HINDSIGHT
The first R-rated movie I ever saw was Under Fire at the Lake Theater in Oak Park, Illinois.

(The first R-rated video I ever saw was Blood Beach.)

ON RAIN ON RIVERS
We spent the weekend in New Braunfels, Texas. The camp site was rife with Good Ole’ Boys and latter-day Confederates, all of them tooling hither and yon in towering pickup trucks, tires tall and pebbly as the surrounding hills. We were there to tackle a scenic stretch of the Guadalupe River. On Friday night, after we set up tents and organized our dry goods with great care, we drank beers till the moon came up. I curled up in my sleeping bag just as the lightning began to dance on the horizon.

The storm gained on us rapidly and hit us an hour after bedtime. We busily patched leaks in the tent’s armor (with sunscreen, no less) as the rain came down with increasing fury. All the while, the lightning illuminated the fabric and raised our neck hairs. We were losing the battle. We pushed our pillows and bags toward the center of the tent as the wind threatened to take us down for good. A solid white bolt found purchase nearby and we could hear neighboring campers voicing their panic. I put on my shoes — we all put on our shoes — and we ran to the car. And there we sat, the four of us, as the witch fingers of light spread out across the sky and the downpour continued for hours.

We woke up the next morning worse for wear. None of us got much sleep. We ate sausage and eggs and prepared to float the river. We had our butts in the water shortly after noon. The chilly Guadalupe kept us alert as we advanced slowly down the first leg and left toward the rapids. When we finally plunged into the whitewater, I held fast as inner tubes flipped around me. Bruises were got. I stayed afloat, and would remain so for the balance of the trip. We meandered through canyon’s of limestone. The rivers blade had spent millennia carving lines in the walls that flanked us.

I reclined in a warm puddle on the bank to revive my core temperature and then continued down the river. As we closed in on the last chute, we kept left and shot down the final rapid, then paddled ashore to catch a ride back home.

That was only the beginning.

CREATE A NEW POST
I don’t mind when the hysterical Hollywood bigwigs make an effort to protect their investments, but do they have to be such assholes about it? I mean, first it was the multiplexes force-feeding us 20 minutes of commercials because apparently we weren’t buying enough popcorn. That was bad enough. But now we get this:

“You are not permitted to use any camera or recording equipment in this cinema. This will be treated as an attempt to breach copyright. Any person doing so can be ejected and such articles may be confiscated by the police. We ask the audience to be vigilant against any such activity and report and matter arousing suspicion to cinema staff.

Thank you.

There’s a small movement by some disgruntled moviegoers to combat this heavy-handed lecturing. I doubt it will catch on.

And if you do decide to go to the, um, cinema, you might want to check this out. If for no other reason than to send the message to Hollywood that we need more movies about the death penalty.

Then, when you’re done checking that out, check this out. Because nothing makes a Friday morning like the pleasure of having your synapses fucked with.

PUBLISH POST

NECK PROTECTOR
The office was cold this morning and I couldn’t stop thinking about aluminum siding. That was then. It is now 2:38 p.m. and I have dined on the finest fare the local Mexican restaurant had to offer. Tonight, I’ll be packing for tomorrow’s sojourn: south to the Guadalupe River for a weekend of camping, rafting, drinking. I am ecstatic. I have not tubed down a river since my days with the Spanish infantry. Alas, the 1950s were a different time. Things were simpler then. The hookers, cheaper.

I am sitting at my desk and my lower back is stiff. The muscles running parallel to my spine feel like industrial pistons. I arch my back, twist and stretch. This provides me with little relief. My computer screen is, quite possibly, the most uninspiring thing on the planet. When I sit here too long my shoulders start to pull inward until I am hunched over the keyboard like some cellar-dwelling Victorian organist. My spine is coiled in this spot five days a week. It is in this defeated posture that I have wasted more down time than I care to mention.

I have a notebook wrapped in leather that’s been languishing in the passenger-side footwell of my car. There was a time when I’d bring it everywhere — to observe things in the moment and fill as many pages as I could.

EVENINGS WITH DR. SPINACH
My London correspondent has pointed out that I am pretty much wasting my time:

I was just looking at your profile on Blogger. Did you realize that
since June 2002 you've written over 87,000 words? Seventy thousand
words is the average length of a published novel.

Just sayin'.

HALF-TRUTHS AND HAS BEENS
A morning rich with ideas has given way to an afternoon of lethargy. Last night, we rediscovered the Tipperary. Dave G and I grilled the new ownership, hoping to glean the finer points of a workable business model. To reassure ourselves and our countrymen that this latest incarnation of the Irish Pub isn’t going to be scattered to the Four Winds when the books reveal naught but redness. The ponytail and accent (acquired on the mean streets of South London) made me dubious. Dave G held the sucker down and I dug my boot into his ribs. Sirens. Cop cars. We retired with dispatch.

By the time I got home it was later than expected, and the last desparate gulps of hefeweissen percolated furiously in my middle. I went outside for air, bumped into Sam the Parking Man. Sam moves cars all day to confound the ticket cops. His tanned skin like orange rind. A whip of yellow beard slung around his jaw. We walked to Amesbury and I rode with him as he moved a bloat of SUVs from one curb to the other. Finished, he lit a Backwoods and leaned up against an Oak.

I walked back home and went inside. I grabbed a handful of chow and dropped it into the cat bowl. I brushed my teeth and washed my face. I went to fine tune the thermostat and heard a light knock on the door. I opened it and there stood Sam. He asked me if I wanted a lesson for the ages. He asked me if I had any curiosity left in me. I told him but hell I did and waited until he said it. Old Sam picked a speck of wet tobacco from his lip and he said it.

“May all your flights be fancy.”

WONDERLAND
Friday I was reminded of the fragility of life when, in a ritual as ancient as the cosmos, a large, gray owl swooped across I-20, smack-dab into the path of a semi, and was rendered a swirling ball of feathers by the mighty rig’s front fender.

Ruston, La., proved relaxing and beautiful. Some 200 miles east of Dallas, the trees grew tall and proud. The bayou was rife with drive-thru liquor shops and peach stands. The pool still a bit too cold for comfort, I sallied along its length and breadth on an air mattress I purchased at the local Wal-Mart. I dined on steaks and fried crawfish.

I tanned myself in the southern sun.