hallowe'en

damn. damn. DAMN.
early shirley a.m. fury.
at around 6a.m. i got crackin'.
a case of nervous energy,
and a preposterous to-do list,
meant that sleepytimes are off of the menu until further notice.

stoked to stoke on this hot fire,
i got busy with my big business.
that included the notorious, glorious rock bloxxx.
a.k.a. the dopest cookies on the planet.
if you can't get down with those tasty blops of choco-chippity coconuttiness,
you are clearly off the list.
yeah.

the cucch and i prepped, and peeled, and ran the oven all g-darn day.

i mean it.

the dynamic double-dose of barbarian bromance we conjured up,

means crucial catering is completed.

the wedding party eats and treats are gonna rock all the socks off the guests.
happily,

it's warm enough that full bellies and bare-footery will go hand-in-hand
with the sappy love saga headed down the aisle.

and when i say aisle,

i mean,

my living room.

good lookin' yeah?

these dudes right here got SO busy.

meanwhile,

back at the party...

we had hummus,

we had red pepper-white-bean-artichoke dip,

we had bruschetta,

we had a tangy pickled veggie tapanade,

we had stuffed mushrooms,

we had all kinds of goodness, baked, fried, and candied.

i'm sayin', ninjas;

we had swedish wheatballs.

uh-huh, in some mama cucch's secret homemade recipe jauns.

if you stayed home,

you missed the F* out.

four or five of my nearest and dearest,

and twenty some-odd other other peoples all came by.

good times may have been had.

i was otherwise occupied with hot kitchen hot fire.

still,

there were more treats than tricks,

and the evening was a riotous success.

six-person sleepover?

suuuuuure.

daylight savings reversal extra hangout hour?

don't mind if i do.

last minute rough-draft refining of my viking vowage?

F*n'-A right, ninjas.

i doo-doo all of that freaky sh!t.

mere minutes from matrimony.

we gots it like that;

never quiet, never soft......

six hundred.

six hundred posts.
about axes and warriors and secret universal plans.
six hundred!
you'd think i'd get tired of documenting this Folk Life hottness.
but,
it keeps happening,
so i keep writing.
y'know what else i did today?
picked up my best man,
the cucch,
in portland, maine.
nice.
after that early morning jaunt,
we shopped for treats and eats and wedding feast bits and pieces.
and lots of fake meat.
i mean it.
a lot of fake meat.
i just can't pass up a mouthful of vegetarian sausage.
(that is SO what she said)
and,
i found out that i may have some juice in my small woodsly world.
two cases of organic fancy-pant sodas were donated to the party-times
by flatbread, the hippie pizza place up here,
and jonathan, the pint-of-stout shouting owner of the cigar emporium,
hit me off a super-sized congratulatory stink stump, too.
he also responded to the news with a crisp:
'not for nothin', but jesus christ it's about F*n' time'.
too right.
it is exactly about that time.
and there's never ever even been a better time.
hell, it's party time.
jenny's up from pa.
jess is painting and decorating and hanging out.
the bride gets to do what she wants, after all.
the groom is just there to make the occcasion official.
otherwise, she's just a hot chick in a dress, yeah?
luckily,
i've got my number one ace in the hole here to help a ninja out;
the cucch and i are on this mutha-ucka.
that's what i like, ya'll.
those viking virtues, full-circle and full-force.
gratitude and generosity.
everybody has something to contribute.

we've got a menu plan for this 48 hour festival of flavor.
there's a sh!t-ton of duders headed north for all of this,
and if nothing else,
they will be stuffed to the tits with vegan delicousness.
weird people and vegetables, ya'll,
this is the life i've let you kids in on six hundred times;
never quiet, never soft.....

the last day.

today is the last day.
the last day of takin' it any kind of easy.
the last day with just the one houseguest.
although, i think you stop being a 'guest' at around the seven-week mark.
then, you're just not paying rent.
yeah.
the last day before i see the council of worthy warriors arrive,
to bring the battle-bardic thunder,
and bear witness to the unfolding plan.
if it takes getting married to bring all my duders up here,
then i'm gladder than ever that i'm tyin' knots.....
i could use a conference with the crew.
and this crew is a hand-selected elite special force to be reckoned with.
a lot has changed since i made the move to the woodsly goodness.
in fact,
almost all the duders i used to talk about my goodsly Folk Life ideals with
aren't even much more than a fading smoke-ring memory these days.
time heals all wounds. except the fatal ones.....
y'know,
excluding my ma,
and technically, although she probably looked like a small pink raisin,
my oldest daughter, harvest,
NObody from that old life is gonna be around.
that is some gypsy shuffle magic tragedy-type sh!t.
i mean,
it's a whole new beginning,
a whole new other 'nother adventure;
but all of those folks who were there the first time i thought it was
a good idea to volunteer half my stuff up for eventual auction,
have ended up, to a man, far-off and distant.
especially distant.
as in, i haven't seen many of 'em in more than eight years.
it's not exactly a bad thing either-
i'm sayin', nobody needs that much hamden in a room.
if you've been there, or know more than two people from there,
then you understand
like my father said:
"what's gonna go on up there? a bunch of weird people in the cold,
eatin' vegetables? c'mon...."
eloquence incarnate.
of course,
he's spot-on accurate, too.
the last day before the new new hottness.
the last day before the big weekend explosion.
the last day before the weird people and the vegetables show up.
never quiet, never soft...

i doo-doo?

what the F* is going on here?

i'm trying to write some kind of wedding vows.

and it just isn't working out.

it's not a loss for words, a lack of trying, or writer's block, either...

i mean,

i've got a laudable laundry list of wills and won'ts,

a loutish lambasting of shoulds and shouldn'ts,

and even a luscious lamenting of long-lost coulds and couldn'ts.

but what i don't have,

is a perfectly phrased paragraph of warrior poetry.

mother*ucker.

i mean,

how can i say 'i do',

when all i've got to offer is 'i doo-doo'?

weak sauce has wormed it's way into my writings.

that won't do.

nope.

not one little teeny-tiny bit.

so it looks like a long-lastin' late night is on the menu.

tonight's special?

a sumptuous slab of simile,

a heaping helping of homile,

and a fattening flank of facsimile;

that is,

a reasonable reproduction of the raging stormswept savage gypsy heartbeart

i've got for nearly-wedded loveliness.

only,

it maybe shouldn't be an alliterative allegory of amorousness,

or a berserker barbarian battle-ballad.

or should it?

i mean,

i've got some vows, y'hear me?

some solemn, some sanctimonious, some scandalous, and some sweet.

what i'm missing is a solid opener.

i mean,

who wants to hear me read off a list of stuff i may or may not follow through on?

not me.

plus,

i keep almost ending it with 'never quiet, never soft'.....

and that's not exactly a tear-jerking romantic sentiment.

just goes to show what it's lookin' like on paper.

more of this.

so,

it's back to work.

and down to business.

love, honor, cherish, obey.

wait.

obey?

who invited the giant, and his posse?

c'mon.

i've got a few ideas.

and i've got a pen full of ink.

let's hope i can marry thoughts to words to actions,

so i can marry all the rest after that;

never quiet, never soft...

