Keeping Cool in Washington

Time for a quick smoke in a little park opposite Brooks Bros. on Connecticut Ave. Swag from J. Press, JR Cigar and Borders, which seems to have abandoned the audio CD. A very feeble selection and lots of empty shelves, and I don't think it's just a post-Christmas situation.

Ugh. Christmas trip.

Lakeville to NoVa. Eight hours, 407 miles. Harrisburg, Pa. (known world-wide as the Epicenter of Evil) is always bad, but the last 15 miles - from Leesburg, Va. to McLean - is the worst.

On the plus side, little to no traffic most of the way, and a grand total of 75 cents in tolls. Try that on the Jersey Turnpike-Delaware Bridge-Baltimore Tunnel route.

Walk Over Winter

I have found my winter shoe - a pair of lightly used Walk-Overs, purchased from a fellow sufferer on Ask Andy.

Ask Andy's Trad forum has an ongoing thread called the "Trad Thrift Exchange." It is an excellent resource and 99.9 percent of my dealings with people have been very good. (I got ripped off by one guy but that was years ago now and we've all moved on. Even though he posted under the name Foghorn and he owes me either a big box of clothes or $200.)

Channeling Spencer Tracy

I am busy committing Trad heresy this week — digging out the double-breasted and darted, the pleated and somewhat spread in the collar.

Longwing thinks I look like Spencer Tracy. All things considered, I'll take it.

The suit is a Hickey Freeman I picked up on eBay for a song a few years ago and forgot about. I had the alterations lady twiddle it recently, and here we are.

Garbage can by Rubbermaid. Think of it as my nod to the "pylon poets."*

* described by the Poets' Graves website as a "group of 1930s left-wing poets including W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender, Cecil Day-Lewis and Louis MacNeice. They were known for their use of industrial imagery - which included references to trains, skyscrapers, factories, roads etc. The actual term 'pylon' was derived from Spender's 1933 poem The Pylons."

I cannot claim to have steeped myself in this school of poetry to any great extent. I think someone tried to make me read Spender in college, but even then I was a Spencer Tracy type and resisted.

Smarm

I'm tired of this guy. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), who has never done a blessed thing in his life except feed at the public trough. I mean, dedicate his life to public service. Sorry.

What kind of weenie gets a 1600 on his SATs, goes to Harvard and Harvard again (undergrad and law school) and then immediately runs for the state legislature?

The kind of weenie for whom publicity is more important than money, that's what kind of weenie.

And along the way he's become so convinced of his own personal marvelousness and the infallibility of his beliefs that anyone who dares disagree with Mr. Harvard wants to drag us back a couple of centuries.

Here is His Excellency, mouthing off to the president via "Good Morning America":

“My advice to the president is compromise when you can, but when people are being unreasonable, and we have hard right people who seem to be wanting to move us back to the 19th century, draw some lines in the sand and fight,” Schumer said. “Try to compromise first. Do everything you can, but don’t give up your core fundamental principles. I think the American people will respect that.”

Obama makes his first semi-sensible move in two years and to Mr. Harvard he's a sellout. Anyone who disagrees is unreasonable. Schumer's idea of compromise? He wins.

I'm still a registered Democrat, for obscure, atavistic reasons. I keep hoping that regular Dems will come to their senses and give the lefties that have hijacked the party the bum's Rush Limbaugh. (Ahahaha.)

Alas, I am not sanguine about this prospect.

Skinnier Style

There continues to be less of me, and what remains is arranged better. I couldn't button these pants two months ago.

Martin Gordon cords, bought cheap from Sierra Trading Post and hemmed up by the local lady. LL Bean sweater, Orvis tattersall, Bean Signature mocs, and obnoxious orange argyle socks from SmartWool. Only the shoes were bought at retail (and even then I had a coupon).

All this thrift allows me to pay for the gym.

