Killing A Dog

Fall has finally come to the trailer park. Though we spent the better part of two days this past weekend basking in what was no doubt the last 80-degree days of the year, there’s been a shift in the wind and damp fall is now upon us. Not that I mind all that much. To tell the truth I find myself starting to miss the cool damp mornings come mid August so I’ve spent the past month and a half pining for this change to come. I guess I miss the fields covered in fog and dew so heavy it looks like overnight rain.

Earl and Heather have started on a remodel of their kitchen and back porch. Right now it’s in the garbage pile phase of reconstruction, where what used to be is gone, replaced by what seems to be an outsized pile of insulation and particleboard. They’ve hired a friend of Corlis’ who’s done a number of singlewide remodels and is certified by the Manufactured Home Association of America and the American Trailer Craftsmen League. Personally, I think he drinks too much, but in truth I can’t say his work suffers all that much for it. Besides, if anyone can update their 1970’s country kitchen, he can.

It’s been a wild few weeks around the park, no doubt about it. Starting with a level three sex offender moving in for a while and ending with a dog being beaten to death with an axe handle. Tino and Carla, who own the park, have a twenty-foot trailer that they keep down by the mini-mart and rent out on a month-to-month lease. I noticed a new family move in for about a week and then they were gone. Two days later there was a notice in the paper that a level-three sex offender had moved into our park. At first it was all just a major freak out. Everyone had their shotguns loaded and were putting them under their beds at night for protection. People kept their blinds down and doors locked so tight that it looked like the place had packed it in and gone on vacation.

Come to find out the family wasn’t still at the park anyway. I guess not many people take kindly to sex offenders living in their midst so they have to move pretty often. I spoke with the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department who filled me in a little on the guy’s back-story. Not all that bright, he had a fourteen-year-old girl friend when he was nineteen and was booked for statutory rape after being arrested for possession of stolen property. I guess statutory rape is automatically level two and the possession bumped him up to a three. So though he was no doubt prison hardened, I’m thinking in the end he was not quite the boogieman we had all made him out to be. I guess he’s married and has a six-month-old baby, living most of the time in the transient motels down in Fife.

A few days after the guns all went back in their closets, someone took an axe handle to the head of their dog. It screamed so loud that I thought a car had hit one down on the highway, but I later heard it was the people who live on the edge of the park near the creak. Judy called the Police and we all called the Humane Society, but after everything was all said and done they couldn’t ever find the dogs body so no charges were ever made. Tino and Carla are aware of the situation, but are legally stuck to the lease for now.

This weekend I run into Judy grocery shopping and she tells me they’ve got a new pit bull puppy running around down there.

Well that’s fucking great. They’ve got a new puppy and I get to keep waking up at night with the sound of that screaming dog stuck in my head.

Katchup

Well this morning was a first for me. It’s the first time my pictures appeared on the cover of the entertainment section of the newspaper. Yeah that’s me, furthest person on the right hand side, back in the days when I used to run power and lights for the film industry. The picture in the paper was a lot bigger…no really it was, I swear.

There is not much I miss about that kind of work. Mostly it’s a lot of heavy equipment, heavy cables, heavy distribution boxes, and unbelievable boredom followed by spurts of panic. But there are also days when the sun is out in the fall or spring and the shooting schedule is light. The kind of day when you look at every car that passes by, and think “poor bastards, having to work inside on a day like today” and for a brief moment you forget the fact that you still have 14 hours to work and that at the end of the night, you’ll have to pick up all that cable and put away all those lights and instead just think about how you must have one of the coolest jobs ever.

This past weekend the oldest boy and I made ketchup out of our garden tomatoes. I found the recipe on line and as I’m always looking for ways to process the unbelievable amount of tomatoes I produce every fall, thought it would be a perfect Saturday afternoon project for the two of us. We skinned, cored and food-milled a gallon of tomatoes, added sugar, vinegar, salt and spices and simmered the whole thing down to ketchup consistency over the course of the afternoon. If any of you out there are looking for things to do with your bumper crop this fall, click here cause this stuff is really very tasty. (Plus you’re left with only two small jars instead of all those tomatoes!)

The Fair

Sweetie and I packed up the boys and headed off to the fair last night. For some reason or another we didn’t make it out there last year. I always think that with a 19 day window finding the time would be a snap, but truth lies and the devil is in the details. However, I was not about to miss it two years in a row. We met up with my brother's family and in that chaotic way the under 6 crowd can spin you, spent the next few hours struggling for balance on that edge of happiness and stress.

