Alternate Timeline
Alternate Timeline
When she said she was bleeding,
I knew it wasn’t a cut
And cursed at the traffic between us.
I lost my backpack once
Crying drunk
Bar-hopping at 3am in Reno.
I probably left it at the Five-Star,
A gay bar usually inhabited
With predatory tweakers and homebums
That didn’t care what they did for a drink,
Protesting that I didn’t want to do coke,
Mostly because I never had.
Oxygenated blood is bright red.
Stainless steel is bright silver.
I will only smile
In case she looks at me
Instead of the poster of puppies on the ceiling.
I lost five months of memories and work
In the notebook in the backpack
And walked around with that hole
In my head like dry-rot
Until I wrote more
Drank more
And eventually forgot.
She’s almost stopped crying
Needlessly guilty tears,
Now that she’s asleep
And it’s almost been a week
More until we can have sex again
Not for the orgasm or to try again.
Because it’s so hard to be strong
Alone
With this hole.
-R.O.D.
2005
Pogue Mahone!
Pogue Mahone!
St. Patrick wasn’t Irish; he was a Romanized Brit; there may have even been two Patricks, again, neither Irish. The color associated with the first bishop of Ireland isn’t even green; it’s actually any number of shades of sky blue. Nor did he drive any snakes out of Ireland; they went extinct prior to last ice age and the legend is actually a euphemism for the mass slaughter of indigenous religious leaders of either the Druidic traditions or the Pelagic Christian heretics, by a Roman legion around the same time that may or may not have been under his command. For centuries, this solemn religious feast day was celebrated by going to church; it wasn’t until America in the 1800s that it turned into the beer and whiskey fest that it is today. To thumb my nose at one of my favorite days of drink, I’ve prepared this handy list of OTHER things to celebrate on St. Patrick’s Day.
Cooler Things Than St. Patrick’s Day to Celebrate on March 17th:
Birthdays (incomplete list and in alphabetical order)
Alexander McQueen – fashion designer
Arye Gross- Actor
Billy Corgan- musician
Gary Sinise- actor
Jim Bridger – explorer
James Morrow- author
Kurt Russell- actor
Nat “King” Cole- musician
Mia Hamm- athlete
Michael Hayden- Director of CIA
Patrick Duffy- actor
Paul Kantner- musician
Rob Lowe- actor
Rudolph Nureyev- choreographer
Samoa Joe- professional wrestler
Shemp Howard- actor
William Gibson- author
Historic Events (incomplete list)
- 45 BCE – Julius Caesar defeats Pompeian forces, in his last victory.
- 180 – Marcus Aurelius dies.
- 1337 – Edward, the Black Prince, made Duke of Cornwall, the first Duchy in England.
- 1521 – Ferdinand Magellan ‘discovers’ the Philippines.
- 1755 Transylvania Land Co. buys Kentucky for $50,000 from a Cherokee chief.
- 1776 – British evacuate Boston after George Washington and Henry Knox place artillery overlooking the city.
- 1804 – Johan von Schiller’s “William Tell” premiers.
- 1836 – Texas abolishes slavery.
- 1845 – The rubber band is patented
- 1901 – A showing of 71 Van Gogh paintings, 11 years after his death, creates a sensation in Paris.
- 1910 – Camp Fire Girls founded.
- 1921 – Britain’s first birth control clinic opens.
- 1941 – National Gallery of Art is officially opened.
- 1950 – UC, Berkeley researchers announce the creation of element 98 – Californium.
- 1953 – U.S. performs first of Operation Upshot-Knothole tests (‘Annie’ – 16 kiloton) at Nevada Test Site. (Home means, ‘Ka-boom!’)
- 1958 – Navy launches Vanguard 1 into orbit to measure Earth’s shape, objectively proving, once and for all, that the Earth is (mostly) round.
- 1959 – Dalai Lama begins exile by fleeing to India from Tibet.
- 1966 – Missing U.S. H-bomb found off the coast of Spain.
- 1969 – Golda Meir becomes first female PM of Israel.
- 1976 – U.S. performs Operation Anvil test ‘Pool’ (.3 megaton) at Nevada Test Site.
- 1985 – Richard Ramirex, the Night Stalker, commits his first two murders in LA.
- 1987 – IBM releases PC-DOS version 3.3.
- 1995 – U.S. approves first chicken pox vaccine (Varivax by Merck).
- 1998 – US Women’s Hockey Team beats Canada for their 1st Olympic Gold medal.
Other Holidays/Observances (also incomplete)
Ancient Latvia – Kustonu Diena (return of the larks) observed
Ancient Rome – Second day of the Bacchanalia
Feast day of Joseph of Arimathea
National Muay Thai Day (Thailand)
Slainte!
The Things I Say
The Things I Say
I say, “Good Morning;”
I say, “Good Afternoon;”
I say, “Good Night,”
regardless of the truth.
I say, “Thank God;”
“God bless you;”
and “God damn it!”
regardless of my lack of faith.
