Comfy Chair

Comfy Chair ©

By Michael Casey

I got a new chair the other day, from Groupon, I had tried them for toilet paper as you know, so I thought I’d then try them for the same part of my anatomy, so I got a chair from Groupon. I was sitting in it tonight watching Pete’s Dragon and letting a tear loose. Yes I can cry easily, and yes my film tastes are very catholic, yesterday it was American Ultra which was very violent with blood and gore but a good film to watch. As you know earlier in the day I wrote about All Souls Day, today, so I suppose the reservoir of love about family and hope swelled and dripped from my eyes when I watched Pete’s Dragon. Or maybe I’m just a big baby.

My new chair from Groupon is chunky and big enough for my fat backside, and as I watched Pete’s Dragon I had a memory, when I went to the cinema in Killorglin in 1977 or 1978 around Christmas time and you had to pay extra for the jumbo seats which were more comfy.  The new chair reminded me of that, memories of County Kerry swelling up in me because my fat backside was reminded of a sweet memory from 40 years ago. I’m struggling to remember the film I saw it may have been a Star Wars one. It goes to show comfort is everything.

The Gaumont Cinema Birmingham had really comfy seats too and I remember seeing a Star Wars film there, as well as an Alien film on my birthday, I seem to remember going with my brother. The screen was a wrap-around one which was the biggest in Europe.  Remember this was before multiplexes were even thought of. If you the fast forward decades later it was demolished and an X or W shaped building was built by the Weslian insurance who owned the land. Originally they had a little building right next to the cinema. In that building they had half and the other half was occupied by Pinsent Masons Law firm. Pinsents is obviously the best Law  firm, and I’m not saying that because they employed me for 3 years.

So as I sit on my new chair all these memories coming back and I’m sharing them with you.  A chair is a functional thing but it does bring happiness and rest. My dad would sit in his armchair once he came home from Hell, by which I mean 10 hours and more at a steel works, The District Iron and Steel in Brasshouse  Lane in Smethwick, it was sometimes known as Brockhouse. My dad really was a blacksmith  in Kerry and then sweated for 40 years in a steelworks in England. I’m not  just lying to you,  as a  good writer does for a living, my dad really was a blacksmith, and yes I am a Wordsmith.

My mother had a favourite chair it was an old barn chair, so when the back broke we sawed off the back and she continued to use it. It was good to sit at while she peeled the potatoes into the sink. Or to sit in the yard with when we got a sunny day. Dad invested in a cheap tubular steel folding lounger. I can remember Coffee our red setter like dog licking his toes as the sun shone. As for the wooden chair mum used it to stand on and wash the outside windows. When I moved house over 30 years ago I stole that chair, and my mum nagged me for years to bring it back. Its upstairs right now in the box room, in fact it could be 60 years old.

So you can see just how important a humble chair can be. I always wanted a rocking chair and when I set up home I got my heart’s desire. In fact it was a very nice armchair on rockers. I got a suite from Lewis’s in Birmingham, which is now a Court Building, for 1000 pounds, which was a lot of money over 30 years ago. A 3, 2,1 plus a rocker suite in the sale, I can remember dashing to the bank to get the money, or rather the deposit, 10 payments of 100 over 10 months. Then I broke a tooth as we ate our dinner, it was over the August Bank Holiday, and my aunty Hanna used to work in Lewis’s too.

Now a rocker is fun and you enjoy the rhythm, and rhythm is a good thing in music and sex. My daughter may or may not have been conceived years later in that rocking chair. Try it for yourself, rocking chairs are great, though I don’t know if Groupon has any at the moment. Once the children are born you watch as your child is held at the nipple and is fed by your wife. Now you are a family. Though a boyfriend at the nipple can also lead to a baby at the nipple, it depends how much rocking you do in your rocking chair, no matter where you buy it.

Children grow and they steal your rocking chair, so you have to share it, and finally you are ejected from your own chair. Meanwhile your wife just laughs at you, a rocking chair is now a form of contraception, because you won’t catch her in the rocker because the children are using it as a toy, and no longer will the rocker be your joy.

