misipitrik
Genre: spoken word
Location: Sanford North Carolina
Member since: March 24, 2005
TOTAL PAGEVIEWS: 596
Status:
Full Member
Webpage: http://zebox.com/misipitrik
http://zebox.com/misipitrik is where the music is plus literature.......
9-25-07....Karolyn....(the reason for 'misipitrik) made the transition last week and when I recover from sleep deprivation (check out the picture) I will begin to perform. I have partnered up with my best friend Ricky who is sitting on a million dollars worth of prime land in an almost mythical place called Bear Creek, NC and we are building a point of refuge (biker friendly) called "The Foxhound Flying University" restaurant and bar. Ricky is in charge of the restaurant, I'm in charge of the 'blues. Interested investers can get in touch with him through me (sans dickheads, no matter how much dinero they have............well). Karolyn can be found at http://zebox.com/misipitrik22.
The Peter Paul and Fatgirl StandUpMan Vertical Diet……yep.
The Vertical Diet: Eat on your feet to throttle back your double helix
Editor's note: Sometimes a comment to a post on CalorieLab Calorie Counter News is so unique that it
just screams out for wider exposure. Richard Ward's piece below is one of them.
I am Richard Ward. I am bipolar, arthritic, and I've had one heart attack. I am 5 feet 11 inches, and I
weighed 168 pounds this morning. And yes, I'm older but still a very handsome man. That and the fact that I have
a way with words had the girls tripping over me when I passed by. No bragging, just fact.
Except for the times I was fat.
I found out I had a weight problem when I traded in my baseball spikes for a briefcase my first year out of
college. From year one in the real world my weight averaged a sixty-pound variance every year from the
age of 24 to the age of 54.
I think you will agree that this is not good.
In June I would weigh 174 to 180, and then in the fall I would start to gain. By December I would
weigh 205 to 210.
I would become supercharged to lose weight after the Super Bowl, mainly to start getting a date. I would
do all the things we all do, diets, running, spas, light beef, hold the cheese on the Whopper. My vanity
stopped me from weighing a thousand pounds.
I discovered what I'm going to tell you quite by accident. I noticed it when I looked over my shoulder, kind
of like that Fleming guy with the mold who discovered penicillin.
Remember all that diet stuff like aerobics, pulling the skin off the chicken, frying it up finger licking good
in a mixture of 40% olive oil and 60% canola oil, and cutting down on fast foods to a once-a-quarter
celebration?
No, don't forget those things. But they are not the major, major problem.
The problem is ritual and the incredible memory and power of the double helix. (DNA)
The number one weight control rule: Eat standing up.
I now eat all meals standing up and have since 1996.
I prepare them myself. I am not a vegetarian. I drink six to eight bottles of Guinness Extra Stout a day. I eat baby back ribs, pizza, the occasional take-out (subs, Chinese), anything and everything and I have challenged this with binge eating. The most I have been able to gain is three pounds, kiss my ass.
See, when you sit for a meal, it's usually about the same time of day. The seated position and the first smell of pizza alerts the double helix, and it switches on the "feeding ignition," just like it did 6,000 years ago, 60,000 years ago, 6 million years ago, back in a time when three meals a day were not automatic, back when surviving the winter meant increasing body fat, especially in the case of the female for the little ones.
When you eat standing up several things are going to happen. First is that within a short period of time the "feeding signal" is going to diminish, then dim. I make myself something to eat (after I make my mother's meal; I take care of her). I put it on the counter, take a couple of bites and a swig of Guinness, then I walk over and turn on the TV. Then I realize I promised mom I would water her plants, I do that then take a few more bites (the ritual is being dismantled). Then I tune my guitar. Get the picture?
There is one more thing. Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner must end totally and completely.
Especially Thanksgiving. In yesteryear, 60 or 6 million years ago, when things got cool and crisp, that set the double helix into overdrive and the urge to gorge evolved into a gorge celebration, and this day alone can cause metabolic insanity.
Richard Ward sells his music online under his nom de plume "misipitrik" via his__ZeBQX_page. CalorieLab Calorie Counter News.
