BOOMER ,,,BLUES!!!!!

C.E.T.A.-COMPUTER ENCRYPTED TOPOGRAPHIC ANALYSIS
North Viginia

The vibes was tense,,,
Yeah, they was skin-poppin tense!!!
I drove up t’the gate.
Security all beefed up.
More idiots than trees standin round.
Men in uniform with guns cocked and loaded.
M16’s set on fullllllllllllllll-automatic,
dancin to'an fro in nervous little hands.
Set m'teeth on edge it did.

I drove on t’the base and parked in my spot.
Them Birds all chirp-chirpy like,
you know, summer and all.
I fumbled wi’da radio, had my coffee-black,
no sugar.
Got'sta clear dem cobwebs right?

Mornin news all a'twitter,
makin that background go jitter-jitter.
Dis’here be Fort Belvior.
That’s the truth though I waddn’t no military man.
No means no, and I mean never.
Don’t call me, I’ll call you…….
They wouldn’t take me nohow!!!
Shit, M’daddy gots a big old file with the FBI. Politics...
The boy sat hiself down sho’enough,
on d’wrong side d’track .
Me, I’s just a damn little criminal.
Yeah well,,, they aint too picky
bout who they callin these days.
No sir! Not when you can do,,,
what they needs getting done. Yeah,,,
Its all’bout da money iddint-it.

I´s a welder. Piping.
Coolant systems at the moment t’be more exact.
You know d’em big ones like you need
when you workin on the defence,,,
for the government.

Just imagine you shoved a whole lot'a IBM supercomputers into a bunch'a old+ugly concrete buildings, without no windows.

Then imagine you pop up da volume
and bust all’dem thermostats you got.
You know, with all’dat heat you just made. Yeah,,, that’s right.

That’s when you call in a bunch'a
sorry fucks like me t’fix yo problem.
Well,,, lets get back to that old news twitter-twitter, and that coffee-black, jitter-jitter.

“Damn,, what’dey say on the radio?”

“They just bombed old Kaddafi’s house?”

“Shit, they killed his poor little grand- daughter!”

“Oh fuck, there be holy hell t'pay for this!”

“Damn!", that’s why dey’so nervous round'here today”

“Ronald Reagan you fuckin-fool”

Well, I wuddn’t gonna light no spliff anyhow.
I’s gonna finish that old coffee-black
and go into work and do my job.

I worked for a real idiot. Southern Boy,
South Carolina.
He didn’t like them Yankees much. No sir’ee.
I’s from up north, you know, a damn Yankee.
Was another Yankee wid’us though.
State of Maine.
He’s an old-timer so the “Boss-Man”
did’n bother him much.

Also had some a’them good old boys,
from down’bye Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama.
He loved dem sho’enough.
Well, they had thier brown noses right up his ass anyhow.

Also had some boys from way out west.
Dammed state they came from
waddn’t even there back in the big war.
You know, civil war tween d'north
and south states.
Dat idiot boss a’ours,,,
he didn’t know what to make of dem boys.
Run hot and cold he did.
Some days he’d be all friendly.
Some days though, he’d treat’em no better
than he would a dammed Yankee.
Like me for example.

Yu’all probbly wondrin just what this place
be all'bout.
Me too! That’s why I asked dat question
up in that secure room, where all’da
new blood gets sent.
I’s a'sittin at a long table
with 3 androids sitten cross from me.
Them freaks who done t'interviewin,
dey’s from ARMY INTELLIGENCE, or DOD,
or maybe even the CI-FUCKIN-A.
I don’t really know.
I know one thing though.
They sure was freaky.
Them and that stiff-lipped soldier boy
standin guard by’da door.
Som’bitch had me eye-cocked d'whole time.

They's droppin freak questions on me,
that’s f’damn sure.
Don’t remember what they all was.

The project’s name was C.E.T.A.,
so I asked them what the hell that all meant?
Big mistake.
I aint no damn genious, but I know,
they don’t be looking at me,
like they’s lookin at me, when I talkin right.

You got’s t’imagine, three robots
in starched-grey button-downs, straighten up
and drop the evil-eye on you all at once.
It's like dey been practicing for this moment
all their shitty little lives,,,

“Why do you want to know?” ask d’goon in the middle.

I figure he must be d'top dog in this cluster-fuck,
so I back up real quick and spit out some
gobledy-goop like,,,

“oh sorry, I didn’t really want to know”

Just the right thing to say, cause I got the job.

I’d just come down from Salem New Jersey.
Real pretty countryside if you like
Alfred Hitchcock movies.
I mean,,, you can have a lot’a pretty trees
and shit like that,
but if but if them people who livin there,
aint got no work c’ept for highly-paid
and skilled labor that's snapped up
by out-a-town misfits like me???
Well you got a cat in a cage, so take care.

I’s workin at da time for’da Bechtel Corporation.
It was at one a’dem many nuclear stations
dey was mismanaging.
I’d heard all kinds a crazy storey’s
from’da boy’s bout how’d they go for a drink after work and get robbed and rolled.
Hell, sometimes they even got beat silly.

I’s rentin a room at the apex of a Y in the
road. I’d look out my window early morning,
watchin them cops movin detour signs out t’way. Then they ticket them poor bastards wid’dem out-a’town plates, as they pop out t’other side.
I’d no car insurance and they was tough on this sort a’thing in Jersey, so I cleared out
and moved on down t’Washington D.C.

