I am Robert

Journalist. Raconteur. Critic. Marketing Guy.

I am basically…..

I am basically throwing up, since I should have gone to church with my
bestie but I was not happy, and wanted to come home, and my legs were bleeding
a LOT, and warm home seemed so nice, d only and my keygoar whih onoly types
one chaactere per minute. But, I am watching the oscars, and pulloing out
one tooth per minut where it wont type@ ! Want a plate of teethk, faggos?

At The Top Of Your Lungs…. So, I am in one of the regular places around the corner. Without a sou in my pocket. And, the waitress, who I have known for 20 years, comes by. “Hi, Robert, what will you have today?” And, VERY loudly, I say “I JUST HAD COCHLEAR IMPLANTS, PLEASE SPEAK UP!!!” (I don’t know what cochlear implants are, but I am faking along.) She yells back “WE HAVE BRUSSEL SPROUTS, YOU USED TO LIKE THEM.” I yell back, three times louder: “WE ARE GOING TO BRUSSELS? I DON’T HAVE AN UP TO DATE PASSPORT!!!” She screams, top of her lungs, “I’LL JUST BRING YOU A TURKEY ON WHITE, YOU ALWAYS LIKE THAT.” A manager comes by. I say to the waitress, “That’ll be fine, but why are you yelling at me? What did I ever do to you?” in a perfectly normal tone of voice. The manager, says “I’m so sorry, Robert, whatever you want, it’s on the house. Margaret, I want to see you in my office, right now.” The turkey was great!

At The Top Of Your Lungs….

So, I am in one of the regular places around the corner. Without a sou in
my pocket. And, the waitress, who I have known for 20 years, comes by. “Hi,
Robert, what will you have today?” And, VERY loudly, I say “I JUST HAD
COCHLEAR IMPLANTS, PLEASE SPEAK UP!!!” (I don’t know what cochlear implants
are, but I am faking along.) She yells back “WE HAVE BRUSSEL SPROUTS, YOU USED
TO LIKE THEM.” I yell back, three times louder: “WE ARE GOING TO BRUSSELS?
I DON’T HAVE AN UP TO DATE PASSPORT!!!” She screams, top of her lungs,
“I’LL JUST BRING YOU A TURKEY ON WHITE, YOU ALWAYS LIKE THAT.” A manager comes
by. I say to the waitress, “That’ll be fine, but why are you yelling at
me? What did I ever do to you?” in a perfectly normal tone of voice. The
manager, says “I’m so sorry, Robert, whatever you want, it’s on the house.
Margaret, I want to see you in my office, right now.”

The turkey was great!

Death in Venice You have to admire the basic pessimism of Southerners. Yes, we lost the “Great Conflict” and all, but for people who don’t, can’t, possibly remember that, the pessimism, which is sort of Irish (though there are no Irishmen in the city) is just uplifting - seriously. The weatherman today: “Let’s look at our weather map….well, you can be optimistic about what we are going to get, if you are that sort of person, but you’ll get t-boned later, and that’s what we are here to tell you about.” I have on my new blue jeans ($2.50, they have a nice rip down their side, an industry mistake that sent them to the remainder’s bin, but I also noticed that Johnny Depp had the same rip on Letterman last night, and if he paid less than $1200 for his jeans, I would be surprised) and my $4 sandals, which I drilled out (they still weren’t big enough) so I could weave shoelaces in them and make them fit), and I was quite proud of myself. I bandaged up my legs, and watched the weather, and our good man did that “you can be optimistic, if you are that kind of person” thing, and the world righted itself. Because, of course, that is the wisdom. “You’ll get t-boned later.” In this new economy, where I only wash my clothes once a week and shower while they are washing, we all get t-boned later. We are doomed in the South. I love that, it is the only attraction. Other places celebrate their mountains, we celebrate our chasms and deep dark rivers. I was talking the other day to a friend of mine who works in a for-profit prison company (also a Colbert topic) - which is a big-growth industry in the South. “We can’t get the state to let us execute people , and I don’t know why,” he said. “We are in the same business they are.” Come visit Atlanta!

