Comic Books–Tool of the Devil

Someone in my household started wearing reading glasses.  It wasn’t me. 

But one day when I was straining through an evidently tiny copy of The Watchmen, I saw them lying on the end table.  I picked them up.  No one was home, no one would see me…  I slipped them on and tried squinting.

It didn’t help.

The squinting, that is.  The reading glasses eliminated all need for it!  Amazing!  I finished the book in record time. 

Thanks to the Kindle and it’s easily adjusted text size, I contend that I shall never need reading glasses.  Provided I give up reading comic books. 

But I don’t want to do that.  In fact, I ordered a new one that came in the mail today.  It’s the first volume of The Preacher series.  I’ve read some later volumes and I just love it.  It’s about a minister from west Texas.  It is chock full of bloody, gory violence, explicit and sometimes extraneous sex, and more vulgarity than you can shake a collection plate at. 

I love it!

 

So, I ordered the first volume from some anonymous internet seller on Amazon.  It came in the mail today and I have either had a brush with fundamentalist sickos who had no idea what they had on their hands, or I have just met my new best friends.

For reals.

They sent along a free gift.  The free gift included a kitty-rap decal (I guess that’s what it is), a cross-shaped sucker (which is just horribly, horribly wrong in my twisted mind) and a choose-your-own-adventure book entitled “You Are The Messiah”.  I can’t wait to read it. (I wonder how it works if you’re female? Does that take you down some alternately subservient path?)  And then there is a post-card for “The House That Drips Blood on Alex” playing at Megaphone Comedy club. 

Isn’t that insane?!!  It’s like Christmas in the asylum, all over again!

 

Cemetery Blogging - Dead Trek, The Wrath of Gone

Cemetery Blogging–It’s been a while.

 

Our Lady of Perpetual Prosaicism is all “meh” about your recent demise. 

Horror-scope

Yesterday started out as a quiet day in the office.  More people were missing than present.  We've all worked here so damn long that about half the folks have trouble getting all their vacation time used before the end of the year.  There is a mad scramble to get in some extra days off before they get swept off the books.

Personally, I've never had that problem.  Which is why I was one of only two officers in the office. Mindy was the other.  It was her first day back after a freakin' 6 day Thanksgiving break.  As if there were that many leftovers that had to be dealt with!

When the clock struck eight, she was already down in the waiting room, herding people, one at a time, down the hall to her office.  The first guy sequestered with her was prepared to kill himself in a quietly self-effacing fashion in the rather immediate future.  The quiet ones are generally the ones you really have to worry about.  It didn't take long for Mindy to recognize how serious he was about achieving that particular goal. 

She called the mental health agency where the guy already had a caseworker.  They referred her to the crisis team and said the team would high tail it over to our office as soon as they could get out the door and navigate the seven blocks between there and here.  The State, she was informed, prefers that they handle crises, with expediency on site, rather than burdening the sufferer with making a trip to their office.  

Mindy called the crisis team, fully expecting the Mental Health Hero on duty to hit the big button that flashed the Nut Signal across the morning sky.  This would assemble the team for swift transport to our building, bringing with them assessment tools, passive restraint techniques and a plethora of pleasant voices. 

Instead she got Seth.  Seth yawned a couple of times, stretched in his desk chair and asked if the guy couldn't just walk on over to their office so they could deal with him there. 

Whatever.

In the middle of that crisis, the boss knocked on her door and asked her if she could get in touch with another of her people - Brian.  Interestingly enough, Brian happened to be sitting in the waiting room.  He does that every morning because he is unemployed.  If you are able-bodied and not completely addle-brained, yet insist on a life of leisure rather than more gainful pursuits, we make you come and visit us each morning - teeth brushed, hair combed and pajamas at least tucked underneath sweat clothes, if not removed altogether and replaced with more employment-appropriate clothing.  Then you set out for a day of job hunting. 

Brian was here to show Mindy his list of applications from the previous day, before being sent out to complete more.  Brian doesn't want to work. 

According to the boss, he'd received an anonymous call stating that 20-year-old Brian had perhaps misrepresented the truth regarding his current living arrangements.  When he told Mindy he lived at home with his parents, what he meant was he lived at his girlfriend's home, with his girlfriend's parents.   His fourteen-year-old girlfriend. 

Oops. 

Mindy hissed his name at the waiting room door and marched him back into her office.  His response to her questioning was "I don't know what you're so upset about.  Her mother doesn't mind."  That was not the smartest thing he'd ever said.  Especially since his neck was decorated with more than a few hickies. 

