impromptu reunions.

dan and mike are here.
word up.
my ace ninja from back in the ol' days,
dan dealy,
active participant and full-time just-be-dopeist,
and his younger brother mike,
are repping a sleepover party in the woodsly goodness.
two more menfolk to balance out the power an' that.
six sucka-free souls holed up away from the biting winds
in the Folk Life & Liberty Fortress.
that makes for a full house, neighbors.
we're rockin' tattbombs, burritos, and woodstove warmth
on a cold, blustery, below-freezing evening.
taking solace from our interactive dialogues
in our so-fresh sanctuary well apart from
the jam-packed masses of massholes who're
taking up space, invading the area, and ruining the scene.
but those waterbabies aren't ruining our scene, y'all.
because we're doo-dooing that holiday season hottness.
and we're activating it together.
it's been awhile since i've had a chance to hang out with my homies.
i'm grateful for being able to do so tonight.
the wind is howling.
roaring, really.
loud, fresh, and hard,
a stormswept savage raging gypsy gusting gale,
in full regalia, regaling us with a tale of arctic tundra,
blistering blight, and wintry woe.
the answers are blowin' in on it,
the scent of change and the reek of war are wafting from it,
and it's all really happening as i type.
windsweeping warcries from the skies, kids.
listen to that whistling wail of nature's winning way;
never quiet, never soft..... 

real recognizes real.

hamden warriors never die,
they just move away.
awwwwwww.
but in the spirit of ultimate war and sh!t,
check out the mutha-lickin' teleport:

boo-YA!
the ultimate warrior....SON!!!
the cucch keeps it real,
even in the oceanic tropical weak-sauce of hawaii,
he still knows how to show some love
to his bitter, cold, ice-hearted homies in new hampshire.
wordimus prime.
ultimate, my ninjas.
you know it.
did you look closely?
uh-huh.
i know.
it's a two-fer, huh?
macho man undies and knee pad activation,
a la wrestlemania 7.
and for the record,
if you can't hang out with this kind of hottness,
you are definitely an A*-hole.
and that's a fact.
XI-mas treats that go to eleven.
just what we needed, neighbors,
at just the right time;
never quiet, never soft.....

ailing and failing and mailing.

man, oh man.
it's a seriously sh!tty tuesday in the mountains, y'all.
icy droplets of doo-doo butter dripping down,
sunless plummeting thermometer temps,
with a side-order of fever-hot foreheads,
and whole lot of F*ed up headcold ruination.
yep.
i'm infested with congestion-type jauns-
i've got a hurricane in my skull,
and a porcupine in my throat.
the good news is that i'm using the stormswept shed quills
to author new frontiers in fury and ferocious fire.
that's the truth.
acute connecticitis notwithstanding,
i'm always happier when times are tough,
nights are long,
and styles are hard.
otherwise,
i'm complaining for no good reason, yeah?
yeah.
today is that day.
me and harvest and maple have been defying the
doom diagnosed to us via this dearth of welcoming weather,
and the absence of available awesome activities.
that's correct, yo.
we began the day with a tried-and-true ragnarok repast:

panniecakes!
double-thick fluffy manly manhole covers, duders.
did we sneak a little maple cream in between the stacks?
you bet your sweet butt we did.
i mean, c'mon.
what am i?
an A*-hole?
nope.
take it easy,
maple cream is vegan, dummy.
oh,
now we're bringing the good back to baked goods.
you ninjas all know we get rad in the kitchen,
and when the going gets grimy,
the pans get greased and preheat gets brought to bear.
stand back and sniff, suckas.
smell that?
yuuuuuuuuuuup.
this kinder-rockgarten has been consistently activating
the epic expert experience of Folk Life culinary hottness.
we've got banana bread in there now,
and a chocolate coconut pie in the queue, too.
real life is happening.
drippy faucet faces, dirty skies,
and traffic-jammin out-of-towned-up massholes
can't put a stop to it, either.
they're trying though, and i'll give 'em points for the effort.
our nearly-never here neighbors next door
have got every light on in their whole entire house,
indoors and out.
nothing says woodsly goodness
quite like a billionteen lumens of light pollution
pointed directly at my driveway.
ahhhhhhh.
i think i'll light a candle near the foot,
and let it take care of my problem for me.
*
hey-O!
i got some treats from hawaii today, too.
word up.
check the teleport:

