Apr 14 2004
Phillip’s Ramblin’
I’m creating this post for Phillip, a place where he can rant and ramble all he wants in the comments of this post. If you want to read Phillip’s crap, read the comments from this post. If it proves popular, I’ll create a link to this post on the menu for easy access.
Hey, hey, look at me! Weee!
Are we allowed to be interactive? If not, just delete this…
So, Phillip, tell us a little bit about yourself. Did you and Jody fight as youngsters? Who won? Which one of you is more handsome? At family gatherings, who gets the most kudos? Have you ever been in prison? Why don’t you have your own blog? Do you have dirt under your fingernails at this very moment?
I just wanted to help you some talking points…or is ‘Whee!’ all we get to know about you? :-)
I had a dream last night that I met Stephen King (it could have been a series of dreams). We were hanging out in a gravel parking lot of some gas station out on a country road. One side of the road was high up, overlooking a river that ran through the woods.
Stephen King was driving a convertible. I think we went down the road at one point and had a lobster dinner at some restaurant. He was a peculiar fellow. I noticed his voice was slightly high-pitched and nasal. We seemed to get along.
Near the end of the dream, he took out a poster of some kind. It could have been a poster for 2-for-1 dinners at the Keg. He wrote an inscription on the poster in unevenly drawn letters like a seven-year-old, and then signed his name at the end which was illegible. I looked at it and could see that he spelled my name wrong.
At that point I told him that I’ve never read any of his novels. He got in his car, closed and door and said, “Good.” I realized, even in the dream, he was right. If I had to choose between being able to hang out and shoot the shit with Stephen King, and reading his books, I’d choose the former.
I woke up from the dream, which seemed to go on in all this detail for a long time, feeling like I hadn’t slept at all. Crazy dreams can do that. You wake up feeling like you’ve been working on income tax all night.
When I went back to sleep, I had another dream where I told Jody all about how I met Stephen King, just like I have here, except this was real (in the dream), and I showed Jody the poster and Stephen King’s seven-year-old hand writing and Jody said something like, “That could be anybody’s signature.” But I didn’t care.
This series of dreams reminds me of the time Harlan Ellison called me on the phone (that’s another story). Stephen King didn’t have as strong a presence as Harlan Ellison, but it felt good to be influenced by his conversation, his company. There aren’t many people in the world who can actually do that.
Excellent questions, Jim. And I’ll get back to them all as soon as I have the time. (Looks like I was writing my little dream sequence there while you were posting your comment.) Jody can jump in if he feels like it. You’ve certainly asked some probing, reflective questions… I’m thinking…
I agree with some guy named jim, who or what exactly is a phillip with two l’s?
Phillamaip! What a good nickname, I’ll be sure to jot that down in my invisible ledger.
I don’t have a nickname, but my middle name begins with an S and has 7 letters, and I’ve only known one person who ever managed to guess it on the first try. I’ll send you my new CD if you get it within three guesses. And it’s not online… Boy, this is exciting.
Skipton?
Shirley?
Suzanne?
Sabrina?
Sigmund?
Stephen?
Solomon?
We don’t need 3 guesses. It’s obvious…
Phillip Screwup Cairns
And, by the way, you’re not even supposed to be here.
Poop on you, Jim.
> And, by the way, you’re not even supposed to be here.
Yeah, I know, I disappeared off the face of the earth when I went fishing off Tullymore with Ned Devine.
Jody said, “I don’t see no ramblin’s,” and I said, “Cuz I currently have nothing to ramble about.” And I still don’t. But here’s something that happened. It’s a whodunit, of sorts…
I woke up this morning with blood all over the sheets near the foot of the bed. It wasn’t brown scabby blood; it was dark red, and my left leg from the knee down was sticky with blood. After the obligatory what the? reaction, I began a body search for the source of the blood (there had to be a hole in me somewhere).
Ever have that experience where you’re obviously bleeding but you don’t know where the blood is coming from? It’s happened to me many times, but never like this. Never this much blood.
