blueberry compote and fireworks: a biannual meeting

I drove to the center of our country today. At 99 miles an hour. Chewing tobacco is primarily a driving hobby for me. Keeps me awake. Keeps me sane as I throttle through frozen corn fields and truck stops. Dodging woodchucks and the cop's drop and Midwestern transvestite hookers who walk balding in high heels along access roads fighting 30mph wind gusts and the gas station attendants who tell me: "She...he...it, whatever. It walked in here, used the bathroom, and walked back out. Got no damn idea what the hell the story is. We called 911." These are good Christian people who also chew tobacco and hunt deer and wear camouflage jackets.

On the long straight trip from the Kansas City International Airport (with daily flights to Paris) we met the Fireworks Magnate, an honest to goodness Tycoon-Robber Barron who completely looked the part except for the jeans and sweatshirt. Told us we were buying the wrong stuff, the kid's stuff. We were wary of the pitch but soon came to realize he spoke the truth. Owned 52 stores in 10 states. Worth $43 million. That is if we could believe the huge hag of a Midwestern slut who checked us out and gave us $10 in fireworks for free as she copped Ian's knob and jerked on Ryan's chain. I stayed out of it. You can get worts through that kind of contact.

We arrived at the house and played with the kids for a couple hours. Taught them how to gamble some and then Brooke took our money in a cutthroat game of Uno. She has a strong poker face. Bailey refused to play with us. She's kind of snooty. But she did show us her Cinderella (?) magnet things which was cool because Cinderella looks pretty hot in her skivvies.

The Missouri State Wrestling Championship was a nemesis far too young and sinewy for us to challenge, particularly in a blizzard, so we ended up driving around for a while in the snow. We'd head to the the Flat Branch Brewpub and gorged ourselves. Purchased four growlers of brewed-fresh beer and sat awkwardly as Mike Pell heckled our waiter: "That group there, they're gonna to skip out on the check. That's what they do. That's how they make their living. They travel around the middle parts of our fair nation buying growlers and obscene dinners then they dash out the door like so much fart in the wind and you're stuck holding the bag for a cool $200."

"Sir, you're going to have to keep your voice down or I'm going to cut you off."

"Cut me off! CUT ME OFF! I'm a doctor you son of a bitch, this is prescription!"

"Regardless sir, you'll have to take your seat now or I'll call the manager."

"Mike, dude, sit down, you're creating a scence."

"You wanna scene, I'll give you a scene!"

He flipped over the table like it was a child's toy. It knocked his wife clean out of her chair and onto the ground where his hot bowl of tortilla soup proceeded to scald her eyes and she screamed.

He picked up a chair and threw it through the side window and slipped out through the hole like so much fart in the wind.

During the commotion we took the opportunity to skip out on our check. As per the norm. Like so much fart in the wind.

Chris drives fast on the snow covered back roads. They're hilly and curvy and the speed limit's 45mph. He takes it all at a cool 60. He's got a Suburu, all wheel drive. No worries. Ryan drinks most of his growler on the ride home and my knees rub sore on the dashboard.

We gamble until four in the morning. Small stakes. I was down $20 until we started playing blackjack. Cedar the sad one-eyed-dog was good luck for me. I mounted a counterinsurgency. The growlers were gone so we started on the Boulevard Pale Ales and the Schlafly. I had a glass or two of the Evan Williams Single Barrel Bourbon and Ryan took a pull off the bottle.

The kids woke us up the next morning well before noon. Ryan said "Don't let me drink bourbon anymore and don't let me play blackjack drunk." So we made Belgian Waffles and a blueberry compote, eggs, bacon, and fried potatoes. We were, unfortunately, out of beer, so I had to take some bourbon as my digestive. It's a rough life.

We lit off fireworks and played more poker and then made a run to town for provisions. Went to Walmart and Ian took picutres of Fancy-Manhattan Ryan pushing the cart around. Ryan was ashamed. We bought a couple cases of beer and ping pong paddles, balls, and a net. All we had was the table. But if you're only going to have one thing for ping pong, the table should probably be it. We managed to get another meal at Flat Branch because none of the same people were working. We skipped out on that check too.

Snowy back roads and scary driving. We're back at the house. Ryan loses $5 to Ian in ping pong. Mike Pell and Dianna arrive and we play beer pong which I pretty much dominate. We play more poker. We play Oscar which I insist on calling Joachin Phoenix, or just Joachin for short. We light more fireworks. This is when we realize the Fireworks Magnate was right. We should have bought bigger fireworks. I eat some ice cream with the left over blueberry compote on it.

We are drunk. Again.

