going down.

love in an elevator?
more like a highway to hell, duders...
i'm going down,
to connecticut.
...again.
yeah, i know-
epic beatdown barbarian battle activation
in flippin' full effect!
awwww shoot, neighbors;
the bruises haven't even faded from deep purple
from the last time,
which was only 96 short, sweet hours ago.
the consolation prize i'm convincing myself will help?
i'm gonna bite the heads off of a bunch of beige animals!
yuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuup.
i doo-doo that cruel and unusual sh!t, kids.
check the teleport,
and recognize just how actually okay it's gonna be:

c'mon.
now you see where i'm at, though, right?
after all, what am i?
some kind of an A*hole?
uh-uh.
it's cool.
*
competent communicating is only as effective
as the listener's willingness to hear what you say
without slathering a syrupy slop of weak-sauce
all over the words in the sentences you're assembling.
uh-huh.
i'm just sayin',
i document real life.
that's a thing.
if you're paying attention, you know what's up.
if not,
well,
you should start.
you woldn't want to miss out, now, would you?
i know i'm not gonna.
that's why i'm trekking back to the badlands
and worselands of waterbaby central,
for another 'nother near-lethal dose of doo-doo butter,
overeating, traffic, ethnic diversity, and family togetherness.
nutmeg is the main ingredient in iocane powder, i guess.
oh, stop. you get it.
sooooooo,
responsible adulthood is happening,
just like everything else.
i'm making moves,
showing up,
being there,
participating.
...actively.
connecticut drew first blood, y'all,
but i'm about to escalate the conflict.
i'm on that home-delivery-type loud fresh hardness,
brought to bear on the bare-chested and the bald-headed
and all of the minky, mincey b!tchbaggerism in between.
word up.
it's not reacting i believe in, after all-
it's overreacting.
taking it to the limit, taking it to the mat,
taking all of it, as it really happens,
to eleven.
three thousand degrees with a forecast for lightning?
sounds like conditions are perfect for an invasion.
ready or not, connecticut,
i'm on my own sour-grape griping,
bitter pill-swallowing way
back to my original home sweet home;
never quiet, never soft.....

perfect pitch.

is it too hot for sh!tty spirit totem terriers?
yes it is.
check the jabba pose on the teleport, neighbors:

my reflected face-to-face shamanic situation is in no way
improved by having this monstrous mound of tooth and nail
savagery sluggardly splayed across the foot of my bed.
what am i sayin'?
i'm just sayin',
it's finally not cold inside this spacious, palatial,
Folk Life & Liberty Fortress.
instead,
it's a massive tandoori volcano of grotesque sauna-esque
steam-heat activation from the heating ducts of hell.
too much is the right amount, y'know?
*
are you ready for some football?
the real one i mean...
uh-huh.
y'all would call it soccer.
guess who got involved in a pickup soccer game,
with real goal posts and everything,
in hundred degree heat on the first day of summer?
yeah.
i make choices, kids.
like to show up and try to hang out with some
duders from around,
and kick it about for a bit.
those ninjas wear cleats an sh!t.
uh-huh.
i had on regular sneakers and regular shorts
and i sweat my old, busted, tired regular A* right off.
but i'll be back next week,
sorta like fight club, y'heard?
a good old fashioned physical punishment regimen
may be exactly what i need.
heck,
by the end of the summer,
i'll be a sun-browned barbarian berserker of stamina,
speed, agility, and sore F*ing knees.
ouch.
i've got to go to connecticut, again, tomorrow.
is it too soon for a rematch?
probably.
i'm still sore from last weekend.
but,
my brand-new pair of super-skinny jeans
are actually too big for my belly,
(which is looking like jesus's wracked wreck of a torso)
and i need to swap 'em for a svelter size anyway,
so i'm ready to suit up and get back in the ring
for another bare-knuckled battle-royale with the state
that leaves me in an altered state of semi-consciousness.
yuuuuuuuuuup.
hard mutha-flippin' styles, friends.
until then,
it's already a billion+ degrees of farenheit heat up here,
and there aren't enough sweet moolah-making
movie checks to be had at the studio for me today,
so there's bound to be sprankles and sorbet on the schedule
as a midday reward just for being dope in the face
of a F*tarded clustersuck-bomb of summery scenes.
enduring the weak-sauce of excuse-makers, shortcut-takers,
traffic jams, heat waves, slow-goers,
and willful misunderstanders means frozen fruit
and sugary multi-spectrum shavings for my face,
right down to the tip of the cone.
***********
it's destined to be a day of skylarking and flirting
and generally disregarding the proprieties of decorum
and seriousness.
just like every day.
except today, i'll be much shinier.
hot weather and olive complexions make for a serious
oil-slick sebaceous slime-coating of guido grease.
awwwwwwwww, MAN!
i'll be the sticky stick figure shouting out loud
in the back room, guys.
you'll know me by the glistening sheen of body butter
my pores will be pouring out.
dear hot weather,
i was hoping to create a slip-n-slide inside my clothes.
thanks a whole bunch.
shhhhhh,
if you listen closely,
you can hear my flippy-floppies squish.
no.
i haven't been swimming lately.
that's human juice, ninjas.
you like it;
never quiet, never soft.....

