Unkown Who Dat: "I've been waitin' 42 years!"

The Unknown Who Dat comes to New Orleans

Huge links of sausage with cayenne juices flowing from them like a river

it is unclear why I found this passage from a food blog so utterly amusing-

I stringently disagree with your motion to discontinue boiling sausage with our seafood! The notion that grilled sausage may be better than seafood-boiled sausage is absurd! For my people anyway. Every time I boil seafood, I include sausage. Without exception, the sausage is the first thing to go. Some guests do not even start on the seafood until all the sausage is gone. You and I’s guests must have pallets from different planets because my people LOVE it!I recently had friends and family in from Florida on vacation. As usual I included a whole box of Manda’s Hot Smoked Sausage cut into 6” long links and boiled in the seasoning mix for about 15 minutes before dumping the crawfish in. Using this method, the ordinary 1” diameter links swell to almost 2” diameter. When bitten into or broken, the red cayenne pepper juice runs out like a river! Absolutely incredible! One of my personal favorites. My guests from Florida were overwhelmed with the flavor. In fact, the rest of their trip, all they did was talk about the sausage...and the sight of the juices running from those super inflated links...No-one could stop talking about the sausage!...the topic of all the conversations all gravitated back to sausage, sausage, sausage. They can not stop talking about the sausage! Huge links of sausage with cayenne juices flowing from them like a river.
You do as you wish on your stove top; my sausage will be the talk of the town...for many years to come!

The Monkey and the Snake

Solid NPR bit on the meat puppets yesterday which includes great clips of a choked-up Mike Watt. Worth the eight minutes. makes me wanna listen to Sewn Together again:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106734015

Music and SQL

Saw and interesting bit over at the Reverse Cowgirl:

Interesting post you wrote about writing and money. I made my living as a writer during those wonderful late 1990 and early 2000 days you mentioned in your first post. 45 cents a word for practically anything I wanted to do. Great time to be doing that, free money and easy work. I also made my rent money as a guitar player for a few years of my life. Obviously I didn't get rich, but I know what it's like to get paid for one's 'art' and to compromise it. It got depressing after a while, but the lifestyle was great and there were still the cool, great gigs I could enjoy. Call it turning tricks or whatever, I just used the phrase, 'You take the king's shilling, you play the king's tune.'

I spent the weekend in NYC doing a two day music workshop where I got to meet one of my musical heroes, and not just meet him but play with him. It was amazing, and reminded me of why I started music in the first place. There were probably 75 other people there, all or nearly all of them many years younger than I. They were almost universally talented, optimistic, and hell bent as making it in music on their own terms. They were the antithesis of the stereotype of the lazy musician, they already had indie labels they started, they were gigging anywhere they could get, and they were sure it was just a matter of time until it was their turn to get on the ride. I wanted to tell them, 'Just so ya know, it ain't gonna happen. That doesn't mean you shouldn't try, because you'll hate yourself if you don't, but just because you think you're choosing failure or death doesn't mean you won't wind up with both.' I wanted to tell them about my most accomplished guitar teacher, a guy I took lessons from when I was about twenty. He was a legitimately well-known jazz player who had seen so much failure, including losing two wives mostly because he refused to give up music as his living, that he actually had come to hate music. Not hate drummers who are late and singers who can't come in on cue and staying in awful motels to make $150 at 2 AM. We all hated that shit, but he hated music itself, for what it had done to him and what it had refused to do for him. I vowed that whenever I got close to that I'd find something else to do so I at least would still love music.

And I did. After washing out of both the music and writing rackets I program databases now. I still make my own music, people still seem to like it on the rare occasion it's heard, and I still write. In fact, I write for a blog run by some of my favorite writers in the world and I do it for free, because I know they're broke and need the money and I don't. So by scything my 'art' off from my money I've kept my art pure, and it's still fun when I do it.

On the other hand, my money is what's impure now. It comes from prostituting my brain to do something 8-12 hours per day that I don't care about. Financial reporting does not speak to my heart, I do not pine for more hours in which I can write SQL code. I use a mind capable of producing decent music and better than decent prose for digital greasemonkey work. So, I guess the moral of the story is that you're fucked either way, there just isn't a lot of purity to go around.

In the Wrong Lane

The Happy Rock

"If now and again we encounter pages that explode, pages that wound and sear,
that wring groans and tears and curses, know that they come from a man with his
back up, a man whose only defenses left are his words and his words are always
stronger than the lying, crushing weight of the world, stronger than all the racks
and wheels which the cowardly invent to crush out the miracle of personality."