Footnote: There is one more part to the behavior modification, you must transfer eating from the celebration genre to the visiting the toilet genre.......EAT ALONE (at least 90% of the time).
richard ward
nttp://2ebox.com/misipitrik
Zebox reviewed my music and cross referenced me to Dylan, Kristofferson, Cohen, and
Guthrie........ Jazz musicians in NYC, Oslo, Paris and LA have called me a Serious/lncredible/Unique
guitarist and one called me a "bitchin barbarian", which makes sense since I am a guitarist but actually
not a musician. I have publishing contracts for a song, film/tv, an audio-book and an instrumental. I have
had six poems and one short story published in 2006(one in an academic review). Zebox has featured
me five times, four times more than the next artist out of the six thousand on board and more than a
million people have been exposed to 'misipitrik1. So it is kind of disconcerting that the Vertical Diet' is
causing me to receive more exposure and recognition than all my other work put together. So I have
decided to charge for this, I also have decided to charge for guitar lessons, 'Jirmenko' style guitar
instruction will appear on the site in a few weeks. So here it is: If you get something out of the
StandUpMan/Vertical Diet or the Jirmenko guitar lesson then send me an e-mail and I'll send you an
address where you can send a check, for whatever you feel it's worth. Later if you get something else
send another check........ really!
JIRMENKO HIGHWAY
(my way)
First and most important: [[Obtain a guitar]]
Set-Up: There is a hand sign in Hawaii for Hello and Goodbye. Hold your pick hand up with your thumb and little finger extended and the middle three fingers curled into the palm. Now drop your hand down to cover the sound hole of your guitar. Slightly relax the three middle fingers while maintaining your thumb and little finger arched, thumb alongside the strings. The University of Texas “hookem horns” sign works just as well.
Now, a word of caution, if you learn to play finger style before you learn to play with a pick……….you will probably never learn to play with a pick, I was told this, I disregarded it and I never have although I have tried many times.
Set Up: Buy a chord chart for $.98(fingering positions) and an expensive book on music theory. Learn the two-finger (fingering) position for Em and the fingering position for Am, then burn the music theory book. Add additional chord fingering positions any old time. Position your fret thumb on the neck of the guitar behind the fret board.
Buy an electronic metronome and PAT YOUR RIGHT FOOT(always-forever). I was told to do this but I did not and now I play in relative time…..alone. Alone suits me but might not suit you.
The Doorway: Rhythm is the key to the kingdom, not learning notes or music theory (that comes later if you are curious). In Classical or the Travis picking method for acoustical guitar the forearm rests on the guitar most of the time and the fingers and wrist do most of the work, giving that beautiful James Taylor/Harpsichord sound. In my style the forearm rarely rests on the guitar and the pick hand moves up and down like a bluegrass strummer, except with four picks instead of one, and I ain’t strumming……this is what will happen.
The power of my style comes from the shoulder and as you progress from stage to stage your organic computer will click in and program your fingers for each separate string….no shit. You will be playing more like a piano (striking the strings) than a harpsichord (plucking them).
So do this: Place the two middle fingers on Em and start to strum with just the thumb and forefinger of your pick hand and get jiggy with it. Act like you know what you are doing, move, do air guitar moves, and start dancing. When you feel like it move the two fingers one string over to Am but leave off the top string. If you want to know how this will sound eventually then listen to “Cowgirl Logic”, those are the chords.
I’ll update this periodically but one more word. The guitar should be like going to the city pound and picking out a puppy. No goals or time limits should be placed on love.
The Magic Children
I wrote “The House of Dreams” for five people. Lattice(my grandmother), Joyce(my mother), Bobby Lee(my brother) and Athos, Porthos, and Aramis(the Magic Children). In this scenario Aramis has a vagina. I played the role of D’ Artagnan, the innocent, ignorant country bumpkin come to town, we were joined at the hip for nine years. I think they thought I was a puppy that talked, at first.
I had a day job as a representative for a pharmaceutical company, that’s how I met them. Athos was a life and death man, an ER doctor. Porthos was a pediatric neurologist, Aramis graduated from law school (law review) and her first case as a tort lawyer earned her $90,000.00. Remember when Hawkeye and Trapper made a bet to see if Hotlips was really a blond. Well Athos and Porthos, in full dress military regalia, stepped off two paces in front of the entire pediatric clinic at Ft Bragg with a gallon of red wine each and had a wine spewing contest. Like a dog I was befriended. Aramis was a ‘Frodo fan who could roll a number with one hand and once took me to a cock fight. They were simply beautiful and I was alternately entertained, tickled, mystified, intellectually challenged, and happy when I was near them 90% of the time and we chose to be near each other, well lots.
