Reduction2

"Treat others as you want to be treated" - Mom

I love this quote because it is Flawless.

and if you threw every aspect of every religion into a big pot

and let it boil
for days

this quote is all that would be left.

An Uninvited Visitor

Rowley, MA was not happy that I referred to it as "not that Cool"
so it spit us an uninvited visitor this weekend

1230a is technically Sunday morning but to us it was very much Saturday night
another split squad day, separate gigs
and by this time we were both Home,
unwinding and recounting the day's journeys behind us

thus our house was lit up, probably the only house on the street
maybe the only house for miles
which is why he chose us.

a timid knock on the door and drunken mumbling.

we share a puzzled stare but i'm in underoos and race for pants
by the time I open the door the knocker has gone.
I don't look around very hard.

we talk inside.
doesn't fit the m.o. of the old man next door or his son (who is also an old man)

after a short period of time (Editor's Estimate: 1-3 minutes) a voice through an open window

"I'm sorry to startle you, I need help, can I use your phone?"

My old lady jumps and says, "Whaaaaaaaa"

I open the door and there's a pretty tall guy with a shaved head and tattooed arms.

"I was with my friends and we had an argument and I walked off like a jerk and now I have no idea where I am can I use your phone?"

and he says other things like "I know it was silly" and "I'm sorry to bother you" over and again
and I can tell he's trying to be calm but I can also tell what people strung out on drugs look like.

I hand him my flip phone and he fiddles with his wallet for a while, and pulls out a business card for Viking Taxi.

He asks the Viking how much a ship from Here to There will be and then shakes his head, "no no no, that's no good."

I retrieve my phone and he asks how to get to the convenience store.  It's literally left on the road.  LEFT.  That's it.  He doesn't really get it though and wonders if I have a smart phone, so that he can see a map.  Visualize it, he says.

Then he asks if I had a phone book.
but it gets Weirder.

next he says he's heard that Rowley dogs will pick you up for walking.

he pulls out a crisp $20 and asks if I can drive him to the previously mentioned convenience store.

but my Old Lady is listening intently, right inside the door and comes out with a big "Noooooooooooo" and a crisp "ope" on the end
shoos him away like he was a stray dog.
She did not say "Git" or "Go on now" but she might as well have.

I like helping people but you can't just shout into stranger's windows demanding smartphones and phone books and assistance evading police. I'm only down with real Action like that on rare occasions, with people I trust.

The Moral of the story is that everything I write on this blog will eventually be Wrong and that's O.K.

with a submoral that
Rowley, MA: you are pretty Cool

The Battle of Rowley, Part 1: Backstory

Rowley, MA is not that Cool of a town

(but the Price was right, so was the Location)

Good Luck if you want Anything in Rowley after 9p
you are not able to acquire it here. Every store has closed.

but if you are Antiquing or in need of Breakfast:
Welcome to Rowley!

the best fringe benefit of our new pad was ice cream

fairly priced, large portions of homemade bliss: WHITE FARMS

we have done the Ice Cream Test already, right when we moved in

for Fun 

to introduce the old lady to my childhood stomping grounds

and to advocate for the devil

because we knew White Farms would destroy the competition 

and they did. 

a few years and dozens of perfect ice creams later,

at least 3 spots have opened recently: 

-Peachwave on Route 1 northbound

-Down River on Route 1 southbound

-fairly certain there is another ice cream spot opening in the Pizza Factory plaza

and a second round of testing feels inevitable

only this time the process will be documented.  I will pretend to have journalistic integrity and ask the managers to comment on my experiment, if they believe their product will hold up.  "Good Afternoon, I demand to speak to your manager immediately, I'm from the Joeyjives blog and need just a moment to have sensitive questions answered..."  

or maybe I'll do it secretly, cop the phantom gourmet's bit...

coming soon maybe:

Part 2: Criteria

Part 3: Testing

Part 4: Analysis

Part 5: Inevitably returning to White Farms and regretting the time away

Time Perception and the Zamboni

There were at least a couple times in my life where I have been legitimately interested in a hockey game

and the intermissions while the ice was cleaned seemed to take forever.

Forever.

Recently, when the local hockey teams championship run infringed on a weekly musical performance, the venue and band compromised: to not perform during game action, and to fill the intermissions with song. 

