May 18, 2020 Diary entry: Paulie judges a man by his smile, a man’s smile can tell stories, if a man farts every time he smiles, Paulie smells a rat, Paulie will not deal with such a man, there are too many fish in the sea that have integrity, to waste time with a gassy blow fish that ate a spoiled worm sandwich for lunch and washed it down with skunky beer that was brewed up in some animals large intestine and dispensed through a brown charge hole, with way too many bubbles in it, oh god, I gotta make a move out of this place, but I don’t know where to go, I just want to run and scream, well, maybe I’ll mix up a pitcher of something and cloud up the office, and make an escape through the fog, maybe I can run through the hazy countryside, swim some rivers, and come out on another side of this thing, possibly reach that beautiful green valley on the other side of the mountain where barefoot ladies in grass skirts carry bamboo trays of delicacies you have never known, and colorfully-sailed junks lazily move through the ocean waves in their sleep, and the salty sea breeze kisses you lovingly and rubs your nose like a soft puppy that only wants to love, yeah, I gotta get out of this sterilized and washed-out city where all life comes to die, maybe I’ll just catch a bus to Terre Haute and visit my cousin who runs a semi-failing hog operation just outside of town by where the power plant blew up last fall, hang on, I’ve just been handed a type written report, there is news breaking as we speak, it seems China has landed on the rear side of the moon again, what deviltry are they up to now, what could they possibly be doing back there, with all the trips China has made to the moon, you’d think they could be a good neighbor and clean up the golf clubs and other crap that the Apollo astronauts left behind, and all of Buzz Aldrin’s Moon Pie wrappers and empty beer cans he scatters wherever he goes, it’s been leaked that Russian cosmonauts raked up some of America’s moon debris which included Alan Shepard’s underpants, they identified them as such by a label that read “If you find my underpants, please return them to earth, Sheppie”, well, that’s it for tonight, I’m headed down to the gas station to pick up road maps, this is Paulie sending out a full moon missile of love directly to the people of earth, shalom…

May 17, 2020 Diary entry: It seems everybody these days has some kind of health advice, they are only too glad to recommend a diet, supplements, colon cleansing systems, probiotic golden seal immune boosters, everybody’s a doctor, well, let me tell you, everybody who says they are a doctor are not always a doctor, one time a guy told me he was a doctor and he said I needed to take my pants off for an exam, well, fool me once, anyway, the reason I called you all here today is to go over some much-needed information that can change your life, your outlook, your purpose, and your very reason for living, your very soul itself may be transformed into something you never dreamed possible, we here at Paulie Gee’s Realtime Diary are offering a self improvement course, it consists of thirty six compact discs, each wonderful disc is yours for only $19.99 plus tax, you can receive the entire thirty six CD set for only $172.39, but you will have to act fast, this offer expires at midnight and after that you will have to pay full price, we prefer you send cash, but a check will work, our only desire is to help you, the cost of the program only covers our expenses, we make no money on our self improvement sessions, money is not our motive but please remember to sign your check, thank you, now on to other business, we’ve had questions and comments about whether it’s okay to take your pet’s tranquilizers because we are all experiencing anxiety these days, we don’t really recommend taking animal drugs, I took some of my cat’s new tranquilizers that the vet prescribed and I didn’t like the effects, I spent the whole afternoon gorging on tuna fish and watching bird videos online, I have no idea what dog tranquilizers would do, but you could find yourself crapping on your pillow and chewing up your best shoes, who knows, I think the best advice we can give is to consult with your veterinarian about possible side effects of the medications he provides, and always take as directed, now I had something I wanted to warn everyone about but it seems my train of thought went into the tunnel and never came out, oh well, this is Paulie, reaching for another cat pill and his almost empty bottle of schnapps, I think Animal Planet has a special on about the birds of the South American Plains, I don’t want to miss it, this is Paulie, telling you people that you better tranquil out, be happy, and stop the nonsense, shalom…