Ike, the youngest boy, wasn’t all that much interested in sitting in the stroller after a bit. I’m guessing peoples belt buckles all start to look the same after a while and if any of you know Ike, he’s more of a faces kind of guy. So Sweetie and I just took turns carrying that laughing, kicking, sack of ‘taters, and though we did just fine, I can feel it in my arms this morning I tell you what. We’re gonna have to work on some sort of papoose for next time. Come to think of it, we better work on that now cause he’s not getting any lighter and I imagine that in a year or two more doing what we did last night would be near impossible.

We did all the fair things we were supposed to do: all the rides and burgers and corn-dogs and lemonade, scones under the grandstand, and house-ware demonstrations.

It’s easy to believe in this world that things are in a constant state of change. That presidencies matter, that foreign policy, 9/11, Israel and Ireland all have an effect and take their toll here at home. That the fall of communism, The Dog House, Top Of The Pier, Chubby and Tubby, The Polar Bear Room and Saddam Hussein each take a bite out of life as we know it and after some digesting hand it back to us a little more soiled.

It’s easy to buy into that lie: to sit agape at the TV and swear that the world is going to hell all around you. But the truth is that all that stuff is just window dressing. I’ll tell you a secret. Nothing has changed really, and all it takes to prove it is just one afternoon spent at the fair. Since my first trip to Puyallup back in 1981 this country has been through four presidents, three wars, VHS and Beta, and the birth of the ATM. And though there was a lack this year of the fuchsia-colored feather roach-clip that has been a mainstay of fair barkers in the past, you can still buy the black light American flag posters, the colored-sand-bottle-birds, spin art, corn dogs, get your colors done, buy a tub of quick n bright, glass figurines, and your pick of pressure cooker/deep fryers. You can still get great deals on hot tubs and campers and gazebos and yard art, curly fries and sno-cones.

But it’s not just the stuff that hasn’t changed. We haven’t changed. I haven’t changed.

No mater what major milestones I feel like I’ve made in my life, no mater the growth I’ve done as a person/husband/father/musician I’m still exactly the same person who first went to the fair 22 years ago. We all are really, it’s just that I think as I get older, it gets a lot harder to cut though all the noise and static of every day living, and easier to see all that distraction as reality. As incorrigible as I sometimes see myself, there’s just no getting around the fact that this feels like home.

The Recording Is Done

Well it’s done!

After spending this whole past weekend and all of Tuesday night, I have in my hands the new Prairie Dogs CD: Brand New Heart. Dave and I went down to Pacific Studios and together with Tony manning the board, mixed down all 15 songs. I gotta tell you, I really couldn’t be happier with the results.

I’m just glad that we were able to get all of these songs down before Mike left for Portland, glad that we did the tracking ourselves and took it someplace else to mix it down. Glad that Dave was around to put in his input and stick to his guns. Glad that the tracks we brought in were clean and sounded good. Oh…and did I mention I’m glad? Cause, yeah…I am.

So now I wait for the artwork to come back and once that’s done we’ll have to figure out how to pay for the printing and manufacture. If there are any rich readers out there looking to finance a CD, well just click on the email link below and drop me a line! We need to talk.

I’ll try to get back to some writing later on, but I just thought that for now, I should let you know what’s going on and release this burning desire to crow a little bit. We started this project in April and here just a scant five months later, we got it all done and mastered. Nothing wrong with a little back slapping, even if its self inflicted ones.

Ryme

What’s the word? I’ll tell ya in rhyme:

My butt’s dragging,
My legs are tired,
Dogs are barkin,
My date’s expired,

My tank is empty,
I’m outta gas,
My back is aching
And I’ve kicked my ass.

But then again, isn’t that what the Labor Day weekend is all about? It’s the late summer equivalent of a spring clean. It’s that one last weekend to get what items you can off the honey-do list before the rains and the wind and the dark come home. The older boy starts kindergarten tomorrow; going back to the same teacher he had last year for pre-school. He’s ready, I’m ready, and for damn sure the cats are ready and could use the rest. Ike doesn’t start for another week yet so, so it’ll be one week of keeping him from being bored because his brother’s not there and then we’re all done.

This Saturday and Sunday I’ll be in the studio mixing down The Prairie Dogs upcoming CD. Dave will be there to help but I’m thinking that Michael won’t be able to make it. I’ll try to get at least one song up on the site as a teaser sometime soon. If all goes well, there could be CD’s for sale come early October.

Yesterday Sweetie and I bought a nice comfortable couch and an almost new air conditioner for 50 bucks at a garage sale. I turned around and sold our piece of crap Loveseat for 5 bucks at that same sale.

I’ll take pictures of the boys on their first days of school, but I won’t guarantee that they’ll turn out. Best I can do is tell you that if I like ‘em I’ll post ‘em.