(see? not romantic at all)

mauled.

my woodcraft is improving.
my berserker axe-warrior chopping skills are, too.
and my viking vengeance/yardwork tool collection is growing.
hewing.
that's what's poppin'.
i got this hornet-hued hammerhead wedge-axe,
and it 'splodes average-sized chunks of log into much smaller ones.
but sometimes, not always, but sometimes,
you just need more.
that's why i'm also rockin' out so hard with THIS mutha-ucka:

i mean,

a sledgehammer axe?

holy sh!t that makes the barbarian boners pop right off!!!!

and it's red & black, too.

i nicknamed it...

i mean, it's obvious yeah?

darth maul.

c'mon.

and this one's torso is guaranteed indestructible.

so there's that, too.

sorry, obi-wan.

an eight pound hunk of forged steel mayhem.

that's the recipe for stormswept stress relief.

axe + chop + hammer + bash = doooooooooooooooope.

it's like an all-in-one awesomizer.

there's something so super soothing,

knowing i can come home and destroy pretty much every single thing in sight.

with a norse dwarven hellhammer at that.

uh-huh.

norse dwarven hellhammer.

someone's been hittin' the nerd books a little too hard.

i'll let ya'll in a little secret too:

i found an even more awesome woodsplittin' smashmaster yesterday.

and,

it was in my dream last night.

i swear.

i think my 4 a.m. woodstove schedule is playing with my mind.

or else it was an omen, an' that.

don't worry.

i'll probably pick it up tonight.

it's a solid steel cheese-wedge,

and it's even flippin' heavier than ol' darth up there.

twelve pounds of powerful punishment.

that means it goes to eleven,

and then keeps on going after that.

wu-TANG! that's some serious sh!t.

i want it.

hell, i need it.

if you keep an ear to the north around dusk,

you'll probably hear some thunder.

i'll be bringing it, for sure.

hewing.

never quiet, never soft.....

black shoes.

are those the two biggest pieces of black licorice in history?
nah, my ninjas.
y'know what they say about big feet, yeah?
nice shoes look dumb on them.
i'd already disproved the o.g. rumors about a big stick,
but with the clickety-clackety heels on 'em,
so much for walking softly, too.
with only a few days left,
i've finally got my wedding garb sorted out.
was it a problem?
i didn't think so,
but the lady who sold me those sexy sole-crushers did.
she hit me with a little:
'ooooh, dress shoes. are you going to a hallowe'en party?'
so i let her in on the big news.
and then she yelled at me for procrastinating.
is it possible i shop for shoes a little too often,
if the clerk feels entitled to observe and report on my doings?
i hadn't realized we were that close.
i mean,
i thought unsolicited opinions and scathing critiques
were purely the province of warrior poets.
i'd probably take advice from an actual cobbler.
or maybe even a blueberry cobbler,
but not from a female al bundy.
however,
we really aren't ready.
at all.
i mean,
we're ready to be ready already,
but,
we're pretty busy with this old busted house of ours;
getting it cleaned up and primped for the parties is one thing,
but needing actual repairs is an entirely other other animal,
and that puts a crimp in everything all the time.
we've got masons and electricians and home improvers
all headed over to try and do a little emergency field surgery.
yeah.
i made some monday-morning moves, too.
i went and scoopled up all my guns!!!!
this house just became an entirely defensible position.
what's more romantic than swapping rings whilst strapped with a thunderstick?
...nothin'.
my gun-safe storage situation has been great.
in fact,
all my big-bore battle blasters were out and waiting for me to come and claim 'em.
lined up in a row, in someone else's house,
i got a decent glimpse into just how intense it must be to come over to my house.
i'm locked, and loaded, and prepared
for zombies, world wars, riots, revolutions, doomsdays, and famine.
well,
maybe not famine, actually.
we didn't get a cake for this sunday.
seriously.
i actually didn't even remember that until i just typed it.
nice.
so,
if you're keeping score,
that's a positive for guns,
a negative for cakelessness,
a double negative for broken home homeopathy,
seems to me i'm in the hole.
(that's what she said?)
but let me tell you ninjas a little something:
i will be lookin' good this weekend.

tonight,

we're going to write up some voracious viking vows.

that should be a treat.

i'm sure that if we're honest with each other,

they'll go something along the lines of:

'i promise to stick around until i find someone who can cook vegan treats but doesn't always talk

about barbarians.'

or

'i promise you i won't poison or shoot or otherwise harm the dog.'

communication is important in a healthy relationship,

but so are realistic expectations.

ahhhh, romance.

since there's no plan other than ending up wih a signed marriage license,

i'm sure it'll all be big fun.

in the meantime,

we've got brickwork to lay.

because without the bricks,

it's just a sh!t-house;

never quiet, never soft.....

early morning rebroadcast.

when i'm busy on a saturday night-
which is a kind term for cooking, reading, and stoking the fire
-i sometimes forget about tuning in to prairie home companion.
lucky for me,
there's the rebound each and every easy sunday morning.
faces made for radio are the kind of faces i want to listen to.
i'm sayin',
ugly dope folks are my jam, ninjas.
and since we're scrambling through a last-ditch dash
to get everything ready for next weekend,
it's sure to be my only outlet for semi-social scandal
before the big times of the looming semi-anti-social gathering.
as such,
it's powder-milk and ketchup advisories to brighten the morning,
and
i'm talking about batchelor farmers,
in lieu of a batchelor's party...
yeah.
i don't usually listen to any music at work.
it just means i have to talk that much louder in order
to be the biggest flappity-flappin' yakkity-yak back-talker in the room.
then again,
there's rarely anyone else vying for the title.
being the loudest doesn't always mean you have anything to say,
but sheer volume sometimes makes it a close call.
i'm just getting a good idea of how a whole house of loud and proud
active participants are going to get along.
there will be music, too, after all....
i shudder to think about how this coming weekend's worthy warrior antics
are going to be received by our quiet, unassuming neighbors.
berserker barbarian battle-beasts, the lot of us,
spitting hot fire,
and toasting and boasting and roasting for 48 furious hours.
and that's the news from the woodsly goodness,
where all the men are ugly,
the women are dope,
and all the children are uninvited;
never quiet, never soft.....

one week away.

