Fuck Moulin Rouge. Yes, make it go away from my life, quick.

So on the way to my guitar lesson this evening, I had a hunch, and enough money to buy a pack of cigarettes, and if I were so brave, two scratch tickets. I thought to myself � I need some motherfucking money up in my wallet and shit�. So I go into the 7-11 next to the guitar place and park, I start to walk to the lesson, and then all of a sudden say to myself �shit, I should buy the tickets now�. I go in, and the friendly Middle Eastern fellow greets me. I buy two of the tickets, with enough money to buy a cup of coffee on the way home if I indeed lose. By the time I walked out of the 7-11 I had pissed off the Middle Eastern fellow, and had enough money to buy 500 cups of fucking coffee (if said cups were a dollar a piece). I bring my five-fucking-hundred-dollar-winning ticket up to the counter. He says he will see if he can cash it at some point mentioning something about �the potty�. After a too long exchange that I had no clue as to what he was trying to say I sat there looking at the money he offered me: 75 one dollar bills, a bunch of fives and tens, some twenties, and a fifty. The line was growing longer behind me, as I stuffed this gigantic wad of cash in my pocket, looking like I just robbed the place. At which he said �what about my part of potty?�. I said �ummm, yes, thanks� and walked out realizing that he was after a �tip�! There is some unwritten courtesy thing where people tip the worker who sold the winning ticket. I was going to exclaim �yes, I really have to go potty, thank you, I have to go now�. I can now never go in there again. Normally, I won�t spend the last of my money on gambling, but I had a good feeling, and it paid off�

After the guitar lesson, I felt I needed to do a little bit of shopping, so I went by the record shop in Saugus, ran into my old good friend who told me his wife was leaving him after 6 years, right after I told him of my good fortune (doh!). I picked up the new Karate CD which came out today. Fuck you, Boston puts out some good fucking music. The guitar playing on this record is out of this world. Geoff is amazing. I picked up this Traffic reissue, and the Neil Young Rust Never Sleeps DVD that just came out too.

For some Godforsakenfucking reason I decided my next stop should be the Chinese Food buffet restaurant next to the place. Aside from eating quite possibly the most disgusting food that has ever existed under the guise of �Asian�, I tipped the �waiter� 5 dollars on a $12 tab, and thought of my Middle Eastern friend who went through all that trouble to count those one dollar bills and fives, and see me nodding my head in agreement with his requests for some of my �potty�, only to be snubbed with a �thank you�. I decided I will go back in next week with a bottle of champagne, and some nude photos of Sandra Bernhard for him.

I have a love/hate relationship with the book store. The corporate book store. Barnes and Noble, Borders. I generally stay away from Borders because they are an anti-union company, and although I am a manager in a union company, I still have my politics there, and was a union steward at my current job, and ironically helped write the contract that I now help follow from the union side before I was promoted to management, or �crossed to the other side�. I settle for Barnes and Noble though, for one thing, when I�m in there I feel like it�s winter, and I am shopping for a Christmas gift. After the Chinese restaurant debacle, I decide to buy that book I�ve been meaning to buy that should be in the �songbooks� section. I don�t know if anyone pays attention, or if maybe they have some fucking program where they hire blind people to file the books in the music section, but this fucking thing was a travesty. Absolutely nothing even resembling organization. A Jim Morrison photo book snug between an Irving Berlin biography, and an �MP3�s for dummies� book. You are a fucking dummy if you think mp3�s sound fucking good in the first place. You should open that book and it should say �the first rule about dealing with mp3�s is you have to know absofuckinglutely nothing about sound quality�. A book chronicling the Stones Exile tour in between a �Greatest Pop songs of the 80�s Fake Book�, and a John Lennon songbook. So where the fuck is my songbook I saw at the Burlington store? The �300 Jazz standards for guitar book�? Where is it? Who the fuck knows, get me out of here. I need something funny. Well, what isn�t funny is that the �humor� section is evidently on the roof, or through some fucking secret door you need to find if you have the right amount of magic cards, or you can speak the right password to the cloaked elf at the gate. It�s not next to �games� which is usually the deal in book stores for some reason. Why? Games aren�t funny. Games are fun. Humor is funny, where the fuck is it? This is an actual map of the book store I was in tonight:

After passing the same woman who nervously looked at me every time I walked in front of her looking at the �relationships� books about 17 times, I found it. It wasn�t that hidden, I�m just an idiot. Kill me. Of course they don�t have my fucking book I want. Which is the new collection from the folks at the Onion. I go back to music, and find some book on the underground music scene in the 80�s or some shit like that because it says �Sonic Youth� and �Lydia Lunch� and things like that on it. Unfortunately, on my happy skip to the register I notice a line of about 15 fucking people, and one scrawny old man ringing on one of the 29 registers they have. With that stupid little lamp on. I decide to walk around again. Perhaps that woman is still looking at the relationship books. Maybe I will go over and say �I don�t think a book is going to help you convince him the word �commitment� is an option�, but I don�t. Some rocket scientist decides it�s time to open another register, soon, it�s like a fucking Christmas tree with all sorts of fucking lights on. There are now like 300 people ringing people up, and I�m able to buy my �the Joy of cooking with Veal� book and get the fuck out of Dodge.

I felt a little disturbed at work the other day, and I meant to talk about it here, but I forgot, but anyway, this man called us. This is the premise I was given by one of my employees: His sister bought some CD�s off us, the next day she dropped dead. He wants a refund. He will send CD�s back to us, and a copy of the death certificate. Me being a manager initially said to my employee �why does he want a CD? She bought the CD�s, we don�t give refunds to ghosts! Tell him that, call him right now and say that to him Oh, that�s mean? Oh, okay, let�s see if he sends the shit�. Low and behold, we get a package of 4 CD�s, all opened, and a letter from the man, a copy of the death notice from the newspaper, and a copy of a death certificate. �Oooh, cool, punk rock, a death certificate� is the first thing I think of. I look it over, this woman died �suddenly� on the �sidewalk, in front of 320 High Street, etc�� Shit. Fuck. I decide this isn�t enough proof, and I am going to need the man to send proof that this woman was actually born, and that this is no hoax. I call my friend in the FBI, Jeff. No, I didn�t do that. I refunded the woman�s money. I am then reminded of the folklore that gave the Grateful Dead their name: A young man sets off on a journey. On the way he enables a corpse to be buried by paying off its debts (although this woman didn�t have a debt with us really), although this requires that he part with all his money. Resuming his travels, he is soon met by a man who offers to become his partner in return for half the proceeds. The stranger renders our hero assistance in many adventures, finally demanding his piece of the pie only when the hero is wealthy and married to a beautiful princess. By his willingness to fulfill the bargain the fidelity of the young man is assured, and the stranger then reveals his identity as the grateful spirit of the dead man to whom the hero was kind, and disappears. So now I am convinced that this guy may not be her brother after all, he may be seeking out some sort of personal gain, or he did indeed run into this woman�s ghost, and wants to help her out, and she will eventually help him out. Will he marry some beautiful princess if I refund the money this ghost already gave us? Or should I call him on it and say �I don�t know what kind of a scam you are pulling here buddy, but I�m not falling for it!�. I then realize that I think my job is getting to me, and I go to lunch. Upon returning to my desk, I entered the CD�s into our �returns� system, and issued a credit in the amount of $53.46 to this dead woman�s credit card.

Shit, I left my guitar out in the car. Fuck.

before & after