This is the blog of Rob 'Acidman' Smith, who passed away June 26, 2006. Acidman was a unique voice in the blogosphere; an extraordinary raconteur with a fascinating life from which to draw his stories, from his roots in a Kentucky coal-mining town through a career as a musician and as a journalist to his years managing the production of a sulphuric acid plant.

Whether writing about the best way to make boiled peanuts, his intense love and respect for his family and friends, commentary on the politics of the day, or blazingly honest revelations about his life's challenges, he had an extraordinary way of drawing the reader in and making them think. He singlehandedly created a massive community of readers, commenters, and friends from literally all over the world and was responsible for encouraging hundreds of people to take up blogging. For an idea of just how far-reaching an effect he had on the world, read the outpouring of comments on the posts from the week he passed away.

Writing about why he blogged, Rob described it as:

an exercise where I stuffed notes in bottles and threw them into a vast ocean where I hoped someone would find the bottle and read the note. But that's not really what I was doing. This blog was my lifeline that towed me to shore when I was totally shipwrecked. It kept me alive for more than two of the worst years I've lived in my life. I wasn't stuffing notes in bottles. I was standing on the shore and shouting frantically for rescue. People came. I WAS rescued. And I will always appreciate that fact.

It was Rob's express wish that Gut Rumbles remain online, especially for his son to read as he got older, and so it shall. As much as possible, the site remains in the state in which he used it. Current posts are drawn from his extensive archives and presented on the front page. To further experience this extraordinary man and his writing, wander through the links to his archives shown at the bottom of the sidebar on the left.

You are missed, Rob.

May 12, 2008

THAT TIME OF YEAR

Originally PUBLISHED June 24, 2004

The wind has been blowing from the southwest for the past few days, which always causes the same kind of weather in Southeast Georgia. The days are hot and humid. But along about sundown, huge thunderheads start to build from all that moisture from the Gulf of Mexico and we often get bodacious storms.
Yesterday was a fine one, with winds that gusted up to 50 miles per hour and rain that fell sideways. It cleaned out all the dead limbs in the woods out back by appearing to throttle the trees like a strangler and also picked up my trash can and tossed it into a neighbor's yard two doors down. (Thank Bejus that the garbage men came and emptied the can yesterday morning.)
Another one is building now. I can see the black clouds easing toward my house and I can hear Mother Nature beating her Drums of Thunder. I didn't lose power yesterday, but I still believe that it might be a good idea to shut down the computer for a while.
This storm looks like it might be another bad-ass.

Being Southern

Originally PUBLISHED April 3, 2005

1. That farm boy you see at the gas station did more work before breakfast than you do all week at the gym.
2. It's called a "gravel road." No matter how slow you drive, you're going to get dust on your Lexus. Drive it or get it out of the way!
3. The red dirt -- it's called clay. Red clay. If you like the color, don't wash your car for a couple weeks -- it'll be permanent.
4. We all started hunting and fishing when we were seven years old. Yeah, we saw that Bambi movie, too. We got over it.
5. Go ahead and bring your $600 Orvis fly rod. Don't cry to us if a flathead breaks it off at the handle. We have a name for that little 13-inch trout you fish for: bait.
6. Pull your pants up! You look like an idiot.
7. If that cell phone rings while a bunch of mallard ducks is making their final approach, we will shoot it. You might want to ensure it's not up to your ear at the time.
8. No, there's no "Vegetarian Special" on the menu. Order steak. Order it rare. Or, you can order the Chef's Salad and pick off the two pounds of ham and turkey.
9. Tea? -- yeah, we have tea. It comes in a glass over ice and it's sweet. You want it hot? Set it in the sun. You want it unsweetened? Add a lot of water.
10. You bring Coke into my house, it better be brown, wet, and served over ice!
11. You have a sixty-thousand-dollar SUV. We're real impressed. We have a quarter of a million-dollar combine that we only use two weeks a year.
12. Let's get this straight. We have one stoplight in town. We stop when it's red. We may even stop when it's yellow.
13. We eat dinner together with our families. We pray before we eat--yeah, even breakfast. We go to church on Wednesdays and Sundays, and we go to high school football games on Friday nights. We still address our seniors with "yes, sir" and "yes, ma'am," and we sometimes still take Sunday drives around town to see friends and neighbors.
14. We don't do "hurry up" well.
15. Greens -- yeah, we have greens, but you don't putt on them. You boil them with salty fatback, bacon or a smoked hog jowl.
16. Yeah, we eat catfish, bass, bream, and carp. You really want sushi and caviar? It's available down at the bait shop.
17. They are pigs. That's what they smell like. Get over it. Don't like it? Interstate 75 goes two ways. Interstate 40 goes the other two. Pick one.
18. Grits are corn. You put butter, salt, and maybe even some pepper on them. If you want to put m! ilk and sugar on them, then you want cream of wheat -- go to Kansas. That would be I-40 West.
19. The "Opener" refers to the first day of deer season or dove season. Both are holidays. You can get pancakes, cane syrup, and sausage before daylight at the church on either day.
20. So every person in every pickup truck waves? Yeah, it's called being friendly. Understand the concept?
21. Yeah, we have golf courses. Don't hit in the water hazards. It spooks the fish and bothers the gators --and, if you hit it in the rough, we have these things called diamondbacks, and they're not baseball players.
22. That Highway Patrol Officer that just pulled you over for driving like an idiot --his name is "Sir," no matter how young he is.
23. We have lots of pine trees. They have sap. It drips from them. You park your Lexus under them, and they'll leave a souvenir on your hood.
24. You burn an American flag in our state, you get beat up. No questions. The liberal contingent of our state legislature -- all four of them --enacted a measure to stop this. There is now a $2.50 fine for beating up the flag burner.
American by Birth, Southern by the Grace of God
(Thanks to chronwatch for the link.)