Porthos called in the fall of 1977 and said, ”Trik I’ve decided to go into private practice and I’m going to have a big cocktail party to introduce my partner and I to the medical community, why don’t you come up and play your guitar”. Up was Nashville, I lived in Chapel Hill and Athos had bought a house forty yards away, to the chagrinne of his wife. We split for Nashville without her. There were at least a hundred people at the party, playing for them was a lot of fun. After the set I started to put my guitar away when this guy walked up, sat down on a coffee table and told me he was a vice president of one of the big Nashville Record Companies, the one George and Tammy recorded for……jezus. He said I had passed the audition and he would like to introduce me the rest of the family.
I found out quickly that Porthos had gone to high school with this guy and had set the whole thing up so that if his friend wasn’t impressed I would never know. Now that is a friend of the heart.
Athos was an adorable ‘sandals in the snow, building a mystery, genuine, bonifide yuppie. He turned me on to Dylan, Richard Brautigan, Hogman Maxie, Dali, it goes on.
At this point they have collectively been married 11 times. Porthos has lost his license to practice medicine and sweet Aramis, well she turned into the Wicked Witch of the West for a while, maybe she still is.
How did this happen……….simple, they never learned to read.
Athos, Porthos and Aramis were born with gifts that were serious ‘blessings/curses’, kind of like Midas or those with perfect pitch or your average musician or male porn star. They were born with prodigious organic computers and from a very early age they were intoxicated by what IQ points can do. In fact lost in the holo-deck, in their own private video game. {The Magic Children Never Learned to Read.} They were scanners, at an Olympic level but scanners just like challenged pre-teens or Savants or most of us.
The Magic Children were walking photo copiers. Memorizing was no problem, forgetting was. They were all three smart as hell but not bright and they were clueless where the difference was concerned. They did not realize that the organic computer was a tool, nothing more, living but not alive, genetic, not acquired and not part of the Intellect. They drew their synthetic self esteem from the functions of this body part much like OJ did from his legs, and the Magic Children were something else…….prisoners in solitary confinement.
I could hear my little brother Bobby Lee coming so I ducked down and heard a sound I can hear to this day………….click. The sound of the air tight cedar chest lid closing and locking. The air was gone in a few seconds. I began to scream, “Bobby Bobby go get Mommie”. He heard me and went to get her but at the bottom of the steps he ran into Brownie our six week old puppie.
Mom has no idea how long I was in that coffin before she found me, but I was dead. Yeah, deep purple, unconscious and not breathing…….dead. This was before mouth to mouth resuscitation but slinging me over her shoulder and running to the neighbors house, jumping two ditches along the way then realizing she had left her other baby in the house alone, turning around and sprinting back kick started me, natures defibulator. The doctor said brain damage was possible and it showed up in the eighth grade when I took my IQ test……..99, or 89, it was long ago I forget which one. Dad stood there for a long time when I handed him the results. Then he walked into the kitchen and slapped mom in the face. He took me down to the hospital for blood tests and the awful truth came back. I really was his son.
So, what can you do with an IQ of 99 or 89, whatever? Well, quite a bit it turns out, check out my mate Forest. I didn’t win the medal of honor but overall I edged his ass. But then I had a few IQ points on him.
1) Selected for “Boys State” my junior year….turned it down to the horror of my teachers and the principal so I could go fishing with my best friend (smart I ain’t)…the kid who went in my place made 1565 on his SAT’s out of 1600. I made 89something.
2) Graduated from college
3) Qualified for Naval Flight School and completed PreFlight, Primary, and Basic Ground School plus all flying until I was required to get into the cedar chest disguised as a flight simulator……once was to many and enough.
4) Number One Salesman for Texaco in my first full year as a salesman. That was 1971, they had 1800 salesmen that year.
5) Reviewed as one of the great singer/songwriters by an Indy site(Zebox). They compared me to Bob Dylan, Kris Kristofferson, Leonard Cohen, Woody Guthrie
6) At this point I have received four publishing contracts and have had seven poems and one short story published in magazines.
Back to IQ points. The intellect is forced to pump iron if the organic computer is compromised. No you will never become proctologist, but you can become a history teacher. The amount of data you would be required to absorb to enter Med school would be like hunkering down in front of a gatling gun with a catchers mitt.