- H. Valentine Miller

Happy 4th

Pushin Too Hard: R.I.P. Sky Saxon

Sewn Together (This Time)

Well, the Pups have dogged it again! These boys have gotten real tight with all the recent touring as their show at the Parish on 6th Street in Austin, TX proved on Saturday night. I think the word transcendent would be apt to describe the atmosphere of this Meat Puppets show. They started out with the opening track of the new CD. They opened the last show I saw with that one too. It's a goods choice because the vocals kick in a second or two before the musical accompaniment. "Forget yourself...you only wanna be alone...you're living like a dusty bone..." I turned to my wife and asked: "Whaddya think that means: 'living like a dusty bone'?" She pondered it awhile but didn't answer. I pulled a few bills out of my pocket and she procured another round. That was transcendent enough. The psychedelic improvisation that Curt does on the guitar is astounding and takes the recorded CD versions to unparalleled heights. And to see his brother melodiously beat that thunder broom is a sight to behold. The opening band came out and joined 'em for a blistering version of 'Plateau'. I invited a buddy of mine in LA to come out for this but he didn't have the guts. Shame. On the home, careening down I-35 my wife said, "They really rocked, but they were no David Johansen." We had seen the New York Dolls again a couple weeks prior (review to be posted). "No," I replied "they're goofy. Not many have what David Johansen has...Iggy...Mick Jagger...that's about it." Then we pulled through what-a-burger and ordered some fries.

Tip on Obtaining Picture Frames

"Keep an eye out for ugly pics in nice frames at Goodwill yard sales etc. Most peeps dont even consider the frame they price the pic. Also lots of times religious pics go really cheap. Sorry but they do. All except for angels and cherubs."

Dim Sum & Then Some

Watch Japanese Wave Pool and more funny videos on CollegeHumor

Police Dispatch

MAY 16, 1:48 A.M.

"A drunk female with a limited vocabulary caused trouble at a northwest-side bar, a Pima County Sheriff's Department report stated.
A female bartender at Famous Sam's, 2840 W. Ruthrauff Road, said the subject ordered a Long Island iced tea and then headed toward the pool tables, where she promptly began yelling "fuck" very loudly at every customer she met. When the bartender asked her to calm down, she started yelling "fuck" at her, too. At one point, the bartender said, the subject was "getting in her face" so much that the subject was kneeling on a barstool and almost coming over the top of the bar to attack the bartender.
When a waitress asked the subject to leave, the subject started "cursing her out," the report noted. Both the bartender and the waitress said the bar had been "at peace, and everybody was friendly and happy" before the subject entered.
When the subject was arrested, she became hysterical and wouldn't stop using profanity, especially the word "fuck." She explained that the reason she was upset was that everyone in the bar was being rude to her—they were just "mean, angry people." She said this was the third bar she had been kicked out of that night. She had extremely bloodshot eyes, slurred speech and difficulty standing.
She began rambling about everything that was wrong in her life, including how mean her brother was and the fact that she had "a perfect Christian husband." She then talked about her 2-year-old child, who had recently used the word "fuck" for the first time. She said she thought people should say "fuck" more often, as it could be used in several different ways in all kinds of different sentences. "Fuck" was a "multi-use word," she said.
She then proceeded to call an assisting female deputy a "fucking bitch" who allegedly thought she was perfect just because she had a "fucking badge.""

My Beer-Drenched Soul is Sadder Than All the Dead Christmas Trees in the World

Posted by anonymous underneath a bukowski youtube clip:

"Having read his writing, I pictured him more intellectual and observant, but now I see that he's just a rat, like the rest of them."

