December 31, 2004

i gotta make some noise

I told the girls that I would wait until they came home, but I lied. I gotta go explode some shit in my yard. I've heard all the ladyfinger firecrackers and pissant bottle rockets that I can stand. I'm gonna go wake the dead with some REAL fireworks.

Happy New Year, EVERYBODY!!!

And especially to... my blog friends.

an offensive post

I received a phone call from a fellow blogger last night who was very upset about this post. (For a change, it's not one I wrote.) We both know the blogger and we both like him a lot. The basic question I got was, "How could he write something so heartless?"

Read the post. I don't see a damn thing wrong with it. I don't agree with what he said, but I will defend his right to say it to my last breath. If the writer gave a shit about who links him (which he doesn't) he would be heartbroken by the massive, self-righteous de-linking headed his way. But I think the title of his post says it all.

For all the great things I say about the Blog Collective and as much as I like and admire a lot of people I've met through blogging, I have to admit a painful fact: the PC police operate there, too. I have seen it first-hand, up-close and personal. It's as ugly in Blogdom as it is when the government brownshirts do it. I really ought to take the time to list the people who de-linked ME for a controversial post I wrote two years ago, and those people called me worse names than anybody but my ex-wife ever did.

I was politically incorrect. Oh, it's okay to excoriate the Democrats, make fun of Michael Moore and start a "I Hate Ted Rall" page on your blog, but you need to understand that these bloggers still have boundaries that you're supposed to never cross. Otherwise, they'll turn on you like... the same people they excoriate.

It's just like the war on (some) drugs. Even on a blog, you have the right to (some) Free Speech.

I look at the post I linked, and I think about what happened to me. I agree with the writer.

Fuck 'em.

I hope I stay awake that long

While I was out buying oysters today, I took a side trip to South Carolina and bought some very impressive-looking fireworks. I also dug out the stuff I didn't set off on the 4th of July, and I think I have enough explosives on hand to fashion a Palistinean bomb-belt. Or pose some kind of terrorist threat.

Sam and Stacey went to visit my mama and I don't know when they'll be back. I told them that I would wait until they returned before I started my pyrotechnic show, but I'm getting an itchy fuse-lighting finger. Unlike my daughter, I LOVE things that make loud noises and shoot flames. It's dark outside. Some neighbors are setting off pissant shit that needs to be challenged.

I don't know if I can wait.

good question

How do I answer this question?

Hey! I went over to Sam's site. Why don't you help her out with the Vet bill for her dog, he's in PAIN!

What are you? Cheap or something?

Posted by Jim Long at December 31, 2004 06:49 PM

Yeah, Jim, I suppose that I must be "cheap." It's a father's job to throw money at his daughter every time she hits a bump in the road, isn't it? I remember the many, many times my parents threw money at ME when my dog had a boil on its ass. Let's see.... that must have been.... ZERO times!!! Oh, yes. I remember them well.

My parents believed that I should be RESPONSIBLE for my own choices and my own behavior. What a shitty attitude they had. They never "felt my pain" when I was broke. They expected me to get off my ass and do something about my own pitiful situation.

The dog belongs to Samantha. SHE has the responsibility of taking care of it. If she cannot afford to do so, she either a) never should have gotten the dog to begin with--- or b) give the dog to someone who CAN afford to take care of it. Or, as a last resort--- c) shoot the fucking dog.

If that makes me "cheap" or cold-hearted or whatever you want to call me, so be it. I personally believe that Sam is learning a lesson about THE REAL WORLD, where you don't always get what you want unless you can pay for it yourself.

I'll bet you voted for John Kerry, didn't you?

End of the year

This evening, Sam, Stacey and I steamed oysters over an open fire in my back yard and ate them using the tailgate of my pickup truck for a picnic table. Is that a red-neck feast, or what? I bought 100 pounds of oysters, and we ate until we could eat no more. I still have at least 50 pounds remaining.

I bagged those up and put them in my freezer for the girls to take home with them. Sam says they have to pay seven dollars a dozen for fresh oysters in Fort Worth, Texas. I don't think they've researched a good wholesale seafood distributor, because I can get Louisiana singles at $40 for 100 pounds here, and they are a lot closer to Louisiana than I am. What the hell. They've got 50 pounds to take home.

When we went shooting today, I took an old phone book to use for targets. I like to shoot pictures of lawyers. Stacey discovered that she is a good shot and she was very enthusiastic about plugging anything I set up for her to hit. By the time Sam became interested in trying her hand, we had ripped that phone book to shreds and perforated every decent picture we could find. I killed ALL the lawyers.

So, I found some trash beer cans, threw them in the creek and Sam sank every one, usually with her first shot. I found a flattened Budweiser can and used the remains of the phone book to hold it up so that only the round bottom was showing. We were probably 50' away, looking at a 3" circle for a target. Sam said, "Daddy, I can barely SEE that."

She fired and put the shot right in the center of the circle. I mean DEAD CENTER. She shot again and said, "I think I missed that one." I didn't think so. I thought she put the second round damn near through the first hole. (Would you believe that at a distance, I have better eyesight than two young wimmen?)

We walked up to check. The second shot went through only half of the first hole. She had taken out another chunk about 1/4" to the right. I looked at her and beamed. "Sam, that is damn good shooting," I said. "Not many men can do that." Stacey was good, but she never shot THAT well; Sam did it over and over again.

As we were walking back home, I saw a glass jug laying in the leaves off the side of the trail. Samantha was carrying the rifle. I said, "Sam! Whoa! Look over there. Are you gonna walk out of here and leave that thing unshot?" I pointed at the jug. It was about the size of a half-gallon vinegar bottle and about 20' away.

"That thing? Daddy, that's too easy." I told her to shoot it anyway. She loaded the rifle, shouldered it and fired. The jug broke into pieces. She said, "See? I told you it was easy." She took about three more steps down the trail and stopped with a shocked look on her face.

"Daddy, I didn't have my ear-plugs in when I shot that bottle. I forgot that I wasn't wearing them anymore." And she didn't flinch from the "loud" noise, either.

A lot of shit has happened in my life during the past year, but I'm going out of 2004 on a high note. I've enjoyed visiting with my daughter and Stacey and I might even end up with a semi-clean house in the bargain. Can't beat that.

And I taught Sam to shoot, too.

the serpent's tooth

My daughter has a gift for exaggeration. I don't know where she got that from, but don't believe everything you read in that post. Okay, MOST of it is true, but not all of it.

I don't have any white spots on the tile under my dirty rugs.

(Her permalinks don't appear to be working, so just check the post for Friday, December 31.)

gunsmoke

I knew that I could make Stacey a riflewoman. She's not one bit afraid of a firearm and she was anxious to try her hand at a little target practice. Samantha, on the other hand, is deathly afraid of any kind of loud noise. "It's not the GUN that scares me," she whined. "It's the NOISE."

I took them shooting today. Kim du Toit would have been proud.

At first, Stacey and I took turns plinking away with a .22 rifle while Sam stood 50' away with earplugs in and hands over her ears. As she noticed Stacey enjoying herself and hitting what she shot at, Sam kept edging up closer and closer. Finally, she was right beside us.

"You want to try now?" I asked. She needed a little more persuasion, so I showed her how to hold the rifle, how to aim it and I squeezed the trigger the first time for her.

"That wasn't so bad," she said. "Can I try it by myself this time?"

I believe we shot up about 300 rounds before we decided to call it a day. You know what the REAL irony is? Samantha is a dead-eye shot. Once she got the hang of it, she whipped Stacey's ass at target shooting. She can't beat ME yet, but this was her first time. I'd better watch out for her in the future.

I thought we had some good, family fun in the woods this morning. Both girls want to go back and do it again tomorrow. Heh.

I am proud of myself.

A feud!!!

Loyal readers, I don't ask many favors of you, but sometimes affairs of honor require unusual measures. I have no complaint whatsoever about being called a "barefoot, moonshine-running, backwoods Kentucky hick," because that's exactly what I am, aside from the fact that I've lived in the great state of Georgia the last 46 years of my life.

In Georgia, I have been a barefoot, shirtless, moonshine-MAKING, backwoods
Cracker hick, but I won't quibble over such small details. I do, however resent being called a liar and a fraud. Them's fightin' words.

I still think your stats are jimmied.

Mr. SoDakMonk doesn't have comments on his blog. That's a pity, because I had a good one I was going to lay on him. But I have a better idea anyway.

Here's the favor I ask. Follow the link above to his site. I want EVERYBODY WHO READS THIS POST to follow that link. I don't care if you've never followed a link from my blog before, just click on that one. For me. Please.

I want to give the fucker a good Acid-Bath, crash his server and make him beg for mercy. I want the sumbitch to check his site meter and whisper, "HOLY SHIT!!!" I want him to SEE the Power of the Rumble and BELIEVE, goddammit. He says he's a monk. Give him a religious experience.

Besides, it's not a bad blog. Well-written and very entertaining. I MIGHT even add him to my blogroll, once I receive a formal written apology for calling me a liar and a fraud. And he also called a lot of YOU PEOPLE "clueless." If I were you, I wouldn't take that shit lying down.

Bomb him with hits. Do it for ME.

December 30, 2004

do trees cry when they bleed?

Here's a really sappy post.

We do something similar in Georgia with pine trees. We end up with turpentine, which I do NOT recommend for French toast or waffles.

druuuunk!

No, not me. this guy.

Lee Day, of the 200 block of Elm Street, was picked up by police 30 minutes before midnight on Dec. 23 after he was allegedly observed urinating "in plain view" in the parking lot at the 7-Eleven on West High Street.

"He was obviously intoxicated," Ziegler said.

He was taken into custody and was to be charged with public drunkenness and disorderly conduct, but when police arrived at the booking facility at the Pottstown police station, Day "had passed out," said Ziegler.

"The officers were unable to wake him up until they had used two ammonia sticks," Ziegler said.

Thank Bejus he got his piss-call out of the way first. He had a BAC of .409.

(Thanks to Tony Ellis for the link!)

the plan worked!!!

As I write this post, I have two wimmen cleaning my house. They're going at it like whirling dervishes, too. I was politely (well, maybe NOT so politely) told to get out of their way. I was happy to oblige.

Heh. They like staying here, but they couldn't stand the filth. They are correcting that problem as the scent of "Splash of Rain" wafts through the Crackerbox from the tart-burner they bought me today.

Earlier, I mourned for a moment, because Samantha informed me that the spider behind my commode was dead. I checked, and sure enough: he was gone to that great web in the sky. In fact, he appears to have gone there quite a while ago without saying goodbye. I just didn't notice.

Wimmen have a cleaning gene that men just don't possess. I was counting on that fact when the girls came to visit. They are proving me right, once again.

I LOVE IT when a plan comes together!!!

more fan mail

I like this one:

Dear Gutrumbles;

Your stat counter says your blog gets visited something like 1500 to 2000 times a day. I don't believe that because, for a conservative, you seem like a real dummy. Also you use bad language which reflects badly on yourself. So quit reporting those fake stats. They are ten times what my blog gets, and mine totally kicks yours. So it's not fair. And you probably are more libertarian than really conservative. 1.4 million hits would make you as popular as bigtime blogs like Powerline. You are a big phoney, that's what I think. Your stats are bogus. So quit reporting them, they make some of us look bad. We should be getting more traffic than some Kentucky hick like you.

P.S. Your wife left that other hick. She's with me now.

Sodakmonk

If you've got my ex-wife, Sodamonk, I pity your ass, you poor bastard. Why don't you just stick your head under a running lawn mower NOW and get it over with before she does it for you?

I believe that you are being sarcastic, and not doing a very good job of it. Unlike some anal-retentive, secretive, paraniod, oooh-I'm-afraid-you-might-see-my-wee-wee people in Blogdom, I have ALWAYS left my site meter open for anyone to check. I wouldn't jimmy those stats if I knew how (which I don't) any more than I would cheat on the golf course (which I ALSO don't). I've never hidden a got-damn thing here.