Ha Ha, I Was Right

In January I called Time's Joe Klein a putz, for his blog posting of Jan. 25 which began with this:

Absolutely amazing poll results from CNN today about the $787 stimulus package: nearly three out of four Americans think the money has been wasted. On second thought, they may be right: it's been wasted on them. Indeed, the largest single item in the package--$288 billion--is tax relief for 95% of the American public. This money is that magical $60 to $80 per month you've been finding in your paycheck since last spring. Not a life changing amount, but helpful in paying the bills.

http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2010/01/25/too-dumb-to-thrive/#ixzz0dpGiY714

(Emphasis added.)

I wrote then:

Yes, Joe, I found the extra money helpful. And I am also paying taxes on it, as I discovered when I did my 1040 the other day. Matter of fact, I owe the feds about $600 - oddly enough, almost the precise amount of the "tax relief."

And yesterday, The Associated Press, always at the head of the pack, discovered this phenomenon:

13M get unexpected tax bill from Obama tax credit

WASHINGTON (AP) — About 13.4 million taxpayers may be getting unexpected tax bills because they were awarded too much money under President Barack Obama's Making Work Pay tax credit, a government audit said Thursday.

The tax credit, which expires Jan. 1, was designed to increase take-home pay by about $8 a week through new tax withholding tables. The credit was capped at $400 for individuals and $800 for married couples filing jointly.

However, the credit put millions of taxpayers at risk for not having enough taxes withheld from their paychecks, resulting in a tax bill when they file their returns, said the audit by J. Russell George, the Treasury inspector general for tax administration.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j8W-0UCvLxjV7_KakiT8cxJMCNlQ?docId=81831a5c6bc947f6bc1b07e648bc9809

Grotty Ivy

No name filthy blue sweatshirt, Levis Slim Fit that are still too long (why can't they make a 29 inch inseam with a 36 inch waist, or better yet a 35?), LL Bean slip-ons, pretending to read The Ivy Look.

National Geographic Style

Look at a crowd shot in some exotic locale in the national Geographic magazine. There's always someone doing something in a bit of a blur. It's a trademark style.

This is in the ballpark. The Bell Choir at the Salisbury Congregational Church Sunday, Dec. 12. I wish there had been just a little more light in the place.

I Like My Red Hunting Cap — and other thoughts from November 2010

It's warm, it stays put and it just might keep some drunken oaf from shooting me.

Terry Cowgill likes to take photos of cars with lots of bumper stickers, which always are of the hippie-dippy persuasion.

Well, across the Hudson in the hardscrabble atmosphere of Ulster County, N.Y., it's a different story:


This guy received style points for the wicker creel, but lost them for a) whipping the water and b) zero patience.

Late season fishing, in high, turbid flows, means working flies around likely lies and doing so blind. Just banging a few casts into a run and then moving on isn't going to cut it.

WHAT?! NO CAFFEINE?!

"I'd walk half a mile for a cup of convenience store coffee that tastes like drywall!" And I did.

That shiny new Cuisinart percolator conked out after a month or so. But I found a drip maker at the Bargain Barn for five bucks.

That one morning without a coffee maker of any kind was hell, however. No caffeine. Have to smoke outside. Starter motor in the car shit the bed, too. WTF all around.

I really hate it when things don't work. There — I said it.

Return of the Heavy Tweed Suit

You know it's winter when the Heavy Tweed Suit comes out of the closet. It's a Brooks Brothers, 1970s going by lapel width.

The joke I always make is that I could go skiing in this thing. With a thick scarf, gloves and silk long johns, I can be outside in complete comfort.

And we're keeping the newsroom chilly in an effort to save money, so it's handy there too.

Why We Thrift

Pea coat from a guy in New Jersey who apparently has the Aladdin's Cave of closets. Schoolboy muffler from a guy in New York who regularly finds cool clobber and sells it at a reasonable price. Filson boots that were damn near out of the box new; the owner just didn't like them and sold them to me for a song. Heavy Woolrich wool trousers, the scratchy kind, long johns required, from eBay. Underneath a Viyella shirt, also eBay and the old 60/40 cotton/wool blend, not today's wimpy 80/20.