The next day we take it easy. I enjoy an egg sandwich on a blueberry bagel which is way better than it sounds. We gamble. Chris drinks several beers before 2pm. We decide we need some activity, dammit. Need to flex our muscles. We sneak into the athletic facility and Ian and I lift weights for an hour. That's fucking dedication yo. I haven't missed a workout in a month. Chris kills everyone in racquetball. I really suck at racquetball. We go home and make a massive pasta and sausage dinner and an inordinate amount of salad which no one touches. It was going to be good too: spring greens, cucumbers, red onions, avocado, and crushed pecans. But after you stuff your fat face with pasta and sausage, the salad isn't terribly appetizing.

We gamble until 2am as we finish the last case of beer.

The Mid-Missouri Distinguished Juniata College Alumni Biannual Meeting of Philosophy and Leisure was a success.

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space debris and my one deep breath

Cramped and covered by whirling space debris, there is no escape. We’ve filled up this earth with crap and now our offal extends into the last frontier. There’s nowhere that’s open, there’s nowhere that’s free, there’s nowhere with wide open windows peering clearly into deep space. It’s cluttered up with junk and I’m claustrophobic and beginning to pant and sweat. Crouching down in a tiny closing box, my chest is tight. I can’t breathe.

I took a trip to Florida once, way out past Key West. The Dry Tortugas are a small group of small islands that sit in the Gulf of Mexico about 50 miles from the nearest electric light. I thought I was getting away from it all. I was but a speck upon a speck upon the deep blue sea, free to feel space all around me. At night we laid on the beach in the sand drinking scotch, the warm sub-tropical waters lapping at our feet. The dark was pure dark. Whole and encompassing. Complete to the horizon. Stars melted together in patches of pale yellow breaking up on the edges. Single brilliant pin pricks of light lived there. The milky way lay draped over it all like lace.

Drunk and sandy we watch the sky for signs of life. But all we see are satellites, streaking through the night.

A single pin prick rattled loose.

They tell us that the critical density of space debris has been reached. 10,000 so-called detectable objects are about to begin a spontaneous ramshackle game of busted billiards until all that’s left is a cloud of dust to envelop the earth. A busted old satellite and an astronaut’s wrench are going to collide in four days, a less than dramatic catalyst for the calamity. Well fuck that man. I don’t want to have anything to do with it. But there’s nowhere else to run. We’re covered in this shit like so much smog laying low on Los Angeles. But unlike the blessed city of angels we can’t just up and leave the cesspool behind, dashing for the Kern River Plateau at 100 miles per hour with a bottle of cold beer in one hand and a fly rod in the other. No. That’s not an option. All we can do is lay back and bask in the crap. There is no escape. Space debris surrounds us.

Laying there on the beach I thought I was free. My chest could finally expand to its full proportion and take in freedom wholeheartedly. But then one rattled loose. And another. They’re blocking my escape. They’re blocking my deep breath.

I have been purified in the waters of Lake Minnetonka

Prince can rock it out. Prior to last night's knock-down drag-out half-time spectacle he was merely the sum total of "Little Red Corvette", "1999", and "Ronnie, Talk to Russia". Needless to say, I've never been terribly impressed with the guy. But virtually everything about his Superbowl performance stoked the spark that feeds the fire for Prince inside me now. In a completely heterosexual way.

He can play the guitar like nobody's business.

He played in a downpour and it didn't phase him. It may have only added to the allure of the performance.

He finished with Purple Rain in the rain.

Dude can sing. There didn't seem to be any backing tracks last night and his ad-libbing was awesome.

The silk screen silhouette shots with his weird guitar made him appear to have a giant pointed cock thus reinforcing the notion that he is a rock and roll juggernaut.

He is a very expressive performer.

He had hip replacement surgery in 2006.

Prince is a consummate professional.

The take home message here is that if you want to ensure your halftime show rocks, even in a downpour, you should hire Prince.

Also, my favorite commercial was the Map Monster.

Kate and Cate

Kate Winslet and I are rolling around in bed, a little bit of slip and dip. It’s nice. She’s very beautiful you know. And easy. Not in a slutty way, but in a to-hang-out-with way. She’s always got some sort of craft activity to do or she’ll bring up the desert island again and my favorite three albums are scrutinized a new. She powers our relationship, like a little lustful ball of fission she shines surely. Without her we’d sit around in silence, drinking beer and whiskey and watching TV on the internet. There wouldn’t be a relationship. Just two people sitting around in relatively close proximity to one another.

Kate Winslet likes a good pint of beer. Stouts mostly, but she’ll settle for a porter. She pulls hardier than I on a pint glass held high, frothy head all over her lips.

