Diary entry; Hi, it’s Paulie, writing to you from the Corn Belt, yeah, I’m in a little town out here in corn country, Farmington, Farmington is easily found, we are at the end of the gravel road, you can’t miss us, Saturday nights are our big nights, I take the wife dancing every Saturday night down to the Corn Belt Bar and Grill, it’s always poppin’ down at the Corn Belt, you get in free if you wear a corn belt, you know, a beaded belt like the Indians made except we use corn, we bead our belts with corn kernels and show off our handiwork on weekends and special occasions, wearing a corn belt can sometimes cause trouble though down at the Bar and Grill during the Hootenanny Hopscotch segment of the night’s entertainment, if a guy wears a corn belt, things can happen, when a guy gets a wild chipmunk in his pants and a lady screams, well, there’s always a fight and the Corn Belt closes up, we never know when closing time is gonna be anymore, maybe there is some truth to what the out of towners say, that corn liquor, corn belts, and corn pone people don’t mix, well, Paulie’s pickup truck tires are throwing a bit of parking lot gravel as he pulls out onto the road, this is Paulie, rolling his window down and shouting out loud into the night, if you can’t say something positive, then can it, oh, and prepare, shalom…

Diary entry: Hey, Paulie here with a little heads up, don’t drink that last drink, no, it is the last drink that gets you in trouble, the last drink is the bad one, please allow Paulie to explain to the less than illuminated ones of you out there, it is always the last drink that kicks you, makes you do something that people will bitch about to you the next day, whether it is not kissing your wife’s best friend bride at her wedding reception after the toast, but instead kissing her during the ceremony, when the religious guy in the strange caftan says kiss the bride, yeah, this is real life my friend, Paulie has seen it all and he wants you to see it too, there are things in this world that we cannot see, but Paulie’s words are here for you, please, do one thing for yourself, just one lousy thing that can change your very existence, your very mind, and quite possibly, your very soul, yes, gaze upon Paulie’s words, see Paulie, view Paulie, we here at “Paulie Gee’s Realtime Diary” are here, we are available, we are gentle and humane, we desire to fix you of your old broken down ideas, we want to repair your cracked and weathered brain, we only want to caulk around your leaky skull where strange and stupid ideas are leaking in, allow Paulie and his staff to plug up your stupid head which is hanging open and allowing every form of bullshit to seep in, you have become what we brain plumbers refer to as a “shit head”, now listen up, we have tools to fix you, but you must want to be fixed, we will not waste our valuable plumbing time sealing up cracks while more cracks become opened, no, if your boat is dry rotted, then we cannot, nor will we, help you, you are gone, your destination is the bottom of the sea…

Diary entry: Please allow Paulie to rethink, it is quite possible that Paulie has been walking the trail backwards, yes, the reason Paulie believed he was not lost is because he was walking backwards to where he had already been, Paulie evidently, was not on the path forward, the true path forward that leads back in time to the truth, the only truth, the plain, easily understood truth, the truth at the beginning, well, Paulie has turned himself around and he is now going in some direction or another, Paulie no longer watches the compass, as the compass was made by man, Paulie needs no compass, he is on the path home, and Paulie doesn’t care where the sun rises or where it sets, the moon illuminates Paulie when he needs light, when the moon is absent, Paulie doesn’t need it… Diary entry: Paulie here, we have hired on another new young person who desires to write here at the “Diary”, a sassy, brash, and much outspoken rebellious spirit, who grew up in the depths of this depraved world, he has much to say to anyone who will listen, he reminds me of a young Paulie, when Paulie was still young, cute, quiet and shy, when the older ladies hugged him and told him that everything was gonna be alright, then gave him a stick of gum and blessed him, yeah, this new guy could be a real firecracker, hopefully not like the last few writers who were such firecrackers that they burned down carefully crafted relationships that had been cultivated for years, fine old well established relationships went up in smoke after a few anti-religious rantings on, well, we won’t go back into it, let’s just say that people love their religions and their religious beliefs, and these young writers haven’t yet learned to keep some of their thoughts quiet, now, some may ask “Why can’t an old rodeo rider like Paulie keep his broncos in line”, well, please allow Paulie to say that he has gotten older and slowed down some, he can’t chase down these younger writers as he once could, no, this new breed doesn’t seem to be tamable, they write as they see it, yes, the writing world has changed my friend, we are no longer reading fairy tales, no, today it’s all about “Paulie Gee’s Realtime Diary”, leave your fairy Candy Land shit behind, climb into your Cotton Candy Car, pull it out of your Fudge Paved Candy Ass Driveway, wipe the chocolate pudding from your eyes, and head over here, to “Paulie Gee’s Realtime Diary”, we have things to tell you, we have things to say…