While we're on the subject, do you know about these? 

Immediately after booting Brian out the door with a laundry list of life changes he'd be making in the next 24 hours, Mindy called the cops.  She reported that her defendant was bedding a fourteen-year-old girl in her own home.  Nightly. 

The cops said, and I quote, "Eeew."

When Mindy told them the mother had condoned the situation, they said, "The mother may not have a problem with it, but the State of Texas sure does."  The said they were starting an investigation and were here within 15 minutes to take Mindy's statement. 

Child Protective Services also took a dim view of the state of affairs.  Since the police are more than happy to charge Brian with statutory rape, they will be investigating the mother on a possible charge of negligent parenting. 

All of this happened before 9:15 in the morning.

She took a break around 10:00 to catch her breath and snarf some popcorn.  After a few minutes, I heard a peal of somewhat maniacal laughter, then my instant messenger beeped.  It was Mindy.  She said:

"My horoscope today says 'your interest in your fellow humans is piqued today.'"

"Piqued with a baseball bat!" I replied.

----------

Still no news from the Lazy Seth the Crises Manager.  We're hoping that's good news. 

Six Places - Just Spaces, Few Faces

This week's prompt:  6 Places.  My six places are

all Dairy Queen.

1.  The Dairy Queen in Lockney.  It's the only restaurant open on Sundays.  If we plan on eating out after church on Sunday, we have to go home and collapse on the couch for a couple of hours first.  You can't wade through the blue-hairs to get a table until nearly 2:00 o'clock.  They have blizzards and WiFi.   They have the world's most polarific air conditioning system.  There are huge vents along the top of the wall.  The icy air they spew falls heavily on the chattering diners below.  Even when it's 134 thousand degrees outside, my knees knock the whole time I'm choking down my chicken strips and tator tots.  I don't yet know what happens in the winter.  Is the heater just as boisterously over-effective?  I'll soon find out. 

If it weren't for the frigidity, I'd hang out there, drinking cherry-limes and drawing pictures.

2.  The Dairy Queen in Post.  You are probably not aware of this, but this little fast-food joint in that wobbly little West Texas town is the epicenter of the six degrees which separate us all.  Everyone you've ever known will eventually have to stop there to use the bathroom.  It's one of those places - plunked down in the middle of nowhere on a back road that is the only way to get to some places from other places.  Everyone stops there.  Eventually.

If I were going to write the great American novel, I'd do it sitting in a booth in this Dairy Queen.  One great story after another walks in the door, heads for the ladies room then orders some tacos.  It's got this accidental, unintentional apocalyptic feel to it that makes you think you're missing something.  Something like the end of the world.  In Technicolor.  

3.  The Dairy Queen in Plainview.  This DQ was home to the Blizzard Boy.  Blizzard Boy was our secret nemesis long ago and far away when we were young and could eat a cup of ice cream blended with Butterfinger bars on a pretty much daily basis without the dire consequences to our waist lines and cholesterol levels.  He never got the order right or screwed up when trying to make change, or sometimes he just looked at us funny.

We toted the ice cream back to the office and sat around the conference table in the grand ballroom, dissing the Blizzard Boy and solving the county's problems.  It was like a drawly, cowboy-booted version of the Algonquin Round Table.  With soft serve instead of vodka. 

4.  The Dairy Queen in Brownfield.  Brownfield was the closest town to the country church where I lived in the early 1980's.  It was, to no one's surprise, dry and dusty and hot.  It was dead then and it's deader now.  At that church at the crossroads in the middle of Earth's armpit, the sand dunes piled high on the west side of the building and my brother and I tied towels around our necks for capes so we could jump off the roof of the sanctuary to practice flying.  And landing.  On our butts, mostly. 

It was at this crossroads church that I learned to appreciate open flame and weeping willows.  I learned to drive a tractor.  I developed what would become a lifelong distaste for lantanas and a morbid fascination with premillennialist baptistry paintings.  It was also a dark and destructive place that taught me to be spiteful towards family churches and suspicious of people who kept those religious malignancies alive.

My parents worked at that church because it was there.  We'd moved back to Texas from Montana so my dad could care for his ailing father after his mother died.  The church was a paycheck.  It seemed like a god-send at first. But in the end, it wasn't.

On Sunday nights after a day full of all that my parents could stomach, we would escape to the Dairy Queen in Brownfield.  A thirty-mile drive, one way, for nachos.  It was pretty much the only place open then.  It was a quiet place on Sunday nights.  And a little bit dark.

I still love nachos.

