Monthly Archives: September 2010

A coupla months ago, at the beginning of the summer, when I was already tired of tourons, I said to Miss Carol-

We should build a little house on our property in North Carolina. I said

Then we can rent our house to the tourons for the summer. I said.

And come back after they’re gone. I said.

It only makes sense, right?. I said.

And Miss Carol put her drink down and looked at me over her sunglasses and said. NO.

So I was cool with it and didn’t think too much more about it. It wasn’t that big a deal. We have a little land on an island in North Carolina and a little land on a beach on the Outer Banks, so we COULD build a little house on an island and continue to work our jobs and then maybe build an even smaller surf shack on the beach in a year or two and not have to deal with the touron hordes.

But Miss Carol said NO and I was like, whatever.

Then, just a coupla weeks ago, we were sitting on the beach and I was sipping a beer, babe watching while pretending to search the horizon for boats and Miss Carol said-

She said- We should build a little house on our property in North Carolina.

She said- Then we can rent our house during the summer.

She said- And come back after the tourons are gone.

She said- It only makes sense, right?

I’m just glad I was wearing shades so she couldn’t see my eyes. I picked my jaw up from my lap and snapped it back into place and just like that- that’s what we’re gonna do.

So I started the permit work with the county and got a commitment from the power company to have temporary service for construction installed by mid-October.

I’d like to have the house dried in before December so I can spend the really cold nasty months finishing the interior.

I’ll be posting about all of this because I want to build this little house on stilts for under 60K. I’m being told I’m crazy. We’ll see.

But that’s not all.

Further ch-ch-ch-changes include changes to oceandoggy.com and other stuff. I’ve bitched and moaned about all of this before but I’m getting blogged down and need to freshen and change things.

I’m not quite sure how or what form it will take but the changes they are  a’comin.

Change is GOOD, right?

Help.

Somehow, some kinda way, I’ve slipped and tripped and fallen into The Land of The Sucky Books.

I’m not quite sure how it happened but it seems I’m stuck.

I LOVE books by new authors, living as I do vicariously through them and dreaming and hoping that maybe one day I’ll be one of them. So anytime I see a newbie, especially a newbie with a good write up I’m all like quivering and wanting-thinking it’s gonna be the best thing EVER, ’cause I’m so sure all their pent up creativity is gonna flow lava hot down the pages.

But then something like Rock Paper Tiger happens and rains on my parade.

Don’t get me wrong- it reads fast and it flows. But that’s the problem. Reading Rock Paper Tiger is kinda like watching a river rush by. There’s no beginning and no ending and it just kinda rolls on by and you cock your head and look at the horizon and go, WTF?

The story is about Ellie who’s come back from the war in Afghanistan and moved to China with her new husband. In the war she saw some things and in China she finds herself maybe targeted by a mysterious group maybe because of what? Dunno.

Are they the China government? Are they CIA? Who knows???

So she’s chased all over China and finally she’s caught and tortured by being made to sit in a chair for several hours.

And then she’s released.

And has a great life.

Rock Paper Tiger is one of those books you wanna read when you run out of Danielle Steele.

It’s like eating air.

I was all happy and excited and wanting to post all my happiness and excitement and pictures of babes in bikinis and then I read the paper and I got pissed all over again.

I gotta stop reading the paper.

Paris Hilton was arrested with cocaine in a purse she said wasn’t hers and then copped a plea to avoid a felony conviction. She admitted the coke was hers and got a year’s probation, a $2000 fine and 200 hours public service.

If I’d been arrested with the cocaine I’d still be in jail awaiting trial.

If I was black I’d have already been convicted and sentenced. And neither the white me nor the black me would’a walked. We’d be looking at years of fun in prison.

Don’t get me wrong- I think ALL drugs should be legalized and taxed. We didn’t learn from Prohibition and we’re not learning now.

But I get really tired about the rich getting off. REAL tired.

And then, there’s him. And don’t you point your finger at me motherfucker.

Meet Ken Kratz.

While busily prosecuting a guy in a sexual abuse case (he’s the DA in Wisconsin) he was busily texting the victim (that’s her on the left), sexually harassing her and hoping to maybe hook up with the damaged and beat up goods. Bruises equal sluttiness, right?

What a fucking asshole. He’s saying he won’t resign but maybe he’ll seek therapy and wants privacy and his family to support him.

I’m thinkin’ maybe can we put him in Paris Hilton’s speeding Mercedes at the end of a long night of clubbing and cocaine abuse and maybe run both of ’em off a cliff?

A girl can hope.

Turds.