May 11, 2008

FISHING

Originally Published April 04, 2005

The old man sat on the rocks of the seawall, just high enough so the breaking waves wouldn't wet him. He wore white boots and had a five-gallon plastic bucket by his side. He had a gray beard and his skin was the color of burnt toast.
I had just finished my 5-mile beach run and was doing a little rock-hopping, just to exercise my legs. The old man never looked up at me, so I decided to be sociable. "Catching anything?" I asked.
"Do you really give a shit?" he replied in a voice like a bullfrog.
Bastard. He wasn't going to intimidate me. I sat down on a rock next to him. He had a 15' cane pole out in the water. I watched the float bob up and down on the waves. "Don't look like much is happening today," I observed.
"Look in the bucket," he replied. I did and he had THREE nice sheephead in there.
"Whoa! That ain't bad!" I exclaimed.
"Yeah, that sheephead, he's a slick fish. They hide down in them rocks and they don't BITE. They like to suck and nibble at the bait and they can clean that hook without ever moving that float. Unless you've got the right bait."
About that time his float took a plunge and he snatched another big sheephead out of the water. On a fucking cane pole. I was amazed.
I knew that most people used fiddler crabs for bait when fishing for sheephead, but I also knew that this guy had to be using something else. Sheephead aren't that easy to catch.
He finally showed me what he was using and I have passed this tip on to other fishermen and they all agree that it's the best bait for sheephead that they ever saw. Any idea what it is?
I'll give you a hint--- it involves a raw oyster.

Ed. note: For any frustrated sheephead fisherman/woman out there, Rob supplied the answer in the comments section-to quote "...the bait the guy used was a raw oyster tied in cheesecloth. The sheephead could get a taste of the oyster but couldn't suck it off the hook. The fish would get pissed and just bite the whole thing in a fit of frustration.
Try it. It works"

Hummingbirds

Originally PUBLISHED May 24, 2005

I put up three of my feeders today. I'm a little late doing it this year, because I've been so busy doing NOTHING that I didn't get around to it sooner. I didn't have the feeders hanging for more than 15 minutes before the first hummer came to call. By this evening, I could count at LEAST six different ones buzzing around my back porch.

I like birds (except for pigeons, grackles, crows, turkey-buzzards and blue jays) and I feed them well. I get a lot of pleasure out of watching and listening to them. I like mockingbirds a lot, because if you sit and listen to them sing, you can almost hear WORDS being spoken. I can call 'em out by playing a guitar on my back porch, and several will land on my telephone line to sing harmony with me. I like doing that.