Hallowe'en is only a week away...
which means so is our big housewarming party.
are people supposed to bring sh!t?
and if nobody does, is it just a house-party?
hell if i know.
i've never warmed someone else's house,
only darkened a few doorsteps, y'know?
and i've never had my very own house before either.
add in the wedding-times the following day,
and i'm at a loss.
y'know the last time i got married, (SO classy)
it wasn't anything like this promises to be.
low key, laid back and lovely is the name of this game up here.
it's kind of an all hallow's eve turns into all saint's day turns into all soul's day,
lucha libre all-or-nothing samhain 'splosion....
the days and the nights will lead where they will,
and by monday,
we'll have had a house full of fresh-to-death-do-us-party-hard-style pounding.
we're kind of the destination this holiday-time, huh?
i feel all wise-man north star bethlehem an' that.
i doubt anyone will be bequeathing gold, frankincense or myrrh;
it's not like we registered for treats,
or even sent invitations..
ah well,
i'll settle for getting the word to the good friends i've got,
who are trekking across the cold and bleak expanses of air- and highways,
just to watch a couple of hermity, reclusive, Folk Life gurus do their thing.
i'm a lucky fella.
one more week,
and the good times will roll;
never quiet, never soft.....

at the fire.

that's where we were.
i got myself a splitting axe.
it's like a lot like a regular axe,
but with a wider, heavier, more brutal mini-wedge forged off of either side of it.
it looks pretty vicious,
and it doled out some devastating damage to some too-big logs.
now they're just the right size.
i used up the kindling kicking up some combustion to light up the night.
i used to make arts and crafts an' that,
now i make firecraft an artform.
literal hotness,
figurative hottness.
just the cure for what ails you.
that's just one more good thing about improving the old bustedness;
scrap wood is never wasted in the woodsly goodness.
bits of bamboo floor, subfloor, trim, the old deck, all of it.
purged in the pyre as a sacrificial sacrement of epic northern barbarism.
we stayed out until the rain chased us away.
check out this preposterous R2-D2 rubbish-bin postbox bobotronic stove!!
i don't even know what to do with it,
or where to put it.
seriously.
i've got four woodstoves, now.
yeah, i know.
my secret hoarder mentality is hard at work here.
you'd think i grew up in the great depression.
anyway,
now i have this weirdie-box.
and it burns coal, too.
anthracite, b!tches.
i'm sure santa will bring me a whole batch of it this year,
so it's sure to be a warm new year's eve at least.
c'mon.
talk about a real honest-to-goodness proper english furnace.
if only i could wake up with a permanent cockney accent.
that'd be rad.

i think my hand looks smarter and more sophisticated with a pipe.

what?

yeah,

it's the season for reppin' rockwell and tolkein and detective holmes.

nothing goes better with woodsmoke than pipesmoke.

FACT.

the weather is wet and cold,

but we're warm and dry.

we've got wood, and tea, and toast, and work to do.

i've even got a fully-filled docket of doo-doo butter to dispense at the 'zappery,

and after that it'll be time to try and locate some wild things, perhaps.

this Folk Life ghost of a larger life, ya'll,

is absolutely the right size for this day.

spanning time,

one minute, one hour, one day.

every day;

never quiet, never soft.....

fanfare.

north country fair jewelers.
that place is as hippied-up as a sonovagun.
we hit it up for the golden goodness.
emily, our jewelery designing buddy.
flowed us a fresh-to-death favor,
the awesome hooked-up result of which will be
to have a pair of luxuriously luscious pact-packed circles
for our knobbly-knuckled wicked little fingers by hallowe'en.
the promise of hottness to come is hard to wait for.
that's a big deal.
it all seems so super-official an' that.
happily,
our peaceful justice dispensing official,
sue kjellberg,
is ready and willing to wing it with us.
we met up with her, too.
it would seem that the hippies of the valley are aligning to envibelate our area.
i couldn't be more pleased.
envibelate, i said, to emphasize the vibe-heavy hippie aura up here.
what's on the docket?
how about writing our own vows?
-sure thing.
ok, and having a prepared welcome speech or series of fortunate events?
-heck no, yo.
it looks like we're gunning for an ad-lib, off-the-cuff,
mostly-unscripted matrimonial commencement.
word.
this is really happening.
it ALL is.
i've got to be up-front and honest with ya'll:
i'm pretty flippin' excited.
twenty or so of our far-flung friends and a few family members,
keeping it real in the woodsly goodness,
covening on the spot, in the mix, and at the scene-
ushering in a whole other 'nother new era...
of dopeness.
i am grateful for the time i am being provided.
i aim to make the next eleven days the easiest, breeziest bretrothal-basted boontides ever.
and then we'll kick it up a whole new other 'nother notch, my ninjas.
the making of an honest woman is the least of my concerns.
true stories, told truly, is just what we do.
and believe me,
we doo-doo that freaky sh!t;
never quiet, never soft.....

southern comfort.

oh yes, indeed.
this here is exactly what a cold wet day is begging to be remedied with:
comforting food.

southern comfort, sans inebriates, to be more precise in description.
i'm uncomfortably full as a result.
that's chicken-fried tempeh,
homemade deep-south doo-doo bicuits,
garlic-sauteed kale,
and two very special, super-turbo important comfort eagle items...
y'know what makes comfort food so bangin'?
'tatoes.
works every time.

there' some kind of earth-spirit dirt bloppity dopeness locked in each and every starchy spud.

those jawns have got vidalia onions mixed in,

and oven-roasted crispy outsides, mutha-lickers.

recognize.

finally,

just to give that little boot-scootin' barbarian bump up to eleven;
add in the copious corpulent clouts of lumpity-jumpin' gravy,

and if by now you're not under the auspices of fat-belly feel-goodery

you're probably an A-hole.

no offense intended ...but seriously, though;

i'm just sayin'.

that's all the full-fledged fixin's for pre-hibernation warmth and wonderment.

and it was g-darn tasty as a mo-fo. too.

second helpings became thirdsies,

and thirdsies led to an all-out food coma.

sorry, gale-force skywater gypsy stormclouds,

but even the savagery of the stormswept winds of war and change

were not going to get me off of the couch tonight.

i mean,

with the roasty-toasty woodstove roaring,

and another 'nother seven hundred or so pages

of ultra-nerd swords-and-wizards saga to scan,

i had everything i needed right in front of me.

so good.

the winds are a-blowin'.

big, BIG, BIG changes are headed down the pike.

i guess maybe i was wise to spend the evening carbo-loading

for more raw power and perspicacity.

that's the key, maybe.

fuel.

for the fire, yeah?

in SO many ways.

that's where i'm at anyway.

you know, at the fire.

so i'll keep throwing my weight around,

waiting for the inevitable big action that's coming,

eating my weight in comfort,

and letting those invariable winds whip the flames into a frenzy.

the whole circle keeps expanding.

with little circles spinning out and overlapping each other.

ghost rings, smoke rings, and wedding rings;

never quiet, never soft.....

happy happy birthday.