If you bought all this gear new it would run north of a grand, easy. Cost me maybe $150 all told, and much of that was shipping.

Hat and gloves (not shown) I actually bought in a store. On sale, but in a store. Cost almost as much as everything else combined.

Gratuitous Pop Music Criticism - Nick Curran and the Lowlifes

Nick Curran is a veteran of the sort of bands that span genres like punk and psycho-billy. I had never heard of him until I heard a couple of cuts from "Reform School Girl" on Little Steven's Underground Garage, which is a great radio show, if only for showcasing bands you'd never hear otherwise.

The band has piano, upright bass, sax, girl singers and the kind of drummer who doesn't have a million pieces so he's guaranteed to hit something wherever he flails. Curran plays a pretty mean guitar.

The best cuts are the ones where he's doing his Little Richard thing, although the title track is a pretty amusing Ronettes-via-Joey Ramone deal.

I could do without "Kill My Baby." It's just not funny. But the rest is good stuff, if derivative. But the influences are wide-ranging and Curran combines them in a way that's unique.

Apparently Curran's a purist and makes his records with elderly equipment, so the disc's sound is compact and warm. "Reel Rock Party" would jump out of a mono AM car speaker set in the dashboard.

And most people will hate this record, which is enough for me to recommend it.

The Need for Tweed

A heavy tweed jacket doubles as outerwear, ya know. Add a pair of long johns and the need for great cumbersome overcoats is alleviated.

Until it gets really cold.

Nine Songs, Nine Sex Scenes, Big Whoop

"Nine Songs" (2004) is a weird little pseudo-porn flick about two dull young people who hang around at rock and roll shows and screw a lot. In between the filmmakers throw in a lot of stuff about Antarctica. There is some boring dialogue that's probably supposed to be existential, some okay-to-mediocre live footage of bands like The Von Bondies and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, and some explicit sex scenes between the cute girl and the rather greasy guy.

If there's a point to it beyond titillation, or promoting the bands (most of whom have faded into oblivion now, six years later) I can't see it.

And if you want a fuck flick you can easily find one that doesn't have long glacier sequences.

Two coils for the sex, but it's really not much of a show.

Hail Gym

The gym routine is starting to pay off. I clocked in at 165 lbs. this morning, and I couldn't pray my way into these 34 x 29 chinos a month ago.

That's right, 34 waist. (They're actually a hair under 35, I measured, but it's the perception that counts.)

I am now officially Pudgy, as opposed to a Fat Slob.

Some time back I bought a couple of Lands End slim-fit shirts because they were so cheap. I tried one on and immediately rejected it. But now...

The Daily Irritant for Sunday, Nov. 28

It would be helpful if websites, especially news sites, would not load up the pages with eighty zillion flashing ads, video clips and the like.

Why?

Because, geniuses, if you don't have the absolute latest machine and updates and all of it YOU CAN'T READ THE WEBSITE.

Coming up...

I have actual CACA material coming up, but I've been distracted by watching DVDs of Planning and Zoning meetings I missed when on vacation. I have to take notes and back them up and go over the mumbling — over and over. It's a process that makes me seriously consider suicide. If you think my posts have been gloomy lately now you know why.

But I have a Standard Devil Movie, a porno film disguised as a music video and a French New Wave thriller with laconic guys in cool suits — all coming up.

Let's get this stupid blog back on track.

Instabuddhist

So now that holiday depression is in full swing I am reminded of the first two of the Buddha's Four Noble Truths: Life = suffering, and the cause of suffering is attachment.

To anything, or anybody. It's all transient, temporal, unreal.

So you gotta cut that stuff out, boy. Especially with insane women.

Seems like a pretty crabbed way to go through life, frankly. But I'll try it, although not to the extent of giving up my thrift shop clothing collection or my arsenal of fly rods.

No wonder addicts like being instabuddhists. It doesn't actually involve any work. All you have to do is keep your head down and don't engage unless absolutely necessary.

Yay.