Old age comes along, or infirmity as it seems to be, so you just gently rock in your chair, with just your carer there. You are old and fat with no hair, so the carer puts you to bed. Then her boyfriend sneaks in and they rediscover  the uses of an old and battered  rocking armchair. And in 9 months’ time the boyfriend won’t have her nipples but their new born will, she mixed up your heart pills with her contraceptive pills. So at least you weren’t a pregnant man at 80, but she had the heart to take all the rocking in the rocking chair.

So goodnight to you all reading this, enjoy your Bliss, in a bed, in a car, in field or in a rocking chair, just be happy before the nappy.

p.s. today is the feast of saint martin de porres 3rd Nov

a neighbour longed for a daughter after having 3 sons, my mum said pray to saint Martin, the neighbour had a daughter, she is called Martina

All Souls Day 2nd November

All Souls Day 2^nd November ©

By Michael Casey

Well my back is on the mend so I’ve got a new story for you. As its 2^nd Nov 2017 and its All Souls Day I thought I’d write about that. We have 3 Saints’ Days back to back.  Halloween, which is all Hallowed Eve, All Saints Day, All Souls day and then Saint Martin De Porres follows on 3^rd Nov. Yes I have a Religious calendar on the wall, because I get it free, though I am in much need of prayer what with all my aliments. Now shall I cut to the chase?

November is the month we remember the death, we even have a box on the altar where people slip in a list of their dead, so that we can remember them, yes  almost like a suggestion box for God. In the old days the priest would dress in black and say masses for the dead. All very traditional, and if I have any Jewish or Muslim readers I’m sure you all have your own traditions, equally worthy. The thing about funerals  is that it really is the BEST Mass, the story of Lazarus being already dead and smelly, and Jesus Wept too, such was his love of his friend. Then there is the ceremony, the waving of the metal orb full of incense, the showering of holy water, lots of carrying of candles, and then the final walk to the bottom of the church led by an altar boy, me, carrying a crucifix on a pole.   

As it is also a full Mass you still get holy communion so people have to squeeze past the coffin on their way up. Then you see people touch or even kiss the coffin. I have served lots of funeral masses and attended a few as a neighbour, so I know it really is the best Mass. I have even attended a funeral where there were only 5 or 6 mourners. My mother’s funeral had a full church to bursting and five priests on the altar. She was sometimes the sole mourner for an unloved soul. She would go to the graveyard just so somebody would be there, at the request of the Cannon. The corpse may have not been buried for six months then finally a simple funeral, but my mum was there for that lost soul. Then afterwards the undertaker would give her a lift home in the jump seat of the hearse. So you can see where the undertaker comes from in my novel The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker.

So why should we remember the dead, our dead, our loved ones? Because if we don’t then we are just machines, we are stones without souls. In November we remember the dead, because their Love carries on within us. You think of Tom who always bought you a pint when you were broke, of your CEO who said one day you’ll be the boss, and now you are, because he encouraged you, and badgered you till you shone like a diamond he knew you could be. You think of Mary your first love who died so tragically saving  your life instead of becoming your wife. You remember  Roger your Polish friend in Chicago whose name you could not pronounce, so he was Roger, he always smiled and encouraged you with your MIT idea. So you became a millionaire and he was head of security at your plant, you were friends for decades, and still you couldn’t pronounce his name.

By remembering the laughter , the fun and games goes on, you may even use a name as a password, RogDERSVaaapo49342, because it reminds you of a fallen buddy. Every time you log in it’s a prayer, just as you always buy an extra pint in the bar for Roger, then you give it to the old man in the corner. We remember because it is our link to the past, to those we love. So this All Souls Day, go to that bar in Chicago with your new Polish friend from Groupon and buy an extra  drink and  give it to that fat silver haired writer in shades from Birmingham. And if he’s not there, then give it to your CEO, and say cheers to all our pasts, and hello to all our futures.