Then I noticed a smear of fresh blood on the cover of The Pocket Book of O. Henry Stories I fell asleep with trying to read last night. And then another drop of fresh blood. And there it was: Blood was still flowing, warm and watery, from a large cut behind the heel of my left foot. I picked up a dirty sock and used it to stop the bleeding. Looking more closely at the cut, I could see a nickel-sized chunk of skin was dangling from one edge of the cut. Then I happened to notice a chunk of skin wedged under the toenail of the big toe on my right foot.
So that’s what happened. The culprit was the Big Toe. The toenail.
That’s whodunit.
> Ever have that experience where you’re obviously bleeding but you don’t know where the blood is coming from?
No. Weird-o.
My brother just called me a Weirdo-o? Oh, man, I’m holding back now…
Jim said: “Are we allowed to be interactive?”
No.
Jim went on to say: “So, Phillip, tell us a little bit about yourself. Did you and Jody fight as youngsters?”
Yes.
“Who won?”
Me.
“Which one of you is more handsome?”
Me.
“At family gatherings, who gets the most kudos?”
Me.
“Have you ever been in prison?”
Yes.
“Why don’t you have your own blog?”
Cuz they’re stupid.
“Do you have dirt under your fingernails at this very moment?”
Yes.
Anything else?
Maggie Atwood’s Oryx and Crake has been nominated for the Orange Prize for Fiction.
I don’t like Atwood–she’s dry, didactic and dumb. Moreover, she bears an uncanny resemblance to a scarecrow. Wasn’t he the one without a brain?
If she wins, it’s worth $72, 000.
Think I’ll start that great Canadian novel I’ve been putting off…
Too bad there’s not an Orange Prize for Blogs, huh?
Although it’s only for women, I think. But then again, with a name like Jody, who’d know the difference?
I’m reading that novel now and I like it. I liked her Handmaid’s Tale too. I have a lot of her books, but that’s the only two I’ve read.
PHILLIP’S RAMBLIN’ #2: Jenny and I walked to the top of Signal Hill today and flew a kite. Man, that thing went way up there. 400 feet. There wasn’t much wind, but enough to keep it from crashing to the ground. The string got slack at times and we thought we were in trouble, but a wind would always kick in and lift it up higher. I’m going to Canadian Tire to buy a 1000-yard spool of fishing line for kite string. We bought one of those triangular $3 kites with the big blood-shot eyes on it. Once the kite was up, we laid on the hill looking up at the sky, meditating on the kite. More fun than you’d think. We probably sun-burned our faces. Came home and had a tuna sandwich with a dill pickle. A dill pickle after a sandwich hits the spot. We were listening my single-CDR selection from Johnny Cash’s UNEARTHED and had to stop talking when that song he sings with Fiona Apple came on, the one about him being old but happy. Jesus, that cuts to the bone. I should send everyone the CD. Better than all his other American recordings because this (at least my selection of it) has more variety and just as much soul. We’ve listened straight through to the whole CD twice now, just sitting in the kitchen playing cards. Which reminds me, tonight we’re going to Jenny’s grandparents’ house to play 120. We played cards with them last Friday, too; we’d like to make it a weekly thing. Playing cards is a great way to relax and get to know people. And right now we’re going out for ice cream. Not a bad day so far.
How’s your day?
I had to fucking work.
I like the way Phillip rambles. I’d like to see the ramblin’s outside this comments box, though. I just lucked into his last ramblin’.
How much did Phillip pay you?
Keith must be one of the countless students I’ve helped with their academic writing over the years. My student feedback forms usually come back with, “Phillip is the best tutor ever! You should hire him full-time and pay him $40 hour!” (I have that feedback form taped to my wall.) My genius is appreciated. And Keith, whoever this guy is, simply has good taste.
Oops. I guess you know who Keith is now.
That was very funny. Kinda reminds me of the Simpsons last night when someone (Lenny?) said Homer would never have the brains to pull off the dual identity of Homer AND Pie-Man. You were bound to crack sooner or later, Phillip. (Or is it Keith??)
Hilarious! Good job Phillip (with two l’s).
I think we should delete Phillip’s Ramblin’. It didn’t go anywhere (obviously).
Nope, it stays. It’s history, man; history.