May 18, 2020 Diary entry: I was in the cigar store the other day and I ran into a kid from back in the neighborhood, I remembered him as Bundy, Buddy Bundy, we grew up on the Boulevard back in the Fifties, he almost drowned in the crick when he went through the ice one late fall afternoon when we were on the run from one of the angry neighbors; Buddy had an auntie who wore a wooden leg, an eye patch, and a button that read “Follow me to the carnival”, she used to take us kids to the carnival every weekend, it was held in the old shed behind her house, yeah, she called it her carnival room, you know, as I think back, she was kinda weird, I think I remember running through the night screaming and swimming a half-frozen crick for some reason, well, I’ll recollect that later, we need to move on to new business, as you know, we are closing down production, don’t worry, we’re not sick or contaminated, we are simply dead in the water, our little junk boat on the shimmering sea off the islands is swamped with complaints, innuendo’s, defamation lawsuits, and the occasional death threat, this little endeavor of ours has become a big pain in the you-know-what, and besides, everything here has been fake, we know now that nothing is real here at Paulie Gee’s Realtime Diary, but be that as it may be, Paulie is still a teacher, he is not a popular teacher, but he didn’t take on the job to be popular, if Paulie wanted to win a popularity contest, he would have his brain removed and replaced with a mixture of thirty percent cement, thirty percent fine gravel, and forty percent dog urine, and it would be left to cure under 6 mil Visqueen for four days, then my mind would be set to the same level and consistency as the masses, and Paulie’s popularity would go viral, can you still say that word without a mask on, I don’t know, anyway, where was I, oh yeah, isolation, what’s the big deal, I’ve been isolated out here in this secluded house for years, this old cold stone house bespeaks of horrors you can’t imagine, ghosts of past mistakes and misled antics prowl the nights like glowing specters who are hungry to consume any stale crumb of sanity that is left inside the bare cupboard of a man’s mind, whew, I kinda drifted off there, excuse me, let’s move on, I had an announcement to make but I can’t find my notes, I apologize, things are a bit hectic around here; even though no one is still employed here at The Diary, the party in the break room continues on, I’ve got a stack of unauthorized bills on my desk as high as the dance contest winners, well, Paulie is headed up to the party to try to squeeze a few shekels of fun out of these last days in which we live, this is your field guide Paulie, admonishing you to return to the path that will lead you out of this mess, the ancient path you have never known, love and shalom…

May 18, 2020 Diary entry: Many people have been wanting to know more personal things about Paulie, who is this man they call Paulie, what is he, why is he, well, this will be a short autobiographical piece on yours truly, I still own an automobile that I bought from my aunt, I left the army in 1972 and I was looking for an automobile that could slide me down the road like Houdini could slide out of a locked coffin, well, after leaving the army with a somewhat shaky DD214, on a clear day in January of 1973, I slid behind the wheel of a pristine 1963 Chevrolet Impala, I hit the road and I never looked back, life became Indy and I was gonna lead the pack, I still have that car sitting in my driveway, now I’ll be honest, it isn’t perfectly pristine, it does have some rust spots, the engine needs a tune, and it could use new rubber, but the car is 57 years old, every car that age has it’s quirks that come with old age, anyway, the car isn’t exactly parked in my driveway, it’s parked out back under some shade trees that protect it from the harsh sun that can fade the paint on a grand old classic, please don’t send in offers to purchase my old friend, she’s not for sale, if I sold my old friend, it would be like selling a part of my very soul, if I were to sell her, the price would have to be in the upper 999 dollar range, that’s a figure you can mull around if you want, anyway, I won’t go into the memories I created with my 60’s automobile in the 70’s, I will just say that times were different then my friend, different indeed, Paulie was the sleek owner of an even sleeker automobile, and all the ladies adored Paulie’s sleekness, and they all wanted to ride the tiger, they all wanted to ride the tiger called Paulie because he made the jungle a better place in which to live, he brought a great shining lantern underneath the dark jungle canopy, and he lighted up the world like another sun, this is how people used to describe Paulie back during those times, well , this has been a little insight into the man they call Paulie, and he just had an insightful thought, the thought to cut this off and go root around for something out of the root cellar, this is Paulie, saying shalom world…

