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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 1227
Most people I know, especially in the Kootenays, 75, it's middle aged. I think of my Father - older, sure, but not that old. Or Dagmar, 75 years old, bitching about not having sex for 18 years, her choice, she doesn't really like her partner, smoking a joint behind the restaurant, then tearing off to chain herself to a tree or protest something or another, 75 years young, you'd look at her and guess late 50's, tops, she's still a beauty, with more energy than most women half her age.
So it's a bit of a disappointment when I track down Batshit, 75 years as well, in his squalid apartment in Nelson. It's been a few months, good to see him, but not like this. His apartment filled with junk, boxes, he's sprawled on a tangle of sheets, chip wrappers, food tins, the place is a hole - he's hung a bed-sheet in front of the window, the entire winter he's not gone out, bathed, showered, filthy, unflushed shit in the toilet, watching old movies on the TV beside his bed...
I knew this move to Nelson was a bad idea. He's glad to see me, totters about getting dressed, the place stinks, there's no way to describe it, the mess, and his movements, slow, confused, complaining about every imaginary ache and pain, he's the worst picture of 75 years old you can imagine...
We go for coffee, catch up, he's got some scrolls for me. And he needs cigarettes, and a bag of stone ground coffee, and I order him a sandwich which he nibbles briefly on and then demands a take-out bag for, he'll eat it later, then he wants a bottle of liquor, and a toy in the antique shop window, and he wants some farm fresh eggs and thick sliced bacon and some canvas and it goes on and on and on and it's too much, I can't afford this shortest of visits, get him back to the car, he's complaining, tottering, doesn't want to walk up the hill, I'm pissed, he's become lazy, old, way before his years and I'm not playing this game, don't want to enable this charade of untimely old age...
...a lady watches me in horror as I drag him up the hill, swearing at him all the way - "Elder Abuse" I explain gently as I pass, he's got me annoyed, he's down a little self-pitying well, but I can tell he liked this little foray into downtown, me, not so much, I'll see him maybe again in the spring if he lives but it's become a duty, not a pleasure...
He's been adding the postcards I've been sending into his artwork...which is good...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 1227
It was about time, really, the boy, he's never overreached, but the daughter isn't shy.
She's been losing - she's won at Scrabble, until I started enforcing the rules - same for me as her, leveled the playing field, as it were, that wasn't a popular call...
Chess, well, I've never been a great player but with the kids I've taken it for granted I could not pay attention, play sloppy and worse, and recover from the worst of plays.
The daughter's proved otherwise. A few moves in...a few moves, I recognize them after playing them, first a bishop, then a knight, then a queen, all left unguarded, and she's quick to pounce on them. I'm inattentive at best. It's good this, you don't want to beat your kids forever, you want them to be better than you, but still, maybe I have to slow down a bit, pay more attention, up the ante - I don't want to be seen as TOO easy...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 1215
The children are over, it's great to have them, it's Xmas after all...
No presents this year, sorry kids...
They're used to it. But they're over and of course I've got to feed them, from an ever diminishing stash of groceries, - enough, as it were, to last me a week if I ate lean, now enough to last me until tomorrow morning. And no budget to replace them.
The son, sleeping on the living room floor surrounded by unpacked boxes, the daughter just swinging by to check up, games of Scrabble, Chess, conversation...
The conversation, it only ever goes so far. There is the Great Wall: Between parents and children, I am, I fancy, more liberal than most, more truthful, less bullshit, better advice, we can talk about women, men, drugs, still there is that wall, we each draw it around ourselves, me, you, the places we don't share, we need this, but we isolate ourselves...
Breakfast for the boy, bacon, eggs, waffles, I've found the old waffle iron in the locker, the apartment fills with childhood smells, we laugh and reminisce about when I'd make chocolate chip waffles for the kids, only, maybe, they weren't chocolate chips, they were little mouse turds from an old roommate of ours...
An old plate, found in the locker, the boys childhood plate, for me, only 10 years ago, for him, half his life:
8-13, his plate, by assignment, he recognizes it, goes through a few brief moments of remembering...
It's not important, this lack of food thing, I've been here so fucking often before, I need to sort through some of these boxes, find some shit to sell, start the big downsizing, how can I have this much crap? Really? And a 1/4 of it isn't mine, it's the kids, their childhoods I'm hanging on to, even if I manage to empty the locker there will still that stuff that needs to be saved, future heirlooms, I am cautious about throwing their stuff away, because - a mobile childhood saw that mine was discarded, and I'd be curious to see some of my old favorite toys.
The boy and I make a trip to the locker, fill the LadyJeep, a few discoveries, I'll share when I unpack, repack, there are more boxes of photos (sorry Breony, not that box but I'm getting closer), the living room now full, maybe 30 boxes, books, knick-knacks, objects of inspiration, art supplies, time now to sort, sell, donate, repack, repeat.
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 1260
Down the clickhole of Russel Brand on YouTube. He's bright, clearly, and his mind frequently struggles to keep up with his mouth. And he does a fine job of being outrageous, cheeky, the seducer, the bad boy, and he's damned good company (to watch), throwing his invariably dry hosts on their ass or otherwise upsetting or challenging the situation.
So, click, click, click, and eventually you hit his "TREWS" channel, True News, an oxymoron if ever there was one. A few years since he's started this, he's clearly an awful lot less manic, calmer, he's kind-of doing the Jim Carey, Guru, Comedian come Messiah, the grey beard of wisdom, the 12 steps, they trampled him with the higher power, I don't disagree, I could use his advice at every turn, but - for the layperson, at least, I think , all this newfound enlightenment makes him boring.
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 1400
This is as sinister as hell. You can tell who's running the show, and they know it. Who's getting away with Murder? We are, we are...
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