weirdie plant ornament bulb magic globe action.
who knew we needed it?
cucchie knew, that's who.
***********
the december embers are dying out.
the stoked-up fuego of a new year
is waiting to light up our lives.
it's winter vacation.
it's Folk Life living.
and it's a snow day.
what-what, say-what, say-what?
yuuuuuuuuuuuuuup.
anything can happen;
never quiet, never soft.....

treats.

duders,
you all already know that i get busy with
the eleventh-level EXPERT gift giving, right?
...right.
so check the teleport on this hottness:

hung by the chimney with care an' sh!t, suckas.
you know it.
yeah,
even olive the dog got a ration of fresh treats.
what am i?
a monster?
stop it,
it's XI-mas, neighbors.
good will and cheer an' that,
even for big dumb dogs.
*
of course,
if four-legged disasters are getting my good will,
you'd better believe that my human companions
and coconspirators of cohabitated compatibility
are gonna reap the rewards of their presence
with a whole A*-F*-ton of presents.
c'mon...
wordimus prime, kids-
harvest and maple got hooked up proper.
on the ones,
their color-coordinated bows and jauns
made for a well-presented parcel of pure freshness:

yeah!
we activate that 'more-beautifully-than-you' action.
by the fireplace an everything, friends.
if it isn't picture-perfect,
it isn't XI-mas.
i mean, otherwise,
what's the point?
the wifey's haul wasn't slouchin' either:

c'mon.
solid gold, mutha-lickers.
we GOT that sleek streamlined tight and brightness.
amongst all the well-reasoned, researched,
wrapped and righteously received regalia
what was her most favoritest thang?
four on the floor, making each foot her best foot forward-
she's rollin', you're hatin':

yuuuuuuuuuuuuup.
when it comes to showing affection,
i express myself best with items.
you want feelings?
you're asking the impossible.
tangibles, y'all.
that atlas shrugged-style of emotionalism.
recognize.
huh?
what about me?
awwwww.
how kind of you to ask.
don't worry, my ninjas-
i wasn't left out of the generous goodness.
in fact,
i got proper activated,
and i'm livin' with some serious gratitude for what's up.
for serious,
we were fed and lodged and interacted-with
the whole time we were away,
and that wasn't the half of it.
check it out-
my father-in-law, tom, hit me off this double bundle of
super-deluxe cedar-lined stink-stick stogie stock:

wow.
that's a hot batch of flammable carcinogens for my face!!!
but that's not even close to the limit, either.
i'm referring to the lovely mrs. rock.
we knew she was super hot.
we knew she was disproportionately dope.
we even suspected she had an extra-share of skill and talent.
but who could've known about the casual considerate
confidence with which she executed this XI-mas's
big deal deluxe special delivery for yours truly.
DAS IT!!!
the wifey pretty much brought the ultimate hot fire
down on my gifty-giving head and shoulders.
like an expert of active participation, even.
what time is it, y'all?

wellllll,
according to my new mutha-F*ing wristwatch,
it is precisely 'baller-A* doodie-twankle' o'clock.
...yes it is.
ninjas,
i've never been more grateful for the time i've been given.
mostly,
because i've never been given time like that hunk of
superior genrosity up there...
-that is some seriously futuristic chronographic 'ness.
vintage infantry werewolfen titanium depleted-uranium
unobtanium wolverine berserker-fury from the swiss alps.
it actually checks the checks that check the teleport.
we do it better, kids.
sorry.
it's just how we get it together.
***********
life is unfolding, kids.
real life.
real real.
i've got my three most important ladies,
i've got a blazing fire heating up our home,
i've got a preposterously nice watch.
real life keeps happening,
but we keep it realer, y'all;
never quiet, never soft.....