1.4 million visits? Yeah. I got every one of those and MORE, because site meter crashes every now and then and doesn't count all the traffic I get. But that total took me THREE YEARS to attain. That ain't fair, either. I'm better than Instapundit, but do I get 200,000 visitors per day? HELL NO!!!

What's HE got that I ain't got? Forget the law degree, the professor's job, the columns in numerous publications and the fawning minions of lusty young wimmen who would DIE to jump his geeky bones. I read on the internet today that he doesn't even write that stuff himself. It's all done by autopen.

Don't talk to ME about what's fair.

wuss

I am ashamed. My daughter is a wuss. She fell out about 10:00 tonight and left Stacey and me alone to play with guns, tell tall tales and burn the midnight oil. I am going to make Stacey a riflewoman. She has the right genes. She learned to load, unload and disassemble every gun that I don't own in my house tonight. If I had any guns here, I would have been impressed with her dexterity.

We had a great supper at The Sea Grill restaurant, where I fed the ladies more than they could eat. We went back to the Crackerbox and Sam decided that the place was NOT too filthy for her to spend the night, so Stacey and I put clean sheets on the bed and let Sam stagger off to sleep, which was rudely interrupted by me playing guitar for Stacey. Sam whined and we were compassionate. I think we said "STFU" only once.

This was a good evening. I like having company and I can't imagine any better company than what I had tonight. Them's good girls.

I intend to corrupt them both tomorrow.

December 29, 2004

i see a pattern here

Ummmm... I re-read the posts I made this morning and knowing myself, I see a pattern there.

Did you ever watch the movie Lonesome Dove? I didn't believe that the movie could come anywhere near to being as good as the book, but I was mistaken. It was a great movie.

My favorite scene was where the Army asshole tried to "confiscate" Newt's horse and Newt wouldn't let go of the reins. The army asshole hit Newt in the face with a quirt and yelled, "Turn loosa them reins!" That's when Woodrow came riding up, bowled the asshole over and beat him savagely with everything he could lay his hands on. He went totally apeshit and damn near killed the man.

The only thing that stopped the fight was Gus telling Woodrow "that's ENOUGH!", and Gus had his Walker Colt by the barrel, ready to hit Woodrow in the head if he had to. Woodrow calmed down, saw the crowd and carnage around him and straightened himself up.

"That man was RUDE," he said. "I cannot abide rudeness."

I like that line. I cannot abide rudeness, either.

right-wing me

My blog is labeled "conservative" by many people. I disagree. I can't call myself a true Libertarian, either, because to me, some libertarian notions are just as whacked-out as the moonbat lefty ravings I despise. I DAMN sure ain't no whining leftist. How WOULD I describe myself?

#1) I support the War on Terror and I support the troops fighting it. I do not believe in appeasement and I do not believe in turning the other cheek. If you hit ME, I'm going to try my best to beat the living shit out of you. That's a lesson in Human Nature I learned on school playgrounds a long time ago. You cannot reason with an asshole who wants to kill you. You've got to kill him first, or at least make him see the error in his thinking.

#2) I believe in the right of the individual to bear arms. That is not a PRIVILEGE, either. It's a goddam RIGHT, written clearly in the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, put there by people who KNEW what a tyranical government was capable of doing when the people could not defend themselves.

#3) I believe that government is too big, too powerful and run by a collection of shitbirds who couldn't make a living in the real world, where merit counts more than senority or ass-kissing ability. Government should be handled locally as much as possible, where citizens actually have a voice in what happens to them. When the Holy Edicts rain down from Washington, DC, you have no voice--- the High Priest has spoken for you. The more centralized we make the government, the less effective it is.

#4) My money is MY money. I worked for it. I earned it. I don't "owe" a goddam cent of it to "the less fortunate" unless I decide to give MY OWN MONEY away. It's not government's job to take it from me and give it to someone else against my will. That's not charity. That's robbery.

#5) I really don't see a whole lot of difference between the Republicans and the Democrats today. Oh, the ideological differences are obvious, but the bottom line is the same. Both parties want the federal government to run your life. They just disagree on how to do it. But you can bet your sweet ass that NEITHER party will EVER shrink government.

#6) I believe that abortion is a terrible thing. It's become a convienient form of birth control, which fits neatly with that 60s mentality of doing whatever feels good but never accepting responsibility for the aftermath. But I OPPOSE OVERTURNING ROE V. WADE!!! You can outlaw abortion, but you can't stop it. Attack THAT problem the way anti-smoking nazis did cigarettes. It took 'em 20 years, but look at how attitudes about what once was a common practice have changed. PR works.

#7) I oppose the War on (some) Drugs. How much money have we pissed down this rat-hole? How many people are rotting in jail for doing nothing worse than getting high? How many mother-rapers and father-stabbers are walking the streets today because those dumbfuck "tough" mandatory sentences for drug offenders clog our prisons to overflowing? What has this war accomplished? People still get high, and we have more drugs, cheaper drugs and better drugs now, and they are readily available to anyone who wants them. Let's just declare victory and stop this stupid shit.

#8) Let gays get married. I want to fuck-up divorce law as much as it has fucked ME up. Let's make divorce complicated and throw out all those cookie-cutter laws that condemn a man as the villian just because he's a man. Force some fat bastard judge in a black robe to earn his goddam money for a change instead of acting like a bank clerk stamping a deposit slip. Make him JUDGE for a change.

#9) Legalize prostitution and gambling. Regulate both, and rake in some government tax dollars as the mordida government skims off everything today, but stop being so Puritanical and asinine about these issues. People are gonna fuck and gamble. They always have and they always will. You can make them criminals, but you can't make them stop. Besides--- how can a state run a lottery and still go out and bust some bookie for taking bets on football games? In MY mind, hypocracy is a worse sin than gambling.

#10) Make it mandatory: EVERY TIME Congress passes a new law, it must find THREE old laws to take off the books. We have too many laws today and we need more like I need another case of that stomach flu I had for Christmas. Hell, Congress GIVES me stomach flu when I see those posturing bastards in action.

If that's a "conservative" attutude, then I am a conservative. I call myself a student of human nature.

guilt instinct

I can't figure out where the hell the permalinks are on this site, so you may have to scroll down to find the WTF??? post. Read it. That one brought back unpleasant memories.

I've had the police or members of the Sheriff's Department show up at my door numerous times over the past three years. Usually, they came to deliver another court order from my bloodless cunt ex-wife, but a couple of times they just wanted to ask me "a few questions."

Why is it, that even when you KNOW that you haven't done anything illegal, the sight of a cop at the door and the thought of answering a "few questions" makes your blood run cold? It'll scare the living shit out of you--- or at least it will ME--- until you learn that they aren't there to haul you off to jail.

Bejus! Once, one of my neighbors reported his lawn mower stolen and the cops dropped by to ask me if I saw anything unusual at his house the day of the theft (the mower later was found in the woods behind my neighbor's house where his son and some friends hauled it off for who-knows-why. The son got his ass fried for that.). I almost pissed my pants while I told them that I didn't notice anything.

Another time, two officers (one male and one female) showed up at my door in a pouring rain to ask questions about another neighborhood crime. I was drinking beer at the time, but I invited them inside (which I usually DON'T do when cops show up at my door). I wasn't going to make ANYBODY stand outside in that rain.

They were investigating a complaint about some kid on a motorcycle racing through the neighborhood. I was happy to help them. "Yeah, I know the little shit," I said. "His name is Dwayne and he lives in that house across the street two doors down from me. He's got a rice-burner bike, a Yamaha I think, and he's gonna kill himself or somebody else with the way he rides it around here. Maybe you can put the fear of God into him, because his daddy sure won't." I had talked to Dwayne's father about that bike and he basically told me to go piss up a rope.

The guy cop was intrigued by my guitars--- I think I had three or four of them in my living room at the time. "Do you play?" he asked.

If anybody else but a cop had asked that question, I would have delivered a really smart-ass answer. ("No, I don't play. I thought the things were golf clubs when I bought them. Heh. Live and learn.") But I said, "Yeah. I play a little."

"Me, too," replied the cop. "That one is a Martin, isn't it? That's one fine guitar."

I offered to let him play it, I offered them both some coffee and I was as polite as I could be. When they refused my hospitality, thanked me for my help and left, I breathed a sigh of relief. I don't know why, but that was my gut reaction.

I think I get Badge Fever when cops come to visit me. I feel guilty even when I'm NOT. I don't think I could pass a lie detector test. They'd ask me my name, I'd answer truthfully and the needles would go spinning off the page as if I were lying my ass off.

I wouldn't make a good criminal. I have too much guilt instinct.

many thanks

I have been most remiss in thanking paul for the wonderful volunteer work he performed on my blog. I had spammers swarming my comments like army ants in that old Charleton Heston movie. They were clogging my email, ruining my pleasant attitude and driving me to murderous rage. I was one more spam attack away from throwing in the towel and shutting down the blog.

Paul came to my rescue.

I have never met the man. He offered his services without being asked. I did a little research and discovered that he is a highly-recommended guru when it comes to fixing blog-problems. I was at the end of my rope, so I sent him the keys to my house and told him to have at it. Whatever he wanted to do was okay with me. I figured that the WORST he could do was shut down my blog, and I was ready to do that anyway.

I have not seen a spam comment for more than a week now. I don't know what he did (if he tried to explain it, I wouldn't understand) but it damn sure worked. Today, it's nice to open my email and not see anywhere from 100 to 1,000 hunks of feces flung by flying spam-monkeys on the page.

I have a question: How many of you other bloggers ever ran into a problem with your site and had a knight in shining armor ride to your rescue and slay the dragons just because he (or she) knew how to do it? You didn't have to ask for help, either. They offered to do it of their own free will and never asked for any reward in return.

That's one of the perks you get for being in the blog collective. It's a COMMUNITY out there, and a lot of the people in it are generous, good-hearted folks who never hesitate to lend a helping hand where it's needed. If the UN were staffed and operated by the same kind of people, the UN wouldn't be the corrupt sham it is today.

But... I digress.

Thank you, Paul. If our paths ever cross, dinner and drinks are on ME. You did me a big favor without being asked, and I know that you sought no more reward than the satisfaction of doing that favor. To me, that is the definition of a "good person."

Uh... welcome to my blogroll. I didn't know how else to show my appreciation.

he's right

Geoffrey is correct. this story is funnier than the one I linked from his site yesterday.

Don't you just hate it when a hate crime so hateful occurs?

too rare

Bullshit lawsuits are the bane of every business in this country, and the bigger the business, the more bullshit it attracts. My brother deals with this crap all the time, and he can tell you stories that'll curl your teeth about professional slip-and-fall bandits, auto insurance fraud-meisters and other scumbuckets who scam our legal system for a quick buck.

Usually the pissants get paid, too--- because it's less expensive to pay a lying bastard $5,000 and have him go away than it is to fight a bullshit case in court. But it doesn't always go that way.

Under oath in a deposition, Gregg claimed a stranger, Charles Maxwell, had approached him after the fall and volunteered that he had warned the restaurant's management only 15 minutes before that the floor was slippery. The foundation for injury compounded by negligence now laid, McDonald's agreed to settle the case through arbitration. An arbitrator awarded Gregg $30,000.

Thirty grand isn't a bad haul for a con-artist. But this one got greedy.

Instead of being $30,000 wealthier, Gregg is spending 30 days in jail. Apparently, he got greedy and, as the Associated Press story wittingly related, decided he wanted to "supersize" that arbiter's judgment. He appealed and requested a jury trial, which was supposed to start last week.

Meanwhile, McDonald's in apparent preparation for that trial, discovered that Gregg and Maxwell were no strangers at all, but rather close acquaintances. Maxwell had been Gregg's employer and they had obtained a previous fraudulent claim from Geico Insurance after claiming their cars collided in late 2002.

Heh. If the thieving bastard had been content with his original ill-gotten gains, he would have walked away with $30,000 he didn't deserve. But he saw that the scam was SOOOO EASY that he went for more. The crook got caught this time. Justice was served.

