Now, I've been trying to post the next installment of the blog, but have run into the usual difficulties of someone of my generation who started writing with an old mechanical typewriter and still has no idea what to do with ninety-nine per cent of the stuff on my new Windows program. I have a couple of small vignettes that I've cut and pasted from the journal. The only thread to these is that I often receive a late night call from my daughter, and it's just after I've smoked the ritual late night joint, where I'm trying to salvage a day devoted to procrastination, basic survival, and finding new and creative ways to kill time. I gather from the first piece, that it was about five years ago, when my daughter was sixteen. I have a couple of other posts that are more recent.
Now, I've tried a couple of times to put up the post, and then....well, the last time I was posting, the ceiling light, one of those Made In China dollar store specials, literally blew up, and it being the darkest room in the apartment, I attempted to climb this ladder, some rickety old wooden number that looked like it had been in the landlord's family for generations, and while trying to retrieve the remains of the light bulb from the socket, I ended up destroying the ceiling fixture... and found myself biking up to the local Canadian Tire Store during rush hour, a hair raising ride even in the off hours. Needless to say, the mood was ruined.
Anyhow, I'll try to post the excerpt, along with a picture I took of the view out the window next to my desk, comprising a view of the dome of the nearby church, and a branch or two of the old maple tree in front.
The Fourth Dimension and Pebble's Poops
Anyhow, for some reason, I’m trying this silly program…after one of those very frustrating days…even more frustrating than the other days…in fact, most of my days in this city have been frustrating…starting with the local populace…well, first, this PROGRAM…on the computer was acting up…and it gave me all sorts of grief…the revenge of the machines…as I said on Ollie’s message…or Tom’s maybe…it’s like having this Stealth bomber, but I can’t figure out how to get it off the ground…so, it’s just sitting on the street collecting parking tickets…
That kind of analogy…then, I make a few calls…leave messages…the only two
Computer literate people I know…Tom, the best bet…and Carol…well, it’s Carol that calls back…Carol who was born and raised here..one of a few Montreal Jewish Princesses I know…her father is a doctor…not just a doctor, but Austrian/Jewish- Herr Freud type…and he’s already diagnosed Carol as a schizophrenic…talk about self-esteem issues…
Anyway, I’d been reading the web pages about Time as the Fourth Dimension…and it had brought certain things into focus…about how this erroneous timing..this industrial age calendar…devised, or revised by some Caesar…well, Julius, right…the only thing that Caesar got right was the salad…anyhow, this Time as Money reality is destroying the planet…it’s eating up all of us…like this computer Stealth Bomber…
And, I said to Carol, (all the while continuing my string of Solitaire victories), did you ever wonder why squirrels seem to know, along with skunks and lots of other animals, when to grow their coats longer than usual…
“Because they’re genetically programmed to do it…”
Carol’s response…and it was good for every single case of plant or bird or animal telepathy…genetic program…just like…let me guess…computer programs…and, I tried to ask whether she actually could help me out with this program…well, she didn’t know..
Anyway, she gave me all the local gossip that I hadn’t picked up, since I’ve gone semi-underground…about having a fight with her friend…so and so…whose no longer talking to her…or with Trina, whose no longer talking to her either, because she’s afraid Carol wants her boyfriend…and then into the guys…and so and so…
-you know him…Frank.
-which Frank? There’s a half dozen Franks in the place…
-the one you had this fight with…
-well, not really a fight…oh yeah…he’s one of the desperate newspaper hogs…he’s always scowling, grumpy…
-well, not with me…oh, I hear that Genevieve wasn’t such a nice person…Oh?…yes, I can’t remember who told me..somebody…oh, yeah, Marco…
-Marco?
-No not that one, the Latin guy…
-you mean the scowling character with the pony tail, from Chili…with the El Topo/gaucho cowboy hat, that Marco?
-Yes,…well I know that you don’t get along with him…
-well, Carol, he did once threaten to break his wine bottle over my head, but not before challenging me to pull out my prick to see whose was bigger…”
-yes, I know he can be a bit much, But, he’s Always nice to me…”
-Yes, he does have a thing for the ladies…true…
Anyhow, Carol…have got to run, o.k.….
Off to the store to buy butter…go through a little vignette that would only happen at Marche Latina…it’s a yuppie Depanneur…of course, those who don’t live in Montreal…a Depanneur is one of those corner stores, selling mostly beer, and junk food, along with vastly overpriced essentials…
Anyhow, if you don’t feel like walking a few extra blocks and dealing with the
But, here I am at the Marche Latina…and I’m going to get the butter, thinking what the hell it’s probably about twenty cents more…not worth the extra hassle…so, I go through the bin looking at butter…mostly twenty or thirty cents more for half a pound…but, ah ha, I found one for two thirty nine…forty cents cheaper…walk over to the check-out lines..there are two and it’s crowded, and you have these bobos lined up…as they call themselves…bourgeois bohemians..even a guy with a beret and some kind of Gold Card or something that he’s waving as he makes his witty little discourse on Nietzsche. .meanwhile, this babe, with her hair in a bun, like out of some Merchant/Ivory movie…(the English Patient comes to mind),…and this Valley Girllll voice, says..”Juan could you go and check? I think that this label is wronnnnng!”
