Here’s the deal. You are off the books. You are not engaging with the commercial world legitimately. It’s not your fault. You tell yourself it’s not your fault. You’re old. You’re broke. The pittance you live on will not sustain you within your upscale environment. You choose not to live in a bedroom gulag like Vallejo or Discovery Bay where you might live cheaply. Why do I keep saying YOU?

I’m talking about ME.

Living under the radar is kind of like living underground.

I’m not talking about living Under The Volcano

That would be a book by Malcolm Lawry.

Here’s an excerpt from chapter one of his celebrated novel:

M. Laruelle poured himself another anís. He was
drinking anís because it reminded him of absinthe. A deep
flush had suffused his face, and his hand trembled slightly
over the bottle, from whose label a florid demon brandished a pitchfork at him.

Opening scene of Under The Volcano

That book is about drinking. About a bad drunk. Several bad drunks.

The novel tells the story of Geoffrey Firmin, an alcoholic British consul in the Mexican city of Quauhnahuac, on the Day of the Dead in November 1939. The book takes its name from the two volcanoes, Popocatepetl and Iztaccihuatl, that overshadow Quauhnahuac and the characters. Under the Volcano was Lowry’s second and last complete novel….Wikipedia.

You might say Malcolm Lawry lived under the Radar.

He lived in this shack while working on Volcano.

He travelled the world with Margerie Bonner, an Actress he married and lived with for the rest of his short life. He mainly drank. He drank, he wrote fiction, and poetry; he threw fits, tried to strangle Margerie, made up with her, drank, completed a Masterpiece; he died at 47. The coroner’s verdict was death by misadventure, and the causes of death given as inhalation of stomach contents, barbiturate poisoning, and excessive consumption of alcohol.^[10]

It may have been suicide. There is speculation Margerie bumped him off.

Poor thing gave him her best years.

Okay, he was a basket case

But he wrote that book. One of the darkest, hardest visions of all modern literature. Reading it is a pain in the ass. Here’s what a writer I admire said of trying to read Under The Volcano.

Charles Bukowski said that, when he read Lowry’s novel, “I yawned myself to shit”.

This coming from a fellow Drunk.

Yet others did not share his opinion:

Michael Hofmann, who would edit the collection of posthumous work of Lowry’s The Voyage That Never Ends, wrote, “Under the Volcano eats light like a black hole. It is a work of such gravity and connectedness and spectroscopic richness that it is more world than product. It is absolute mass, agglomeration of consciousness and experience and terrific personal grace. It has planetary swagger.”

^[Whew! That’s a lot to swallow.

Yet now I’m thinking about it, Malcolm did not really need to live under the radar. His rich parents floated his ass for the bulk of his sodden life. They didn’t want him around. He was a bad drunk. But his Dad mailed him rent checks, among other stipends, to whatever far corner of the earth he chose to dwell…

My old man was a bad drunk. Bobby Lee. Named after, you guessed it, the General. But unlike the General, my Bobby Lee was a drunk, a bad drunk who beat his women and died in the gutter. At about the same age as Malcolm Lawry, so it seems. Serious drunks often die in their late forties. Malcolm was 47. Bobby Lee, 46. Bobby Lee left some sad memories in his wake. Same with Malcolm. Except Malcolm also left a great Novel.

Lowry reputedly wrote his own epitaph: “Here lies Malcolm Lowry, late of the Bowery, whose prose was flowery, and often glowery. He lived nightly, and drank daily, and died playing the ukulele,”^[3] but the epitaph does not appear on his gravestone.

Wikipedia

Didn’t think much of himself, apparently…

What is the point of this?

This is not about bad drunks. This was meant to be about living under the Radar…which is my current goal in life. And yet, Bad Drunks somehow fit into the equation. Why? Let me think. Maybe it’s that Bad Drunks often live on the margins of society. They are fringe dwellers, by want or necessity or by compulsion. Many are impoverished by their behavior. They hit the skids, like Bobby Lee did. The “lucky” ones, those with financial means, simply fade away behind their protective walls….