But I heard a bunch of baby birds chirping in a nest in my woods while I was picking blackberries the other day, and I made the mistake of investigating that noise. I saw the nest and counted ar least four featherless baby birds sticking their heads out of there when I was ATTACKED by mama and daddy mockingbirds.

Those aggressive bastards launched a two-pronged assault on me and ran me back into my house after I lost a few hairs from the back of my head and got pecked a few other times. They didn't want me around that nest and they made their point VERY clear. That's one of the things I like about mockingbirds. They don't take any shit. I've seen them attack CATS before.

But hummingbirds are still my favorite birds to watch. They have day-glow green feathers that gleam when the sunlight hits them just right and they fly like fighter jets. They fight over a bird-feeder, too. They are damn near as aggressive as mockingbirds, even though they are 1/8th the size. But you haven't lived a complete life until you've watched a good hummingbird fight. Those bastards are MEAN!

Back on the mini-farm, I was sitting on my back deck one morning. I was wearing a pair of cut-off blue jeans and a white tee shirt with a red apple logo on the front. I was reading the newspaper when a hummingbird appeared out of nowhere, pecked at the apple on my shirt, then buzzed up in front of my face as if to say, "WTF? I can't eat THAT!" before he went hurtling off the way he came.

I really like those entertaining little shits. Just be careful what kind of tee shirt you wear around them. They don't like to be fooled.

BAG INTACT

Originally PUBLISHED March 8, 2006

I got my travel bag back from Delta today with nothing missing--- not even the pound of marijuana, ounce of cocaine, two assault rifles and THREE hand grenades I smuggled back from Costa Rica. I guess that my clever ploy of disguising those things as a pile of dirty laundry fooled both the Customs Inspectors and Airport Security.
The Delta guy told me that my bag landed in Savannah on the same flight I rode in on, but I didn't even look for it that night. I was dog-assed tired, my belly hurt and I just wanted to go home after being on airplanes all fricking day.
I started to ask why the bag never appeared on Carousel #9 in Atlanta when I searched for it THERE, but I didn't really care. That mixup probably saved me another nit-search at Customs, which I usually get because of that stupid Domestic Violence order the BC took out on me a year and a half ago. Since then, inspectors have thoroughly rifled my belongings, had me empty my pockets, patted me down, run hand-held snooper devices from head to toe and done everything except subject me to an anal probe after my last few trips outside the USA.
Anyway, I got my bag back. See? I TOLD you that your luggage never gets LOST anymore. It simply takes a different route.
End of story.

BURGER BOOSTER

Originally PUBLISHED April 15, 2006

I think I've eaten a hamburger at Ruby Tuesday's, but I don't remember it being this good. Maybe I need to go back to Ruby's and try again.
Here are my selections for the best hamburgers in Savannah. As is typical in my life, two of the three places no longer are open for business.
#1-- The old Crystal Beer Parlor in downtown Savannah. Damn! The place is closed now, but they once served the best hamburger in the world as far as I'm concerned. With some steak fries and a pitcher of cold beer, that burger was exquisite.
#2-- The Exchange Tavern on River Street in Savannah. I think it's called "The Congress" on the menu. That's a delicious, two-fisted burger that leaves juice and fixins dripping off your elbows after a couple of bites. Ummmm.... GOOD!
#3-- Billy Bob's Steak House. Not the one on River Street, but the one that once operated off Mall Boulevard before the tax man ran them out of business. They served a 1/2 pound burger with everything, including chili on it, which was a true-gut-buster if you ate the whole thing. It would put you in a coma if you weren't careful.
Damn! Now I'm craving a hamburger. I won't defile my palate with anything I can find around where I live--- my choices are Burger King or MacDonald's--- so I'll just make my own, which would be #4 on that list if I still lived in Savannah.
I make a mean burger...

May 10, 2008

THE GARDEN OF EDEN

Originally PUBLISHED December 11, 2004

I've studied the story of Adam and Eve for a long time, and I have reached two profound conclusions. First, God was an idiot parent. You don't EVER plant one special tree in your garden and make a big deal about the kids keeping their hands offa it. When you do THAT, you draw attention to the tree and kids want to know why it's so special. They forget about every other tree in the garden and think about that one all the time.

Second, the story demonstrates the essential difference between men and wimmen in this world. If I planted that tree in MY garden, I could convince my boy to leave it alone by threatening to grind his ass to hamburger and feed it to the dogs if he touched it. He might LOOK at the tree and wonder, but he would leave it alone.