But that kind of case is too rare today.

fan mail

Here's a nice email from some dickwit who calls himself "Fuckoff@die.com."

You self-righteous son of a bitch, you'll get what's coming to you... right-wing imperialistic motherfuckers who squander the world's resources in order to ensure the gratuitous accumulation of capital for personal gain - such as yourself - are better off dead.

Let's see if I can grasp his point, if he has one.

I am a self-righteous son of a bitch. Okay, I can handle that. A LOT of people think that way about me and I don't give a shit WHAT they think. I'd rather be a self-righteous son of a bitch than a flaming asshole who calls himself fuckoff@die.

You'll get what coming to you. I believe that I already have. I am retired and living comfortably, if not lavishly, at the age of 52. That ain't bad for a hillbilly born in a coal mining camp in Harlan County, Kentucky. And I got it all by myself, too. I can accept this fate.

I am a right-wing imperialist motherfucker.. I am definitely more conservative than leftist, but I wouldn't describe myself as right-wing on anything but defense and economic issues. I am politically incorrect, but I am proud to be an American. If that makes me an imperialist motherfucker, I stand guilty as charged.

I squander the world's resources in order to ensure the gratuitous accumulation of capital for personal gain. I always thought what I did was called "WORK," and I was paid for my labor, but maybe I'm wrong. I took an ore found in sand all over the world and "squandered" it into TiO2 pigment, which was then used in everything from paint to paper, to plastics, to toothpaste, to sunscreen to M&M candy. I think the point here is that humanity was better off when that ore lay unused in the sand. Gaia was happier then.

I'm better off dead. If communist asswipes such as Fuckoff ever take over, I totally agree. In the meantime, however, I intend to enjoy my "gratuitous accumulation of capital for personal gain." I earned it, and it's MINE. Isn't that a selfish attitude?

I have some advice for Fuckoff: FUCK OFF, you pathetic, leftist whinebag.

December 28, 2004

better late than never

You need to check this.

That's all I'm gonna say except to admit that I stole the link from here.

Cleaning house

My daughter should be arriving in Savannah tomorrow and she just may intend to stay with ME while she's here. That's fine with me--- in fact, I invited her and Stacey to stay here--- but my standards of household hygene are not exactly what two wimmen would appreciate. In fact, the way I keep house would shame a self-respecting pig.

So, I launched into a cleaning frenzy today. I went beserk with Lysol, bleach, SOS pads, Miracle Formula 409, mops, brooms, rags, scrub-brushes and everything but an indoor pressure-washer for about 90 minutes, until I got tired of doing that shit. Then, I stepped back to survey my work.

The Crackerbox still looks like Fido's ass. It looks better than it DID, but that ain't sayin' much.

So, I thunk a thought. If those gals want to Martha Stewart my home, THEY can do it; otherwise, either adapt to the filth or sleep in the bed of my pickup truck at night. It's MY goddam house and I LIKE it all fucked-up.

To borrow a line from a noted philosopher: "If my home does not meet YOUR standards, then LOWER YOUR STANDARDS. Who the hell do you think you are anyway?"

Besides-- Samantha is a fine one to lecture ME now about living in a pig sty after the way she once kept HER room. I have pictures to prove it, too. That child once made ME appear anal-retentive. Damned slob.

So, she and Stacey are welcome to stay, but they'd better not bitch at me about my pet spider in the bathroom or the fact that the toilet paper sits on the edge of the sink instead of hanging neatly from the roller. And I don't want to hear a word about those clothes piled up in the laundry room. They're clean; they just haven't been "put away" for a month or so.

What they don't like, they are welcome to change. I'll get out of their way and allow them to clean until they drop (which they WILL, if they take on my home as a project). Heh. This could actually be a good thing for me. I'll take 'em shooting, feed and water 'em, give 'em a warm bed with clean sheets to sleep on, and all I ask in return is... SHUT UP AND CLEAN MY GODDAM HOUSE!!!

Sounds like a fair deal to me.

PC is BS

ARRRGGGHHH!!! I thought I was over my stomach flu until I read this. Now, I'm reaching for the barf-bucket again.

"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me."

That's because government banned all the "hurtful" words.

fighting fires

Would you believe that I was Captain of the Company Fire Brigade for seven years at work? Would you believe that I was a member of the fire brigade for six years before that? Well, I don't really give a shit WHAT you believe, but it's true.

I am a trained firefighter.

GOT-DAM, was I ever trained. I went to every farking school the Georgia Fire Protection Association ever offered and I even went out of state for some serious Haz-Mat schooling, where I was taught to walk around in a moon-suit and handle kill-ya-dead chemical spills. I learned to fight every kind of fire known to man and put it out with everything from water to foam to chemical spray to powder. About the only kind of fire I HAVEN'T been trained to stop is a flaming oil well, requiring explosive charges to suck up all the oxygen.

I am surprised that I wasn't sent to a school to learn THAT technique, too, even though we had no oil wells at my plant. I think the company was trying to kill me. Some of that training was pretty goddam intense.

I have a confession: I AM NOT A NATURAL-BORN FIREFIGHTER.

The guys who taught those courses were highly-trained professionals who really knew their shit. They had been fighting fires and cleaning up chemical spills all their working lives, and they knew how to do it right. I learned a lot from them. But I learned something else, too. THEY LOVED DOING THAT STUFF!!!

I didn't.

A natural-born firefighter would rather don his turnout gear, strap on an SCBA, grab a 2" hose and attack a burning building than eat when he's hungry or fuck when he's horny. I am NOT making this up. Those guys are crazy.

I believe that some people are born with a "fire gene" and they gravitate naturally to that kind of work. They damn sure don't do it for the money, because you don't get rich being a firefighter. They do it because they WANT TO and they enjoy the danger, the thrill and the flames. I am glad that we have such people in the world, but I never wanted to be one of them.

I don't think I have the "fire-gene." Firefighting always scared the shit out of me. I did it, but it wasn't because I wanted to. It was because I HAD to.

When I saw the firefighters die on 9/11, I thought about the people who trained me over the years. Yes, it takes incredible bravery and a set of mega-balls to do what the NYFD did that day, but I don't believe that anyone who trained me would have hesitated to do the same thing. That's the way those guys are built. They'll play poker with the devil and bet against death no matter what the odds. That's what they DO.

I still wonder what I would have done in their boots that day. Hell, I probably would have crapped in my turnout gear and filled my boots with feces while I stood paralyzed with fright with a limp hose in my hand. I HOPE not, but I can't say what I would have done under those circumstances. I've never faced them.

I put out a lot of fires at work. But I never risked my life doing it. Risking your life is a part of a firefighter's job. They realize the danger, they are trained to cope with it and they know what has to be done. Those guys not only don't hesitate to do it, but they relish the opportunity.

I have the utmost respect for them. But I hope that I never have to fight another fire any worse than a cigarette falling out of my ashtray onto my carpet. That's more my speed.

I'm just NOT a natural-born firefighter.

death

When you read about 40,000 people dying after the earthquake in Southeast Asia, the mind numbs. You can't really wrap your imagination around a number that large when you see it in the news.

But when you watch one person dear to you shed this mortal coil, the grief is immediate, the impact is powerful and the sense of loss is overwhelming. That's when death becomes personal, not some story in the news.

Christina is there now. Go give her a hug.

about time!

I thought he was dead. He's not, and he is finished with his meditations now and back to blogging.

That calls for a cigar!

i'll show you!

I've written before about what I think of unions. I don't like them, I don't like the union mentality and I don't like the kind of thugs they tend to pick for leaders. The Union philosophy is simple: "We don't want to work."

I suspect that the union at US airways is about to get exactly what it wants. With their asses chapped over proposed pay cuts and a reduction in benefits, the union attempted to cut the throat of its bankrupt employer with a "sick out" over the Christmas weekend.

BRILLIANT!!! That stunt probably sounded the death knell for the airline. Thus, the union managed to scorn reduced wages and lower benefits in favor of NO FUCKING JOB AT ALL. Boy, they showed managment something.

The union denies an organized effort in the sick-out. I deny calling them lazy, no-good sacks of shit. We're even. We're both lying.

Unions seem to believe that "The Company" pays their wages. That's not true. CUSTOMERS pay their wages and any company without customers has no money to pay wages. So, who did the union screw? THEIR CUSTOMERS!

No wonder unions are dying off like dinosaurs.

happy birthday to me

Gut Rumbles is three years old today. I am proud of that fact.

It's been one hell of a ride.

December 27, 2004

Cat wisdom

If you meet my friend Catfish, you'll have an immediate reaction: You'll either like him right away, or you'll hang back with an eye on running for the door because you think he's the craziest sumbitch you ever saw. Either reaction is the correct one.

I remember the bonfire in Daffin Park. They stopped doing that on New Year's Eve sometime in the early 60s, when some asshole shot off a bottle rocket, hit a three year-old girl in the face, and put out one of her eyes. I learned a lesson that night: One asshole can ruin EVERYBODY'S party.

this post may offend some people, but if you've got a bitch, sent it to Cat and not me. He's blogging about Savannah and everything he says is true. His recollections are filtered through brown whiskey, but sometimes those are the best ones. He can tell some stories.

And he doesn't have to make that shit up.

a terrible tragedy

The toll in human death and suffering is extreme. It's a terrible tragedy and a lot of people (including many bloggers) are doing what they can to help. But already, the assholes are out in force.

Enzo Boschi, the head of Italy's National Geophysics Institute, likened the quake's power to detonating a million atomic bombs the size of those dropped on Japan during World War II, and said the shaking was so powerful it even disturbed the Earth's rotation.

``All the planet is vibrating'' from the quake, he told Italian state radio. Other scientists said it was early too say whether the rotation was affected by the quake.

Guess who's gonna get the news coverage? (That 1,000,000 atomic bomb quote is a headline-grabber. Is there a scientist in our midst who can calculate exactly the force 1,000,000 atomic bombs dropped at the same time would generate?)

And I also call bullshit on the laments about early-warning systems saving thousands of people IF ONLY they had been in place. The link requires registration, which I refuse to do, so I lifted it from here.

"Most of those people could have been saved if they had had a tsunami warning system in place or tide gauges," he said yesterday. "And I think this will be a lesson to them," he said, referring to the governments of the devastated countries. Person also said that because large tsunamis, or seismic sea waves, are extremely rare in the Indian Ocean, people were never taught to flee inland after they felt the tremors of an earthquake. Tsunami warning systems and tide gauges exist around the Pacific Ocean, for the Pacific Rim as well as South America. The United States has such warning centres in Hawaii and Alaska operated by the US Geological Survey. But none of these monitors the Indian Ocean region.

My ass.

If that isn't one of the lowest forms of Monday-morning quarterbacking I ever saw, I'll kiss a fuzzy, cute CAT. First of all, even WITH early warnings, how capable is the local infrastructure of handling a mass exodus of the population? Second, how is the warning supposed to be communicated to people? If you GIVE the warning, how many will hear it?

I have experienced TWO hurricane evacuations in Savannah, and we spend a lot of money on every fucking warning system known to man. We have a local FEMA office with access to every radio and television station within broadcast range. Plus, EVERYBODY watches the Weather Channel when a hurricane is headed our way.

BOTH evacuations were total clusterfucks. (And I dare anybody caught in either one to tell me I'm wrong!) I know people who fled Hurricane Floyd and found themselves stuck on the interstate, somewhere between Savannah and Atlanta, sleeping in their CARS when the hurricane was supposed to run right over them. They couldn't go anywhere else. Total gridlock.

And we have "sophisticated" systems here.

If Southeast Asia had all those alarm bells and whistles, do you REALLY believe that people would have gotten out of there in time? I don't. One or two hundred, maybe--- those fortunate enough to own an automobile or those who really paid attention, but not many more. When something as big as that earthquake and the resultant tsumais hit, people die. Period. And any "scientist" or government official who says different and starts that "...if only..." bullshit is a liar.