Sentamentality in Life and in Films

Sentimentality in Life and in Films

October 28, 2017

Sentimentality in Life and in Films ©

By Michael Casey

I’ve just watched Hope Floats on the telly, an old Sandra Bullock film it was nice and sentimental and had some nice comic moments in it. Meanwhile this morning my daughter had to go back and collect the keys she had lost while out with an artist friend the day before. Thankfully the security crew had found them, and yes we gave her merry hell last night, as we would have had to change the locks on our doors. So we let her waste 2 hours this morning on 2 buses there and 2 buses back till she retrieved her keys. You don’t get a chauffeur from mum if you make such a stupid mistake.  I told my daughter yesterday that we’d laugh about it in the future, and it would become a treasured memory. Once the screaming finished there would be laughter.

Today dawned and a new day and a new life was born. My wife’s  boss’s wife gave birth to their first child today. So the lost keys gave way to the joy of life. The key to life is babies and family after all. No doubt in future the baby may be baptised.  I mention this because Paul the Vicar was talking to me yesterday and he said the narrowboat trip was cancelled, and that once he cycled into the canal in Birmingham. I smiled as I said it must have been a form of baptism for him. He replied it was the filthiest water he had ever been in. I thought  he’d not met some of the Souls I’d worked with  over my life.

We can be sentimental after the event, at the time in real time things can be  murder. I know from bitter experience how  the Wall, not the one  when you run a Marathon but the one in Life can be very hard or high, but afterwards the Relief is so great. Then you can sit around and laugh as you have a  beer or just a coffee and biscuits and think just how did you survive. Our police, nurses,  teachers, bus drivers, mothers and fathers all have memories that take them to the brink of disaster, mainly other people’s that they have to sort out, our live with. Then afterwards in bed as they talk through the day with their lover or partner, they realise how lucky they were to survive that day. Then they can laugh, even laugh till tears fall.

At a funeral we can say, I hated that bitch, but I loved her, she was terrible to me, but I’ll miss her so much, she lent me that money to start my business but refused to accept payback. She said pay for my funeral instead, that’s why we have 6 black horses, and a hall for 1000 people and a gospel band here at her funeral. Mom I really miss you, all the things you made me do, like always polish my shoes, like always but always shave. And I was just a mechanic, until she pushed me, I ended up with a Limo hire business, and I diversified into the funeral business as I liked the cars so much. That’s  why she said pay for her  funeral.

So life is hard but we are very sentimental about the smallest of things. Nobody dare throw out that old chair, cos uncle always used to sit on it, and he used to tell such outrageous stories, did he really have 27 children? Or was he a liar? The old ladies used to blush when they saw him, and lots of  boys and girls used to come and stuff  ten pound notes in  his top pocket, he was their dad and granddad and great-grandad. He must have has 1000 pounds in that pocket alone. Then when  the priest and the  rabbi and  imam can by he always slipped money into their hands asking for prayers for his soul.

WE are sentimental when we remember old stories and they can hit us like a bullet just when we least expect it, I told a story about how my uncle was visiting from Boston USA and he hadn’t told mum that he was coming so he came in the back door with her sister Hanna and Joe her husband. Then mum turned around to see her brother who she had not seen in years, so she dropped a bowl full of crockery smashing them. Remember then we did not have a phone, mobiles had not been invented and a twice yearly letter was what all you got. A simple ordinary story but when I told my daughter the other day I started to cry. Why? Because I remember the Family Love, my mum, my uncles and aunt and my dad. I have a snapshot of it in my mind, like I’ve said before, even if I don’t have Total Recall I am a vacuum. So emotion gets sucked up too.

All of you reading this all over the world, and especially in Poland have these great great family memories, so you can think of you own family and friends and remember the laughter and anger then laughter again as family life unfolds, and sometime vomits like a baby on the Page of Life. So swop stories as you have a meal today and say Michael Casey encouraged you to think of the Sentimental Times, the Laughter Times. See who has the funniest  story, the stupidest story. 

And when you are in bed with your wife you can share other stories, just use your imagination. Then the children will ask mum and  day why were you laughing so much in bed last night. You can tell them as Clare Moore once did, when her dad asked her why she was laughing so much in her bed room. Its Michael Casey he’s making me laugh, she was reading  my stories.

