Apr 5, 2020 Diary entry: Okay people, this is the last time I talk about this thing, I will no more respond to questions concerning this ongoing witch hunt, this Russia thing must die and stay buried, Paulie has apologized to all the people who were unfortunately drug into this whole fiasco, all the unwitting participants have forgiven Paulie, and Paulie has repeatedly stated that he was the sole instigator and beneficiary of a hastily developed plot back during the Cold War Era, in which he had set his eyes on a particularly cute little Ukrainian girl who only wanted to come in from the cold, Paulie simply opened his door to her, and the two of us spent our days beside Paulie’s blazing hearth,the secrets that we exchanged so long ago are a matter of security, Paulie’s security, and presumably, the security of Paulie’s nation, so I say emphatically, please let us all forget the sullied past, let us all remember that we are all brothers and sisters who once loved each other, and look to the future, the witch is dead people, let her rest, let Paulie get back to the business of writing his simple Diary instead of spending his time responding to the many inquiries into this Russia thing, the phone calls to the Ukraine, the quid pro quo’s, leaked secrets, and all the rest, have been blown out of proportion, hang on, I want to comment on a saying from back in the seventies, we used to say that everyone over the age of thirty should die; I think it was in a movie and everyone repeated it, can I still hold to that view even though I am much older than thirty, I don’t know if I should keep clutching on to all my old beliefs, or whether I should re examine the things I was taught, well, my wine glass is empty so I’m gonna go root around in the cellar for whatever is down there, this is re- examiner Paulie, wishing love and shalom to all, again, shalom…

Apr 5, 2020 Diary entry: Have you allowed this latest monsoon of lies to wash all your neural pathways over the cliff, has your once moist jello-like brain become dry like that jiggler gummy stuff your mom used to make for you, I imagine your mind to look like a wad of chewed gum that is stuck to the underside of the lunch table, oh, please excuse Paulie, I didn’t know you were here, I was talking to the newspaper kid, he was at the door, I was trying to explain my views on reality to him; you know, I think he’s overcharging me again, he comes by every two weeks collecting for the month, I’m gonna have to start keeping track, anyway, this is a slow news day, I just got up from my second nap and now that I think about it, maybe kids don’t collect for the paper door to door like they used to, oh well, I already wrote it and I’m not changing my story now, let’s press on, I have been feeling isolated out here by the county line, this big house feels as if it is devoid of something, something important, vitally important, but I just can’t put my finger on it, I’ve done everything I needed to do, I sealed all my windows, patched the roof, re taped all the places where the aluminum foil was coming off the walls, I have my supplies and drinking water, I got the electricity turned back on, the paperboy has been paid, why do I have this nagging feeling I forgot something, a New Testament bible verse comes to mind, I think it was Paul, verse 6:66, where Jesus says “You better worship me fool”, “Don’t make me preach to you in hell”, or maybe it was Philippians, verse 6:16, where they were passing the cup and Jesus says “Who’s the asshole who was chewing corn chips when he drank out of my cup”, I don’t know, with all that is going on, it’s getting so difficult to keep things straight anymore, anyway, it’s way past noon and that means it’s martini time, so I pour out a tall one and give a crisp salute to the family, wherever it is you have found yourselves scattered to; the path you are on stands upon the ancient pillars of eternity which will never wash away, shalom…

