Ride a Painted Pony

I light a cigarette and look over as the crazed old Chinaman picks a slice of bologna out of the filthy garbage can and washes it off with a bottle of water. He mumbles something in a squeaking pitch and begins to nibble. I look wearily away. Blow smoke out into the air. The room is occupied with about thirteen old, ratty hobos - most slouched over in the folding metal chairs, snoring loudly. The air is blue with cigarette smoke the sharp tang of stale urine.

I lean back in my chair, crossing my legs, thinking, Where is he?

I am sitting in the Opportunity Center. The first floor - unfortunately - is a flop room for El Paso's transient population. In the floors above me are the mental and health clinics. I was waiting to get my prescription for my monthly antidepressants from my shrink and for Lalo, who invited me for beer across the border in Juarez, Mexico.

As on cue, Lalo walked his lanky form into the room from the heat outside. Tall, thin Mexican with hawk like features, scraggy goatee - I met him while I stayed at the mish, he since had moved to Juarez and shacked up with a stripper he had impregnated. We had played around a few times.

He plops next to me in baggy black denim jeans and jacket, "What up, man? You ready to go?"

I explained that I had to get my meds and then walk the two blocks to my flat for my passport. That took only ten minutes and we were on our way across the border.

We slapped our two quarters down at the turnstile and walked that long bridge across, dodging the Indian women wrapped in grey serapes, hands outstretched forever blinking in that bright desert sun. Down into the congested streets of el centro - the crumbling discos and beer halls with fading facades, walking through traffic of chugging old buses farting black smoke and dust crusted cars that amazingly still run.

Lalo mentioned he was hungry and we darted into a hole in the wall taco stall on the strip. He munched tacos desebrada as I gobbled down my hamburger with juicy fries - all the while shooing away the parade of dirty chicle vendors and sad, beat wondering mariachis.

Strictly out of a fit of nostalgia, we wound up at Bar Buen Tiempo, afterwards. Striding past the Cathedral, through the mob in Plaza las Armas and across to the bar, Lalo and I passed through the yellow swinging doors into the murky den and as soon as the door slammed shut, Rosie - my old fag hag bartender from the last time I lived here - came clopping and bounding up to me arms spread open and all smiles. Smooches on the cheeks and what-ever-happened-to-so-and-so resumed as Lalo and I sat at the bar and ordered two big frosty caguamas. Rosie confided in me that the owner, Chuey was shot two weeks ago out front of the bar - another nameless statistic to the death toll in that city. I really liked Chuey. Nice old fart. Rosie explained that things have changed - that the clientele has disappeared and that not many people visit the bars anymore.

The bar was sprinkled with a few old drunks, a couple of lesbians, and three pretty boys gesticulating at the end of the bar. Even for a Monday afternoon, I remember the place was a little bit more active - where's the rentboys? As Rosie and I were in deep conversation, Lalo just blurted out that he wasn't feeling it in this queer joint and he was in dire need of some bitches.

I turned to him and camped, "Oh, I'll show you a bitch!"

So, to indulge the part time hetro, I said goodbye to Rosie and made vain claims that I'd try to return Saturday. (Maybe I will, why not?) Lalo and I once again stumbled out into the blaring dusty streets and marched through the old market through the crumbling alleys smelling of shit and urine, shabby bent, sad taco stands sweltered with the wafting stench of seared meats and tired salsas and wilted vegetables with mangy dogs and small infants playing in the dust between stalls. Late afternoon pedestrians clogged the way - hip hop boys with arms around hips of their brown thick hipped sweet hearts with sad eyes drooping up to Guadalupe, vendors with leprosy and missing limbs called out selling leather belts, key chains, balloons, condoms - as tank like para military vehicles rumble down the street slugging slowly past the ancient, creaking buses.

Passing a row of tired, fat hookers flashing their silver capped teeth and unappetizing bloated bodies, we hit some joint that Lalo knew called Bikinis. I must of passed it a million times - but never went in. This time I did. Wish I didn't.

First, complete blackness - until your eyes adjust to the dark. And mine didn't in time. I careen head on into a table - I feel the bump, then hear the smashing of beer bottles shattering on the floor. Luckily, the two guys at the table understood, when I kept saying in Spanish that I couldn't see a damn thing - they laughed and said it was all right. I made it up and bought them a bucket of beer.

