After a very long 48 hours travelling from Las Vegas via plane to JFK in New York, to Grand Central by shuttle buss, to Tuckahoe by train, to Yonkers on foot, and finally to Mt Pocono in Pennsylvania by van I was ready for a good night’s sleep! I grabbed a few things from town to get me through the morning like coffee and some chow and I colapsed in my bed for a few hours… only to be awoken really early by the septic guy that was coming that day who was about an hour early. Yay me. A nightmare start to what would turn into an extended stay and two dumpsters worth of crap being disposed of.
So, as I mentioned I had rented the place out to a couple of old drunks that did nothing much more than sit around drinking and arguing about nonsense. I knew it was a mistake but didn’t really care back then. I thought they were at least clean people based on what I saw on the surface, flawed but clean at least. I was pretty wrong. Let me first state, I can be a messy guy at times but I eventually tidy up and especially these days I like my things organized and put away, my desk is another story and not part of this discussion so shut up about my desk prick! Oh, wait… got off track there.
Getting back to the animals I rented the downstairs out to. I would assume a reasonable person wouldn’t keep food in their bedroom closets. These were not reasonable people. Let me throw the needle back a second too because you’re probably wondering why anything is there in the first place from them. These two split up and the dude took off leaving the lady alone after they were light on the rent and when I gave word I was booting them she took off for wherever the hell she went and they both just left almost everything. It was ridiculous and a giant expense, hassle, and a disgusting mess that included mouse droppings and some things I won’t mention (because who wants to hear about male blow up dolls. Fucking gross). So this mess was left for me to clean. I did the smart thing which I usually never do and I hired some help in the form of a human being named Nick. He’s my neighbor’s son and a real hard worker. He came over for a few days and between the two of us we got that place looking pretty good.
I initially ordered 1 dumpster. A 30 cubic yard one. That’s big. We filled the first one in no time with just the crap my tenants left behind. I had no idea there was this much junk including old TV’s which I found out the hard way cost extra to dispose of as do the half dozen old computer monitors I threw in there. Yay, more expense and money out the window. Just what I needed. I was really trying to keep the expenses down so I could mail some things I wanted to keep back home right away. I simply couldn’t fit everything I wanted to take to Vegas last year in a 4×8 trailer.
On a side note, I didn’t want to use the oven after cleaning it out for fear of any funkiness left behind. It hadn’t been used in years and I thought best not to mess with it and besides the liquidation company will no doubt be replacing it. So I bought a little table top toaster to make food with and I had the burners on the stove to use as well. I kept laughing at my dumb ass for 3 days as I consistently burned my bullshit Wal Mart breakfast sandwiches. I’m an idiot. I did finally pay attention and figure out the time and temperature for the little oven but man…
Like good little “house cleaner outer’s” we at least separated all the metal out so that we could get a scrap dude out there and take it away to a recycling place. Luckily those guys took a bunch of stuff and all the metal. We were able to get rid of 4 air conditioners and a couple other big items that were saved from the dump. Much better that these things end up with people that will use them or at least recycle them. One of the guys was into rock and inevitably asked the “you ‘n a band man?” question. He left with a Mortician Final Bloodbath Session digipak in addition to all my tenants old junk. Lucky him right :/
Around this time I needed another trip to Wal Mart for some more cleaning supplies and to grab a cheapy shirt that I could get dirty and not care about… I can’t lie to you guys, I don’t worry about dirtying up shirts 😛 So there I am about to buy this cool old school looking Mortal Kombat T-Shirt when I see a Star Wars shirt on another rack. Then I turn around and see the greatest shirt I’ve ever seen in the $4.87 section. I was astounded by it’s magnificence and put everything back and grabbed one in my size. Lucky me and all those that gaze upon it’s glory. It is truly a work of art as you can see by the picture to the right. Glorious.
Another thing about the house up there in Pennsylvania… no internet! I only had a little bit of 3g and sporadic periods where it would pick up the LTE network and get real speeds. I did however have my old VCR and a box of VHS tapes to entertain me while sorting things into piles of “garbage”, “memorabilia I want to keep”, and “crap I want to keep but will probably throw out”. It was truly a daunting task and I was happy to have such classics with me as the Star Wars OT, the Aliens box set, The Tick, Excalibur, Timecop, Phantasm, True Believer, Fletch, From Star Wars to Jedi, and a few more. It was a trip to watch the old tapes. For the record Excalibur is one of the greatest damn films ever made! I really need to do a write up on it or at least get it in the favorite movies section. If you haven’t seen it, go see it now.