Apr 4, 2020 Diary entry: Shalom everybody, Paulie here with a quick word or two about pride, now don’t worry, I’m wearing my NIOSH approved Bullard HMXI Free Air Pump Respirator Type C Tychem 200, and I am seated at least 6 feet away from my keyboard, it is difficult to type using two shorty pool cues so please disregard the typoz, “Win hooo!”, “Win hooo!”, “Snurp”, oh crap, you ever sneeze inside a respirator, I gotta go clean this thing, I’ll be right back… Okay, I’m back, like I was saying, the gang down at Joe’s last night was discussing all this pride that is in the world today, Gay Pride, Union Pride, Hoosier Pride, Military Pride, Good Old American Know How Pride, everybody is proud of some darn thing or another, now Paulie has never been a particularly proud person, but he does have a pride bumper sticker on his vehicle which reads “I am the proud parent of a dropout”, yeah, my kid dropped out of the seventh grade; one day he came home and said “Dad, it’s all bullshit, I quit”, “George Washington was a damned liar”, “That idiot Buzz Aldrin never landed on the moon”, “The earth isn’t a ball”, “The U.S. Presidents were not heterosexuals”, “Vladimir Putin isn’t a man, he’s a robot”, “On top of that, the school cafeteria lady didn’t win the cooking award that hangs over the serving line”, “The shop teacher didn’t lose his pinkie finger during the month long Panama Invasion of 1990”, “And the guy out in the Weekday Religious Education Trailer doesn’t know Jesus personally”, “Dad, it’s all just bullshit, I’m done”, well, I asked my boy what he was going to do in life if school was out, he said he would do what Grandpa did, he’d be a pig farmer, I said “But son, our family avoids pork”, so he said he’d do what Great Grandpa did, he’d distill spirits, I told him to remember what Great Grand Dad always said, “80 proof is no goof, but 100 proof and you’ll dance on the roof”, well, this is pride-less Paulie, staying humble as he was meant to, because Paulie’s Creator hates proud people, shalom…

Apr 1, 2020 Diary entry: This is an urgent message from Paulie Gee’s Realtime Diary, our strike force on the current Corona King Crown Covid 19 Virus has determined that the virus may be spread on words, so we are shutting down production immediately, we must all do our part and we are sending all our writing staff home until May 5th, at which time we hope to call them back, we will be offering our idle employees a small but heartfelt compensation package to help them weather the storm, free tickets to sporting events, coupon booklets for their favorite restaurant (dine in only), and concert tickets complete with backstage passes, if we all pull together and do our part, we may get through this thing together, if not, well then, no one can say we didn’t try, as for Paulie, he is gonna pack some left over beans and boloney and beer in his backpack and go fishing while he can still get out of town, but right now we have a warning from our Corona Covid 19 Strike Force medical expert concerning the transmission of fake information that has been spreading as bad as the virus itself, actually, our medical expert was chosen because he has a cousin who spent a semester in medical school before dropping out for personal reasons, and his pod is closest to our first aid kit, which he stocks with Band Aids and aspirins, he is an excellent young writer who wrote our well-received Diary entry entitled “Illuminating The Dark Corners of The Illicit Colonoscopy Industry”, a hard-hitting expose of underground activity which takes place in towns and cities all over America, including many of our rural areas, anyway, much false information is being spread person to person, so it is advisable to stay away from those who are most apt to hear lies and pass those lies to others, we have a disinformation epidemic of epic proportions in which the curve on the graph has risen dramatically, we ask all Americans to stop or cut down talking to one another because words are the main carrier of deception and confusion, so let’s all shut up and flatten that curve, in conclusion, our fine medical expert has informed us that the current Corona King Crown Covid 19 Virus lives on surfaces for between several hours to a few days, so you can feel safe and assured that all our old Diary entries are disease free, well, this is Paulie, heading out of town on this most distressing April Fool’s Day, shalom everybody…

Mar 19, 2020 Diary entry: Hey everybody, it’s Paulie again, now I’ve ranted on and on before about our corrupt medical profession, but there is just one more comment I want to make, I used to be as stupid and ignorant as all you people, but anyway, one time I went to the dentist with a tooth ache and he told me to take all my clothes off, when he told me to open wide I knew the root canal he had in mind wasn’t going to help my tooth, fool me once, anyway, I think I’m going to cut down on the number of martinis I have at breakfast…