Sentamentality in Life

Sentimentality in Life and in Films

October 28, 2017

Sentimentality in Life and in Films ©

By Michael Casey

I’ve just watched Hope Floats on the telly, an old Sandra Bullock film it was nice and sentimental and had some nice comic moments in it. Meanwhile this morning my daughter had to go back and collect the keys she had lost while out with an artist friend the day before. Thankfully the security crew had found them, and yes we gave her merry hell last night, as we would have had to change the locks on our doors. So we let her waste 2 hours this morning on 2 buses there and 2 buses back till she retrieved her keys. You don’t get a chauffeur from mum if you make such a stupid mistake.  I told my daughter yesterday that we’d laugh about it in the future, and it would become a treasured memory. Once the screaming finished there would be laughter.

Today dawned and a new day and a new life was born. My wife’s  boss’s wife gave birth to their first child today. So the lost keys gave way to the joy of life. The key to life is babies and family after all. No doubt in future the baby may be baptised.  I mention this because Paul the Vicar was talking to me yesterday and he said the narrowboat trip was cancelled, and that once he cycled into the canal in Birmingham. I smiled as I said it must have been a form of baptism for him. He replied it was the filthiest water he had ever been in. I thought  he’d not met some of the Souls I’d worked with  over my life.

We can be sentimental after the event, at the time in real time things can be  murder. I know from bitter experience how  the Wall, not the one  when you run a Marathon but the one in Life can be very hard or high, but afterwards the Relief is so great. Then you can sit around and laugh as you have a  beer or just a coffee and biscuits and think just how did you survive. Our police, nurses,  teachers, bus drivers, mothers and fathers all have memories that take them to the brink of disaster, mainly other people’s that they have to sort out, our live with. Then afterwards in bed as they talk through the day with their lover or partner, they realise how lucky they were to survive that day. Then they can laugh, even laugh till tears fall.

At a funeral we can say, I hated that bitch, but I loved her, she was terrible to me, but I’ll miss her so much, she lent me that money to start my business but refused to accept payback. She said pay for my funeral instead, that’s why we have 6 black horses, and a hall for 1000 people and a gospel band here at her funeral. Mom I really miss you, all the things you made me do, like always polish my shoes, like always but always shave. And I was just a mechanic, until she pushed me, I ended up with a Limo hire business, and I diversified into the funeral business as I liked the cars so much. That’s  why she said pay for her  funeral.

So life is hard but we are very sentimental about the smallest of things. Nobody dare throw out that old chair, cos uncle always used to sit on it, and he used to tell such outrageous stories, did he really have 27 children? Or was he a liar? The old ladies used to blush when they saw him, and lots of  boys and girls used to come and stuff  ten pound notes in  his top pocket, he was their dad and granddad and great-grandad. He must have has 1000 pounds in that pocket alone. Then when  the priest and the  rabbi and  imam can by he always slipped money into their hands asking for prayers for his soul.

WE are sentimental when we remember old stories and they can hit us like a bullet just when we least expect it, I told a story about how my uncle was visiting from Boston USA and he hadn’t told mum that he was coming so he came in the back door with her sister Hanna and Joe her husband. Then mum turned around to see her brother who she had not seen in years, so she dropped a bowl full of crockery smashing them. Remember then we did not have a phone, mobiles had not been invented and a twice yearly letter was what all you got. A simple ordinary story but when I told my daughter the other day I started to cry. Why? Because I remember the Family Love, my mum, my uncles and aunt and my dad. I have a snapshot of it in my mind, like I’ve said before, even if I don’t have Total Recall I am a vacuum. So emotion gets sucked up too.

All of you reading this all over the world, and especially in Poland have these great great family memories, so you can think of you own family and friends and remember the laughter and anger then laughter again as family life unfolds, and sometime vomits like a baby on the Page of Life. So swop stories as you have a meal today and say Michael Casey encouraged you to think of the Sentimental Times, the Laughter Times. See who has the funniest  story, the stupidest story. 

