Month: May 2005

  • This one is for you, it goes on and on and on

    When nothing seems to do, for when the doubtless and the wrong

    Ask, “Can I help you?” in that way that says, “I can’t”

    Or claim we’re all the same, just inconsistent



    Can’t all understanding turn out to be pretend?

    Or pretend the pretense of understanding

    How long does it take? Depends

    You can cast your doubts, turn ‘em inside out, hang ‘em upside down



    Till their art falls out (short answer’s forty-eight hours)

    Let your heart all out (short answer’s forty-eight hours)

    Till your art falls out (short answer’s forty-eight hours)

    Let your heart all out (short answer’s forty-eight hours)

    Summon up your power…



    If you need a good connection for drugs, or a strong tolerance for alcohol

    Too little religious education, some pain threshold

    If on the outside there’s no demand for what you do

    And inside there’s an army waiting for their marching orders from you



    Come sit on my swing seat, come sit on my porch

    After ten at night, smoke your cigarettes if you like, of course

    You can cast your doubts, turn ‘em inside out, hang ‘em upside down



    Till their art falls out (short answer’s forty-eight hours)

    Let your heart all out (short answer’s forty-eight hours)

    Till your art falls out (short answer’s forty-eight hours)

    Let your heart all out (short answer’s forty-eight hours)

    Summon up your power…it goes on and on and on



    If we ever get home, let’s don’t compare

    All our relinquished holidays, all our drive-in premieres

    If we ever get home, gonna have me three children

    Apple, Zippo and Metronome, that’s what I’m gonna name them



    The celebrity skin, the illusion of tough

    Gonna talk about nothing, till nothing’s enough

    If we ever get home, and the subject comes up

    War isn’t for children, war is nothing’s enough



    Or the clouds of blood at the end of “Jaws”

    In the misted cars honking their applause

    At the drive-in double feature, at the heart of dark enough

    Or it’s “Jaws” and “The Dark Canuck”

    Should we stay for “The Dark Canuck”?

    Everyone hands up

    Who’s for “The Dark Canuck”?



    I think we’ve relinquished enough

    And it’s still dark enough

    It goes on and on and on…

    And on, and on. I hadn’t even been at work for an hour today, aaaand:

    • My boss tore into me for not having my brakeman do any of the work.
    • I screwed up on the initial brake test and got docked by the engineer.
    • While trying to spot the train at the station, I overshot the platform no fewer than three times.
    • As always, I was the only
      member of the train crew to be completely overlooked by a film crew
      that was shooting a TV spot about us.

    And at the end of the day, the boss
    tore into me again for taking too long to do the freight paperwork,
    shortly after which I got cut off in the parking lot by some arrogant
    bastard who went postal when I honked at him.

    Same shit, different day.

    And a special run tomorrow only promises more of it. I don’t even know why I try.

  • “C’MON!!! LET’S GO!! GET A MOVE ON, LET’S GET THIS STEAM LOCOMOTIVE FIRED UP!!!”
     
    “DONE YET??…..DONE YET??……DONE YET??……..DONE YET??………..DONE YET??………….”

    “What? You haven’t seen it? I haven’t seen it! Didja check the
    workbench? What about the shelves? Isn’t it there? I don’t know where
    it is! Look in the tool crib! It should be there! Try the rack! Isn’t
    it there? I don’t know where to find it! Don’t you know where to find
    it? See it over there in the tender? Check on the brake stand! Maybe
    it’s there! I don’t know where to look for it! Why don’t you go look
    for it!”

    “Fuggoff….”

    “STYMIE!!!” “JIMMY!!!” “SHINBONE!!!” “POPS!!!!” “JO-JOOO!!!!!”

    Ah, another beautifully depraved day in Ye Olde Locomotive Shoppe…

    I’m glad to be setting my own personal record here – six straight days
    of train ops. Hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to work I go.

  • Christos anesti ek nekron, thanato thanaton patisas, ke ti se tis mni masin zoin kalisamenos!!!

    If you need a translation, ask, dammit. Let’s just say there
    are very few times of year when I feel as overjoyed as I do on Easter.
    Although, let’s just say that you can go back and read my Easter
    entries from last year to find out how it’s been going. Once again, the
    spirit was willing but the flesh was weak, and before I realised it,
    Lent was almost completely over. Now I really dread having to answer
    for this to the Man Upstairs whenever I go to see Him.

    I don’t know if it’s just because I was in a new, taxing, and
    indifferent line of work (railroading doesn’t give you a great deal of
    time to focus on prayer) or if I was flat-out unwilling to keep any
    kind of a fast. It’s going to take a long, long time of soul-searching
    to get that answer, and God only knows if I’ll ever get round to that
    either.

    It could have been a lot worse, though. I was able to make it to most
    of the services during Holy Week, although it really, really ticked me
    off when I had to run a freight train on Good Friday and was only able
    to make it to the Lamentations service.
    (Last time I worked on Good Friday, my life truly went to hell in a
    handbasket for a couple of weeks – although I did work of my own
    volition that time.) At the Lamentations service, though…Ruth and I
    paid as much attention as we could to the incantations, but our efforts
    were frustrated, ironically enough, by a lot of our fellow
    parishioners. The sad part of Easter is, most people in the parish only
    come once a year, and that’s when they do it – so to them, it’s social
    hour. And as such, they get together and shake hands and chit-chat when
    the rest of us are trying to focus on what’s going on at the altar. It
    never happened in such volume at my old church, and I find it extremely
    annoying and disappointing.

    Although not quite as badly as Easter vigil…when the church was
    jam-packed for the reading of the Resurrection Gospel, immediately
    after which two-thirds of the congregation piled out and went home. I
    couldn’t believe it. I wanted to stand up and holler to the back of the
    church, “Where the *%$#!! do you people think YOU’RE going?!” Ah well,
    they’ll have their own transgressions to answer for when their time’s
    up. Ruth and I, along with everybody who stayed to the end at 2:00
    A.M., did get the satisfaction of being commended by our priest for
    sticking around for the entire vigil.

    So here I am, typity-typing away with a train going past
    my window every five minutes…ahh, I’m in hog heaven.
    (Interesting coincidence that “hog” is a slang term for locomotive…)
    Poor little steam engine has apparently gotten the crap beaten out of
    it again, though – its tube sheet is leaking like the FBI, so it had to
    stay indoors for the weekend. So much for my qualifying run. *sigh* In
    case anyone’s wondering, what happened was that somebody or other was
    admitting too much cold air to the firebox, causing the heating tubes
    to contract and leak – and that ain’t good. When I was washing out the
    boiler a couple of months ago, the weld lines on those heating tubes
    were fruitful and multiplying. Can’t say I minded getting the whole
    weekend off, though, after the scads of freight we ran this week -
    switch-o-rama on Thursday and stone train on Friday. Just ONCE, I wish
    those truckers would show up with loads of no more than twenty tons, so
    I don’t have to worry about hauling two or three overweight hoppers
    across the trestle.

    Well, if anything happens, at least now we can blame it on Crash Spill
    Xplode. *muwahahaha* I mean, really, what’s one more derailment on
    their pig-tracked safety record? (You should see what they did to our
    LIRR coaches when they brought those up here…)

    “You’re right, it is a hell of a way to run a railroad.” ~ Unknown