I call lame things ‘gay’
my gays ‘fags’
and my fags, ‘cigarettes’.
I call lame people ‘disabled’
and stupid people ‘lame’.
I call stupid people ‘retarded’
and retarded people ‘disabled’.
I say, “Take care,”
when I don’t particularily
I’ve said, “I love you,”
when all I meant was,
“I wanna see you naked.”
I’ve said, “I love you,”
when all I meant was,
“Hang up the phone, Mom.”
I tell my wife, “I hate you,”
on a daily basis.
I say, “Sure I know them,”
when I just want you to get on with your story.
I say, “Yeah, yeah,”
when I want to seem in the know.
I say, “I’m sorry,” when I’m not.
I say a lot of things
I don’t mean, believe, or know;
but I always mean it
when I say,
“Thank you, ladies and gentlemen,”
and,
“Tip your bartender.”
-R.O.D.
01/10
Bacon Haiku
I almost forgot about this. I was nearly asleep and sat straight up in bed with this poem in my head. After all, I can’t have a blog about poetry and bacon without a poem about bacon. I will further admit inspiration from the book Spamku.
Bacon-ku
I add some low heat
to soggy high fat content.
Result: crispy yum.
R.O.D.
2009
Bacon’n’Cheese Pork Chops
Bacon Chops
This one is easy.
Ingredients
(Serves 4 – Prep: 20 min – Cook: 1 hr)
Instructions
Line baking sheet with foil. Neatly arrange 8 strips of bacon on pan- full strips, not the half strips I normally reccomend for baking bacon. Place in oven. Turn heat to 400°. (Start with cold oven, because bacon needs to be cooked slow and low.) Cook for about 7 – 8 minutes so they are mostly cooked, but still flexible.
While bacon is cooking, you will prepare the pork chops. Rinse off the shops in cold water and pat dry. Place one slice of swiss on each side of chop (or just one slice on the top if you don’t want that much cheese) and set aside until bacon is ready.
Remove bacon from oven. Turn heat down to 350° and let cool for a few minutes.
While waiting for oven to cool, wrap two slices of bacon around each chop. Kind of twist them up, like candy cane stripes, so the bacon does not overlap itself too much. Also, you can use more bacon if you like, but three slices will stretch the limits of geometry.
Place in glass or non-stick baking pan (9×13?) or baking dish of your choice. When oven has cooled some, place dish in preheated oven. Cook for 50 minutes. Pull pan out and sprinkle chops with as much cheddar cheese as you like (however, too much will drown out the swiss cheese flavor, which really compliments both pork meats). Place back in oven for another 10-15 minutes.
Serve with applesauce. Vegtables and rice or potatoes optional. Pictured above is a mushroom wild rice and canned seasoned green beans.
Enjoy!
Bacon Rice Krispie Treats
Bacon Rice Krispie Treats
Bacon Rice Krispie Treats!
Strangely, these end up tasting like processed peanut butter.
Oven Bake Bacon. Chop or crumble bacon into bits.
Make Rice Krispie Treats. Add 1-2 tbsp bacon grease to marshmallow mixture while melting. Add most of the bacon before adding krispie/marshmallow mixture to pan. I used only 1/2 lb bacon the first time I made these; bacon flavor is very subtle. Reccomend using a whole pound of bacon.
Take remaining bacon (1/4 cup?) and sprinkle on top.
Enjoy!
Mmmmmmm...
Bacon Broccoli Potato Cheese Soup
This is a combination of a handful of recipes I have come across…very tasty.
Very tasty!
Bacon Broccoli Potato Cheese Soup
(Serves: 8; Time: 1hr -1hr 30 min)
Ingredients
* 1 lb bacon
* 1 tablespoon melted butter
* 1 medium chopped onion
* 2-4 cloves garlic
* 1/4 cup melted butter
* 1/4 cup flour
* 3-4 medium russet potatoes
* 2 cups half-and-half cream
* 2 ½ cups chicken stock
* 1/2 lb fresh broccoli
* 1 cup carrot, julienned
* 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
* 8 ounces grated sharp cheddar cheese
* salt and pepper (white or black pepper)
* 8 Kaiser Rolls
* ¼ cup chopped celery (optional)
Directions
Oven bake ½ lb bacon. To do this, start with a cold oven (bacon needs to be cooked at a low temp for the best bacon). Cut bacon package in half down the middle. Lay individual pieces on a cookie sheet (I line mine with foil to prevent the bacon and grease from sticking to or staining the sheet). Place cookie sheet in oven and set to 400°. Bake for 17 min. The final minute or two is very important to achieve desired crispiness, check constantly. Let it cook a little longer to desired crispiness. Save 1-2 tbsp bacon grease. Set bacon and grease aside. When done, let oven cool.