**********

So here's today's Instabuddhist itinerary — Deli, talk with old codgers in outwardly meaningful but completely disconnected manner (because I am an Instabuddhist and therefore don't really care for deep spiritual reasons); gym, to improve physical self (although it doesn't really matter because it's an illusion); take a ride somewhere I haven't been to in a long time, like Rhinebeck or Millbrook, N.Y., to see if things are as boring there (an illusion, of course, born of desire). I would normally go to an AA meeting tonight but I'm an Instabuddhist now and have no need for such temporal things. Plus they'll be talking about being thankful and grateful and we know those are just part of the big cosmic joke. Right?

Dog-Ass Holiday Thrills, Spills, Chills

Closeup of my world-famous lentil and split pea concoction, known as "Super Puke."

6 a.m. — Wake up to "Imus" rerun, very unsatisfactory. TV news has substitute infobabes speculating breathlessly on whether or not that crazy little hedgehog-looking mofo in North Korea's gonna start a war. I hope he does; I'll volunteer to go there and do something, not that the Army is that desperate. I am that bored, though.

7 a.m. — Gym open for four hours today, so I get in early before the metal-benders and the bitter-divorcees-in-tights. The Hippity-Hop Lite satellite radio channel is on and Sweet Tap-Dancin' Jesus does it suck.

10 a.m. — Make it to local high school for annual grudge match against arch-rivals. Our guys are out of the post-season but a win would deny other team a playoff bid. Looks good — down 13-12 at half. But midway through the third quarter our guys collapse. Freezing out. Shoot breeze with acquaintances while silently wondering why I only have acquaintances and no friends.

Our guys (in blue) fail to block punt from their guy.

The crowd got rather quiet in the third quarter. And it got colder.

1 p.m. — Eat bowl of Super Puke (I'm going to apply for a trademark) and watch Detroit stay close for a while. Fall asleep, miss all but final three minutes.

Super Puke gets better the further down you get.

3:45 p.m. — Smoke one of these new cigars that came yesterday. An evil-looking, black, oily thing, emits more of a vapor than smoke.

Taking a health break

4 p.m. — Assemble Official Dog-Ass Thanksgiving menu. Turkey "club" sandwich, meaning sliced turkey on toasted wheat with three pieces of bacon, cranberry sauce mixed with mayonnaise and some lettuce that was lurking in the bottom of the produce drawer. Half a sweet potato. Or is it a yam? Fuck if I know. And some sort of "Garden of Allah Spring Festive Delight Mix" veggie stuff out of a bag.

The Official Dog-Ass Thankgsiving meal, 2010.

4:45 p.m. — Eat exciting ODAT meal.

5:30 p.m. — Fart.

7:30 p.m. — Drive to next town in vague hope that regular AA meeting is on. It isn't.

8 p.m. — Saints hang on to win; begin ironing big pile of shirts.

Happy Thanksgiving! Now...

Enough already with the wishing me a great holiday and (on Friday) "How was your Thanksgiving?"

Should I tell them the truth?

"Oh, it sucked, thanks. I didn't do a fucking thing except smoke eight cigars and walk around town — which was, of course, deserted. I had a turkey club on wheat for dinner — for that extra-special holiday touch I used cranberry sauce mixed up with mayo. The only football game worth watching was on the NFL Network, which I don't get, and I ironed a shitload of shirts. Any more questions?"

Tweed Deployment

It's a little embarrassing to admit, but I have enough tweed jackets that when I unpack them for fall and winter I am surprised at what's there. Pleasantly, I should add.

A little on the warm side today, to lull us into complacency before crushing our spirits with snow.

Old Richman Bros. sack jacket heads this lineup. Bengal stripe shirt from J. Press, "tailored fit" non-iron chinos from Joe Banks' last "one of a kind world famous will never happen again until next week" sales. Made in USA Weejuns of uncertain vintage.

Tie has the Episcopal crest on it. Can I wear this without getting beaten by the bishop?

Hooray for Technology

It wasn't complicated. I wanted to know if the New York Jets vs. Houston would be one of the NFL games we get in NW Connecticut today.

