Will you thumb through the pictures when I am gone?
Will my face, made careworn and tired, be restored in your mind’s eye? I cannot know what it was you ever saw in me. I cannot understand how you could know that when I said those things all people say to one another, almost without thinking, that I would really mean them. I said it and only half believed it myself, uttering such extravagant pledges of dubious value. Not for want of them being true. But I am unreliable.
There is nothing in this world but to love, and be loved in return. In a hundred years the most important man you ever met is anonymous. In a thousand everyone is. We cobbled together a life around the table where we break the bread, and for a few thousand times we were as one. I saw your face in our children’s faces. You said you saw mine. The universe passed the plate, and we put in our offering. We are poor, but it’s enough for anyone to give. No man could do more. No man could ask for more.
I remember when I was lying on the bed like a dead thing, and you came into the room and thought I was asleep. I wasn’t asleep; I was gone from sight, and sound, and lost in a fever. I lay there in a puddle of sweat and more; my very life coming out of every pore, leaving nothing but a husk where a man used to be.
The Sippican Clan hates Christmas in October. We don’t like going to the Walmart to look for warm gloves in late January only to find flip flops and bathing suits because winter clothes are two seasons ago in retail. But we must make adjustments for the wants and needs of the Intertunnel.
You didn’t know the Intertunnel has wants and needs? You must be new around here. The Interwebs is a bunny-boiling girlfriend on the side, and don’t you forget it: Well, what am I supposed to do? You won’t answer my spam, you change your URL. I mean, I’m not gonna be ignored, Dan!
There’s an arms race for attention on these here Intertunnels that makes Christmas sales held two weeks before Thanksgiving a mere bagatelle. If Unorganized Hancock doesn’t put out their jaw-dropping, magnificent Valentine’s Day 2015 wish to all their faithful supporters at least four days early, by Thursday BuzzFeed will be running Top 10 Places to Vomit on Saint Patrick’s Day listicles, and the kids will be ignored.
So accept this heartfelt token of unorganized affection from my Heir and my Spare. Tell a friend, paste it onto your webpage, slam into your Facefriends account, or mash it into your Jitter feed. We can make this the official Valentine’s Day 2015 wish of the Intertunnel if everyone taps their Crocs together three times and makes a wish.
[Update: Many thanks to the relentlessly pleasant Kathleen M. in the Nutmeg State for her generous support for the boys via our TipJar. It is much appreciated]
[Additional Update: Many thanks to longtime friend and supporter of Unorganized Hancock Dave R. from California for his generous donation to the boys’ TipJar. It’s greatly appreciated]
Well, it’s snowing. Luckily for us, it’s only snowed once this year. Snowing continuously from January 2nd until tonight is still just once, right? It should stop before noon on Father’s Day so we can have a barbecue, so it’s no biggie, really.
It’s hard to while away the hours between chipping the ice off the seat in the privy in the morning and putting the cat out at night for the seven seconds of outdoor time he requires daily. In between, we like to peruse the Rumford Meteor for all the week’s events up here in the Pine Street State. Er, I meant Pine Tree State. It’s nice to sit by the stove and feed in the pellets while munching on the ones that get stuck in the auger. They’re like miniature pretzel rods. Anyhoo, here’s the best headlines from the Meteor, so you can learn why the slogan on Maine’s highway sign used to read The Way Life Should Be, before all the shotgun blasts from passing hunters turned it into “The Waif hole” with an interesting kerning structure.
To my eye, the writers of the stories on the Meteor have done a fair job of gussying up the news so it won’t hurt any feelings — like telling a man that his wife is purdy and his kids are smart, even though his wife was thrown out of the roller derby for leaving grooves in the hardwood floor, and his kids lick the bus windows on the way to the learning center, which is what I gather they call school if the kids consume more crayons than reading material. After all that work by the staff, the headline writer goes and ruins the effect by blurting out the truth like a frostback Forrest Gump or something. That’s a hamfisted way to run a paper, but it’s all we got until the dogsled brings the serum and last year’s Globe to replenish the privy nail. Enjoy!
