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.....