If there's no record of my birth and no record of my death, does that mean I've never existed? Is it like a tree falling in the forest? Must I be seen and heard if I am to exist? Do I exist only once? My spirit leaves tracks in time but I have no idea how or why.
    Genius is separated from idiocy by only a few degrees. Intelligence, existence, life, death; all are circular. Circles within circles, like the rings the magician uses so masterfully. Now it is I who has become an unwitting magician. I have set in motion a simple algebraic emotion that will eventually become the sum of my past lives, my present life and some of what is yet to come.
    I am substance and I am mass. I am light and I am dark. I move with slow yet constant velocity. I leave bits and pieces of me wherever I go. Those pieces germinate and memories are born. Some live on in timeless fashion. Some die before their time.  It is a celestial balance of fire and ice, the sun, the moon, the sea and the stars.
    All of this served on a plate made of quicksilver by a simple artisan living life in 5/4 time and whistling a tune that has . . . . no discernable melody.

Your Slanguage Profile

Aussie Slang: 100% British Slang: 50% Prison Slang: 50% Canadian Slang: 25% New England Slang: 25% Victorian Slang: 25%

    A new friend here on the Stream did a post recently about favorite quotes. After reading her post and enjoying it immensely, I found myself recalling all manner of colorful quotes from the many friends I made over the years. Some of my fondest memories are time spent just kick'n back and bullshittin' with some good friends about whatever came to mind. And out of it all came some amazingly succinct and thoroughly amusing quotes that I'll share with you all.

"More fun than a houseful of whores" would explain something REALLY fun.
"Shaking like a dog shitt'n prune seeds" would explain someone highly nervous.
"Jump'n around like a fart in a skillet" would explain a state of hyperactivity.
"Hotter than a fresh fucked fox in a forest fire" would describe something at a high temperature.
"Goin' like a burnt turd" would describe something moving really fast.
"Shit a wheatie" would denote considerable surprise.
"Tighter than a preacher's prick in a calf's ass" would explain something very tight, such as a rusted bolt.
If you've got the "purple hornies" you're highly aroused sexually.
If you're feeling "spermicidal" you've been in a state of sexual arousal for a long period of time.
"It's time for some I & I" simply means it's time for intercourse and intoxication. (Preferably in that order).
"Balls on a hen!" Denotes impatience or frustration.
"Lets put wheels under this whorehouse and haul ass" means to leave immediately.
"Don't stand there bump'n your gums" simply means less talk and more action.
If I'm going to "check my eyelids for porocity" it means I'm going to sleep.
If I'm "trying to get my eyeballs up" it means I'm trying to wake up.
"Ain't that a busted ass!" Denotes dismay.
"Colder than a welldigger's biffy" describes a really cold day.
"Hotter than the hubs of hell" describes a really hot day.
"Dumb as a fry'n chicken" describes someone with few brain cells.
Someone with a "personality like a bag of doorknobs" is a jerk.

Okay,,,,I'm gonna let your neurons dance around all of this and I'm gonna go check my eyelids for porocity. It's been a looonnnngggg night in the foundry.

