Boot Camp. San Diego. January 1972…

Fifty two years later. Another day in January.

What am I staring into, the abyss?

Hey, come on, man. It’s only tuesday!

Tuesday 27 February 9 a.m.

I’m taking stock. Why I don’t know. I woke up early thinking I need to get something done. I need to make some kind of progress with my life. Simply maintaining the status quo will not do. So I get up real early and show up here at the office. I’m thinking the first order of business, as I move toward Progress, is to take stock. This is a fine way to pretend I’m moving forward with something.

Take stock.

I’m still driving the Euro wagon

I’m still driving this company car because the man on the registration does not want it back. If he wanted it back, he would call me, don’t you think? I paid the registration renewal last june. This june I plan to pay the registration renewal yet again. I pay for my own insurance. I pay very little for gas.

Maybe he’ll call me one of these days and say, can I have the car back?

And then I’ll give him his car back.

Company’s been dissolved for going on a year. Now I’m thinking about it, maybe a couple years. Completely defunt for a full year. Prior to that, a year of haggling with my customers demanding refunds. “Where’s my windows!?!” Most of them didn’t want their money back.

They wanted the windows My Man promised.

A full year of that death rattle. All the while The Man’s making promises. Assuring us he’s still in the window business. He had no intention of giving up on what had once been a thriving company.

But something had gone wrong in the Dude’s head. His juice for the window business had simply drained away. He left operations to his hopelessly incompetent brother and focused all his energy on artistic pursuits. His Dick Sculptures, for example.

He put all his efforts into molding these erect penises into various shapes.

and configurations.

I don’t know what you’d call this one. A Dick Baton?

Dick Wine Holders.

He even made Dick Sink Faucets.

His Dick Artistry Obsession went on for quite a while. I’m looking at the calendar. These photos were taken in April of 2018. Yes, now I’m remembering. He started going off his lid around that time. The Window Business (once a thriving little company) puttered along under his incompetent Brother until 2022. I was still bringing in plenty of referral business. The brother managed to get them ordered and installed, albeit with far less efficiency.

Then 2022 rolled around. That’s when The Brother gave up the ghost and followed his wife to a new life in South Carolina.

Abandoned his share of the business to The Stiff Dick Sculptures Artist.

Losing his brother knocked the Artist over the edge. He gave up the Dicks and became a Scrapper. Foraging Industrial warehouse dumpsters for wood and metal.

The Man was always better-than-average with whatever gig he pursued. The same with Scraping. He got good at it. So good he was pulling in 4 to 5 hundred a day…mainly by redressing scavenged two-by-fours.

Why would he shift from windows to scraping? Well, I figure it’s under-the-table-money, scraping. Unlike Windows, there’s no paper trail. No tax liabilities. No customers you need to please. You simply collect the scrap, dress it, and hand it over to the recyclers….for cash.

Meanwhile I’m stuck explaining to my window customers why they’re not getting the windows they ordered…

So I stopped selling windows.

I couldn’t see myself moving into a Hayward warehouse and spending my days digging through dumpsters.

Not even for a share of The Man’s profits.

Well…I might’ve considered it.

But I wasn’t invited.

Instead, I sat on my ass and wrote a novel. Learned how to self-publish it, for nothing.

Figured that out.

Started this blog, THE GLOOMY BOOMER, thinking I’d use the blog to sell the Novel. Well…it hasn’t quite reached the potential of my former Window Man’s Scrapping gig.

In fact, it’s been a bust.

A fun bust, to give it a positive spin.

I’m not complaining.

I’m just saying.

I’m doing about as well as The Window Man did with his Penis Sculptures. Just goes to show you, the Artistic life is a hard row to hoe.

I’m still living on Scruffy

Humping it through the Winter of 24 on the old boy.

Still feeding the Peeper.

Little bastards are relentless. They are always moving forward. Progressing. Unless they’re maintaining the status quo. I don’t know which, to be honest. I don’t pursue Seagull knowledge with the same zeal my Window Man employed with the Dick Sculptures or even Scraping. If I had to guess, I’d say Seagulls don’t worry about shit like PROGRESS. They don’t worry about anything except maintaining their territories, which includes the area around my boat. Is that called maintaining the status quo?

I think it is!

I’m still a free wine sample dude

I’m Hanging in for the short haul.

It’ll be a year come March.

A year of slinging free booze to chislers.

I kinda like the job. Especially when I talk to people I like.

I forget her name. She’s a working girl, I remember that much.

To be honest, I like pretty much everybody. The sad sacks, the working girls, the old farts, everybody steps up to my counter I like. Even this guy.

This is Holy Man. I like him so much I put him in my novel. Made him a character. If you read my novel you’ll probably like him too.

I’m still hanging with Joan, my Republican Girlfriend

Joan’s house, my laundry.

Joan and Me been together going on eight years. I put up with her Trumpiness. She puts up with my Scruffiness. How else to explain our longevity? Put simply, you get old, you settle. At least you’re more prone to settle. Anyway, that’s all I can think up on a moments notice. Wait a minute…another reason just occurred to me. The fact that we only see each other on weekends.

Familiarity breeds contempt, my Mother used to say.

I could take stock until the cows come home, and where would it get me?

This is getting boring.

If I was a cow I wouldn’t be bored.

I’m not a cow. You are certainly not a cow.

Cows don’t read blogs. Unless you’re a cow with superhuman powers.

You’re one of those cows, you could maybe read my blog.

I’m done taking stock…

Walking to my car this morning

Like I told you at the beginning of this post, I got up super early this morning. Walked to my car. A crisp, bright, lovely morning in upscale Sausalito.

Bridgeway Boulevard. Sausalito’s main drag.

Along this path to my car, I encountered a bum who’s been living on the sidewalk.

I get up next to him.

It aint even 7 a.m. yet.

He’s still crashed. Using his bag for a pillow. It’s chilly out. My fingers are numb.

I can tell by his bag he’s the same Dude’s been hanging here on the sidewalk for some time. Here’s a photo of him I took the other afternoon. He was Kicked-back, ranting something about alien rays pummeling his bodily fluids.

Call me a bum voyeur, if you like. I mean, instead of snapping photos of these sad souls I should show some real empathy. Maybe invite him aboard Scruffy, where he can crash on a soft cushion. Yeah, right. Before I’d consider bringing this bum home, I’d offer my spare berth to Sharon, my ex-girlfriend, who’s living in her car, dodging the process servers.

Anyway, even if I felt compelled by some burst of goodwill to help those more downtrodden than, say, the Gloomer, I wouldn’t do it.

Why, you ask?

I can’t risk my sneak-aboard status….

Which reminds me of why I really got up so early this morning. It had nothing to do with achieving Progress in my life. I got up early to skedaddle the Marina before my Harbor Master gets up. Because he’s back. He’s been gone a couple weeks but now he’s back for a spell.

As for Maintaining the Status Quo?

That phrase only came to my mind when I set eyes on the poor homeless dude this morning.

I said to myself:

Looks like he’s maintaining the status quo…