My daughter, on the other hand, would ignore my threats, wait until she thought no one was watching and go fuck with the tree. That's what wimmen do. You want a woman to do something you don't want her to do? Just tell her NOT to do it.

Like a cat, she simply HAS to do it after you asked her not to, just to spite you. (Besides, you're probably up to no good with that tree and she wants to find out what evil you are plotting by being even more evil herself.) She won't DEFY you and go check out the tree right under your nose. No... that's too direct.

She'll be SNEAKY about it. Wimmen are naturally sneaky people. If you don't believe me, just leave something in a suit pocket and see if she doesn't find it, even if you haven't worn the suit in five years.

So, God tells Adam and Eve to leave that special tree alone, and Adam is okay with that dictate. He's off drinking beer, watching football and farting blissfully. He could give a shit about that tree. As long as he has something to eat, something to drink and a piece of ass every now and then, he's happy.

But not Eve. Once God declared that one tree off-limits, Eve never saw anything else in the garden. Just THINKING about that tree put her in a hormonal uproar, and she suspected all sorts of evil, mean, nasty things about it. She beagn to hyperventilate and develop the vapors. The more she thought about it, the more certain she became. After some serious hyperventilation and vapors, combined with soap-opera plot-knitting, the TRUE FACTS became clear to her, as they would to any sane, logical mind.

God is up to no good, Adam is part of the plan and I'm going to CATCH HIM in the act. She could "feel" it.

Therefore, it makes perfect sense to me that Eve would listen to the snake and break God's command. She had a head full of snakes herself.

Some people might say, after the shit hit the fan, "I was WRONG!" But NOT Eve. If Adam had been around more and understood her problems and cuddled her warmly at night and not farted in his sleep and watched more episodes of "All My Children," none of this shit would have happened.

IT'S HIS goddam fault!!!

There is the story of Genesis, as translated by Acidman.

A NIGHT IN THE WOODS

Originally PUBLISHED May 15, 2005

I like sleeping in the woods. Last night was partially overcast, so I couldn't see a lot of stars, but I didn't get rained on and the temperature was perfect. I always planned on taking Quinton and Jack down there some weekend, to that place I first noticed on my early exploration of the woods around here, but we just never got around to doing it and now it's too late.

I found lots of deadfall wood and had a nice campfire in a clearing about 50 yards from the creek. I didn't bring my fishing rod, but I did take a rack of ribs that I cooked and ate by the fire. I also discharged about 100 rounds from my non-existent guns that I took with me. I murdered every face-card in a deck of Bicycles before the sun went down.

After that, I sat in my hammock and just listened. The first thing you notice back in the woods like that is how quiet it is, until you stop to pay attention. I could hear the wind in the trees. Frogs and crickets were courting down by the creek. Every now and then, I heard something rustling in the nearby leaves. An owl piped up, asking me "WHOO?" I was for about an hour. It was very relaxing. I have no idea what time I went to sleep.

The morning birds woke me just before sunrise. They like to sing to greet the day, and they were in fine fettle today. I lay in my hammock and listened for a while as the woods came alive around me. I smoked a cigarette and enjoyed the concert. I had a Snickers bar for breakfast.

My fire was burned to smoldering ashes, but I went down to the creek with my coffee pot and fetched water to put it completely out. I listened to Smokey Bear when I was young. I didn't want to walk off and set the woods on fire.

I packed up all of my crap, made sure the fire was extinguished and trudged back home. I took a good, hot shower to wash all the dirt, gunpowder and wood-smoke off of me, and I didn't notice any obvious ticks or chiggers in the usual places you find them. I felt a lot better than I have for the past few days.

All in all, it was a very pleasant experience that intend to repeat very soon. I believe that I really AM a 19th century man.

May 09, 2008

MORE ON NAMES

Originally PUBLISHED May 16, 2005

I once went camping with Jennifer, her niece, my daughter and my daughter's best friend. The girls were about eight or nine years old at the time. After I fed them a good campfire meal that night and told them a couple of ghost stories, I finally got them packed into the tent to go to sleep.

I sat around the fire and started chuckling. Jennifer asked me what was so funny. I said, "We have three young ladies with us tonight. But you wouldn't know it by what we call them. Sounds like three boys if you think about it."