The warning system is a good idea. I'm not going to argue that point. But anybody who calls it a magic pill now must stand to make money or votes from it in the future. I am cynical enough to believe THAT FACT, not what the the bleaters have to say.

Hell, just ask most Democrats about a missle defense system for the USA that could conceivably be used to protect us not only from nuclear attack but from an asteriod strike. They'll tell you right away: "It's a big waste of money that could be spent better elsewhere. After all, how likely IS the threat?"

Human nature pisses me off sometimes. When it's too late, EVERYBODY knows what SHOULD have been done.

oh, bejus!

I link her and call her wise. What does she post next? this sick shit. I am shocked and appalled. I'm also wracking my brain to think up some good condoms-for-stockings and bionics as bells decorations for next year.

See? I am nice to her once and just LOOK at what she does.

hit the ball

I wrote this one in May of 2003. Some feminist idjit started screeching about Annika Storenstam becoming a regular on the PGA tour. Annika is the best woman golfer in the world today, but she can't run with the men PGA pros. She tried it once and didn't make the cut in her first tournament. That fact didn't matter to the idjit. She preached IDEALS.

Annika was supposed to make some kind of feminist STATEMENT by giving up her lucrative career on the LPGA tour and trying to teach the men a thing or two. You know, that "I am woman! Move the tees up for me!" bullshit.

Anyway, I ranted:

Acidman on golf

That dickwitted woman who excoriated me for being "physically and mentally unattractive" (she also called patrick ruffini a "sophomoric blogger," just so you understand how sophisticated she is) wants Annika Storenstam to play again on the men's PGA tour. Annika doesn't want to.

Annika learned her lesson. There is a HUGE difference between what the men do every week and what the ladies do on the LPGA tour. I've read other bloggers (it's in there. I just didn't bother to go find the exact post) belittle golf as a game that's not very physical. People who say that are wrong.

I once was a pretty fair golfer. I have no doubt that I could drag my dusty clubs out of the garage today and break 90 on a local course. I have enough muscle memory to handle that job.

But I'm talking about a LOCAL COURSE, one that I've played over and over, so that I know where to hit my shots with what club and where NOT to miss. That's a course where I know the greens and how the putts break.

The PGA pros play a different course every week and they don't have a lot of time to learn the tricks. Plus, they walk all eighteen holes. That may not sound like much to anyone who has never walked eighteen holes at Augusta National (I didn't play there, but I walked it), but those hills are killers. Golf is more physical for the pros than most people realize.

And it's a mental killer. The pros don't ride around drinking beer in a golf cart the way I do. Every shot is a money shot to them. That's what they do for a living, and when one bogey can cost you $90,000, the pressure is intense.

I played golf with a PGA professional once in my life. I thought I was a hot-shot at the time. We played from the blue tees (long for me, short for him) and I knew on the second hole that he was in another dimension from me. The hole is a par four with a big canal about 275 yards from the tee. If I hit my driver well, I could be on the edge of the canal and have a 9-iron to the green.

He flew the canal with his drive and ended up on the fringe of the green, 340 yards away. He sank a 20-foot putt from there and eagled the hole. And that was no fucking accident. That's the way he hits the ball ALL THE TIME. He shot 63 without even trying.

That's what Annika Storenstam was up against. And she could not compete any better than I could. (Well... she'd probably beat ME, but she won't beat THEM.)

She worked out for six months to get ready for that tournament, and she still couldn't run with the Tall Dogs. Most men can't. NO WOMAN can.

That's one of those unpleasant facts of life that some people, usually lefty butt-wipes, refuse to understand. Everybody can't be that good. It is a Chosen Few who play golf for money and get rich at it. They have the talent, the strength and the mental toughness to do it. Not many people have all of that in one package. You don't make things better by lowering the standards.

Anybody who believes that Annika had a chance to do more than make the cut on the shortest course the men play all year is delusional. But I believe I said that already. She never had a chance.

The GUYS are too good.

Not clever enough

This post lends itself to all sorts of speculation, but I smell dead reefer a set-up. A truck is stopped for speeding going 6 MPH over the limit and the cops want to search the load of coffins in the back? I don't believe that they expected to find Jimmy Hoffa in there.

They KNEW what the truck was hauling.

late christmas

I made it to Mama's house today to bring the presents I didn't bring Saturday. I know I hurt some feelings when I didn't show up, but I wasn't lying when I told mama that I would have crawled there if I could have. But I couldn't. I was really sick.

I was doing well to crawl from the bed to the bathroom and I didn't always make that trip on time.

Quinton came to visit my family on Christmas, but I didn't make it. Yep, Jennifer dropped him off just in time for breakfast that morning and he stayed for almost three hours. He had a good time and collected a lot of loot. I babbled something totally incoherent to him over the phone and wished him a Merry Christmas. I told him that I couldn't be there, but I would see him later. I hung up the phone.

I felt worse than ever when I did that.

Quinton had been hopping like spit on a griddle for three weeks, anxious for me to see the present he bought me with his own money. I told him a while back that my book was finished and I had other writing projects I intended to market after the first of the year. "I'm gonna be FAMOUS!" I said. He didn't forget that conversation.

"You'll LOVE what I got you, Daddy," he said, beaming. "It's PERFECT, especially for when you become a famous writer."

I opened that present today. It's a pen-holder in the shape of the Heisman Trophy. In a way, I'm glad that he wasn't there to see me open that box. I broke down and cried like a baby. I KNOW why he picked that one out. I KNOW what he was thinking. Football and writing, all in one package: PERFECT for Daddy, MY champion.

And it is. It's PERFECT! It's an example of everything I love about my son, and a symbol of what he thinks of me, all in one inexpensive what-not. I believe that the pen holder is the best Christmas present I ever received. That one stays in a special place for as long as I'm alive.

He was exactly right. I LOVE it.

no, goddamit! I don't!!!

I love my witty commenters. When I mentioned that I bitched a lot when I started blogging, Amy fired off this reply:

Um...don't you STILL bitch about everything? Particularly about women bitching about everything?

NO, goddamit!!! I don't bitch about EVERYTHING, just MOST things. Besides, I believe that my bitching has mellowed a great deal over the past three years. I don't tell nearly as many people to go fuck themselves anymore. And I haven't picked a piss-fight flame-war with another blogger in a long time. The post in question was actually a Public Service Announcement, wherein I was attempting to atone for some of my past sins.

But do I get credit for my newfound sensitivity? Hell, no! I get a smart-assed comment that reminded me of something the old ME would have written. I just hate it when I .... evolve... and nobody notices. See? I TOLD you that wimmen bitch about EVERYTHING!!! But not ME. Oh, no, goddamit. Not me.

Not anymore.

the blog collective

I want to read this book. I truly am fascinated by how quickly blogging has emerged as a powerful force in electronic media and I wonder where it's headed in the future.

When I started blogging three years ago, most people didn't know what a blog was (a lot of people STILL don't know, but Dan Rather does--- you can bet your sweet ass on that fact!) and very few blogs reached a very large audience. I stumbled across glenn reynolds, andrew sullivan and ken layne, and I was hooked.

I liked the links to news stories, but I also enjoyed the personality, the opinion and the style they presented. I knew immediately that I wanted to try it myself. So, I started a blog of my own and ...the rest is history, yada, yada yada...

A LOT of people have blogs today and the Tall Dogs enjoy tremendous readership. Some of them are making a nice income from their sites. technorati now tracks more than 5 MILLION BLOGS and the number is growing daily. THAT is a phenomenon, people, and it is changing the face of journalism.

I agree with something Steven den Beste once said before he burned out and quit writing: 90% of blogs are pure shit. He pissed me off when he said it, but looking around now, I believe that he was being charatable in his assessment.

Yeah, a lot of blogs are pure shit. The Tall Dogs receive all the attention, too, which blinds a lot of people to what I see happening in Blogdom: the Little Pups have a lot more influence than they get credit for. Just look at my blogroll.

That's MY inner circle, the people I read frequently. They read me, too, and they all have THEIR inner circles. If someone on that roll writes a particularly good post, l link them. My inner circle follows the link and links the post again. Then, THEIR inner circle reads and decides to link, too. The next thing you know, goddam Instapundit is running with the link.

Yeah. Sometimes it's like throwing a stone into a quiet lake. The ripples just keep spreading, and it all starts with one person nobody saw standing on the shore in the first place before he threw the rock. You don't have to be famous to start a ripple in Blogdom. The place is too interconnected.

That Object of My Undying Lust, key monroe said it well at the last Jawja Blog-Meet: "I don't try to link-whore. I'm happy with the traffic I get and if I write something (picture a beautiful blonde woman rolling her eyes and making appropriate hand-gestures) "WOOOORTHY," you people link it and do my dirty work for me." She is exactly right.

If you have more readers than just you and your mama, you're a member of the Blog Collective, whether you realize it or not. You have a fresh rock in your hand every day. Just THROW IT and see what happens.

You never know how many ripples you may stir.

hits, part II

Here is a post I wrote in March, 2002, after I spent four days at merelfest. THAT is one hell of a music festival--- not just the stage acts, but all the very good picking that goes on in the jam tents and around the campfires at night. That experience made me wax nostalgic for my musician days.

Music

My friend Willie and I were singing along to the car stereo on the way back from North Carolina last night. He has a tape he made of songs he's learned to play over the years and some old Peter, Paul and Mary popped up in there. Their version of "Blowin' in the Wind" is about as mournful and depressing as anything I've heard recently. If you listen to their version of that song, you can feel the sense of immenent doom squeezing their hearts and taste the salt in the bloody tears they cry. Yep, back then we were all gonna die any minute now.

I believe they recorded that song in 1966 or thereabouts and they probably are disappointed that the world didn't blow up during the last 35 years. "Where Have All the Flowers Gone," another mournful dirge, just doesn't go over like it did during the Vietnam War, now that we want our military to go out, kick ass and take names from the people who attacked us. Where have all the flowers gone? Gone to daisy-cutters, every one, and dropped right on the heads of those who want to kill us.

I missed out on the height of the folk music craze of the '60s, but those songs influenced a lot of my larval stage of musicianship. Once I started playing as a solo in the bars, however, I realized quickly that I was not there to be an artist, and I DAMNED SURELY wasn't there to depress people. I was there to sell drinks, pack the house and make locals come back again. If a musician can't do that simple task, the bar owner will fire you and buy a jukebox. It's cheaper in the long run.

So I learned a lot of lively stuff, did the requests people wanted to hear, and wrote a lot of cutesy-nasty songs that no one ever will hear on top-forty radio, but are well-received by people consuming alcoholic beverages and hoping to get laid. I've been making music for a long time, and I believe I know the ropes.

But ten year-old boys cut my butt in the picking tents at Merlefest. I think they pick up guitars, banjos and fiddles just as soon as they turn loose of mama's tit. Damn, but they can play.

That's okay. They may be swift and they may be good, but they are small enough for me to strangle their narrow, guitar-burning necks if they really piss me off.

Besides, what does a ten year-old know about selling drinks?

prostate cancer

Looking back over my ancient archives, I noticed that I wrote frequently about having prostate cancer. I started this blog less than three months after I had my surgery, when I didn't know for certain whether I was cured or not, but I damn well was familiar with the after-effects of the operation. I wasn't a happy camper.

I bitched a lot. But I bitched about EVERYTHING back then.

Three years later, my test results still look good, I don't have to wear diapers anymore (although occasional incontence can still be a problem--- when I've got to go, I've got to GO---) and I cured the impotence problem with an implant. My life will never be what it was before the cancer, but it sure beats the alternative.

