Life Goes On

Been a crazy week.

Dusty Hill of ZZ Top fame died. 

ZZ Top holds a special place in my musical journey. One of the first "real" bands I got into and the Chicago stop of their World Wide Texas Tour was the first "real" concert I ever attended. Not to sound too hipster, but they were great when they were "That Little Ol' Band From Texas", but the fame they got from MTV exposure ruined them. Tres Hombres and Fandango were good albums. Tejas and Deguello were GREAT albums. El Loco was very good. Eliminator was not bad, it suffers because the hits got overplayed. After that, they just sort of fell into a rut of trying to rehash the hits and everything ended up sounded stale.
 

Still, the world is a sadder place with Dusty gone.

Then to top the week off, the Cubs basically gave away the team. Rizzo went first. Traded to the Yankees for some minor leaguers. Then Baez to the Mets, Kimbrel to the White Sox, and Bryant to the Giants. All for a bunch of minor league players you never heard of.

I think I see what the Ricketts are doing, even though at first glance you want to accuse them of pinching pennies and refusing to pay the big talent. Cubs fans know about that from the Wrigley years. They're making Moneyball moves, the kind they (with the help of Theo Epstein) used to get a team of undervalued players and hot young prospects to the 2016 World Series. But trading off some mid-level players who were never going to be greats to build a championship team is not as painful as trading off Gold Glove, World Series-winning future Hall of Famers for some A-ball players.

So, for now, I am re-evaluating a 55-year fanship. Which hurts me more than a little.

Bourbon Bacon Jam

Unlike other recipe pages, I won't bore you with a long, drawn-out intro to explain to you why this is something you should make.

24 ozs bacon (I like Wright Applewood)

1 cup sweet onion, fine chop

3 or 4 garlic cloves, minced

1 tsp chili powder

1/2 tsp paprika

1/2 cup bourbon

1/2 cup maple syrup

1/4 cup vinegar (balsamic or red wine)

1/2 cup brown sugar

Chop bacon into smallish bits (1" or so) and cook in a sauce pan on low/med until chewy-crisp, stirring often.

Remove and drain on paper towels.

Discard all but 1 tblsp of the grease. Add onion and cook on low until translucent. Add garlic and cook until fragrant. Add spices.

Add bourbon and maple syrup. Increase heat to high. Boil for 2 or 3 minutes.

Add vinegar and brown sugar. Continue boiling another few minutes. Reduce heat to low and return bacon to the mix.

Simmer on low until liquid begins to thicken. 10 minutes or so.

Remove from heat. If you want a chunkier preserve/chutney texture, you're ready to transfer it to jars and let cool, then store in refrigerator. I like it more jammy, so I use a wand to pulse it into a smoother texture before jarring it up. 

 

And that's it. Keeps for months in the refrigerator if you can make it last that long. Great on burgers, or in grits, or in peanut butter sandwiches, or...

Wake up!

      As 2AM wakeups go, a dog waking you up to go piss is fairly benign. Not as bad as a Charley Horse, but not as much fun as a surprise blowjob from a good-looking woman. Or even a homely one.


    Get up, let her out into the back yard for the time required, then back in the house for a treat. While she eats the treat, use the time to drink a glass of water and empty your own bladder. Then back to bed.

    But now it's the wee small hours of the morning and you're lying in bed all alone, and those thoughts start creeping in out of their hidey holes.

   You start thinking about how you've been a loser all your life. 

 

    Even as far back as kindergarten, you were a loner. Did you prefer being alone or did you just get used to no one wanting to be around you? I mean...even your cousins, who kind of have to accept you, kind of didn't show much enthusiasm about the prospect of hanging out with you.

    Puberty was rough. Since you had no friends, you had no one to set you up with their sister or cousin or whatever. As a loner, you certainly had no game. So there you are with your raging hormones, but girls shunned you because you're fat with a face like a gooey pizza.

    And it didn't get much better once you got older.

    

    And now you're old.

My imaginary friends

I've started having vivid dreams again, and with increasing regularity. I hope this means my imaginary friends are wanting to talk to me again, which means I might be able to get back to writing every day. I have books I need to finish.

Last night's was very detailed and even followed a logical story line.

Kris Willard, where are you?

There are all sorts of things I could write about these days. Hurricanes. North Korea testing ballistic missiles. The US doing its damnedest to get another Civil War started. The Cubs and their chances at a World Series repeat.

But I'm going to write about something you probably could not care less about. Assuming you care about any or all of the topics I just mentioned.

Recently, I had a very disturbing dream featuring an ex girlfriend. I'm not sure what I found most unsettling about the dream: the violence and mayhem we perpetrated or the fact that we were still a couple.

Anyway, not having had any reason to think of this person for roughly thirty years, it struck me as odd to have had such a vivid dream about her, so I have been thinking of her quite a bit since then. I decided to use the Internet to see if I could track her down.

No luck.

I decided to look up some other exes, and found most of them. One is married. One is divorced. A few are still single. I'm not ashamed to say I was relieved to see what I avoided by dodging those bullets. I'm sure they think the same about me, if they think about me at all. One is possibly playing for the home team. I don't know how I would feel if it turns out I was the one to put her off men for good.

It gnawed at me not to be able to learn anything about this one particular woman. Of course, it has been thirty years. She could be married. Married and divorced. And remarried. So the name by which I knew her might not be her name. She could be dead. Shit happens. Even so, it bothered me to find that this person has no presence on the Internet. I contacted some old friends we had in common. They claimed to be ignorant of her current whereabouts. I guess they could have been lying to protect her. Or me.

Still, I wonder where she is and how she is. So if you know a Kris Willard, tell her Ray says hi.

Post! : The Sequel

IIIIIIIII'mmmmmm baaaaaaaaaacck!!!

Post!

Okay.

So I set up this blog some months ago and then more or less forgot about it. I have several books started, all of which have been languishing, untouched, pretty much since my dad died and I need to discipline myself if I hope to get them published. I was hoping to use the blog to hone my writing skills and also get into the habit of writing more regularly. Short bursts. Surgical strikes to get stray thoughts out of my head and end the distraction.

Obviously it hasn't worked. The books are still incomplete and the blog remains unblogged.

I was actually a little disappointed to find I did not have a ready-made throng of adoring fans waiting here for me, clamoring to read my next bit of brilliance. Begging me to take their money for the privilege of doing so. Perhaps on my next visit.

If you've found this blog, leave a quick comment. One or two words to let me know you were here. Hello. Good job. Fuck you. Something like that.