There Must Be Smoke in My Eyes

Caught the Meat puppets in-store appearance at Waterloo record shop on Memorial Day afternoon 2009. An appearance in support of their new CD 'Sewn Together' and the kick-off of their latest tour. Maybe 40 or 50 fans in attendance- almost a personal show and what a treat! Those Kirkwood brothers bring a special nostalgia to my heart as I remember listening to their early releases back in junior high school circa 1985. Their brand of country punk psychedelia made an impression on my formative years. In retrospect it was strange that I liked them because they didn't exude the sort of firebrand angst that my youth so thirsted for. In truth they transcended the genre of punk. They were far ahead of most in that movement. However, this ain't no nostalgia act. In fact, this latest release surpasses my exalted fawning over their last. It is a more cohesive whole that hearkens back to the creativity of the early SST days. Of course, it is more polished with 20 years having dripped through our fingers since those times. the CD lights me up from the opening vocal notes. And, as expected they opened the Waterloo show with the CD opener. They played a generous sampling from the new offering, but tossed in a few gems as well. A more expansive and psychedelic Up on the Sun I have never heard...Curt is a fucking godhead on the six-string and has been for decades. And every time I see them the audience is perpetually pleased to see and hear his brother Cris back on bass. There is simply something magical about the the two together; the vocal harmonies are exquisite. A marvelous and triumphant return for the man. They pulled out the classic Plateau from Meat Puppets II for the encore. And who doesn't cherish that fucking song? Hell, I could gush ad nauseum- buy the fucking CD and crank it up while smoking in your car on a desert highway. Man, I hope they keep at it. The show whetted my appetite for more, and fortunately they play again on the 20th of June here in Capital City at Emo's.

"There's nothing at the top but a bucket and a mop and an illustrated book about birds. See a lot up there but don't be scared. Who needs action when you got words?" - Meat Puppets 'Plateau'

Ginn Hits The Coast

Gregg Ginn and the Texas Corrugators put on a show in Los Angeles at the Fais Do Do.

Good show.. the Corrugators had a new member -- guitar player looked to be about 22 yrs old. He was good, but his thing was that he constantly fiddled with the knobs on the guitar, played the strings on the headstock, plink-a-plinked them on the pickups, bent the neck a bit, etc. He also kept ducking over to his amp to fuck with knobs there too.. annoyed the shit out of me to where I couldn't just focus on his playing..

Ginn on bass was cooler than I expected.

The electric mandolin player was a hell of a player. Dude rocked it.

During the intermission between the Corrugators and Jambang, I bought a CD from the opening band and the latest Corrugators disc. $5 each -- and every dime went right into the bands' pockets. Perfect.

Jambang was a little disappointing.. Ginn picked up the guitar and I was expecting quite a treat -- never seen him playing guitar live. Unfortunately, the guitar was so washed out and he played so little lead that it was a bit anti-climactic... The trance-y effect of the jambang sound was cool, but I was a little let down by the wash-out.. his guitar was essentially lost in the mix with the keyboards (played by the new guy) and the sequenced bass emanating from the box of rack-mounted effects he was playing thru.

Still, it was nice to watch then man himself play right in front of me in what was effectively a private show. Literally about 25 people, total, were there by the time Jambang played -- and that included the opening band, Are You a Cop? (who put on a great show to open the evening!)

As they left the stage, I told Ginn, "Great show, man," to which he replied, "Thanks, I appreciate it!"

And I got the feeling that he actually did.

Ponderance

"No man is an island but why are so many flecks of dirt?"

---CB

Hide the Scratches

He took off one of her shoes slowly. She didn't make a noise other than the steady flow of her breathing that had just a slight hint of a snore in it and to Charlie sounded more like a purr. He took off the other shoe and she curled her feet up into her jacket with her and rolled onto her side, facing the sofa back and clutching a throw pillow under her head. He spread the blanket over her and tucked it in gently. She let out a tiny sigh and he stood looking down at her for a time before going to his bed and fighting himself into a light sleep.

He awoke to find himself alone. Rosa had left either the night before or sometime early in the morning. Charlie stood in the center of the living room and appraised things. Everything was still there. He chided himself for actually holding out hope that she had stolen something. At least he could have been outraged, gone out to stalk the streets in search of her, had an excuse to go to Jonny's asking after her. But no, nothing of the sort.

Sitting in the recliner, he flipped on the tv. The morning talk shows were just giving way to the game shows. Turning the remote over and over in his hands, he vacillated between the twenty-four-hour news channel and a children's show. The news had a story running about how hundreds of area residents had been scammed by some guys posing as exterminators. Apparently they had sold people liquor bottles full of agricultural pesticides. The people, thinking that they were playing it smart by paying so little and spraying the stuff themselves, were now dropping like flies. The symptoms included nausea, dizziness and vomiting. He wondered if his landlord had sprayed his place before he moved in. He dismissed the thought, however, because his kitchen had a healthy supply of tiny cockroaches.