That was true. We had Jessica, Nichole and Samantha. We called them "Jessie," "Nick" and "Sam." I'll guarantee you that if anyone heard me calling for them by those names, that person would expect three boys to pop out of the woods somewhere.

They all grew up to be beautiful young ladies, but I still call them by those same nicknames. Jessie, Nick and Sam.

DON'T SELL US SHORT

Originally PUBLISHED August 12, 2005

Old men are smarter than some people think they are.

An elderly man in Florida had owned a large farm for several years. He had a large pond in the back, fixed up nice; picnic tables, horseshoe courts, and some apple and peach trees. The pond was properly shaped and fixed up for swimming when it was built.

One evening, the old farmer decided to go down to the pond, as he
hadn't been there for a while, and look it over. He grabbed a five gallon bucket to bring back some fruit. As he neared the pond, he heard voices shouting and laughing with glee.

As he came closer he saw it was a bunch of young women skinny-dipping
in his pond. He made the women aware of his presence and they all went to the deep end. One of the women shouted to him, "We're not coming out until you leave!"

The old man frowned, "I didn't come down here to watch you ladies swim naked or make you get out of the pond naked." Holding the bucket up he said, "I'm here to feed the alligator."

Moral: Old men can still think fast.

(Thank you, Bob! I liked that one!)

May 08, 2008

EROTIC FRUIT

Originally PUBLISHED August 5, 2005

When I was taking a class in Romantic Poetry in college, the professor (a woman) asked the question: "If you read carefully, you'll find a lot of allegorical connotations in these poems. Erotic fruit is one of them. Can someone name an erotic fruit?"

I blurted out, "A BIG banana!"

That was not the correct answer, but I thought it was funny as hell. I was never known for keeping my mouth shut.

So... I'm taking a poll.

What do YOU think is an erotic fruit? (and any reply containing the name of Michael Jackson WILL be deleted.)

(UPDATE: What made me think of this topic is the fact that I BOUGHT some "erotic fruit" at the grocery store today. I am enjoying eating it. It might be nice to have someone to share it with, but right now, it's MINE!!! ALL MINE!!!)

VERILY I SAY...

Originally PUBLISHED November 9, 2004

Wisdom from Jesusland:

*Don't name a pig you plan to eat.

*Country fences need to be horse high, pig tight, and bull strong.

*Life is not about how fast you run, or how high you climb, but how well you bounce.

*Keep skunks, lawyers and bankers at a distance.

*Life is simpler when you plow around the stumps.

*A bumble bee is faster than a John Deere tractor.

*Trouble with a milk cow is she won't stay milked.

*Don't skinny dip with snapping turtles.

*Words that soak into your ears are whispered, not yelled.

*Meanness don't happen overnight.

*To know how country folks are doing, look at their barns, not their houses.

*Never lay an angry hand on a kid or an animal, it just ain't helpful.

*Forgive your enemies. It messes with their heads.

*Don't sell your mule to buy a plow.

*Two can live as cheap as one if one don't eat.

*Don't corner something meaner than you are.

*It don't take a very big person to carry a grudge.

*Don't go huntin' with a fellow named Chug-A-Lug.

*You can't unsay a cruel thing.

*Every path has some puddles.

When you wallow with pigs, expect to get dirty.

*The best sermons are lived, not preached.

*Most of the stuff people worry about never happens.

Yeah. We sure are ignorant in Jesusland.

May 07, 2008

Train sings revisited

Originally published August 25, 2003

Yeah, I sang this one as a kid in school, even before I learned to play guitar:

I'm sure you sang this version of "The Wreck of Old 97" in the schoolyard too:

She was going down the road doing 90 miles an hour when the chain on her bicycle broke.

Well, they found her in the grass with a pedal up her ass and her titties playing Dixie on the spokes.

Phil

Thanks, Phil. I had forgotten all about that one.

Notice the reaction

Originally published June 4, 2004

I've admired Bill Cosby since I was a kid. The man is a brillant comedian, a great actor and a fine father. He also got a college education and took the road to success at a time when it was much more difficult than it is today for a black man to do it.

