 'ucking rad to the nads.
puppets and musicians and crusties with bucket-drums, and stilt walkers,
and all of that kind of hottness.
that's as really real and flavorfully fresh as it gets.
so clearly,
that's what we need.
and that's what i'm talking about right now.
a rural reaper, not so grim,
and decked out to reap what he's been sowing;
which of course is Folk Life & Liberty.
c'mon.
a better fate, an' that.
now,
if we can find a place to live,
a headquarters and home base,
then the biggest action can get underway...
i'm still ready;
never quiet, never soft.....

Wotan's Day.

great.
another 'nother other day spent wet and rainy in the woodsly goodness.

i'm think i'm becoming a veritable road warrior.
really,
i've driven thousands of miles these last few weeks,
and haven't even ever left the mount washington valley,
at all.
from chatham to ossippee,
far flung and distant destinations that really aren't close to a single flippin' thing,
and even further away from each other.
i've seen farmland, grassland, swampland, forests, streams,
and every other northernly woodsly good type of open space,
picket fences, pole fences, rock walls, hedges, treeline windbreaks,
and every other type of rural enclosed space, too.
i've been up, down, and sideways
across the valley and back again.
honestly,
the back of my hand and a carroll county road map
are pretty much the same thing these days.
an at-long-last atlas of every last long-lost long-ass expanse....
what does someone do with this vast volume of vehicular voyaging?
well,
there's really only the one thing most non-truckers do
with epic vocational locational asphalt-confrontational back-road knowledge:
uh-huh,
delivering pizzas.
back in the day,
my nicest 'nice kid' mikey c,
knew every road inside and out in the entire town.
no joke.
but,
i don't plan on quitting my day job any time soon,
certainly not to serve up slices of pepperoni pukefestival.....
i'm not quite at that level of retroactive college-job nostalgia.
yet.
instead,
i'll just chalk up these hours as study time,
learning the ins and outs
of all the places i've never really wanted to know about,
or visit, if we're being up front and honest;
a regular dark side of the moon,
dark side of the force,
now-my-training-will-be-complete type of investment.
i'm an all the way up-here person now.
you heard it first.
bumpkin bumps and lumpty dumpty humps, my ninjas.
i've road-ridden (with the luxurious heated-seat hot-as-heck cheeks)
my way to rural direction-giver guy!

if you're ever deep in the valley of this land of the lost,
probably because you've mistakenly taken a right or left turn,
off of the one real road through this whole place into weirdie territory,
keep your lids peeled back from your peepholes,
and look out for a bearded backwoods wizard in boatshoes and a bow tie ya'll;
if you're nice,
i'll give you a slice of saucy flatbread,
and a left-right-left combination of get-outta-here directing, too;
woodsly goodness?
you can't get there from here;
never quiet, never soft...

get ready.

Folk Life & Liberty.
it's on my mind.
countrysideever-lovin' life-livin' goodness.
puppet shows and bicycles and welded-up single-speed contraptions.
jug-band jams, and fireside storytelling.
how about home made root beer?
hell yes.
i'm already ready already,
but,
the house hunt is comin' up short.
rather than bum out with my bum out,
it's got me thinking on the bright side of some very cloudy days,
because i'm ready to move on,
move up,
and move into a better-days barbarian headquarters.
a fresh-to-death fortress of flavor.
every day is another day closer to better days,
and the worst days are still better than past days...
today is the day.
and the 'glory days' aren't back then,
they're right now.
a better fate than death awaits us anywhere!
i'm just sayin'.
the damp and dismal doo-doo butter basement i'm residing in
just isn't a suitable scene for serious construction.
i'm talking about buildin' a better life, ninjas.
F*, i'm talkin' about livin' well and building a real life.
i'm ready.
i mean,
life is happening right now.
just slightly slower, wetter, and less explosively,
at least compared to how i'd like it to be.
which, of course, is to say louder and harder than ever.
i'm ready.
i'm here.
Folk Life & Liberty, ya'll.
rural and righteous an' free.
it IS harder to get psyched when it sucks outside, for sure,
and the weather report says it's nicer outside in alaska right now.
so c'mon, ma nature-
hows about you an' me silver-line these creepy cloudcoverings,
and help me its-bitsy spider this week?
i'm spoutin', after all...
gettin' busy gettin' busy,
makin' moves and keepin' it really real.
i'm workin' and searchin' and writin' and readin'.
i'm here.
i'm ready.
Folk Life & Liberty.
farmers' markets, hand-thrown pottery, and wood-grilled treats.
fresh sourdough bread, an' that.
northern new england.
old timey goodness.
woodsly goodness.
bearded-weirdie berserker barbarian warrior worthiness.
hot mutha-ucka-lickin' fire and sh!t, ya'll!!
i'm ready.
if i say it enough, it must be true.
i'm ready.
the wind is blowing.
change is coming.
i'm ready;
never quiet, never soft....