He flipped off of the news and settled down to an episode of Speed Racer, who, as the opening theme purported, was a demon on wheels. It went by predictably enough with Speed's little brother and the monkey hiding in the trunk and Speed having to race the evil-doers. Racer X swooped in to save everyone from some horrible fate or another and Pops chuckled.

Charlie poked at an ash filled pipe and got up to make coffee, turning the tv volume up enough to be heard from the kitchen. He leaned against the counter smoking and listening to the coffee maker sputter and gurgle as it went through its paces. He found a clean cup in the refrigerator and put two spoonfuls of sugar in it while he waited. Back in the living room, he locked the front door with its two chains and deadbolt and peered out through the peep hole. He could see up and down the street and nothing was going on, as usual. He sat and blew on his coffee as he stirred it noisily. The tv spewed nothing but commercials until he forgot what he had been watching and turned it off. Traffic blew by outside his door at an average rate of four cars per minute. He sipped at his coffee and looked at nothing. The four clocks in the room all agreed that the time was somewhere near eight-thirty in the morning. One of the neighbors, probably the man, stomped from the back of the house to the front door and paused. Charlie waited to hear the door open, but it never did. Finally, the dolt stomped off to some important matters in the back of the house. Charlie got up and turned the heater on to try to drown out the neighbor, and because the cold had begun to penetrate the joints of his toes. He stood fooling with the knobs of the heater for a while until he felt satisfied with the settings and returned to his chair.

He took a tentative breath to assess his health and found that he could take a more-or-less full breath, only hitching a few times. He looked up at his ceiling and worried about the danger of asbestos falling from it. After all, it was one of those styrofoam jobs with the squares hanging in a steel grid. Really a bad choice for such an old neighborhood, but then, the rest of the place wasn't exactly a candidate for Architectural Digest or Better Homes. . .

He suddenly couldn't let those squares sit up there any longer. He jumped up and stood balancing on the arm of the sofa. Stretching up, he pushed a square up and into the unknown void above. He simply had to see the beautiful wooden cathedral ceilings that the fool landlord had so stupidly hidden behind this modern atrocity of a ceiling. He peered into the dark gap and pushed a little further and got a shower of insulation material. The fuckers had put at least a foot of insulation on top of their pitiful ceiling!

He jumped down from the couch spitting and blinking away the horrible pink crap. Now he was convinced. This stuff had to be the problem. He immediately went to stand in the bathroom to see if his breathing improved. It seemed to be a little better, but he couldn't be quite sure, so he found his keys in his pants from the night before and opened the back door deadbolt. He then unlatched the other three locks and peeked out of the blinds before opening the door. He sat on the stairs and pulled the door closed behind him. Breathing still seemed a little better than in the living room. Gospel soul music was switched on in the house next to him, which was separated from his own by only a ten foot wide alley, if that much. The old woman next door began singing along with the music as she clanked pots and pans around in the sink.

Charlie retreated inside for a cigarette, carefully locking all the locks on the door. He saw that his answering machine had a message and he played it.

"Hello, Chuck. This is Wendy from Norill Temps with a job for you," the voice said. "The pay's four-fifty an hour and you need to be there at ten o'clock. The address is forty-five-oh-eight Tchoupitoulas and it's the Gershwitz-Franz furniture warehouse. Please call if you can't make it."

Charlie knew the place and didn't relish the thought of going back, but he pressed out his cigarette and began gathering up his steel-toes and his weight-lifter's belt. He made it out the door by twenty after nine and walked quickly to cover the three blocks to the ferry landing. The boat was running late, filled to capacity with cars. He ran the last thirty feet of the landing, breathlessly thanking the ferry worker who begrudgingly held the gate for an extra couple of seconds.

The ferry ride afforded a nice view of the city's skyline, but he sat stony-faced thinking that he was being watched by some of the other passengers. There was the old couple who stood motionless in front of him and kept staring at the city through the window, but Charlie could see their reflections in the window. They were watching him, not the city. They kept turning to each other and whispering, pointing, not at the city, christ no, at him. . . and every now and again, one of them would turn around as if to look over his head at something. Charlie knew that one, he knew that there was nothing behind him. He could see their eyes glancing over him on purpose and never coming to rest on anything, but seeming to just move over him one too many times for it to be a coincidence.

The city loomed large in the windows and the ferry lurched slightly as it docked. The horns blew and everyone in the little chair-filled room stood at once. They all tried to smooth it over, searching pockets, stooping to tie shoes, snuffing out cigarette butts, folding newspapers. . . but Charlie could see it happening. They all seemed to be mooing softly to themselves and occasionally looking up to check on him before returning to chewing their cud. The bovine image was almost too strong to bear, but somehow he managed to stand nonchalantly and flow with them off of the ferry.

