On Todd and Trog and Doin' Your Thing...

On Todd and Trog and Doin' Your Thing...

by Adam Littlefield on Friday, April 15, 2011 at 4:27am

"I like people who don’t fit the general perception of what they’re supposed to be—like a jock who doesn’t think the game is the end-all/be-all of his life. I always admired that about Mike Tyson. He was the best boxer in the whole world, and boxing really wasn’t that important to him. And I feel connected that way, too—I feel like the less I care about my music, the more it comes out of me, and the more fun I have." - Todd Snider


    


     So I can not claim to be a huge Todd Snider fan. I have only been exposed to small portions of his work. I do know he's a huge badass, though, and a little fart of my brain led me to an interview featuring this lovely little ball of good spackle... Something yesterday, I have no idea what any more, brought to mind Snider's Infamous Buddy Trog, who I had first heard a tale of at a bbq at Erin C's maybe, and maybe it was five years ago, or something. Regardless of where I heard the tale, I was like, yeah, Trog's kinda like me, or I'm kinda like him, or something. Several people agreed at the time, and a few people over the course of those years have randomly asked me if I'd ever heard of Trog, and stated my resemblance to their mental picture or what not...
   
    Anyway, when Trog popped into my head yesterday, I was hit with a wave of introspection... Am I Trog?... Have I spent these last five years trying to emulate my general idea of his generality and filled in the blanks with Boomby?... Is he yet more of my as-seen-on-TV spackle?... And then I'm kinda like, 'well so-fucking-what if he is? Quit spazzing about whether you've turned into Trog, you're having a blast; and you're not all Trog, or all Hank Moody, or all Ignatius J. Reilley, or all Uncle Buck, or all Del Griffith, or all Bert Littlefield, or all... You're one fucking Boomby... So quit your spazzing and do your thing...' I'm paraphrasing tones of my thoughts here, in case it needs to be said, but my point to myself was that we all take pieces of people we identify with or admire... People shape our personas... We have our examples, and we choose which ones to take along for the ride... And the choices are endless and ever tricky...
   
     So I get de-railed quite easily in my Universal dealings. If I'm not careful, I can ruin a really good flow by focusing too much attention on, ahem, one thing or another. It drives me nuts, but I get a little better at controlling it with each bump in the road... So after getting some things back on track, and a couple of mini-de-railments, I was a little melancholy when I came across this quote up top. One mini-de-railment came after I'd spazzed for a few minutes in the car about the one part of my current flow that could be going a little smoother, and then the same thing, my id gave my ego a little pep talk about all the great things on the rise, and I did a mini-version of this new little meditation exercise I made up for myself... Half-way through the exercise, I hit a fucking squirrel. Believing in the flow of things as I do, I considered this not-so-good, and was sorta sad-and-chuckly-all-at-once at the irony of it all... It didn't really help my mood... But Todd put me back on track...
   
     Some people fight who they are. Why? Because of the perception of who they're supposed to be? Todd was asked this question in reference to a song he wrote about a Major League pitcher who threw a no-hitter tripping on acid... And it's the question that's been on my mind these past few months... At some point we have to realize who we are and make it work for us. If we stop fighting it, or pushing it, or pulling it, it goes. Any one of us is able to make our life whatever we want. I want to be a Good-Timin'-Good-Hearted-Countryghettohippie-Writer-Farmer-Gambler... And I am, and I will be, the best one of those I can; maybe that ever was, if there ever was one...
  
     Do your thing, people. Be that jumble of people that make you, you... Care less about your music, and the more it will come out of you...
Good day
~Boombalias
   

On Hank Moody, and other stuff...

On Hank Moody, and other stuff...

by Adam Littlefield on Wednesday, March 30, 2011 at 5:33am

Hank Moody...

Lovable, charming fuckup...

Lover of altered-states, women, and words...

 Blurred images of fantasy and reality...

Hank Moody, I salute you...