Whoops, I slip into the other line, where the check-out girl is this slightly older looking neo-spinster….prairies type…so, I figure, my odds of avoiding hassles are better…there’s this young and very thin East Indian looking girl, maybe a teenager and she has about a half dozen items…artichokes, pickled, that sort of thing..in front of her, is this hefty woman with lot’s of broaches, bleached hair, and three different kinds of packaged meat…so, I kind of cut in, but say to the girl…
-excuse me, I guess I’m in front of you…
-oh, no problem, go right ahead..
-oh, are you a vegetarian?
-Oh no…tee hee…people think that by my purchases…it’s just that I already have the meat at home…
o.k.….
So, I get to the line with my last three bucks out…and Miss Manners, with the bun and Harry Potter glasses says…”oh, that’s a mistake…it’s supposed to be two eighty…this after she rang it up…”
“However”, I interjected…”the tag says two thirty nine…see? And you’re what you Anglo Saxons call ’legally bound’ to honor it…”
“Oh, yes, quite right…
Out comes the extra change…no eye contact, though…
Anyhow, just for a little comic relief, who comes bounding up, like a Labrador retriever with a face transplant…Joe... Joe Di Bari…and Joe, of course gives me an Ollie update…
Variation on the same theme…as Carol has genetic programming as her all purpose response to anything beyond the realm of local gossip, fashion or makeup……
Joe has his basic outline…it’s about Art…Joe’s idea of art..this from the guy who wrote a poem about something that most people tend to overlook in their lives…
what’s that Joe?
The Sidewalk…
Well, yes, he’d seen “my buddy there..”
-Who?
-you know Ollie…
-Oh…
-Yeah, he was loading his car up with paintings to go and sell door-to-door in the suburbs…
-As usual…
-Yeah, and I couldn’t help but notice…typical of Ollie..he had one really nice painting, and five pieces of crap…
(I’m thinking that’s progress for Ollie…usually it’s six pieces of crap)
-and?
-Well, I don’t know why he can’t paint great paintings every time…Me, I’m having a show at the Bistro Bobo next week…
-It’s a theme…I’m calling the show-Just Horsin’Around…guess what the subject matter’s going to be?
-Camels?
-No, horses….
-Oh, that’s pretty original, Joe. Where’d you come up with that Concept?
-Yes, that’s it…a Concept…it’s Very important these days…
-Well, I left the water on the stove, Joe….
-So, I go home. Decide it’s better to just talk to myself…
Later, I try Hugh, who being a former draft dodger, out of Yale, and now a prof of Spanish translation…a writer, poet, and generally well-read sort…I can talk to him, maybe…
-Can’t talk, Doug, you know..
-Yep, it’s the Harry Potter Hour…and he’s got to read to his daughter…Edith, whose at that super cute age of nine or ten…while mine is at that very difficult age, being fourteen and having hit her teens during North America’s Late Armani, Middle Makeup Phase…
And I still save funny little stories that she wrote at eleven and twelve…and now, well she’s too busy most of the time…
Anyhow, she calls…my daughter, Sophie, that is…we chat…could it be that a certain mother is out walking a certain four-legged beast? Yes, of course, she calls me, on certain nights when she’s feeling a bit stressed and anxious and her mother has left to walk the little poodle named Pebbles. Somehow, while she brushes her teeth, the conversation goes in the direction of animal mortality. First about, the last time I’d visited and Pebbles had left this turd right next to the computer, and I’d squished around in it while I was trying to surf the Net…
Well, Sophie was of the opinion that Pebbles was leaving his poops on the floor with increasing frequency, and that it was connected to his advanced age…
-and what age is that?
-Six, I think…she said…well, of course, small dogs live longer..did you know that Razboi the Borzoi is only expected to live about 7 years?
And so forth…into cats, who seem to live longer…
I try to get onto a lighter, or even deeper subject…how about vegetarians…I try to give a plug for the book Secret Life of Plants…knowing that it will pique her curiosity…and tell her about the two girls that caused a scandal in their high school…they were trying to do something non-conformist for a class project, since they’d been reading the Transcendentalists…like Emerson and Thoreau….
And they got up on the table in the lunch room, and yelled-“End Homophobia Now!” then kissed, rather hotly according to witnesses, for about twenty seconds or so…
