'GOOD-BY AND KEEP COLD' (by robert frost)

the last day of june.
and here i am, with the sassy sophisticated seedlin's,
and a beautiful day OFF....
for the few of you who didn't catch it,
the titles of every post this month were lines from a poem,
which i wrote in reverse, just so that today,
the entire poem would be written correctly for you guys to enjoy.
check the post history>>>>
robert frost, ya'll.


i am writing an epic saga in deed and word every day.
a singable stanza added hourly to the magnum opus of my life.
that comes with a pricetag, yo.
it occurs to me that i have made myself into a 'local character'.
like fattie boombattie norm on 'cheers'.
wherever we go in this valley, somebody knows me....
it IS a small world, after all, and the mount washington area world is even smaller at that;
the coffee shop, the art store, the quaint craft emporium, the bakery,
the indian food restaurant,
the post office, the farmer's market, these ninjas be all up on my behind,
wherever, y'know?
i never get accidentally confused with somebody else.
that's great for impressing the kids with my limited small-scale celebrity,
(or is it notoriety?)
but,
it IS a little frustrating in the sense that my woodsly barbarian self
is not always in harmonious sychronized total congruence with sociable civility...
i mean, just cuz you've 'seen me around' shouldn't mean that i therefore want to chat.
fall back, strangers,
i'm sayin'....
i tattooed your friend?
grrrreat. bye, now.
you saw me at the grocery store, and it was a really funny experience for you?
grrrrreat, now who are you?oh, okay, bye, now....
you heard i did WHAT?
nice, in front of my kids, even.....bye, now, a-hole....
i'm making moves to just be dope every day, and it takes work, ya'll.
if duders are entertained by the hottness, that's awesome,
but that's more a symptom of the hottness than a cause of it.
i wonder if these same chatty patty cats would be as bemused if they happened upon the barbarian battle fortress i live at?
big heads and bonfires, bones and battle beasts;
not to mention bullets and berserker bedlam......
ya'll know what i'm spittin'.
all you taxidermists, tatzappers, lsd chefs, photojournalists, deep-cover police, vegans, bicyclists, road-trippers, and lurid life-livers.
these gapers, gawkers, geeks, freaks, and hangers-on we encounter every day
are just the weak-sauce waterstains that come hand-in-hand with being dope.
'we are the music makers and we are the dreamers of dreams', my duders.
(just ask willy wonka)
they can't help but want to warm up next to our hot fire.
we're not actually LARGER than life,
we're just larger than theirs....


we made a windcatchin' medicine mobile.
the river has been especially generous with the weird wood it washes towards us.
i'm feelin' back on track, with art making thunder replacing rainwater thunder for at least the next three days.
i am going to the post ofice, a week beind schedule, today,
to send out all the past-due delights
that my duders doo-doo deserve.


in the interest of fatherly frenzies, and fresh-to-death funtime foolery,
the kids are gonna be here for an extra week!
fireworks, ya'll.......
you know how it goes:
never quiet, never soft....

This saying good-by on the edge of the dark,

it's already been chosen, ninja.
the hot-rod custom wrench.
with the tricked-out berserker barbarian iron finish,
and cherry candy blood beatdown marks to boot!
how could you NOT choose something so pretty, y'know?

this rain is seriously starting to be a real bummer.
wet to death, every. single. day.
entertaining small humans is waaay more challenging when it's dark and dreary all day.
lugubrious, yo.
for serious.
luckily, they keep it real as much as you and i:

yesterday, they made a board game. (with some help from jess and jim)
it's got hazards, secret shortcuts, a giant spider, and even a mud pit.
it sure looks like fun to me.
we watched 'spirited away' and ate tacos, too.
both of those things were completely excellent.
work has been summertime-sized busy, so folk life is shorter on the come-up.
and so i have to concentrate on concentrating the contents of my carrying-ons... 
i did hit up the farmer's market yesterday,in keeping with keeping it real.
acoustic nerds jammin' out, fresh baked bread, and the ever-awesome pottery lady.
sometimes you gots to squeeze in some freshness.
fresh-squeezed, son.
making minutes into mountains of marvelousness.
long on storms and short on time, ya'll.
and only one more day in june already.
(any day in june, goon.)
^buffalo '66^, recognize.

yesterday, i also squeezed in some time to do this:

a little bit on the hand, all the way to the elbow, 5/8 wraparound battle cattle beast.
demonic skull, fangs, horns, and hot fire.
throw in some purple,
and you've got some black sabbath soundtrack seriousness.
my man, dave, gets some tattoos, heavy metal style, (the magazine and the music) 
six hours at a clip....

life and i seem to have fought each other to a standstill,
still,
i have a few tricks up my sleeve to take it up to eleven,
the wind is blowin',
you know a change is comin'
i'm tacking into it headlong....
never quiet, never soft.