I did a google-search and found this article. Cancer of the prostate is a lot more common than most people think. Take a look at this list: (dPC means the disease killed the man)

Don Ameche -- Actor, dPC 1993 (85)

Harry Belafonte -- Singer and actor, RRP

Dirk Benedict -- Actor ("The A Team," "Battlestar Galactica"), b. 1945, a 20+ year PCa survivor

Michael Bentine -- member of "The Goon Show" on the BBC, dPC 1996 (74)

Jim Berry -- Nationally syndicated cartoonist

Bill Bixby -- Actor ("The Incredible Hulk"), director of "Blossom", dPC 1993 (59)

Luis Bonfa -- Brazilian guitarist and composer, dPC 2001 (78)

Pat Boone -- Pop singer

Barry Bostwick -- Actor ("Brad" in "The Rocky Horror Picture Show")

Sean Connery -- Actor

Hume Cronyn -- Actor, dPC 2003 (91)

Billy Davis, Jr. -- Singer (with Fifth Dimension)

Robert De Niro -- Actor and Academy Award winner -- dX 2003 (60), treatment not revealed

Theodore Marcus "Teddy" Edwards -- Jazz musician (tenor saxophone), dPC 2003 (78)

Eddie Fisher -- Pop singer

Kinji Fukasaku -- Film director (co-director of "Tora! Tora! Tora!"), dPC 2003 (72)

John Gary -- Singer -- 65 *

Charles J. Givens -- "Get rich quick" pitchman, dPC 1998 (57)

Robert Goulet -- Singer -- 62

Paulo Gracindo -- Dean of Brazilian actors -- 84 *

Merv Griffin -- TV producer -- 71

Jeremy Geidt -- Theater actor -- 70

Sir Alec Guinness -- Actor, d. 2000 (86)

Damon Harris -- Member of The Temptations

Charlton Heston -- Actor -- 74 *

Bob Homme -- Canadian kiddie show host, dPC 2000 (81)

Quincy Jones -- Writer/producer

Henry "Hank" Ketcham -- Cartoonist (creator of "Dennis the Menace"), dPC 2001 (81)

Lester "Big Daddy" Kinsey -- Blues singer and guitarist -- 74 *

Gene Levitt -- TV writer/producer/director (created "Fantasy Island" series), dPC 1999 (79)

Jerry Lewis -- Actor/comedian, dX 1992 (66)

John Lewis -- Jazz pianist and composer -- 80 *

Curtis Lowe -- Jazz saxophonist -- 73 *

Herbie Mann -- Jazz flutist, dX 1997, dPC 2003 (67)

Victor Mature -- Actor -- 81

Tom McDermott -- TV and movie actor -- 83 *

George Cadogan Gardner McKay -- Actor and playwright, dPC 2001 (69)

Bob McNett -- Drifting Cowboys band -- 69 *

Roger Moore -- Actor

Father of John Michael Montgomery, country singer

Edward Leon Palmer -- Co-creator of Sesame Street children's TV show, dPC 1999 (66)

Joseph Papp -- Theatrical producer -- *

Fess Parker -- Actor and developer

Frank Perry -- Motion picture producer -- 65 *

Sidney Poitier -- Actor, Academy Award winner -- 69

Michael Ritchie -- Director of movies ("The Candidate", "The Bad News Bears") and TV, dPC 2001 (62)

Vincent Frank Salerno -- Jazz pianist, dPC 2003 (78)

Dick Sargent -- Actor ("Bewitched" television series), dPC 1994 (64)

Telly Savalas -- Actor ("Kojak" television series), dPC 1994 (70)

Harry Secombe -- Member of "The Goon Show" on BBC, dPC 2001 (79)

Sterling Dale Silliphant -- Wrote screenplays (Academy Award for "In The Heat Of The Night"), dPC 1996 (78)

Michael Small -- Movie and TV composer, dPC 2003 (64)

Bobs Watson -- Child actor, dPC 1999 (68)

Bruce Welch -- British pop guitarist

Derek York -- British film editor -- 66 *

Frank Zappa -- Rock music star, dPC 1993 (52)

Eddie Arcaro -- Jockey -- 80

Bill Arnsparger -- Defensive coordinator, San Diego Chargers pro football team -- 68

Phil Barkdoll -- U.S. stock car driver -- 57

Fred Biletnikoff -- Hall of Fame professional football player (Los Angeles Raiders), coach

Joseph S. "Joe" Black, Sr. -- Pitcher in major league baseball, dPC 2002 (79)

Frank Broyles -- U. Arkansas Athletic Director and former football coach -- dX 2003 (77),

RP (Mayo Clinic)

Jim Colbert -- PGA Senior Tour golfer

Ray Dandridge -- Hall of Fame third baseman -- 79 *

Len Dawson -- Hall of Fame quarterback, Kansas City Chiefs

Lee Elia -- Hitting coach for the Seattle Mariners -- 59

Jim Ferree -- PGA Senior Tour golfer -- 62

Walter A. Haas, Jr. -- Oakland Athletics owner -- 79 *

Chick Harris -- Carolina Panthers professional football coach

Harold "Happy" Hairston -- Los Angeles Lakers basketball player, dPC 2001 (58)

Leon Joseph Hart, Sr. -- End, Notre Dame football team, won 1949 Heisman trophy, dPC 2002 (73)

Robert Lee "Bob" Hayes -- 1964 100 m Olympic gold medalist, Dallas Cowboy football player, dPC 2002 (59)

Lamar Hunt -- Owner of the Kansas City Chiefs football team

Vic Janowicz -- Heisman Trophy winner, 1955 -- 66 -- *

Marv Levy -- NFL coach, Buffalo Bills -- 67

Brendan Malone -- NBA assistant coach (Knicks/Pacers)

Jim Marshall -- NFL Hall of Fame Minnesota Vikings football player -- 62

Marion Motley -- NFL Hall of Fame football player, dPC 1999 (79)

Stan Musial -- Professional baseball Hall of Fame player

Don Nelson -- NBA basketball player/coach -- 60

Joe Nuxhall -- Cincinnatti Reds baseball radio announcer -- 63

Gary Ormsby -- Race car driver -- 47 *

Arnold Palmer -- Professional golfer, b. 1929, RP+XRT

Harvey Penick -- Golf instructor and author -- 90 *

Richard Petty -- Retired NASCAR stock car driver -- 57

Tommy Prothro -- Hall of Fame U.S. football coach -- 74 *

Tubby Raymond -- Football coach, University of Delaware -- 67

Bobby Riggs -- Tennis player, dPCa 1995 (77)

Frank Robinson -- Baseball Hall of Fame -- 63

Dan Rooney -- President, Pittsburgh Steelers professional football team -- 67

Norm Stewart -- Basketball coach, U. Missouri

Bill Sullivan -- Owner, New England Patriots professional football team

Chuck Tanner -- Manager, Pittsburgh Pirates professional baseball team -- 71

Joe Torre -- Manager, New York Yankees baseball team, RRP

Johnny Unitas -- NFL Hall of Fame professional football quarterback, d. 2003

Ken Venturi -- Golf commentator and former professional golfer -- 69

Bob Watson -- General Manager, N.Y. Yankees professional baseball club

I am in some pretty distinguished company there, and I left off the politicians and military leaders in the article. Not all of those on the list survived, either. Prostate cancer killed my father and my best friend, and that's a sorry, wasting way to die.

A PSA test caught mine early. Guys, do yourselves and your loved ones a favor--- get tested, once every year after the age of 40. It's a simple blood test and it can save your life.

That's my Public Service Announcement for the year.

Gay abe?

Why not? rewriting history to fit a political agenda has become a popular occupation for a lot of people today. But Abraham Lincoln---GAY? That's quite a stretch.

At the risk of sounding blasphemous, I believe that a clever writer (or Michael Moore) could make a much more convincing case that Jesus was gay. After all, Jesus hung around with twelve other men all the time and never bedded a willing female prostitue. That's pretty compelling evidence, isn't it?

Yeah, it's compelling evidence all right--- as long as you're not interested in the truth.

December 26, 2004

greatest hits

Gut Rumbles will celebrate its third blogiversary in two days, December 28--- the same day Quinton will be eleven years old. Yep, I started this blog on my son's birthday. I'll forever remember that day, too--- for a LOT of different reasons.

I'm still kinda burnt-out from the commode-hugging Christmas I just experienced, so I didn't feel much like writing today. But I DID fool around on the computer for a while, and I managed to discover my "vanished" archives, all the way back to the beginning. I'll be reposting some of that old stuff over the next few days, just for the hell of it.

Here is one from February, 2002:

WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE, chapter MMCVIXXIII:

According to a report composted, I mean compiled, by the National Cancer Institute and the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention, "PRELIMINARY research shows that 15,000 cancer deaths in the United States MIGHT have been caused by radioactive fallout from Cold War weapons testing." Of course, the 15,000 dead bodies might not really be 15,000 because "estimates COULD have a CONSIDERABLE margin of error due to UNCERTAINTIES in the research." Those weasel words didn't stop every anti-nuke activist group in the country from crawling out of their fallout shelters to proclaim the report as gospel truth and blame the government for covering up these horrible findings.

I'll admit that the finding are pretty horrible. They were extrapolated from a computer model and correlated through a formula and then masturbated, masticated and manipulated until they proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt that "a single radionuclide, which is a by-product of above ground testing, was tied to between 11,000 and 212,000 cases of thyroid cancer." Tied by a very thin string of snot, evidently, because that number stretches a long way.

But it must be true because the computer models show that radiation from bomb tests spread so far and wide that "no US resident born after 1951 escaped some exposure." I was born in 1952. THAT EXPLAINS IT! THAT"S why I developed prostate cancer when I was 49. Heredity and an unlucky draw from the deck of genes my parents offered me had nothing to do with it. Radiation from atomic bombs gave me cancer. I AM A VICTIM! I WANT MONEY!

That's why I skimmed over the activist's bombast about dead children and the massacre of more Americans and rampant cancer epidemics if nuclear weapons testing ever resumes. "Compensation may be an issue down the line," was all I wanted to hear. And I want to be first in that line with both hands outstretched. The government exploded nuclear bombs in Nevada while I was growing up in Georgia and I got cancer. If that's not an obvious cause-and-effect, I don't know what is. Just read the report. Science is on my side.

I want the government to PAY for what it did to me. I want the government to pay me A LOT. I want to be rich beyond my wildest dreams and fill my bathtub full of $100 bills and lay naked in it. I want a check with at least SIX ZEROES following a THREE DIGIT NUMBER. THAT'S WHAT I WANT!

Of course, the most important role my check will play is to save the world from from nuclear weapons. That's what I really care about.

something to think about

Georgia called me today to see how I was doing. She just back home from visiting her daughter for Christmas. Evidently she read my first post this morning and felt obliged to offer some health-care advice.

Georgia is convinced that diet, vitamins and holistic treatment will cure just about anything, and she isn't one bit bashful about playing medicine-women on that subject. I usually just poo-poo that talk and call her a ditz, but she brought up an interesting point today.

"Why do you think you never get sick in Costa Rica? You don't quit drinking when you go there, but you never have any attacks, either. I can tell you why," she said.

"It's because I just enjoy Costa Rica?" I guessed.

"No, dummy! It's the FOOD!" she replied. "You eat fruit and brown rice and fish and seafood and it's all low-fat, HEALTHY food, and none of it is too spicy. It's good for your belly, especially your pancreas. You come back home and start throwing down that greasy, spicy stuff you like to eat, and you get sick. You need to eat at home just the way you eat in Costa Rica."

The more I think about it, the more I wonder if the ditz just might be right this time. I don't get bellyaches there and I have a good appetite. Of course, somebody else always does the cooking there, so eating Costa Rican food in Costa Rica is easy. I don't know about doing it in the Crackerbox.

But the idea might be worth a try.

desperation

I probably shouldn't confess doing this, because it's really kinda gross, but I was a desperate man at the time. After the second pain pill I took only to almost immediately upchuck it into the commode, I grew worried.

I don't have many of those pills, and I didn't want to exhaust every one of them and be left still hurting. By then, I was barfing nothing but water, if anything came up at all, so I put a collander in the sink and started throwing up into THAT instead of the commode whenever I took a pill. That way, I could retreive the pill instead of lose it.

I believe that I swallowed the same pill six times yesterday over the period of a few hours. It got easier to swallow every time.

Aren't you glad I shared that story with you?

got guts?