     So I just finished the season finale of Californication. It may be the greatest twenty-six-ish minutes of television I have ever watched. Or it may just be the greatest twenty-six-ish minutes of television I have ever watched right now. Either way, it was fucking awesome. I felt an instant kinship with Hank, maybe last year around this time, or whenever it was when I first encountered him. I was like, “Holy crap, I’m a hometown-amateur Hank Moody, save the fact that I have two-hundred-or-so pounds on him and I barely get laid and very few people passionately hate me.” I’m paraphrasing there, I don’t remember what the fuck I said to myself, but it was probably something like that. And Hank’s got a few years on me, so the whole 200lb-barely-laid-passionate-hate thing could work itself out… Regardless, the show was great, and Hank’s struggles and plights are things I relate to, definitely part of my as-seen-on-TV spackle…

     I just wanted to type something this morning… I re-read some of my January-February tear and felt like it was time for my fingers to move. I haven’t written much, Quincy is still stuck, but many things are happening, life things. The way things unfolded with our roadtrip was perfect, it couldn’t have gone smoother, and I came home feeling quite energized. I still felt lagged until this past weekend pretty much, but the trip led right into St. Patrick’s Day and my oldest friend’s amazing 35th-birthday-houseparty-bbq-extravaganza. It was two solid weeks of Adventure and great times, with friends old and new, all little stories of their own.

     The Universe is still at work, the good spackle outweighing the bad more-and-more. I feel my life changing for the good by the day, and feel like, for the first time maybe ever, I have a clear vision of what I want my life to be. I don’t really want to get into that right now, I’m just trying to get something out there before I fall asleep. But things become clearer and clearer by the day…

     I will say that this past weekend was a trip, filled with several important interactions with some very important people in my life, also including a very fresh-and-refreshing interaction I’m trying hard not to be all spazzy about. Jesus, this sounds vague, but I have a point… Things are going exactly as they should… One important but weird interaction came from a friend I rarely see any more… The situation was weird and the details are not necessary, but she helped me speak a truth that is a good truth for me right now. I had said in the Valentine’s Day ramble that the day I got my ass kicked eight years ago was a big move, and something I did for me and no one else. Anyway, I had said something-or-other to this girl, and she replied, “Yeah, but aren’t you still in love with that one girl?...” To which I replied, “ Nope, the only person I’m in love with right now is myself...” The power of that verbalization was immediate; it was a good truth… The girl was puking ten minutes later and I was continuing on a fantastic adventure, but she was a catalyst for realization, and I was grateful for that truth…

     So yeah, the Universe is most certainly working. One of the other interactions involved my being asked why I feel the need to share my thoughts like this, or why I feel the need to say exactly what I want to whomever I choose when the notion grabs me, such as saying too much via-finger-spew to a girl I may like at the risk of alienation… Couldn’t I just write it and keep it to myself?... The answer to that is no, not right at this moment… I say what I say, and it is what it is, and I fucking love it… To re-use the Immortal words of Hank Moody, “I drink. I think. I write. Lather. Rinse. Repeat…”

Good day, People…
Boombalias

Toilet Philosophy...

Toilet Philosophy...

by Adam Littlefield on Saturday, March 5, 2011 at 2:17pm

Writing from the road to come, but a friend inadvertently reminded me of this entry from '07, and I thought I'd share it right quick... The perishable talk fits with other stuff I've been talking about lately, and farting whilst peeing is good, healthy spackle... Happy trails, people...

June 26, 2007

     Ugh...Man, I haven't felt like writing a fucking thing lately. Blogs and lyrics and rambly emails are just piling up in my brain. The perishables are growing moldy, and some rather smell; and the non-perishables are collecting dust. Stink though they may, the perishables linger, and my brain seems to be hoarding them for some stinky-rotten rant fight instead of chucking them into the bin or sending them out into the world. I wish I was the type who just wrote; wherever, whenever, whatever, but I'm just not. Especially when I find myself in a funkier-than-normal funk, which I do of late. There are several reasons for this funk. Often my reasons will latch onto eachother and form this big ball of yuck. The yuck varies in degree, and lately the yuck levels are high. I could blather on with specifics, but that's boring and goddamned depressing. And my intent is to come round to something uplifting or entertaining by the time I'm done typing.
            