Mar 19, 2020 Diary entry: Hey everybody, it’s Paulie here, I was watching an old movie on television, a courtroom drama, and I gotta say, it’s strange the answers people give to the prosecutor’s questions, especially when they’re asked if they killed the guy, they say stuff like they hated him but didn’t kill him, now if a cop comes to your door and asks you if you know anything about a dead guy they found in your back yard and you say you don’t know him and the cop says he’s your next door neighbor and he asks if you killed him, don’t say you hated his guts, wanted to see him dead, dreampt of killing him many times, you are glad he’s dead, but no, you don’t know anything about it, that’s not the way to answer such a question, I think there are times when it is best to lie…

Feb 28, 2020 Diary entry: Have you ever awakened in the middle of the night from a dream and got up but the dream seems to continue on in some other direction, well, I was having this dream where I was being chased by mice, not really chased actually, it was more like they were following me, a whole bunch of them, they all wore dark glasses and they were carrying some kind of phosphorescent globes that looked like the orbs in the night sky that people have been video taping recently, I think they needed the dark glasses to shield their eyes from the weird other-worldly light emanating all around, this huge herd of mice lit up the night like it was noontime, yet I couldn’t see, to me it still was dark out, I didn’t know for sure whether it was day and I was blind, or if it truly was dark, I began to run through the blackness as the lit up herd of mice followed, the light from all these orb-carrying mice lit up the night sky like the searchlights do at that one car dealership, but I still couldn’t see where I was running, then I heard their leader say “Let’ all go to the Cheese Cake Factory”, “This loser ain’t going nowhere”, that’s when I woke up and got out of bed, it was about three AM, I went to the kitchen and sat at the table with a cup of cocoa and a tin of sardines, I always am hungry after a long night of dreaming, I looked across the rim of my cocoa mug and saw the cat sitting in the seat across from me, he was wearing a tuxedo with a black formal tam on his head, a French cigarette hung from the corner of his mouth, his one eye squinted from the smoke as he began dealing a hand of five card stud, he looked like a Malaysian casino maven from an old movie that they only show real late when you can’t hardly stay awake to see who the murderer is, he dealt me another card and I placed my bet, he told me that cocoa and sardines was the kind of combination that would give me nightmares and he told me the next ante would be my tin of sardines, all in, go for broke, if I had any spine at all, I never was much of a gambler but he was egging me on so I stayed in the game, determined to break the house, I had new found confidence and I called out to a tall, pretty, dark haired casino lady who was carrying a tray of drinks, to bring me a martini and I didn’t want the watered down free stuff either, these casinos think they can get away with murder, but when I’m dreaming hard I want hard liquor or some one is gonna pay, the cigarette lady who had been softly wafting around the crowd came to my table, she was tall, pretty, dark haired, she wore a shiny bright green evening dress that screamed loudly above her soft voice, she gently handed me a pack of Gauloises and I tipped her a brand new hundred, she smiled, thanked me for my untamed generosity, then she made this little half curtsy movement that made me spill my martini, I lit one up and told the cat to deal, this night I would be going all in, I’d either own this casino before I woke up or the loan sharks would be calling me in the morning, then there was a bright light coming from behind me, I figured the cigarette lady was again approaching for another generous tip, I ante’ed up and spun around with a sinking feeling in my insides, it was the orb-carrying mice with the dark glasses, they were eating cheesecake and sucking out of lidded Starbucks cups, the lead mouse said it was time for me to fold, my night was over, I balked and said no, I was looking at a straight flush and the cat was overconfident, and the pretty, dark haired cigarette lady in the pulsating green dress was about to get off work and needed a ride home to her beach house which she said would be terribly lonely and cold without me to put the log in her fireplace and create a blaze that would consume the both of us in it’s fiery fury, then two of the mice grabbed my arms and drug me out into the street as I screamed out curse words to the very heavens themselves, I never did like mice, they are sick twisted vermin who don’t have any respect for a man and his dreams…