Death in Venice

You have to admire the basic pessimism of Southerners. Yes, we lost the
“Great Conflict” and all, but for people who don’t, can’t, possibly remember
that, the pessimism, which is sort of Irish (though there are no Irishmen in
the city) is just uplifting - seriously. The weatherman today: “Let’s look
at our weather map….well, you can be optimistic about what we are going
to get, if you are that sort of person, but you’ll get t-boned later, and
that’s what we are here to tell you about.” I have on my new blue jeans
($2.50, they have a nice rip down their side, an industry mistake that sent
them to the remainder’s bin, but I also noticed that Johnny Depp had the same
rip on Letterman last night, and if he paid less than $1200 for his jeans,
I would be surprised) and my $4 sandals, which I drilled out (they still
weren’t big enough) so I could weave shoelaces in them and make them fit),
and I was quite proud of myself. I bandaged up my legs, and watched the
weather, and our good man did that “you can be optimistic, if you are that kind
of person” thing, and the world righted itself. Because, of course, that is
the wisdom. “You’ll get t-boned later.” In this new economy, where I only
wash my clothes once a week and shower while they are washing, we all get
t-boned later. We are doomed in the South. I love that, it is the only
attraction. Other places celebrate their mountains, we celebrate our chasms and
deep dark rivers. I was talking the other day to a friend of mine who works
in a for-profit prison company (also a Colbert topic) - which is a
big-growth industry in the South. “We can’t get the state to let us execute people
, and I don’t know why,” he said. “We are in the same business they are.”
Come visit Atlanta!

The Death of Life Last night, I wrapped my legs wildly tight to force blood back up into my system with a series of Handi-Wipes, and, lemme tell you, at 3 AM, (Come visit, kids. Wanna see what this looks like?) this was - even for me, used to having holes in my limbs, it was fucking painful. Meaning, I am having the same medical care that I would have if I were living in a tent village in a Third World country, despite having some of the biggest hospitals in the South a block away, which are totally unavailable to me. This week, in Time Magazine, of all things, there is a 36 page cover story about how this works, about how people like me (who have paid all their taxes for decades, etc) can’t get healthcare that any Federal inmate is given by law. You wanna know what healthcare in America is? Read the Time Magazine story this week, or come to my place and watch me cut away bandages because they are too painful to pull off. Not to compare and contrast, but whenever you see MASH units in Afghanistan treating this or that patient, I wonder….no help for me, who paid for the units in the first place? And, that’s how it is.

The Death of Life

Last night, I wrapped my legs wildly tight to force blood back up into my
system with a series of Handi-Wipes, and, lemme tell you, at 3 AM, (Come
visit, kids. Wanna see what this looks like?) this was - even for me, used to
having holes in my limbs, it was fucking painful. Meaning, I am having the
same medical care that I would have if I were living in a tent village in a
Third World country, despite having some of the biggest hospitals in the
South a block away, which are totally unavailable to me. This week, in Time
Magazine, of all things, there is a 36 page cover story about how this
works, about how people like me (who have paid all their taxes for decades,
etc) can’t get healthcare that any Federal inmate is given by law. You wanna
know what healthcare in America is? Read the Time Magazine story this week,
or come to my place and watch me cut away bandages because they are too
painful to pull off. Not to compare and contrast, but whenever you see MASH
units in Afghanistan treating this or that patient, I wonder….no help for
me, who paid for the units in the first place?

And, that’s how it is.

NEW SANDALS These are fantastic. (This is NOT a picture of my feet, my feet are at least twice this big.) But, I was in one of the garbage clothes stores, and there, on a shelf, sandals as big as Cheops, what I have been looking for ever since my legs decided to grow like pus-filled sequoias - SANDALS, like the old man sandals, and I have black socks, and they close with velcro, this will change everything about how I get around! And, they were - and they are NOT pre-used - $3.95!

