And all the house lights left up bright.

Happy  New Year.

“I’m gonna blow this damn candle out.”

“Holidays are hard on some guys.”

I stole that line from a favorite movie of mine, loosely based on a wonderful play by some guy. Oh yeah, David Mamet “Sexual Perversity in Chicago” which I first saw performed live by a group of travelling U.S. actors and actresses (and after the performance I had all of the cast and crew in my hooch and we all got hopelessly stoned on hash and drunk on scotch)  in the Sinai, and then saw it, many years later, the fucking movie… wait for it… in Chicago, drunk but not stoned. The Navy had random piss tests back then—for drugs–they gave not zero fucks about your alcohol blood level. That is just my Navy. How it was…  maybe still is. Who knows? Who cares?

When I saw the movie in Shy – Town, It had been bastardized into… “About Last Night.”

“Travesty” as a word…

“Cynical and drunk?”

“May-hap: C’est moi?”

“Huh?”

“What did he say?”

*******

Honestly, when it comes down to it, we all die alone… boring someone in some dark café.

“Jesus Christ! Lance! Some happy thoughts for the New Year?”

“Naw, been there…”

“You’re either too stupid to die, or too stupid to live.”

“Yes. Both.”

I like to think that I only write for me.

That is some vain fantasy. Or just a pleasant fiction.

I write to get bed, er… read.

I do.

I really do.

I am a “writer”

Or, at least, I think of me in that way.

And I love commas.

And I edit as I go.

Someone once said of “Lord Ernest” (Hemingway),

Someone said he said, “Write Drunk. Edit Sober.”

Now, personally, I think that apocryphal, but what do I know?

Yet, I am going with it.

(at least the write drunk part)

Now, back to Joni:

“Love can be so sweet.”

“Go look at your eyes.”

“Drink up now. It’s gettin’ on time to close.”

Some footnote:

Oh, and by the way, The Last time I saw Richard was Great Lakes, Recruit Training Command, ’86,  and he told me… something about staying alive while with the Navy SEALs in SO CAL, just before he went to Florida and committed suicide,  because He could not handle the Pressure that was (then) the U.S. Navy Nuclear Submarine Program. Thank God I was in Coronado with the SEALs.

And So Safe

So safe.

I miss Richard.

He was braver than me.

And nobody ever committed suicide while at BUD/s (Navy SEAL) training: we were just all too busy, you see, just ‘busily’ trying to stay the fuck alive.

“Richard got married to a figure-skater–post-humorlessly.”

Somehow, I live.

His name was “Richard” and he was a real person.

Yeah, I left  out the tag line (on purpose):

“when you gonna get back on your feet?”

**********

If you happenstance to swerve into this blog, and catch yourself saying,

“Gee! This guy is cool.”

Don’t.

(Just don’t.)

But if’n you do, Do not then… follow the comments.

Just don’t fuckin’ do it. 

Save some:  them, them the good memories.

And walk on by.

(You just knew I had to.)