Feb 17, 2020 Diary entry: They say television hypnotizes us into a dreamlike trance state of some kind, then we begin to think and do strange things, I don’t know, I have been watching two TV’s at once for a reason that escapes me, anyway, there must be two George Washington Carver’s, the one who carved the statue of George Washington, and the one who invented crunchy peanut butter, a parade came on one of the stupid channels I rarely watch, but I felt compelled to watch, and I began to long, I longed deep down in my inward parts, I longed hard and long, the parade made me sad, Paulie has never had much in his life, nothing he could hold onto, clutch to his chest and sigh loudly about because of a wonderful memory of some kind that no one could take away from him, I always wished I could have a hometown tribute of some kind because I did a brave or awesome thing, where all the people came out to celebrate a day in my honor, where the town ladies all bake pies, little children give cheek kisses, and the old men say stuff like “You did good kid” and “The town will love you forever, we will never forget you”, the only thing I have that comes close to such a thing is an old faded black and white photo of me that the cops took back in ’56 when I ran away from home and they had to pull me out of the river, the Cincinnati cops said they needed it so that my parents back home could identify me, that old photo is the closest thing to a treasure I own, and I sit here and I long, I’ll just watch some more of the parade and dream I guess, shalom…

Feb 17, 2020 Diary entry: Paulie may have to postpone his new Dream Diary venture into writing, it seems the only dreams I’m having are about mice, tough mice, tough French mice, the kind of French mice you’d expect to see on the docks, adding up their black market take for the week, mice who walk upright and wear dark glasses, they smoke expensive French cigarettes and say threatening things to me, stuff like “Where’s your cat”, “My boys want to kick his ass”, “If you don’t get some decent Brie in the house, my boys are gonna kick your ass”, “We want cheesecake, open the fridge door for us, then my boys are gonna kick your ass”, I have vermin in my house, they are in all my dreams, I can’t get them out of my mind, they are in my head like hungry night workers are in IHOP, they wake me in the middle of the night to fix them Camembert French toast with a slight lemon glace over the top, and the whole time, the lead mouse guy is telling me his boys are gonna kick my ass, I can’t hardly get a good night’s rest anymore, if I’m not running in my dreams, I’m up half the night mixing eggs and sugar, and “the proper amount of French vanilla”, or “My boys are gonna kick your ass”, “My boys all have graters and your ass is cheesecake friend”, if I forget to leave the lid off the peanut butter again, I don’t know what they might do, how do I get myself into these messes, you’d think I’d have learned by now to steer clear, I can’t tell you how it feels, I wish I could tell you how it feels, I’ve never felt this way, well, it’s time to go, the souffle is about ready to come out of the oven and I still have baguettes to make, this is Paulie saying “Mon dieu je suis harcele”, and “Shalom”…

Feb 17, 2020 Diary entry: Paulie’s whirlwind of love rages across the desert, destroying the sands of time, in search of that one moist place where he can find rest for a blazing furnace of desire, that one lush oasis under the palm trees, where ladies in bright print dresses carry trays of mouthwatering delicacies, and they continually wave their finely woven fans of something that cools you deep down in your aching soul, somewhere out there a lady beckons, a silent voice only Paulie can hear; a voice on the breeze, a voice out of another place, a place only Paulie can see; desert owls hear her voice and they ask “Who”, who is this woman that speaks in this way, and from where does she speak, entire caravan routes have been changed, and changed again, only on one stranger’s word that he had seen her somewhere out there, somewhere far away, as if he were in a dream, tranced into some mind altering zone in which he would never leave behind or forget, the deserts of this earth would never have been explored if not for this woman, men have searched for her throughout the ages and none have found her, but Paulie is on her track, she has left a conspicuous trail in the sands of time that only Paulie can recognize and follow, Paulie will keep all updated on his quest after he stops in up ahead for fresh water and fresh burros, this is Paulie out on the sandy trail, saying shalom all…