As my eyes focused there was a stage and a squat rotund blond in a black bikini and thong spinning on the brass pole - jiggling in all the wrong places. I mentioned to Lalo as I gawked like the other ten or so drunk and horny men circling the stage, "It's like a car accident - I can't stop looking."

The place itself was a all that you'd expect in a dive of this sort. Dark, with a row of red Christmas lights strung over the bar, small stage with smeared cracked mirror and spinning disco ball. Though there was five or so metal tables, the bulk of the audience sat in the semi-ring around the stage watching the whirling tart.

Obviously, this was Lalo's circus - everybody that worked there shook his hand, patted his back, high fived. Assholes.

Yet, after a few slugs of beer, it wasn't so bad for a straight joint - the girls didn't paw me and ask for beer. The DJ and security guard (Both fucking hot!) were friendly and fun to chat with. The damn DJ - a muscular skin head with a goatee - during acts, kept flirting with the other strippers - they would walk by and rub his erection or give him a quick lapdance. The strippers were all from two to four months pregnant...

I tell you though, Dear Reader - at one point as I stood out in the back alley and as I smoked a cigarette, I was panged with nostalgia and wanton desire to return to dear old Juarez. I sure do miss it - however, I reckon it has become best just to visit now a days. I dunno.

It was time for us to split because the money dried up and saying adios to the strippers and all, Lalo and I drunkenly stumbled back to the bland security of El Paso. What a difference from night and day - the streets at 9pm in Juarez were teeming with vibrant life - yet, downtown El Paso echoed empty in long lonely shadows of silence.

Eh. Just swallowed my angst, went back home and watched Alejandro Jodorowski's Sante Sange before falling into a twisted sleep....

Dreams of Nostalgia.

The sky is illuminated by blue bursts of electrical fire. Rain falls hard, drenching me and the scrawny hooker tittering on the corner in her see through plastic pumps. She looks like a melting wax figure, like she has some hideous cancer. She squawks at me and through the rainy haze and the sound of her voice that she is a he. I press on home - streets now have become rivers and sewage outlets spew forth a dry winters worth of back up.

I cut the corner to my trap, soaked to the bones, turn the key and slop my wet shoes into my house. Lights are turned on and I peel my clothes off like a used condom. Stove burns blue flame, water boils and steams, and a cuppa hot coffee is made. I hunker down and watch David Lynch’s Eraserhead just to make sure my life isn't that bad. The credits roll and I slip into my bed. Rain always has made me drowsy.
I had a headache, me, and took a handful of aspirin before knocking off for the night.
Poom! Poom! Poom! Somebody is knocking at my door. The clock reads 2:36am. Poom! Poom! Poom! I fling the covers off and reach for my pajama bottoms (I have always slept naked. Can't have it any other way. Wouldn't you?) I pull the front door open to find Jose, a teenage kid from the neighborhood standing on my landing with kind of a glow. His eyes were all pupil and he sniffed constantly. He went into some tirade about how he was in need of money and that his Grandmother was sick and that...Basta! Can't you tell how late it is!? I was sleeping! Some of us hafta work for a living instead of staying up all night taking dope! Don't bother me again! Slam!!
Had a hard time sleeping after that. Put on some Juliee Cruise - she always makes me drift away.
The alarm goes off, reggeaton blares forth; it is 5:20am. I stagger to the shower and bathe in lukewarm water, dress and hit the dark streets - still wet after last night’s storm. I buy two burritos pulpa from the plump smiling woman on the side of the road - traffic whizzes by to the United States - there is black dust in the cracks of her face. I gobble down one burrito before vaulting the turnstile to the International Bridge. A phone call is made and a coworker happily picks me up, stopping first at Starbuck's for a Frappaccino mocha. Delish!
Work dragged like a wounded snail and I was nearly comatose by the time I got off. I hitched another ride back to the border and jet across that long divide. Shriveled shit covered junkies in rags and ponchos, hands outstretched, looking like beat Christ's beg for change down under the bridge. You can hear their pleaful cries...they go unnoticed, as all I see in front of me is a wall of fat asses, bouncing ahead of me. An impenetrable wall of flesh.
Stop by Burrito Row - I order a burrito mole with manzana fresca and shoot the shit with Beto, the hottie that works at one of the stalls. I chomp my mess all the while wondering what it will take to nail that fine ass.
But, I digress...I was still very sleepy and decided to make my way home. Saying adios, I walk through the muggy air - the occasional tsk tsk from the prowling chunky chilango hooker - dodging the kamikaze bus, the suicide taxi.
I reach my humble flat and reach for the $150 I stashed under a copy of Edgar Rice Burroughs’s A Princess of Mars. Down stairs, I pay the rent to the slightly crazed landlady as her oily son watches over me - the old haggish bitch counts the money and miscounts twice before agreeing this is the rent. Heh - crazy ass bitch.
Back at my place, I sit with a Sol cerveza and switch channels on my big 32inch flat screen telly I had just purchased with my tax return. Nothing but crap, but there was a rap at my front door and was surprised to find Oscar standing in the street.
Inviting Oscar in he began bleating the same old same old and needed cash and, well, one thing led to another and I found myself sucking that cock - not ten slurps up and down his stiff brown shaft and he was squirting gobs of semen into my mouth; clenching the bed covers with one hand and grabbing the back of my head with the other. He squirmed and grunted as he nutted a mouthful.
What can I say, I'm a natural.
Both of us showered, I gave him one hundred pesos and he split. I dressed and marched out - the late afternoon streets teeming with life. Fat fag in pinstriped jeans checks me out as I pass the shoe store; smells waft of mouthwatering chicken displayed in neon blasted windows with bum pissing onto the outside wall. Small Indian children, snot caked black on their copper faces, grab my pant leg as I walk by - moanay! moanay! - a clown, a fucking guy dressed as a circus clown DJ's in front of a record shop. My way is clogged by a group of young boys in soccer outfits - they stand laughing talking, I stare at them with broken limitless insect lust. Shoeshine boys call out to shine me leathers as I stroll past blue, yellow, pink adobe houses and buildings erected a hundred years ago. The stores vendors hawk their wares - vying for my attention. The music from various shops is deafening - I cut into a cafe, order a cappuccino, and scribble these words out...

