We moved into our new digs in Tucson yesterday. Our place is between the business district and South Tucson, a notorious neighborhood full of pimps and dealers and bangers...in short, where the stories are. A neighborhood that reminds you that you are alive, for at least as long as it takes The City to kill you.
Our landlord is a gun dealer/gunsmith by the name of "Coffee Bean" Ortiz. He is called Coffee Bean, I am told, because he is small, brown, and bitter. He is also armed, armed in a way that would make Charleton Heston cry. He was wearing 2 pistols and a knife when I met him, and that's just what I could see.
When we first spoke, he asked me what I did for a living. I told him I counted cabbage, and handed him 6 months rent in cash. He just nodded, and told me not to blow the place up. I imagine he thinks we make meth; the truth is, of course, much worse. I have decided to take a few months off and do some writing...and, while a meth man can be understood, nobody likes renting to writers. We are constantly surrounded by oddballs and weirdos that no self-respecting drug dealer would have anything to do with, and every Superbowl results in serious structural damage and endless police reports.
Coffee Bean helped us unpack our arsenal, nodding at each weapon with approval. He is, like myself, a man that appreciates fine craftsmanship. Then he offered the use of his indoor range, and made his goodbyes.
We finished unpacking, and decided to put everything away in the morning. A coffee was in order, so we headed down to a little coffee shop on Broadway, across from the cable access studios. Sitting down out front, it occurred to me how much I have missed The City.
Don't get me wrong...I will miss my house on the mountain, where every morning, I could walk out in nothing but a pair of engineer boots, and take a big leak off the side of the mountain, onto the town below. I am sure the town will miss their Rain God too, for it will be dry and parched without me spraying my toxic and diseased urine 300 feet down onto their quaint collection of trailers and broken down cars.
But that was then, and this is now. I am back in The City, surrounded by hookers and freaks and the dirty boys on Grant Road. I can look out on the gritty streets and the crazies shrieking at passing cars, at the crooked cops and the hard-working criminals, and know that I am home again. They are the Doomed, the scum, the hop-heads and damaged, and God help me, I am their King. Or at least their high priest.
Or kill me.
You are cute. Anyone, properly prepared, could make Charleton Heston cry.
What you could do might make an impression. What I could might do might make an impression.
I like your stories. I would like to come visit your cult of personality, with my cult of personality.
Great entry Rog. You really do have a way with words. Your prose reminds me of a Hunter S Thompson narrative.
So are you gonna be a cop in Tuscon now? Or are you just living there while enforcing Roger Law outside of it?
(http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb163/wompcabal/ROBOTGRR.jpg)
Fuckin hell Rog, you have set yourself up in the perfect place to "just be yourself".
As for your previous residence, I'm certain that some aspects of your (oh so brief) stay there will reverberate for years to come, like the aftershocks of a particularly nasty earthquake.
I fear the results of six months of writing, however. I might prefer it if you really were manufacturing meth.
If this is any indication of the quality of writing, I am going to love the next six months.
It's like our own Lester Bangs/HST/Spider Jerusalem, ITT.
I'm wondering if you'll let us know where you plan to publish... *morbid curioisity wut*
Also, MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRR!
Quote from: Professor Cramulus on March 27, 2008, 02:35:53 PM
Great entry Rog. You really do have a way with words. Your prose reminds me of a Hunter S Thompson narrative.
So are you gonna be a cop in Tuscon now? Or are you just living there while enforcing Roger Law outside of it?
(http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb163/wompcabal/ROBOTGRR.jpg)
I am done with that business. There's no time for fun. I mean, the right kind of fun, the kind that foams at the mouth and crawls up your leg and UNNNNNNNNNG!
Quote from: LMNO on March 27, 2008, 03:01:17 PM
If this is any indication of the quality of writing, I am going to love the next six months.
It's like our own Lester Bangs/HST/Spider Jerusalem, ITT.
I wish I could write that well.
Though I have never denied HST's influence on me (and SJ was nothing more than HST in the future).
Quote from: Jenne on March 28, 2008, 12:53:15 AM
I'm wondering if you'll let us know where you plan to publish... *morbid curioisity wut*
Also, MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRR!
I'm looking into that right now.
yeah, something about this post seems different. i can't really put my finger on it
It doesn't display any paranoia?
So many of my friends are all about the woods and nature. That shits cool, but the urban jungle is far more to my liking.
Great piece TGRR.
Quote from: Doktor Loki on March 30, 2008, 10:06:37 AM
So many of my friends are all about the woods and nature. That shits cool, but the urban jungle is far more to my liking.
Great piece TGRR.
Thanks.
And nature sucks. It crawls into your pance.
i do like both. but one's for living in, and the other's for looking at.
I like the whole rustic living thing. If I didn't have kids I'd live in a cabin in the woods.
Great stuff Roger. Looking forward to more.
Quote from: Nigel on March 30, 2008, 08:12:28 PM
I like the whole rustic living thing. If I didn't have kids I'd live in a cabin in the woods.
Try it sometime. :lulz:
Thoreau did. And he didn't even have Gore-tex.
Thoreau's great and I LOVE Walden, but srsly.. he was living in Emerson's backyard. Gore-tex unnecessary in such situation.
Thoreau had people bring him groceries.
1) Wilderness is great for a week or two, every now and again.
2) If I had to live there permanently I could.
3) Thank fuck I don't have to.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on March 31, 2008, 04:13:38 AM
Quote from: Nigel on March 30, 2008, 08:12:28 PM
I like the whole rustic living thing. If I didn't have kids I'd live in a cabin in the woods.
Try it sometime. :lulz:
I did, for 7 years. Outhouse, wood heat and all.
Quote from: Cainad on March 31, 2008, 05:56:08 AM
Thoreau did. And he didn't even have Gore-tex.