It's not a given that we get the Jets game. Broadcasters consider us either Giants or Patriots fans, with some justification. If New England and the Jets are playing at the same time, we get the Pats.

Today the Patriots are playing at 4 p.m., so it should be the Jets. Unless this is a Fox doubleheader week, in which case there might be some other hassle. When are the Giants playing?

Oh, that's at 8 p.m., on another network. OK.

So I look at the guide thing on the actual TV. "To be announced." Oh. That's helpful. Thank you, dog-ass Comcast.

(As an aside, I have been asking Comcast to include the Fox Business Network so I can watch Don Imus in the morning instead of firing up the AM radio — with its iffy reception at 6 a.m. It's not as if there isn't room in the Comcast channel lineup. Surely the system that offers the Costume Jewelry Network and the Useless Crap in Ersatz Wicker Baskets Channel can handle this simple request. Comcast in other areas carries FBN. But no. All I get is a canned response — "We're sorry. We cannot include everybody's favorites. Our selection is based on in-depth surveys and whatever our executives thought up while taking their morning dump.")

Maybe the CBS affiliate in Hartford has its schedule on its website. Oh, gee, it doesn't. I guess everybody has it memorized.

Hmm. Newspapers used to have television schedules. Maybe...

Nope. The listings are probably somewhere on the websites of four Connecticut dailies, but to find them you need a degree in computer science and the mindset of Dr. Leakey, patiently dusting off ancient bones.

All this effing information at my fingertips, yet I cannot get the answer to this question — will Channel Three in Hartford broadcast the New York Jets football game at 1 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 21, 2010.

I am moving toward the opinion that all this computer-wireless-blog-text-cell shit should be unplugged and the components scrapped. Back to mono, the manual typewriter, and rotary telephones.

There — I Said It (Annual Holiday Rant)

I despise Thanksgiving and Christmas. There — I said it.

Why?

1. I resent being expected to be jolly on cue.

2. I have nobody to be jolly with, anyway, so screw it.

3. Because I am such a high roller, in my career I've always had to work holidays, or work right up to them, or work extra beforehand to avoid being swamped afterwards. This effectively negates the time-off factor.

4. I have to travel vast distances to be with family — either 300 miles round trip for one meal, or 600 miles round trip for one week, which turns out to be five days.

5. At any gathering (even the ones for the sad sack crowd, sponsored by AA or churches) I am the odd man out — the only single male, the only person under 70, the only person over 35.

And that's why I hate this time of year, and keep my participation to the bare minimum.

Yikes

I lifted this photo from Matt Labash's column on The Daily Caller. (I think it originated at Field & Stream.) Labash quotes someone as saying Oprah fly-fishing will be worse for the sport than the Robert Redford film of "A River Runs Through It."

I remember when the film came out wondering why they went to all the trouble of assembling vintage equipment, only to string the rods up with modern, Day-Glo orange fly lines. This is also when I started to dislike Brad Pitt.

A lot of dopes saw the 1992 movie and promptly marched into the nearest Orvis shop with targets painted on their foreheads. I remember it well — the Catskills were full of them, foolishly whipping the water and standing 20 feet from each other.

Too bad eBay didn't exist then. As it was, tag and garage sales had a fly-fishing boom that lasted a decade.

So if hordes of bored housewives suddenly decide to take up angling that can only mean good deals on gear down the road.

Relax, Matt. It will pass.

Plus anything that gets more women into fishing can't be all bad. Can it? A pretty girl holding a fishing rod is a pleasant sight. Usually.

Now then. I just finished a serial killer thriller called "I Can See You" by Karen Rose, who is apparently quite successful.

This sucker is 637 pages in trade paperback. It is the single most tedious book I have ever finished, as opposed to those I haven't.

Why did I not fling the thing from me, especially when I correctly guessed the killer's identity about mid-way through?

Because I was curious to see just how bad a writer has to be to top the dog-ass New York Times bestseller list.

"Abbott's eyes sparkled with interest. 'Times that Axel Girard will need alibis for. Why didn't you tell Jack?'"