Fuzzy Moon.

I rolled over in the musty sagging bed and tried to piece together the night before. The dank room I was in was windowless, graffitied walls painted pink with the lingering stench of a million Mexican hookers. I lay naked on an old spotted mattress, itself smelled of mildew and various indescribable aromas. The bathroom was down the hall. I got up slowly and staggered to the sink next to the bed and took a piss, washed it with water from the tap then splashed my stubbled face.

Gravity took over and I slumped uncontrollably back onto the bed. I lay there dizzy and aching - head pounding as I stared at the naked light bulb dangling from a wire coming out of a hole cut in the plaster in the ceiling. Directly above my face, there was a bright yellow spot in the plaster. That's rat piss, I thought, not water damage. Rats always piss in the same spot. Humans don't - unsanitary fucks...

My mind throbbed with the kaleidoscope of a million images. It had to be round nine at night, the bars were in full drive cause the sidewalks were pregnant - crawling with twinky Mexican fags. They swaggered and cooed to and fro from one disco to the next - Albatross, Bananas, Riches - all glaring and giggling at every crotch. The disco and chacha beats thumped as outside between the clubs hustlers lurked in the shadowy shadows to rob the unwary tourist or desperate old queen with time worn accuracy. We stood outside Bananas and smoked and laughed until I was invited inside for some much needed drinks. He said his name was Arturo. Short in stature with a thin build and black curly hair cut short. I loved his smile - heated me pants every time he did.

The place was jumping, you dig. Wall to wall boys lined up and jumping to the beat, swirling and dipping and walking around like aroused Tom Cats. The sexual tension was thick like only it can in these Mexican gay joints.

Arturo introduced me to his friends - all fine characters and there was one cutey - a thin twink named Manuel and he really took a liking to me. And the boy really liked to drink his drink. On that note - the tequila started to flow!

Arturo, Manny and I hit the dance floor and boogied down until the joint closed down at 2am when the lights came on. The waiters ushered the whole lot out into the streets where there were some more socializing, fags, trannies, and lezzies huddled in groups talking and laughing all wondering where the next party was - a yellow hummer drove by and invited me to a fiesta in the hills, but I refused.

Arturo, Manny and I jolted drunkenly across the street to a chicken restaurant and devoured delicious chicken tacos and made out in the booths - where the waiter snarled pinche jotos but we just laughed under the sneering glare of the fat mamacita that was running the joint - and that's when Arturo came up with the idea to rent that cheap ass room. After we stopped to buy a fifth of cheap tequila.