5.  The Ha-ta-ho in Roby.  Roby was too small to have a Dairy Queen.  I spent my high school years in Roby.  There were two restaurants in town - the Silver Spur Cafe and the Ha-ta-ho drive in.  They sat across from each other, separated by a rod-straight stretch of highway.  Local lore told that the burger joint was opened by a farmer who wanted to get out of the field.  He hated-to-hoe.

Yup.

If you were inclined, you could skip the Ha-ta-ho and come on down the road to the City Grocery and Deli where I worked.  I would make you a chicken fried steak sandwich or a bbq sandwich. (Your choice of chopped or sliced.  Take my advice - go with the chopped.)  It was good enough food, but we didn't have fries.  Or fountain drinks.  Or chairs. 

I can't remember if the Ha-ta-ho had nachos.  They did have really good cokes, though. 

6.  The Dairy Queen in ?  I don't know where I'm going from here, but I'm going somewhere.  I bet wherever it is, they have a Dairy Queen.  It might surprise you to know, but I don't even really like Dairy Queen.  I hate soft-serve and only tolerate blizzards if they have something crunchy in them.  The burgers are ok and The Dude is pretty good.  The fries suck. 

I do like the nachos, though.

Just for grins, because I don’t really know what this is.

 

Tonight I made the holy pilgrimage and left home

At twilight.

At sunset.

At the end of the day.

I walked down the street, through the bad part of town

At twilight.

At sunset.

At the end of the day.

A three-legged pit bull dog barked at me.  Only once.

At twilight.

At. sunset.

At the end of the day.

And I learned that those two lime green trailers really do glow

At twilight.

At sunset.

At the end of the day. 

7 wants

This week’s prompt?  Not getting any easier.  I really don’t know why these are so difficult.  Perhaps I really just need to sit down in a quiet place with pen and paper and work this out.  Hmm… That reminds me of something I want, so, without further ado: 

A.  I want to write.  With pen.  On paper.  I love the feel of a good pen flowing across the paper.  I love handwriting.  Drawing words is an almost Zen-like experience, as long as I’m writing something I want to write. I miss it.  Last week, while visiting Lois, I mentioned this.  She told me there have been studies done showing that handwriting uses a different part of your brain than keyboarding.  You write differently, on both a physiological level and otherwise, when you use pen and paper.  It’s a good change to make if you’re fighting writer’s block. 

I totally should have written this post on paper first.

B.  I want letters to make a comeback.  I know they won’t and I’ll be the first to admit that the convenience of email probably more than makes up for what we miss with written letters.  But still.  I love to write them.  Send me your address, if you want (Facebook message) and I’ll send you a letter!

C.  I want my nose to stop itching.  And they haven’t even started ginning cotton yet!  I used to live across the road from a corn field.  I’m terribly allergic to corn, especially when it puts on tassels right before harvest.  Not for that reason, we moved.  Now I live two blocks from a cotton gin, one of my other major allergies. 

Have I mentioned that I plan to retire to Seattle?

D.  I want Robert Downey Jr. to hurry the hell up with his next project.  Know what it is?  He is producing and staring in a Perry Mason movie.  I also am all geeked about seeing Johnny Depp do Dark Shadows.  And I want both of those franchises to use the theme music their TV versions used.  Perfect songs, both.  (I miss answering machines.  My answering machine message used to be accompanied by the Dark Shadows theme.  It was the best damn message ever – had a people call me just to listen sometimes.  Voice mail leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to creativity.)

E.  I want to get better at portrait photography.  I sort of enjoy it.  Sort of.  Most of the time, when I take pictures for fun, I don’t include people.  Not on purpose, but I’ve just always avoided people pictures.  But I think my taste might be changing…

F.  I want that sheriff’s deputy to quit staring at the stuff in my office.  I’m tired of trying to explain things to him. 

G.  I want to read a good comic book.  Read a good one and an incredible one last week.  The good one:  The Preacher #7.  It had all the elements of a good comic – expressive art, great colors, kick-ass story, tons of violence and more than a bit of gratuitous sex and gore.  (Yes, it really is about a preacher.  From west Texas.  Somewhat defrocked.)   The great one was Persepolis.  It was exquisite.  Lois had it and I sat down one night and read the whole thing (graphic novel) in about 2 hours.  I learned all kinds of things.  The art was simple on the surface, rich beneath.  The story was incredible – about a young girl in Iran during the fall of the Shaw.  She’d be about my age, I guess.  The writing was simple, but like the art, deceptively so.  Hell, the damn thing made me get all teary-eyed. 

Just go read it for your own damn self.