NEW SANDALS

These are fantastic. (This is NOT a picture of my feet, my feet are at
least twice this big.) But, I was in one of the garbage clothes stores, and
there, on a shelf, sandals as big as Cheops, what I have been looking for ever
since my legs decided to grow like pus-filled sequoias - SANDALS, like the
old man sandals, and I have black socks, and they close with velcro, this
will change everything about how I get around! And, they were - and they
are NOT pre-used - $3.95!

Speed Load You know, in all honesty, perhaps I am just on the other side of this gun thing because guns simply were always ….there. I swear, I could speed load before I could read. I had a three-piece Parker 12 gauge when I was ten. Joe Biden is right, it levels. I never thought anything happened without guns in some distance, and sometimes, in the foreground. My marvelously insane mother (this is a famous story, and some witnesses to it are still around, though the principals are dead) stood in front of some boyfriend’s car while he was in it, and shot out all the windows. (I still remember him cackling as he brushed off glass and tore out of the parking lot, saying. “I ducked!” They were always just there. It didn’t encourage moderation in armaments. _http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=if-UzXIQ5vw_ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=if-UzXIQ5vw)

Speed Load

You know, in all honesty, perhaps I am just on the other side of this gun
thing because guns simply were always ….there. I swear, I could speed load
before I could read. I had a three-piece Parker 12 gauge when I was ten.
Joe Biden is right, it levels. I never thought anything happened without
guns in some distance, and sometimes, in the foreground. My marvelously insane
mother (this is a famous story, and some witnesses to it are still around,
though the principals are dead) stood in front of some boyfriend’s car
while he was in it, and shot out all the windows. (I still remember him
cackling as he brushed off glass and tore out of the parking lot, saying. “I
ducked!” They were always just there.

It didn’t encourage moderation in armaments.

_http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=if-UzXIQ5vw_
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=if-UzXIQ5vw)

Beautiful Hair….Or, How I Left Home. The other day, I was talking to LA Peter’s marvelously Irish mother, on the anniversary of Pete’s death - five years, who can imagine. She goes to Mass everyday and is….waiting. She was a marvelous mother, she ran a restaurant, Peter and I busboyed there. But, before that, I had hair just a little longer than my shoulders, I never cut it, ever. Now, I was certainly not model-quality, but my hair went from black to blond to red - all by itself (I have photos somewhere.) It was quite the girl magnet, that and my sort of limitless Robert Show, back in Poete Maudits Phase #1. I was all of about 17. Now, today, in my neighborhood, there is a kid of about 25 who is, actually, model quality. He’s very sweet, I think he’s a bartender in a stripper bar, the girls drip. And, I thought back to a time when hair was politics, defiance, and everything but fashion - though magnificent sexualized. (Now, old, bald, and impotent, memory is what you have instead of all that.) My (thank God) apparently departed mother married 9 times - and that’s just while I was around. She went for the tough guys, usually Chicago guys, mid-level oldskool “family” guys. I almost never saw them, which suited me just fine. One of these guys was a Chicago guy, (I just found his rather large rap sheet online, he’s also now dead.) But, he came “home” (he didn’t live there) one day in his big green Lincoln Continental, a car so synonymous with mid-level Chicago and Jersey gangster types of a certain generation that they just should have marketed to them directly. He wasn’t a big guy, but most certainly tougher than me, and I stayed clear on the rare times he was around. Now, I have a million fears in life, but I am strangely absent a certain kind of physical thing. Just seems boring to me. But, he caught me in a hallway, and grabbed my hair, and said “everybody at the bar (my mother and he essentially lived in a year’s long cocktail party…well, more than that) says you are a fucking faggot. You a faggot, motherfucker?” And, I said, “nope, but from my point of view, you are the motherfucker.” Having no solid answer, he swung me into and - except a stud was there - through a drywall wall, hair first. “You wanna suck cock, faggot? You got hair like that. You wanna suck cock?” I pulled my head out of the wall - I still have a scar or two - and said “I dunno. Show me what you got.” Now, this, back then, was not at all an atypical thing, see also every piece of coming of age literature of the era. But, it was also boring. I packed a bunch of jeans into a duffle bag, I had about $100 with me, a book or two, and I moved to LA Pete’s house. For good. Never looked back, and nobody came looking for me. LA Pete’s mother put me to work, but, of course, I had to cut my hair to work in a restaurant, which I gladly did. And there, my launch into the world! _http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVr4UP9ntLs_ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVr4UP9ntLs)