And the cold, to an orchard so young in the bark,

hot fire,
mandatory at all folk-life functions.
it's the part that makes the warmth of the moment tangible,
hot fire, my ninjas,
spit out fresh daily in overdosages of dopeness,
it makes:
the food cookable,
the biscuits bakeable,
the lanterns glowable,
and all that good kind of stuff.
home is sometimes where the heart is,
so i keep the hearth and my heart at a constant 4-alarm blaze.
the home-fires, my peoples, they ARE a-burnin'.


vegan strawberry shortcake.
like i said,
i'm on it, ya'll.....
fresh sugar-steeped strawberries? check.
vegan wierdy whipped 'cream'? check.
homemade biscuits? ...yeah. check.
super delicious.
SO good, in fact,
there may be a repeat performance this evening!


i think it is important to be appreciative.
and to repay the flavorful freshness of others in kind.
like 'the sayings of the high one', yo. (read that business)
Odin-type wisdom.
just be dopeness, from a thousand years ago.
still warm in the center,
like a newly-baked chocolate-chip cookie.....
i'm sayin', if your dudes got you, then you gotta get for them, too,
when somethin' good is goin' on, and there's room aboard the hottness express,
put your peoples on, yo.
you scratch my junk, i scritch your junk....
cortisone for companionship.
one of my favorite things, y'know: gratitude.

i found a guy (actually i tattooed the guy),
named guy, for real,
who runs a powder coating shop!
powder coated wrenches, bike frames, & ak-47's?
heck yes!
that should make the barbarian battle-boxes even more elite...
once the hebrank gets all settled in to his new house,
in his typical whirlwind overworkaholic fashion,
then the full-blown cataclysmic creative congregating can commence.

and i'm pretty sure a pitted silver-grey savage iron-age ak-47 is gonna be pretty flippin' epic as well....
now, if you got minutes,
go say aloha to my homegirl in ct., ms. smalley.
that's my time for now, ya'll,
never quiet, never soft....

Reminds me of all that can happen to harm,

banana muffins, son!
i made up a spankin'-new, secret, off-the-cuff recipe, 
with cocunut and wheat bran streusel on top.
yeah, you already know, ninja,
i was munching these b!tches up so HARD!
when the kids are up, i turn on the chef boy-al-bee powers,
and make moves, ya'll.

a plate of fresh baked treats and some tea...
not much starts a day better.

then, with the express intent of having big fun!,
we hit up some horseback riding after breakfast.

harvest got to rock out on the black horse, sara,
which she'd never gotten to ride before,

and maple's horse, jed, stopped to pee, which is never disappointig to a kid.
there were thick-bodied cowbirds,
real honest-to-goodness barn swallows,
and about five hundred pounds of road apples, which added a serious bouquet to the area.
happy horse-sh!t, as i've heard it said before.....

after a quick tour around the farm,
we took off to do some strawberry picking!

we got the big box, and filled that mamma-jamma to the brim.
vegan shortcake?
ninja, please.....
i'm already ON it.

pick-yer-own costs almost the same as already picked.
except for the magical memories, (and the sunburn...)
pretending to be illegal migrant field workers isn't as much fun as you might think.
especially when real migrant field workers are two rows over,
making it look easy,
while you listen to a symphony of extra-crackery tourists commenting about their sore backs,
and the heat....
flippin' gingham-flavored white people, yo.
they gets no love from us.....


after all that big fun,
we munched some lunch like hungry hungry hippos at maestro's....
they gots the goods, duders:
pasta fagioli like a mufug.
they even make it vegan factory issue,
straight outta the kitchen.

it's only 2:30, and we've already had a dayfull of dopeness.
the duders at frontside grind, my local delicious coffee spot,
have got a sense of humor.
sorta.
(check the link^^^)

it's time to bring the thunder,
literally, there's a storm starting it's stirrings overhead.
overcast optimism is still in effect.
i'm gonna try to get hit by lightning,
if i can find my metal legs....
(it's a risky operation, but it'll be worth it- watch grandma's boy again.)
take care of your people, people.
word up.
never quiet, never soft...