And when you are in bed with your wife you can share other stories, just use your imagination. Then the children will ask mum and  day why were you laughing so much in bed last night. You can tell them as Clare Moore once did, when her dad asked her why she was laughing so much in her bed room. Its Michael Casey he’s making me laugh, she was reading  my stories.

Sentament

Sentimentality in Life and in Films

October 28, 2017

Sentimentality in Life and in Films ©

By Michael Casey

I’ve just watched Hope Floats on the telly, an old Sandra Bullock film it was nice and sentimental and had some nice comic moments in it. Meanwhile this morning my daughter had to go back and collect the keys she had lost while out with an artist friend the day before. Thankfully the security crew had found them, and yes we gave her merry hell last night, as we would have had to change the locks on our doors. So we let her waste 2 hours this morning on 2 buses there and 2 buses back till she retrieved her keys. You don’t get a chauffeur from mum if you make such a stupid mistake.  I told my daughter yesterday that we’d laugh about it in the future, and it would become a treasured memory. Once the screaming finished there would be laughter.

Today dawned and a new day and a new life was born. My wife’s  boss’s wife gave birth to their first child today. So the lost keys gave way to the joy of life. The key to life is babies and family after all. No doubt in future the baby may be baptised.  I mention this because Paul the Vicar was talking to me yesterday and he said the narrowboat trip was cancelled, and that once he cycled into the canal in Birmingham. I smiled as I said it must have been a form of baptism for him. He replied it was the filthiest water he had ever been in. I thought  he’d not met some of the Souls I’d worked with  over my life.

We can be sentimental after the event, at the time in real time things can be  murder. I know from bitter experience how  the Wall, not the one  when you run a Marathon but the one in Life can be very hard or high, but afterwards the Relief is so great. Then you can sit around and laugh as you have a  beer or just a coffee and biscuits and think just how did you survive. Our police, nurses,  teachers, bus drivers, mothers and fathers all have memories that take them to the brink of disaster, mainly other people’s that they have to sort out, our live with. Then afterwards in bed as they talk through the day with their lover or partner, they realise how lucky they were to survive that day. Then they can laugh, even laugh till tears fall.

At a funeral we can say, I hated that bitch, but I loved her, she was terrible to me, but I’ll miss her so much, she lent me that money to start my business but refused to accept payback. She said pay for my funeral instead, that’s why we have 6 black horses, and a hall for 1000 people and a gospel band here at her funeral. Mom I really miss you, all the things you made me do, like always polish my shoes, like always but always shave. And I was just a mechanic, until she pushed me, I ended up with a Limo hire business, and I diversified into the funeral business as I liked the cars so much. That’s  why she said pay for her  funeral.

So life is hard but we are very sentimental about the smallest of things. Nobody dare throw out that old chair, cos uncle always used to sit on it, and he used to tell such outrageous stories, did he really have 27 children? Or was he a liar? The old ladies used to blush when they saw him, and lots of  boys and girls used to come and stuff  ten pound notes in  his top pocket, he was their dad and granddad and great-grandad. He must have has 1000 pounds in that pocket alone. Then when  the priest and the  rabbi and  imam can by he always slipped money into their hands asking for prayers for his soul.

WE are sentimental when we remember old stories and they can hit us like a bullet just when we least expect it, I told a story about how my uncle was visiting from Boston USA and he hadn’t told mum that he was coming so he came in the back door with her sister Hanna and Joe her husband. Then mum turned around to see her brother who she had not seen in years, so she dropped a bowl full of crockery smashing them. Remember then we did not have a phone, mobiles had not been invented and a twice yearly letter was what all you got. A simple ordinary story but when I told my daughter the other day I started to cry. Why? Because I remember the Family Love, my mum, my uncles and aunt and my dad. I have a snapshot of it in my mind, like I’ve said before, even if I don’t have Total Recall I am a vacuum. So emotion gets sucked up too.

