Is there a shrink in the house?

I like to think I've got my temper under control. I vent and rant on this blog, and people are bored enough to read it. Shit evens out. There's a yin for my yang, a Feng for my Shui, order out of the chaos, at least here in cyberland. I'd like to think that vibe has leaked over in to my real life, like to think I've mellowed, live and let live, shit like that. It sounds nice, and I like that, but it ain't the truth. The truth is that my blood still reaches boiling point pretty quick when faced with idiocy. It happened tonight. I was as mad and close to turning in to a Rice Krispie, (I almost snapped, crackled and popped), as I can recall in recent memory.

The saga of the neighbors has reached Def Con 5, we have reached an impasse, and it was during the reaching of said impasse, that I almost reached out myself. Last night these upstairs douche nozzles showed their ass more than Richard Simmons in a Bath House. It went on until 3 in the morning. I let it alone, they kept my girlfriend up all night, insuring she will do her 12 hours nurse's stint on not enough sleep, still I waited until this morning. I call the landlord, we meet with the head doofus.

I proceed to tell him that once again his new roommate, who is not on the lease, was up until 3 in the morning making noise. He tells us, it ain't his problem, talk to her he says. She isn't there, for starters, and she isn't on the lease. But it's my problem ? He sits on his couch, feet up on the coffee table, a smug look on his face, and I feel it. My face goes red hot, all the way up to my bald head. My jaws clench, and I have this overwhelming urge to reach over and snatch the little barbell out of his eyebrow, and pull that stupid Puddle of Mud stocking cap down over his fat head. I don't. Instead, I basically tell him he has life fucked up, and more important to me, he has me really fucked up, as in confused with some other idiot. I drop a nice flowery letter beside him, full of legalese, peppered with dates and times, alluding to calls to the police in the future and probable litigation against the lease holder, him. I go stand out in the hallway, wait for the landlord, who is busy listening to the guy whine about the occasional dog bark, that he neglected to mention in the last 4 months. So we are at an impasse. I've tried to reason with a retard, and now he has me all out of my square, 10 heartbeats from a brain hemorrhage, and hammering this keyboard like it stole from me.

And that long winded bit of horse shit that you just sat through, brings me to my original subject, how I haven't changed as much as I like to think. I think we all fool ourselves about changing, casting off undesirable traits, habits, ways of thinking. In my case it's my temper. I've never been a violent guy, I'm certainly not a Tough Guy. I never ran out and got in random fights, or put my hands on anyone as a regular practice. My biggest issue has always been pointing out when someone is a mouth breather. Stupidity, especially pointed in my direction pisses me off. I can't help but let it fly from my pie hole. I just have to call it like I see it. If that pissed them off, bonus. But I had let that antagonistic, in your face attitude go, or so I liked to tell myself. I learned tonight that I was just blowing smoke up my own ass, which is no mean feat. We think that when we stop doing a particular thing, or acting a certain way, that means we've changed. But I think those things never really leave us. They just hide out, stuffed away somewhere, and then surprise us when they rear that ugly head once again. Hey dick head, I'm baaaaack. I figure that's what happened with me tonight.

I've stopped doing the things that landed me in prison, I've let go all the old crowd and haunts. But a leopard doesn't change it's spots, I'm still the same guy I've always been. The thing is, I'm pretty much okay with that, or at least I've surrendered to the idea. The way I figure it, every story has to have a prick in it, and it seems to be a role that works for me. There's no moral to this long winded missive, other than the one I just gave about spots and shit. Return to whatever you were doing prior to wasting several minutes sitting in on one of those uncomfortable and embarrassing, Internet psycho therapy sessions. Thanks for coming, and make your next appointment with the receptionist on the way out.

I never leave home without it.

I try to always remember to take my camera with me, you just never know what you will run across. Here are but a few examples.

Saturday I was downtown when I came across this bit of stupidity. I didn't see it happen, just captured the end result. Maybe the tanker truck was already in to his turn and the car tried to shoot in there, or maybe the truck was to blame. Either way, the results could have been a lot worse, nobody was hurt.. The tanker was carrying Carbon Dioxide.

What I found especially interesting was that it happened in plain view of several cops who were standing outside the Police headquarters at Hocus Pocus 12th and Locust. I had time to circle the block, get pics from both angles, and watch the fire dept. Drive past the clueless police officers. Maybe they thought the tanker just decided to park in the middle of 12th street, mid turn.

I was in the Great White North yesterday. I happened to drive past the Christmas display at a little park, Penguin Park? Anyway this Santa really fucking creeps me out for some reason. It looks like a Stephen King eat your children type Santa to me. It's important to note that there have been no reports of kids being devoured by this particular Santa, but I'm not taking any chances.

I remained behind locked car door, to avoid being devoured by the man eating Santa, and made Max the Yorkie wait to pee until we got to a different park.

I wrote a piece some time back about what I believe is a huge slap in the face to the memory of one of this city's legends, Charlie Parker, The Bird, and his final resting place. I have been schooled on this before, so if I get some of the facts wrong, I'm sure one of my readers will set me straight. The Byrd is buried in this cemetery next to his mother. The marker, while grander than others in this small predominantly black cemetery has always seemed lacking for someone who was such an innovator in the world of Jazz. In my opinion the powers that be, the ones who decided to keep throwing more money in to the failed and mismanaged Jazz District, should have ponied up some of that wasted money on a monument marking the Byrd's final resting place.

Thankfully, there were private parties, organizations, that cared enough to give Parker a marker. What I found on my last visit to the cemetery was more than a little unsettling. A giant woman's shoe, and sex lube, lay under a tree, just feet from charlie Parker's resting place. The entire cemetery is rundown, trash all over the place. The Jazz district itself, is slowly deteriorating as well. The facades and boarded up store fronts look a little more decrepit every time I drive through the place.