Beautiful Hair….Or, How I Left Home.

The other day, I was talking to LA Peter’s marvelously Irish mother, on the
anniversary of Pete’s death - five years, who can imagine. She goes to
Mass everyday and is….waiting. She was a marvelous mother, she ran a
restaurant, Peter and I busboyed there. But, before that, I had hair just a little
longer than my shoulders, I never cut it, ever. Now, I was certainly not
model-quality, but my hair went from black to blond to red - all by itself
(I have photos somewhere.) It was quite the girl magnet, that and my sort of
limitless Robert Show, back in Poete Maudits Phase #1. I was all of about
17. Now, today, in my neighborhood, there is a kid of about 25 who is,
actually, model quality. He’s very sweet, I think he’s a bartender in a
stripper bar, the girls drip. And, I thought back to a time when hair was
politics, defiance, and everything but fashion - though magnificent sexualized.
(Now, old, bald, and impotent, memory is what you have instead of all that.)
My (thank God) apparently departed mother married 9 times - and that’s just
while I was around. She went for the tough guys, usually Chicago guys,
mid-level oldskool “family” guys. I almost never saw them, which suited me just
fine. One of these guys was a Chicago guy, (I just found his rather large
rap sheet online, he’s also now dead.) But, he came “home” (he didn’t live
there) one day in his big green Lincoln Continental, a car so synonymous
with mid-level Chicago and Jersey gangster types of a certain generation that
they just should have marketed to them directly. He wasn’t a big guy, but
most certainly tougher than me, and I stayed clear on the rare times he was
around. Now, I have a million fears in life, but I am strangely absent a
certain kind of physical thing. Just seems boring to me. But, he caught me
in a hallway, and grabbed my hair, and said “everybody at the bar (my mother
and he essentially lived in a year’s long cocktail party…well, more than
that) says you are a fucking faggot. You a faggot, motherfucker?” And, I
said, “nope, but from my point of view, you are the motherfucker.” Having no
solid answer, he swung me into and - except a stud was there - through a
drywall wall, hair first. “You wanna suck cock, faggot? You got hair like
that. You wanna suck cock?” I pulled my head out of the wall - I still have a
scar or two - and said “I dunno. Show me what you got.” Now, this, back
then, was not at all an atypical thing, see also every piece of coming of age
literature of the era. But, it was also boring. I packed a bunch of jeans
into a duffle bag, I had about $100 with me, a book or two, and I moved to
LA Pete’s house. For good. Never looked back, and nobody came looking for
me. LA Pete’s mother put me to work, but, of course, I had to cut my hair to
work in a restaurant, which I gladly did. And there, my launch into the
world!


_http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVr4UP9ntLs_
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVr4UP9ntLs)

Fire Sale at the Globe I’ve got $4.75. Who’s in with me? _http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/20/new-york-times-boston-globe-sale_n _2727383.html_ (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/20/new-york-times-boston-globe-sale_n_2727383.html)

Fire Sale at the Globe

I’ve got $4.75. Who’s in with me?