'tis the harvest season.
that's word.
beautiful, bountiful bushels of good stuff.
today it's also specifically harvest day.
yeah,
miss harvest skye ruth,
my little itty-bitty daughter,
turns nine years old today.
nine!
that's not so little itty-bitty is it?
i mean,
that's almost double-digits;
that is,
it's the very last year the kid'll have a single number denoting her age,
which makes me even that much older still.
that's some knee-creaking cobweb-type sh!t.
her uber-crackery birthday surprise 'american girl' doll arrived just in time,
or so i'm told.
for the record, them jawns are NOT cheap.
but, i had to doo-doo that berfday sh!t-
that's correct, my ninjas;
daddy warbucks delivered on the much-desired dopeness.
how could i not, after all?
i'm just sayin';
a doll?
hell yeah.
not some miley montana/bratz-type future skank accoutrements.
a flippin' 'american girl' doll.
my kid getting a semi-wholesome present she actually wants?
you already know i'm 'bout that big action.
aaaaaaaand,
as a cosmic reward for my doting dad-ness,
we also got our uber-crackery new stove today, too.
permit your peepers to pop the hardest eye-boners ever:
so sexy.
shiny, new, stainless, and black,
with a barbarian oval midle 5th burner for skillets and gridles and such.
i can only speculate on the heroic pannie-cakery that will commence forthwith.
i made a list of all the things the kitchen still needs.
now that here's a new appliance setting the bar a bit higher an' that.
then,
i seperated it into 'need' and 'want' columns.
then,
i re-seperated the dire needs from the must-haves,
and the might-be-nices from the eventual turbo hottnesses.
the lists are still magnificently long.
like cartoon squire's scrolls, even.
the kitchen, to a hard-cooking hard-style vegan battle-beast,
is the single most important room in the whole house.
and just so we're all on the same page:

that's totally where the spider-hole used to be.

c'mon.

the natural light,

the new island,

the cast-iron heat register,

that BAM-boo floor......

this kitchen, duders.

this kitchen is the business.

all i know is that i'm cooking up something incredibly edible tonight.

my stove-top-creativy-count is dangerously low.

i aim to remedy that with an epic gastronomic saga;

never quiet, never soft.....

where did october go?

for real.
only eleven days left?
c'mon.
we hung out with our good buddy and personal hairstylist,
ms. elsah davis
as we prepared for further expansion of the housewarming madness.
we scoopled up some 'specially-for-us pumpkins from her ma's house,
(which incidentally is a boner-poppingly dope homestead)
visited the attic cat, her ma's quilting store/studio
and took a brief detour off the roadside,
to get a bushel of badass berries....sorta.
bittersweet treats!
like i always say:
without the bitter the sweet's just not as sweet.
too F*n' right, my ninjas.

using only a few small multi-tool blades i keep handy in the car,

we sawed, slashed, pulled, poked, prodded, and pruned a pile of it.

there's something savage and raging about

winding, twining vines that choke the ever-loving living sh!t

out of everything they come in contact with.

they've got proto-thorny protuberances.

all the better to get a good grip around your fingers,

and fight back against the bonzai bladework we brought to bear.

bitter like a mo-fo, yo.

still,

three full-grown warrior poets are more than a match for a batch of bushes,

and the way jess has decorated with them is totally sweet, however.

we also hooked up some old oak wreaths,

a tasty candle or two,

and a spray and a half of autumny decor for the big events at month's end.

we even got a pumpkin-stem green runner-type rug for the kitchen.

this is what happens when you get old, ya'll.

all of a sudden, house fashion turns you on more than nudie-books, even.

weirdness.

all in all, it was a flippin' great day off.

it makes it hard to imagine times gone by.

i mean,

nine years ago,

right at this very moment,

i was anxiously awaiting my first child.

listening to neil young and crazy horse coax the kid on down and out of the chute.

...........

if only ninjasonik had been around to give a head's up.

click all up on this, my ninjas.

your brain is about to wonder why it even exists,

and then attempt suicide.

you've been warned.

check those birds & bees as never before witnessed in health class;

never quiet, never soft.....

treats, redux.

jim brought over a bag of beaver bits.
no,
really.
an actual plastic sandwich bag filled with dam-damaging detritus.
see:
it's a true friend who knows his peoples well.
and a truer one still who comes through with the bodyparts.
yeah.
then,
the berrys, jesse and kristin,
our once-a-year visitors to the woodsly goodness,
brought us this:
is it a tube of terrific,
capped top and bottom,
all birch log barbarian box-type sh!t?
yep.
and it was chock to the tippity-top with treats.
jess scoopled this little piece of proper hottness at the sandwich fair last monday:

copper-leading, maple leaves, and stained glass.

so dope.

i seriously spent a week searching for the just-right hanging equipment.

you heard that correctly, ya'll.

i mean,

was i supposed to use brass bits?

weak-sauce wire?

fishing line?

c'mon.

i had to find a special set of copper coils, clips, and cast-iron crooks,

so that my good mornin' times start off right every day.

i know.

i'm a nit-pickety persnickety precision picker-outer.

i just need to doo-doo the things i do,

and do it to it just-so.

that's the way i do it.

there's been an influx of fortune's favor free-flowing towards the north.

the new stove comes on wednesday mornin'.

it was on super-sale.

and it is destined to be forever vegan.

a whole wholly-applied appliance lifetime of cheeseless, eggless hottness.

that's word.

we also got a secret insider trader tip,

and seized the moment readily;

we took a tour of a time-share place earlier today.

they gave us four round-trip tickets to wherever-ish,

and a sh!t-ton of extra treats, too.

oh,

and $40 buxxx cash.

heck yeah.

there must be some kind of kickass

secret universal rewards program.

and it includes treats.

i am grateful to all of my ninjas out there.

i mean it;

thanks a whole bunch for keeping me in mind when you're out minding your own.

i appreciate the hell out of it.

never quiet, never soft.....

house party.

like kid n' play.
that's the idea, anyway.
a costume/pajama jammie-jam.
a warm house made warmer with worthy real-life peoples.
a creepy old dirt road in a creepy-ass section of old old new hampshire.
you need that.
how better to hold it down on Hallowe'en?
handing out candy to kids without costumes?
that's way too urban and way not urbane enough for my tastes.
i'm sayin',
it's high time to show off some of the newer new hottnesses of our old bustedness.
and you may be invited.
if you're wondering if you're allowed an all-access entry into the
Folk Life & Liberty Fortress,
i'd get at me first and make sure it's copacetic.
that's a well-enough proper be-heeded warning, ya'll;
i pop back at pop-overs.
but,
if you're 'bout it,
and you love Hallowe'en,
and you know how to enjoy your damn self without a half-gallon of hooch,
get your active-participation pants on,
and make the journey to the woodsly goodness.
it's sure to be a gathering of the just-be-dope set, for sure.
you'll even get the walking tour,
a la' the second, incomplete, yet fully-operational Death St*r....
check out our sweet new BAM!boo floor.
feast your face on freshness from our as-yet undelivered hot and tasty stainless stove.
laid out the barbarian banquet buffet of our new butcher-block island.
wallow in the ambervison glow of the roasty toastiness emiting
from the vast cast iron battlerager in the living room.
pumpkins?
yep.
fuego mas caliente?
si.
not one room is complete to our specifications,
but it's too cold and too dope up here to hold off for another 'nother minute.
house warming Hallowe'en party;
preliminary meetin' and greetin',
tricky treating, break-beat-boxing, and vegan eating.
as in cannibalism?
naw, man,
i'm talking about vegetarian chef and world-traveling pizza man
mr. paul cucchiarelli making up on some epic snacks.
c'mon,
ya'll didn't think there wouldn't be snacks, did you?
of course there will be snacks.
a prenuptial sleepover party is planned.
there are mutha-uckas headed in from all points south and west,
which is pretty much everywhere else, yeah?
i hope you've got a hot minute to hop on by,
sip on some cider,
and see the sights.
oh,
and warm yourself up at one of the many thunder-bringing blazes
situated strategically throughout the grounds.
it's happening;
never quiet, never soft.....

