Every Picture Tells a Story

         Casco Bay







Bender Tuesday















Fair Warning




I had a great phone interview with New Haven University to teach ESL. I have a second interview on Tues to observe a class.  Toma!

Portland

Fort Gorges in the Casco Bay, that i kayaked out to

Bender Tuesday was awesome. Spent it with Sarah in a dive bar. A few Martinis were had. Then kayaked by my lonesome all afternoon on Wed. Then we went to Portland. It was awesome. I think my future is in the state of Maine. Drove back today. Got a few telephone interviews manana. Woo hoo!

I can hear the Romulan giving his acceptance speech on TV in the other room. Mum is watching. What a horses ass that guy is. If he wins, i'll have to leave the US again. 

Bender Tuesday, USA part III

Okay! 

• Aug 14th was in CT
• Aug 21st was in NJ
• Aug 28th in ME

Every Tuesday a different state! South Portland, here I come!

Scenes from Long Island

the Throgs Neck Bridge

South Shore, Long Island















Mother nature never gives in, she wants you to sing 
But how can I go on just singing this song
My car's out of gas again. Hurry home to see my friend
-Steve Hackett

There is no god, but if there were, I'd say he/she hates the GOP, pissing on their parade with hurricane Isaac. Ha!  

12:16

My MacBook is ill, and i am backing up files, fanning it to keep from overheating before i take it to apple.



Mac Rescue Soundtrack:
Diver Down - Van Halen
Night at the Opera Live '75-'76 -Queen

Seriously?
eriously?

VMR Weekend

Veterans of Madrid Reunion Week, part I

SABADO

Here in Long Island with Carolyn. We barbecued last night, but we had to clean a bird's nest out of the grill first. Guess her folks don't use it much. There were four eggs in the nest and we put it out of reach of the dogs in hopes they will hatch.

DOMINGO

It was a normal Renner/Greco weekend - bizarre. Saturday we were going to the beach and Carolyn's car started making noise like nails on a chalkboard. Turned out that the catalytic converter had rotted out,  fallen and rotted out. We were only 10 miles away so we drove back, slowly. Then we got in my car and went to Long Beach, where we saw the sunset. Then we went to have dinner on the Nautical Mile, waterfront restaurants, but parking was impossible. In the end, we settled for pizza and beer at her house. I left today at 13:00. It was an awesome trip. It was like seeing an old war buddy. 

Reunion Week

                        Alex Lifeson, Rush 1981
Music of the damned;
Hemispheres - Rush 
Trilogy - Emerson, Lake and Palmer
Please Don't Touch - Steve Hackett
Warner Bros. Demos, Oct. 1977- Van Halen
Greatest Hits - Stevie Ray Vaughn
The Music of Genesis - David Palmer and The London Symphony Orchestra
About Face live, 1984 - David Gilmour


16:48

It's raining. Hope the Bluefish game isn't rained out. 

Viernes

0:57

They won. It's alwaby liys fun going to games with Mum. The beat the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs and are 2½ games out of a playoff spot.

Tomorrow begins Reunion Week. Fri. thru Sun. I'll see Carolyn (Long Island, NY). Then Tues thru Thurs I'll see Sarah (South Portland, Maine). A week of seeing Madrid friends. All told, it will be a 660 mile (1,062k) excursion. I've only driven about 170m (274k) since I got home, so it'll be good to open up the Toyota's engine after 2 year of dormancy. I should be able to haul ass up to Maine and back.

I am reading The Ninth Life of Louis Drax by Liz Jensen which is utterly fucked up about a boy who has eight horrible accidents but always survives. The eighth one he returned from the dead. And now, after the ninth one, he is in a coma. It's bizarre and mad. He's in a coma because his father pushed him into a ravine because he was eating sweets and his head bounced off of the side of the ravine as he fell, Homer Simpson style.   

I can only admire a woman writer who is sicker than I am. I loved her book, The Rapture. I'd give it five stars. But this one took a while to get into. Anyway, I can't recommend The Rapture enough. 

