Shades of respectability (tend to spoil everything)
Monday, January 23rd, 2006SARANAC LAKE, New York — Well I finally done did it. I landed me a writin’ gig. For a newspaper no less. Relocated on a week’s notice to the Adirondacks where I’m a staff writer for a small daily tucked up in ‘dem mountains, just shy of Quebec.
It’s a groovy area, and I’m liking it already. Had to buy a car right away, scored a rusting Honda from a prison guard who works at the local pen. It’s upstate NY, so corrections is one of the big industries up here.
On my way back from interviewing the county District Attorney, I got pulled over by the cops. Twice. First time, I didn’t have my temporary inspection sticker properly displayed. Second time I was trying to get the dang automatic tranny to shift into overdrive, so I gunned it past (one of the) prison(s) that dots the landscape here.
Trooper got me.
Perhaps the locals are right: Upstate is a police state. Oh well, they’ve all been courteous as hell. Probably ’cause they haven’t found this blog yet. But they will.
Dunno what I’m gonna do with this thing. It was “Dispatches from Elsewhere” not from podunk Adirondackville. And I ain’t elsewhere, anymore, I even got a PO BOX for chrissakes.
Pretty soon I’m gonna be a paycheck-cashin’, rent-payin’, wageslave, deskjockey like the majority of this depraved nation, and then what is there to write about? Lemme rephrase that. What is there to write about that won’t, er, compromise my standing in this fine community?
I’m a week deep into this new life and already, I could tell ya some stories. But I ain’t on the clock. So I won’t.
So watch this space, ’cause come springtime, things will be thawing, and those freights shall beckon once more.
Happy winter, everybody.
Jaco out (on hiatus)