more of this.

if a foghorn and a blunderbuss somehow sprouted reproductive organs,
fell in love,
decided to consumate that love,
mated in a soft, sweet romantic union,
and then had a baby,
then that baby is what my posterior docking bay
(read metaphysical methaphoric butthole)
is poised to receive this week.
now how's that sound?
never quiet, never soft indeed.
ouch.
if you're keeping score here;
that's a maelstrom of mayhem whirling around,
waiting like a caribbean privateer, with full cannon compliments,
to waterspout my barnacled bilge pump right off.
master and commander of getting F*d in the A*!!
not literally.
for the hundredth time,
it's a mutha-uckin' metaphor for hard-hearted hard-style hard times.
dammnit, ya'll.
always so eager to believe i'm turbo gaysplosive.
but seriously,
i'm ready for some karmic lubricant to make the dire straits a little easier
....to take so flippin' deep.
never mind the good ship lollipop,
i'm on the hard ship hardship.
happily,
it does a little double-duty as a cruise ship,
since i'm clearly on vacation.
still.
put that on your poop deck,
and prepare to shuffle board it.

in marginally related,
nautically-themed news,
i'm meeting with my mathamagician accountant,
over at anchor busines services,
to hopefully repair some splintering of my mainmast.....
so to speak.

come sail away.....
never quiet, never soft...

here comes the sun....day.

they aren't just spiky and brown, my ninjas....
they're hungry as F*, too!
porcupines eat whole branches worth of leaves at a clip.
there are skeletal branches all around the whole darn place,
low, middle, and high with it,
up and over the property lines.
it's creepy seeing semi-munched treelimbs right upside the doorway,
especially when they were whole, hearty, and hale the evening before.
still,
i kinda like it.
it beats mowing and raking and maintaining...
hell,
at the risk of seeming like a crackery A-hole,
i'm going to start telling folks about the industrious little brown landscaper i have,
and how he makes sure to keep coming by every single day to manicure the plants.
....with his face.
nice.

the big and beautiful silver fox was out in the fresh fullness of the moon last night.
that jammie dodger is so mutha-flippin' awesome.
foxes look and move like hybrid mutant squirrel-coyote-cats...
and for the record;
that look is pretty darn cool.
their weird bark/howl/old lady choking sound is way scarier, however.

i'm clearly turning into a vacationary man of leisure,
peepin' the wildest life,
and livin' the tamest one.....
that's a new twist, huh?
viking raids on the good life, y'heard?
taking what we want,
especially taking it easy,
by force, even, if necessary!

events are unfolding, ya'll.
like some kind of complicated origami secret message.
i'm praying for powers of perception,
greater than, or at least equal to,
the pulse-pounding prestidigitation presented
with loving tenderness and hard-hearted hate,
synchronized simultaneously by the secret universal plan.
i'm looking for signs, maps, and blueprints, ya'll;
never quiet, never soft.....

behind the scenes.

never quiet?

never soft?

yeah, right.

paulie ballcaps a.k.a the cucch,

drove up to show up here in weekend summer tourist traffic,

instead of hanging out in lame bedford,

just to celebrate gettin' older with his surrogate family of peoples.

that's pretty flippin' rad, huh?

i'm just sayin',

that's most definitely some hard-style get busy barbarian birthday business.

i mean, c'mon,

he decided to throw us a surprise party for HIS birthday.

it involved blueberry sodas and delicious cake!

......and sleepytimes.

that's what a wild and crazy vacation party looks like up here.

we doo-doo that sleepy sh!t.

crashed out on the couch at 11p.m.

yeah.

i was glad, for really real,

that we all spanned a little more time under one roof,

even if it was only bedtime,

and all we saw was the backside dreamland rumpus room behind our eyelids.

i am grateful, nonstop, live and direct, to be here today.

and yesterday.

and everyday.

vacation nation, my ninjas.

that's where i'm reigning as supreme sovereign.

more flavor, less taste;

never quiet, never soft.....

long weekends....