soullessstice?

this is the bright bright brightest day of the year?
man is THAT depressing!
the longest day?
only if we don't compare it to the interminable terribility
or every single other day.
awwwwwwww, sh!t, my ninjas.
it hasn't gotten one damn sight better since this morning,
and it seems like it's not one lick lighter
on the far side of high noon.
if this is what's comin',
and promises to foretell what's happening,
then i'd prefer what's happened.
a throwback to yesteryear?
sure.
check the teleport, courtesy of dan dealy:

yuuuuuuuuuuuuuuup.
those were the days.
now all we've got are these days.
yuck.
the temperature was skin blistering,
the humidity level was nonexistent.
it was a desert-type day of moisture-wicking dehydration,
and i tatt-blasted my way all the way through.
it's too flippin' dry to have a fire,
it's too flippin' early to go to sleep,
and it's too flippin' hard to rep this particular style
as long as i have been doo-dooing it.
it's mutha-F*ing summer, neighbors.
summer.
already.
hot hot heat,
long days,
longer nights,
hardened hearts,
and sweaty balls.
believe it-
happy summer.
if you've got it, use it,
if you need it, get it;
never quiet, never soft.....

solstice!

summer!
summer, sum-mer. sum-mer tiiiiime.
you know the song, neighbors.
the get-busy soundtrack to the sweet,
ever-lovin', full-blown super hottness.

today is the day.
the first day of summer.
the official start of ice cream, flip-flops, frisbee,
beach blanket and vacation season!!
happy summer, friends.
we can all only hope it will be better than spring was.
i mean,
it would almost have to be.
but then again,
i'm constantly amazed at the capacity for worsening
that the secret universal plan seems possessed of.
awwwwwwww, MAN.
oh, whatever.
it may be time for the boys of summer to do their thing.
it may be time for the b!tches of the world to get half-naked
and strut their stuff.
it may be the best part, or the worst part,
or even just the next part.
all i know for sure?
the Folk Life & Liberty Fortress is here.
the woodsly goodness is warm and dry,
cloudless, with a nearly-unnoticeable breeze,
and the infinite nature of warrior poetry is being
tested time and again by the limits of endurance
and the borders of bad taste.
huh?
hard styles aren't ever not happening.
double negs, my ninjas.
you know it..
i'm thinking a barbarian blaze of brutal berserker bonfire
is exactly what a real ninja needs to activate the future!
all-consuming flames?
that's what's up.
burn away the weak sauce in a trial by fire, yo.
what little blackened ash remains has got to be the truth.
*
four months ago,
i started a journey.
yep. a F*ing journey.
four long mutha-flippin' months ago.
i can't say i'm any closer to where i was headed.
the longer i travel,
the more things i shed.
i travel light, at light speed,
and that makes time go slower.
science, yo. recognize.
taking forever and getting nowhere.
put that in your summer itinerary, kids;
never quiet, never soft.....120

highlights and low life.