There are a lot of sparkling eyes. Also a lot of confusion about messages that do or do not go through, via cell phones, text messaging, and emails. And computers with wireless cards that work everywhere. And meaningful looks.

If Karen Rose could have gotten away with computer screen shots in the book, she would have.

This thing reads like a soap opera script. Not because of the melodrama, though it abounds.

It's like a soap because she keeps taking detours that serve no purpose other than to pad the book out. She must get paid by the inch, as in "How thick is the book?"

It's depressing, because it takes a peculiar talent to write like this, and I don't have it.

Vacation Is the Best Time For Equalizer 2000

The weather couldn't have been better for my vacation week, but the trout were not very cooperative. I lost a couple goodish ones but hey, don't want to be like James Frey here and claim I brought them to net.

I forgot to bring movies so was stuck with some VHS tapes that were on hand — a dumb documentary about Sonic Youth, "Dr. Strangelove," "Horse Feathers"... and a piece of forgotten caca called "Equalizer 2000."

I think my friend Kurt left this from a CACA trip several years ago.

It's a semi-lousy "Mad Max" ripoff, in which The Ownership live in post-nuclear holocaust Alaska and lord it over everybody else, including the Mountain People, the rebels, and Dixon's group, which includes a girl with gigantic breasts.

An ex-Ownership guy named Slade spends all his time looking like an unsuccessful candidate for the Village People and first obtaining, then losing, and then regaining the Equalizer, a combination machine gun/rocket launcher that makes everybody quake. Slade has an Australian accent, sort of, but nobody's gonna mistake him for Mad Max. Mildly Irritated Max, maybe.

Why can't I meet a gal like this? Won't spend a lot of time talking about T.S. Eliot, I bet.

Automatic one coil deduction for no breasts. Academy Award nomination for the Mountain People and their splendid deus ex machina attack on the Ownership, with dull spears and bows that look like they came from the tag sale of a defunct Girl Scout camp.

Two coils.



The fishing was marginal — I managed to avoid a multi-day skunking and bring a couple of semi-decent browns home for one of the gals at work — but it was fun tramping the river and assessing the October flood's effect on the streambed.

The state DEC has "creel agents" out and they are very efficient. Luckily they don't check licenses, as I forgot to renew mine until Day Three. One of them obligingly snapped this picture of me in streamside finery.



I also declared war on the mice that ate the shoulders of two of my tweed jackets. "Three dead mice, three dead mice..."



And here's a cluck who tried wading in the murky Esopus where the state did extensive flood control work, creating in the process a very deep pool. This fellow almost went all the way in, but managed to clamber out with no more damage than a red face.


Postcript: The Onteora School District budget passed, but not without the usual controversy. But if the voters in Shandaken want to know if their kids are getting a decent education I refer them to this bit of graffiti on the Herdman Road bridge in Phoenicia, which is unusual in the genre in that it is legible and comprehensible.



Reading list: Semi-Tough, Dan Jenkins; The Power and the Glory, Graham Greene; One Step Behind and Firewall, Henning Mankell; Basket Case, Carl Hiaasen.

It was really enjoyable to crank up the electric guitar. I can't make a lot of noise at home, the dopey nosey buttinski "Aaaagh I got a whiff of cigar smoke but please ignore my thumping at odd hours" shitbird neighbors would bitch like there's no fucking tomorrow if I did. Figured out that strange augmented chord thing on the Velvet Underground's "New Age" and the Steve Cropper guitar part on Wilson Pickett's "Ninety-Nine and a Half." Failed to master the riff on Plumtree's "Scott Pilgrim," which is irritating as the song itself is very simple. I just can't get that initial doodly bit.

Soundtrack: Mix disc of old Stones, I mean really old, "Miss Amanda Jones" and "Flight 505," that era. Stereolab mix, older stuff up to "Mars Audio Quintet." Rhino's "Soul Spectacular!" box set. Wynonie Harris, Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, stray Duke Ellington CD that must belong to my folks, "Mojo Box" by Southern Culture on the Skids, Velvets "Live at Max's Kansas City," Richard Hell compilation (seriously annoying in places), Talking Heads "Fear of Music," "Music From Big Pink" and "The Band" in a nod to Woodstock, the next township over.

