ah, finally you can poop.

Oh, hello, Dogs of War. Where have you guys been? It’s like I’ve just been talking to myself over here. Nah, sorry about the last few days. I had a bunch of late work nights in a row and a whole full slab of early mornings and the results have been that lots and lots of naps were needed in order for me to keep up my energy and maintain my title as “Most Kick Ass Dude of All Time (north america [not including Quebec])” and something had to give. So yeah, but I’m back now.

Anyway…

My neighbors to the immediate east of my place have crap all over their yard: plastic birds, sculptures, garbage, old signs etc. and the shit’s just haphazardly scattered everywhere. On any given morning, the paternal leader of the clan can be seen clad in his loose fitting yellow(ing) jockeys, sitting at the table in the yard, reading a paper or just chilling out with the big droopy-sacked basset hound that occupies the space between all the clutter (and howls like a drunken werewolf).

There are lots of people in this family, and when they get together, there’s lots of beer and big sloppy sandwiches and cursing and loud, raucous good times. The family features at least one fat woman in a sports bra and umbro style shorts, a few possible juggalos, a ton of potential juggalos (kids under ten), a classic car stuffed into their crammed garage, and various assorted ‘creepy uncle’ types; skinny with beer guts, in mesh hats, amber glasses and mustaches who all sit around and eat tuna salad and drink Hamms while waiting for the sheet cake to get cut during these get togethers, and of course, the wives, who are all, to the last, fat.

Now, lest you think I’m judging anyone, these people seem like they have an absolute blast when they all get together and I’d LOVE to be invited to one of their wacky backyard blasts. In fact, they seem like the happiest people on earth, except for one thing: their neighbors two houses down.

The neighbors two houses down are harder for me to see, so I don’t have as clear of a picture of who they are, but here’s what I know: they’re Mexican, and they too are all fat. There are somewhere in the neighborhood of sixty of them in that house and they often congregate in their garage, which is spotless and empty, save a television, some chairs and party streamers around the ceiling, where they watch whatever it is that they watch on television. They also seem like a good time, and they also love hosting big family get togethers, which also seem awesome.

These neighbors seem to dislike each other rather immensely. They are the two biggest clans on the block, they both party in the back (heyoo!) out by the alley, and on days like the fourth of july, their parties take on this crazy hatfields/mccoy’s thing that is pretty great to watch.

The young ones (juggalo age) tend to spill out into the alleys where they (both families) pull out various motorcycles and scooters and go carts and shit and zip around the alleys, glaring at the rival camp, while the old guys waddle out with their beers every now and then and just kind of assess shit. However, on fourth of july, this alleyway rivalry takes a positively awesome/wildly dangerous form when the two families compete head to head for dominance using the weapon of choice: illegal fireworks.

Now, I live in a crowded neighborhood and our alley butts up against the el tracks, and trains go by about every five to ten minutes. Various wires crisscross above the alley, bringing cable and phones and high speed pornography to all the thousands of people in all the buildings on my block. And amidst this, on sunday, I sat on my porch and watched these two families stand in two groups about twenty feet apart, around various huge, fat cardboard tubes, and blast off fireworks that would, quite seriously, be at home in a mid market town’s new years eve display, glaring at each other all the while. It was awesome.

The people next to me had the numbers. They shot off five huge blasting things for every one that the Mexican family shot off. But the Mexicans had the big, really, really impressive shit. It was a good old fashioned quality vs quantity battle and I think the Mexicans ultimately pulled it out due to the sheer massiveness and majesty of their bombs. As I looked around the city, which looked a little like a gay version of Baghdad with all it’s rainbow colored explosions and smoke everywhere, I was struck by the fact that these two sets of rival neighbors clearly had the biggest, most insane fireworks that weren’t legal in the whole city, and some of the ones the Mexicans had were comparable in size to the legal display down at the water.

Yeah, sure, there were a couple of misfires that resulted in all the neighborhood rooftops being showered in sparks, and at least two bombs blew up right there in the tubes, causing all families involved to scatter in panic, but overall, it was absolutely awesome. And the cops didn’t come at all. Goes to show, you can pretty much do whatever you want in this town as long as enough other crazy sumbitches are doing it too.

Anyway, it was a good holiday, but I’m back, at least for a while. I’m going around to visit all sorts of family in a week, so shit’s gonna remain sporadic for a while, but hey, I gots a new baby, man! Gimme a break.

Happy Thursday. Now get wiping!