I said all that to say this……….Reading is different from scanning. When Maya Angelo was Margurite Johnson(at age 13) she began to scan a book called ‘The Count of Monte Christo’. Somewhere in that book she teleported and touched the mind of a Black Frenchman named Alexander Dumas. Soon after she did the same thing with Homer, Mark Twain. Each time she leased a condominium in her intellect to the teleporter, each time their wisdom and philosophy made her stronger……she was pumping iron with some magnificent personal trainers. She has done this more than a thousand times since and that is why she is the Poet Laureate of this part of the galaxy…..and rich.
Pentimento in Blue
When an artist paints a canvas, then the original painting is later painted over years later, the top layer of paint may thin, allowing the first work to be seen. I paint with musical watercolors on pen and ink sketches.
I bought my first guitar one month after my brother’s Navy Jet crashed, he was 28 and I was 29. He had been lobbying for me to do that since we were teenagers. I finally painted his picture (The Tootsie Roll Cowboy) in 1997 but it was too poignant and I placed it in the treasure chest. A few years later one of my favorite artists ever died way too young and I did a pen and ink sketch of him, but the musical watercolors eluded me so I filed it.
A few days ago I saw the lyrics and put them on the music stand. The music leaped out of my guitar as if under pressure. John Hartford was a beautiful person and the music had to be beautiful also…….it was, but it was familiar, so familiar that……..damn. The music was Bobby Lee, my brother, the Tootsie Roll Cowboy. I started reading the lyrics I had written for John and Bobby was wound around almost every one…..Pentimento.
Midnight and Fatboy
I looked out my window
And I saw three babies
Three Chillren of God
Playing in the sun
They all looked alike
And they all seemed to shine
Then I saw them clearly
They were forever young
I’m going to the pound
I’m gonna buy me a kitten
I will name her Midnight
Or maybe Roxanne
I’m gonna pick out a puppy
So ugly he’s handsome
And I’m gonna name him Fatboy
Or maybe Lightning
Jesus send me a girlchild
Who doesn’t talk like a baby
Send me a buddy who once hit .353
Give her the power to ask the right questions
Questions of yo ass and questions of me
Once I had a daddy, I loved so dearly
But he gave my soul to Jesus for free
Well not just for free, the price was my freedom
But he gave it away without asking me
Jesus send me a girlchild
Who can sing like an angel
Times getting precious
I know you’ll understand
I’ll teach her to play
If she’ll teach me to listen
And if she is a woman, I’ll be a man
[....The Year of the Vulture, The Kings's Highway and others.
[[THE YEAR OF THE VULTURE]]....The Vulture was an artist by Webster's definition, and by mine and by hundreds of medical people in America. He was an artist of Phlebotomy. Yep. the Vulture was a vampire, a ghoul, one of those folks who takes your blood sample when you need it took, but more, much more. A pediatric neurologist in middle Tennesee called him at his job at a VA hospital 500 miles away and asked him to board a charter plane within the hour to try to stick a preemie who would be dead in 24 hours if they couldn't get an IV started. The doc and the Vulture went back a long way. They had both served in the Army together. The Vulture walked into the intensive care room, straight to the tiny fighter, there were twenty two doctors and nurses watching. They had heard of the dart master. The Vulture put his hands carefully and tenderly on the infants head, and stood there, not moving, apparently not breathing for two minutes. The he swabbed a spot with alcohol, took a needle and as swift and as sure as Zorro cutting his mark on Rafael's neck he stuck the kid. The applause and tears ran together. Pete and Barb drove the Vulture back to the airport, they were all quietly happy. Pete, the neurologist, and Barb, the intensive care supervisor, were x'es, she had also worked with the Vulture in her Army days. Barb said, what can we ever do to show you what you mean to us Vulture? Well darlin, you can start by sticking that hottee tongue of yours down my throat. Barb was stunned, and Pete was speechless, as long as they had known the Vulture he had been a total flamer. The Vulture had the sweetest self conscious smile on his face. I have always loved women, I just couldn't get passionate about them, but you know what, Viagra is bi, it don't give a damn. There was, at least 3 deafening seconds before Pete and Barb exploded in projectile laughter .......The Vulture was born (black, sort of), (poor, very), without a father(his mother was a working girl)without a mother (four months later, alcohol poisoning), and grew up to be a 5'4 uninteresting looking 130 pound faggot with some remarkable qualities. The Vulture was very bright but not very smart, he did not test well, but