Perfect.

what's one better than X-mas?
uh-huh!
XI-mas, neighbors.
us worthy warrior poets know how to doo-doo
that gratitude and that generosity
and that active participation
and that professional appreciation.
but,
we can only activate that level of expert business
from the Folk Life & Liberty Fortress,
up here in the happy hills and magnificent mountains
of the heroic and stoic woodsly goodness.
yuuuuuuuuuuup.
we're home, duders.
there's no place like it.
it's where the heart is, even.
(and the foot)
after a trip to the less-than,
we're nestled back in the barbarian bosom
of our very own idyllic paradise.
why am i sniffling?
no,
i'm not having an appropriate emotional sentiment
about being back where i belong.
c'mon,
don't be dumb.
i've got a clogged-up cratacular attack
of super-severe connecticitis.
ugh.
it's bad, y'all.
i'm a drippy, coughing contagion waiting to infest
and digest the dopeness of the northern hottness.
gross.
i'm tellin' you ninjas-
it never fails.
bring me to the toxic turdblasted terrain of
the land of my birth,
and the heat-seeking hatebombs of hellacious
helix-harranguing heckfire assault my system
and my sensibilities.
or maybe it was the falafel?
check the teleport, buddy:

did it come from a dirt-dirty grit-grimy kitchen?
yes.
was it proportionately delicious?
you bet your sweet A*, son!
the dirtier the spot,
the more expert the falafel.
this one was off the charts on both counts.
the wifey said it was the best she'd ever had.
believe it.
*
so i'm laid up, beaten down, broken and broke,
but it's a next-level futuristic holiday.
and it definitely goes to eleven.
wooooooord.
*
we spanned so much time,
across such vast expanses,
at such epic expense,
and with such savage stormswept gypsy expertism,
that it almost seems unfair to brag about it.
not that i'd ever let that briefest of unconsciou-style
involuntary conscience-type pang occupy
too much space in my ferocious furnaces.
instead,
i'll just say that everything was perfect.
my darling double-digit daughters,
the distended and extended branches
of our network of relatives,
the food, the funtimes,
the peoples and mini-peoples,
and all of the flippin' time we took.
real life really well lived.
that's what's up.
***********
the paper is all torn and taken away.
the bows are bowed and the ribbons are wilted.
the storm and the glory of our very own day-after
dopeness and delight are all done for now...
but there are still molto days of winter vacation ahead of us,
and a whole new year to get jumpin' off.
where we are is all there is.
everything and everywhere else is just not What Is-
today was the day again,
tomorrow will be too;
never quiet, never soft.....

o' holy night, o' holy sh!t...

O' happy F*ing christmas day, mutha-uckers.
never mind those 12 days of weak sauce, duders...
the eleven days of really realness
are what's actually a-poppin' during
this merry jolly happy holiday season.
it's all a sequence of escalating avalanched attacks.
that's real.
anyway,
i hope all you stuffed-up stocking-footed festive
fal-la-la-la-lollygaggers are having a good one.
first comes X-mas, my ninjas,
and then that's followed by the real holiday.
yeah.
XI-mas doesn't storm the shores all the way
until tomorrow.
or as the canucks call it:
'boxing day'.
but that's not today, neighbors.
today is for the children, son.
just like that WU-TANG jauns.
uh-huh.
the woodsly goodness is callin' us home again.
and in the in-betweening time,
there's a whole lot of family time,
deep in the heart of connecticut
we've been wallowing in relatives,
from the elderly to the infants,
and all the bloodfeuding bloodlines
that flesh out the bark and leaves
of the trees an' that.
yes.
***********
it's been a heck of a time, y'all.
it's all happened.
it all keeps happening.
i am grateful for the opportunity,
i am grateful for the time..
merry christmas to all,
and to all a good night;
never quiet, never soft.....

overnights and living daylights.

never mind denmark, duders...
there's something rotten in connecticut!
what?
wow,
good call, y'all.
it's not just something,
it's most minky, mincey, nancypantsy things.
...and that's no joke.
we've been wandering and roaming and
practically foaming like a frappe of rabid rage
at the raw, butt-nasty, dirt-dirty situation down here.
the smells!
oh, the smells!!!
the least populated spots have got more packed-in
sardine-type duders than the most inhabited corners
of the far-superior woodsly goodness.
my wifey needs her space, neighbors.
the close-quarters combat of a hard-style holiday
in this crammed up clog called connecticut is not spacious.
i mean,
you guys get it-
connecticut is NOT dope.
that's real.
but we're here, and it's really happening,
so i guess we're documenting the whole shooting match
until the final throes are done twitching.
word up.