May 17, 2020 Diary entry: I think it was back in the summer of ’66, we were about two hundred miles off the cape, squalls had been hitting us hard all day, the last squall hit us like an angry squaw hits her husband when he comes home drunk to the tee pee at 2:00 AM and he wants to be romantic, all the while talking about how he’s king of the castle and if he wants to dig a moat, he’ll dig a goddamned moat, anyway, we were down below in the galley getting out of the worst part of the storm and I was relating a story about a kid I knew from back in the neighborhood who was the hairiest person I had ever known, he looked like he was covered in shag carpeting, his whole body looked like Castro’s beard, when he fell in the crick it took him all day to dry out, he didn’t take after his father, he looked like his mother, except his mother was bald on her head, she looked like a bald monkey, she was a Ferris wheel operator who worked for one of the big circus operations down out of Wheeling, sometimes the whole family would be on the road during the high part of the season, anyway, hard times hit the circus industry, there were massive layoffs, no one would hire ex Ferris wheel operators, ladies who trained dogs to wear dresses and ride bicycles, or sword swallowers, times were tough, clowns began to drift and ride the rails, animosity arose between hobo jungles and clown camps, the hobo/clown war of ’67 was especially brutal, the neighborhood was falling apart, chaos ensued between down-and-out clowns and the hobos who didn’t like competition on their turf, the world was a much different place then, not like now where everyone is a clown and they’re not even getting paid for it, and riding the rails is no option because the trains don’t run like they used to, maybe the circus is a microcosm of the world we live in, everyone has their unique specialty, and when times are good, we all laugh, but when the big top comes down for the last time, we all simply become hobo clowns with no job experience and nowhere to go, well, people have been trying to warn us for years, I guess we should have listened instead of believing that the high wire would last forever, when the clown car runs out of gas in the desert, there’s no use leaning on the starter, it’s time to face facts, you’re done, well, this is Paulie, leaning hard on a tall Skunk In The Hole cocktail, and as he does, he wishes everyone his best, shalom…

May 16, 2020 Diary entry: Oh god, Paulie has got to get out of this city, Paulie is a man alone among men, the people around here are too tightly sewn, their rectums are tied so tight that their eyeballs look like the balls in the old pinball machines at that one place in the alley down from school where you used to hang out to just gaze at the freaks, a man who thinks for himself has no place in a cookie-cutter city full of ginger bread men who just fell off the government production line, that are stacked and packed in cardboard containers with a label slapped on them that says “Inspected by a government agent”, “Fully neutered, lobotomized, vaccinated, and stupid”, “These gingerbread men are guarantee’d to never run away like the one in the fairy tale, they are apathetic beyond belief”; I was in line somewhere trying to do something, I don’t remember, anyway, some guy berated me for not wearing a mask, I berated him right back for not hanging from a light fixture with a rope around his neck, and if it was a mask he wanted to wear, the grill of my truck would cover his face nicely, god, you just can’t talk to people anymore, what happened to those old days when a guy lit up a cigarette in the grocery line and offered one to you, and he started talking about his new fishing rod and how pretty his wife is when the morning sun shines through the tent flap, god, the only thing men talk about today is how many boyfriends they have on Facebook, how bad it is that their favorite movie star has to miss starring in another block buster movie because of the Hollywood slowdown, and if they can’t watch sports pretty soon, they are gonna pee their pants and they aren’t kidding, and how the government better do something quick or they are gonna switch parties, oh god, I gotta get outta here, well, I got a musty old tent out in the garage that a skunk pee’d in last summer, I’m gonna see if it’s big enough to live in permanently, it’s definitely time to think about moving, okay then, Paulie is moving to the root cellar to root around for some kind of strong drink that will compliment his fine smoke, Paulie is gonna cause a haze to come over his office, and he is gonna gaze into the smoke and recollect how he once killed three desperado’s for Maria Conchita del Gado, the prettiest princess in all Mezcal Condado, and how she swore she would die loving him even if he had to go on the run and never be able to return to collect his dear Maria Conchita, well, that’s about it from here, I’ll let you all know if I think of anything else, shalom…