Walking over countless steps in the landing, he measured his stride carefully so as to not draw undue attention to himself. He could still feel the hot stares on his back. He picked people out from far away and steeled himself to walk by them. Their disgust with him barely hidden on their faces. All of them somehow held their tongues and kept from murderously launching themselves at him.

He continued down and out of the ferry landing building to the foot of Canal St. Mentally checking his map, he walked a couple of blocks up and took a left toward his destination. He stopped and pretended to wait for a pay phone. He peered at the arm of the woman on the phone and thought he saw that it was now five minutes until ten o'clock. He slapped his forehead and moaned loudly for the benefit of anyone who might wonder why he suddenly left his place in line for the phone and took off in a run, his heels quickly burning in his heavy boots.

A crowd was gathered in front of the giant steel doors of Gerschwitz-Franz. Charlie almost kept walking for fear that there was some sort of trouble going on, but reminded himself where he was and lit a cigarette and waited. Before he took two drags, a gray-black man of about fifty was mumbling for a cigarette. Charlie recognized him as Joe, with whom he had moved furniture around an office building for two weeks once. He gave him a cigarette and sat down against a dirty brick pillar to wait for the bosses to show up. Joe Henry sat down next to him and they both managed to look almost as good as leftover macaroni.

Charlie only remembered one thing about Joe Henry from their two weeks together, moving furniture from one office to another, up and down stairs and freight elevators, all at the whims of the executives, who treated the movers like the slaves they were.

"How're them hemorrhoids, Joe?"

Joe Henry turned and looked at him for a long time before getting up and walking to another area of the crowd.

Charlie thought Joe'd perk right up on that one. After all, all he had heard about while they humped credenzas up and down all fifty floors of that office building had been Joe's asshole. That and how many women Joe had taken up to the twelfth floor storage area.

Joe sure did seem to still be walking like his ass was killing him. . .

Charlie lit another cigarette from the butt in his mouth just as the fat, white bosses drove up and opened the doors. They all slowly trickled into the warehouse and had their time cards signed and collected. Then, suddenly, everyone seemed to know exactly what to do and where to go. One of the bosses saw Charlie standing around and pointed to a hulking man who looked like a mountain of lead sculpted into a set of filthy overalls and told him, "You're with him."

Charlie tightened the velcro straps of his weight-lifter's belt and put on his gloves. Everyone was grabbing a dolly or a cart and Charlie squeezed in to get a strong dolly. He ended up with a good solid one with straps and a chipped yellow paint job. He rolled it along behind the giant man he had been told to follow and waited.

Everyone else was busily moving furniture from one place to the other. Now that the crew was in place, trucks started pulling up to the row of shipping doors. Men spit into their palms and hefted desks and dining room sets into dark semi tractor trailers under the watchful eyes of the bosses, who, sitting in their elevated office, with their tv blaring, smoking cigarettes, could see the entire floor of the warehouse through dirty windows.

Sweat darkened the men's' T-shirts and was dripping into their eyes within minutes. Fifty men, all negroes, humped the furniture around, grunting and wheezing. Charlie and his partner just sat at an empty gate.

"Shit, I'm glad we're not over there." Charlie said in a low tone to the big man who just grunted in reply.

No more than five minutes passed before a full sized eighteen-wheeler pulled up and began maneuvering into place at the loading dock behind them, beeping loudly. Charlie stood and gave the driver signals. He wasn't ready for what was in the truck. The big man opened it with a swoosh and there were huge boxes lined up to the very edge of the trailer. The driver walked briskly by them with some kind of chipper remark about how he had to get moving and how they'd better "git to it."

The big black man slammed his dolly underneath a twelve-foot tall box with a picture of a thick couch on it. He twirled it around expertly and rolled it out of the truck.

Charlie stepped up and worked his dolly underneath a box with a stencil of a recliner on the side. He had to jump up and over the top of the box to lean it back. The bag man just stood watching him, still holding up his sofa confidently. Once Charlie had the recliner tilted back the big man started walking rapidly off deep into the catacombs of the warehouse.