      Having said that, by show of hands, who loves to fart while they pee? I do I do. I have an iron bladder, so when in bars it's not uncommon for me to be there several hours before 'breaking the seal'. Depending upon the company I'm keeping, I may or may not have been holding a fart for whole said duration. I suppose that, more often than not, I let 'em fly anyway. But the best by far is  when I've got one saved up for my seal-breaking. I stroll back to the loo. My buzz is starting to come on strong. I commence the stream and then 'HRRRRRRRNNTTTTTT' my ass horn sounds a baritone medley for all in attendance to hear. This blowing is most usually followed (the loudness of which coinciding with the level of intoxication, of course) by a Randy 'Macho Man' Savage-esque 'OHHHHH YEEEEEAAAAAH,' all in the midst of a raucous pee. It is a splendiferous biological multi-tasking, a beautiful release from the front and the rear. Other occupants may sneer, but what can I say, they just aren't in tune with the simple pleasures. Those who are, even if they don't rip one of their own, will at least respond in kind with an empathetic chuckle or a slightly subdued 'OH YEAH.'
   
      I'm certainly not the first  person to ponder this subject. Louie Anderson did a great bit in the eighties about idolizing his father as a youngster because he farted while he peed and consequently sang it's praises as one of life's simple pleasures as an adult. And I'm sure he wasn't the first. It's very base, ya know? Like several other root human pleasures. Just as we've been fucking and eating and scratching ourselves for thousands of years, we too have been farting while we pee. At any given moment, around the world, hundreds of thousands of people are experiencing the same beautiful functions. Don't it make you feel all warm n' fuzzy?

      I've often wondered if women take the same pleasure, I've even asked a few. I don't think I've recieved any definitive answers, perhaps because I only vaguely remember asking in a few late-night ramblings, but I do remeber pontificating my theories on the matter. I definitely believe that they take the same pleasure, though only in very private and/or comfortable environs. The main factor for their hesitancy, aside from being, ya know, ladylike, is the resounding accoustics of a fart inside a toilet bowl. Women must sit to pee, and thus must sit to fart while peeing. And although the Horn Resounding (I'll take obscure late 80s movie references for a thousand, Alex) bellow of a fart in a toilet bowl may be music to our ears, I believe the ladies find it quite distasteful. Oh well, I know you ladies love it when no one's listening.

     So yeah, I had a little rant planned on an idea I've been gnawing on lately about what I like to call 'friendshipical hierarchies', but I've watched three movies over the course of this rambling and it's nearing bedtime. It centers around my tedency to, as I get older, take people at face value; and all the pros and cons of that, but it seemed a bit blah considering the early tone of this entry. So I opted for farting when you pee. Either way, they were both non-perishable. They may collect dust, but they'll get out there eventually. The perishables are mostly personal interactions that will get out there or won't, and may or may not matter. I guess if you wait too long to serve up your thoughts or ideas and they go all moldy and funky on you, it's your own goddamned fault and it is what it be. It all comes out in the wash. Incidentally, I just watched Magnolia for the first time in awhile, what a cool flick. I feel better.......Take pleasure in the simple things people. Fart, pee, and be merry.....And so it goes, and so it goes...
~Boombalias

On Bert and Bernie...