All of you reading this all over the world, and especially in Poland have these great great family memories, so you can think of you own family and friends and remember the laughter and anger then laughter again as family life unfolds, and sometime vomits like a baby on the Page of Life. So swop stories as you have a meal today and say Michael Casey encouraged you to think of the Sentimental Times, the Laughter Times. See who has the funniest  story, the stupidest story. 

And when you are in bed with your wife you can share other stories, just use your imagination. Then the children will ask mum and  day why were you laughing so much in bed last night. You can tell them as Clare Moore once did, when her dad asked her why she was laughing so much in her bed room. Its Michael Casey he’s making me laugh, she was reading  my stories.

Donald Trump's Opioid Crusade

Donald Trump’s Opioid Crusade©

By Michael Casey

To begin with, I should say I have NEVER taken illegal drugs.

I do take painkillers for my Arthritis

And pain killers for post op chest pain after my Quadruple Heart Bypass

Every 2 months I get a repeat prescription which I take to the Pharmacy and they dispense it.

Paracetamol which I take for pain can be bought over the counter everywhere too.

YOU should never take more than 8 tablets in 24 hours

So I keep a note on our microwave of what I take.

I also use Movelat for pain relief on my joints and no more than 4 times a day is the limit.

I follow these rules religiously.

It costs 8quid or so per item for 2 months supply.If you take lots of meds you can apply for a certificate which costs 110pounds a YEAR

THAT'S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN USA AND UK.

The most you will pay is the 110pounds is that 145dollars a Year?

If currency rates are taken into account

I was just talking to my local corner shop guy and he mentioned I was looking mobile tonight, so I reminded him that 30 mins previously I was  screaming in pain from my left shoulder until I slapped on the Movelat gel pain killer. I alos get pain when I lie down and try to sleep. My chest is so sensitive that if the bedsheets rub my left nipple I will scream. Then I may get the random pain in my left side,  skeletal muscular pain, which may make me scream at the top of my voice. Then my scars on my legs may throb and make my scream too. Yet to the average observer I'm just the fat siver haired guy in shades strolling around the high street. Though sometimes I walk with a pronounced limp. Then there is the stabbing pain above heart but not the actual heart, that too can come and go.

But I do now have great Blood Pressure readings thanks to my unplanned quadruple heart bypass nearly 3 years ago. The there is my CkD kidney disorder which means I wake every 2 hours in the night, and I visit the bathroom up to 20 times a day, thankfully I wake up in the night.

NOW THIS IS ME AND THIS IS MY LIFE.

That's why I enjoy the writing, because the writing shows the best of me. And that's why I wouldn't destroy my mind by indulging in substance abuse of any kind.

You have to carry on as best as you can, and there are millions of people with much more pain than me, in far far worse circumstances.

I am just the fat silver haired writer in shades from Birmingham England. I have written more than a million words. But I am also still the undiscovered writer.  The penniless writer, anybody can put a book on Amazon, and I would encourage you all to discover KDP, because the next Mark Twain might be out there. And you may be discovered, me I've been writing for 30 years now, on and off, with 20 years listening to Quality Speech Radio before that. So 50 years in the making, though I still am much more good looking that George Clooney, my spirit is willing but my flesh is weak.

So save your mind and just say NO to illegal drugs. A 1% tax on the big drugs companies in USA or even a 0.1% tax could fund drug rehab over there.  Or why don't they make the offer themselves to prove that they are for THE GOOD OF THE PEOPLE, doesn't it say We The People somewhere in the USA Constitution?

Fight your pain, don't just reach for your pills, I only ever take mine when pain strikes. Sometimes when I'm screaming in pain. Other times I get up in the middle of the night and put the computer on for an hour or two. Then when I'm so tired that I'm falling over, I go back to bed at 4am or 5am or 3am or whatever time it is. In a way its a sad life, but really it is not because, thanks to God I'm still alive and kicking and writing. If I can keep on writing I will always have Hope in my Heart, and as we all know Hope and Love moves Mountains.

If I could sing then I'd sing We Shall Overcome or anything else YOU can think of that makes YOU happy, or just play Barry White's Just The Way You Are, because God loves us Just the Way we Are.