Rows upon rows of beds and couches and all manner of giant furniture were lined up to the distant walls. The big man strode easily with his couch as Charlie bumbled along trying to keep the recliner from toppling things as he passed by precariously stacked dining room tables and plates of glass. Finally, they arrived at the correct spot and the couch was off of the dolly in a second, quickly wedged into the ranks of other huge boxes. Charlie dumped his recliner, pushing it up against another box, and started back to the truck to await further instructions. He met the big man on the way back, who had two recliner boxes stacked on their sides strapped to his dolly.

"We unloading that whole truck?" he asked breathlessly.

"Yeah, an you bes git movin ifs you'll be wantin lunch."

"It all goes back there?"

"Yeah." he said, and pushed his load off into the warehouse.

Charlie hurried to get to the truck so as not to fall behind his partner. He managed to get two disassembled dining room tables onto his dolly and strapped securely before the big man was in sight. He rushed furiously to get to the storage area and on the way back, he met the big man a little bit closer to the truck than the last time. He continued to rush his trips until he and the big man had established a rhythm, always meeting in approximately the same place.

Slowly Charlie got more confident with his dolly and started loading larger and larger boxes. Soon he was carting two recliners at a time. He tried three, but a boss stopped him and made him only take two. The big man nodded approvingly at him on their next pass. He pushed hutches and tables and boxes of beanbags and mattresses and box-springs and secretary's desks and things he couldn't identify, even with the pictures right there on the box.

He and the big man took turns smoking Charlie's cigarettes outside, sitting next to the truck's big wheels. The furniture in the truck seemed like it would never end, but by the time his stomach started murmuring about food, it looked as if they'd have the thing unloaded before lunch. They slowed their pace and stretched it out perfectly so that they were squeezing the last box into the packed area at the back of the place just as one of the bosses yelled lunch.

Everyone got out quickly and walked in different directions to acquire lunch. Charlie spotted Joe and followed him to a small diner in the foot of one of the big office buildings. He stood in a long line and ordered a burger and fries to go. He got back with ten minutes to spare and wolfed down his meal while smoking a cigarette. When the bell rang, everyone disposed of his trash quickly and quietly moved back to work.

Charlie's sphincter tightened when he saw another full truck waiting at the dock and his giant partner wrestling with some difficulty with a heavy looking box. Charlie put his belt and gloves back on and retrieved his dolly from where he had hidden it before lunch. He sure as hell didn't want to have to deal with a wobbly-tired dolly for the rest of the day. The contents of this truck seemed to be mostly hutches and display cases. The hutches looked expensive and after examining the boxes, Charlie found that the average one cost in the neighborhood of four grand.

The driver of the truck was in more of a hurry than the first one and helped out some. He stayed in the trailer, pushing the huge boxes into position for Charlie and his friend. They were half-way into the truck and things seemed to be slipping along, almost in a groove, when Charlie tilted a large hutch, apparently with leaded glass doors and a safe built into the bottom, on his dolly. It tilted, and tilted, and fell back and over. Charlie caught it with his belly and spread his arms above him to try to catch the corners as the thing continued to crush down on him. In a flash, he could see the lawyers from Gershwitz-Franz slapping him with a bill for five thousand big ones and him having to pay it off for years with a twenty percent interest rate. He had stopped it from smashing down and breaking itself, but now it was threatening to crush him. The trucker just stood by and watched, afraid to incur any part of the debt about to be created in the back of his rig. The hutch finally settled down over Charlie, pinning him between the handles of his dolly. He just lay there waiting for the pain to come, but it didn't. That really got him worried. He couldn't budge the hutch and he couldn't move from under the dolly. His partner had, by this time, returned from rolling three or four of the very same hutches, no doubt. He and the trucker carefully lifted the hutch off of Charlie and seemed almost disappointed when Charlie wiggled out, apparently unscathed. A boss had seen the commotion and was already cutting open the box to inspect the damage to the hutch. Nothing seemed broken on the precious piece of furniture. He looked from Charlie to the behemoth and said "Come with me."

For the rest of the day Charlie worked with an old man whose hair had gone almost entirely white. The old man gave Charlie a box of markers ranging from black to a reddish-brown. Dining room chairs with ornately engraved legs and backs were placed in their area and the old man instructed Charlie in the fine art of scratch hiding. Every chair that came through did so because someone had found a scratch on it. He had to search carefully over each chair and color in any gouges or scrapes that he could find. They were then whisked off to be delivered with the rest of the set.

Charlie guiltily stole a glance at the unloading dock where he saw his big friend starting on another full eighteen wheeler, this time alone.