On Bert and Bernie...

by Adam Littlefield on Sunday, February 20, 2011 at 8:17am

    So I just watched Soul Men. Aside from a small role in Old Dogs, it was Bernie Mac's last movie... I think I tried to watch it drunk the other night, or maybe I was just nodding off to sleep, I don't really recall. Either way, it was exactly the perfect movie at exactly the perfect time. I had just watched Life as We Know It, and it was good, but I was kind of having that heebie-jeebie restless feeling tonight, and it failed to squelch it. So I hit up OnDemand to look for just the right movie to watch or re-watch, as I often do when I have that funky feeling and am not feeding it booze, and after scrolling through a hundred or so, I found Soul Men.

     I will forever associate Bernie Mac with my Old Man. They didn't look or talk or dress the same, but they were both oldschool, they both had Class, they were near the same age and they died fourteen days apart. I don't remember specifics, but I remember there being talk around the house about his death. Here is another part where I could try to replicate something Bert said about 'ol Bernie, lord knows he had a spiel on it, and I could probably spew some shit that would be remotely Bert-esque, but I'm not ready to do that.

     If you've been reading, it goes back to the whole cheapening/over-aggrandizing thing. For the most part, my memory works in tones, I am fairly fucking worthless when it comes to specifics, but I'm also very anal about detail and explaining myself properly and such. I dunno how the fuck that works, but it creates a shitstorm in my head on a regular basis. So my portrayal of other peoples' words will either come to me in time, or they won't. Digression... The point is, I don't remember what was said, but I know Bert, in a sense, felt kinda like he lost another buddy, a peer, an acquaintance; like the dozens that had gone too early before him, on the screen and in the flesh.

     They both had Class. Charisma. Soul... Granted, Bernie's was flashier and infinitely more lucrative, he'd have given Bert mad shit about his more-often-than-not bedraggled appearance, but had they met, they'd have seen eachother. They'd have sat and talked like players do about gettin' old, swappin' stories; and realized that either one of them, given a different fart of the Universe, could have been in the place of the other. They both had a way with words, sometimes misused, but always poignant, and people always wanted to listen. People wanted to be around them...

     So yeah, when I started to watch that movie the other night, drunk or tired, I realized that it's kind of odd that I never watched it before. It has two of my favorite actors sharing the screen the whole way and I never watched it? It's probably a pattymelt thing. I think I might have heard it was kinda shitty, but maybe I was just waiting til today to watch it, right at the very perfect time.

     The movie is fucking great. An instant favorite. I laughed, I got misty-eyed, and it brought to mind so many times, good and bad, happy and sad, and all points in between. It brought to mind my roadtrip home from Costa Rica via Florida with my oldest friend in the world the day that Michael Jackson died. It brought to mind the Dark Tower series because a woman named Odetta was the woman they had fought over in the movie, and I had just seen a show earlier with a woman named Odetta, and how fucking often do you hear the name Odetta on TV, let alone twice in a couple hours. Odetta Holmes is the woman gunslinger in the Dark Tower series, where everything's 19, and there'll be water if god wills it, and the gunslingers Remember the Faces of their Fathers, and the Universe is always at work. And it brought to mind Bert and Bernie, two amazing souls whose work here was done, and are on to other adventures...

      It was like any of my favorite movies, books, albums, a spiritual experience. Something that spawns real thoughts, memories, emotions. It was my daily reminder that the Universe is  at work. It was good fucking spackle...

Good day to you, people...
~Boombalias

Ice Karma Part duhh... Sandbagged...

Ice Karma Part duhh... Sandbagged...

by Adam Littlefield on Friday, February 18, 2011 at 8:03pm

     We were three hours in to a snow storm. Nate and I had somehow ended up in a tavern we rarely frequented any more, perhaps entertaining out-of-town guests. The details are foggy, it was awhile back, but I am quite sure there was Ice Karma involved. It was still early when we got started, maybe eight o’clock, and it had just started to snow. Heavy, wet snow it was. I may have taken weird drugs before we left my house, I was drinking voraciously. The other sinners in the place were eating my dust. We were ‘suuuuup-ing’ and ‘laaaaaaaater-ing’ left and right. At the time, I think we were still doing the Doug and Steve Butabi thing and actually bouncing girls in between us, mocking the brothers’ silly little dance. The ladies loved it. Really…
              