I don't believe that I do anymore. I'm pretty sure I flushed all of mine down my commode over the last 36 hours or so. If I've ever been that sick before in my life, I don't remember when.

I'm pretty sure I had another pancreatitus attack, a severe one this time. Usually, I can combat one of those bounts by taking some pain medication, drinking lots of water and not eating anything for about 12 hours. That tactic didn't work this time. Everything I tried to put inside me came right back out again.

I had fever, chills, sweats, waking dreams that were like hallucinations and incredible pain that would not go away. I became intimate with my toilet from both ends. If I believed that I could drive, I would have taken myself to the hospital yesterday. But I couldn't, so I didn't.

Sometime after midnight last night, I drank some water that stayed in me for a change. I took a pain pill and it stayed down, too. I started to feel a little better and I was able to get some sleep. When I woke up this morning, I knew where I was and what had happened, but I honestly did not remember how long I had been out of my mind. One day? Two? Three? I didn't know.

I think I'm going to be okay now. I haven't thrown up for a while and the fever appears to be gone. I still hurt from my chest to my crotch, but the pain isn't as bad and I think a lot of that is pure soreness from heaving so many times for so long.

Maybe I had me a good, old-fashioned wake-up call. I don't want to go through that again. I'm gonna start following doctor's advice for a change--- no more drinking, no more spicy foods, no more fatty foods and plenty of water, all day every day.

The docs warned me that pancreatitus could kill me if I didn't make some serious lifestyle changes. I didn't listen.

The past 36 hours or so made a believer out of me.

December 24, 2004

merry christmas

To you, for being a good friend for a long, long time.

To you for welcoming me warmly into the Axis of Weevils, where I am honored to be.

To you for making me horny every time I see you.

To you for appreciating Tuco as much as I do.

To you for finally getting your shit in one sock. You really had me worried for a while there.

To you, dear one, for doing something nobody else had the balls to do once upon a time.

And to everybody else I didn't mention. Merry Christmas. May you ALL live long and prosper.

ow! trust me!

If you suffer from bleeding ulcers or pancreatitus, DO NOT eat horseradish sauce. Mutha of Bejus! It seemed like a good idea at the time, and it tasted great, but I shouldn't have done it. Have you ever had a flaming spear stuck right into your belly, just below your sternum?

Well, I have. And it doesn't feel very good.

Goddam. I don't want to spend Christmas Eve in the hospital emergency room with morphene being pumped into my ass. (Yeah-- I've had this happen before and that's what they do.) Maybe I'll just die and get this shit over with. Maybe I can make it to the pain pills I have somewhere in the kitchen and take a couple without puking them up. Maybe I'll just lie down on the carpet for a while and take a nap.

Maybe... aw, fuck it. I'm going to curl into a fetal position and think my way out of this one.

we're all gonna die!!!

Heh. I watched an interesting show on the History Channel. Did you know that people have been predicting the end of the world for about as long as civilization has existed? That's almost 10,000 years where someone respected and supposedly wise ALWAYS screamed "WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!" and we're still here.

Let's see... what have I lived through in my brief lifetime? Nuclear Armageddon, the Population Bomb, the Energy Crisis, World Starvation, the New Ice Age, Giant Meteors Slamming Into The Earth and now Global Warming. May I be pardoned for just being a little bit skeptical?

Then, I went and read this site. HOLY BEJUS!!! WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!! AGAIN!!!

How do prophets of doom stay in business when they've been wrong so many times before? I think we just like to have the living shit scared out of us, the way kids like to hear ghost stories at night.

Nothing ever changes but the date and the crisis.

But I have one bit of information that you can count on: We ARE all gonna die... eventually.

change in attitude

No more. Not EVER again.

I've always allowed assholes to play freely in my comments and leave really insulting shit-stains there. I just figured that was part of blogging. When you get the kind of traffic I do, you attract trolls. No big deal.

But I've Grinched-up badly over the past few days, and I ain't puttin' up with that shit any more. I'm not gonna "ban" the usual suspects, but I WILL delete their comments. I'm just sick and tired of looking at that crap, and I don't HAVE to--- so, I won't.

Read this. I know exactly how he feels.

In all honesty, blogging is a labor of love for me and it always has been. It's FREE ICE CREAM!!! Where else can you get that today?

But sometimes, it's just like taking really good care of your lawn only to watch a neighbor's dog shit on it every day. That's not what I worked my ass off for, and that's NOT what I will allow to happen anymore. You shit in MY yard, and I'll shoot you.

There is an "asshole gene" that runs rampant in some people. I don't know why, but if you doubt me, just spend three hours building a sand castle on the beach. Stand back to admire your work and I GUARENTEE YOU that some little fat bastard will come by, see the castle and destroy it. The sick fuck didn't recognize any hard work or beauty when he saw the castle. The idea of building one himself never registered in his feral mind. He just wanted to stomp on it. Tearing down what others do is how he really defines himself.

A lot of people are built that way.

I will continue to build castles in the sand here. But if you want to stomp on MY creation, I'm going to cut your fucking feet off. Go be your asshole self somewhere else.

No more. Not EVER again.

interesting

I gave the keys to my house to someone who volunteered to fix my spam problems. I just noticed a whole load of spam in my email. But when I started to blacklist them, I discovered that they had ALREADY been deleted, banned and run through the heart with a sharp stick.

Friend, if this fix works, I owe you a steak dinner and all the beer you want to drink. And I mean a BIG steak and ALL the beer. I appreciate a favor when someone does one for me.

I owe you, dude.

don't tell her you've been crying...

I talked to Quinton about an hour ago. He's bouncing like a superball, all excited about Christmas, and he told me that it would be okay if I picked him up tomorrow and took him to mama's house for breakfast. My heart soared like a hawk. He seemed really happy about the idea, too.

I said that I would be there at 9:30 in the morning. Maybe Christmas could be worth a shit after all this year!

Ten minutes later, the Bloodless Cunt called. "Rob, I don't want you picking Quinton up. That's a violation of the court order and I don't know where Quinton got the idea that I said it was okay. I would rather drop him off or..."

I ended the conversation right there. I said, "Well, Merry Fucking Christmas to YOU, TOO!!! Do whatever you want to do, because that's what you're gonna do anyway. You've always enjoyed hurting other people. After all, you ARE the center of the universe," and I hung up the phone. Then, I cried like a baby.

Mama called almost as soon as I hung up the phone. "Guess who I just talked to?" she asked excitedly. I tried to straighten out my voice and get my vision working again.

"Probably Quinton," I responded. "But, mama, he's a little off-target about tomorrow. I'll be there, but he won't be coming with me."

"What? He said everything was planned."

"Plans have changed and I don't want to talk about it. I love you and I'll see you tomorrow." I got off the phone as quickly as I could.

I'm still crying; I just didn't want mama to know. She's got enough on her plate without worrying about me, too.

Show me another picture of some Iraqi asswipe with panties on his head and talk to ME about "torture." If I don't show a whole lot of sympathy, you'll just have to forgive my hard heart or kiss my Cracker ass. I believe that I have a pretty good idea of what torture is all about. I've had a god-dam bellyfull of it over the past three years and I'm not sure how much more I can take.

Excuse me. I've got some more crying to do.

uninvited--chapter seven

I just had to. I wrote an addendum to the blog novella.

The nurse came by on her rounds and changed the nearly empty IV dripping into the patient's arm. Poor man, she thought. Missing both arms, both legs and with cranial injuries that would have killed anyone else, he had been "alive," if you could call it that, for more than two years now.

The explosion that blew him to pieces left him blind and deaf. Sometimes he groaned, and sometimes he tossed in his drug-enhanced coma, but the doctors all said that he was brain-dead and he would never recover. Maria often wondered what he was like before his injuries. She couldn't be sure, seeing him now, but she thought that once he might have been a handsome man.

She smoothed his sheets and checked his vital signs. The ventilator hummed and the monitors beeped just the way they were supposed to do. Maria had to admit one thing. James was her best patient. He NEVER complained. She wondered if he ever dreamed in that prison of darkness he occupied now, but she knew dreams weren't possible in his condition.

"Good night, darlin'," she said, as she left the room and turned off the light, leaving James alone, with visions only he could see.

James sat on the beach and strapped the swim-fins on his feet. He'd swim out to the reef and do some snorkeling today. Damn, but Belize was beautiful and it was a great day to be alive. He smelled the salt air and enjoyed the feeling of the warm sun on his back.

He would see Maria tonight, and take her to that little seafood restaurant on the wharf that she liked so much. They would eat, share a bottle of wine (maybe TWO bottles), then go back to his place and make love all night long.

James threw back his head and laughed. THIS was his destiny...

feed it to the dog

Did you ever find something really questionable in your refrigerator, open the lid and SMELL IT, searching for a clue about whether it was fit to eat or not? Of course not. NOBODY does that.

When it didn't smell bad, even if you couldn't remember exactly what it was, did you remain uncertain about actually EATING it, even though you were desperately hungry and you had no other food in the house? Of course not. NOBODY does that.

Did you ever try it out on your dog? You know, to see if HE'LL eat it. You've gotta figure that if HE eats it and doesn't die, it probably won't kill YOU either. Of course not. NOBODY does that.

Did you ever watch your dog scarf that stuff with his tail wagging and then decide to have a bowl for yourself? Did you eat it and think, "That wasn't bad," and then watch your dog start making "ACK! ACK! ACK!" noises right before he puked all over the carpet? Of course not. NOBODY does that.

Did you ever reach for the phone to call 911 to report self-poisoning, only to watch your dog eat his own puke right off the carpet, then waddle happily off to his bed for a nap? Did you decide then NOT to call 911 and just wait to see what happened next? Of course not. NOBODY does that.

I certainly never have.

the ten commandments

I'll bet that I've seen The Ten Commanments at LEAST 50 times. In my early college years, that movie played at the drive-in a lot, and my friends and I would go see it frequently. Armed with a couple of six-packs, a bottle or two of Boone's Farm and a pockeful of hand-rolled cigarettes, we had many a religious experience while watching that drama unfold.

That's where I first leaned that Moses was named by idiots with no imagination whatsoever. His full name was Moses Moses Moses. Just watch the movie and COUNT how many times people call him by his full name. "Oh, Moses, Moses, Moses!" EVERYBODY does that, all the way through the movie.

Yul Brenner was a fantastic Pharoh, even with his bikini-waxed chest. When it came time for someone to stagger off to the concession stand to buy some popcorn and Jordan almonds to satisfy our munchies, we matched coins to pick a victim. If you were odd-man out, everybody in the car said. "YOU LOSE!!! So let it be written, so let it be done!" and off you went to get the goodies.

Remember when Moses Moses Moses climbed the mountain and experienced the burning bush? Remember how he changed after that experience? Remember those bloodshot eyes, that maniacal hair and the expression of pure ecstacy on his face?

Sit in a 1962 Dodge Dart at the drive-in with enough dope-smoke in the car to cut with a knife and haul out in solid cubes under your arm. Then look at the person sitting next to you. HOLY BEJUS!!! He looks just like Moses Moses Moses!!!

That's what a burning bush will do to you.

Plus, when Moses Moses Moses parted the Red Sea, we all climbed out and pissed next to the car. It was a ritual.

I wish some cable station was showing that movie tonight. I'd like to see it again. If I really tried, I might even be able to scrounge up some burning bush to smoke while I ate popcorn and shouted, "SO LET IT BE WRITTEN!!! SO LET IT BE DONE!!! when I wanted another beer. I'd have to go get the beer myself, but I'd Pharoh my ass off anyway.

I LIKE that movie.

try it--you'll like it

I've eaten almost every one of these foods. Most of 'em were pretty damned good, too. (I don't care for caviar-- that's just too fishy. But smoked reindeer tongue is delicious.)

I haven't tried these yet, but will will if I ever get the chance:

#11-- Moretown Bay Bugs. Just WTF is THAT?

#22-- Kangaroo. I'll bet that it tastes a lot like venison.

#32-- Guinea Pig. I've eaten squirrel. I could handle Guinea pig.