Update– maybe there is a god. Paris Hilton is being denied entry to Japan because of her drug bust and two more women have come forward saying that Mr. Ken sexted them, trying to hook up, while their trials were going on.

Unless she truly fucks up, Paris will probably continue her gifted life and maybe, just maybe, people like her, because of their prosperously prosecutorial protections, will lead the way to drug legalization. It could happen.

But Mr. Ken’s a whole nother thing.

I can only hope he ends up in a dingy little garage, naked and weeping and reeking of moonshine and paint thinner, shaking and wondering what went wrong, with a pistol in his mouth, his finger on the trigger.

Dreams blossom.

Yesterday was a long dog day.

First off, in the morning, we were walking Cutter and Tug on the beach, letting them run, when this touron woman had a problem with our dogs running free on the same beach as her lovely little chillun’ and grandchillun’. She was screeching and shooing and scurrying and waving her arms about like they were rabid and plague ridden instead of just wet and sandy.

Seems her tiny adorables shouldn’t have to share the beach with dogs. Who knew?

I almost always instantly feel bad about tourons and their inherent goofiness, but when I checked my watch and saw it’s September- it was like, umm, isn’t it time for ya’ll to go the fuck home?

But anyway, in the afternoon, not wanting to endure anymore touron crap, I walked the boys on the street, on their leashes, obeying all the rules and all the other shit the tourons force on us during the season (which, by the way- isn’t it September?), when this OTHER touron woman cruises by in complete Pittsburgh Steeler regalia like she can’t wait to play in the game, shortening up her stupid dog’s leash to keep her/him/it right next to her and murmuring something like “heel” to the poor dog and kneeing it in the head as it tried to meet Cutter and Tug, who’re flailing about like retards, straining like fish caught, at the ends of their leashes, eagerly lurching to meet their newest, bestest friend.

And it was then- watching this prissy little touron and her prissy little dog getting kneed in the face while they walked by-  while Cutter and Tug were yanking and jerking and twin tractor-pulling that I suddenly felt a surge of pride and love for Cutter and Tug.

Yeah, they’re a handful and yeah, they can be a pain in the ass, and yeah they are retarded beyond belief, but ya know what?

They’re keepers.

No, not that.

I’m not talkin’ the crappy cholesterolly rich, heart cloggingly food I make and love.

I’m talkin’ about mining the fields of the foodie shows and plumbing the richness that is the Travel Channel and planning whole day trips and vacations around restaurants and food that looks so good that you maybe lay awake at night dreaming dreams of burgers and hoping and wanting and, OK, maybe even salivating just a little about. The yearn, baby, the burn.

I’m talking Foodycation. My word. You saw it here first, dudes.

And Miss Carol and me are gonna do it. Lots.

Instead of going somewhere and laying on another beach and drinking more rum drinks with cute little umbrellas in ’em, and getting sunburnt and walking wistfully holding hands down picturesque marinas docks, we’re gonna head out to obscure little places and eat and hang out with obscure little locals. And drink and eat what they drink and eat.

I think it’s cool beyond belief and can’t wait- the first is gonna be Louis Lunch in Connecticut- home of the cheeseburger. They make their burgers in vertical broilers the same way they’ve been doin’ it  since the beginning of time. I’m thinkin’ lunch and then hotel room fun ’cause it’s a Foodycation, baby.

There’s a saying, or maybe it’s me saying it, and if that’s the case I’ll gladly step up to the plate and accept credit, but, anyway, the saying is that there are writers and there are people who write books.

Audrey Niffenegger wrote a book. Which in and of itself is a truly amazing accomplishment. And I mean it. And having said that and at the expense of losing both my female readers I have to say- I don’t get it.

The whole book is a weird collage of Henry and Clare’s lives as he pops in and out of time and her life. I’m thinkin’ there’s supposed to be some kinda eternal, timeless love thing going on that I’m guessin’ chicks get teary and dreamy about?

But, really? I don’t get it.

Henry can’t or won’t control when and when he goes so he either doesn’t or can’t do cool time traveling stuff like fuck with people or win the lottery over and over again (although they do it, supposedly guiltily, one time, so Clare can buy her dream house and studio so she can keep creating her art and Henry can can keep working at a library which is the only place he could get away with his crap- but don’t get me worked up, OK?) or use his time traveling superpowers to do anything other than pop in and out of Clare’s life. Naked and embarrassed.

If I were Clare I’d of killed him.

What a pain in the ass- constantly disappearing and then showing up nude ’cause time travelers can’t carry their clothes. Give me a fat fucking break.

