as much as i hate tagging unless it's done artfully and to the competition's shop window, i will acquiesce (but not silently) to lecram's.

10 Years Ago: i was living in seattle, washington in the freelard neighborhood and working for a candle supply making shop called pourette. i was heavily involved with a woman named jennifer. i was taking in seattle mariner baseball games. and i was learning the very tough art of gardening in the pacific northwest. the summer season there is actually a defined season unlike here in the central valley of california. if i wanted tomatoes, peas, carrots, radishes, dope and the like i had to watch the extended forecasts closely (and i mean the national ones, not the stoopid local ones. by the way, if i were i local meteorologist up there i wouldn't even go to work some months. a simple placard that reads "rain expected with some clearing and a chance of afternoon sun" would suffice). however, it helped me to hone my green thumb. unfortunately, i brought that green thumb back to the san joaquin valley and killed quite a few vegetable plants through overzealousness. also, i was learning that i wasn't cut out for extended and daily relationships. my true joys of an evening were to go to a nearby pub, drink guinness beer, throw real darts, work the crossword, write a drivel of a poem or two, shoot a game or two of pool and wander home. all in all a very enjoyable evening (and if i had or found someone who had the KGB, even better). my girlfriend, while not too demanding of my sobriety, was a bit too demanding of my time. a well learned lesson, the outcome of which was that we agreed (mutually, i might add) that our lives just didn't mesh after 2 and a half years. we made better friends than...the cliche.

5 Years Ago: i moved back to Fresno. decided seattle was just too damn small and conservative for a man like me. so i packed up my 1969 VW bus and cruised over the mountains to klamath falls, oregon where my beloved sister lives with my beloved niece. it was to be a weekend stop, but events conspired to lengthen the stay. on the way over said mountains of no name i was stopped by a crew laying high speed phone lines. as i was in a line of cars i turned off my engine. when it was my turn to go forward i tried to start the bus and it wouldn't. facing uphill. long story short i ended up being the only obstacle between it and a deep ravine with a river at the bottom. in other words i got out of the bus, put a rock under the wheel, got back in, tried to start it in neutral and the rock shifted. i got back out to fix the rock and forgot to set the hand brake. for ten minutes i was back to back with the bus, because it was in neutral and i had already kicked the rock out of the way. i waved to people as my body groaned against the weight trying to push me over and my legs began to tremble. the one driver who made eye contact just sahook his head as i yelled to him to get out and set my handbrake. he got the seattle one finger salute. eventually, i got out of that jam all by myself, faced the bus downhill and jumpstarted it in second gear. got to the bottom of the "hill", turned a round, got back in line and didn't cut the motor until i got to my sis's. blown oil pump, gaskets, everything. the bus's oil pan was flooding when it faced uphil and couldn't breathe. got to fresno (sanger, really), moved in with my parents for a while, laid low and was found out by people like lecram.

1 Year Ago: i was swearing to never work the rogue festival again. i had been one of its founders. i had been running venues for it for too long and last year was a bugger of a venue. i was also looking at my job and wondering why i was still working for assholes.

Yesterday: after a very long day at work mixing asphalt and running tests on it and tests on other black goo that came from the visalia airport and highway 99, i sat out on my patio with a beer and looked at the albatross that is the empty two-story fouplex built acroos the street from this past june. empty, because the bay areas owners bought it sight unseen for a cool $750,000 only to view and realize they owned a pig in a poke that was D.O.A. no way to make their money back in any timely or untikely fashion. so they've decided to rent it for a price no one will touch (i'm smelling tax writeoff). then, lecram called. he's borrowed my second car for a bit (yes, i am a "monied" man), but he evidently can't read a gas gauge. i picked him up, he bought a gas can and filled it up, we replenished the bmw and he was on his way again after a very good conversation about friends, lovers and the heartbreak of psoriasis. then, writerboy shows up at my house. only met this guy once at a barbecue. he wanted to "buy a baggie". i had to tell him that i am now a blue moon smoker and had nothing on the shelves (i stopped short of telling him that hurricane katrina had swamped my crop). he was polite and obsequious, which did nothing for me. i like my folks blunt. a dry martini ain't bad either. i watched the USA soccer team tie guatamala, but it was okay because USA has already earned their way into next year's world cup in germany (and you know i will be up watching every damn game that i can when next summer rolls around). then, i went to bed, because i had to be at work at 5 this morning.

5 Songs I Know All The Words To: Mojo Nixon's "She's Vibrator Dependent" (don't want me in it); Bloodhound Gang's "You're Pretty When I'm Drunk"; Kinky Friedman's "Waitress, Please Waitress"; the Roches' "The Boat Family" (although the harmonies kill me); Southern Culture On The Skids' "House of Bamboo".

5 Snacks: baby ruth, peanuts in the shell, microwave popcorn sans butter, celery and peanutbutter, beer.

5 Things I'd do w/ $100 million dollars: wait outside my house for the bottle and can pickers i know to be honest and hardworking and set them up right; buy a small nightclub/bar and hire musical acts that i actually like (like the Roches, Bloodhound Gang, Tom Waits, Rickie Lee Jones, Joan Osbourne, Jonathon Richman, Michelle Shocked, U2, REM, Sleater/Kinney, Eyes Like Mars, the Moldy Peaches, Fiona Apple); run naked down wishon boulevard from shields avenue to belmont shouting "i have the littlest dick in the world" and then pay the cops to turn their flashers on for me; disappear for the rest of my life (with sporadic emails to certain friends and family about where they can meet me all expenses paid); pay the drycleaning bill for lecram's pants.

5 places I would run away to: AAA (when AA isn't enough just keep aaadding); Madagascar, because it was always the darker appendix to the dark continent when i was growing up and, evidently, it has an ecosystem unlike anything else; Nepal (and i'd even quit smoking in order to be able to breathe the rarified air); Molokai (has a huge telescope that i could commandeer if this was tied into the $100 million question); seattle, but only if i could afford to live on a union lake houseboat without working (the july 4 fireworks are amazing).

5 things I would never wear: a toupee, a muscle shirt, a pushup bra, mickey's mantle, lederhosen (sorry, theraminman).

5 favorite TV shows: West Wing, Xena: Princess Warrior, Arrested Development, Reno 911, The Daily Show With Jon Stewart.

5 greatest joys: candlemaking, poetry writing, telescope viewing, beer drinking, masturbating.

5 favorite toys: weed whacker, pruning shears, computer, the cat, t.v.

5 people I'm tagging: probably none, because the gentleman who tagged ME knows all of my blogger friends.