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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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A new regular, courtesy of the hotsprings who have apparently barred him. Smaller, slighter of build, tanned, maybe 70 years old, shirt optional, long beard occasionally held in an elastic, a long fringe of hair around a bald pate, anywhere but here he'd stick out like a sore thumb. Here he just sort of blends in...
The first time, a beer, some appetizer, he's telling me he was just at the hotsprings, 7 hours in the pools, he's exhausted.
"7 hours?" I ask incredulously, 7 hours, that's a lot of time to be soaking in a hotpool, I've rarely done more than an hour, 2 tops, but he takes my comment to heart and gets aggressive- "Don't tell me about the hotsprings - I go 4, 500 times a year..."
I'm mentally doing the math, this - well, it's not quite impossible but it's absurd, excessive in the extreme...
He continues in that vein, I stop hearing him.
The next time, sitting, having a Jamesons' on the rocks, a song comes on, it moves him to tears. We've got a playlist, "Oldies", the owner created it, no song written after 1975 ever plays, I stopped hearing it a long, long time ago, but something on it has touched him, he comes up and pays for his $8.00 drink with $4.00 in quarters, tells me how special that moment was, I offer to try and replay the song for him but he looks at me horrified, there's no way I could ever replay that, ever....
I shrug off the missing $4.00, cover the difference, out here, this isn't a rare thing...
The next time I see him, the same again. He sits on the patio, no shirt, no shoes, there should be no service but we're in the Kootenays after all. It's a windy day, I go out to drop him off a menu, he's put a small package on the table, I move it to hold down the menu, keep it from blowing away, he moves it off the menu and tells me tersely - "Don't touch my stuff".
He's an asshole, but it's my job after all...
He orders a Stella, the beer of choice for European trash and soccer hooligans. And pretentious hippies. And bringing it out to him, through the windows of the restaurant I see him fling the menu off the table, it hits the balcony and bounces to the floor. When I deliver the beer and pick up the menu he explains coyly "The wind must have blown it away...".
Come time to pay and he's inside in a frenzy, Did I hear the shots fired? 7 of them! Across the lake! Of course I heard nothing, do I know why? Because I was inside!! There must be a bear! And depending if it ran uphill or downhill it'll be on his property!! And he pays, and, again, he's a dollar short, but I shut up.
I'm tired of paying to serve assholes, he's the classic bad hippy, the one acid trip too many, never came back, his moral elevation, it's failing, there's nothing for him to stand on, he's just an asshole and now he's barred from our restaurant as well, I'm only waiting to tell him in the no-uncertain terms that he's not coming back...I'm a man of infinite patience, but when it expires...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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Following the Lootbox for Stormy I waited and waited...
Until, finally, he shows up looking for me on a day off, a smaller parcel, not worth an unboxing video:
Open it up to reveal:
Apparently it's a spaceship, assembled from an old matchbox, Century 21 Keychain, plastic ant, acrylic ball, nickel and wire.
Who would have guessed? Anyways, I prefer the scrolls, they can be flattened out and stored or exhibited, these sculptural pieces take up way too much room. Now, of course, I have to make him something in return...that's how it works...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
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Yesterday, the daughter's graduation. A speech by the Class Valedictorian, in which youth assures age that it's completely ready for the Challenges ahead, the much-abused metaphor of life as climbing a mountain by a breathy girl that doesn't sound like she's ever even been outdoors, let alone up a mountain...
An initiation, of sorts, but not at all, not in the least.
Other formalities, introductions, boring recommendations based on other people's "life experience", the voice of experience recommending everyone follow in it's footsteps, the band plays, then the ceremonies begin, diplomas are handed out, watching the graduates cross the stage, shake hands, photo-op, continue off the stage, the mixed applause of the student body - the hoots and hollers from the crowd indicating a social acceptance that will easily be as important as any academic achievement...
It's funny, watching this, you know none of the students yet you recognize them all, churning out of the machine, the personalities, the same as at your own graduation, the same at every graduation, the bigger the class, the bigger the range, the variety, but the people, the individuals, for all their striving to be different are the same as the ones you went to school with, the class clowns, the jocks, the pretty, the handsome, the popular, the bright, the workers and the slackers...
Intermission, the band plays, then the machine resumes coughing up it's pre-approved social product, the machinery of conformity and the indoctrination into 8 and 9 hour workdays complete, averaging not even 15 seconds per student, this is our investment, here, see, this is our reward...