May 16, 2020 Diary entry: Paulie was stifled as a child, he could not speak out in school, he was not allowed to teach, he had to sit still and listen to lies that were to be his education, my parents paid good money for me to attend public school and they got rooked, one time in elementary school the class had to draw a crayon picture of George Washington holding a hatchet standing beside a stump, every kid in class wrote the same caption at the bottom of their drawing that George Washington never told a lie, I was the only one in my class whose caption read that George Washington was a goddamned liar, the teacher berated me in front of my peers about it, and I responded that my dad told me George Washington was a 33 degree Freemason professional goddamned liar, and I would trust my dad over some bat-faced lady who looked like she was carrying enough sand in her pants to fill my sandbox three times over, my F was earned before we ever finished the first semester, needless to say, the rest of my educational career was a bust, it took quite some time to shake off twelve long years of intense indoctrination into a false reality that I rejected vehemently; after high school I drifted through one loser job after another, I had been taught worthless things that I could never use for anything at all, anyway, my life continued on like a rubber ball that gets away from you and you chase it out onto the highway and after a few closes calls you decide maybe that rubber ball of your life is a bad thing that may be leading you to your destruction, so I stopped chasing what I thought was real and I decided to go back in time to the beginning, to see how things were then, before dirty men dirtied everything up as it is now, I discovered that everything we know today is a lie, a hoax, a scam, or plain bullshit, now the world was mostly crapped up then too, but there was a sliver of truth that was available to study, and truth was like a painful splinter in my hand, I had to find it and dig it out and look at it, well, the rest is history, Paulie wanted to shout to the world what he had found, but people just didn’t care to hear it, they had an artificial little fantasy world that suited them just fine, and truth was a scary boogey man, they would cross the street when they saw him walking their way, well, you stay in your world and Paulie will stay out, he has important things to do anyway that don’t include trying to raise up the dead, he will leave your carcasses lie in the ditch and he will walk on down the road, this is Paulie, looking for other walkers who have experiences to share, shalom…

May 16, 2020 Diary entry: Now Paulie is surely a humble man and he knows why the world is such as it is for him, but the forest is getting kind of bare these days, what was once a lush and beautiful thing, full of every kind of plant and animal that was good for food, well, there isn’t much left in that once-glorious bread basket, only a few crumbs that jog your memory back to the good days; the only thing the forest produces these days, are a few scrawny chipmunks for the fry pan, boiled thistle pods, and the occasional wild mushroom that you don’t care whether it’s okay to eat, or poisonous, it really doesn’t matter any more, anyway, Paulie knows why the world is in the state it’s in and he understands, that is why Paulie never fears or worries, Paulie will carry on as usual, he will carry his joke diary high and proud, and Paulie will laugh as the whole world cries because a great shining mountain has risen up in his heart, Paulie has glimpsed his end, and it is his beginning, Paulie would like to clue you all in to the thing you need to laugh at your adversity, but most of you are so deep into Fairy Land that you will never escape, you love your fantasies way too much, your so-called political leaders who are simple actors reading a script, your priests and pastors who are simply rereading a tired old script, your teachers who are simply reciting the same old tired lies, you even love your dead presidents and throw them parties as if they were seated at your table sharing the cherry pie you baked just for them, what the hell is wrong with you retards, there is this new thing called the internet where you can get answers to any question, don’t you people have any questions besides whether Chloe is gonna marry her brother’s gay boyfriend on the afternoon soap opera, or whether Tom Hank’s and his wife/husband really has that virus that I guess comes from kissing goats, and I don’t mean on the mouth, or whether your favorite sports guy will manage to survive with a ten million or twenty million dollar raise because it will keep him quiet and he won’t tell the world that all pro sports are rigged before any season ever begins, well, Paulie says to those who care not about truth, you who think all dogs go to heaven, you couldn’t describe that farcical place if your lives depended on it, you have no knowledge of truth and you never will, the only advice Paulie can give to most of you is tighten up that mask and tighten up your rectum because you got some shit comin’ you won’t like, and no, that was not the fourth rectum joke in the series of rectum jokes leading up to our Summer Rectum Joke Extravaganza, well, Paulie had a funny story to tell you about the near sighted camper who thought he had a chipmunk in his fry pan but it turned out to be something else entirely, but Paulie isn’t in the mood anymore, he is disgusted with the human race, you all got flat tires and blown engines, this is Paulie, shalom…

