So back two years ago, I'm all heartbroken and I starts writing loads of poetry (again), and in all of the iambic pentameter, and Rubáiyát and haiku that was pure shite (I don't know if I kept any, it was fucking horrible), I banged out this little gem. It's short enough that it fits in my grapheme memory space in toto, it ain't haiku but it's quaint
I hear the coming of my death
in rhonchi and in rales
The crepitation of my breath
from years of coffin nails
Cute huh!
There's nothing like first love.
Puffin fags without inhaling
Having a cigar smoking buddy of mine about 13 give me a cigar at 10 and say,
"No, you have to inhale" (more of this dude later, he was cool)
Smoking consulate because they were menthol and if you had to inhale, it was way easier than that cigar shite.
Getting over getting sick from smoking.
Really larnin' to smoke proper.
Not nicking my Mums Premier or my Dads Embassy (later Embassy Number 1) because if they caught me, I'd get skinned.
Nicking a pack of Guards from Reg Smith, the guy who ran the local VG (War Hero) when I was in his shop one morning and getting it down with regulars. I loved Reg.
I did the longest paper round in the Village for years. I'd see him every morning at 5:30. My first real boss. Tank driver in WWII. Pussycat. If I wanted anything from the shop, he'd give it to me, but he wouldn't give me fags, and I didn't want anyone to know that their charmin' little paperboy was doin' a couple or three before school in the AM.
Man that bag was heavy and those midland winters cold. No matter how much padding I had on, that strap cut like a bitch. Fortunately I could stash the bag under the outdoor seats of the Arnold Arms early on, and do a quick loop before heading down Ware Road with a lighter sack.
Smoking Players Number 6 ('cause they were cheap - Numbies, or as they say in Kent Naahmbies)
JPS ('cause they were cool - racing cars - I gotta group photie of me and my Posse grouped around Ayrton Senna's F1 machine)
Benson and Hedges ('cause they were cool)
Lots of fruity 120mm liquorice skinned skinny fags ('cause they were cool and not in the least queer)
Learnin' how to roll a good cigarette with just papers and tobacco (very cool - you'd be surprised at just how useful this little trick is. Rolling a cigarette with just one hand is super cool - never learned. My mum smokes rollies - cheap, she's nearly a pensioner. She can't roll with one hand though. I do hope Mummy isn't a stoner. I'd be so disappointed. She waited until 60 to get tattooed (and kittens, the inveterate cat hater) I told her that she was losin' her marbles and that I didn't want to come home to some tattooed rollie smokin' cat piss smellin' bag lady.
I knew she hated cats, so I bought her a kitten when I was about 17 - we all loved that thing. Big ginger female. Nearly killed Dad. Usta lie in the compost heap at the bottom of the garden ('cause it was warm) and keep the garage stocked with dead mice - she was a beaut. Mum called her Toots. The carcasse of the biggest fucking rat I'd ever seen ends up in the garage one fine marnin and Mummys fruity little Papillons are playing with it (Suki, came to within a hair of being called Suzi, 'til mum found out it was the name of my bike). It has the unmistakable signs of Toot's depradations, I was so proud. After Mum stopped yelling and hitting me I went and buried that bad boy. Sure 'nuff some even more mauled and now truly fucking filthy piece of rat meat is being dragged around by the stupid fucking dogs and IT'S MY FUCKING FAULT! (My words, not hers - Mummy is soo polite an hates it when I swear) because I didn't put it in the dustbin "Yeah Mum, like that little bastard ain't above going through the rubbish to get it again" and me getting my ear clipped for using bad language around her (not really, when mum was gonna hit me, she reaches for a coat hanger. I just laugh. I usta pick her up and put her in the sink when she got real exercised - she was madder than a wet hen. It's what you get for raising two Rugger Buggers. She got tired of swinging at me 'cause she hurt her hands, and got all pissy when I laughed at her. Started using wooden coathangers. That's mean, them fuckers hurt man. Never hit me when I was a kid. Only started doing it when I got older. She still does it.
I love her so.
Embassy #1 ( Embos - 'cause my Dad did, and I was buying my own, and if he didn't like it, he could fuck himself and I was well hooked by then and didn't smoke to be cool, I smoked to say alive.)
Pall Mall (Bummed them of Chris Bax at Uni so long, I just took to buying them when I bought fags)
Embassy (again when I was programming, and a pipe for a while too - I was a real wanker)
Pretty much until my 30's when I was sponging Merit Ultra Lite's off of Brucie (the only person I know who smokes more than me, oh hang on - his ex does)
Come to CA, and it's bumming Camels off of Steve and that's where I'm at right now.
My mum likes the yank camels, she hits me up every time I go home - 72, still smokes. When I called her last week, she was wrestling with her dumbass 75lb Staffie, Oscar
Oscar as a baby, this little bugger is as soft as shit and twice as messy. He sulks when Mum yells at him, and the grandkids (and great grandkids) ride him like a mule. Just don't threaten Mum when he's around, or me, makes no odds. (NOTE: A classic literary double entendre that last sentence, right in the parenthetical constructs baby - it ain't unclear, I structured it this way, none o that "That's a terrific pear you got, Lady")
Oh yeah, poetry.
