You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy?™
The never ending barrage of cold and snow.
I just saw an alarming fact. 23 deaths from this blizzard across the USA.
18 of those are in Tennessee.
Wow.
I was on a live shot today and some drunk monkey from the North East stopped and showed his North Eastern ignorance.
“Whaddaya’ll out here for?” his words are guttural and harsh. “You all out here for a little snow?”
His voice is like rotting garbage in my ears.
I stare at his stupid New Jersey face. I am tired of snow. I am cold. I am wet. I am sick of stupid questions about 1/2 an inch or snow. I feel like bashing his head with my microphone.
Why do I feel this way?
I am angry and tired.
Because I am prescient. Because I know what this East Coast fool is thinking before he says it.
I can hear the slow motion mechanical gears grinding in his stupid Cave man skull.
“Yes.” I reply. “We are out here because of the snow.”
I know that I have lit the fuse. In him. In me.
Our eyes lock. I want to crawl into his personal space, trespass on his person.
I see a smile crawl across his fat white face.
He looks like a rotting pumpkin with a beard and bad teeth.
“You call this snow. I’m from Jersey. This ain’t snow.”
Ha Ha Ha.
I can see the beer stink float out of his mouth like a green vapor trail of dumb.
This guy is symbolic of all that is now wrong with this snow event.
A stupid East Coast moron making fun of me, in my home. Is this monkey that ignorant? Does he not realize people are dead? Does he not realize that 1/2 an inch of snow and ice are dangerous?
I’m also angry for having to apologize for doing my job. It’s my job to be here, to show and tell.
I am boiling. I am a thumb smashed by a hammer.
I wanna club Jersey Shore like a baby seal. I could scoop his brains out of his soft melon skull like a remake of faces of death.
Why you slumped over in a pile of your own warm brain matter? The imagery is intriguing.
Instead I decide to inundate him with facts. Challenge his morals.
Everyone’s got a momma, right?
“18 people have died this week from the snow sir.”
“that’s because you all can’t drive in it,” He says laughing, unconcerned, the beers filling his mucous membranes with more stupid than a New Jersey diner after hours.
I stare at him. I want to cut his throat. I feel a surge of anger like a blood thirsty pirate. I’d gut this guy right here in the street. I’d stand over him like an ISIS assassin and ask him what exit he lives off the turnpike.
How you like that meat?
Instead, I say “That’s pretty callous sir. 18 people are dead.”
He stares at me. His face contorts. I see a transformation of thought. Perhaps he realizes his joke is not appropriate. He has a look of sobriety.
He turns and walks away, taking his stupid New Jersey bravado with him.
I’m glad he’s gone. But I still wish I could have bloodied him.
I’ve talked to enough Yankees this week. I’ve heard enough jokes.
Let’s see how you die on ice, I feel like saying.
And so it goes.
Am I mad? Sure sounds like it huh?
It’ been a long week of turmoil, Internal and external, and now SNOW-MA-GHEDDON.
But I got a job to do and I’m live for the umpteenth time.
“How is it down there?”
I summon what energy I have left and begin again.
I take my shovel and slide it across Lower Broad.
I love props.
A shovel in my hands is like money in the bank.
It’s Ginger Rogers to my Fred Astaire.
I can lean on it, I can point with it, I can push it, bang it, dance with it.
I scoop up a quarter-inch of something. It’s not snow. It’s not ice.
It’s just wet dirty precip. It’s salt and grime and perhaps tears from a week of lost business downtown.
I hate this weather. I really hate it.
Do I have seasonal affective disorder? Maybe.
I was recently told that’s a real thing.
Maybe it is, because I am really pissed off.
Perhaps it’s all this damned snow. Maybe it’s something else.
I wish I could scoop up a pile of this road goo and slit its throat too.
The angst from Jersey Shore still burns inside me. I channel my contempt for him through a prism.
I feel the anger mutate, transforming into something usable.
I’m a nuclear reactor channeling the raw isotopes of half-lives and invisible power into something I can use.
Like a coffee filter straining the dirty coffee grounds, infusing the pure water with the magic bean, I feel the energy of the live shot begin to form.
“Coming to you in 10 seconds,” goes the voice in my ear piece.
“What you gonna do?” my camera man asks.
I laugh.
I never know what I’m gonna do. I never know what I’m gonna say.
I love this moment. The Jersey Boy angst has been processed through a soul filter and I’m happy. I feel energy. I feel an internal smile. I feel confidence and pep.
I’m a candy bar filled with vitamins and positive vibes.
“Your live.”
“yeah, we’re here on lower broad,” I say.
For a Friday night, there’s not that much happening. I put my shovel down and begin scooping the road. I feel the hot breath of cars riding my ass.
If I was a news pirate, I’d pull out my news saber and I’d lop off their motoring heads.
Back off, I want to holler.
Instead, I hold my ground and move to the sidewalk.
If they hit me, then getting hit on live TV will at least look cool.
I am suddenly shouting to a balcony full of revelers a block away.
They can’t hear me. I don’t care.
I just wanted to yell on live tv.
I am doing something at this very moment in the fabric of the universe that is singularly mine.
I am on live TV, I’m pushing a shovel, I’m screaming at bar patrons, I secretly want to board a pirate ship full of New Yorkers and make them drive with blind folded southerners on a sheet of ice.
How you like me now Jersey Shore?
I spin left and see a beer truck.
“All is alive and well on lower broad,” I say.
I hear the anchors laughing.
I’m an old dog and I ain’t gonna learn any new tricks.
I’m a human dradel spinning across the honkey tonk fabric of my own existence.
A hot Georgia girl slides up next to me.
“Can I be on live TV.”
I laugh. How many times have I heard this.
What is it about a TV camera, a light, and a drunk girl in front of a honky tonk?
It’s like Deja Vu.
“aren’t your Georgia Peaches cold? ” I muse.
she smiles.
I keep moving down the sidewalk
I will go live 3 more times conjuring up more lunacy that entertains and partially informs.
But the night is only just beginning and the weather is turning for the worse.
Life’s Crazy™