My Robot Is Pregnant theme song!

image courtesy Sean MacDonald

Ron, on the left, has adopted a whole new persona. Ken refuses to “play dress up” for the band.

I’m going back to New Hampshire on the 24th, and seeing Sean Ahern’s jail band, and now getting a song emailed to me by Ron Gallant and Ken Hawkins’ band, I just can’t wait to get back to my roots and play some New Hampshire country music.

Please take a moment to consider Tough Shit by the Black Rabbis

Ron Gallant drums
Ken Hawkins vocals
Ian Loch guitar
John Hernandez bass

new album cover

keepin’ busy

This gal came to my house with her beagle, Lady (I think that was the dogs name). The dog is trained down in florida by a guy so that she learns to find the bedbugs by the unique odor they emit. Unfortunately for me, Lady alerted to the smell in my bed.

It cost $175 but the peace of mind knowing they weren’t in the garage, the living room, etc, was worth it. Now I am concentrating my eradication efforts in my room. Step one was throwing out the bed and frame.

Since they take ten to 16 days to hatch, it’s about time for another major cleaning/spraying, to kill off the next batch. Those I miss will lay more eggs, and the cycle will go on until I kill every last one or I go insane.

they meet every sunday and battle each other. i know because i meet with some people to play wiffle ball, and we share the same field. today one sword fighting couple sent their 9 year old son over to play with us. his name was Hawk.

“Do you like to battle too?” i asked Hawk.

“No. Sometimes I hit the stop sign on my street though.”

Hawk got on base his first three times at bat and pitched a shut out inning. then, as it got colder, he tried to put his sweatshirt on and got trapped inside it. he was a little overweight, or perhaps the standard for today. very much a shy kid whose parents drive in from the suburbs to dress up in homemade armor and fight on the grass.

For all the kids who went to high school with me, check this site out. The songs sound great. (you can choose from a couple)

I regret not having been exposed to this type of superhero as a child…she looks like she is the lead singer in a Jamaican Motown choir by day (and into the evening) – after the set, she cuts out of the club to crush evil men and heartbreakers alike.

photo courtesy Jarid Del Deo

Clyde’s brother would come to visit and the two of them would sit on some furniture I’d set out front to sell and smoke Basic cigarettes. Clyde’s brother had a successful furniture moving company and he was still almost as poor as his brother. It was bad times in that area. Me sleeping in a broken freezer didn’t improve the prospects.

a typical scene in Dover, courtesy Dover Chamber of Commerce

I tried to keep these two brothers, both well past retirement age, at a good distance. I was trying to be somebody. It was a strange pride. I felt better than the guys upstairs, but if I was smarter, why was I living below them? Clyde loved to laugh, hold an aluminum can of beer in his hand and laugh a quick laugh with his shiny little beady eyes. “Well YES” he’d say about anything at all, or to end a sentence. Mostly to end a sentence.

“Goin’ up ta tha sto-wah. Well YES. Get me some cigretts. Well YES,” he’d announce.

Clyde’s brother went by Huff. I don’t know if that was his real name or a nickname. I didn’t engage him in conversation much. He had a speech impediment. I can picture the two of them in front of my shop. Then I picture me inside crying. How was I ever going to get anywhere in business?

Huf talked like he’d learned his words by laying hands on a speech therapists throat and mimicking the muscle movement. Still he carried himself with a sense of composure his brother’s drunken limbs couldn’t summon. I can’t say for sure, but Huff would put his hand on my shoulder and jibber jabber what I assumed was fatherly advice on how to succeed in business. It was depressing.

There seemed to be no good way to get ahead in life. A junk shop attracts a crowd along the same principle as dog shit and flies. Guys in beat up pick-ups would come by and drop hints about needing a place to fence stuff.

“I gotta lotta stuff you could sell. Can’t do it myself ’cause the Sheriff would have some questions over in Rollinsford.” Something along those lines. Of course it took a while for me to realize it. I bought Elvis’ first lp from a guy who didn’t know anything about it. They’d come in with women’s jewelry, coin collections in folders with meticulous handwriting on the sleeves of the coin cases but their own hands were hidden under engine grease and wrenching scabs. They’d ask, “This shit worth anythin’ to ya?”

I didn’t want these guys around. I didn’t even want to be there. My shop wasn’t out on Central Ave, where women ran cute little shops: one with a focus on lawn ornaments – old wooden benches, cast iron cauldrons cum planters, rusty farm implement thermometers, one lady who had neo folk wooden angels painted in faux antiqued texture and cabinets made out of old wooden single pane windows.