F* the chapel,

we're going to the fortress!
there will probably be peace and justice present.
or some semblance of a combination of the two.
it's time.
actually,
it's well past time.
it's been seven years since we migrated against the jet stream.
we passed by the geese headed toward greener pastures,
and the flying V's looked like a bunch of greater less-thans, y'know?
as in:
ct. <<< the woods.
(so true.)
seven years of lucky ugly duckling action.
that's some reverse-broken mirror business.
seven years,
in a row,
of denying warmer weather in favor of supreme hottness.
seven years since bouncin' out of weak water-baby-b!tch-sap,
and tellin' the ones who needed to know:
we are headed north.
seven solid years of livin' in the woodsly goodness.
during my very first XI-mas up here
as a resident of the great white mountainous woodlands,
all those years and years ago,
i put forth a question to that little ladyfriend of mine.
and i got an answer, too.
now,
after all those hard days and long nights,
trips, traps, slaps, trials, and triumphs,
we've got a license as well.
the date is set, ya'll.
all hallow's day.
november first.
rabbit, rabbit and the some.
seven years.
leading up to this.
hallowed ground, hallowed vows, hallowe'en times.
never quiet, never soft.....

knee-slapper

uh-huh.
i did that.
to myself.
in fact,
i felt obligated to mark the moment with my own two hands an' that.
y'know,
kinda taking it back.
i could've gotten someone else to do it to it,
but that's not really my style, now, is it?
yeah.
instead i half-stripped down to my undies,
wrapped up my upper body in scarves like a gypsy woman,
and straddled the pair of chairs i'd set up.
wait.
gypsy woman scarf costume?
yeah. i get cold sometimes.
be easy.
it made the top of my head look like fabric for a little minute instead of scalp.
you'll see...

is the side of your own knee easy to tattoo?

sure,

when compared to tattooing the back of your own head.
c'mon.
disproportionately distended digits notwithstanding,
i don't generally find myself hanging around in my skivvies

whilst doing ballerina splits.

at the studio or anywhere else.

my legs are very sensitive little kindling sticks.
and that little hinge-bone on the pivot-point is pretty much
a lava-release lightning-strike button.
i kept pressing it.
i'm sayin', i had to.

after all,

i'm never ever that nice to my clients, even when i am one.
turns out,
even after ten ridiculous years of this sh!t,
i still hate getting tattooed.
just ask jess:

she gave me a super-romantic itty-bitty october filler tatty-o.

a present, and a tandem tatblastin' to christen the occasion.

that little luscious candy corn up there is all her.

i moved the whole time.

no, for real though, the entire time.

what an A-hole.

me, i mean, not her.

she was and is super-sweet and awesome and fun to work with.

those two funtime inkslaps were the only work that got done all day.

yeah.

happy anniversary, indeed.

it gets better;

the super-sexy bamboo floors are halfway in.

that involves moving appliances around.

all out-of-the-way an' that.

here's the thickened plotline:

somehow,

while we were out,

the gas stove decided to eat it.

hard.

...curious.

that skuny propane fart stink filled the house,

and uncle steven casually mentioned the fireball he set off

when he tried to heat up some lunch.

...curiouser.

too bad sherlock holmes is long dead,

and probably a creation of pure fiction;

i bet HE could crack the case.

so,

how much is a new stove?

happy happy anniversary, indeed.

one decade down the pipes,

one stove down the tubes;

never quiet, never soft.....

X.

this is it.
a low-point/high water mark.
i can probably stop now.
i made it this far,
stuck it out in the faraway north,
and i've finally hit double digits.
ten years.
ten ferocious, atrocious, freaky-diki years.
ten caustic, cacophonous, combustible years.
ten looong, hard, loud years.
a decade.
...of tattooing.
holy F*n' sh!t, my ninjas.
ten. long. years. in. a. row.
3,653 days, including leap years.
that's a lot.
i guess time grinds it's path toward the big finish line
whether you're paying attention or not.
this one kind of snuck up on me all stealth-panther-cat an' that.
ten years?!
TEN years?
that's on that 'grosse point blank'-type hard-style action.
i've got to grudgingly give it up;
tatty zappin' has been kind to me.
despite my very best A-level efforts at proper gift-horsing around,
despite living in the unsophisticated rustic redneck reality
of the woodsly goodness,
despite all of the mumbles, rumbles, and grumbles,
the secret universal plan keeps my tatblastin' action up and at 'em.
i'll admit i'm a little sore about it.
literally and figuratively, even.
my hands, neck, back, and wrists are slowly crumbling back to their basic elements.
that's erosion, ya'll.
i guess i'm grateful that all my original parts are still somewhat intact,
after all, even the mightiest monuments wear away.
so here i am, again.
another turn of the wrench,
another 'nother tighter timespan ghost circle smoke ring.
i'd love to shout it out loud from the rooftops,
y'know,
'this big action barbarian business goes to eleven!!!,
but of course,
literally and figuratively,
it only goes to ten.
awwwwww, man;
never quiet, never soft.....

spider hole.

you guys remember about my pathological spider aversion, yeah?
well, we'll revisit that in a minute.
meanwhile,
take a look at good ol' uncle steven over here:
what's he doing, you ask?
he's chopping a hole in the floor,
so he can start moving the heating vents,
so he can move the improved island closer,
so he can put down the new spice-colored bamboo floor.
i know.
it's all very confusing (to me) and incredibly manly, i'm sure.
of course,
that full foot-wide hole looks awfully cold and dark and creepy
(that's what she said)
and it is in no way deceiving in it's looks.
did it go smoothly?
c'mon.
the vent ducts broke, and disconnected deep within the delve.
and since uncle steven is 15' 11" tall,
take a wild guess as to who got to shimmy-shimmy-ya under the floor?
heck yes, ya'll.
and for all the frozen-piped minnesotans who want to whinge
about under-house hazards,
i double-dog dare a duder to doo-doo this particular dastardly deed.
remember about the spiders from up top?
yeah, we're getting to that.
but first,
here's a glimpse inside the tiny portal into the underbowels of old bustedness:

and that's the squeaky-clean part;

does it look like it's only 18" high?

i know.

it totally IS only 18" high.

belly-crawling through rusted-out disused derelict ducts,

mysteriously dangling disconnected wiring,

long-lost blocks, rocks, and various and assorted filths,

i exerted some epic manliness in my own right.

i think my voice is lower and my beard fuller now, an' that.

good thing i don't get claustrophobic, huh?

whilst crawling about, i had a premonition,

y'know, a tingling feeling all up and down my skin.

against my normally sound judgement

(oh, stop it. at least for the sake of the story, c'mon)

i shot the maglite up between the floorbeams.

and that's when the sh!t got real:

cobwebs.

spiderwebs.

old dead spiders.

little small alive spiders.

great big spindly maybe-alive F*ers.

egg sacks empty.

egg sacks full.

eggs sacks surrounded by little alive spiders.

when you're an avowed anti-arachnid advocate,

all of that is the worst thing ever.