      As we stepped outside to move on to bigger-and-better things, I wondered if the drugs were playing a trick on me. It had snowed a seemingly-inordinate-fuck-ton of snow in a very short time, as snow storms go; three hours and at least nine inches. I was steaming, literally. I had been sweating profusely inside, and some sort of science dictated that my sweaty body heat turn to steam as I stood in awe of the inordinate-fuck-ton. Everything was fine until we reached our home bar.
             
     On the way, we had seen someone fall, and laughed profusely. I hesitated to laugh because I knew all about Ice Karma, but the laughs came regardless. I was giggly and babbly from the drugs.

      The alley behind our usual hangout is treacherous in the winter. The Ice mixes with the mud of the gravel-needy alley and it becomes glacial back there. When the snow and ice start to melt, sandbags are placed in the gaps of the cement wall that runs along the alley to prevent further erosion of its already dilapidated state. Said sandbags just happened to be covered with several inches of wet, fluffy snow that night…

     The sweat had finally dried, and I was babbling fluidly to Nate on our way toward the door. I usually just step over the wall, it is only three feet high or so, but with snow covering the unknown glacial formations of the alley, I opted to go through the gap in the wall. So I was babbling along, something about the Universe at work probably, and BOOM… I was flat on my face in the snow. The sandbag was craftily, carefully concealed by aforementioned wet, heavy snow, and I had tripped right over the damned thing.

     As soon as we realized I was not injured, we burst in to laughter. I rolled over on my back and tried to catch my breath amidst wheezy guffaws. I am normally quite graceful when getting to my feet, but the booze and drugs made it a process. The area where I fell in the freshly fallen snow looked like a twelve-foot demon snow angel, and I looked like the abominable snowman. The laughs ebbed temporarily, and we went in to tell the tale…

     This is just another example of karma at work. A fun reminder that our thoughts and actions have consequences, however small or large. Something to think about the next time we see someone fall or get dogged out in public, or any number of ugly things. Be careful, you could be next…

Good Friday to you, people…
~Boombalias

Ice Karma... A Short Narrative...

Ice Karma... A Short Narrative

by Adam Littlefield on Friday, May 21, 2010 at 1:22am

Yeah, so since I can't seem to write anything new lately, I thought I'd bring over a few old gems from Crickets-Chirping-Space that never made it over here for some reason... More to come...

A few weeks ago, I had an amusing encounter with bad karma. I'm sure that we've all had our experiences with karma, whether we believe in it or not. You do something good, something good comes back to you, and likewise for things of a more negative nature. It is ever present in our day-to-day lives; restaurant karma, driving karma, dating/flirting karma, the list could go on. I could speak at length on many of the more inane types of karma, but today I'll speak of an evil, dangerous type; Ice karma.

     We were three days into an ice storm. It was my cousin Dusti's last night in town before returning to school, and we were in our favorite drinking establishment spreading the good word to legions of sinners. In truth, we had succumbed to the masses and joined into their pagan rituals not long after we'd entered. Outside was an icy hell, we'd risked life and limb to get there, and inside the air and drink were warming. At some point, I realized that I was out of cigarettes and would have to skate to the car to retrieve a fresh deck. This sounded like great fun.

     I was negotiating the parking lot with much joy and ease when I heard a scuffling, skidding sound from behind me. I turned in time to see some sinner shimmy-slide-shuffle on the ice, but right himself at the very last moment. A cackling, almost girlish giggle, no doubt brought on by the evil spirits, sprung from my depths. By the time my giggle had subsided, I was flat on my back and looking up at the stars. I had taken the spill meant for the sinner. And in the midst of my fresh onslaught of giggles, I knew that karma was at work. It was a meticulous process, hauling my considerable mass to a standing position without falling repeatedly. Afterward, I brushed myself off, fetched my cigarettes, and went back inside to tell the tale.

