Oh, don't get me started.

I never got the job, then one thing led to another, and I went off to find the footlights. On the bus I met a guy who was so drunk he couldn't stand up. He pissed all over the back of the bus, and the driver finally threw him off somewhere in Louisiana. I spent a night in the New Orleans Greyhound station, waxing whispy at the thought of being a busdriver, and cruising into New Orleans for a rendezvous at the House of the Rising Sun. Ouch.

The guy who pissed all over the bus, maybe you met up with him in your line of work.

But jeez, I never thought I'd hear from anyone in the Kilgore/Tyler area ever again. The thing I remember most vividly about those two cities is how the liquor stores were clustered right at the town lines.

Quiet life these past few weeks. No, not really. Noisy as hell, as lives go. Not much time for anything but spontaneous assessments of what I should be doing with my life, where else in the world I could be doing it, and how much more money I could make at it.

Thumbing through the yellow pages, thinking "I have my youth, why don't I..." and the list goes on and on. Why don't I get a job at Petland and sell fish, get into pesky, bitter arguments with people who hate me and expect more from me than $5 an hour merits. Why don't I drive a cab. Mow lawns. Not many lawns in Manhattan, I'd have to move before following that dream. In my line of work, I oughta be able to live anywhere.

When I worked at Tower Records I made $5 per hour. And the joke there was that everyone wanted something that paid $7 an hour. That much of it was no joke, I don't s'pose.

But we laughed for months after I came in one day with the news: "You know, for $7 an hour, I could dress up as a carrot and stand outside the 72nd Street subway station handing out health food flyers." For weeks after that, this guy John would come up to me and just say: "a carrot! Seven bucks an hour as a carrot."

Lots of excitement going on right here as I type all this. Sirens, foghorns, ambulances and firetrucks, all going somewhere.

The TV is on, but the sound is off. Charles Grodin, on CNBC, is interviewing what looks like a very serious panel, and he is doing it with his requisite snearing expression.

Wonder what the industry standard is about how often you're supposed to show the name and title of talk-show interviewees.

I'm wearing a turtleneck tonight. I have not worn such a garment in a very long time. I think the last time I wore this was on a cool night out bowling with some friends back in Tampa. I bowled well, and did unbelievably well at a pinball machine which I'd never seen until the moment I deposited the quarter. All my friends were irritated with me for monopolizing a 4-player game, but they feigned interest, and feigned enthusiasm for my success.

For some reason, when I was at dinner tonight, I pulled up one of my sleeves just slightly, and was momentarily transported back to that bowling alley in Tampa. Can't say why, but I remembered pulling up the same sleeve a few years ago while picking up a bowling ball as it came out of the chute. I don't really like turtlenecks much, though I would welcome one which did not itch like hell. Bowling was uncomfortable that night in Tampa because of this itchy turtleneck sweater, but I bowled my ass off, almost breaking 200.

My high is 207. I bowled that one night at Oberlin while waiting for a girl named Bev to show up. I was very anxious about Bev, and in fact we ended up having a torrid, volatile affair which ended many months later in a wash of lies and confusion. But that night, when I scored 207, I was trying to impress her, and the sad news is that she probably never knew I got such a high score, because she got to the bowling alley so very late.

So that is what I look like tonight. I cut my thumb many times over tonight. Blood everywhere, but I thought it was something besides blood. Like oil. You see, I was disassmebling that giant monitor which UPS delivered. They said they would send someone out to pick it up, but it's been almost 2 months now, and the money has been refunded by the company which sent the monitor, so I doubt if UPS has any intention of following through on their word.

The monitor, then, is strewn about this apartment, in a variety of garbage bags and other types of bags. It was truly destroyed. Huge sections of the insides were simply smashed to bits. I went out tonight and bought a screwdriver just so I could take the thing apart and see if there was any way a rank amateur like me could fix this thing, and get a working monitor for free, but it was hopeless.

Wow, there's this commercial on tv now for a bunch of cheesy classical music CDs, and the women they're showing are gorgeous. Classical Moments, and there's an address of a PO box in Alexandria Virginia. That is where I lived for a while as a kid. On Summers Drive, near a creek, in a 3-story house next door to the Williamsons, who were unbelievably old. Like 180 years old.

OK, off with the turtleneck. It's warm in here, and the thing is itching like stupidity.

Whenever I start to think that writing to this homepage must look pretty ridiculous, I turn on Public Access television and see this woman demonstrating how to bake brownies, and I realize that what I'm doing here (like I have any idea what I'm doing here) probably does look pretty damn stupid to some people.

It's not the same here as it used to be. Writing stuff and posting it to this webpage was different when I didn't think anyone was listening or paying attention. I mean I always thought someone out there was listening, but now it's different; write something one day and get a call the next morning from someone with a snotty comment or some snide remark. So I keep thinking, even as I'm saying what I'm saying right now, "Can't say that, so-and-so from high school might see it." "Can't say that, ex-boss might see it and tell his boss, who might tell his boss, who might say something at the next big meeting, just when everyone back there thought they forgot about me." "Oops, don't wanna say that, Random House wouldn't like that..." Goes on and on. Things change. Half of what I say on here could well end me up in jail, or somewhere on the outside.

Got to thinking about Mickey Mantle today. And G. Gordon Liddy. They would not seem to have much in common. But I always felt something for Mickey Mantle after he died. There were fabulous testaments and recollections of his astounding life; but it seemed like every note of respect donned toward a life lived unlike any other was followed by the snearing refrains of "Mickey Mantle was a sorry drunk, and paying respect to him is an insult..." And Liddy, who did his time and paid his dues for whatever it is he did, can't seem to shake the naysayers who say that no felon has a right to make any contribution to society. Liddy shows up on Larry King sometimes, and without fail some asshole calls in and says "Larry, how can you even talk to a convicted felon?" I fact, I wonder if it's not the same exact guy who makes that call any time Liddy is on the show.

There's a safe feeling around these states that anyone who breaks any law or any standard of behavior gets what they deserve. Shutup, you're alive, aren't you.