***********

yuuuuuuup.
it's on, kids.
you'd do well to get in bed extra-early.
visions of sugarplums, an' that.
you ninjas know the drill, dontcha?
if you've somehow managed to be nice,
and not get taken Off The List,
then our jolly ol' buddy santa comes tonight.
yay!
-
but if you've been naughty?
uh-huh.
the berserker barbarians raid your gates,
throwing burning chunks and lumps of anthracite,
setting fires,
smashing sh!t and chopping heads,
and you'll probably have a better time for their efforts.
silent and holy can suckle those snowballs, b!tches.
we're on that criss-crossed countryside
back-and-forthrightness
forward moving time spanning family togetherness jauns.
big flippin' deal.
tonight is the night,
today is the day,
tomorrow is even moreso,
and monday is the most.
we're geting so much closer to christmas,
which in turn brings us within heartbeats
of XI-mas.
and that's the big action.
happy holiday times to all you worthy warriors,
you seasoned veterans get season's greetings.
and you nancy novices get noel nuances.
that's equanimity on the eve, yo.
happy happy, merry merry, and all that.
be good to each other;
never quiet, never soft.....

eve's eve reprieve.

connecticut, u.s.a.
awwwwwwww, man.
congested and infested and molested.
a sh!t-salad stankin' skank-filled steaming smog bowl.
that's what's up, and where we're at.
a train wreck in full effect,
overlapping and pumpkin-slapping the front and sides
of my whole entire travel plans.
yuuuuup.
neighbors,
every year i come back,
and every year i recognize less and less of where i'm from.
it's not the land of the Hamden Warriors anymore,
it's a war-torn wasteland of waterbabies and b!tchbags.
and yet here i am...
***********
duders,
it's the day before the day of the night before XI-mas.
the eve of the eve.
what does this solid-waste state of the union have to offer?
how about hours and hours of sour traffic?
oh hell yes.
heinously long distances spanned
across this third-smallest state?
naturally.
terrible air, horrible people, and awful areas?
with a few exceptions, and we're visiting all of them;
spread out along the breadth and width of this place.
yep.
it's all really happening.
ready or not-
here we come.
*
and do i miss the foot?
...a little.
saint elevenus may be the
chimney sweepin' chief of the holy smokin'
festy festive holiday season.
i'm makin' offerings,
lighting candles,
and swearing mighty solemn oaths
of worthy warrior really-realness.
y'know,
trying to invoke the stormswept ghosts
of all this raging ragnarok-rockin' righteousness.
that's a thing.
prepare all your jingle-jangled
mistletoe kissing balls, y'all.
you can practice suckin' on them,
then move on to the real ones;
never quiet, never soft.....

winter.

brrrrrrrrrrr.
the winter solstice has arrived,
and the bitter cold and grey season
is now reinstated, activated, and fully operational.
happy mutha-F*ing winter, neighbors.
three months of official brutal buffeting barbarian tundra.
and when we add in last month's full-fledged pre-season,
and the first two or three technically springtime months....
yep.
the woodsly goodness experiences roughly half a year
of savage stormswept raging gypsy weather.
it's just that today is the darkest day of that whole span.
uh-huh.
i think the sun may peek out from behind these rainy clouds
and then immediately set behind the mountains,.
it's a high-speed horizon-to-horizon arc,
and it's happening right this moment.
winter's bone?
yeah.
it's probably a lower extremity.
huh?
that's right.....
a foot.
c'mon.
beatus est pes, my ninjas.
y'all need to make the pilgrimage to the mountaintop
and pay homage at the Folk Life & Liberty Fortress
to the earthly remains, ghost-circular spirit,
and semi-corporeal memory
of saint elevenus of the immaculate immolation.
that's the patron saint of hot fire and really-realness.
you know it.
he's kickin' it up here,
or at least his foot is, b!tches.
oh, stop it.
winter times, duders.
cold and lonely and busted.
it's also the first day of crap-ricorn too.
that's a double cosmic check and change.
the world is in flux, y'all.
circumspect sacrosanct circumstances an' sh!t.
we GOT they.
today is most especially the day-
in fact, friends,
it's the very lovely and talented miss maple star's berfday!
yeah!!
a decade of daughterly dopeness.
ten revolutions around the sun, son!
in a row, even.
both my little bitty baby girlie-girls
are reppin' those double digits now.
holy crapola, kids.
time.
just like always.
flyin' when i'm havin' fun,
and slippin' away during the rest of the moments,
we'll be delivering rock blocks
and vegan cuppiecakes and family togetherness
from us to them,
from here to there,
and to eleven the whole time.
that's what's up.
the XI-mas battle royale connecticut 'itis extravaganza.
it begins right now;
never quiet, never soft.....