...if you're wondering if i'd been wiping my hair in spider parts,

yes.

yes i sure was.

everytime i banged my head on the low, low overhead,

i was smooshing spider-bits on myself.

i was proper saddam-style in my very own spider-hole.

but,

i still riveted and racheted and taped the ducts,

and got busy with my big business,

and didn't even get that sweaty.

who's a big boy?

mmm-hmmm.

who had skin-crawling terrormares all night?

mmm-hmmm.

i can hold it together whilst awake,

all barbarian bluster and the like,

but my subconcious has it's own agenda.

i don't know that i've ever knowingly gnoshed on an eight-legger,

so my reference here may be skewed toward speculation,

but i swear my mouth tastes like spiders.

like maybe i wasn't just breathing in stirred-up dust from byond the grave,

but i was somehow huffing spiders.

is that real?

it's real gross, i'll tell you what.

but,

the work is done,

and i won't be indiana jones-ing any more temples of doom today, anyway.

some situations i just didn't coming,

or at least i didn't see myself in, y'know?

hell,

in just one eentsy-weentsy little week,

from today,

i'll be papa bear to a flippin' nine-year-old!!!

that's cool and awful and awesome all at once.

time keeps spanning across all these moments.

that's some sh!t.

one second you're a flavorful father, frontier philosopher, and Folk Life libertarian,

the next you've got a mouthful of spinerets in a spider-hole.

real life.

really-real.

and it's all really happening;

never quiet, never soft.....

i am amused.

it's snowing up here in the woodsly goodness,
but unlike the frozen plains of the fair-to-middling midwest,
ma nature can't get it to stick.
the hottness has held off the frosty sauce for another day.
something about core temperatures or some such science talk.
i had reports of freezily fresh condensation come down the pipes
from the upper west side of the northern america, (as in: vancouver) too.
i guess that the warrior poetry club across the continent was
in for a flurry of cold and wet wishy-washiness.
good thing i come equipped with a burly, manly winter beard already!
it may not be snoopin' on it's own slushy puppyhood,
but the slow-falling featherweight frozen rain is absolutely awesome looking.
nice.
tuesday is new release book day.
don't trouble your little heads about upgrades to my library;
i got they, my ninjas.
it's also our day off up here in the woodsly goodness.
since rob and sharon were headed back down south to grow their little baby,
jess was headed to portland to hunt for a 'special occassion' dress,
and uncle steven (yes. still here.) needed a lumbering jack of a breakfast
to powerhouse his power tools into the new island in our kitchen,
we celebrated the first fresh snowfall of fall with a tried-and-true treat:

pannie mutha-lickin' cakes, mother-F*ers!!!!!

not that the picture shows you how bangin' that syrup is;

but trust me, it's off the hinges...

them jawns is GRADE B, son.

why?

because 'premium extra fancy light amber grade A'

is just not berserker barbarian.

it doesn't even start with the right letter to alliterate on.

yeah,

look it up.

specifically,

grade B is the crude doo-doo-

the last lethargic sap-slappin' drips and dregs.

these hardwood holdouts covering the rear,

once they're boiled to bits,

make for a deep, dark, thick, sweet extra-mapley syrup.

the B is totally 'A+'.

i'm sayin'.

the cast iron catalytic crusader,

the turbo-tough vermont castings hottness-maker,

is keeping us roasty-toasty.

we ordered three more cords of wood.

the woodstove is burning with blazing battle-beastly blasts.

the house smells so dang good;

woodsmoke, indoors and out,

razor/laser-sharp air all leafy an' that,

Folk Life candles,

and new books.

the 'what's that smell?' game now has a few high points to it, too.

Hallowe'en housewarming house party, duders.

it's happening.

no kids, all play.

more info on that hotspot of hub-bub, hob-nob, and hullabaloo

as it unfolds;

never quiet, never soft.....

(observed)

columbus?
that's in ohio, right?
yeah.....
whatever good came from there i ask ya'll?
nothin'.
that's what.
not once, not never.
but is it just ohio or the curse of the genoan genocide general/admiral,
that makes this kind of day so watery in the babypants department?
either way,
the sauce is weak.
the broken bands of lime green all-access admittance.
sundered from the spirit of fall fair times.
i'm kind of lamenting the sudden lack of falafels in my life.
so sad;
well,
except that i finally found my long-lost a-hole.
uh-huh, the one i blew off last monday.
that part was kind of good news.
i felt a small columbus-like triumph about it, too.
discovering something that was already there, an' that.
turns out,
the little wrinkle-dot was hiding in the back bathroom.
i had forgotten about checking in that one.
happily,
we've been reunited with the implicit understanding that i'm leaving it behind
next year when the fair comes around...

that actually says "fried bacon puffs".
i've got some mixed feelings about this;
on the one hand,
nobody ate any all week.
i know this,
because as i shark chomped and frenzied my feedings of fried freshness,
the bacon puff paradise was a wasteland.
however,
some long-dormant latent human empathy arose unbidden from the depths,
most likely due to the overabundance of tahini in my system,
and i was a little teeny tiny bit sad about the dearth of fried bacon puffers.
i mean,
those poor half-'tarded rednecks probably put a lot of time
and money into their mobile carcass inflation superstation,
only to then lose a week's worth of income and time.
should they have known better?
maybe...
but how much can one reasonably expect in the way of foresight
from the genius intellect behind 'fried bacon puffs' in the first place?
the pigs on the sign are all smiles though,
so who the hell are we to judge?

i love these guys.

these falafel-flinging sauce-slinging soldiers of organically-gardened goodness.

i'll miss 'em for 51 more weeks.

then,

it's back to berserker shark-gluttony and poor decision making,

all over again.

after last weeks blissful certainties,

i'm left wondering, ya'll:

what the F* is for dinner tonight?

never quiet, never soft.....

the end of the line.