Then, closing ceremony, the Principal shares his own life experience, you can tell he's watched a lot of TED talks on this topic, modeled his own speech after them, only, really, he has nothing to say, no words of enlightenment whatsoever, merely an opportunity to overshare and talk about his own struggles and dreams, drawing tenuous and nonexistent parallels with the student's lives, life will be a challenge, don't give up on your dreams, dream big, there's no TED talk or load of New-Age Chicanery he hasn't bought into and he brings to it a sincerity that even the most gullible would question, "Today is the first day of the rest of your lives..." , it's gagging me and he's not stopping, the cop, she's just standing there, there's been a hostage taking, an entire auditorium, draw your gun, do something, shut this lunatic up..., stare into space, look off at the ceiling, you want to yell at them all that it's bullshit - it's all bullshit, the world's on fire, it doesn't need any more bullshit on the fire it needs a revolution, off with their heads, all of them, start with the Valedictorian, she's "nice", they're all "nice" but it has to be done, start now, quick, before they get away, ...
Finally it ends. The same as your own graduation, only the world has never inched so closely to Armageddon, to extinction, and any starry-eyed imaginings of unmanageable wealth or illustrious career will soon be overtaken by an increasingly grim reality.
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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She's a regular at the pub, petite, older lady, 75 to be precise, always fashionably dressed and with an axe to grind at some environmental policy or politician, she's taken a shine to me and invited me over to get my cards read. This is a tough thing, given my schedule, but eventually I make the time and get it done, it's less about the cards than returning some of the patronage she's so generously bestowed upon me, it's a small community and so you have to spread the wealth, keep it local...
She lives with her husband, a nice house on the other side of the lake, big, filled to the brim with tasteful knick-knacks, ornaments, artwork, jewelry, at 75 she's still fashionable and beautiful and lively as all out. She shows me photos - of her in her thirties, in her forties - "Here - I had it all, a girlfriend that was 17 years younger, a...", and another reference to the Kootenay lifestyle in a turquoise belt, returned by another ex lover, it's funny this, you can tell, she's still beautiful, but there's a whole very interesting life behind it all that she only hints at then moves on.
I said she lives with her husband, but not so much, there's a couple of outbuildings she's had built and furnished, retreats, temples where she sleeps, reads, meditates, does her own thing, and we abandon the house for one of her sheds, chat, she explains the reading she's going to do, odd decks I'm not so familiar with, my own preference is for the Rider-Waite or Crowley Deck of Thoth, but she has other plans, this is a "Card" reading, not a "Tarot" reading, and she gets out a couple of decks I'm unfamiliar with and bids me to shuffle them, cut them, restack and pick a card. These are the "OH Cards" by Ely Raman, I have no idea of what they're about. Meanwhile I'm to be thinking of my question, out loud or to myself, while she chatters on. She's offered me a joint - "The Cadillac of Pot" she calls it, but I don't smoke and have a big list of things to get done, she - well, less so.
Shuffle, cut the cards, lay down the first large card I select on the table. The same is repeated with the smaller deck.
Finally - the one card reading (two - but they'll be combined) - the first card, flipped over - reads "GUILT". The second, smaller card has an image of a hand holding a mirror.
Now, this, I have to say, is a conspicuously bad reading. I mean, I don't know the cards at all, but I'm pretty sure this isn't one of those things where the "death" card just means transition, nope, this is pretty straighforward, I'm done for, I've had it, I might as well just confess, lead her to the bodies, dig the skeletons out of the closet...
She's laughing, she's convinced she has me, she's cackling with glee and rubbing her hands, "Very Telling....just look at that for a few minutes...", she's loving it, too much, she's not just the Procter Oracle she's now the judge and the jury and I'm done for, I've had it, you couldn't pair worse cards...
After a minute she notes my apparent confusion and indifference..."What was your question?...". And while I'd have preferred to keep it quiet, given the evidence there's no harm now in confessing...
"I was wondering where the diamonds are...."
- "What?"
"Well, I mean, I go prospecting on my days off and I was rather hoping to narrow my focus...I've a few possible locations but..."
- "Take me with you!!!" and then, seeing the look of horror on my face - "Forget I said that. Explain this to me..."
Conversation ensues, in which I explain that I most certainly am guilty, and of any number of offenses not credited me, this wasn't the question...
She thinks about it for a minute or two, then decides to extend my reading. 2 more cards.
This doesn't improve the situation any, although the last card sums things up pretty nicely...
She gets another deck, a Native American themed one, "The Sacred Path" and I do the one card reading from this...
AHA! This seems a little more relevant. Actually, it's not, not at all, but she begins to explain to me that Heyokah is a flute player that goes from town to town impregnating the local girls, and while it's not me it's a good story. But the "Cadillac of Pot" has addled her a bit, and she gets confused and digs through her book and corrects herself, nope, that's not Heyokah, that's another card, and in the end she just passes me the book to read for myself.
The company's fine, and she's a character for sure - would be a great date for a rave, but - well, as psychics go I'm not even slightly persuaded. Another Kootenay Shaman, and I'd love to set her up in a booth at Shambala...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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a dozen novels, a hundred paintings, sketches, easily, more even, all into the fire pit, it's a cool evening, a good night for a fire.
It's the bonfire of the vanities, of all unfinished projects, unrealized ambitions that were holding you back, time, now, to begin again and finish those projects that need completion...