#36-- Barramundi. I don't know if I've eaten that shit or not. I don't know what it is.

#40-- Australian Meat Pie. If drinking beer is involved with eating whatever-the-fuck goes into this "pie," gimme a plate full. I am an adventurous soul and I know that anything called "meat pie" usually contains ingredients that a dog would rather piss on than devour. I'll try it.

I am surprised that nobody mentioned rattlesnake, dandilion greens, raw conch, armadillo, 'possum or raccoon. I've eaten every one of those dishes, too. (They SUCK, but I ate them.)

How daring is YOUR palate?

(Link shamelessly stolen from here.)

(UPDATE: Here is a response from a kindred soul.)

it's finished!

The final chapter of the Blog Novella is up. That one has more twists than a Rashta-man's braids, but consider the source.

That project was fun.

terrible

Warning: this link is not for the faint of heart. Oh! The waste, the carnage, the HORROR!!!

That is the stuff nightmares are made from.

December 23, 2004

looks familiar

Is there a bar nearby?

I seem to recall this sight as I was falling on my face one night. I remember lying in a puddle of puke and laughing hysterically as I repeated the word "Buncombe" over and over again. I think a policeman arrived and my friends hustled me off before I was hauled to jail for manhole-cover abuse. I think I was trying to take my pants off at the time. Really... is there a bar nearby?

Or maybe I dreamed the entire thing.

that didn't take long

I went into MT Blacklist and undid what I did yesterday. I wrote one post. Just on a hunch, I checked my email. Sure enough. More than 50 spam comments in 15 minutes.

I looked at that shit and I threw up my hands in frustration.

I love it when I hear starry-eyed leftists who have NO CLUE WHATSOEVER about life talk about "the brotherhood of man." Asshats. You want to see the REAL "brotherhood of man?" Just check my fucking email. I don't want to get really philosophical here, but THIS BULLSHIT is the reason communism NOR socialism will ever work as an effective government.

We simply have too many parasites in the world.

I was offered money to spam MYSELF!!! That's right--- some band of fuckheads offered me $120 per month to plug Texas on-line poker and Direct TV on my blog. I declined, and I didn't do it in the most respectful fashion. What they asked me to do was beneath my dignity. I would die and go to hell first. I wanted to poke them in the eye with a flaming stick from a campfire. Just who the fuck did they think I was?

I know now. They thought I was one of those people who are spamming me again today.

yankee-mobile

Who in the hell, other than a farooking YANKEE, would want one of these?

INTRODUCING THE CADILLAC NEW JERSEY

For the ultimate in luxury and safety, General Motors is proud to introduce the 2005 Cadillac New Jersey. While this stellar example of the finest in American engineering has been designed to keep you safe and comfortable in traffic jams that can last for hours, the Cadillac New Jersey is also capable of unleashing its 450 horses at a second’s notice, whether on the highway, or wherever you may be when a quick getaway is a must. This beauty comes standard with a 100 watt, 12 speaker, multi-disc stereo system, which has been specially wired and calibrated to flawlessly receive a dedicated satellite feed that plays nothing but Sinatra, Dean Martin, Al Martino, and Gerry Vale, 24/7.
In addition, the Cadillac New Jersey boasts important safety features such as bulletproof windows and doors and an optional armored undercarriage. Other options include: a multi-band police scanner, pasta bar, easy access gun ports, and a hermetically sealed, steam cleanable trunk to prevent unwanted odors from entering the passenger compartment.

The Cadillac New Jersey…..It’s a great freakin’ cah.

You couldn't GIVE one of those pieces of shit away down South, unless it was to a New Jersey snowbird headed for Florida. Here is the kind of vehicle WE prefer:

The Jawja Red-Necked Yee-Hah

"This ain't no CAR, people... it's a TRUCK, pre-dented and mud-stained so you don't have to worry about getting any dust on that show-room finish, like them yankee pussies do. Standard equipment includes a set of oversized tires and a hand-made dog-box in the bed, complete with two dogs, Buck and General Lee, and them's good dogs. They don't eat much and almost never howl at the moon.

"The trailer hitch is free. It once was chrome, until Wicked Wanda got her lips wrapped around it at Junior's birthday party last year, but you'll just have to accept the hitch the way it is, because Wanda is capable of amazing things when she gets a few margaritas in her. If you don't believe ME, ask Dwane, that shit-ass she's living with now. That bastard's been walking as if he had a bad case of the piles ever since he met her.

"Just look under the hood. How 'bout THAT? See? It comes with jumper cables permanently attached on one end. And looky here! That's genuine, double-rectified, blue-colored window-washing fluid in that plastic thingy there. You don't see much of that around here.

"Just crank her up. Oh, YEAH!!! Hear that? Well, of COURSE you don't hear that because she's a little contrary when you first try to get her running, kinda like a woman--- know what I mean? But smell that cloud of black smoke. Now THAT is burning oil. Damn! Makes me think of NASCAR races and one of my ex-wives. Ole Shirley was sumpin,' I'll tell you that...

"If you buy this fine vehicle now--- and don't worry about your credit--- I can cut you a deal even if the repo man is hauling off your single-wide as we speak--- I'll throw in this Confederate flag license plate and a pair of fuzzy dice to hang from your rear-view mirror, just as soon as we glue that sucker back on.

"Y'all wanna talk turkey or think about it for a minute? But I'll tell you right now: if you snooze, you lose on this baby. Ain't but one like it, and you're looking at it. If you don't jump right now, that old frog ain't gonna land on a lily pad."

Need a vehicle? Need one BAD??? Buy a Jawja Red-Neck YEE-HAH! today. They don't make 'em like that anymore.

I can write this satire because I am a Southerner. I OWN a truck a lot like that. No yankee can get away with the same thing.

sandy claws

He's BIG!!! He looks WEIRD!!! You can't see his FACE!!! He has a BEARD!!! And he wears MOTORCYCLE BOOTS!!!

No wonder kids fear him.

(Link shamelessly stolen from several different bloggers.)

i think i fixed it

If you were accidentally banned from commenting yesterday, you should be okay now. Or maybe not. Try it and see.

I really don't give a rat's ass.

When 50% of my time on this computer is spent running squatters, spammers and shitasses off my site, it's time to start thinking about doing something else.

a christmas poem

Jackie lay in his bed late Christmas night
Full of excitement, tinged with some fright--
He'd been just as good as a good boy could be;
At least he had tried-- surely Santa could see.

He regretted torturing the neighborhood cat
But Santa liked reindeer-- he could ignore that
Jackie thought of the rock that he threw in a fit
It wasn't that window that he meant to hit.

Jackie worried, he fretted, like all little boys
He recalled all his sins while he wished for new toys
But deep down inside, he knew in his soul
The morning would bring him a big lump of coal.

He remembered it all, both the bad and the good
And he weighed it all closely, the way Santa would
The scale seemed well-balanced; it tipped neither way
Would Jackie have anything on Santa's sleigh?

Jackie wasn't THAT bad--not as bad as his brothers
Not as bad as young Mickey, not as bad as some others
In fact he'd been GREAT, for an entire year
Santa would come with his tiny reindeer.

But what if he didn't? Imagine the shame
If checking that list Santa struck through his name?
"There's Jackie and I know everything that he's done
If I need to scratch somebody, he'll be the one."

Some time in that longest of longest of nights
Young Jack fell asleep with his fists balled up tight
If he woke in the morning, after Santa passed by
And he had no presents, he wouldn't cry--

He'd play with his brothers and not shed a tear
While promising himself to do better next year
Santa, I'm sorry for some things I've done
If you leave me a present, I'll settle for ONE.

Jackie slept through the night while the wind in the willow
Made sleigh-bell sounds in his head on the pillow
And dreaming, he heard clatter of hooves on the roof--
And when he woke in the morning, there it was---THE PROOF!!!

Do you believe in magic? I once did.

makes perfect sense to me

If you are more than 40 years old, go read this article and weep. If you are in your 20s, read the article and get a fucking clue.

College is just chock full of "life's difficulties."

what a picture

I dropped by to visit my friend catfish today. He adopted several stray kittens a month or so ago (he intends to take them to his soon-to-be-finished Country Mansion in MacInCrack County, Georgia and teach them to hunt field mice). The "kittens" are growing fast, and they must like the way I smell.

I had three of those fuckers crawling all over me. Catfish said, "If I took a picture of this, I could run you right off your blog. That's a cat-bomb if I ever saw one."

I told him that I was carrying a gun and if he reached for a camera, I was reaching for my pocket. He laughed. "Oh? You've got one of THESE?" and he whipped out a 9mm pistol from beneath his sofa cushion.

No, I didn't have one of those, I confessed, so I decided to allow the cats to crawl all over me. Catfish did NOT take a picture and nobody got shot.

Typical Thursday in the South.

i am deeply offended

I cannot believe that this guy spewed such vitriol on his blog when writing about a fellow blogger:

"no good, four flushing, ratbag, cross eyed, drug addled, syphillitic, whore chasing, worthless sack of monkey shit."

What REALLY offends me is the fact that he wasn't talking about ME at the time.

time of the season?

Eric is having sick dreams. I would let out a big, fat "BWHAHAHAHAA!!!" and tell him to lay off the scotch, except for one small problem.

I had a sick dream myself last night.

I dreamed that I woke up in the middle of the night with an overpowering urge to go brush my teeth. I didn't need to piss or anything you might EXPECT to get up in the middle of the night to do. I just HAD to brush my teeth. So, I went to do exactly that.

I crawled out of bed, staggered to the bathroom, turned on the light, looked in the mirror.... and I almost screamed. I WAS FUCKING BALD!!! That's right, ladies and gentlepersons--- my pate was as bare as a baby's ass except for about a two-hair comb-over that looked worse than that coon-skin-cap Sam Nunn once sported in the Senate. If I wore dentures, they would have hit the floor right then.

I looked at my bald head in amazement. Where did my gray silver hair go? I KNEW that I had hair when I went to bed. How did I lose it ALL in less than a night? And why would I try to fake people out with that shitty-looking comb-over? Had I been this way for a long time and just NOT NOTICED IT in a fit of denial???

I woke up in a cold sweat. I thanked GAWD that it was just a dream. I lit a cigarette and thought about my spooky imagination for about 30 seconds. Then, I crawled out of bed, staggered to the bathroom, turned on the light and looked in the mirror.

I REALLY WAS BALD, WITH A SHITTY, TWO-HAIR COMB-OVER!!! AIEEEEE!!!!!

Did you ever dream about waking from a dream and discover later that you were still dreaming? I didn't think so. Sane people don't do that, do they?

Neither do I.

mercy link

This blogger just installed trackbacks and nobody is tracking back to the blog. That's sad.

Go visit and throw her a mercy-link. It's fucking CHRISTMAS, for crying out loud. Spread some cheer and joy.

You'd want somebody to do it for YOU!!!

we are idiots

Here's a true definition of Political Correctness: "Everyone must behave by the standards of the most neurotic, fucked-up, deranged, overly-sensitive, whining, grievance-bearing, asshole-acting dickwit within 1,000 miles--- no, make that 10,000 miles, just to be on the safe side."

this is what got me fired up.

Jesus, Mary and Joseph long ago got the heave-ho from the schoolhouse, but the great secular trinity of Santa, Rudolph and Frosty aren't faring much better. Frosty The Snowman and Jingle Bells are offensive to those of a non-Frosty or non-jingly persuasion: they're code for traditional notions of Christmas. The basic rule of thumb is: anything you enjoy singing will probably get you sued. At my little girl's school, the holiday concert is a mélange of multicultural dirges that are parcelled out entirely randomly: she seems to have got stuck with the H's - last year she wound up with a Hannukah song, this year she's landed some Hispanic thing; next year, no doubt, a traditional Hutu disembowelling chant. It would be offensive to inflict Deck the Halls or God Rest ye Merry Gentlemen on any hypothetical Hutu in attendance, but it's not offensive to inflict hot Hutu hits on bewildered moppets.