well, duders,
i'm back in the woodsly goodness again.
and i got a speeding ticket on the way home.
escaping at breakneck velocity from the past
will apparently activate the laserbeams
of traffic violation enforcement in massachussetts.
yeah.
nobody leaves with the title, neighbors,
but they do get a fine.
it wasn't all bad, y'all.
on father's day i powered down two whole pizzas
in under ten minutes.
gross?
definitely.
delicious? even more definitely.
that's not it, kids.
check the teleport:

yuuuuup.
harvest skye is gonna be in the seventh grade!
holy sh!t.
it was a terrific ceremony,
and at one point she and maple shared the stage
with the chorus of fifth and sixth graders
to serenade us with sounds of cherubic expertism.
nice.
afterwards, it was emergency tofutti time:

sprankles, in the hundreds and thousands.
i doo-doo that cookie-type hydrox-sox-rox jauns.
how do you put a day like that to bed?
under a thick greasy layer of fried beans and hot sauce!
yeah!

nothing accentuates the need for speed on the way back
like middle eastern gastric backtrack payback.
i hurt myself for you, guys.
otherwise,
what would i have to write about?
it was a brutal 48 hours.
the high spots also included some quality time
with both of my sisters.
i'm serious.
old age and responsible adulthood make for
strange-but-true stories.
after all,
they're the only two mutha-uckers who knew what it was
like to grow up 'hood in south hamden in our house
besides me.
family togetherness ensued.
at one point all three kids,
all three grandkids,
and my ma and the dude were all under one roof
and the world did not implode in on itself.
if anything could've kick-started a 2012 cataclysm,
i'm pretty sure that would've done it.
***********
there is always more, friends.
it's additive.
we put in that hard work,
we get more work.
don't make it look too easy,
or nobody appreciates what's up.
that's showmanship, y'all.
make easy things look hard,
make the difficulties look simple,
and then let the rest of 'em give it a try.
compare and contrast from the first to the last.
without them,
we'd just be us.
i'm grateful for these tests of worth i subject myself to.
i do the right thing when i can,
and i do what i do when i can't.
nature wins, nurture runs the marathon.
sort of like money talking and bullsh!t walking, yo.
it's all really happening;
never quiet, never soft.....7x17

$2.

dear connecticut,
you win.
every single time.
...

daddy.

daddy's house?
no, daddy hex.
that's the real life name for this:

father's day.
i know those dutch duders used those
ghost circles to protect their sh!t.
i wonder if that one was for keeping daddy
OUT of the house?
...probably.
anway,
today is the day.
the one where dads get neckties and barbecue mitts,
and just one lousy phone call from their crummy kids.
so call your old man and tell him something.
i don't care what you tell him;
i mean,
he probably won't listen anyway,
but make that call y'all.
it's the least you can do for the lump
of XY chromosomal ingredients who got drunk enough
to help squeeze the sauce into the oven that baked you.
the majesty of nature, huh?
yeah.
remember,
you can't have daddy issues without daddy.
that's a thing.
*
i try to be a good one.
encouraging. providing. guiding.
all the things the greeting cards say inside 'em...
but it's difficult, neighbors.
no joke.
distance and time are not exactly on my side.
making the most of the minutes i get,
concentrating all those important moments into
the time we have been given.
positive examples are hard to create
when all you know are hard-styles.
try hard, pay attention, and know stuff.
that's the oversimplified set of standards i've set
for my young ladies.
it's the preteen pretty-kid version of just be dope.
i said it, i meant it, i still mean it,
i'm not kidding.
happy.
fathers.
day.
best two out of three?
i'm not exactly father time, y'know?
i'm no papa smurf, either-
i'm more like papa bear, duders:
too hard, too hot, too big.
and if you know your goldilocks like i do,
you'll have to agree.
just right?
c'mon.
***********
did you just say connecticut three times?
i swear i just got beetlejuiced/candymanned.
yuuuuup.
i'm driving southbound and down,
to the place of my birth.
there's a lot of family togetherness scheduled for this week.
tomorrow,
my oldest daughter graduates from the sixth grade.
that's right.
i'm old, she's big, time flies.
tonight,
me and my ma and dad are gonna have some dinner.
it's all really happening,
it's all not very exciting.
sunday mornings start out easy,
but long drives and busy workdays and late nights
make it all more believable, huh?
real life.
father's day;
never quiet, never soft.....