No, he just had Ralph Waldo Emerson to sponge off of.
Quote from: LMNO on March 31, 2008, 03:25:12 PM
Thoreau had people bring him groceries.
And his "self-sufficiency" involved scavenging old buildings.
Walden's greatest fallacy is that you can scavenge for a living, that EVERYONE can scavenge for a living, with nobody actually making anything in the first place.
I'm seriously considering moving off to the woods.
Quote from: Hoopla on April 01, 2008, 03:27:36 AM
I'm seriously considering moving off to the woods.
Ticks, chiggers, and horrible rednecks.
Don't do it.
You're expecting Mayberry, and you get Nappanee.
Woods?
I lived in the "woods" for 19 years. Now i have lived in a fucking "city" for 4 years. Both have good sides, but this whole urban-jungle-thing is pretty lame if you ask me. (you don't)
And i will add that i rule when it comes to surviving in the wilderness. Its one of my "hobbies".
I can live in the forest for weeks without anything, at -30 celcius, and keep smiling.
I find the nature more brutal than the city.
I add again, our citys are very small.
And Rev, that was well written.
And sorry if i sound like i'm trying to brag myself, not intented. Just sayin why i prefer the wild more than the city.
without anything at -30C? wouldn't you freeze to death rather quickly?
Oh, sorry, not without anything. Clothes are allowed. :)
But, it is actually possible to survive even without clothes.
The best insulation against the cold is snow. You just have to be very quick, dig a hole about the size of your body X 2, add some "support walls" made of sticks and everything you can find, and then add LOTS of snow on top of your holes "roof" and "walls". Your own body-heat will warm that small place in no time above 0 celsius. And that is tested IRL by me. The digging part is tricky and hard, but possible. (good practice for digging the icy ground is to go to finnish-army) Best thing would surely be if you would find some sort of "natural" hole, or couple of "well-designed" rocks where you could fit in between. But, in reality you don't have the time going on and searching such. So be quick or be dead. (iron maiden sucks, btw)
And the food? Well, i don´t know about the place where you live in, but in here one can almost eat everything what grows. Even moss. Frozen berries, roots, pine twigs, bark for the bad-asses and so on.
And the water is not a problem here. :)
You will not survive with that kind of "food" for long, but it may save your life.
DID YOU WEAVE YOUR CLOTHES FROM LEAVES, HELD TOGETHER WITH SPOOGE?
(or did some virtual slave laborer in The City make them for you?)
And to add again something.
If you want your hole to be a little more comfortable, you can make a "floor" of pine twigs and such.
It will insulate the place even more. The twigs are dry, everything is actually dry at winter, because frost has this one quality. It dries things. :)
This can be done.
Hellavu uncomfortable though.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 01, 2008, 03:22:45 AM
Quote from: LMNO on March 31, 2008, 03:25:12 PM
Thoreau had people bring him groceries.
And his "self-sufficiency" involved scavenging old buildings.
Walden's greatest fallacy is that you can scavenge for a living, that EVERYONE can scavenge for a living, with nobody actually making anything in the first place.
THOREAU WAS A FREEGAN!
When I say "rustic" I'm not talking about going all fucking David Kaczynski. I'm talking about living in an actual structure of some kind, and maybe having a garden and chickens and solar panels or some such shit, and being able to go to town to buy staples every once in a while.
Quote from: Payne on April 01, 2008, 12:54:34 PM
DID YOU WEAVE YOUR CLOTHES FROM LEAVES, HELD TOGETHER WITH SPOOGE?
(or did some virtual slave laborer in The City make them for you?)
I hunt and gather as follows:
I stalk into the store, and stun the proprietor with money.
Quote from: Nigel on April 02, 2008, 02:58:52 AM
When I say "rustic" I'm not talking about going all fucking David Kaczynski. I'm talking about living in an actual structure of some kind, and maybe having a garden and chickens and solar panels or some such shit, and being able to go to town to buy staples every once in a while.
One of my friends lives almost like that. Though he does not have those chickens.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 02, 2008, 06:14:18 AM
Quote from: Payne on April 01, 2008, 12:54:34 PM
DID YOU WEAVE YOUR CLOTHES FROM LEAVES, HELD TOGETHER WITH SPOOGE?
(or did some virtual slave laborer in The City make them for you?)
I hunt and gather as follows:
I stalk into the store, and stun the proprietor with money.
An effective tactic.
How, exactly, does it result in the death of 11/12ths of humanity? It may come in handy to kow how this system REALLY works. :lol:
Quote from: Payne on April 02, 2008, 02:02:38 PM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 02, 2008, 06:14:18 AM
Quote from: Payne on April 01, 2008, 12:54:34 PM
DID YOU WEAVE YOUR CLOTHES FROM LEAVES, HELD TOGETHER WITH SPOOGE?
(or did some virtual slave laborer in The City make them for you?)
I hunt and gather as follows:
I stalk into the store, and stun the proprietor with money.
An effective tactic.
How, exactly, does it result in the death of 11/12ths of humanity? It may come in handy to kow how this system REALLY works. :lol:
It doesn't. :sad:
I am naked and ashamed.
Here, have a fig leaf. I'm uncomfortable with nakedness.
This is Roger we're talking about.
::Hands TGRR a banana leaf::
Quote from: LMNO on April 02, 2008, 08:10:32 PM
This is Roger we're talking about.
::Hands TGRR a banana leaf::
:lulz:
Better hand it to Maria. She is the custodian of The Junk.
TGRR,
Hasn't kept that on his person since 2006.
:lulz:
That was me, thinking in picture formats again.
~~~Payne: Hasn't moved on from the Catholic Church style of Censorship in Art yet.