Diary entry: There are dirty and murderous coyote’s here on the plains who intend on entering Paulie’s town, they will eat up the town, eat right through the gristle, then, wipe their dirty lips on the pretty skirts of Paulie’s fair city, well, Paulie is here to teach manners, when these cads are done with their meal, Paulie is gonna scrub the pots and pans with their heads, Paulie is teaching a class on table manners, anyone in the class that fails will receive a manner of punishment you don’t want, you will all receive cooking thermometers and your assignment will be to measure the temperature in hell… Diary entry: Yeah, they come in like flies, they swarm in and they land on Paulie’s sweet apple pie city, they lick on it with dirty lips, well, Paulie is the fly swatter and he is gonna flap, flap in ways never seen, Paulie says to the diseased and rotten vermin of the city, “Fly or die”, yes, shoo you bastards, or face Paulie’s never ending vengeance… Diary entry: Paulie had some great new “Diary” entries to make, cutting edge, never heard of before stuff, stuff that would have made your old Grandma jump out of her wheel chair, shake her fists, and scream curse words to the very heavens, but a snag came up, yes, Paulie has shelved tomorrow’s “Diary” entries, they will not go out to the world, what happened was, Paulie’s peer group says that Paulie is way off base and that if he doesn’t cut his lead, somebody is gonna “pick Paulie off”, it is distressing that Paulie’s peer group would say such things as most of Paulie’s peer group has been incarcerated in either prison or the seventh floor of the old hospital, anyway, Paulie has listened and there will be nothing but more mainstream ideas and beliefs here in the near future, yes, Paulie will stay close to the bag but he is always ready to run… Diary entry: “Leaky gut” syndrome, is that where you have to change your underwear, I may have it, anyway, following a guy in a car when a guy in a car is following him, and you’re trying to follow both, is not as easy as it sounds, especially when you suspect you’re being followed… Diary entry: Well, as the rain subsides and the sky begins to open, Paulie is heading out to gaze up at the stars in the heavens to sit and wonder, this is Paulie out at the limit of the city, wishing you shalom…

Diary entry: I was in my office assessing the realities of my professional situation and I must say, after considerable amounts of thought and meditation, I’ve concluded my prospects aren’t very good, so I laid back with a good pipe and a large vodka martini, I like to say martini because it sounds better than slugs out of a bottle, but I knew I needed a more basic form of meditation, the old fashioned kind, you know, kill the pain and anything else that gets in the way, so, as the office became dim with the vodka and the smoke, my mind seemed to open up, I became tuned to a different frequency, a clearer, more perfect dimension, in the smoke I could see an image, I saw my old friend Lysander, Lysander was a kid from way down the block, I had once tried to drown him in the crick that ran through the neighborhood, I don’t remember why, but I took pity on him and I guess he was appreciative of the fact that I didn’t kill him, so we became somewhat like friends, I haven’t seen Lysander in years, except for seeing him in the smoke, and then the ceiling began to descend on me like a giant hydraulic press, I began to feel small all over, like a compressed version of the real me, my breath was weak, I was weak, my professional possibilities are weak, I fell into kind of a sleep, a haze sleep, hazy but very real, if haze sleep is a real thing then that’s what it was, that’s where I was, I should return to school, no, my education was the reason I was in this mess, I had been taught worthless things that had brought me to this worthless condition, I needed a new pipe and a new vodka, I was determined to figure this thing out if it took all night, I began meditating again, then Goober my cat started scratching his anus on the leg of the settee, he needs his anal medication reapplied, that damn cat is worthless, if any of the mice around here had anal infections, at least I’d know the stupid cat was good for something… Diary entry: “Get out of my yard you goddamned little whippersnappers you, I’ll cut your fuckin’ ears off”, yeah, I remember the guy who lived next door, Bud, he worked at the brewery, we could never tell if he was drunk or not, he was like a funnel cloud, when he came at you, you couldn’t tell whether he was rotating clockwise or counter clockwise, you just knew he was turning and you ran away from him at a ninety degree angle…