2:21

Seems i can only sleep between 3:00 and 1o:00 these days. I'm not sure what's wrong with me. Plenty, probably.

11:06

Mum's out. Time to test out her new computer speakers with the classic Rush DVD: Exit Stage Left..., via Youtube. Let there be Rush! When I saw this in 1982 it changed my life forever.

this was one of the comments:

hell yea man, thank you for this!..It's people like you that upload on youtube that makes my life better. Smoking a bong hit to this after work. Very much appreciated brother. 

Ha! P is for priceless.

Raving and Drooling

13:13











banda sonora para un jueves;
Aqualung - Jethro Tull
Trilogy - Emerson, Lake and Palmer
Cruel But Fair, 1975, cd 1 - Pink Floyd
Presence - Led Zeppelin

If I were a swan, I'd be gone.
If I were a train, I'd be late.
And if I were a good man, I'd talk with you more often than I do.
If I were to sleep, I could dream.
If I were afraid, I could hide.
If I go insane, please don't put your wires in my brain.
-Pink Floyd

Back from Newtown and seeing Pat, Laura and the kids. That was fun. Tonight Mum and I go to see the Bridgeport Bluefish (minor league baseball) play the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs (hee hee; crabs.)

And, I got my first tutoring job! 4 hours a week for two months starting Sept. 21st! Thank you universe! A little English girl that I will teach English, Spanish and biology to. 

Yesterday I applied for a job to put together large Lego models for groups of kids. To think, I was teaching in an MBA program a year ago.

Got a monkey on my back.
Got a monkey on my back
Gonna change my ways tonight
Nobody's fault but mine
-Led Zeppelin

Then manana off to see Carolyn for the weekend! Woo hoo!

Road trip!!!

Mental Health

10:19

Take a little trip back with Father Tiresias,
Listen to the old one speak of all he has lived through.
I have crossed between the poles, for me theres no mystery.
Once a man, like the sea I raged,
Once a woman, like the earth I gave.
But there is in fact more earth than sea.
-Genesis

Saw my Great - Aunt Nunnie, 92, yesterday. She's awesome. Mum an I took her out to lunch. Then we saw Mel (the Seester) and Jan (the sister-in-law.) It was great.

And now, back to looking for jobs. If I don't find anything I may have to do another tour of Uganda (black ops.) Man, I hate that place.

I had a dream that I was in a play and at the end the female antagonist gets her leg caught in a trap and is hanging upside down in a tree. My character was supposed to inject her with poison to kill her. However, I injected her with real poison because I was paid to do so. Somehow I got away with it. Then I woke up. < This does not bode well for my current state of mental health>

Music to fuel psychosis:
The White Album - The Beatles
Seconds Out - Genesis
Larks Tongues in Aspic, Parts I - IV - King Crimson
Recorded Live - Cream
L.A. Women - Doors
Classic Yes - Yes
Abraxas - Santana

Madrid, España - 38C
Ansonia, CT - 29C

11:40

I just applied for a nanny job in New Caanan. Heaven help us all. Can you smell my desperation from Madrid?

17:46

I think I got a 4 hour a week tutoring gig, starting Sept. Woo hoo! I also got an offer to teach English in Iraq. I said "F- all you," as in F-all-U -jah.

Two Weeks Later

2:11

Summer "Repatriation Tour" 2012
Aug 21 - Hasbrouck Heights, NJ
Aug 22 - Newtown, CT
Aug 24, 25 - Williston, NY
Aug 28, 29 - South Portland, ME

What comes around, goes around, and I get around when I am Stateside.  After two weeks in CT, finally a little mini tour of the Northeast. I'm ready to unleash the Toyota and let her get her ya-ya's out. I suppose Portland will be about 500 miles, round trip. 

10:19

I'm off to NJ, where i believe, there are no outstanding warrants for my arrest. 