Have you ever noticed that he can do a one-hour comedy routine, have the audience rolling in the aisles and NEVER use the word "motherfucker?" In fact, Cosby doesn't cuss on stage at all, except for that hilarious story about believing his name was "Dammit" when he was a boy, because his father always yelled, "Dammit! Come here to me!" when young Coz was in trouble. (Wasn't Coz also convinced that his brother was named "Jesus Christ" because that's how dad called his brother to task? "Jesus Christ! Yeah, you. Not YOU, dammit. The other one. Jesus Christ, come here to me!")

Cosby said some things that a lot of black people and guilty liberals don't want to hear. I am not surprised that the speech he gave didn't get a lot of coverage. It was politically incorrect.

The guy who really nailed the Cosby story was Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service editor Gregory Clay. He witnessed Cosby's speech, and penned an op-ed. Clay wrote, "Cosby openly chastised some black people for our dirty, little secrets. We are exposed.... Cosby broke the black code.... Give Cosby credit for having the guts to voice his displeasure at such a regal event.... Some have said Cosby is pitting lower-income blacks against middle- and upper-class blacks. That's silly. Cosby's central theme simply was this: Better parenting and educational achievement are in black people's best interest, and some have failed miserably. Don't let the Brown case die on the vine. We have to admit this; it's about survival."

I've beat this drum before and received a lot of flack about it. But I don't care. I WANT to see black people succeed in the USA. I WANT this place to be a true melting pot, a gumbo of every cultural ingredient anybody can bring to the party and throw in the stew. I WANT to see rich, prosperous people all around me, and I don't care what color they are.

But blacks will never get to the party if they stay on the track they've been following for the past 40 years. Illegitimate births. Gangs. Ghettos. Prison. Murder in the street because somebody "dissed" you. Wearing pants around your goddam knees with only boxer shorts covering your ass. Illiteracy. Dropping out of school. Becoming "street-wise" instead of educated. Crack cocaine.

That IS NOT the path to success, people, and when society either turns a blind eye or condemns you as a racist for saying so, we're in a world of trouble. I don't give a damn what the Democrats say--- I know one thing for a fact. NOBODY can help someone who isn't willing to help himself.

Just look at Bill Cosby. He is rich, successful and he also has the intelligence to recognize a problem when he sees it. But when he speaks his mind, he is ignored or chastised for doing so. There are some things you just don't say in this free country, because the truth pisses people off.

I don't buy that philosophy.

I agree, sort of

Originally published October 15, 2003

I believe that this post is overly pedantic, but she does raise a valid point. I know several people who have college degrees but write as if they were barely literate.
[Blog no longer exists. -Ed.]

I don't claim to be great at spelling (as people who read this blog regularly already know) but I'm writing a blog here, for crying out loud. It ain't like I'm getting paid for it or I get a letter grade on every post. I am simply too damned lazy to look up words that I don't spell regularly, so I just take a wild guess at them. If the result looks TOO obviously fucked-up, I'll try to substitute a word that I CAN spell.

I don't do that "wild guess" thing if I am writing business correspondence. I'll check my spelling every time. Business correspondence is important literature. This blog is not.

I also commit several Crimes Against Grammar regularly on this blog that I would not put in formal communication. I frequently address the reader as "you." For example, you might read a sentence like this on my page.

"One might read a sentence such as this one on my page is proper diction, but it feels STILTED to me. I don't like feeling stilted. I prefer the vernacular.

I sometimes begin a sentence with the words "There are..." or "It is...", which are both no-nos. I use the word "ain't" on occasion. I also use potty-mouthed language and write a few run-on sentences here and there. I don't call those lapses of mine examples of poor grammar. I call them STYLE. I know better than to write diction-impared sentences, but I write them anyway. It's my blog. I can do whatever I want to here.

I DO have a few pet peeves, however; some mistakes are unforgivable.

1) KNOW the difference between "affect" and "effect."

2) DON"T write "it's" when you mean "its."

3) STOP before you write "your" when you mean "you're."

4) BE DRAGGED OFF AND SHOT for confusing "there" and "their."

Okay, there's my rant on grammer. I DO find it odd that the person who authored the post that I linked to once wrote everything on her page as if the "CAPS" key was missing from her keyboard. Yeah, I remember, darlin.'

That's another one of my pet peeves. PUNCTUATE AND CAPITALIZE, dammit