The Legend of Old Yam Tits

 

Old Yam Tits was a man of great greed,
With a pocket for every dishonest deed.
He’d sell you the sun or a bridge in the bay,
Then vanish like smoke at the end of the day.

He wore a bad suit made of cheap woolen thread,
With dreams of a swindle inside of his head.
He’d promise you gold from a mine in the sky,
While looking at you with a plot in his eye.

"Just twenty gold pieces!" he’d bark with a grin,
While hiding a deck with the aces tucked in.
He grifted the baker, he swindled the cook,
He stole every page from the 'Honesty' book.

But Yam was a bumbler, a criminal joke,
His schemes always ended in mirrors and smoke.
He tried to sell water to fish in the sea,
And ended up trapped in his own lunacy.

If you see Yam Tits with his file full of lies,
Just look at the grifter with piggley eyes.
For though he is shifty and looking for loot,
He’s only hot air in a cheap, ugly suit.

And if you see him and are willing and able,

make sure that, toward him, you flip a table,

get grime and dirt on that tacky suit,

and then swing your leg and give him the boot.

(Final stanza by Dan Kupka. Don't forget to tip your waiter.)

Death Watch

Being on death watch sucks.

Sam called my friend's husband (I am not giving names because I don't know if they want those spread, but I will call her G) and gave the husband his number for updates.

As of right now, there is no change. She is still comatose, and is likely to stay that way until she leaves us.

Jesus fuck, I miss her already.

G and I met 26 years ago, because we were both part of a rosary maker's guild. We were paired up on a swap to send our partner a kit we had put together to make a rosary (beads, eye pins, cross, centerpiece) and we both went kind of overboard. She sent me four kits, I sent her three. She included her phone number in her package, and I called her to thank her and tell her how much I loved what she'd sent. 

We ended up talking for 2.5 hours that evening, and a friendship was born. We were soul sisters from the get-go. 

Four months later she announced she was coming to visit me. That was the first of four face to face visits we were able to accomplish, every one of them rich and warm and funny. She even came for my son's wedding, and insisted on paying for half of the food for the buffet as her gift.

When my second husband tried to walk away without giving me any closure, she called him and ripped him a new asshole, as did my other bestie, Debb, which prompted him to come to the psych ward I was in after my suicide attempt and work out details of spousal support and what have you. That settled things for me, and I was able then to heal enough to go home. Without Debb and G stepping in, I might still be sitting in the hospital, fingerpainting.

When I moved to Texas and we had NOTHING, G made Christmas happen for our entire family. She sent an artificial tree, ornaments, gifts, and a Walmart gift card so we could buy dinner fixings. For the next 24 years, G sent a huge Christmas box for us, until I finally told her to stop, the kids didn't come home any more for the holidays.

If I needed an ear, G was there. If I wanted to laugh, G had a joke. 

I feel like I am losing one of my anchors, and I am flailing.

G's other best friend, Karen, is going to be a total wreck. From what G has told me over the years, Karen is a wet mess and depends on G to keep her stable and afloat. I don't know what she will do now. I hope she will be okay.

I will be okay, but there will be a big huge hole in my life and heart. This loss is deep and painful, and I'm not coping very well right at the moment, but I am strong, or so they tell me, so I will get through this. I will never get OVER it, but I will get through it.

Sigh. Tonight, I will grab the job's tear rosary that G made for me and pray one for her peaceful passing.

Godforsaken Bastards and Why They Suck Ass

The Opening: A Season in the Shade

We have entered the era of the Godforsaken Bastard. It is a time defined not by leadership, but by the violent curation of chaos. A period where the traditional guardrails of decency haven't just been ignored, they’ve been sold for scrap. This is the portrait of a collective that thrives on the friction of a world in collapse, a rogue’s gallery of the high-born and the low-lived who have mistaken their cruelty for courage and their greed for a mandate. They move through our culture like a virus in a designer suit, insulated by billions and emboldened by a mob that has been taught to love the sound of breaking glass. This zine is the shadow to the saints; it is a jagged, unwashed look at the architects of our current misery, the enforcers of our fear, and the loud-mouthed parasites who provide the soundtrack to the demolition of the common good. Welcome to the wreckage.

Ginger

One of my best friends is currently dying. She could go tonight, she could go in a few days, but she is going. Her husband called me tonight to let me know.

None of you know her, but she would have made one amazing Callahooligan, and fit in well with most of you.

She loved my kids, and they loved her, though they only met twice, since she lives in Philadelphia and we live in Texas.

Tonight I am utterly bereft and falling apart.

May her passing be peaceful. Please, let there be a reward for her after this, whatever reward she wants.