     Sometimes small things, no matter how insignificant, can remind us about the simple lessons in life. No matter what we believe, there are basic rules that apply. How we interpret or learn from them is each person's struggle. Some of us never learn.

On Valentine's Day... And writer's block...

On Valentine's Day... And writer's block...

by Adam Littlefield on Monday, February 14, 2011 at 6:42pm

     Eight years ago today, Valentine's day 2003, I checked in to the hotel at the Davenport River Center. I had no Valentine, I was there to fight in front of hundreds of people. Nearly two years of a quest to get my head outta my ass and develop an active lifestyle was culminating with my crazy decision to box in the Toughman Contest...

     The night of the fight, and the events leading up to it, is the subject of my first official Quincy Fields story. And right now, I am stuck 3500ish words in, trying to decide how deep to delve in to the details of the girl I was getting over at the time...

     I am not sure as to the degree of her relevance to the story. Although this girl is a trusted friend now who I have an amazing, hours-long rant-session with every few months, she is not really a part of my life, and only really became a part of my life at that time out of circumstance. But she was the first girl I ever really had a deep-seated connection with, a connection born of circumstance and intoxication, but raised in a mutual faith in eachother that we were better than the sum of our present actions and respective stations in life. She inspired me to write. She was in love with my typed words, if nothing else, and I was in love with her strength in the face of adversity. It was dysfunctional, as all of my loves have been, but it was also very raw and real, as all of my loves have also been...

     So that is my quandary, I am stuck trying to convey and remember feelings I'm not really sure about any more. And the depth of said feelings, or lack thereof, scares me. As much as I want to just trust whatever my brain gives my fingers and know that it will be good enough, I can't help but worry that I will either cheapen or over-aggrandize sacred things in the halls of my brain.

     How much or little of myself or the people who have meant something to me do I put on the page? That is the quandary in general. I will encounter the same problem when I get back to writing about my months in the jungle and the lovesick months that followed, or my dysfunctional relationship with my father, my mother, my sister... Fuck...

     I choose this, and in the times to come, all of these things will come to pass, for better or worse, cheaply or over-aggrandizingly. Because I am a writer. In the paraphrased words of Hank Moody when asked whether he was an artist or a pretender, " I'm neither, I'm a writer. I think. I drink. I write. Lather, rinse, repeat..." I accept it, and I will  make it work...

     That Valentine's day eight years ago, I had lost nearly two hundred pounds, and had decided months before that I either needed to kick someone's ass, or get my ass kicked... I got my ass kicked; by an ex-marine a little shorter and quite a bit fitter. But I loved every fucking second of it. It was exhilarating... And, like the only real moves I've made in life, it was BIG...

     I think that, that night, I really got over the girl. I found no Valentine. I drank many draft beers as soon as I left the ring, did drugs through a broken nose, and gambled degenerately... Spackle... My many years-long backslide could possibly be attributed to my loss in the ring, but could just as well be attributed my becoming too comfortable with my progress and reverting back to the full-time raging wildman, rather than the occasional raging wildman I had become accustomed to... Either way, that was one of the greatest nights of my life, and it involved no Valentine...

     As for now, I sit here today completely over another girl. She's a girl I can't for certain say I won't have another chapter with, but our lives do not concern eachother in the present. There is a girl I like, but like most every girl I decide I really like and am not just trying to spoon, I fear I have gone way over-the-top with her. There are girls I try to spoon, but not terribly hard... C'est la vie, like I've been saying, all we can do is be honest, and be who we are...

     So, Happy Valentine's Day, people. I treat it with warm indifference, and fond recollections of something I did for me, and no one else... If you hate Valentine's Day, like my video said, do like the rest of us; get drunk, and shut the fuck up...

Good day, you beautiful people...
~Boombalias