SNOWSTORM '99

Tyson Exonerated; Throws Hat In Ring

I went to sleep early last night. About eight, after concluding that Iron Mike should run for president using his wrongful imprisonment settlement as campaign finance.

Waking at 3, I smelled smoke. I opened my eyes and saw Officer McRuff waving in through the loft window. I had to pee so went out and checked on the outbuildings. We keep some fireplace matches we got for Christmas six years ago in an ammo box in the shed and maybe some mouse got in there and was dragging one across the shingle floor. It hadn't started snowing yet.

Mostly Shelley and I just watched it snow all day. One time we went out and shoveled the first eight inches off the driveway.

I was wondering "What service is this to Mammon?" Forget about it. You can't check your blood pressure thru all those clothes at the drug store anyway.

This morning after another 10 inches of snow, it was so tranquil & silent, I could hear the electricity wrangling through the microwaves across our comfortable expanse, and poise waiting. (We all thought we were getting away with something when 1984 came and went. but it was about that time when radio/tape decks were redesigned to not turn completely off; never dreaming that one day we'd actually want to tell everybody everything.)

It was so graceful out there, I dumped yesterday's coffee grounds indoors rather than mar the scene to the compost pile with footprints until Shelley could see it. Out back, under the trees, snow was piled a little over a foot, with two inches blown inside onto the cabinet. That path, to the outhouse, I wrecked. You can only go so far.

Might turn out to be a fine day for lugging horse carcasses around after all forecasts to the contrary. Fine day for rock bottom prices galore. Lovely day for top quality and service that can't be beat. And out of this world flavor for dogs you can afford!!!

Shoveling the extra ten inches got me thinking that the correct word was/and would have to be, wouldn't it? ...ANTECHRIST. (here's Johnny)

Think of it in these terms: You've written about a hundred songs in the last three years. You've put kind of a little money and effort into improving your sound and generally weeding out stupid ideas and dumb stuff, o.k? Then you re-record a collection of dumb stuff, up to twenty years old. And it blows you away.

These old things have broken loose from their original disciplines. So they can become Anything. The Dionysus Head. Vile haunches Dionysus, or unwiped Priapus agleam, no time to even crust up, at a crowded bus stop undermining the profundities of laconic sublimity.

Or you could take this tack. I heard on the radio something about automakers having to install "back up" beepers by year whatever. How about the complete police package activated on ignition? Alternate flash hi beams, random sample sireen, red white blue cherry cap. And let's have the air raid klaxon always wailing away. All firehouses blaring, because you never know. Turn on the radio: "Special Alert! Looking Glass Will Now Play Brandy! I Repeat-Looking Glass Will Now Play Brandy!" Then you look at one dog for every boy and one dog for every girl, one dog for every person on this world, strained at the ends of their chains, twix neck and hinds, howling defenses at an elusive paradise.

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