Then one day all drunk up, who should I see but Cate Blanchette. “Hello Matthew, long time. How have you been?”

“Very good Cate, very good. I’ve been seeing Kate Winslet. She really is a peach. How’s Andrew?”

Sounding like Kate Hepburn: “Well he’s fine, just swell. With the kids right now in the south of France.”

“That’s nice. I really must be going now, too-ta-loo!”

“Too-ta-loo to you too Matthew!”

But just then I remember that I wanted to ask her about London this time of year so I shout: “Kate! KATE!”

But there’s Kate Winslet, standing behind me a few feet to the left of my right shoulder. Where the hell did she come from? “I heard that you son of a bitch.” Her whole humming body a deep dark frequency. “You thought she was me. You thought that I was Cate Blanchett. You thought she was Kate Winslet. Well she’s not. And I’m not. I’m Kate Winslet. She may have nicer tits than me, but I’m a far better actor than that no-good bow-riding cunt of a slut! Do you hear me Cate? DO YOU HEAR ME YOU FUCKING DYKE!”

Without thinking the following escaped my lips: “She’s also much more beautiful than you are. In the face and what not. Maybe. It’s actually hard to tell you’re both so damn beautiful. And the tits, sure, the tits too. But your ass is spot on honey. Really fucking spot on.”

“Don’t ‘spot on’ me you lousy fuck. You’ve got a tiny little prick. Ha. Hahahahahahaaha.”

The bottom line of this story is that I have a hard time with the difference between Kate Winslet and Cate Blanchett.

Wolf Run

Wolf Run is a special place for all sorts of reasons. This little creek is a tributary to the west branch of the Clarion River in Elk County. It was early January and I went fishing with my brother, father, and cousin Ricky.

the now slightly more common double posting: a fairy tale of new york

Like a giant cock, the Lincoln Tunnel is stroked by a river. Manhattan meiosis feeds gametes to spew from the tube all over New Jersey. Once a fertile Garden State, ready for the receiving, now she’s small and cold and old and wizened and overflowing with sperm.

I left Ryan somewhere in the East Village. Half liters of dark lager at a small mysterious German beer hall where loud near-Asian pop music tumbled from the walls. Graduate school took a toll on my teeth. You know, lack of dental insurance and all that chewing tobacco.

“I would take care of his daughter’s wedding on his deathbed he made me promise. My brother. Now I’m broke. I was in Pakistan for 8 days and paid for the wedding myself. But a promise is important to me. A promise this is everything.”

“What do you think of Musharraf?”

“Good for the army, no good for Pakistan.”

This guy had insights. I had to take advantage.

He stomped through the streets in his cab like a madman, ducking and dashing through traffic and crashing, finally, into the back of big black as we approached the tunnel. The car behind crashed into us. It registered a 3.0 on the Oeschle scale. I saw it coming so I braced myself. Made it through without a scratch. The black BMW M3 convertible fared slightly worse. Dented the bumper. A long yellow line like Zorro’s Z.

BLKICE66 on the license plate, he struggled from the car with both arms raised yelling “WHAT THE FUCK MAN!” He was a very large man but not particularly athletic. A tangle of three foot long dreadlocks fell drapingly over his spherical shape from under his dark blue corduroy bucket hat.

I sat in the back while the cop did his paper work. Unfortunately this was no place to catch another cab and regardless, I don’t think my new Pakistani friend was in any mood for me to skip out on the fare. So I sat tight.

Like so much ejaculate we hurtled from the tunnel at one hundred and three miles per hour, a yellow blur in the night. I was scared for my life. I should have buckled my seat belt. But at this point I was very reluctant to move freely about the taxicab.

my roots

My great great grandfather John Dunn was born in Tidioute PA in the early 1860s. His family settled an area about 10 miles north on the Allegheny River. It was called Dunn's Eddy. It's still there. I went to check it out.









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the seed of American spirits

The Youghiogheny River fell out of Maryland when we weren’t looking. It fell down a mountain through game lands and small towns, gathering streams and joining the Monongahela before Pittsburgh. There’s only one flat farm field before this confluence and Jim drove past it that day. “I used to plow this field when I was a kid. It was nice to plow a flat field. They grew rye on that field. This is whiskey country here boy.”

This is the original whiskey country, the seed of American spirits. The river took it south into the wilderness, beyond the reaches of taxation and regulation.

We followed the bottomlands along the creek for miles. Climbing steeply up the other side looking down below, a long large broken brick building stretched out rigidly along the banks. Broken down, black and burnt, rusted machinery and cars in the yard. “That’s the Old Overholt distillery, or it’s the old Old Overholt distillery at any rate.”