he would have qualified for the Olympic reading team if there was one. The Vulture read everything, and he read everything with understanding. The Vulture was the darts champion of this part of the galaxy, he was a certfied dart genius, and there was one other thing, the Vulture had the most beautiful, intelligent, almost liquid eyes, when you saw them they could cause initial paralysis. In a straight, middle class world, he was just a little black faggot with bad skin but in his world he was an artist, a poetry man, a Terran. In fact, one of the RN's embroidered the Vulture's (Terran First Law and it hangs in the blood lab-(Every sentient creature who lives or has ever lived in the universe and beyond, who has ever had a concept of God has the same per centage of being right)-on the left hand side of the First Law is the Second Law-(if it don't fit don't force it-Mom's Mabely).....the Third Law-(the difference between sentient creatures and non-sentient creatures is a phenomena,in non-sentient the sun revolves around the creature, when they become sentient, the reverse occurs)...The Fourth Law (if innocent ignorance hangs around too long a reaction will occur and a new compound will be formed, stupidity.......[Terran,..... the Vulture used that word in several of his gentle diatribes that he sometimes presented to his colleagues when they were in a clinic situation, he called them pontifications, everybody listened. Terran came out concerning racial slurs, which the Vulture found endearing and necessary.........[In the first place they only become slurs when the meaning behind the word is malicious or hurtful, otherwise they become anything from descriptive adjectives to genres. For instance, genres. Remember, All in the Family (work in the clinic always slowed down when the Vulture-man began to strut), George knew he was a colored man and he loved it. He didn't want to be black, it was too much trouble and too much work. But he wanted Lionel to become a Black man. His major problem with Archie was that he knew that Archie was colored also but didn't know it, or wouldn't admit it. George knew that black/white/honky/nigger was all a state of mind and Archie thought it was skin color........So, genres huh, we have nigger-colored-black-Terran and we have honkey-colored-white-Terran......I'll let you figure it out for the folks in India, Africa, China etc, and yes, I know, what is a Terran. A Terran is a member of the extended family of planet earth, gazing at the stars.].......over the years, the Vulture's supervisor began to record these moments and transcribe them, more about that later, first a word about Billy Bob Petimore, former star hurler for the Toledo Mudhens,the Vultures wife, who bore a striking resemblance to Sam Malone of Cheers. Yes, wife, we are talking traditional here. Remember that picture of George and beautiful( Stepford )Laura Bush where she is looking up at him with total devotion and admiration.....un-huh, except that Billy Bob is 6'4 210 lbs of lean hunk looking down on his beloved munchkin. BB was a (stay at home mom), he mothered four cats, two dogs, boucou tropical fish, a pony and three HIV positive foster children who also had assorted birth defects. They were approved for foster care because of a few strategic phone calls Pete and others had made on their behalf. When their qualification hearing came the Lt Governor of the state sat between them, and she held both their hands. Billy Bob signed a major league contract when he was eighteen, for two million dollars. He pitched for six seasons in the minors and his record for most strike-outs and giving up the most home runs in one game will probably never be broken, 18 strike outs/9 home runs, they said it couldn't be done. Every catcher that Billy Bob had in the minors used his 94 mph fast ball as his change-up, his junk were his money pitches. See BB's fastball didn't move, at all, didn't jump or hop or any goddamned thing. It was the perfect home run pitch. The only reason he lasted for six years was that he was a major league drawing card, playing in the minors. He was tall, lean, handsome, and he wore make-up. Yep, in Toledo, Ohio he was the man, sort of. Once when he let a cut fastball slip and he hit a batter (the first ever), he burst into tears. He was so disconsolate he could not go on, and had to leave the game, escorted by the batter he had hit who tried his best to console him. The word spread quickly about the tall, beautiful, tender hearted faggot pitcher with the 94 mph heater and the stands filled to capacity when his turn in the rotation came up. Billy Bob was only 13 when he realized that Jesus had thrown him a knuckler. BB's dad had been an all-state quarterback in high school and his mom an all-state baby doll. They were also all-state Southern Baptists in the State of Texas. BB could not bear the thought of completely destroying his father or causing his sweet, airhead mother