Time Flies

Headless in Seattle

11:07

She said luck is what you make ityou just reach out and take it.Now let's dance a while.
She said nothing ever happensif you don't make it happen.And if you can't laugh, then smile.
But after a whileyou realize time flies.And the best thing that you can dois take whatever comes to you.'Cuz time flies.-Porcupine Tree

Time Flies - single edit

Theatre of the Absurd
How dire have things become when I put Bender Tuesday on my Marketing CV? I mean, it worked. It brought in business through a viral social media marketing campaign, but the name is just absurd. "No. I'm really 44. Seriously."

A conference of the strange 
and your family is deranged 

Fuck it. If they don't like it they can bit my shiny metal ass.

And dancing under summer showers
Is still the way I see you now
'Cuz time flies

Looking for a job is about as much fun as prison sex. I applied for a marketing job at a local University for their grad and law program. Both emails I tired came back rejected. So I called and after 5 minutes they gave me two completely different email addresses. Wow. They really need a marketing manager! On the plus side, maybe I'm the only CV they get. How can you have the wrong recruiting email address on your website?

How?

God is dead and we have killed him. We are all so stupid we bored him/her to death.

Soundtrack to an endless job search:
The Incident - Porcupine Tree
Clockwork Angels - Rush
Live 1978 - Genesis


15:09

Okay - applied to about 4 different jobs so far.  Manana, for Bender Tuesday, Mum and I go to the Motherland (Jersey) to see my great-aunt Nunnie (92) and then see the Seester. It's been over two years since i've been back in the Motherland. I honestly don't miss it much. I began plotting my escape when I was about 14 years old and have never looked back. 

Speaking looking back; 


http://what-stoners-and-mitt-romney-have-in-common

Oh, Romulan, you really are so full of shit. 

Smithstock 2012

I'm going on down to Yasgur's Farm, 
I'm gonna join in a rock and roll band. 
I'm gonna camp out on the land.
I'm gonna get my soul free.
-Joni Mitchell

Well, Smithstock 2012 was a huge success. There were about 100 people. I played drums for about an hour for the first time in one and a half years. I felt comfortable and people told me it sounded fine. SO, that is good news. I saw OLD friends. I hadn't seen our friend, Roger the Shrubber (who lives in LA,) for ten years. It was awesome. A beautiful 26C day and not humid. The sky was blue the way it is in Madrid. We barbecued and drank beer until the wee hours. It was great.

liquid propane / expired food / self immolation

Okay, now that i've issued apologies to Susan (for which i was mortified), the Romulan (i still stand by the assertation that the dog he tied to the roof of his car 20 years ago in a carrier would be a better candidate) and the Pope (bite my ass, but you'd like that wouldn't you, you pedophile enabling, ex-Hitler youth bastard!,) I can continue my important work. My therapist is always saying that i need to say how i really feel. 

Music for a job search;
Genesis, Chicago 2 - 16 -77

Now if i can just get my mom to stop eating expired food; olive oil from 2011, minced garlic 2011, and analgesics that expired in 2005 and 2007! My work is never done

I've never lived in Ansonia, so i never realized what a squalid, redneck town it was. When mum went to get the propane tank filled, the moron over-filled it. I had the burgers on for five minutes and the flame went out. I looked at the regulator and it had frost on it! In August! So i went to the Internet and found out that when it's overfilled it leaks liquid propane and freezes up. It is also very dangerous and can explode. So i detached it and mum cooked the burgers on a Foreman Grill. When i took it back the next day to BJ's Warehouse, they told me to bleed it off myself. I told them that the Internet suggested i call the fire department in such situations because it's quite dangerous. I said, "No way, you messed up, you bleed it." Then 3 people who worked there asked me if i had a screwdriver to bleed it! I said, "This is a warehouse! You don't have a screwdriver?" I picked up a pair of sissors off her desk and said, "Here, use this!" And i forgot to add that a bird had flown into the warehouse was caught in a cage that had electronic goods behind her. The woman at the desk screamed. "You're afraid of birds?" I asked. She nodded. I said, "It's in a cage. It won't get out, and if it does, I'll protect you." 