Down dark, trash littered alleys of mangy dogs and bums with quivering hands reaching out forever, past shady characters glinting eyes under fedoras twinkle in the moonlight and hissing hookers with silver teeth and bruised thighs - we stumbled up worn wooden stairwells to a nameless hotel in an unknown place and slapped down the twenty in front of a fat receptionist chewing on a cigar so nasty.

With difficulty, Arturo pries the wooden door open, flicks on the light and the bugs scatter. We ritualistically passed the tequila bottle around - tastes so good going down. I retch. Little Manuel jumps up and down on the bed - something breaks inside - we all laugh.

Tongues and fingers probed as clothes were peeled off and erections exposed. I sat on the bed as Arturo laid me back and started to suck my cock like a champ and that fucker knew what he was doing. Manny played with my nipples as he continued to kiss me talking all dirty like in Spanish. Arturo's fingers found their mark and were slid up in me and I didn't need to instruct this horny fucker in anything, he puts my feet up over his shoulders, spits into his palm, lubes his cock and slides in with slow deliberate movements. Thrusting and lunging, Arturo fucked me as I gasped and grunted through clenched teeth. Manny jacked me off, kissing and massaging me - talking oh so dirty. Manny was the first, kneeling over me - he squirted his cum across my chest...then it was me, with Manny milking it out, I gasped and squirmed in an intense orgasm. Pounding faster and harder, Arturo pulls his cock out and squirts his semen all over my stomach, too - falling next to me in a sighing plop.

We lay there talking a bit sharing a delicado cigarette. Eventually both had to split and they did. They got dressed, we shook hands and said good night - I finished the bottle of tequila we had purchased and fell onto the bed.

Desolation Angel's

We walked three miles for beer.

Three fucking miles down a dusty stretch of road where all the sad shops were closed on a inhospitable windy Sunday afternoon. Row after row of faded multicolored adobe sante fe style buildings rusted and crumbed that had to date back to the 40's sat baking in that glaring Texan sun under that eye searing baby blue sky that spread forever out in every direction. The wind whipped and we trudged slowly because that's how Gabriel walks...slowly.

Gabriel and I did stop for some grub at the sole diner that was open 24hrs nestled in amongst what seemed to be a million diners that were all closed.

Jaime's Hut - long wooden counter, ratty red booths, metal stools, grill and fryer across from you where you can watch them prepare your food. High white ceiling with old fans and huge plate glass windows like something out of a 1930's gangster film. I had fantastic menudo, Gabe had a cheeseburger with greasy ass fries. Cheap food, but good.

Heading back out into that sandstorm, Gabe and I stumbled into Frontera Bar - our destination for one dollar beers. The joint was packed. This squat building was festering with ratty old men donning fedoras and stetsons, ugly bloated women faces covered in moles and missing teeth. Cholos on the nod drooped by the pool table as con men and junkies huddled in dark corner plotting their next schemes - dirty fingers clentched dirty plastic cups of beer. Gabriel and I took a table and ordered two huge mugs of beer.

A band wailed ranchero music from Sinaloa as on opposite sides two scrawny bitches gyrated to the clinking clanking music - the "dancers" wearing black denim covering their flat asses, cowboy boots, black stetsons, no shirts so you had to gawk at their pancake tits flopping around under the strobing red spot light.

But, that wasn't what caught our attention. Dancing between these two gargoyles was a squat and bloated pig of a woman, her pot belly undulated out from her black tube top, her thighs jiggled in her tight black stirrups, her sweaty back covered in tattoos and hickeys - she definitely thought she was the shit.

Shit...

Gabriel and I nicknamed her Flabasaurus. There was many a joke that night concerning Flabasaurus. Drunk old perverts actually pawed at her unappetizing anatomy.

When the band took a break and the pain from our ravaged eyes wore off, the juke box started to play some weird shit for such a hardcore place - Dancing Queen by Abba, Staying Alive by The Bee Gees, YMCA by The Village People?! There was a drunk guy sitting next to me that would belt out the "YMCA" chorus part to me point blank splattering my face in a fine coat of saliva. Then he would attempt to dance along, but would always spell out "YMUX" with his arms. Then thrusting his crotch into my face. I just sat there grinning - what could I do? I was the sole gringo - this was their territory, I wouldn't dare upset the natives.

Ah, what the hell, just a big drunk lug having a good time I pondered. He would ask one of the drunk old hags dressed in black sitting in the dark against the wall to dance and then on then dance floor he looked like a palm tree in a hurricane. I was embarrassed for him.