anguish. He decided to kill himself accidently, thereby relieving them of all that pain and sorrow. I never said that Billy Bob was the Vultures intellectual equal, or semi-equal, for that matter. .......One dark and rainy night, when he was sixteen, BB drove his old jeep up to a cliff, quaintly and imaginatively called, by the locals, 'bubba's bluff'. As he drove his car off the 90 foot precipice, he remembered two things on the way down. One, it had been raining cats, dogs, and vanilla wafers for 4 days. Two, he still had his seat belt on. He hit, what had been a two foot deep creek, and was now a small river, at the perfect angle and his date with Jesus turned into a, 'rain check'....sorry about that. A few years later the hens were playing an exhibition game against the Durham Bulls, in Durham and it happened to be the one minor league game the Vulture had ever attended, and the first and only time BB ever hit a batter. The Vulture man was stricken, 'Buddy sang, 'when cupid shot his dart he shot it at your heart'. Cupid fired two darts that day...both bearing the inscription,..... forever..........One day at the clinic when things were moving like a lazy river, a new member of the team, a smartass chic who most of the others were already calling [clithead]said; What's all this Terran stuff, explain that to me, I thought you were a colored guy. The Vulture wasn't offended, he was ecstatic...and in love, well, as far as that could go. He leaped into the fray. Do you own a computer, surf the net? Yes. Then you are a member of the crew of the USS Enterprise. Most of the crew are Terrans but not all. Some are Binars, some are Vulcans, some are Clingons, some are Wherthefuckarewes', some are Ibewebes', some are Spanglish.....it goes on. Silence....more silence....I think I want to have your baby.....That night Billy Bob cooked for six. Dickette moved in three weeks later. She was there every minute she wasn't working anyway, and a house that was already warm began to glow. The Vulture, Billy Bob, and Clithead(whose real name was Arlie) became a strange version of 'menage au troi' with one slight problem. Arlie wasn't getting getting any troi, at least not there.........The conversations that began after they put the kids to bed were hard to put into words but I'll try: physical, consuming, thirst quenching, compelling....well I guess I have made my point. Arlie was the catalyst that the Vulture and BB needed almost as much as they needed each other. There was something else, something that BB voiced first but the Vulture had been thinking for some time. Arlie had an IQ at or near the genious level. Her organic computer was awesome. After a few more discussions with BB and others he decided to call Pete......Arlie told the father she loved deperately to stick it up his ass when she was just 14. She told her 25 year old step mother something much worse. She skipped town with the nastiest, lowlife, redneck boy she could find, taking only her father's old Polaroid camera and $86.00 she had made baby sitting. When they stopped for the night she took porno shots of both of them and mailed them to him the next morning. She addressed the envelope to (One Dumb Ass Doctor and his Slut Whore). I think it was safe to say that Arlie was fed up...............[I knew this lady, a dancer, she grew up before she was 10, she was turning tricks in her bicycle years, when she should have been riding her Schwinn. She was smart, she was bright, she was angry. She was hurt, she was down on her knees]..I'm stuck here Arlie, why don't you help me finish this verse. Jesse went over to his guitar while Arlie curled up in the big Lazyboy recliner, naked, as usual. I was wondering if you would ever get around to writing a song about me, the bouncing baby hooker, I'll have to give you a reward. It's not about you, it's about the poet laureat of this solar system, Maya Angelo, anyway, I've almost finished your song. It's called, 'Six Years in the Big House. Do I still get the reward....Arlie was one day shy of her 15th birthday but six months on the street, hustling to survive, had made her middle aged. She was street wise, street smart, and street ignorant. Her three months with Jesse had taught her that. She was proud of the ignorant part at first, like a redneck who just won the lottery, but three months with Jesse had infected her with a dangerous contageous disease, curiosity. Jesse put down his guitar, walked over to the closet and took out three gift wrapped presents. He set them down in the beautiful young girls beautiful naked lap, and left. Arlie opened the first package because it said (first). It was a copy of The Count of Monte Christo, on the flyleaf it said, Maya said that this was her lifeline. The 2nd said, A Childrens Book........my ass. It was, The Adventures of Huckelberry Finn. The third said, The Key to the Kingdom,....It was a library card with a paid up receipt for $1.00..........