An orchard away at the end of the farm,

STORY LAND!!!!!
an attempt at 'regular person' fun was undertaken.
yep.
it went about how you'd expect.
hundreds of tourists in boston red sox (and celtics) outfits geekin' around,
bein' fat and stupid, and sweaty.
and rude.
yeah, i know, i DID leave the house,
so clearly i was inviting dialogue about tattoos and big dumb earholes.......
these outings make my kids seem SO much more awesome,
especially compared to the mannerless skankwads oozing around public spaces.
when did parents stop teaching kids to behave?
so gross.

we ate shave ice.
the girls loved it.
it gave us grown-ups a stomach-ache.

i found a battle-beast near the pumpkin carriages.
water finds it's own level, they say.
as long as it levels off at eleven, i say.

rides, yo.
look at the BIG fun on my face.
the combo of spinning, spiraling, and syrupy sweet shave ice led to tidal waves of nausea.
a tsunami of sickened salivating ensued.....
we stayed strong, and avoided regurgitation, however.

cuisine!
french term, right?
i thought so....
also, i'm not sure it applies to anything southwestern, 
let alone to senor munchero.
a sombrero, however, makes it impossible to be unhappy.
nice bucket of orange slime on the sign, too.....
cuisine, ya'll.
c'mon. 


we hit up the beach, and baked in the sun,
before we hit up the abusement park.
we also munched-up some very crispy belgian-flavored waffles...
we even spied on arthur spiderwick and his chronicles last night.
i am just sayin', ninjas,
i try to impress my seedlin's with thunderous berserker recreation.
action-packed adventures,
munchably excellent vegan eats, 
norwegian folktales before bed,
and concentrated quality time, all the time.
who wants a weak-sauce poppa bear, after all?


i didn't make much progress on big heads,
or on drawings of barbarian battle-beasts,
but i had a pretty flippin' rad day all the same.
so i figure i still came out ahead in the end....

i'm on a secret birthday mission in about ten minutes.
jess's b-day, ya'll.
july 3rd.
don't forget.

truth-tellers.
spittin' hot fire.
never quiet, never soft...

All winter, cut off by a hill from the house,

big bark-skinned fiery furious face!
this is my main man right now,
looking out over the fire-pit in the backyard.
having the small awesomes as helpers was the key to the unusual facial structure.
fun times, ya'll, fun-ass times.
we started another 'nother new big ol' head, too.
he's destined to become a guerilla public art installation,
late night special-ops style...
(more on that as it unfolds.)


as far as backyards (waterfront yards?) go,
you could do a LOT worse than this, ninjas.
not even cold rainwater could put out the hot fire of this family of battle-beasts.

we repped on sandy shores and mud forts for a while, too.

and even spent a little time collecting post-flood weird wood,
like this burl ball brain bomb.
c'mon, yo.
anyone????

of course, i found something dead to look at, too.
naturally, i vanilla sky'ed an especially interesting airborne insect,
permanently sittin' indian style.
crosslegged, (for the sake of manners, yo).

i made some extremely tasty maple barbecue sauce,
and we had a barbarian banquet cookout deluxe.
maple, harvest, and jess made roasted garlic hummus.
and it was off the hinges, kids, i'm sayin'.
and we had broccolini with garlic, balsamic tarragon baby bella mushrooms,
zucchini and pepper kabobs, tofu pups,
and captain eli's root beer. (online comics, ninja)
needless to say, with the berserker battle beans and broccoli,
and furious gastric garlic garbanzo gauntlet thrown down,
we ALL brought the thunder.
eleven doesn't even seem loud enough.......


and here i thought that i was the only amphibian royalty in my lovely lady's life...
but i caught her holding hands with this guy.
(here's a sincere hope she doesn't kiss him, and secure a replacement for yours truly)
nature is happening,
up here more than elsewhere.

alright, my very special little literate life-living toadlets,
i'm burnin' pious pyres and barabarian fires with my valkyrie vixens,
sendin' out loud and proud (and a little bit brian froud), 'pure being' prayers
to the secret universal plan:
transformation as evolution as revolution, ya'll.
makin' moves towards lives worth living.
better than ever, forever and ever after.

we doo-doo that freaky sh!t,
never quiet, never soft....
every day in every way,
we're writing the greatest hits anthology of our whole lives.
word.

I don't want it girdled by rabbit and mouse,

late night rain soaked spotlight spotting.
led highbeams hunting horrifying oozers, scritchers, and crawlies.
^^^just-born mosswinged moth on a bed of scorched earth charcoal chunks.
small, but SO creepy.
it moved wrong.
and thats always scary a little tiny bit.

we found this friendly garden destroyer on a pile of animal poop!
after a little minute of waiting, he popped his stalks out and said 'hey'.
unfortunately for the high-entertainment factor,
that was pretty much his only trick.
lucky for him we weren't salting the weak-sauce, to bump up the flavor.
i'm just sayin'...

daddy longlegs hitchin' a ride on a land-dwelling mollusk.
i hope you guys appreciate the mountainous mosquito bites i received to document the damp darkness of my day.
the super-bright high-output lumens attracted those parasites to my bloodtubes en masse.
it looked like cracked pepper on my arm, but really it was a bunch of vampire insects.
nasty, yo.
and itchy, too.
deep woods OFF like a mofo.
DEET represent!!!

ice-colored mold.
and a slug.
kind of a double-header of disgusting.
i'm pretty amped on how horrible the backyard can be with a lot of damp dark and a dearth of daylight.
barbarian hazards on a microcosmic scale, ya'll.

we saw 'kung-fu panda' last night.
it was totally flippin' excellent.
honest, 0% lameness, and some epic visuals to boot.
today,
the sun is out;
which means an action-packed day of dopeness is in store for the furious four of us.
big-headin'.
skull painting.
riverwood stick collecting.
bbq'ing.
the whole shootin' match.

never quiet, never soft. 