the foot.

ugh.
check out this mummified, mammalian,
and extremely festy extremity.
teleport to the future:

c'mon.

this dirty dollop of deceased beast rested in pieces
right under our house until late last week, neighbors.
for real.
i'm pretty sure it's my new good luck charm.
as a matter of fact,
i'm even thinking of getting one of those mirror-bottomed
gilded glass cases to enshrine it in.
yeah.
a first class reliquary for a third-rate foot.
y'know,
with some long-taped candles and an offering box an' that.
i mean,
we need to do something with all this brand-new
extra space in the previously-named nothing room, right?
why not rep a battle-beast chapel,
dedicated to the dessicated spirits and memories
of the woodsly goodness.
don't even try to act like that's not dope.
...because it SO is, duders.
what i really want to know is-
what kind of foot IS it?
who can tell me?
i'll name the shrine after you if you fill in the blanks.
yes i will.
*
false idols and animal spirits and sh!t.
we rep the old ways, y'all.
the nordic lightning-striking viking ways.
werewolf shapeshifter ghost circle jauns, even.
it's what's up,
it's what's happening;
never quiet, never soft.....

the fall.

so after sword-swallowing an entire pizza pie
in a newspaper roll-up dinner reality,
i trembled away the evening in the tooth shattering cold.
tooth shattering?
i think so.
i mean,
that's kind of a real thing...
in fact,
i also has a missing piece of molar reactivated earlier in the day.
now,
it's possible i was grinding my teeth with holiday cheer,
and the enamel in my head couldn't handle it,
or, as is more likely,
the crown of my dented dental surface
emulated my hopes and dreams,
and just plain ol' gave the F* up.
awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww, man.
either way,
i had to visit the dentist and repair my head.
mission accomplished, duders.
all the better to demolish that 'zza with, y'heard?!
yeah.
***********
today's the last day, duders.
of fall.
of my having single-digit-aged children.
of pre-holiday woodsly goodness participation.
yeah.
from here on out,
it's hard times and hard styles in hard-headed hard-hearted
weak sauce central.
uh-huh.
...connecticut.
the heavy-handed XI-mas family tolerance experiment.
who will throw me out first?
i'm taking bets,
and giving pretty respectable odds.
since our yearly dutiful pilgrimage to the land of doo-doo butter
began all those years ago,
it's been less and less like where i'm from, friends.
i hardly recognize the place, even.
and the densely populated,
heavily trafficked,
inconveniently congested and infested,
urban sprawling desolation of devastated constitution stateliness
is playing host to the berserker barbarian homecoming
road warrior poetry slam competition.
and i'm seein' everybody, too.
criss-crossing the state in an effort to maximize
the watering and pruning and fertilizing
roots and limbs to a whole flippin' grove of family trees.
everybody, neighbors.
big and small, tall and short, old and young,
every-single-mutha-F*ing-body.
if we don't hang out,
it's probably because you aren't somebody.
OH SH!T!!
i'm not serious,
except kinda.
hard. loud. fresh. happening.
happy last day of autumn, my ninjas;
never quiet, never soft.....