When I first finished the book I was just disappointed. I was like, WTF?  I’d heard such great things about it that I was like? what’d I miss? why am I too shallow to love this? what’s the matter with my sad ass? It’s gonna be a movie so it’s gotta be something I’m supposed to cuddle up with at night and love like I love my momma and Miss Carol. Right?

But it ain’t.

And the more I thought about it and wrote about it, the more I thinkin’ I’m getting really pissed off and hating it.

Burn it.

Man. This shit just kills me.

Miss Carol was watching this 20/20 show the other night and as soon as I walked out of the Me Only Room and heard BaBaWaWa’s voice I knew it couldn’t be a happy thing.

And it wasn’t.

Call me Mr. Sissypants but I don’t like sad. I know sad is out there lurking somewhere waiting for me but I don’t go looking for sad so I can cry like Miss Carol does.

Anyway. It was a story about these little kids that have some kind of weird disease, progeria, that makes them old at like 2 and dead at like 12.

That’s just not fucking fair.

I mean, I don’t even really like little kids, but honestly?

Kids should be allowed to be little annoying fucks, screaming for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and hating school and hating their parents and growing up and texting constantly and stealing their parent’s car and driving drunk and getting pregnant and getting abortions or getting married or going to college and becoming lawyers.

But a little kid hitting middle age at 6?

That’s just not fucking fair.

The overwhelming thing, according to Miss Carol ’cause I refused to watch it, was how HAPPY these doomed little kids were. It was almost as if, because of their condensed little lives they, and their families, packed in all the happiness they could without regard or concern to anything else.

And maybe, just maybe, wouldn’t THAT be a nice way to live? I hope?

Shit kills me.

Things are becoming sluggishly slurry in oceandoggy.com land. Or maybe not sluggishly slurry- maybe just slowly slipping and sliding in a slightly different direction.

Ya gotta realize- I started this blog thing as an exercise to make me write- if not daily- at least every other day or so. I wanted to write but wanting and doing are waaaaay different things. I needed regimen and my silly blog provided it.

I had thought that, once I finally STARTED writing, I’d go spiralling off into all the other stuff I’d wanted to do. That, once exercised, my fairly lazy brain would leap up onto higher and faster cars and novels would flow out of me like diarrhea.

Right? Right.

Dreams are awesomely cute little things in string bikini’s but what I’d thought would happen hasn’t happened yet and so instead, it seems I’ve hatched this blogging baby and since I’ve never had a baby, I’m awed by the responsibility and the time demands and not sure if I’m up to it or even any good at it.

Which is cool. Which is fine.

But because I’d long yearned for the diarrheal, I was surprised to find out that when I started this bloggy stuff (OK, maybe not RIGHT away but maybe after awhile) people were actually reading my goofiness and a few started to comment and more e-mailed and  before I knew it I was squeezed in tight between the lives of people I’d never met and yet care about.

And even though it wasn’t my diarrheal dream, it felt good.

Real good.

Check it- the peeps I’ve “met” because of oceandoggy.com are really some of the most wonderful people I’ve had the fortune to “meet”- since, you know, I’ve never actually “met” any of them, but they’re folks that I want to hold onto and keep in touch with. ‘Cause I LIKE ’em.

I’m constantly amazed.

This is some kinda good shit right here.

I don’t even ever really like collections of short stories ’cause they make me stop and start too much over the course of a single book, but this one is a goodin’.

Russell Banks has nailed his characters and their tawdry little trailerpark trashy lives (not that that’s a BAD thing so don’t email me about poor people and living in trailers, OK?) and the way they singly and collectively manage to get along and live amongst each other without killing one another.

Set in Catamount, New Hampshire, the stories loosely tie together the twelve trailers that constitute The Granite State Trailer Park sitting on a little lake outside of town and it’s quite possibly necessarily disparate and eccentric community of unfortunately knot-head personalities.

Most are without jobs and although easy and cool with one another, they are beset with all of the other problems that proximity normally forces on losers living in cheap ass rented aluminum trailers they consider their personal castles, assailable by none of the other losers surrounding them, and honestly? I loved them.

It’s a little visit into the little lives of little lost people living in a little trailerpark.

And it’s HUGELY good stuff.

It made me want to sell everything and buy a trailer on a little lake.

I’m thinkin’ Lakedoggy, maybe? Trailerdoggy?

Could happen.

This weekend my brother and his little cupcake came into town.

And all through the blur of beers and cocktails and wonderful food one thing stood out.

Seeing the two of them together makes me believe in hope again.