twenty-five.
falafels.
twenty-five falafels found their way to my bellyhole.
the last day of the fair has come and gone.
the greasy, manure-laced fried-food and leather-goods stank is done.
no more whiffing up on the cotton-candy and cigarettes perfume of the midway,
no more crafts, no more arts, no more digital-printed wizard t-shirts.
now it's just all fall days and nights.
my brooklyn duders, d&k, only stayed for 24 hours.
that's some woodsly goodness drive-by visitation.
nice.
they hit up some military surplus,
got a vintage ten-speed for thirteen bucks,
and ate falafels with their homeboys and girls up here.
jess's brother rob and his ladyfriend sharon are still here, though.
that means that the fun can continue 'til tuesday.
word.
what's a great way to cap off an eight-day odyssey into fryeburg, maine?
how about a rippin' outdoor fire and a raging indoor woodstove blaze?
yeah.
that did it.
as usual,
the convoluted confrontational cadence of my heartfelt heatstroke penstrokes,
my gratuitously graphic and garishly grateful regaled regalia;
the warrior poetry of my infinite nature,
isn't going over very well with the folks from connecticut.
i'm telling ya'll,
sometimes, some people just don't get it.
i mean,
i can't expect to bring down the house with my sovereign sauce every time,
but not even so much as an uncomfortable snicker?
nervous laughter is still laughter.
c'mon.
this isn't a bear attack, ninjas;
just laying still and hoping it will end just isn't going to work.
not on me, anyway.
i'm a belligerent berserker barbarian battle-beast,
and that type of when-to-say-when crapola isn't my field of interest.
it just isn't poppin'...
and here i thought the homemade waffles and fruit compote
would've softened 'em up.
had enough?
give 'em some more;
never quiet, never soft.....

ten ten.

falafel fever?
is there such a thing?
i mean,
i get hot, and sweaty, and i get the chills,
and nauseous, and the shakes.
either i'm on heroin and nobody told me about it,
or i have completely overdosed on chick peas.
is it possible i've gone too far?
c'mon.
you can never go too far.
after you redline at the borders of good taste and common sense,
it's just a hop, skip and jump to the great beyond of level eleven hottness.
i doo-doo that freaky sh!t.
literally.
more than ever,even,
especially after all of this shark gluttony.
***********
in no specific order,
with no regard for personal safety,
immerse yourself in the tahini-tainted terror of the last few days.
look ye upon the causes of my personal woe and ruin:

that's actually pretty gross,

all together like that.

i'm saying,

it's almost like p.t.s.d.;

reliving the trauma i've willfully inflicted on my whole life for a whole week.

i've actually had enough.

but,

there's still one more day of fryeburg fairness to endure.

i've already beaten my standing personal best.

it was double-deuce.

eleven, twice,

but thanks to jess's cautious consumption,

i've already scoopled up,

and shoveled down twenty-two.... and a half.

what?

yeah.

hardly the furious rout and demoralizing defeat of the old goals i'd hoped for,

but there's still time to pound on the final countdown,

and actually need hospitalization.

***********

the whole house is full as F*.

actually,

there's plenty of empty rooms we could still chock full of nuts.

but these nuts,

the one's who're here right now,

have definitely come to rock the party.

long nights,

good times,

hot fire,

falafels.

i am grateful for the spanners,

i'm grateful for the nuts.

tight, kids.

so tight.

(that's what SHE said?)

never quiet, never soft.....

the most beautiful.

a painterly pastel palette of pumpkins?

sugar maple leaves and apple boxes?

is that the latest cover of 'living' magazine?

naw,

it's my really-real life.

my front porch is so flippin' sexy.

that's just a little tiny bit more epic hottness in the mountainous marvelousness.

what a season! my ninjas.

i am grateful for all of this big burly berserker battle-beastly bardic business.

i'm slowing down to a snail's pace up here.

(minus the slime trail.)

this Folk Life magic is happening.

and i don't want to miss a minute of it.

today is the day.

but each miniscule moment is every bit as critical to the composition.

i'm not looking forward to anything.

because each an every right now is bangin' off the hinges.

all the lame parts just don't matter as much as the awesomeness;

of autumn,

of this house,

of the fair,

of all of it.

yeah,

it is cold and rainy outside,

and slower'n' sh!t at the studio.

but it's warm and (mostly) dry in the fortress,

and busy as a beehive all weekend long up here.

we'll have a full-to-bursting battle-stationed battalion

seeing how they fare at fair-ing,

and if it's really as good in the woods as it seems.

( it SO is)

existing. and abiding.

that's the pair of potent patricipatory particles that make the plan come together.

whatever's comin' down the pipe is just another test,

plied and tried a la' the emergency woodsly goodness system.

brought to you by the letters X and I,

and the number 11.

i've got a savage stormswept Folk Life saga in my head, heart, and hands.

all my senses are saluting the secret universal plan.

**********************

dear magical classified covert-ops confidential,

more of all of this,

please.

-love.

xoxoxox,

a.

**********************

come late tonight, we'll be elbows deep in active participants.

giant uncles, one-armed dads-to-be, babymakers,

fashionable designers, and brooklyn b-boy shooters.

sounds like a well-balanced blend of professional appreciators.

sorry, new neighbors,

but it sounds as if the Folk Life & Liberty Fortress is gonna bring the thunder;

never quiet, never soft.....

who's manly?

wayne morris.
wayne F*n' morris.
that's right.
my homeboy;
up-here pioneer,
rural loremaster,
and all around handy man.
he's got some talents in the homeowner's basic skills department.
that dude descended into my basement,
climbed over the crumbling granite battlements,
crawled through the native american burial grounds under my floorboards;
(the infamous and nefarious crawlspace.
that's exactly the right term for it, too.)
was he looking for a way to end a curse?
is there buried treasure under there?
did he flush his wedding ring into the underground plumbing-works?
nope.
none of those things is accurate.
he came over and helped me insure a warm, safe winter.
because he is a good friend.
and,
it was a chance to show off some of his manly skills, too.
yeah.
furnace, flue, and duct work.
imagine for a moment,
your favorite woodsly warrior poet
all into some sheet metal screwing, air duct pipe-fitting, burly home repair.
then,
imagine the amount of help i actually was,
while two bigger, burlier barbarians bore the brunt.
phase one:
furnace flue vent cleaning.
thirty feet of rusty tetanus, emphysema powder, and claustrophobic caverns.

i see uncle steven is wisely wearing his mask.
there's pure cancer-powder waiting to wonder-twin activate
the asbestos, radon, creosote, dust, and rust down there.
but where's wayne?
he's IN the creepy dry hole.
my camera ate it, hard,
well before i could capture him in his full filthy glory.
he crawled under there a few times,
and left my house looking like a full-figured indiana jones adventure.
word up, ya'll.
i'm sayin',
that duder works.

does that look like a three foot high dirty ledge,

full of archaic metal and wire?

yeah!

we put the power to it.