Here we are standing below the log cabin and firing shotguns toward the creek. Here we are two hours later doing the same. Starting off one at a time, then two targets at once, then two shooters at once, then three clays and four. The sun set and it was cold. We could see our breath. We were tired and content.

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how do you over cook soup?

Ignore the title of this post. It has nothing to do with anything when you think about it. It's perfectly possible to over cook soup. Especially the noodle varieties. This is why I have switched to a completely macrobiotic, no-cook, vegan, whole foods, Jungle Jim diet: crap in, crap out's my motto. The human body is exactly like computer programming: you have to harness the whole power of the whole body-mind-spirit dasein-geist. DNA proves that god exists and that he's a big fan of macrobiotica. Deepak Chopra told me that.

There is lots to say here folks. A story about the Whiskey Rebellion and 30-06 rifle fire and my impending trip to NYC. Flash fiction and the impending birth of poetry-prose, not to be confused with prose-poetry. My impending trip to Tidioute, Dunn's Eddy and, wait for it, Wolf Creek. And, of course, Benwah's new case of syphilis. It's no laughing matter.

Here is my new Indianabeer.com piece. I like the first paragraph and the description of the lager, but other than that I think Matt Dunn fucked it up pretty good. Click the picture please.

two things

I was on the Good Beer Show last week and it is posted here.

There is a very cool article about recent human evolution in the NY Times here.

indianabeer all up in here

The webmaster continues to come up with clever new titles for my Indianabeer pieces. Excelsior: climbing a mountain in winter.

Click the pic to be magically transported through the interblag tubes.

pennsylvania black bear

I scoop them up all in my hand and cast them on the table like dice. They clink and clank like a wooden wind chime, a rain stick, the black bear claws my brother gave me for my birthday. I’m some sort of Iroquois medicine man looking to predict the future. I read the claws as they fall.

The smell was overpowering when the wind swept down the steep narrow valley and passed over us as we caught crayfish and built dams in the creek. It smelled like only a 400 pound mass of rotting flesh could smell. My grandfather played dumb. “I don’t know what the hell that smell is, but if you kids run across any big dead animals in the woods you let me know right away.”

It was July 1992 and I was 13. My friend Mike and I were spending another week at my grandfather’s house. It was a lot like summer camp but with less regulation and more four wheelers. He lived in rural north central Pennsylvania. His house was tucked back in the woods a mile off the road along a small, nameless creek that tumbled into the Clarion River from obscure headwaters high up on the Allegheny Plateau. My mother dropped us off once a summer and we shot BB guns and went fishing and rode in the back of my grandfather’s truck just like all good Elk County folk did.

There was one summer, after my grandmother died, when we subsisted entirely on ham and cabbage soup. My grandfather made 20 gallons of it the second day we were there like a lumber camp cook. Ten heads of cabbage, five pounds of ham, 10 pounds of onions and five hours of boiling made things simple for him, “I don’t know anything about cooking for these damn kids” he said to my mother. We also ate a woodchuck one night. “Um, Mr. Haight, there’s hair on this piece.”

You could see the dead bear from the kitchen window, a big black spot on the far bank of the creek. It took us a couple days to finally stumble over it. The carcass was flat but appeared to be breathing, pulsing up and down as the maggots gorged themselves. Flies in our eyes we ran back to my grandfather.

“Grandpa, grandpa we found it! It’s a bear!”

“Good. Now you boys go cut the claws off.”

He handed us a pocket knife and a pair of tin snips. We were a touch taken aback, confident for once that our rudimentary microbiological knowledge surpassed his sage wisdom. That bear was rotten. It was fouler than foul. If our parents had taught us anything it was that we shouldn’t be playing around in a rotten bear carcass. That’s a sure way to catch a cold or something. But this is why going to my grandfather’s was special.

So we set to it. Easier said than done. Tendon, ligament, bone, cartilage, and muscle were resistant to our snips and knife. But we persisted. Practically swimming in the fetid tissues of this former north country denizen we finally began to make progress as the claws yielded one by one.

It turns out that my grandfather “accidentally” shot this bear one night the week before we had arrived. He was having a lot of trouble with the bears. They were getting into his back porch and almost into his kitchen. They tore down the screen and tore up the porch. He’d had enough. So one night, when he heard crashing and gnashing at the back door, he rose from bed, grabbed a gun, POP! POP! POP!, that bear no more.

I knew my brother had the claws but I wasn’t sure why. I seem to remember that he was involved in their removal. I’ve been asking about them for a while now. I want to make a necklace. To remind me of Pennsylvania.