I can't stop crying. When I'm not crying so much, I will write more about her.

Fuck uncontrolled diabetes. Fuck it hard.

The Unwilling Statistic - OR - Fuck That!

I’ve got a list of diagnoses a mile long, including diabetes, afib, and sleep apnea; however, it’s the COPD (which is just a pretty way of saying emphysema) that’s trying to put a timestamp on my life. They say three to five years. That’s the math. The worst part of that math is knowing I wrote the equation myself. Forty-five years of heavy smoking has caught up to me, and now my lungs are paying the debt I racked up. I have nobody to blame but the person in the mirror.

But here’s the thing: I’m not willing to die this young. I’m not done yet. Fuck that!

No, Jesse Welles is NOT pro-Charlie fucking Kirk

Yes, Jesse Welles wrote a song about the killing of Charlie Kirk. NO, it was NOT a pro-gung ho-Charlie is a martyr song.

It was a song about gun violence and freedom of speech...

Tolkein's Vogon Poetry

I've been trying to read Fellowship of the Ring again.

I read the series 35 years ago, and it was like slogging through Boston after the great molasses flood. Just agonizing.

Tolkein couldn't write poetry if a gun was held to his head and he was under threat of death to write a decent poem. And every chapter has one, two, or more of his awful fucking Vogon poetry.

I'll be just getting into the rhythm of the story when fucking JRR decides it's time to pull out his Prostetinic Vogon Jeltz mask and begin:

When I was seven, my family put on an Easter Egg hunt for all the kids on our street. Most of them were 10 and up. My sister and I didn't get baskets that year, because we were having the hunt instead.

I didn't find a single thing until our housemate showed me where he had hidden one hard boiled egg. I remember feeling miserable and watching all the other kids crowing about their loot. I spent most of the afternoon crying in my room. And my Easter consisted of a hard boiled egg, which I didn't even like back then.

I never ever EVER put on a neighborhood hunt for my kids because I'll be damned if one of my kids would ever feel the way I felt that day. 

We did baskets and inside the house egg hunts, just for our kids, and each kid got one room to search, so they would each get a fair share.

The Weight of Forty Years

Forty plus years ago, I spent one spring and summer where I had no job and couldn't find one. I was stripping one night a week and paid $25 for that, plus any tips customers stuffed in my g-string, which was usually about $10-15 a night. So my income was no more than $40 a week. I had to eat, and I needed cigarettes, which I considered a priority.

During that time, I ate nothing but one  $1 hot dog a day, loaded down with ketchup, mustard, relish, onion, and kraut, because toppings were free. I ended up losing over 90 pounds. I was emaciated, I was weak, and jesus FUCK was I hungry.

When I finally got a job, working in a diner/ice cream parlor, with a 50% food discount, I ate everything in sight. I worked 7-2, and would eat breakfast during my 15 minute break, lunch during my half hour, and then another meal after work.

This was all fried food, burgers, fish and chips, fries, chicken fingers, and oh, yeah, frappes and sundaes. Fully half my paycheck was deducted to pay for all this, and I was bringing home $100 or so a week, including tips.

I gained back everything I'd lost. And the weight kept coming. I got bigger and bigger as my eating got out of control.

Bigger and bigger and bigger over the course of forty years. It affected my health, my mobility, my self-esteem, my mental state. Don't let anyone tell you "healthy at any size", because that weight inevitably catches up with you and overwhelms your physical state.

I finally topped out last year at 370 pounds. At that point, I knew shit had to change. I went to my doctor and got on Ozempic.

Since I've been on the full dose, I have lost more than 40 pounds. My goal is to get to at least as low as 250. I think at 250 I'll be able to walk to the damn bathroom again, at least.

I am addressing my very complex and fucked up food issues with my therapist, because it is time. Time to take control and time to put the damn fork down.

Time to reclaim my life.

The Bustiers and Bullshit of the Far Right

The "Freedom for Me, but Not for Thee" crowd is at it again, and the irony is thick enough to choke a horse. Conservative Americans love to wrap themselves in the flag and scream about liberty from the rooftops, but that liberty apparently comes with a "Members Only" sign.

They want the freedom to stockpile enough firepower to arm a small nation, the freedom to vote by mail while simultaneously trying to dismantle the post office for everyone else, and the freedom to indulge in whatever private kinks they fancy behind closed doors. We see the hypocrisy in real-time: a certain president casts his own ballot from the comfort of a gold-plated mailbox while he and his followers scream that mail-in voting is a scam.

If Bryon Noem wants to spend his weekends in a bustier and heels, that’s between him, his mirror, and POSSIBLY his wife, though an argument could be made that it's only her business if he decides that's okay.