self.

duders,
who is your favorite disproportionate poet?
i mean, really, y'all.
you know i doo-doo that long armed lawlessness jauns,
don'tcha?
gangly dangler i most certainly am,
ungainly gracelessness in form and function-
all duckling, no swan;
all goose honk and no nightingale song;
all hawk and no dove,
all crow, no scare...
extenuated extremities, attenuated attentions,
insidiously insinuative sinews, malfeasant marrow,
and great big paddle-type hands and feet.
(keep reading, there's a picture, eventually)
i'm like frankenstein's monster, my ninjas.
assembled in the semblance of man,
but definitely something subtly different.
a mimic, a mockery, a close-but-not-quite
meta-maudlin caterwauling composite creature
born to bring bad news, worse luck, and terrible times.
it seems as if the architects of my secret universal purpose
put me together from spare parts
culled from children's books-
albert the albatross's wingspan,
ichabod crane's physique,
rip van winkle's beard,
wee willie's winkie,
horton's elephantine ears, nose, and faithfulness (100%)
rumplestiltskin's F*ing face, an so on...
you get the idea.
as if some sort of pen and ink shel silverstein nightmare
leapt from page to flesh,
possessing a penchant for alliterative prose and versatile verse,
peppered with punishing puns aplenty...
neighbors,
feel free to jump in and cheer me up at any time.
i'm not fishing for compliments,
i'm chumming the flippin' waters.
awwwwwwwwwww.
self-aware, self-deprecating portraits are what's up.
check the teleport:

ugly on the skin,
pretty from within?
c'mon.
there are ways to break that surface tension;
a shave, haircut, two-bit bits of two-cent opinionated
hemming and hawing and haberdasheried hard-styles-
but,
loud fresh hardness is engraved on my bones,
and written all over my face.
that's deep-etched, ingrained, get-busy business, y'all.
real talk.
i may be broke and busted.
actually, in fact, i am.
i may also be low on the hot-or-not ratings,
and persona non grata at parties across the planet,
but i'm off-the-charts when it comes to the hottness.
yuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuup.
like, when it's time to bring that fire and lightning?
i go to eleven, b!tches.
that's a thing.
you know what i say, you know what i do:
stay ugly, stay dope.
believe it.
***********
friday night is date night?
maybe where you sexy people are...
but not when you're all oyster and no pearl.
(which is just a shiny booger, anyway)
how will i fill the holes in my summer social calendar?
uh-huh.

with sprankles.
simple solutions are sometimes the best ones.
i'm a grown-A* man, y'all,
and i will eat sorbet every flippin' night if i want to.
with neon rainbow sensitivity tubes all over it.
don't be haters,
you guys can have some too.
*
free falling.
like some tom petty sh!t.
it isn't really free, though, is it?
it all costs somethin'.
terminal velocity?
we got that.
it is no longer possible to plummet any faster;
never quiet, never soft.....

self-explanatory.

this teleported tidbit should require
absolutely no description:

come on.
neighbors, that's what's up.
sometimes,
even when it's sunny and seventy degrees
and in most other ways an atmospheric disappointment,
catering to motorcycle enthusiasts and outdoorsmen,
there's an uncontested contestant competing against himself
for an interest-sparking shot at
one of my fabulous prize packages.
yuuuuuuuuup.
like high-energy high-decibel verbal abuse,
warm caffeine-free diet soda-pop,
and a slice of vegan futuristic mocha pie.
and then,
instead of another 'nother generic turdblaster tattoo,
i get to activate a little bit of my reserve nutrients.
that's how and why expert realness gets poppin'.
exceptions rule.
that's a thing.
***********
right this very minute,
it's all really happening.
it's the present tense.
c'mon.
present.
tense.
both present and accounted for, y'heard?
yeah.
there's a palpable anxiety in the rarefied air up here.
a combination of leather, barbecue, and exhaust fumes
is blowing on the wind.
if that's the answer, y'all.,
i'm done asking questions.
i've got just three more long, lonely, terrible days
of celebrating (read as: enduring) the suckiness
of two-wheeled motorized weak-sauce,
and then i get to go down to connecticut.
the home base of nancypantsery an' that.
awwwwwwwwwwwwww, man!
frying pans, fire, whatever, my ninjas.
from bad to worse and back again,
that's the recipe for road warrior poetry.
the toll roads are the least of the price i'm paying.
however,
family togetherness means making the best of
the moves being made-
i've got peoples who need me,
and i go where i'm needed.
anything less would be less than worthy
of the heroic virtues and values i'm all about.
*
oh,
and by the way duders,
it's flag day.
whatever that is, we doo-doo it.
now hoist that sh!t,
and let your freak flag fly.
long may it wave, mutha-'uckers;
never quiet, never soft.....