I don't want it dreamily nibbled for browse,

broccoli bread...
it's SO delicious.
i only make it for munching when the miniature marvels are here to enjoy it too.
traditions, yo.
home-made style.
outside so crusty, inside so green and gooey.
throw a little 'from-scratch' tomato sauce on the side ( for dippin'),
and you've got a barbarian banquet happening in your mouth, yo.
tasterrific tonguetastic flavor explosion...


it's always surprising how very little information young'uns know about the hottness.
my kids had never seen 'the princess bride'.
i mean, c'mon.
luckily my extensive video reference library is well equipped to deal with just those eventualities.
that movie is dope, we all liked it, and i mean it,
anybody want a peanut?...
being young means always having missed-out on somethings that were super rad,
all the things that chronologically occurred before you got oven-baked and borned-up.
to remedy this, we also checked out 'the dark crystal'.
rainy day downpours make movie matinees a must.
tying rope, beading up some sticks, and drawing blueprints for squirrel-powered contraptions.
rain will not deter the funtimes, ya'll.
if the weather clears, then kilz painted skulls on rocks along the riverbank are definitely in order.
also,
jess's berfday is on the 3rd, so plans are being set in motion now,
with the help of the sweet sprouted sprightly seedlings. 
make sure to send some independence day b-day wishes to my sweet'un,
along with, or instead of, America.....
word up.
 

silliness, sweetness, and sound-asleepiness.
full-hearted, ya'll.
that's the way i'm doo-dooin' it.
less work, more leisure.
less stressfulness, more restfulness.
less talk, more rock.
albie rock.
i'm sayin'.

weak-sauce weekdays are banished from my barbarian borders.
we're standing on liberated independent sovereign territory,
and martial law has been declared on, at, and around my
new hampshire homestead.
if you don't have chieftain status, yo,
don't come over.
save your doo-doo buttery b!tchbaggery for all the soda-babies, and cookie-cuttin' seahorses,
the people who never ever choose the wrench.
i've got no time for fake ninjas, like my man chris wallace said.
so,
defend the five foot bubble around your personal just-be-dope battlegrounds,
your kingdom.
it's borders marked by a ring of hot fire, freshly spit,
clearly visible to all the other wrench choosers out there.
we are the chieftains, ninjas.
never quiet, never soft.

By deer, and i don't want it budded by grouse,

you can't have a lantern party without lanterns, ninja.
glowing globes of greatness.
ka-pow.


it's a-soooo a-spoooooooky.


little irish druid loveliness.
light bringer, indeed.


these kids are pretty rad, ya'll.
portrait posing pretty peonies of perfect poise and participation.
they're down to hang out, ya'll.
i mean it, i think they're cool.
beaver skeletons, wizard sticks, skulls, and lantern parties.
they are ready to get busy.
like my man at the end of 'boondock saints'.....i'm sayin', yo.




lantern party.
that's how we doo-doo that voodoo-type sh!t.

light action on the typing,
we're busy getting it going on.
never quiet, never soft.

(If certain it wouldn't be idle to call,

ANTLERS!!!!
mr. black licorice came through in a BIG way.
so ultimate shout-outs to my main man dan.
barbarian bones and a silver cuckoo clock!!
magical package delivery was held in the white mountains.
impressive.
thanks, yo.
b.l. is being represented on the volvo. (so are dead birders and tyrants)
classy.


light-bringing:

solstice illumination.
this is what folk life looks like.


a stump.
and also a perfect plug of mossy freshness.
this cylindrical slice of nature,
this tubular token of woodsly goodness,
was waiting wetly for me to discover it.
it looks like there are mushrooms forming on the wooden part.
so i'm letting it hibernate until that little bit of the hottness sprouts on out.
infinite nature.
inside and outside.

life is happening, my ninjas.
like dr. frank furter says:
don't dream it, BE it......
fishnets and feather boas, baby,
or whatever else flotsams your jetsams.

and on the subject of life happening,
my daughters are gonna be here by tonight.
i am happy.

gratitude, by way of attitude, is the special for today,
and today is still special.
every today is.
this one goes out to all my ninjas and ninja-ettes.
life is happening.
don't dream it, BE it.
keep it secret, keep it safe, and keep it real.
never quiet, never soft....