May 15, 2020 Diary entry: Hello, I’m not Paulie, I’m Jake, Big Jake Fowler, I’m a salesman, a chicken salesman, a chicken salesman for one of the big firms, I’m in town hawking chickens, after my big sale I’ll be moving on, always looking over my shoulder, you see, I broke out of a medical van and escaped custody, they were trying to pin a bogus rap on me for contacting a serious felon I guess who they had detained and were isolating from the public, he was some sort of public enemy and it was my misfortune to be seen shaking hands with him after a chicken sale, I’ve been on the run for some time now, laying low, taking on new identities, changing my name, taking on menial or fake jobs just to survive and not be recognized, it is impossible to form any sort of relationship when you are always on the run, I did meet an exceptional lady on the fly, she was an airline stewardess and I was Dan, Dan Carter, an architect for one of the big firms, I was in town to peddle a multi million dollar skyscraper I had designed, the whole cityscape would be transformed, anyway, we were dining in a little out-of-the-way Italian bistro when I was recognized by a waiter and I had to slip out the door to the alley, the waiter had made a call to the authorities when he said he was going for another bottle of Chianti, I ended up in a neighboring town as Big Mike Hadley, a rodeo rider, I rode in the big rodeos out of Texas and Oklahoma before I was thrown by a bull and sustained injuries that prevent me from competing today, I was working as a merry-go-round operator and tended the painted horses until a lady recognized me from a picture in the town paper, I had to dismount that job in a hurry and move on, I hitch-hiked my way down south and landed a job pruning peach trees, I was Andy Hatfield, a mild-mannered drifter who had worked as a pruner for one of the bigger firms up north until the layoffs hit and I was forced to relocate, well, an extension agent for the government who was out doing inspections recognized me and I had to go on the run again, I ended up farther south, down on the peninsula as Big Jack Hemingway, I got a job as a bait cutter on one of the big excursion boats that take seniors out on the water after jack mackerel and the occasional skip jack tuna, anyway, once again I had to go on the run, this time I headed east, all the way to St. Louis, I began panhandling down by one of the big railway yards in East St. Louis, I was Bob, Bob Walker, and I had ridden the rails with the best, back before Reagan’s austerity programs and his rant against rail riders, I was one of the big men in the FTRA, Freight Train Riders Association, or more formally known as F__k The Reagan Administration, well, a fellow panhandler recognized me and tried to turn me in for the reward and I had to move on, I landed somewhere in Kentucky, I was Big Mick McClanahan, a boisterous hard-drinking Irishman who had owned one of the bigger theme bars in Chicago, I lost the bar due to my drinking and a lawsuit from a customer who I threw out onto the loop during five o’clock rush hour, anyway, I tended this small Kentucky hick bar until one night when I threw a guy out of the bar and he landed in the Ohio River and was struck by a barge, I went on the run again, this time I was running from another lawsuit, and I would’ve been recognized in court anyway, at this moment I’m staying in a rooming house somewhere in western Pennsylvania, a kindly old lady runs the place and the meals are free, but at the supper table she keeps saying she thinks she knows me from somewhere, when you live on the run, there just never seems to be a moment’s comfort, well, this is Aleron Boucher, a French fashion designer who worked for one of the big firms until the unexpected layoffs hit the fashion industry, saying keep one step ahead of the bastards, and adieu mon frere and adieu mon soeur, and shalom…

May 15, 2020 Diary entry: Well hello, come on in, grab a seat and I’ll be with you in a moment, one thing, don’t ever tell the guy that runs the fruit stand down on Fremont Street to grab a seat, just a heads up; now, what did you want to see me about, you must have some kind of a problem or you wouldn’t be here, has life got you down, do your little problems ruin the fun you used to have, does your future look like a big potful of crap, is your whole life in the toilet, well, you have come to the right place, here, take this delightful little aperitif, sit back and relax, we’ll flush those old cares of yours away like they were frightened quail fleeing a hungry coyote, I’ll call a few of my staff in over the intercom to ask you a few simple questions and evaluate you, I’m sure we can tailor-fit a program that will suit your needs, we have a standard release form here for you to sign, don’t worry, it’s just a formality, we haven’t been sued in this state yet, I really think we can help you, we have an abundance of programs that we can try out on you, one of them will surely do some good, here is a list of testimonials from former sufferers like yourself, don’t be alarmed by the fact that most of them are institutionalized, they were down and outer’s before we even met them, now let’s get you scheduled for some in-depth interviews with our skilled counselors who will rattle some sense into your BB-filled head, they will shake your maraca head to a catchy south-of-the-border beat that will have you hummin’ in no time; as soon as you write out a check we can get started, I’ll head on down to the bank, then it’s my lunch time, these gentlemen will get you started on your new life while I soak up martinis until I’m soggy and the new lady bartender down at Joe’s has to dry me out because she’s an ex lifeguard who has some life-saving moves that you’ve never heard of, her name is Florita De Corales, and she just came up from Florida to our homey little Midwestern state to meet the man they call Paulie, well, tell all your loser friends to come visit us here, we may be able to turn them into winners if they aren’t too far gone, this is Paulie, shalom…