(again, mostly wayne)

and then headed upstairs to deal with the other other stovepipe.

in case you were wondering;
this old house's previous owners,

the ones who let the place languish into busted old bustedness,

instead of old busted hottness,
must've not shared my affinity for victorian chimbleymen.
how could i tell?
because we santa claus-type hard-styled that stuffed-stocking site.

cleaning my pipes, ya'll.
we brushed that baby-b!tch with my new steel sweeper,

and dislodged a truly heinous heap of hellish hardened hunkage.

disgusting?

uh-huh.
wayne, already filthy from his furnace furiousness down delow decks,
climbed up and at 'em on the dangerously wet roof,
and hollered down the hole,
as we tugged and tussled with a long, hard, dirty reaming.
(that IS what she said)

he topped to my bottom,

and i got covered in slag.

i was blacker than a moonless night an' that.

soot is really as black as they say.

and it really does look like a cartoon cloud exploding in your house,

when the stormswept thunderbrush blows it's way in.

i definitely had some big, bad, huffin', and puffin' werewolfen

brick house blowin' going on.

i wore a mask, and goggles, and put up barriers,

and still i've somehow got black boogers this morning.

the well-earned, well-appreciated rewards?

first off,

we three worthy workers each enjoyed

nine inches of fourth-year cedar aged brazilian stank-stick.

and after our smoke-screened tour of the fortress grounds,

and expounding on the virtues of rural woodsly goodness,

we stoked up the verrrry sexy woodsly goodstove.

what could rock it more than a mutha-flippin',

roasty-toasty, damp-destroying,

fresh, freaky doo-doo blaze?

nothin'.

recognize.

the first one we've had in the pad,

and it was just what i needed.

blistery, blustery, haunted graveyard of a day that it was,

a cozy, comforting, intimate, inviting incendiary oven hit it up proper.

nice, kid, nice....

oh, yeah;

after dark, me and uncle s. hit up the fair for some supper.

three more utha-flippin' falafels,

directly down my gullet.

it hurts so good.

but, seriously, it really hurts;

never quiet, never soft.....

eleven.

falafels!!!!!

yes.
another day at the fair.
i bet you're turbo jealous.
no?
then you're dumb.
the fair is awesome.
affirmative. positive. positively affirmative. etc.
the sounds, the smells, the sights, the works....
we spent a lot of time milling about,
observing the awesome, the excellent, the righteous, and the radical.

there's so much elite hottness to experience;
like a whole entire booth of stuff made out of antlers.
yep.
baskets, pens, mirrors, magnifying glasses, buttons, lamps, eagles.
what?
yeah, antler eagles.
i tried to get a snappy shot,
but mr. mcoy, the utilitarian antler-art guy,

wasn't having any of that.

he's got interests to protect, after all.

apparently,
antlers are the answer,
but that answer is NO.

the fair has it's share of not-dopeness, too.

i choose not to focus on the dirty doo-doo buttery downside, though.

what the heck, in the interest of real-life documentation;

you wanna know the absolute gayest thing about the fair?:

this guy.
steve drove all the way up from faroff salem, 'assachusetts,

to eat dead bird bits and drink sodas.
he didn't have any falafels.

his sauce is weak,

he lives in mass.

no one is shocked.

still and all,

it's always good to see my friends.

not a whole lot to say about this sandwich.

...except that it was flippin' delicious.

i think that there's as much garlic as chickpeas in the brown blops,

and there's easily double that amount in the tahini.

is there garlic in the pickled veggies?

uh-huh.

how about the v.h.s.?

oh yeah.

cloves of damnation are roiling and boiling inside my bellyhole.
you'd better believe i'm glad i think vampires are dumb,

because there is no freakin' way that i'd have an interview with one...

not with this dragonmouth hot fire spit blasting out of my breathbellows.

wolfen warrior poets, however,

are not adverse to tarnished tongues and blarney blisters,

so i should have no trouble competently communicating with my peers.

whaaaaaaat?

yeah.

another 'nother 'nother falafel.

i'm as surprised as you are.

be easy,

i was there all day,

and all that walking around makes a man develop a healthy appetite.
therefore, it makes a real man develop an unhealthy appetite.

that's number eleven,

in case you're counting.

you'll have to excuse me,

but i've got to attend to the science project in my stomach;

never quiet, never soft.....

cupcakes?

yeeeeeeeeeeah!!!!
i'm flippin' in love with the g-darn fair, kids.
but,
before i could bury myself balls-deep in falafel balls,
i had to work it for all it was worth first.
those big brown balls aren't going to pay for themselves, y'heard?
(that's what she said)
on the brighter side of having to go and zap it up,
i had some kickass clients pop in and pay me,
and i even got to do some fresh tatty-o activities.
that's almost always a welcome event...
what?
no,
i didn't take a picture of the cute-as-a-cupcake tattster i zapped up.
no,
i didn't snap off any snappies of the dual, dueling now-laughing, later-crying
forearm comedy/tragedy 'hood goodness, either.
i just can't be expected to devote a single micromegagiga-what
of digital bobotronic memory card tardedness to stuff like that.
y'wanna know what i DID get a glamour shot of though?
F* yes, my ninjas:

do you flippin' see that gooey goodness?
it's like they get better somehow, with each and every day.
and when you tune 'em up with mixed pickled veggies, ya'll,
it can rearrange your entire culinary perspective.
two more wood-fired wraparound middle-eastern masterworks,
right down the hatch.
nice.

in other news:
do you know what israelis like even less than palestinians?
hot hands.
yep.
the Louderhorn hebrank-types sent us a fresh housewarming present.
a little somethin' somethin' to handle the hottness with,
apparently imported from israel,
if the accompanying card is to be believed.
autumn earthy quilted Folk Life kitchen accoutrements.
they definitely know the style we represent on.
thanks, my duders.

and if we actually felt we needed a reason to fryeburg it up,

instead of stayin' home and cooking;
here's a glimpse into what's poppin'.
debris and destruction in the kitchen of the woodsly goodness.
the Folk Life & Liberty Fortress is closed for renovations.
what's cookin?
not much right now,
but we've got enough clamps and cutters and counterspace to prepare a
berserker barbarian banquet buffet.
damn, but that's a long length of wood.
butcher block burliness,
courtesy of uncle steven.
the new hottness promises to be even hotter than the original old bustedness.
trust uncle steven.
it's the right thing to do.

ohhhhhhh sh!t!!

psych!, mutha-humpers.....

and you thought i was done for today?

shame on you.

that's lucky number seven.

i mean, were you expecting less?

sorry, i'm just not prepared to pour on the weak sauce;

i'm sayin',

see those dotty dots of burnt orange blops on top?

that's the 'very hot sauce'

a little dab will doo-doo ya, for sure,

but that's nothing compared to the thai chili relish underneath.

i sh!t hot fire.

word.

we met up with some of our buddies, the Barnes, and their friends,

and twirled a tour or two through the twists and turns of fairground fun.

it's always good to see our peoples,

although my full-moon frenzy and fury and fervor

doesn't always play well with new acquaintances.

i was informed later that the new friends had been forewarned.

i'm not sure if i'm flattered or flummoxed,

since i just do what i do,

and let the chaff get blasted back from the worthy wheat.

that's just that pure wu-tang, yo.

jess says regular people need to get ready to be around me...

but, i mean,

a muthalicking warning label?,

and nc-17 rating?!

c'mon, ya'll.

fortune favors the bold.

but average joe-type duders can't always take it to eleven,

or even comprehend that kind of crucial kickassery;

therefore,

i guess i'm fortunate to have the few friends who can hang tough.

i'm grateful for meet-ups and meanderings,

and for minutes and moments that matter most.

real life, documented,

one sumptuous sandwich at a time;

never quiet, never soft.....