Business agent from’da union hall give me this job at Fort Belvior in North Viginia.
As a union brother I could work all’round the country, and Canada as well.

Also if I’da thought an 18 month contract
in the middle of the desert,
with a lot of drunken men,
hundred miles from the nearest women,
weldin gas pipe-lines sounded like a sweet deal, well, I could’a gone overseas.
Could'a made top dollar, but no way!
Not for me Jack and Jill!

I went in’ta see that little rebel-prick
I called “yes’m boss”,,,
t’get my job assignment for d'comin day.
The boys’d all gather for coffee and donuts
in the morning while Bobby-Joe or Billy-Bob,
or whatever the fuck our bosses name was,
would tell us what to do.
After givin us all a job he’d add,

“you boys get too hot now, yu’all come on down here, take a drink”

Then he’d say to me
“hey Yankee-boy you best keep weldin now, or I get you yo money”

He’d get a good chuckle out of this.
I knew he’s havin a good day.
Son of a bitch.
What the work was, was a whole lot a pipes to weld up in the ceiling where all the damn heat was. Sweat so much my balls’d shrink,
when I’s up there welding.
All the while, that devious bastard
be walkin-round, lookin up
and twitchin them two ugly fingers a’his, sayin.

“hey Yankee-boy you best keep weldin for I get you yo money”, which meant,,,
I stop spittin sparks and sweatin, an I'd be paid off fast.
Down the road lick-itty split quick.
I worked all day, every day,
sweatin and spittin them sparks.

In our line of construction
we was the road gypsys.
Boomers we’s called.
Men who live out’a pick-up trucks
and boarding houses or hotels.
Jus chasin that big-daddy dollar all over the country, from one nuclear shutown to the next.
Pull in 2000$ a’week. Sometimes more.
Thier kids didn’t know who daddy was though.
Divorce rates blastin through the roof.
I liked meetin the boy’s from all over t’country. Hearin how the lives of union brothers on different jobsites.

Men get rough and nasty when they workin too much. In the few private hours they got
b’for wakin up and goin back to work, they’d get drunk, they’d gamble, fights break out over card games and they’d wake up wid strange women in their beds t’next day..
But that old big-daddy-dollar, he’d always be pull’em back for more.

One night after work, I went to a hotel room where them western boys was stayin. They’d all come down from Washington state in one car. Split the hotel room. They’s telling me bout’a milk and honey job in their local jurisdiction.
They called it Hanford Reservation.
Sounds nice huh?
Like Indian country.
What it is though, is a damn nuclear research facility for the army and stuck out there a hundred miles from nowhere, sittin atop a whole bunch of contaminated earth and water.
Aint been no damned Indians out there for years.

They told me d’whole place,,,
as far as the eye could see, was dirty!!!
(dirty means nuclear contaminated)
He says they’d be drivin through the prairie in jeeps, with a Geiger counter and sprayin
the tumble weeds with flourescent orange paint (orange the colour for low level nuclear waste).

Then they’d wait for all dem bushes to collect round’da perimeter fence
where they’d grab it all at once.
The perimeter fence longer than a hundred miles. Like I said, I liked meetin new people and hearin stange tales.

This all insider stuff.
Joe public aint trusted with news like this.
You know, national security!
That old national security’s a mighty strange beast though aint’it.

Take C.E.T.A. for example,
where I now found myself.
We had these freaky spooks around us.
They’d be watchin us all’da time in civilian garb. Didn’t know who they worked for.
When asked they’d say,

“Can’t tell you. It’s secret”

Yeah right buddy, up yours!

After a month or so, one a’dem tells me they’s programmers for IBM. They’s got the contract fer d'hardware. When they’s finished programming,
they be pullin overtime guardin us.
Greedy little bastards they was.
Boy told me all this be sittin in Guantonamo
right now f’sure.
Don't spill them beans .

One time we had one’a them boys all tied up in a fit. Almost got ourselves in big trouble too.
It was cause’a dat’old Kaddafi bombing.
They was jacked all which way but loose,
looking for terrorists, and for bombs in all’dem shadows.

Well me and one’dem Seattle boy’s was standin round talking bout that dick-headed boss a’ours. We had the bright idea for’a gaffitti picture a’him goin down on a monster gorilla schlong.
and we drawed it bumpin out the back a’his throat. We was gonna put a catchy little sayin over d’top
so we huddled up round t’piece a wall we’s drawin on when all a sudden one’dem IBM spooks stumbles round the corner right into our masterpiece
(paid for by Joe-taxpayer of course).
Good thing my partner move real quick.
He kicked a cable-spool which make a broom handle flop right on over t’other side’da corridor, poppin out a light-bulb.
We stumble round a bit,
like we’s the biggest klutz-buckets in North-Virginy.

We got that poor spook so confused that he hadn’t time t'gauck at our half finished DaVinCi code.
Thas’good too, cause you get caught doin that kind’a shit on goverment walls,
you in a whole buncha trouble fast,
what with them boy’s all jacked up on thoughts of terrorists and evil ways an’all.
Well you can just take it from there.

I aint gonna tell y’all much though
bout what we was all doing there.
It’s all on the security agreement
we sign when we’s hired.
Don’t wanna be givin out no government secrets.
Matter a’fact I done said too much as it is.
Next time you pay that taxman though,
you jus think about all dem Boomers putting yo money t’good use.
Y’all come back now ya’hear!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!