No meat left on the steer? This is what you do.

It’s a nickel and dime world

Some days it seems like everybody’s out to chisel my ass. Take this Blog for instance. I was all set to re-up with my Hosting service for another year. No big deal. My first year was forty bucks. That’s okay. I figure they offer the first year way low to rope me in. Fair enough. Second year is Seventy five. Okay, that sounds reasonable going forward. So I signed on. But this year they’re not satisfied with 75. This year, they want 200.

200?

200 for what? What am I getting extra they want 200? I’m getting the same SHAFT as last year.

They must take me for a Squid!

I’m not paying the 200 bucks.

I blow em off.

I’m tired of blogging, anyway. I got other things to do with my time. What do I need a blog for? Nobody reads my shit. A few smart people, I’ll allow. But that’s it. I might as well be scribbling on cardboard.

Fuck it. I’m done Blogging.

So now they’re getting antsy, these web hosters. They want that 200. I ignore the pay-up notes on my feed. I ignore my feed. Now they’re sending me pay-up emails. I still got a month left on my contract but they want the money now. Well, fuck em. I ignore the emails.

Here’s how I pictured The Gloomy Boomer’s demise. The website will shut-down automatically. The result of a delinquent account. The Cloud’s clogged with dead enders.

The internet faucet will shut off.

The Gloomer dripples a little…one, two…three drips…then, one final drip…no more drips…bone dry. No more Blog site.

Ha….no big deal.

I’m done.

I’m like “old newspapers blowing down Bleecker street.”

But wait…am I really done?

The Sneaky Weasels cut me off at the pass!

They hit up my bank card with a automatic deduct. Sucked the two hun from my bank account.

Sent me a Thank You note.

Thanks, Squid!

You’re good for another year!!!!

So now I got this blog for yet another year. I can write it; I can ignore it. Either way, I’m stuck with it. The Web Hosters won.

Meanwhile I’ve been busy doing shit

I’ve been Fixing up Scruffy. Got him on Craigslist.

Asking 29 Grand.

Haven’t dropped the price yet.

But I will. Old Scruffy will have a new owner by summer’s end.

I bought this minivan.

Been fixing it up with window covers, a air mattress…stocked it with napkins, butt wipe, a ice chest for mexican beer and macaroni salad…a fish clubber…

I plan to sleep with the fish club. Anybody tries to fuck with me out there on the street…they got another think coming. That’s right. Soon I’ll be living in a toyota stealth minivan. And what’s my rent gonna be?

Nothing.

I’ll be living on nothing. No rent. No bills. No distractions. I can sit on my ass all day at the office and work on my next novel. Maybe do a little blogging. What the hell. I’ll be like…what’ll I be like?

I’ll be like Lao Tzu on his water buffalo!

It’s a Dog Bone Soup world

Times have gotten iffy. We’re no longer living off the fat. So it seems. Everybody seems old and washed out. Two old men are running for President. One of them, a bloated gas bag bent on making himself a King, looks like he may succeed. While the other one, a good dude who’s been doing a good job, in my opinion, just happens to look and sound like an old codger. So, because he looks and sounds old, the big shots in the democratic party are working hard to force him to drop out of the race. Even though forcing Joe out will almost certainly result in the Gas Bag being crowned King!

Does this make any kind of sense?

Not in a normal world. Maybe it does, however, in a Dog Bone Soup world.

A pretty good title

Dog Bone Soup was the title of a book I worked on for many years. Maybe thirty years I worked on it. Maybe longer. I wrote dozens of rough drafts. I’d write a draft, abandon it and start another draft. I’ve got a thumb drive with completed rough drafts on it shoved in one of my junk drawers.

The only thing these numerous drafts have in common?

The title. They are all of them titled DOG BONE SOUP.

So what’s the plot of this novel I never completed? I don’t remember, exactly. I could dig out the thumb drive. But that would require me to read the bad writing I did. OR…I might like what I wrote, in which case I’d be back on the Dog Bone Soup treadmill, writing, and rewriting, and rewriting, and getting nowhere.

If I do dig that thumb drive from my junk drawer? I’m not gonna read anything that’s on it. What I’m gonna do, I’m gonna toss the thumb drive overboard.

Because the first iteration of Dog Bone Soup was never meant to be.

That was a novel about a much younger man.

I vaguely remember

Dog Bone Soup was about this guy living in a RV…

I may be wrong. The plot may be about something else entirely.

That’s okay.

I’ll soon be an old dude living in a stealth van. And I’ll be writing a novel about an old dude living in a stealth van.

And I’ll call it DOG BONE SOUP.

How’s that for Ambition?

Like riding out of town on a water buffalo…