The Vulture's 20th anniversary at the VA caught him by surprise. When he walked into the lab it was like walking into Christmas tree land. The man who was never at a loss for words was struck mute. The Vulture had never had a birthday party or any celebration in his honor but this one made up for all those missed opportunities. The Vulture looked around at all the familiar warm faces and, of course, proceeded to bawl like a faggot. Five weeks prior he caught Pete at home on his cell phone. What's her name Vulture. We call her 'Clithead', her name is Arlie. She got off on the wrong foot when she joined the clinic but every one loves her now. Pete, do you remember that smartass genius chic we met at that Duke seminar, the high school drop out whose parents thought she was retarded. Yeah, I remember, the runaway. One of the first things she said to me was, 'what this planet needs is an $9.95 gom jabbar(remember that from 'Dune), strange girl. She tested off the scale and Duke had her ass in Med School when she was 16. Well Pete, in the 100 meters, I think Clithead can take her. No shit. No shit. OK, I'm going to send you some tests for her to take, get them back to me as soon as you can, and Vulture, I know you are right, you are never wrong and good luck with those tests, you might be trying to shove a wet noodle up a wild cats ass you know. I know, I haven't figured that part out yet, but thanks Pete. Later...........How to get Arlie to take the tests that arrived two days later had the Vulture stumped. He had talked to Pete again and Pete gave him some sound advice. Dump the whole thing in BB's lap, if anyone can do it he can and Vulture, the Dean of the School of Medicine at Vanderbuilt is chewing his nails off after what you said, are you sure. As sure as I'm in an altered state cowboy......It was late, the kids were in bed and the Vulture had turned in early on purpose. BB was cleaning up the kitchen and Arlie was curled up in an easy chair reading, naked, as usual. You want an ice cold Guinness Arlie. Hell yeah. How about a piece of this magic (Columbian Gold)cake I baked just for you. Arlie grinned and said, 'you must want something really serious, what's all this for BB my love. We need to celebrate the end of your extended innocence and your childhood, what's left of it, my friend of the heart, for you carry a great gift, so great, in fact, that you must, for the rest of your life, see yourself merely as the steward. So let's get blistered baby and shoot some serious shit................. Jessee walked into the 'Wild Irish Rose Grill in Nashville, TN, bellied up to the bar and said, no, hold the Bordeaux Charles, I'll have six shooters. Charles hesitated for a moment then reached under the bar and set an unopened bottle of Mescal in front of his old battery mate, worm intact. Let's see Jessee, the last time you did this, that I know of, was with me after we beat the dawgshit out of Mississippi State to become NCAA Champions of the Universe. I called em and stroked em, you stroked em and smoked em, as I recall you struck out 17 that day. This must be some occasion for the Dean of the School of Medicine of Vanderbuilt University to be doing shooters, are you going to eat the worm. Hell yeah, I'll eat that son of a bitch first, can you get it out. Charles began to crack the bottle of Mescal. What's up doc? Charles proceeded to pour, making sure the worm stayed where it was. Pete called me last week and told me that he had talked to the Vulture, you remember him, don't you. Little black faggot that won $300.00 off me at darts, sorry no. Well Pete said he had stumbled across a mainframe in a child's body. I sent him some tests to confirm it. I got the results today, that's why I need the shooters, to celebrate and calm down. Charles, do you remember that movie we watched in here one night, The Clash of the Titans. Oh yeah, the Greek gods, I loved that flick. Do you remember the Kraken. Sure, the one Zeus told Neptune to release every time he wanted to lay waste the country side. The Kraken was the number one ass kicker Neptune had and the meanest son of a bitch in the valley. Right, this kid can kick his ass. Charles went over to the espresso machine and made himself a double. Have you signed her up Jessee, when word gets out folks will be after her worse than a 17 year old Michael Jordan. I know, Pete and I are going down for Vultures suprise party in a couple days and I mean to bring her back, I done made up my mind. The effect she will have on a medical school will be like spiking the punch at an Amish barn dance. To answer your question Charles we have the Vulture on our side but like all baby Krakens' she is going to be a job of work. Hi Alice. Hi Charles, hi darlin, you wouldn't be needing a taxi would you. Thanks Charles.Take care Jessee and bring her by here if you pull this off.
Arlie had put as much love and toil into making 'The Vulture's' cake as Vincent had put into painting a bunch of Sunflowers, and the cake, was also a masterpiece. She waited in an adjoining room until he was in mid-bawl, then entered the party like a Queen carrying a 40 pound scepter. The Vulture turned to look at her in slow motion, everything had turned into slow motion. As The Vulture turned, the cake,for several minutes, it seemed, suspended itself in mid air, before it slowly began it's descent to the floor. It hit with a quiet thud that sounded like a percussion grenade in the stillness. Arlie stood there white on white with red flowers in her hair staring at the one person she loved and hated the most...her father Pete. Arlie took a deep breath, leveled her 30/30 with dead aim and said, Well, Dr Dickhead, I presume.........