My shop was on a back road to Sommersworth. If I hadn’t made any money by four o’clock I threw some stuff in the bed of my truck, closed up shop and motored down to Central Ave. These women shopkeepers would stand out on the sidewalk, watching the store over their shoulder as I stood in the truck-bed holding a chair up asking, “Ten bucks for this? No? How ’bout 8?” I’d move through the pile, handing down winners, putting losers back in for someone down the road.

Daily expenses added up to 38 dollars a day. Most days it was the Central Ave ladies that got me there. If I broke 70 bucks in a day, I was doing good. I’d buy some beer and head back to the cooler.

Here’s a little song about bedbugs.

I got bedbugs
in my bedroom
sleepin’ in my bed

I’m in the kitchen
with my guitar
wishin’ they were dead

the computer
told me
they chase CO2

I’m breathing
when I’m sleeping
there’s nothing I can do

I’m boiling
and freezing
everything I own

hoping
and praying
in 2 weeks they’ll be gone

that’s when the eggs
in the cycle
will commence to start hatchin’

then I’ll be
right back
to itchin’ and a’ scratchin’

the bed bugs
in my bedroom
that are livin’ in my bed

unrelated to the photo: I used to have a junk shop in New Hampshire, in a building that used to be a restaurant so there were all kinds of weird rooms. I slept in the old walk-in cooler. the landlord didn’t care.

Upstairs was a flop house, a few guys from the Navy Yard lived there, a crazy guy, and Clyde. Clyde was in his sixties, chain smoked, and stood no taller than a pack of cigarettes. Man he was a little guy. But he was the boss upstairs. Collected rent for Lenny, the owner. Clyde’s room had the window that overlooked the road. He had a refrigerator in his place too, and a stove. All in one room. Along with some green bird in a cage. Clyde kept a crock pot going and always offered me whatever was in it. He liked people.

The rest of the men shared a microwave in the hall. There was a toilet in a closet out there, and a stand up shower stall. Just the one for the eight little rooms.

The crazy guy had white hair done up in a pompadour, and a red face. He wore a new winter coat around, and stood out in the cold swearing at people and things. I said Hi once, he said, “I TOLD YOU PEOPLE TO LEAVE ME ALONE!”. That was the end of that.

The Navy Yard guys were quiet, just wanted to come home and adjust the rabbit ears, climb into bed and wait for tomorrow. Only one guy ever came into my shop, that was Kevin. He had been in prison, and learned to draw very life-like nude women there. Now he was working on a loading dock for a computer place. He walked to work. Sometimes he’d stop in and I’d sell him old lp’s or porno magazines. One night I had the lights on late and he came down with his drawings. He’d drawn them perfectly, in pencil, right down to the folds of their labia.

Lenny, the landlord, had a little workshop in the basement, and I’d go down and find him asleep in his easy chair. He didn’t like to admit he slept down there. One afternoon he came in and told me one of the fellah’s had died, and if I wanted to help clean up, I could have whatever stuff I could sell for the shop.

Lenny and I went in, the body had been removed and someone had gone through all the drawers. I had never seen so much porn in my life. Take out food wrappers and porn. Nudie playing cards, nudie magazines, and styrofoam cups. Stacks of napkins. Kevin poked his head in and asked for some magazines. Lenny said sure. I wasn’t too interested in taking anything out of there. I had seen the guy, Bruce, two days before he’d died. He came out the door on a woman’s arm, like he was very weak, and his skin was yellow. He didn’t even look at me. I mean yellow, too, like I’ve never seen on a human being. I didn’t know much back then, but I knew I was looking at a dead man.

normally you put your name on your truck door so when you come out of the bar you know which one to get into. But the guy probably can recognize the little tractor painted on there as his.

I’m practicing on scrap wood, soon I’ll be painting on my truck door too.

peek through the wall…

It is important to remember advertising works. That’s how the Marines stay in business. Even if you aren’t selling war, you will need someone to take some pretty convincing photographs before anyone buys your junk.

Cameras work by focusing light so you will need to bring your own. Light. Like with that Elinchrom on the right. It has a ten thousand watt bulb in it. Or so. Another option is to amplify the sun’s light, like with those shiny cards on the left. Just shiny reflective material. You could make your own with tin foil. Yes they look white, but photographs don’t capture reality. They are silver.

All this light is being directed into the kitchen, where someone is trying to sell you sponges. Watch out.

try rolston hauls. Dave and I have been trying to get it built and uploaded. (Dave did the trying, I made tea)
A simple little website to let the world know I haul junk.

Figure 1 is advertising an American classic, the submarine sandwich. This giant sign fills the lower third of the small store’s window. It is indicative of advertising in the age before mass consumer electronics.

Figure 2, a second sandwich shop just a few doors down, shows that now even a humble sandwich-shop owner can afford to be their own advertising company and printer, thanks to the computer revolution.