guess who forgot their camera yesterday,
and as a result,
got to do some fresh tattoos i can't prove i did?
yeah! it was me.
good guess.
seems like i only do the fun and rewarding stuff if can't show anyone any proof.
i'll be sure to NOT bring it every day,
if it means i'll have less lame doo-doo butter to spread.
when it comes to deep dollops of spreadeasy doo-doo,
less is abslutely more.
more or less, tattooing is happening either way.
i'd rather have a good day, and no record of it other than good memories,
far before a sh!t buffet of a day, and the pictures to prove it.
i mean,
i've got 58 days of vacation left, anyway...
the only problem with a vacation place,
is that i don't want to do a flippin' thing.
i'm on vacation, after all.....
and, the vanilla sky cultivated coincidences seem to agree with me:
yesterday,
the state of new hampshire decided to dig a six foot trench,
directly in the front of the white mountain tattoo studio building.
all F*n' day.
that means no driveway!
unfortunatey,
summer isn't just tourist season up here,
it's also synonymous with devastating economic hardship via road work.
no joke,
every summer, some asstarded road construction completely ruins
at least one main thoroughfare for the whole entire season.
fortunately,
new hampshire is also full of stubborn, belligerent outdoorsy folks,
all of whom hiked up the hefty hill to make sure they got their zappityzips in.
events, ya'll.
a series of fortunate and unfortunate events.
alternating highs and lows.
it's all really happening.
it's very exciting.

speaking of exciting,
today is the cucch's berfday!
29 years, in a row.
(2+9; it adds up to eleven, huh?)
it's good to have friends, ninjas.
and the cucch is the best one of those that anybody could hope for.
that's word.
happy birthday times, mr. travelin' mustachio pizzman.
-he's working on his birthday.
that eats it hard, ya'll...
i don't believe in that kind of thing.
but,
if for some terrible reason you're in bedford, mass tonight,
(it's probably because you've given up hope, really)
and you want some flatbread pizza,
go give him a healthy high five,
and a happy b-day fresh five across the cheek!
scandalous slaps keep you young.
i'm pretty sure that's a fact.

greasy, grimy, grubby little grabbers.
back up off of my wallet...
jeez,
ninjas are tryin' to stick me for my papers
way faster than i can even make 'em.
i've got some skills.
i've got some bills.
nice.
the ratio seems to skew towards bills, though.
i've also got some wills.
and some won'ts.
today's the day for keeping it Folk Lively,
really real,
really rural,
and not giving a squeezable squat!
true stories told truly.....
all work and no play makes rock a dull boy;
never quiet, never soft.....

battle-beasts

porcupine pinecone pugilism?
sure, i'd love some...
three feet of pointy-ass quills,
and tree-climbing prowess prowling the grounds.
nature wins, kids.
the dogs aren't so cool with the wilder life they're witnesing, though.
the animals at the old place mostly stuck to the woodsly pathways,
but these bold and worthy warriors walk out proud and loud.
they were here first, i guess.
we've even got evening whippoorwils noodle-neck singsong serenading us.
it actually sounds like dog whining a little,
only through one of those fruity fruit-flute salute thingies......
animals just kinda want to hang out here
(except fish, i guess- sorry, gil)

i tried to be a great ex-tenant,
and take down the decaying big heads
from their precarious perches up in the branches of the oaks at the old property.
but it wasn't meant to be.
instead i leapt to safety from an unforseen,
yet understandably provoked, encounter with a savage, unpredictable wild animal family;
anybody ever heard me shriek like a wet poopiepants diaper baby?
wellll,
you would've yesterday, ya'll.
inside each and every one of those fugly spirit guardians there is a nest.
no, not a cute little baby bird house with chicks and worms and sh!t, either.
when is it ever that simple?
instead, there's nest after nest of little mcsquizzy red squirrels.
want to venture a guess at how skittish and fearful those little F*ers are?
if you guesses 0%,
then you wold be 100% correct!
imagine my surprise when a ball of furry fury bashed me upside the face,
ricocheting from beard to bark and back and forth again,
while i balanced on a plastic lawn chair,
trying to not get beat up and fall down at the same time!!!!
how many of you ninjas get into fights with acorn-smuggling rodents?
yeah,
i'm just lucky, i suppose.

vacation, mutha-lickers.
i'm a natural animal amateur naturalist;
never quiet, never soft...

new beginnings, terrible endings.

as near as i can tell,

it didn't take long.

i'm referring to the unfortunate and sad loss

of my very most favorite pet.