Pete was whiter than Arlie, and for the second time in his life, paralyzed. Thats when Dr. Jessee Austin, Dean of the School of Medicine at Vanderbuilt University took over: 'Arlie, you must come back to Nashville with us, Daniel's life depends on it. You can come with us on the same plane or on another but you must come. We came here to recruit you for our Medical School but thats on the back burner now. Pete finally spoke. 'Natalie, when you left Daniel quit speaking. We had to pull him out of school, and more. He has started trestle jumping. A thin line of blood appeared on Natalies lower lip. She said, Chip chop, chip off the old block huh. Petes head dropped. Barb saw him sneak out one night and get in a car with some kids from school. She followed him and when she saw what they were doing she ran onto the trestle screaming, but the train had their attention. She got there just before the train and tackled him,he didn't appear to be jumping. She broke four ribs in the fall. They have spent a lot of time together since, mostly with your horse, Pedro, he's another story. We are divorced now. Natalie, he's still alive but he still doesn't speak and he's still jumping trestles. Please come home, if just for one day... Arlie turned and said,can you come with me BeBe.......//
Bebe rented a car when they arrived. Natalie navigated their way to the house then asked him to stop at the entrance to the driveway. It was about 300 yards to the house and she could see Daniel sitting on top of Pedro in the corral. Daniel never rode Pedro, he just liked to sit there. Natalie could see someone cleaning out the stall and she guessed who it was. Suddenly the Appaloosa stallion snorted, his ears pricked, he spun around and began to tremble. Daniel almost fell off but he grabbed a couple hunks of mane and righted himself. Barb came out of the stall at the disturbance. Pedro backed up a few steps and leaped like he was shot out of a cannon. Daniel hung on and prayed. Pedro hit the ground on the other side of the fence and whatever the record was for 300 yards, he broke it, with a terrified Daniel hanging on for dear life. Natalie stood there by the car, holding her breath, while the stallion bore down on her at warp two. A few yards away Pedro put on the brakes and slid to a stop a couple yards away from Natalie but Daniel, of course, kept going. Daniel slid up Pedro's neck like he was on the Bunny slope and turned a complete cart wheel in the air and landed on his laughing sister......
The traffic that day that passed on the road in front of Pete's house was light but a few cars got to see a remarkable sight. Two kids rolling and laughing on the ground while a beautiful Indian pony pranced around them and a few feet away a tall handsome man wept and blew his nose on his sleeve..................
'I don't know how I could have missed something like this in Natalie'. 'I knew she was bright but I thought she was just lazy'. The stewardess brought their drinks and Pete and Jessee settled back for the flight home. 'Well Pete, there is literature on this, I have one study at my office I'll fax you'. The organic computer that we know and love, after all, is just one part of the brain, a body part, living but not alive, like that pecker of yours.' 'It's a tool, nothing more, my guess it was more than Natalie could handle at a tender age so she just kept it in the toolbox'. 'There is one other thing though'. Pete heard the very slight change in the tone of voice in his old friend and mentor, he was instantly alerted. 'Do you remember Christmas Eve at my house when Natlie was about eight.' 'Sure'. 'You called her stupid, in front of God and everybody, and a few minutes later, so did Barb'. 'Remember that'. The stewardess came back and Pete ordered a double. 'I'm not sure about this but I think the word 'stupid' is like a computer virus to a developing mind, not to the organic computer, but to the developing intellect.' 'I think the person she loves most in this world, embarrassed her, deeply hurt her feelings and pissed her off, all at the same moment, with one power packed word.' 'I think this because I used that word once, thrown like a lance at someone I loved, someone I still love, who no longer loves me'.
The Vulture stood there for a long time, staring at the syringe in his wrist. This could not happen to the dartmaster, not to Mr Meticulous, not possible, nada, nyet, but there it was. Only a few seconds before it had been in the vein of his darling daughter Laura. Now the madness was in his bloodstream, leaping and roiling like Vampires blood, and growing, multiplying, fast. Laura's involuntary jerk had sealed his fate. Normally Bebe would have been there to hold her but he was in Nashville with Arlie. The phone rang.