Dear World — Bite Me

Today was great. It started at about 6 a.m. with me asleep on the couch, television still on. That Dallas-Green Bay tilt was a real barn-burner, eh?

One of the casualties of the communications revolution is the test pattern. Used to be, when I woke up looking at that thing, typically with marching band music as the soundtrack, I knew I'd been out on some kind of bender and it would be wise to get up very slowly. Broken bones, and the sudden attack of alcohol-induced vertigo, doncha know.

Well, the day just ended, with two hours of Board of Finance and Board of Selectmen goodness, a quick Stop and Shop run, and home with car stereo blasting Stereolab, The Soft Boys and Crime (doing their only listenable song, "Hotwire My Heart," which is every bit the equal of the Velvet Underground's "I Heard her Call My Name" for sheer pop perversity). All through the haze of cigar smoke and with a pressing urge to take one of those 14-hour day pisses that has a coda, a postscript, and exciting scenes from the next episode.

It being the first legitimately nasty winter's day I trotted out an old Huntington camelhair blazer, and odd vest, and flannels. I have half a dozen vests and I don't deploy them nearly often enough.



But I am one tired and fed-up mofo tonight and it doesn't matter because as of tomorrow evening I am on vacation, which I will spend in the Catskills, learning guitar riffs, splitting wood, reading detective stories, watching a box of films noir, and fishing the late season brown trout run. I let the vacation time linger way too long, thinking I would be spending it with you-know-who, but it's all turned out for the best.




And so I invite the world to piss off between Nov. 10 and 16. I will be at the end of a dirt road in the mountains, with no cell phone, no computer — and no neighbors.

And I'll be working on the Great Booze memoir in the only manner that makes any sense — on my manual Olivetti.

Toodle-oo — or "Kisses!" as she used to say, revoltingly.

Great Moments in Small-Town Newspapering

It was Halloween, after all.

Late autumn, Catskills

Sneak preview of my vacation time, which I stupidly delayed until November. Cold, windy, bleak, and the Esopus, which has an extended season through Nov. 30, was still running Yoo-Hoo after the flooding a couple weeks back.

How To Avoid Talking Politics

I find most political discussions dreary and pointless, and I have devised a cunning strategy to get out of them. This cunning strategy is top-secret but I will let you, all 16 devoted readers of Coiled Pleasures, in on it.

At a party or gathering, A. approaches me and starts nattering about whatever it is. I listen politely and wait for a break

Then I jump in with something like this: "Of course, all this is just a smokescreen, a diversion created so you and I won't notice that the people running everything are either nine-foot tall shape-shifting reptiles from another galaxy, or their human-lizard hybrid accomplices."

Stunned into silence, A. slowly backs away, muttering something about losing his eyeglasses or getting another watercress sandwich, and soon the word spreads. Which leaves me free to find the one other person in the room who would rather talk about something — anything — else.

I absolutely guarantee this secret method.

One Plus One = No Sympathy

Jean-Luc Godard's One Plus One (aka Sympathy for the Devil) is a big pile of merde.

About half the film is of the Rolling Stones working their way through what eventually became "Sympathy for the Devil" on Beggar's Banquet.

The other half is, to be nice about it, incomprehensible revolutionary gibberish.

It's only an hour and a half but it seems like forever.

The revolutionary bits are so self-conscious and so... stupid, yeah, that's the word — I half expected the Monty Python guys to pop out of the abandoned cars in berets, striped French sailor shirts and elaborate mustaches. "Un, deux, trois!"

About the Stones: "Sympathy" started out as a folky, bluesy thing, and it seems Keith Richards worked up that little loopy bass line for Bill Wyman. Brian Jones is shown playing away at an acoustic, but they don't seem to have turned his microphone on.

Thank God for the fast-forward button. Two coils.