Brian Williams Taking Time Off to Look for the Blue Max NATO Gave Him for Shooting Down Bin Laden
Last Four Copies of the Magna Carta Displayed to the Last Four People in London Not Named Patel
Tom Brady Casually Mentions To Roger Goodell That There’s Always the Same Amount of Air in the Goddamned Trophy
Maine to Receive Yet Another Foot of Snow. Meteorologists Wonder How This Might Affect New York City
Portland Cited Among Top Cities for Gay Traveling. Critics Say They Should Be Required to Dribble the Ball Every Two Steps Just Like Everyone Else
Authorities Rush to Scene of School Bus and Log Truck Crash to Make Sure All the Apple Laptops Are OK
Lincoln County Historical Association Trying To Figure Out Where To Display A Signed Devo Concert Poster
April Is Sexual Assault Awareness Month. If You’re Unaware You’re Being Sexually Assaulted, Maybe You Should Lose Some Weight
Hollywood Casino Revenue Dips When A Guy Pays His Rent Instead
College Starts Sustainable Agriculture Farm On The Site Of A Sustainable Organic Dairy Farm That Went Out Of Business
My two sons, AKA Unorganized Hancock, are working on all sorts of new things. Wonderful things. The Heir finished a recording two days ago, and I made him play it for me ten straight times. Then I made him play it for me ten straight times, ten straight times. There’s no video to go with it just now, so they can’t put it on the Unorganized Hancock page yet.
I collect different sets of viewers here on this blog. People rinse me out of their hair from time to time. I speak disparagingly of their iPhone, or the TV they keep over their fireplace, or the powder blue and cocoa brown color scheme in their kitchen, and they don’t understand that I mean nothing by it. People give me a rest for a spell, and then return when they figured I’ve had enough time to simmer down and have started insulting an entirely different set of people. Either that, or they’ve painted over either the cocoa brown or the powder blue by then.
For that reason, many people only know Unorganized Hancock from their recent videos, like More, or Take Five. The video that serves as a Epiphone Wildkat Guitar Review, Minor Swing, has passed all their other videos, as I expected it would. Strangers seem to like Unorganized Hancock videos better than my friends do for some reason, present company excepted. I don’t know why that is. But true strangers see videos like Minor Swing and their jaw drops a bit, even though it’s a so-so take.
It’s profoundly dangerous to look at YouTube comments. They’re the modern version of Medusa. But Osgoode left this comment on the Minor Swing video last night:
Phenomenal. Absolutely phenomenal – considering some of the material on here, this should be 4,00703.00 views. Unorganized Hancok. I’ll remember that name.
Amen, brother. I absolutely adore the fact that he pledged to remember their name, and spelled it wrong right out of the gate. That’s the Internet, in all its majesty. It’s like driving a Formula One car with a tiller.
The kids have been making videos for about three years now. I thought they were always good, and they’ve certainly gotten much better, but they were recorded in such a rudimentary fashion that the viewer had to perform mental arithmetic to figure out how good they were. The Internet is being professionalized, and you’re not allowed to make viewers do sums anymore. It occurred to me that new readers might not have seen where the whole schtick came from.
Way back when, reader Dave demanded that the kids play a form of Stump the Band, and offered them money if they would do it. He was as good as his word, and many people have followed his lead and supported the kids via our TipJar over in the right hand column, for which we are very grateful. Unorganized Hancock performs using equipment purchased by my readers. They wouldn’t be able to perform at all, otherwise. It’s really as simple as that. In a large way, you’ve all had as much to do with whatever they’ve been able to accomplish as I have.We got away from true Stump the Band, because there was always a hint of hostage video in the kids eyes while I was recording them. I didn’t want anything to be forced. The Spare Heir is still only eleven, and he was only eight years old in some of the earliest videos we made of him playing the drums.
But that wasn’t truly the birth of Unorganized Hancock. With apologies to my wife and her lady parts, two-and-a-half years ago, this was the birth of Unorganized Hancock:
[Note: Many thanks to Jeffrey H. from Alabama for supporting the kids via the Tipjar]
[Update: Many thanks to Ray Vee from South Cee for his generous hit on the TipJar. It is much appreciated]
Month: February 2015
sippicancottage
A Man Who Has Nothing In Particular To Recommend Him Discusses All Sorts of Subjects at Random as Though He Knew Everything.
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