I excused my self and went into the men's room. The stall was occupied by some old fart grunting and huffing who hadn't shit in months so I sided up to the urinal. A ruggedly handsome vaquero had his fat uncut dong out - just holding it. I took my piss, right, and he's standing there holding himself, staring into the mirror adjacent to us. I'm done pissing and I notice he's just staring in the mirror at me. He looks like a Mexican Marlboro man and his pecker is growing - inching up and out. I reach over and grab it. Warm and hard. I start stroking it - feeling the skin sliding over the head, the precum at the tip, it getting harder...

The bathroom door slams open and some goofy goober barges in whipping out his dork spraying urine all over the floor up to the urinal and we hurriedly compose ourselves and march out. I return to my table. From my seat, I watch the cowboy walk out into the chilled night.

The band starts up and it is fucking karaoke - Mexican Style. Ugh. I tell Gabriel, let's split. One of Gabe's friends is sitting with us - some guy named Joe. He is wasted and promptly lights up a cigarette. One of the bitter faced, four breasted waitresses stomps over and yells at him, squishes the cigarette out, slaps Joe around and then threw us all out.

Oh well.

So, we all march back downtown drunk off our asses through darkened empty warehouses and lonely train tracks and snoring hobos and barking dogs in the black distance. In the middle of this urban desolation, we find a lone bar still open called Fonzie's! Aaaaaayyy...

Warm yellow light from within, somber oldies drifting from the jukebox into the lonely night. We enter and are the only one's there. The bar is managed by a short fat man named Bruce who serves us our Bud Lite - only beer he's got. We talk and drink, then we go back into that desolate lonely beat night of El Paso.

Strolling and stumbling, cause we three are pretty ripped, you see. I am up front, Gabriel is behind me and Joe is bringing up the rear. The warehouses finally give way to some wood framed houses. Gabriel and I are holding some damn conversation about Socialism and it's effect on Fast Food when we hear a thump! We look back to see Joe's bottom legs and sneakers poking out from some damn rose bushes! After seemingly twenty minutes of some Three Stooges shenanigans, we get Joe back on his feet and continue downtown. Again, before we reach our destination - a 24hr. liquor store - Joe promptly disappears! Oh well, I state. And Gabriel and I stock up on a 30 pack of Schlitz and some tater chips, walk over to alligator park and sit drinking till the sun comes up.

And it does...

A Story If You Want To Hear It Or Not

Sat in Cafe Percolator drinking my coffee listening to the local band line up - when they were good they were good and when they were bad, they were bad. All local young kids. The joint was packed and I felt a little self conscious because I do believe I was the oldest one in the audience. However, I do have to admit, the band playing at that moment was very good.

An old bum shuffled in - his stench preludes him - the wafting smell of urine, vomit, and soiled linens. He shuffled past me (I was sitting by the door, next to the soda refrigerator) and ambled to a group of piss elegant young ladies - all looking appalled at this Lost Street Hipster. Jose, the manager, swiftly approached him - unfortunately - because of the soda refrigerator - I did not see what transpired, but the tramp came back around and sat at my table. Shabby grey beard, squat stature, well worn denim jacket and pants, soiled t-shirt, all smelling foul. The smell of alcohol alone was enough to make an ambulance attendant puke. He gazed at me with blood shot eyes.

"Hi." He slurred.

"Hi."

"You smoke?"

"Smoke what?" I asked.

He sighed in exasperation, "Cigarettes."

"Yes. Of course." I stated matter of factly.

"I thought so." He grinned, winking with one eye. "You look like a smoker."

Really? I thought. What does a smoker look like? Was it my yellowed finger tips? My stained teeth? My rasping voice? Hmmm? What gave it away?

His face went as blank as a card dealers, "I wanna smoke with ya."

"Well, we can't smoke in here."

"I know that!" He gesticulated. "We gotta go outside!"

"I wanna watch the bands."

"Okay." He said, wobbling in the chair. "Okay. Could you spare a smoke, then?"

"Sure." I stood up and reached into my chino pockets and took out a my pack fishing for a cigarette and handed one to him. He grabbed it with calloused red hands - gnarled and worn from a thousand climates.

He stood up - farted and said, "Thanks. Now, I going outside - then I'm coming back and I'm going to tell you a story if you want to hear it or not."