I usta be good as a kid. I won national competitions when I was 11 (no style, big vocab. - you get the picture), got a nice red Platignum fountain pen (lost it).
Hey
Fuck me
I am an award winning poet, and it was in the UK, and I am now a Yank - I am an International Award Winning Poet!!
OHHHHHHH Yeahh, definite Pulitzer cred right there my brotha!
Pontificating Windbag - Writer
Pontificating Windbag - Author
Pontificating Windbag - International Award winning Poet
Oh yeah, this just keeps on getting better, hang on, lemme dig through this shit some more (move over fatso)
Shit, I think I threw out my 'O' level english certificates by mistake. I took English language a year early, it was a doddle. I discounted it because my bilingual French buddy Andre got an A in his French 'O' levels - that's fucking cheatin' in my book - taking an exam in the language that you speak. I got a 'A' in English, which was a gift. No exam in my life have I just walked into without any preparation, it's like your 'O' level English is today, "Oh, Okay". It wasn't marked A, B C, it was like A was two numbers, B was two numbers, C was two numbers. I got the lower of the two numbers that translated into an A on the letter scale. It irks me to this day that I'm not as good as I think I am. I think I got a straight 'B' in Eng Lit, but it was like History (all that old crap) and the only reason I worked so hard was 'cause I liked Gino's classes (Steve 'Gino' Burgoyne). I honestly would have liked to have been in the higher number A, really, still bugs me. Of all the things that I try to keep track of, that wasn't an honest to goodness A in my book, more like an A-. I was used to getting D and F and See Me in everything else. If I didn't get good marks in English, I didn't like it.
Was pleased with my Eng. Lit. 'O' Level, worked hard on that bugger. I buggered off and did Phys Chem Biol at 'A' level LVISci and UVISci (and UVISci again) respectively, before buggering off to Bath and finally driving the nails into my educational coffin.
Nonetheless
I am Lettered in English Language and English Literature (you can be sure this shite is going into my Bio - it ain't braggin' if it's true) 'O' levels are letters. Oh, this is too much - A Grammar School in England just usta mean it taught Latin and Greek - classics. I am a classically trained scholar. Awwww man, this is priceless!
Colbert/Lately/Stewart/Letterman:
"Ladies and Gentlemen, it gives me no great pleasure to introduce you to a man that is a Writer, Author, an International Award Winning Poet, a man lettered in English Language and Literature, a classically trained scholar, a man who needs no introduction - Pontificating Windbag!"
Me:
"Thank you! Coming from someone who can afford the best minds in the Industry, I'll take that as a comment." <-- this is straight out of quotables, I been waiting soooo long to close this thread, like since the beginning of May - that's what cigarettes can do for you - yeah!
This is TOOOOOOOO MUCH!
My fucking Bio will ROCK! It ain't braggin' if it's true!
Oh, about my cigar smoking buddy.
Back in Barby the big name in town was Wigley, this guy owned heavy plant - JCB diggers (backhoes to you hicks), all that shit. I'd play with this guys son, and we'd splash around in big pools of diesel, and climb all over rotting heavy machinery, and steal ball bearings from the workshops to fire at rats from our catapaults. The guy I'm talking about was the son of Wigleys partner ISTR.
This kid had ratty old Bantams and Trophies and such, and he'd get me to get my paper round pocket money so I could buy gas to put in his bikes and we'd go out back on Castle Castle Mound and jump these fuckers until the big ends were banging in the crank cases from being hammered in first and second. I was at school with him the year he left (16 I think), I musta been in the 3rd form and he musta been in the fifth (after that school is voluntary). We was just hanging out and he sees one of his girlfriends coming and he walks toward her with his arms out saying "honeeeeyyy", and she hauls off and cracks him right across his puss. I was stunned, he just stood there laughin' his ass off.
So he gets out of school, and there's this bright yellow Norton comes scortchin' through the Village every fucking morning.
We all know it's him.
We all know he's underage.
We all know he's got no license.
We all know he's got no insurance.
We all know he's got no brains.
The cops can't catch him, and he's bummed the biggest piece of industrial equipment he can find off his Dad (a huge JCB back hoe with front bucket) and he's out working every building site he can getting the money to pay this thing off. It's beat up, it's got cracked windows, and the front bucket judders when it's up as high as it will go, cause there's air in the hydraulics and this kid spanners his own gear, and he uses the front bucket as a plough most of the time, and the backhoe that he uses to dig foundations works just fine thanks and he can drive this monster on the road 'cause you can get a license for these suckers at 16, and were out in front of Franktons that he used to come hammerin' past at about 80 every fucking morning at 6:00, the only gas station in town, and he gets me and 2 of my mates and puts us in the front bucket and lifts us up to the telephone lines and gives us fags.
That was cool.
He was a cool dude. No malice in him whatsoever, he was just havin' the time of his life.
I always think of this kid when I read One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest. He was a ravening individual at 15, a real colorful character. People hate that shit. I'm sure someone musta fucked this guys program at some point just 'cause he was that good. If he's still alive, I'd love to meet him again.
He'll remember me, I was the dumbass kid he rode over with his bike when we were out playing 'Tag, you're it!" with motorcycles on Castle Mound just opposite Wigleys original location on Ware Road. It made an impression. He shit himself, he thought he'd killed me.