    I first  met Phyllis on a warm San Francisco spring afternoon. It was my day off from work and I was in my usual cruise control mode. There in front of the St. Vinnie’s Store was a gorgeous black woman and a slender young guy with her trying to stuff a huge recliner into the back of a Nash Rambler. Without saying a word I reached out and captured the back of the chair with both arms and lifted it into the Rambler. It wasn’t so much that the chair was heavy, but rather that it was really awkward to handle.
    “My lord you are a strong man!” She declared. “I don’t know what I’d have done without your help.” Her smile melted my heart and the tight fitting hip huggers she was wearing lit a fire in other parts of my body.
    “No trouble maa’m, I was glad to help ya. You gonna be able to unload this thing okay?”
    Her face shifted from elation to dejection in a heartbeat. “Oh! I never thought about that! I . . .I’m. . . not. . real sure. . . .” Her voice trailed off.
    “You live close by? I don’t mind help’n ya get this thing unloaded.”  Truth was I’d have offered to carry that recliner all the way up Battery Street if she'd have asked.
    “I live a couple’ve blocks from Lafayette Park over in Pacific Heights. My sister lives over on Telegraph Hill and she knows everyone here at St. Vinnie’s so I shop here a lot.” She hesitated for a moment, an embarrassed expression sweeping across her face. “Where ARE my manners. My name’s Phyllis.”
    I smiled and introduced myself. “It’s real nice to meet ya, Phyllis. I’d be happy to help ya get your chair home if you don’t mind give’n me a ride back to my place. I live just off Highway 101 over on Jackson Street.”
    Phyllis repressed a giggle. “Oh! You live in Trinkeyville?”
    “Yep, I sure do. How d’you know about Henry Trinkey’s shacks?”
    “I do volunteer work at the woman’s shelter over by Union Square and some of the women I help live in Trinkeyville.”
    I climbed into the front seat of Phyllis’s funky old Nash Rambler and we were off in a cloud of blue smoke, the clatter of the valve lifters tapping a rhythm as we rolled across the city. The more I listened to Phyllis’s voice and basked in the glow of her smile the more I was attracted to her. We arrived at her apartment and I said a silent thanks to the gods when I realized she lived in a ground-floor apartment.
    It didn’t take long to manuever the recliner inside and plunk it down in Phyllis’s tiny living room. She squealed with pleasure and clasped her hands together as she surveyed her new acquisition. “That’s perfect! It’s exactly what I wanted! Thanks for helping me. The least I can do is fix you a cup of tea or some coffee?”
    “Tea’s fine if it’s not too much trouble.”
    Phyllis disappeared in the kitchen and I could hear her filling the tea kettle. Her apartment was small and furnished in a simple style, but it was warm and comfortable and I felt very much at home. We sat sharing conversation until early evening. Suddenly Phyllis jumped to her feet. “Oh no! Just look at the time. I’m gonna be late for choir practice.”
    It was a wild ride across the city as Phyllis manuevered through afternoon traffic. The more I got to know her the more fascinated I became. She was wild and crazy and carefree, but there was a hint of shyness and compassion as deep as the ocean in her as well. She turned the corner, tires squealing as she came to a stop in front of my building. She frantically scribbled her phone number on a scrap of paper, pressed it into my hand. “You’ll call me sometime, won’t you?”
    “You can bet the ranch I will!” I assured her with a grin.
    A few days later I did just that. She answered the phone on the third ring and seemed genuinely happy to hear from me. I invited her to go see a movie with me. It was some silly b-movie that I’d already seen twice but for some reason loved to see again and I hoped she’d like it as well. She did! After the movie we walked for awhile and stopped into an all-night diner for pie and coffee. The more I became acquainted with Phyllis the more fond of her I became. Over the next few weeks we spent more and more time together. Within a few months I was spending my days off sleeping over at Phyllis’s apartment. And every Sunday morning I’d accompany her to church. Me, a free-spirited, longhair maverick kid, half Italian and half Native American sitting in the back row at a southern Baptist church near her home. It wasn’t the preaching I went to hear. It was the down-home gospel music. Phyllis and her sister both sang in the choir and they were in a word, awesome.
    Before long Phyllis was sitting in with my friends and me when we jammed blues at some of the neighborhood clubs. Her voice brought the music to life and gave our tunes an added dimension of appeal. Her body brought my hormones to life and gave making love a whole new dimension. I suppose it could be considered the ultimate win-win situation except for a major exception.
    The first time Phyllis took me home with her to meet her family I once again encountered the angry face of racism. Hatred for someone they didn’t yet know, other than my ethnicity, that is.
    Phyllis and I tried to ignore the facts. We avoided her family when we were together. I found myself wondering if it were possible for them to ever put down their guns and quiet their hostility. Eventually the answer came with a tearful good-by. I cared deeply for Phyllis and maybe that’s why I chose to say good-by. I had no wish to come between her and her family.
    It was a cloudy Sunday afternoon when I rode out of the city, eastbound on Interstate 580. I was on my way to the New Mexico desert. There had to be an answer somewhere in that vast expanse of sand, sagebrush and spirituality. It was there on a 1949 Harley Davidson motorcycle that I found myself wondering how many years it would be before we finally choose to just . . . . put down our guns.

Move it on over, Uncle Jazzbo's move'n on in. Late last year the old captain made a separate blog for Jazzbo, but it didn't seem to feel quite right having such a distinct part of Captain Morgan separated in such a way.
For those who might be wondering, Uncle Jazzbo's a character I created sometime during the late 1960's. It all began as a way cool way to promote some new tunes I'd written and the whole gig just sort've took on a life all it's own. Later on Uncle Jazzbo evolved into an amazing storyteller who never left the 60s. Uncle Jazzbo's Story Hour was sort've a mainstay at every party Captain Morgan attended. It was great fun, brought a lot of smiles to a whole bunch of people and made the Captain happy. Make'n others happy, after all, is what Captain Morgan loves to do.
So here it is. A story from Jazzbo that would seem to be about Christmas. It is sort've. Now before you go think'n Captain Morgan's lost his bearings, consider this. The hope and happiness and good feeling that the Christmas Season brings is surely something to keep alive all year long. A new friend of the captain and his queen is Kat. Her son's dealing with some heavy medical issues and it's a VERY tough time for her. I have nothing to offer but a little of Jazzbo's magic. If all goes well it will help set a difficult situation right. And so here it is.....Santa from a slightly different perspective: Uncle Jazzbo’s Santa Story