baffles, buffles, blinds.

hey neighbors.
i wished for rain.
you know what that means, right?
yeah-
i don't see a cloud anywhere,
except directly over my head.
awwwwwww, man.
i've been trying new things.
like redrawing old clip-art.
sort of like this:

uh-huh.
i'm a little out of practice,
and i mean to remedy that situation.
every day i draw a bit,
every day i write a bit,
every day i chomp at the bit.
time only flows one way.
forward.
it's all going according to plan, i suppose,
even if the plan is universally secret and vast.
(i personally always keep a backup plan, just in case)
***********
the circuit is broken,
the flow is interrupted.
the energy is only moving in one direction.
time takes time,
and space requires space;
it's not a circulating current, kids;
it's a lightning-striking bolt of electricity.
it may fork,
but it still heads towards the same general area.
real talk.
the connections are interrupted,
and the lights aren't coming on.
huh?
i'm giving y'all a glimpse into the revolting
high-voltage realm of miscommunication.
be easy, ninjas-
i'm as competent and capable as ever i was,
albeit still as convoluted and cryptic as i have to be.
conversations keep catching,
not like being grasped,
but more like getting snagged...
or maybe like something virulent-
that's communicable, y'know?
i think that's irony.
keep being crippled and derailed by snags.
both obvious and unanticipated.
you see, duders,
there are two sides to discussions:
ebb and flow,
wax and wane,
give and take,
speak and listen,
explain and comprehend.
you get it?
you got it.
but what about when the same exact sh!t keeps
stalling and sabotaging the semblance of sense
being made out of sounds pronounced in sequence
to symbolize complex concepts and underlying themes?
mostly,
b!tches fight with you.
yuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuup.
obstacles, y'all.
overcome, overthrow, evolve.
i'm on that modulated frequency, frequently,
type of improvised intelligent interaction sh!t..
variable wavelengths and bandwidths and amperages
of adaptive modern combative techniques.
fight fire with lightning i always say.
i probably won't ever be understood,
but i won't stand underneath someone else, either.
side by side, or not at all-
that's the way it has to be;
never quiet, never soft.....

coffee and chocolate?

it's called mocha, b!tches.
recognize and respect that sh!t.
telportational delights?
check 'em:

yuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuup.
fancy pie is good for you.
mini-baby choco-chips AND sprankles.
i doo-doo those twice-as-good-type jauns.
homemade crust?
i can't believe you even had to ask, A*hole.
that's eleventh-level bake shop futurism.
coffee, chocolate, more chocolate, a little cocoa,
and then some more chocolate, just to make sure.
relax, neighbors-
it's deactivated with decaffeination, too.
i'm not tryin' to never ever sleep, y'know.
and i'm not trying to hurt myself or others,
i just want some sweets to compliment my bitterness.
word up.
***********
the fat lady is audibly carrying a tune, kids.
y'know what i mean?
i think it's a love song, too.
a manatee-sized mermaid
with a four-alarm siren-song.
-
luring me like a wrecker to a wretch,
i can't refuse, i am refuse.
come crash on my teeming shores;
circles collapse in on themselves;
rings of smoke, blown through and apart-
giving up the ghost,
the spirit road goes down,
memory lain...to rest.
-
awwwww, man!
that is so expert,
and so not expert.
real life, mutha-F*ers.
the hardest styles in the gentlest whispers.
i write words.
i right words.
i rarely write the right words.
it's all really happening;
never quiet, never soft.....