Gil the goldfish bit the big one this afternoon.

of all the animals i've ever held any affection at all in my heart for,

he was the one lil' fella i really liked.

he died in a vase, of all places,

waiting for me to get him a downsized aquarium home.

i got home with his new house,

and a teary, bleary eyed jess hit me with the news.

i realize that pet shop feeder fish are designed

for the disposably brief short term,

but my little buddy outlasted all his ichthyoid brothers and sisters,

and finally gave up the good fight after a whole slew of years.

he's now interred for his eternal slumber at this new house,

a reminder that all new beginnings start at the end of something else.

better days are always the ones ahead.

he will be missed...

the well-earned sleep of the dead, ya'll.

never quiet, never soft....

a few hours later.

i almost wrestled with a bear a little minute ago.
really.
i let my dog out at 5:30 for some peepee time,
and lo! a burly black baby burly barbarian battle beast
took off a-runnin' down the mountain.
yeah, it was a baby black bear, but i still would've wrestled it.
AND his momma bear if she wanted a piece too.
tear-assing around eidelweiss village,
kicking off our first morning wit some silly a.m. shenanigans.
day one of my two month holiday.
nice.
about 7 seconds later,
thanks to the ruckus rolling through the trees,
a silvery gray sly and slinky fox was flushed out of hiding,
and chilled out across the street, taking in the scene.
olive was SO busy wondering what the F* was going on,
what with the major ursa minor threat on the other other side of the street,
she didn't even notice the foxy lady checking us out.
the woodsly goodness isn't quite ready to abandon
it's lightning-striking vikings and valkyries just yet.
nature wins, ya'll.
2-0.
word up.

so just to recap:
there's some epic '80's-type living situation stuff happening here;
the location is semi-secluded,
the road is a pothole a-hole dirtskid stretch of totally crappy,
and the lot is craggy and mosquito-suckin' bug-ridden.
the house has a t.v. or two in every single room,
(is that even a real thing?)
and it's actually deceptively large.
although that's hard to tell at first
since it's so chock full of other people's property.
(it turns out in this instance, i'm not so down with o.p.p.)

anybody else seen those butt-nasty mammary-meat cutlets
over at shawn hebrank's minneapolis chainsaw massacre?
yep. that's what happens to ultra-hardline vegans.
flippin' out about honey? hatin' on leather? nutritional yeast?
and then this sh!t starts happenin'.....c'mon.
now,
i looooves me up on some TT's, believe you me, mutha-lickas;
big, small, perky, droopy, whatever's clever.
from pendulous & swollen balogna-pony feed-bags,
to xylophonic flattie-boombattie ribs with nibs,
all different kinds of sweet boobalinis are pretty good.
but not so much so, when severed on a slab, yo.
i mean, i get it,
i got it,
i even understand it,
but damn, kids,
i've seen 'the silence of the lambs'....
i'm just sayin'.

i just polished off a 14oz. bag of swedish fish,
and washed it down with a thomas kemper ginger ale,
with honey, but sans human breast!
boo-ya breakfast treats for my bellyhole, kiddies!
why would i consume such a slew of sh!t at 9:30 a.m.?
because i'm on vacation mutha-uckas,
and i don't give a flyin' *uck!!!
i've got a dischordant dog whine soundtrack,
and a tummyache, too.
that's just how really real warrior poets wake up and get busy.
i doo-doo that, ya'll,
as it unfolds, so it is recorded;
never quiet, never soft...

home is where?

we're here.
we moved and moved and moved.
then we had a litle lunch.
and then moved and moved and moved some more.
we moved with full trunks,
full cars,
fully loaded truckloads of our crap,
back and forth,
to and fro,
hither and yon....
no joke,
i may actually have too much stuff.
we broke a couple of pieces of furniture in the process.
hard style moving, and crash-bashing trashing.

our dogs are taking it pretty rough.
and therefore, so are we.
we didn't get in here until late-ish,
and the dog show adjustment schedule has only just begun;
and they're bringing out the terrible tyrannical anti-vegan inside of me.
especially our uber-irritating hound, hamden.
the big dumb terrier, olive, is sleeping.
but that other turd-burgling a-hole is ruining it,
in an effort to garner sympathy for her canine hardships,
and to make me go completely batsh!t bananas,
she's whining,
and she's doing it reeeeallly hard.
and nudging, and getting trampled underfoot, and panting,
and overachieving in the category of all-around sucking.
it's SO awesome,
and it makes the whole experience way more enjoyable.

we've got cable over here.
after four years without television capability,
it's like a super sinful dirty indulgence,
and i am deep into it.
better days are always the ones ahead of us,
no matter how much harder they get.
it's late,
we're here,
and it's all really happening.
home is where the house is,
home is where the heart is,
home is where we're headed;
in the meantime,
here we are;
never quiet, never soft...