Diary entry: Paulie no longer attends church, he sees it as the fraud it is, actually, Paulie was asked to never return, as Paulie left his empty beer cans under the pew and the ushers complained, hey, the ushers at the movies never kicked Paulie out, Paulie always left his empties under the seat, the movies are more entertaining anyway, I never cared for our pastor because he was boring and he wore a dress thing… Our pastor was a weasel anyway, every time he came to Sunday dinner at our house, he bogarted the chicken breasts and I had to eat wings or necks… Diary entry: We no longer discuss religion or politics here at the “Diary”, this one slipped by us, one of our new, young writers wasn’t told about our policy before he wrote the last entry, and our copy editor is no longer on parole, something about hanging with the wrong crowd, anyway, much damage has been done to the “Diary” in the past, we have had bouts of upheaval over the years when the staff would choose sides when there were political arguments, religious fights, and arguments over whether the Skipper or Gilligan was stupider, during the religious war of 2018, our Labor Day watermelons all ended up on the roof and someone pee’d in the coffee pot, we have lost entire families here at the “Diary” because of turmoil over ideals and beliefs, so we no longer have any ideals and we don’t believe anything anymore… Diary entry: “Doctors without borders”, who cares, Paulie never had borders, not in his life, people have been asking Paulie for years “Don’t you have any borders”, well, I hear the dogs barking outside, they want in, Goober my cat is meowing to go out, so this is Paulie, staying somewhere in between, saying to anyone who will listen, read Paulie, love Paulie, feel Paulie while he can be felt, as he is like the spring air, the summer breeze, the howling winter wind, yes, feel Paulie now, while he can be felt, as tomorrow he will be gone and forgotten… Diary entry: Mr. Kim’s boat was sinking lower into the sea, the boat hung lower, the sea waves grew higher, the only light was the fading dimness of the compass and the compass pointed to nowhere, would I never see Santa Carmelita again, would I never taste the sweet music, the cool mescal, the soft rays of moonlight, would I never again taste the acerbic, sour tongues of frustrated senoritas on the plaza, was this it, was this it for me, damn Mr. Kim, damn the thing that ever brought us together…

Diary entry: I was just coming to, my head hurt, I didn’t know where I was, I heard distant bells, like ship bells, was I lying under the docks at Shing Dong harbor again or was I imagining the whole thing, no, this time it was real, real like an ex wife’s alimony payment, I wasn’t gonna wake up out of this one, put my slippers on and go to the bathroom, no, I was really here this time, I knew I would have to move and move fast, I couldn’t move, my legs felt like lead, I knew I wouldn’t be moving fast, not for a while anyway, Shing Dong was a dirty harbor town, far to the north, up where decent people never go, where the dregs of society all meet to plan whatever it is they plan, where dirty drunken men sing sea songs and stumble down darkened alleyways, yes, this town was dirty, dirty with street peddlers, wayward men, and some kind of animal instinct for blood, yes, and murder, murder of an extraordinary kind, a murder unlike any I’ve ever seen, the first of it’s kind I have ever written about, and this murder would, in all probability, remain unsolved… Diary entry: C’mon man, why would anyone have a baby and call their son “Dick”, I mean what’s the conversation anyway, the lady says”Aw, he looks like a dick to me”, and the guy says, “Well then, dick it is”, I just don’t get it, anyway, Dick isn’t such a bad name, there was some guy in the neighborhood whose name was Penis and we hated his guts… Diary entry: We were two hundred miles off the coast, due west of Santa Carmelita, the sea was boiling, boiling like a cauldron with the lid on, we were taking on water, the engine was out, this was looking like the last pickle, the big one, the big pickle, the one that bites you when you don’t expect it, flyin’ high, then splat, right smack into a boiling ocean, this is not how I wanted it to be, no, I didn’t want to go out like this, no, I had plans, big plans, why did I ever listen to Mr. Kim anyway, Mr. Kim’s Bird Nest Diner and Opium Den was the finest establishment in all Shing Dong, out on the edge of town, away from the rotten core of putrifying humanity that the town was known for, Kim had a deal for me, a business proposition, I had made my last deal with Kim and Kim knew it but Kim was persuasive, shrewd, savvy, he knew every angle, he used every advantage, when Kim got drunk he would continually say “My lever is long and stout”, “My lever is long and stout”, over and over, in that high pitched squeaky Oriental voice, the whole prefecture knew Kim, Kim was a barrel of gasoline and no one was about to cause a spark, Mr. Kim had killed a man and everyone knew it but nothing was ever said, people don’t even whisper about it, that’s how powerful and persuasive Kim is, I wish I’d never met him, never worked for him, never taken his money, but here I was, sinking into the ocean along with Kim’s boat, I could spit on Kim’s ancestor’s graves, I despised Kim, his power. his money, his black onyx eyes that glared through torn eyelids, eyes that could penetrate steel…