I didn’t want to go through shipping the tapes back and couldn’t throw them away so they have been entrusted to my good friend Danny (from Malignancy) as he was already taking the VCR and a bunch of other stuff.
Speaking of nostalgia and memorabilia, there were a few things left behind from last year when I came out to grab my stuff and drive to Vegas. Stuff like my original Star Wars comics that have seen waaaay better days, but still fun to have because I remember the day’s that I bought them back in the 70’s. I also found some great old software on floppy discs and even some nerdy software posters. What? You never had an Adobe Premiere poster? Ha, nerd! I also found some vintage 1995 Episode 1 gummy candies. What a find! Do you think they’re still good to eat? 😛
Getting back to what I was eating (you know, because in my head you asked), after about a week I started getting pretty good with my little mini toaster oven. I was actually preparing decent meals in there like steak and eggs and… steak and eggs 😉 Actually a few mini pizzas went through there and of course some slow cooked bacon… a bit of slow cooked bacon… ok, a lot of slow cooked bacon 😛 Luckily there was a bunch of tin foil still there so I was able to keep things nice and clean as this was the name of the game here. It was fun and almost like camping… in a house… where it was warm from turning a dial… ok, maybe it wasn’t like camping. Maybe it was more like I didn’t have any internet nor an oven. I tend to exaggerate sometimes :/
Along with attempting to recycle some of the metal found in and around the house, I also contacted the Salvation Army and made a furniture donation. They came out twice, once to assess what they’d take and then the next week to grab the stuff. It was a big help and cool to me that I’ll get something off on taxes as well as the fact that someone will have my old stuff in their house. Neat! Better than the dumpster. I’m a fan of recycling if it makes sense and doesn’t defeat the purpose. Luckily there’s more options these days. If you’re moving or clearing out somewhere and you find yourself with a ton of stuff to get rid of think about what you actually have and try to at least donate a few things and try to recycle a bit of metal. Your conscious will thank you.
I also found a gold mine there. Not literally or this would be being typed by a secretary from my private jet. What I found was a box of maybe about 150-250 audio tapes. Now most of these were not regular audio tapes but they were tapes used in the old Tascam 688 that I used to own. Most the early Mortician stuff was recorded on this thing including Mortal Massacre, Hacked Up For Barbecue, and more as well as a bunch of other side projects and early Primitive Brutality as well. What a find! Coincidentally that Tascam 688 is not gone. It lives at my good friend and Mortician drummer Sam’s house. He’s got a great place in upstate NY he bought a few years ago that has a 4 bay garage that he’s been converting into one hell of a studio room. That’s where most my old equipment ended up including the 688. Naturally the tapes will go to him and at his leisure he will go through them and maybe get some stuff converted to digital formats for further archiving and possible remastering, etc.
Hey, did I mention Sam was coming by? I didn’t? Oh, well Sam is coming by the Pocono house. Mighty awesome of him. After Nick split I was getting bored listening to the crazies in my head argue about the price of waffles (they’ve gone waaaay up). Sam like a good friend does brought me some fantastic chicken cutlet parmesian from his local place that he loves with some spagetti on the side and a little bread. We sat in the now reduced living room and watched Excalibur and DC Cab. Why DC Cab you ask? Because it’s fucking awesome so shut up ya stupid jerk. Mr T rules as do the Barbarian Brothers. (Jeeezuz) We also can’t forget about that award winning performance from Bill Mahr. Man I miss his acting. I haven’t thrown up in decades. Plus that dude from Barney Miller was in it and well… I mean do I have to say more.
So Sam and I had a really nice hang and it was good to see my friend after a year. I hope he can make it out to Vegas sometime soon. Sam was actually a huge help beyond bringing me some chow. He took a ton of stuff off my hands (sorry Cheri) like my telescope, brewing equipment, lights, some tools, and a bunch of miscellaneous stuff. When he left his car was packed to the brim and it looked shady as hell. We were laughing that it looked like a portable lab or bomb making setup. Then we stopped laughing and got a blanket or something over most of that shit.
I think I remember saying on Facebook a little bit ago that this was my first winter that I didn’t have to shovel and that I really didn’t see any snow and that I was very happy to be living in Vegas and my back thanked me. Well… right after Sam split to go home… it started snowing. It actually came down pretty hard for a little while and I actually had to sweep off the steps from about 3 or 4 inches of snow. At least I didn’t have to shovel. Coincidentaly it was more snow in one night then the whole winter in Las Vegas. That’s why I love and moved to the great state of Nevada and to the little old town of Las Vegas. There’s something kinda comforting knowing that “tomorrow” will most likely be awesome out. It’s just one less bummer everyday ya know?
…to be continued
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