This morning on the ride to work, I have never missed my caddy more. For those of you who don't know I once had a 1970 Caddilac Coupe De Ville. It was huge. It had a high compression pre emissions control 472 cubic inch engine. It put out 470 horsepower and 525 foot lbs of torque. It was 400 pounds heavier than my dad's suburban and eight inches longer. It was red with a white top. It had a white leather bench seat. It would do donuts on dry pavement. It refused to run on anything less that 104 octane fuel. when you rolled rolled all the power windows down there was no pillar from the windshield to the rear window. You could fit eight bodies in the trunk with out sectioning them first.

It was a mighty big car.

It was the ultimate good weather windows down stereo cranked get it out of your system car. There is an exit from the free way not too far from my house that I once took at well over 60 miles an hour with the foot down and the car in full float sideways mode. just to see if you could do it like Hunter Thompson says. You can. If you've got balls.

This morning the weather was PERFECT. the radio was on. I'd just had sex. The new butthole surfer's tune came on the radio. I flipped the volume all the way to the right. The problem was that the little pontiac sunbird that I drive lately was just insufficient to express my joy at being alive.

Oh well .

on another note this morning before I left for work I made a playlist of music to play in the morning when I get up to help set my attitude in the right direction.

the current list:

Hank Williams, Sr. - Hey Good Looking.mp3
Levellers - captains courageous.mp3
Thethe - Perfect.mp3
Fred Eaglesmith - Mighty Big Car.mp3
Levellers - One Way.mp3
My Life With The Thrill Kill Cult - Sex On Wheels.mp3
I mother earth - One More Astronaut.mp3
Levellers - The Boatman.mp3
Blue Rodeo - Diamond Mine.mp3
Northern Pikes - Kiss Me You Fool.mp3
Pixies - Surfer Rosa - 01 - Bone Machine.mp3
Fred Eaglesmith - Seven Shells.mp3
Screaming Blue Messiahs - gun03 Smash the Market Place.mp3
Levellers - Carry Me.mp3

It may date me but there it is.

today the theme is heroes. what makes a person a hero? that's pretty easy for me to picture in my head but hard for me to describe. I am going to tell three true stories from the news. two of the stories are from the local news and one is about somebody I know and miss cause he's far away. Two are stories of heroes and one is not. I sort which is which at the end.

Story A:

A volunteer fireman goes back into a burning house after rescuing a family. In his haste to return and look for hot spots he refuses to take the self contained Breathing apparatus that is offered to him(by his own father!!). He, not surprisingly, succumbs to the almost complete lack of oxygen. the newspaper hails him as a great hero who died valiantly saving other's lives.

Story B:

A guy Drives into the ambulance parking of the local VA hospital and shoots the attendant who says "Hey you can't park here!". He gets out of the car with the gun and as he tries to get into the E.R. is confronted By a volunteer patient van driver who take two or three slugs in a successful attempt to wrest the gun from him. Then a record clerk who was trying to render some aid to the van driver and took the worst of the injuries, several deep stab wounds from a knife. The assailant the fled to his car and took off. While the police were tracking the plate he called 911 to turn himself in and report that he was suicidal.

Story C:

After locking up the retail establishment where he works(sort of like getting hit with a fire hose for eight hours), a twin engine plane crashes into the very highway he is driving on. He stops, gets out of the car and hops the embankment, scambles down to where the plane is. He tries to open the hatch, tries in broken Spanglish to calm the woman who is trapped inside as a passenger. Eventually he clears all the glass out of one of the windows, climbs in and forces the hatch from the inside.

Okay boys and girls, here is the secret hero decoder ring:

Story A------ not a hero, a natural thinning of the herd. in spite of the enormous outpouring of support that has been forthcoming, this guy is just a garden variety moron who exercised bad judgement and died because of it. he not only didn't he die while saving people he endangered two more firefighter who had to go in and get his sorry ass and left a family behind.

Story B------ heroes Galore here. It might be a stretch to call the parking attendant a hero as he was really more of an innocent bystander but, he did take a bullet in the line of duty and that has to count for something. The volunteer van driver, definitely a hero. Records clerk, yup, definitely a hero. And behind the scenes there were the people the news left out. The E.R. crew and surgeons who stitched the three injured folks back together while worrying that the nutjob would be back to finish the job, probably should count too.

Story C------Hero. Hell Yeah. Me surprised, Not even a little bit.

and then BLAMMO! a whole month wips past.

I'm cranky. REALLY CRANKY

It's hot it's been hot for like ever. I don't like the heat. Work is complicated. As near as a can I figure I'm canned but I can't get the guy to call me back and tell me for real. So I might not be. I might have to go back to managing the store.
which would actually be a good thing. I can un-fuck the place in a month or two and then get it back in the right direction and positive comps. but that will mean that I am not home schooling my eldest this year. which is probably ok, it's only first grade and he's already covered everything in that curriculum.

But some decent things have been going on. I've been able to go out sailing twice in the last two weeks. once on a friends dad's boat. I even got to dive on the prop and unsnarl the shaft. Once on some acquaintances cape dory 36. Among the biggest 36 footers going. I got to be on the helm most of the way and I am gaining some confidence with a wheel instead of a tiller.

On the way home from work saturday I was listening to the CBC station out of Toronto. They had some live show and and I started right at the beginning of what turned out to be Fred Eaglesmith singing a song called white rose. He's a bitter angry man who grew up farming in ontario. not unlike my ancestors. It rang clean to the bone for me. to the bone I am composing this listening to him now. Now I don't particularly like country. I've often been heard to say that all seven good country song were written by Hank Sr. and Johnny Cash and every other song after that was a lame imitation.

Fred Eaglesmith is not a Lame imitation

He's the genuine article.

It may be also that I am going through some wierd internal thing related to my family's Homestead. I haven't been there in years. too many years. My little sisters and my new brother-in-law are up near it right now, but they are staying at the hunting lodge down the road on account of the homestead needing some roofing work and glazing on the windows. in all, two or three days hard work for a determined person. It really should get done before winter(read September) but I just don't see how I can take the time away from my work (unless I actually do get canned and then I really won't be able to afford it,) and my familly to go up there to do the work. In my own head the place I became a man was up there and the place I learned just what that means was there. I've got my own issues with that to work out right now. I haven't been doing so well in the providing for my family part of being a man.

For those of you that are curious it's in a town called charlton. such a small town that you can't even get driving directions to it from yahoo. You have to get a map to Englehart and wing it from there. which is pretty much what happens as there aren't any roadsigns anyway.