He shuffled outside. The bands wailed on. I drank my coffee. The night winds howled. I look out the large pane window and see the old hobo tottering and wobbling down the dark street against the gusting storm - I guess I'm not going to get to hear that story after all...

Drunken Shinanigans

It was a brisk night outside the bar - you could hear the cars breathing past. Inside was a whole lot of misery and ugly. The jukebox warbled sad Mexican ballads of lost love and wanton burrachos. The dim din was sprinkled with shabby old men in tattered coats huddled over their mugs like vultures staring into nothing wondering how it all went wrong.

Gabriel and I sat at the warped wooden bar doing the same with a bit more levity - our conversations peppered with dark humor, darker than the night. On the opposite side of Gabriel sat a husky pug faced old man - late forties, white hair, solid physique - drunker he got the queerer he became. Started to make his moves, you dig, on my Native American friend and hetero Gabe was not liking it, not liking it at all.

Every time the fool got up to piss, he'd run his hands across Gabriel's back.

"Creepy. Definitely creepy." Gabe muttered to me.

We continued to ignore the old fruit - that is until I look over to converse with my drinking bud and the codger flips me off. I return the gesture. Why not? Wouldn't you?

The randy old fuck stands with a huff, stomps over and whacks me in the back of the head.

"What the fuck?!" I utter and grab the nearest beer bottle - smashing it across the old mans jaw. Next we are doing a macho ballet around swinging fists - powpowpow - until the barmaid yells at us to knock it off. Must've lasted a whole twenty seconds. The old man shouts obscenities in Spanish and walks out of the bar. I am laughing - I can't stop laughing. The beer numbing the pain that I am sure I will feel in the morning. The bastard got off some good licks.

Gabriel is standing there dazed.

"Thanks for the back up." I snap, grabbing my mug and taking a swig.

"Damn, dude, you were really holding your own." He stated, sheepishly.

Honestly, all that hardcore talk of prison and bikers and gangster living, he could of jumped in - I would have.

I finished my beer, slammed the mug down, now consumed by anger by what just happened, "Man, that old queer was jealous that I was talking to you. Don't you get it? He was fighting over you. Your not fucking worth it as far as I'm concerned - you could have watched my back instead of just watching!" I mean, if Gabriel was handsome, I'd understand - but, he's not. About as attractive as a wet mop.

"Oh, you sayin' it's my fault?" He puffed up.

"Ugh!" I just walked out and went home.

Yeah, next morning - things hurt...

Mexico Lament

My room on the garbage cliff overlooking the Juarez poor barrio, tin shacks and white roofs of crumbling adobe, and little dirty gardens down below bounded by the uptown hip cliff and superhighway nightmare 20th century I-10. To stand on my garbage cliff and see I am at the end of Mexico - the longing pulls at me, depression of a million nostalgic images flood my withering mind.

The town is so noisy - dirty, streetfulls of wild boys all night, drunken nacos in yellow Stetsons and sagging pot bellies, restaurants, nasty whore hotels, musicians, half American stores, jumping beans and tortilla concessions, Chinese Masonic lodges & barbers too. Big halls for hip-hop discos and ranchero music, painted crudely with monolithic donkeys. A portrait of a Chihuahua glares down at me donning Sante Fe style kerchief and bejeweled vaquero hat.

I walked through the border at night back to my sad, lonely apartment, a dead silent fairyland of U.S. dusk - deserted ghost streets and sad quiet aircooled diners with white capped waitresses joking softly and no one on the streets.

One more month and I am going back to live.

It's a Matter of Economics, You Understand...

Well, it seems that fate - my bitter enemy - has forced my hand and I will be returning to the land of doe-eyed sexually charged pickpockets and cooing Amazonian transvestite hookers.

After dredging through four long arduous months of self debasement - it now comes to pass that I can not afford to live in this country - I got high standards, you nosey bitches, just try to follow me on this, okay?

I received a transmission from the Lords Of Social Security that they will be decreasing my benefits to 666.00 a month in lieu of paying for Medicare - something I don't even use. So, the wheels are set, Wednesday I will hop over the border and see if old Maria - that beautiful hag - has any digs for rent in my old building. It doesn't really matter - though it is a virtual warzone over there - I will file a report from the frontlines for your flabby asses. I guess I can continue there in this novel writing fiasco that I have been suckered in to, also. If not...well, hey....I'll just go on living, I guess....