I’m not a bad drunk. For one thing, I’m still alive at almost seventy, with an intact liver. If I were a bad drunk I would be dead by fifty. Very few Bad Drunks make it to Seventy. Go ahead, pick a really bad drunk and list his age at Death. I’ll do it. Let me think of one. How about Richard Burton? Now there was a bad drunk. Let’s Google him.

Wow! He made it to 58. That’s way better than I expected. But it’s nowhere near 70.

I drink too much, but the hours of my drinking are restricted to between 5 and 8 p.m. and always with a meal. I ration my intake, too. It’s usually Wine and I hold it to half a bottle, which is three stingy bar sized glasses…or four. Lately I’ve been throwing a beer in there on top of the wine. Buck twenty five a sixteen ounce can at the corner liquor store. Steel Reserve lately.

So I’m not a real bad drunk or even a bad drunk.

Drinking is not compelling me to live under the Radar.

I need to Live Under The Radar simply because I no longer wish to work.

You need a plan

I need a plan.

Do I have a plan? Yeah, I got a plan. What’s the plan? It’s not a dream.

It’s nothing grand, my plan. Martin Luther Kind was one of the good people. I’m not one of those. I mean, I do care about people…but mainly in small numbers. Like three or four people. I don’t want to save the world. The world can take care of itself. The world’s going to hell in a hand basket. And quickly.

No, I’m not thinking of the entire planet. All the oppressed masses.

Just me.

My plan is simple.

My plan is to work as little as possible for the rest of my life.

That’s my plan.

My Under The Radar Plan

It’s pretty simple really. I don’t know why it took me this long to get to the point of it. Maybe because I’m lazy and it’s fun to hang out here at the office where the coffee is free and I can play on this computer all day rather than work on my plan.

It’s easy to be here. Nothing ever happens. It’s kind of like a bar without the booze. The old dude with walking sticks struggles by now and then. He’s still living. Amazing! The office is like limbo. You sit here and drink coffee and live on forever. Kind of like Bad Drunks do at the corner bar. Long as they stay at the bar they are good. Don’t go outside!

Sodje the Queen of the Barista’s. She’s here all day every day. I tell her she’s beautiful and she floats me free coffee. Robert’s here all day, too. Unless he’s doing the Booze Demonstrator Job. I’m training with him Thursday. Right here in the Strawberry Mall. At the Safeway. That’s right. I’m gonna be one of those pathetic losers offering samples. I’m loving it. Who would’a thunk I’d’a got this far in life. And at my age to boot!

The Booze Sample Gig

Anyway, I getting off track again. The thing is, The Booze Demonstrator Job does not fit into my plan. Mainly because it is not Under The Radar. This company, HerbalistSP they’re called, they W4 my ass. That’s like ratting me out to the I.R.S.. This will sabotage my plan. Because living under the radar means you show NOTHING on the books. No assets and no income. You need to look like an absolute pauper.

I’m showing zilch

I currently look like a pauper.

Nothing I own is in my name. My boat is in Kona Dave’s name.

My car is in Peter’s name. You remember Peter. Guy I sell windows for. Peter went a little crazy and drove his window company into a ditch. I’m still driving a company car and pretending to work for him. Meanwhile he’s preoccupied.

So I got a houseboat and a car and nothing’s in my name

That’s a good start.

I’m kinda like a Mob Guy, except I’m not whacking dudes or running extortion rackets. I could be a Mob guy, only I’m starting out a bit late in life. Do they Make guys at Seventy? Plus, I’m non-violent…even cowardly. Plus, I’m not Sicilian. I’m not even Italian. I don’t know what the rules are these days but I think you still need to be Italian to be a Made Mob Guy

All I need now is income. Under The Table Income.

All I need to complete my plan, my under The Radar Plan, is under the table income.

So that’s what I’m working on. I haven’t started working on it yet. I’m thinking about it.

I’m thinking maybe I could walk dogs.

Everybody says, Walk Dogs.

You like Dogs more than People. And I do. I like Dogs more that people.

I think I’ll become a Dog Walker.

For starters…