We would begin as soon as the period ended, and we would stop as they approached the face off circle to begin the next one.  We played as much as possible,

and the time flew by.

Flew.

Moral: maybe Time Perception is more psychology than neuroscience (?)

If I Die In Rowley (at least I will die free)

Two in the morning

headed home from the gig

where Route 133 crosses Old Route 1

and the lights are ON
at the Rowley Psychic
$10 Special

and this idea buries itself in my brain
there's no spirit in particular I'd want to conjur at the moment
but why are the lights on right now?

even though the car is still physically headed towards home
I can't stop considering how much fun it would be to even try
BUT by the time I decide go for it, I'm way too close to home, passing the flea market

although the real action won't begin until sunrise
I see few scramblers setting up shop under floodlights
and wrangling them up seems like a Fun idea too

post gig adrenaline. the psychic. the flea market. What would Hunter Thompson do?  Ride the second wind for the sake of Journalism?  Go home and pour a drink and fabricate the story?

if I go to the flea market right now at least $20 of the $100 earned tonight will be used on some Thing, just to write about the guy I bought it from, and the haggling process.  I do not need this Thing.

******

the tires screech in a U-Turn and I push in the cigarette lighter, one of the few remaining perks in this old truck.  Not smoking is not an option before a two am meeting with a psychic in Rowley.

I rap on the door and she answers in yellow woolen robe.  it is cleaner than I would have expected if I'd known she was going to answer the door in a robe.

"Seriously?"

Her question is intense but her face expressionless.  She looks tired, but not because of the hour.

"Good Morning Ma'am.  I must talk to the ghost of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson.  Immediately.  I'm hoping you'll honor the $10 Special advertised in the window?"

It was a long time before she answered me.  She spoke matter of factly, after first letting out a long sigh.

"The Good Doctor killed himself.  It seems like you know that already.  His spirit is in perpetual torment.  You may not want to hear what he has to say."

******

"Twenty dollars?"

Neither of us are buying his faux-outrage, I only wonder why his accent seems so Southern.  We are in Massachusetts.  There was a  R where I expected an H.  It sort of dragged, then caught the S on the way by.  Dollarrrsssss.

The sun would be coming up soon.  Going over budget was Not an option.  Not after the Instructions we had received.

"Aw shucks man, your girl really wants it, plus I paid at least FIFTY for that. I can't let it go for at less that that, right?"

His voice bobbed like a damn frog, making the question seem as though he was addressing a child.

Ro-ight?

"Jimbo, lets get one thing straight she's not my Girl.  My old lady is at home asleep not far from here, but I'd never tell you in which direction.  This woman is my personal Psychic, and from tonight on will be a salaried member of my Team.  We are on a mission concerning the Spirit World.  We MUST purchase this vinyl Eat A Peach, we must listen to all 33 minutes of Mountain Jam, and although you are welcome to join us, we MUST pay you TWENTY dollars. These terms are from the Doctor himself and completely out of our hands."

She pulled the yellow bath robe up around her neck, and shivered it bit, then turned to the man behind the table.  "Jimbo, did your Ma wear glasses?"  Her accent suddenly seemed slower and Southern too.

His aluminum can hit the ground and beer splashed everywhere for a moment, then slowly started pouring onto the dirt.  He made no attempt to pick it up.

The Meaning of Life (draft 2)

Facets That Seem Important (to me, so far) In Determining the Meaning of Life:

condensed: from Draft 1, composed Sept 2012
and a Jan 2012 posted entitled Spoiler Alert

-Self-Discovery / Acceptance
-Charity
-Awareness of Mortality
-Perception vs. Reality
-Karma / Connectedness
-Environment / Earth / Universe
-Family
-The Creator
-Thumbs

I moved The Creator a little further down the list from last time, but don't think She will take offense

I want to add FLUIDITY: if you zoom in to look at the smallest of smallest particles, they're zooming around AND if you zoom out to look at the biggest of biggest planets and systems, they're zooming around too.  That leads me to believe that nothing is stagnant.  Ch-ch-changes, so to speak...

I also want to add these:

-No one knows why we're here
-No one knows what happens when we die

That's pretty rad.  Billions and billions of cats throughout the history of the world and not one can answer either of those two question.  That seems important.