_http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/20/new-york-times-boston-globe-sale_n
_2727383.html_
(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/20/new-york-times-boston-globe-sale_n_2727383.html)

Horses… No, not the seminal Patti Smith album, but this is about the scandal of horsemeat in our hamburger, as brilliantly exposed in Jon Stewart’s report last night. Now, in France and Italy, horsemeat is just another item on the butcher’s block, and I thought, I’ve always loved horses, I love riding them and talking to them, much in the same way you treat people from Sweden. (I always like going after benign places, I was a one-man lobbyist in Massachusetts who wanted the state to change its slogan from “Massholes RULE” to “Fuck New Hampshire,” since nobody in New Hampshire ever did anything malevolent at all, and therefore deserve nationwide ire. And, I am not entirely sure what “ire” is.) So, I decided to sample - Bourdainishly - horsemeat. I mean, there are a surprisingly lot of horses in Georgia, and a surprisingly lot of hungry people, a demographic that occasionally includes me. Well, the first bite was just what one would expect, sort of bison-like, perhaps more salty than I thought. But, the second bite…well, led to a black eye. Who knew they could kick so hard?

Horses…

No, not the seminal Patti Smith album, but this is about the scandal of
horsemeat in our hamburger, as brilliantly exposed in Jon Stewart’s report
last night. Now, in France and Italy, horsemeat is just another item on the
butcher’s block, and I thought, I’ve always loved horses, I love riding them
and talking to them, much in the same way you treat people from Sweden. (I
always like going after benign places, I was a one-man lobbyist in
Massachusetts who wanted the state to change its slogan from “Massholes RULE” to
“Fuck New Hampshire,” since nobody in New Hampshire ever did anything
malevolent at all, and therefore deserve nationwide ire. And, I am not entirely
sure what “ire” is.) So, I decided to sample - Bourdainishly - horsemeat. I
mean, there are a surprisingly lot of horses in Georgia, and a surprisingly
lot of hungry people, a demographic that occasionally includes me. Well,
the first bite was just what one would expect, sort of bison-like, perhaps
more salty than I thought. But, the second bite…well, led to a black eye.
Who knew they could kick so hard?

Chipper

In the Cheeseburger/Sloppy Joe Crescent Roll (an actual recipe Pillsbury
is fronting) category of delightful mash-ups of cultures and tastes that
defy human understanding, you guys haven’t lived until you’ve seen “ATL & CO.”
Hosted by a frighteningly chipper former HGTV bubblehead (her go-to
response for anything that happens on the show is “THAT’S SO AMAZING” - the
“newsmagazine” features anyone and anything that wants to buy time, and then
pretend to be interviewed by Christine, who makes the girls in Hefner’s life
look like MIT Phd candidates. She exudes a kind of sexiness that one would
normally associate with an HBO special about men who fall in love with their
pricey latex sex dolls - but with a string in her back that insists she
never stop in an endless cycle of hyper-enthusiasm. As it goes, most of her
segments are devoted - I am not making this up - to Atlanta’s burgeoning
flooring industry, and she brings to every segment, every day, a… Carol
Channing-esque, “Mame” like excitement that is infectious. “You have LAMINATES,
too? Wow! I want that in my house!” Beyond her Buckhead Betty Blondness
(an Atlanta demographic), you have this sense that if her producers said
“Okay, Christine, the next segment is about anal beads covered with African
killer bees” she’d say “I can’t WAIT! I’ve always wanted to try those!”
Because all the segments are paid for, and because it wouldn’t be in her nature,
she can’t utter a critical word about anything, which is so marvelously and
synthetically charming that it should be its own Oscar category. And, she
is like a Greek shepherd who suffered from oxygen deprivation at birth, who
wakes up every morning going “Sheep! I own sheep!” She is the same.
“Flooring! Atlanta has flooring companies!” she almost screams at the camera. You
would think at first blush that she was on meth or something, but no, she
is just that entire-life beauty queen who is such a marvelous walking orgasm
that nothing will ever get her down, dammit, she’s read GWTW and she knows
how to do it! _https://www.facebook.com/Atlandco?ref=stream_
(https://www.facebook.com/Atlandco?ref=stream)