While bacon cooks, in a small nonstick frying pan, combine onion, garlic, 1 tbsp butter, and ¼ cup chicken stock. Bring to a boil over high heat; stir often until liquid evaporates and browned bits stick in pan. Add 1/8 cup stock; stir to scrape browned bits free, and then boil again until liquid evaporates and browned bits form. Repeat step with another 1/8 cup stock, cooking until liquid evaporates. Puree in blender or food processor. Set onion mixture aside. (Bacon should be close to being done – wait until this step before starting the next.
Cube potatoes. Add potatoes, carrots (and celery if used) to 2 cups of chicken stock in stockpot. Bring to a boil over med-high heat. Reduce heat to low. Cover and simmer for 10-12 minutes. Strain stock from potatoes and celery into secondary pot. Put the stock back into the big pot, and set the potatoes and carrots aside.
Cook ¼ cup melted butter and flour using a whisk over medium heat for 3-5 minutes. Stir constantly and add the half & half. Add to the stock mixture. Add bacon grease. Simmer for 20 minutes.
Add bacon broccoli, potatoes, carrots and onion mixture.
Cook over low heat 20-25 minutes. While cooking, oven should be cool. Follow steps to cook second ½ lb of bacon. (Don’t need to save grease this time.)
Chop or crumble bacon into bits.
Add salt and pepper to taste. Can be puréed in a blender, but totally optional.
Return to heat and add cheese, bacon, and nutmeg. Stir until cheese melted.
Serve in Kaiser bread bowls.
Bacon is the new black.
As noted by every food critic and chef in the world, “Everything tastes better with bacon.”
This blog will now also be for posts relating to bacon and its wonderful goodness. Viva la bacon!
Rose and Baseballs
Sometimes when the winter
sends wave after wave of
wet Pacific coldfronts over
the Bay, the Sierras and Our Lady Rose
slowly somersaulting over her midsection,
sliding from breasts to intersections,
sometimes,
you can hit baseballs into the clouds,
and steal rain meant for other places.
The red stitches get indistinct
as the leather fades into the fog,
the fog that fades against the fluorescent
white of far-off vertical snowfields.
The clouds are nothing but
fog, but far more special in the dry
valley sky, always rolling in for the sunset
hogging the view for themselves
blushing in rosy backlit embarrassment,
as the day wanes on and the sun strolls
over the Pacific,
that they got caught this close
to their cutie pie in the sky.
They linger for less than an hour
and segue back to the starry sky,
to giggle about how dreamy he looked today.
Rose is far too old to play games,
but stays up and out all night
chatting it up with a baseball
that smells faintly of lightning.
-2004
All The Time
No one’s going to love you all the time.
They’ve got a life outside of the plastic airport gift-shop sno-ball fantasy you both believe in. They’ve got to love themselves first, get their own shit together, buy a bottle of Pert, shoot up with a little homemade meth, buy another entertainment center they can’t afford, stuff grade McD, Jack in the B, processed plastic lo-fat beef down their gullets and ignore the grease that seeps through their mullets.
No one is going to love you all the time.
That’s what your family is for, and reunions, and Christmas, and arguing over who overcooked the spaghetti, and ‘she woulda been the prom queen if she hadn’ta gotten knocked up’ and fake smiles with retractable shark teeth ready to bite into your sleeping shoulder the minute you turn around for another slice of Gramma’s apple cobbler.
No one’s going to love you all the time.
They’ve got the future to think about, bills to pay, parties to attend if they’re ever going to get that promotion, and, ‘hey, these last few weeks have been great, and you are truly the most amazing person I’ve ever met, but… my little girl has cancer, so I don’t have time for this shit right now. Look me up when she’s out of high school or after the funeral.
No one is going to love you all the time,
You self-evasive prick. Not with that un-P.C. ‘F-the-planet’ attitude and your taste for the lewd misanthropies that everybody tries not to see. When are you going to get serious about anything? Cut your hair? Fit into the image we’ve made for you, just like everyone else, live down to your sub-expectations, just like everyone else, and stop ogling those sixteen year old strippers-waiting-to-happen, just like everyone else. It just take one drink too many, one careless remark too many, one joke about graveyards and golfcourses too many for you to realize that,
Noone’s going to love you all the time.
They heal and have fond memories. They grow up and move on to the next boy in man’s clothing with a winning smile and a digital answering machine and safe ideas about how to deal with the grinding weight crushing down upon him, while you’re still stressing out about buying cat food, and have resorted to smoking stranger’s butts out of ashtrays and drinking half empty melted icewaters that might taste like Jameson’s and lipstick if you’re lucky.
No one’s going to love you while they’re still dealing with Uncle Jack’s drunken clumsy calloused hands pawing at primary color print sheets that are always tangled and sweaty every time they wake up, bolt upright wide-eyed and ready to scream out of some primal gut hate fear of nothing specific, fear of being irrelevant, fear of being leashed to a computer with glowing red eyes on the display empty of anything resembling dreams or a life.
So let’s just face it.
We are all broken toys inside, and
No one is going to love you.
All the time.
2001
The Reverend Rory Dowd
Bacon-Wrapped Poetry 