Diary entry: They called us desperado’s, we called ourselves rebels, we would live free or we would die free, we had jumped ship, we mutinied the wicked slave ship of conformity on which we had been shanghaied before we could even spell the word, we swam ocean currents that would drown the average guy, we fought the harsh sun, the raging sea water that lapped at our nostrils, we fended off sharks of every kind, we kept on, we persevered, we kept our goal forever in our sight, we made it to a faraway deserted island, an island totally devoid of the common scum of the earth, an island wilderness which offers peace and security, Canvas City, Canvas was a distant memory, Canvas City was a Midwestern town full of stockyards of cattle and stock people, we couldn’t distinguish between the cattle and the inhabitants of the growing town, we were young and growing also but we vowed we would never grow into cattle people, people who were not men, but simply animals conformed into some figurative men, yes, they were men only in the figurative sense, we escaped that dusty, dirty cattle town, Canvas City, to go west, west where the country was open and men could live and breathe free… Diary entry: Oh geez, where did it all go wrong, so terribly wrong, it’s just all so wrong, how did things deteriorate so fast, so far, Paulie just can’t go on anymore, there is a time for everything and it is time for Paulie to give up, there is no future, there is nothing, there is nothing nowhere, Paulie has no home, they say “home is where the heart is”, Paulie’s home doesn’t seem to be in this earth, as his heart is not here, it seems the time has come for Paulie to close up the “Diary” and move on down the trail… Diary entry: It was the year 2019, a dark summer night, danger was everywhere, lurking, yes, lurking like a kid lurks around Grandma’s cookie jar, fear was everywhere in the air, it was palpable, when out of the blackness emerged a young “Diary” maker, young and handsome, with a swagger-like attitude and a stare like twin lasers, a cutting no-nonsense look, a look men could not return, a look women could not look away from, yes, Paulie will not quit the “Diary”, Paulie will carry on, he will persevere, he will once again regale, inform, insult, and piss off people everywhere, yes, Paulie is here to stay… Diary entry: Now Paulie’s purpose is to softly and gently lure birds out of their prison cages to freedom, freedom is not at all comfortable or inviting to imprisoned slave birds, Paulie knows… Yes, Paulie is so tired, Paulie still walks for now, he is still on the path but it is so hard for Paulie, Paulie falters constantly, fun was fun while it was fun but it is no longer fun…

Diary entry: We were on our way up Mule Foot Mountain, our feet were tired, we were wearing down, we needed to reach the peak before sunup, Mule Foot had tripped up many climbers over the years and it was really kicking us, but we were tenacious, we would not give up, we would break Mule Foot if there were any possible way, yes, we would break Mule Foot, we would hobble this mountain like a starving man hobbles down hot dogs at the carnival eating contest, where the prize is a year’s supply of pork sausages, yeah, it was late 1968, we had all become disillusioned with the corrupt world we had grown up in, we had left the rotten, corrupted, stinking bowels of the city, Big Timber, a town without any mercy whatsoever, for a young group of boys who saw the world a bit differently than the common rabble, we would not be rabble, we would be rebels, we would live and die as rebels, we spit on the common rabble, anyway, Mule Foot was kicking up a storm, the wind howled like the wife after a late night poker game, the sky bellowed out curse words like Grandpa stubbing his toe on the rusted fender you drug home from the junkyard, the rain began hitting us like a whole town of dumb asses hit up the only smart guy for advice on how to not be such dumb asses, yeah, the night had begun erupting in some slow, devious dance of dark demonic activity that makes you wish you were back home, wherever home is, or was, yeah, we were in it and there was no way out in this dispensation of time, no, we were here, we were on Mule Foot…

Diary entry: Ha uunk, ha uunk, excuse me, Paulie has a fish bone caught in his throat, yes, Paulie caught a fish on his wilderness excursion last week, not sure what kind of fish it is, but it was edible, I guess it was, Paulie ate it, anyway, please excuse Paulie while he drinks some lemon juice in a large martini… Diary entry: Paulie received a very shocking letter today in the mail, the government says they have no record that any Paulie ever existed, he is not in their files anywhere, according to the government, there is no Paulie, and hence, no record of Paulie means no Paulie, so where does this leave Paulie, well, if Paulie no longer exists, then he doesn’t have to go to the in-laws’ yearly reunion which is always a disaster that ends in a brawl and the cops come out and arrest several uncles for God knows what, the feeling of being completely anonymous is intoxicating, when people sneer at me on the street from now on, I can shout at them “Your sneer missed me, I’m invisible”, “Here’s an invisible hand gesture”… Diary entry: Please allow Paulie to be clear about the previous “Diary” entry, the hand gesture Paulie referred to is not the one you are probably thinking of, no, this particular gesture was taught to Paulie many years ago out on the plains by a wise old man, we were encamped this side of the Rockies, it was late summer, early fall, there were only two of us that used the gesture whenever the prairie dogs got into the tent, yeah, prairie dogs in the tent means an empty corn chip bag and an empty corn chip bag means no breakfast, Paulie is the only person alive who knows the meaning of this particular gesture, the old man is dead and Paulie is not talking…