A long, long time ago, there was an old cat, big as a house with righteous long hair and a hell of a fine beard hang’n out in a small town in the north country. He had a real cool gig goin’ on, inventing some out-a-sight stuff that he’d sell in a little shop down on main street. Well, he’d sell some of it. He wasn’t really into making a lot of money and as often as not some ragged kid would wander into his shop and the old guy’d just give ‘em whatever they saw they liked.
The old guy was like that with everyone that came into his shop. Along the way he learned how to fashion all sorts of way cool stuff. He made a wooden arm for an old fisherman who’d lost his in an accident at sea. For a busted-up old miner the old guy created a new leg and for a blacksmith who’d been struck blind when his furnace exploded, the old guy even made a set of eyes.
But mostly, the old guy just created a bunch of toys that had it all goin’ on. His favorite time of year was a week or so after the winter solstice began, when the whole world slowed down long enough to celebrate some cool religious gigs. The old guy didn’t really have any religous affiliation. Hell, he just loved everyone equal. Made no never mind to him what gods ya worshipped or if ya did at all. Everyone was real special to him and he didn’t give much thought to love’n one more than another. Well, except for his main squeeze, the hot and sexy Mrs Clause. She mighta been gettin’ on in years and was a little slower gettin’ around than she used to be but she was one amazing lady and the old Santa Man loved her like the sun loves the moon.
Somewhere along the line the old Santa Man started feel’n sorta low to the ground and tired. He’d lay his head on his lover’s shoulder and slowly drift off to sleep. His Lady Clause loved him doin’ that. Said she could feel his soul on her shoulder when he was sleep’n like that. Could be it’s true. They were a real tight couple’a folks.
One night the old guy laid down next to his lover and somewhere in the night departed for his next lifetime. As he shuffled along he looked down and saw a pint-size girl stand’n there along his way. Her tear-streaked face looked up at him through the saddest brown eyes he’d ever seen. “Can you help me mister?” She asked with a voice that pulled him right into her.
He smiled and nodded. “What can a tired old man like me do to help a beautiful ballerina like you, little one?”
In her outstretched hands was an exquisitely designed music box. It was polished and delicate and broken. “This is my momma’s only possesssion. It means a lot to her but it broke and now it won’t play. I’m trying to get it fixed so I can give it to her again for Christmas. Can you help me?”
The old guy studied the music box and his face spread into a grin. “Of course I can, little one. It’ll be good as new by nightfall.” With that the old guy dug in his tote bag and found what he was looking for. A few hours ago he handed the music box back to it’s young owner.
“You fixed it! You fixed it! Thank you, Mr!”
He gave her a hug before being on his way. “No need to thank me, little one, just promise me you and your mom will do all ya can to spread a little Christmas cheer around and call me Santa. All my friends do.”
The old guy resumed his migration, but the memory of the day kept crowding his mind. This was his destiny. It was what he was intended to do. There was a world full of people need’n a help’n hand and who better than the old Santa Man to reach out and do what he could?
He reached his designation and there, just as he’d promised he would be, was the old hippy’s spirit guide, another old soul with long gray hair and piercing gray eyes that seemed to see straight into the bowels of eternity. Andrew smiled a little as he listened to the Santa Man’s proposal to stay behind and devote himself into spreading some special cheer with the beginning of each winter solstice.
As the two sat shuck’n and jivin’ together the sound of a train whistle echoed in the distance. A few minutes later a sleek, black locomotive appeared pulling seven rail cars behind. Santa looked up, his eyes wider’n a couple’ve pie plates. “Damnit man, what IS this?”
Andrew reached over and put his hand on the big guy’s shoulder. “Be cool my friend. There’s someone here to keep you some company.”
The old Santa Man’s eyes filled with tears of joy as he saw his beloved Mrs Clause stepping down from the railcar. She ran to the big guy, threw her arms around him and whispered in his ear. “Merry Christmas Santa Man. There ain’t no way your doin’ this gig without me along. We got a deal?”
The big guy’s smile was all the answer she needed. Well....his smile and the feel of his hand on her butt.