When i went out back, the guy was giving me lip. "How do you know it's too full?" Because the regulator had frost on it. And because i looked it up on the Internet. And because i know how to read!  In the end, it took an hour to get the tank bled out. All i could think about was that if i cut the guy's femoral artery he would have bled out in under five minutes. Now that's efficiency. So, less than 5 days after coming home, i could have blown myself up. Like Daffy Duck in that one episode.
daffy duck - i can only do it once

D'oh!

I've been home for a week. Hooray!

Also, i need to apologize. When i first started this blog, it was meant to be only for my friends in Europe (just as The Spanish Exile was only for my US friends, and then i decided to open it up.) However, i mentioned some things about Sue and i that i had written when i thought i was writing in a cul de sac, where only people who didn't know her would read it. A dear friend pointed this out, i regret anyone who knew her saw it,  and i immediately erased all references to her and our situation. We had a lot of good years together and i was just hurt and venting. So mea culpa. I've have always striven to not say anything negative about her publicly, so that was a major mistake on my part. I had forgotten those posts when i opened it up to everyone. So the court is please asking the jury to ignore all previous testimony and references to her. And as punishment, i sentence said Blogger to drink no beer but Coors Light for the next month ("No!!!" screams the defendant). Susan is a good person, i will always love her,  and i love Annie with all my heart. So once again, i apologize wholeheartedly.

And now, sadly, i need to go to the liquor store and start serving my sentence. 

Like A Fish with Feet

12:12

an Axolotl or "Mexican Walking Fish". The Axolotl is an amphibian, more specifically, a salamander.

Music to find a job by;
Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd
Rumours - Fleetwood Mac
American Idiot - Green Day
A Young Person's Guide to King Crimson - King Crimson
Exodus - Bob Marley
The Incident - Porcupine Tree

My mother's neighbor to our right has a dog that barks all the time at everything. It would be muy unfortunate if it got poisoned by some of those toadstools i say growing on the embankment in the back of Mum's yard. Horribly unfortunate.  

I read the graffiti
In the bathroom stall
Like the holy scriptures of the shopping mall
And so it seemed to confess
It didn't say much
But it only confirmed that
The center of the earth
Is the end of the worldAnd I could really care less

City of the dead
At the end of another lost highway
Signs misleading to nowhere
City of the damned
Lost children with dirty faces today
No one really seems to care
-Green Day

Carolyn asked me how I was adjusting. I told her i felt like a fish with feet. She echoed the same sentiment. 

14:42

"The first transport is away! The first transport is away!"

―Romas "Lock" Navander, during the Battle of Hoth, The Empire Strikes Back.

First job app is away. Applied to St. Peter's University in Jersey City for an adjunct teaching job in marketing. I have university experience, so we'll see what happens. 

Now if you'll kind me excuse me, i have to go dig up some poisonous toadstools from the embankment. 

Cleaning House

13:17 EDT

Thank your stars you’re not that way

Turn your back and walk away

Don’t even pause and ask them why

Turn around and say goodbye

-Rush

So..., i arrived home after a nightmarerishly long trip. I saw Mum. I visited my old friends Kevin and Pat and saw their families. I grabbed 6 big boxes of crap from Kevin's actic. I also played street hockey with his son for three hours in the humidity and almost died. I built some stairs for my mother's pool and installed them (the woman's not an idiot - she knows free labor when she sees it.)

SO... i survived the 1st 5 days. Now what? I started updating my linked in status to help find a job. 

Traveling Music; 

Selling England by the Pound - Genesis

Days of Open Hand - Suzanne Vega

Gensis Archive 1967 - 1975 (disc 3) - Genesis

Clockwork Angels - Rush 

Aladin Sane - David Bowie

Looking at Craig's List reminds me of walking down 42nd Street when i was a kid. A couple of adverts are appealing, but you know things are not what they seem. And just for kicks, i went to the personals. There was a  woman was looking for orel sex. I went back to looking for tutoring jobs. Just more proof that there is no god. What kind of god would admit to have children like us? We are all the offspring of a Deadbeat Dad. Fuck. Back to searching.