Below is NOT an actual news story, but it could be, and probably WILL be soon:

Pleasantville, Mass.-- Every student in Virginia Robinson's third grade class was suspended indefinitely today for violating the "zero tolerance" policy at Mt. Silicone Elementary School. The incident occurred when Sissy Markhall brought her pet cat to school for "show and tell" and the cat proceded to defecate in the organic garden-plot the class grows to promote environmental awareness and to Save The Earth.

Several students shouted, "EEEWWWWW!!! CAT-POO!!!" Ms. Robinson could not discern who uttered the offensive words, so she expelled her entire class. "Cat-Poo" is on the list of forbidden words NO third grader is allowed to say.

"Cat-Poo" made the list after Crazy Mattie Tailor sued the city when she was asked to get rid of some of the 150 cats that live with her in her single-wide mobile home. Neighbors complained about a stench, and Tailor countered by saying that she was deeply offended. "It smells like roses to me, and these cats are like my children." Stench also is a forbidden word now.

After a successful lawsuit, where Tailor was awarded $2.5 million for her pain and suffering, "cat-poo," "stench," "bitch," "single-wide mobile home" and "crazy" were put on the school's banned word list. Violation of this policy carries a punishment of immediate expulsion.

Principal Harvey Pittman explained the incident to reporters. "This is the United States of America. Every child needs to learn early in life that we just don't use certain words here. Freedom of speech does not mean you have the right to yell "cat-poo" in a crowded classroom."

The ACLU, which was instrumental in sponsoring the original suit by Tailor, applauded the decision as "a victory for civil rights."

Don't mock me. I'm not far from the truth here.

wrong

I don't believe that she should be in jail. Her only crime was "lying," and if we get serious about prosecuting THAT crime, almost every politician and lawyer in the country would be behind bars.

Want Martha Stewart to atone for her sins? Make her come clean my house and then turn her loose. That's punishment enough.

December 22, 2004

don't write me again!!!

NO!!! You are NOT "banned" and you didn't do anything to piss me off. You have no need to apologize to get back into my good graces. We're still friends.

The fact that you can't comment on my site is nothing personal. I had a bad spam attack today and I did what I always said I would do in a hostage standoff: "Go in there and kill THE BAD GUYS!!! If any hostages live, that's gravy, but KILL ALL THE BAD GUYS FIRST!!! That way, we KNOW that THEY'RE dead."

I did that. Not all of the hostages survived. But the NONE of bad guys did.

If I weren't such a computer moron, maybe I could have done a better job. But I AM a moron, and I did what I thought I had to do. That's the way I am.

Try again later.

bad day today

If I've been more prickly than normal today... well, just FUCK YOU!!! It's my goddam life and I'll be prickly if I want to be. But I really do feel as if I have a black shroud hanging over me.

I have no idea what to get Quinton for Christmas. I've seen my son a grand total of four times since last February. The only time I see him NOW is to ask permission to come visit him IN THE FUCKING YARD at JENNIFER'S HOUSE, and I risk being arrested every time I do it. Ho! Ho! Ho! MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Jennifer is buying his way into showing him that he doesn't need a daddy. My son has a $1,000 PAINT GUN. He's got a swimming pool in his yard, three bicycles (depending on what he wants each one FOR) and so much shit that he can't keep track of it all. Therefore, he doesn't give a damn about any of it.

He doesn't even remember what he still has here.

But Jennifer, that bloodless cunt, is still after all of my retirement that she can get. I've paid that bitch more than $40,000, given up everything I ever worked for, had my nose ground into the shit in total humiliation, and she still wants MORE! She'll GET IT, too. Divorce courts like to fuck with an ex-husband the way little boys fuck with frogs.

The last time I was in court, I asked the judge, "Your honor, that woman broke our marriage and moved another man into MY home and into MY bed before the sheets got cold. She makes more than $100,000 per year. She drives a new car every year and spends money like it's going out of style. I live modestly. I have NO income, but I look around this room and I am expected to pay THAT GUY (The cunt's lawyer) THAT GUY (my lawyer) and THAT WOMAN (Jennifer) and you're going to call that kind of rape "justice?"

Yes. That's EXACTLY what he did. In fact he UPPED what I was supposed to pay every month.

That'll show ME, won't it?

I'm giving Quinton a card with some money in it. I'm getting in and out of my mama's house as quickly as I can on Christmas day. This is no fucking holiday coming for me. It's a day I don't want to live through.

Ask me why I look at my pistols the pistols I don't own sometimes and think... over with in a flash. You won't even hear it. Yeah, I think that way sometimes. Every time I hear a Christmas carol, I just want to go to sleep.

Wake me when it's over.

banned?

If you are, I didn't mean to. Over 750 spam comments so far today, and I went in with a bush-axe instead of a razor blade. I had to kill. If I whacked YOU in my blood-frenzy, I'm sorry.

I just went ballistic.

sex is good

I knew that something was "wrong" with me a long time ago.

I know that this idea will make some people hyperventilate and get a serious case of the vapors, but I don't care. I believe that our Puritan heritage has fucked up more people than it ever saved from sin, because we're all supposed to feel GUILTY for having fun, especially if sex is involved. When I DON'T feel a bolt of guilt after I do something I like doing, I am supposed to stop and think about what's wrong with ME?

THAT'S fucked up. Not me.

If GAWD didn't want sex to feel good, then why did he give me a pecker in the first place? Why did he create Woman and give her a pussy? Why did he make wimmen like pecker just as much as I like pussy? He did THAT, and then told us all NOT TO USE WHAT HE GAVE US??? Bullshit!! I ain't buying that crap.

He gave us both a blessing and a curse, which is what a clever, tricky God does. This is the WORD OF GAWD, so I'll put it in italics: "Man, you have a pecker. Woman, you have a pussy. Together, you will find all kinds of ways to mess up my creation, but I'm gonna turn you loose on the world anyway. I think I fucked up when I made you."

And he turned us loose. And he was correct when he said that we would mess up his wonderful creation. We did. Most of the time.

But he stuck one other small detail in there that he neglected to mention at the time. Yeah, sweaty, romping sex is wonderful. EVERYBODY should do it every day.

But making love is totally different. I've known that feeling and I've shared my soul with someone in passion so sweet that I would have been happy to die right then, because life could not possibly be any better. Yeah, peckers and pussies were involved, but that's not what I felt at the time. I felt.... ONE with someone else.

If you've never known that experience, GAWD cheated you out of something special. Know it once and you'll never forget it.

I like the romp, and I'll rent me a hooker to get one. Sex is good.

But it's nothing like making love to someone... you really love.

fine with me

I just lost another reader, but I have to ask a simple question... let's see... as nearly as I can tell, I've been blogging for three years. I've never asked anybody for a dime. I PAY for this site and it ain't cheap. I don't really believe that I have changed the way I write since I started this blog. But... I piss people off. LOOK AT WHAT I DID TO RACHEL!!!

(Unneccessary question: Rachel--- who the fuck MADE you come here?)

O.K this is the last time I check out your blog. Too much smut. If I can't read a blog with my 12 year old in the same room then they are not worth reading.

Posted by Rachel at December 21, 2004 09:49 PM

Good bye, Rachel.

I'm am certain that you are a regular reader--- that's why you would ALLOW a 12 year old in the room when you open my site. I ain't running fucking Disney World here. If you paid any attention to the way I write and what I write ABOUT, you'd already know that fact. It's free ice cream, baby, but it ain't cotton candy.

So, hyperventilate, develop the vapors and go off and do that Wounded Mother pout on me. Show me just how WRONG I am when I call wimmen constantly bleeding pussies. What's your point?

I should be writing this site for YOU and a 12 year-old whelp that's going to grow up and be the same kind of whiner YOU are, thanks you YOUR valuable input? Fuck me dead. (And don't let the 12 year-old see THAT, either.)

Besides... what are YOU doing surfing blogs when you should be nurturing that precious 12 year-old, you unfit mutha? I'm full of "smut?" Well, I think YOU'RE full of SHIT!!!

I'll have to shut this site down now. I wounded Rachel's delicate sensibilities.

i don't pray

I am not a religious man and I never will be. But I am not ANTI-RELIGION, either, and I see no problem with that fact. Sure, I can cherry-pick plenty of examples from the Middle East or world history to prove what a destructive, bloody, murderous force religion has been in the world, but I'm not going to call religion EVIL.

Evil people often use religion as an excuse or a justification to further their evil intentions. That fact doesn't make religion itself evil. Don't paint with a broad brush here. Read this for a different perspective.

My mama has terminal cancer. Religion and her faith in God provide her with a lot of comfort right now. Her church has rallyed 'round her and done everything the parishioners could do to help her in whatever she needs. If anybody thinks THAT'S EVIL, they need to be dragged off and shot.

Too many people mistake religion for zealotry, and they are NOT the same thing. In fact, the most crazed zealots I see today, outside of suicide bombers in the Middle East, are the ACLU and fucked-up leftists.

No, I don't pray. But I know a fucking zealot when I see one.

waxing nostalgic

I want to generate some happy thoughts and one popped immediately to mind. This is a true story.

I was 27 years old and just back in Savannah after a trip to North Carolina to play guitar for a while. I made a lot of money on that gig, and I was set up for plenty of work in town, after two weeks of well-deserved time off. I was chasing a very good-looking woman at that juncture in my life, but she wouldn't give me any, so I thought that NOW was the time to step up my courtship a notch or two.

Hell... I had money in my pocket, time on my hands and I was horny as a hoot owl. I called her up and invited her out for a very nice dinner. She accepted.

I knew a good seafood restaurant on River Street and every time I ate there I wondered about their "Seafood Lover's Plate." On the menu it said that the food was for two people who enjoyed seafood, but it was ALSO for "lovers." In italics, the menu stated, "Relax. Enjoy. Sample three hours of candle-lit elegance, with food for lovers, in a river-front atmosphere that you'll never forget."

The price for a dinner for two was $50, which was a LOT OF MONEY back then, but I had it, plus plenty more, so that's where I took her.

Damn! She looked good enough to eat all by herself when I picked her up. The weather was warm and she wore a low-cut, light sun-dress that displayed her ample clevage and hugged her hips just SO, the way that'll make a bulldog break a cow-chain. She wore sandals and her toenails were painted fire-engine (or maybe "candy-apple?") RED.

I wanted to paw the ground and snort like a bull when I saw her.

That meal was exquisite. I made reservations ahead of time, so when we arrived at the restaurant, we were whisked off to the Lover's Grotto, or whatever they called the private dining area where they served their "special" customers. I ordered a bottle of wine and the food started coming. HOLY BEJUS!!!

We started with soup, then progressed to an oyster stew that was delicious. Oysters on the half-shell followed. We had some kind of special shrimp appetizer that would make you slap your mama; then, here came escargots. We ate those, too, and ordered another bottle of wine. The food just kept coming.

In between every dish we had enough time to talk and digest and get ready for the next surprise. I discovered that I really LIKED her. Forget the fact that she was the best-looking woman in the place. She was smart, she was funny, she read the same books I did and she ate with gusto. The wine, the food and the candle-light helped, but the truth is... she and I really hit it off.

I forget what all we ate that night, but the entire meal took FOUR HOURS to consume and every bite was delicious. I believe we had another bottle of wine every hour, too. By the time we were done, I wanted to crawl off and take a nap somewhere. I was stuffed.

The waitress came by and asked if we wanted dessert. I didn't, but being the gentleman that I am, I asked my date if she wanted any. "Yes," she replied. "I most assuredly want dessert." The waitress went off to fetch a dessert menu.

I asked, "You've got room for dessert after THAT meal?"

She leaned across the table and stroked my hand. She had that smokey, half-smiling, shining-eyed look that I've seen only a few times in my life. "I don't want anything they have here." she said. "I... want...to...suck...your...COCK!"

Forget that dessert menu. CHECK PLEASE!!!!!

I have no idea what I spent on that meal, but it was worth every cent.

We stayed together for several months, until she took a better job offer in California, which was where her mama lived. We stayed in touch for a couple of years, then just drifted apart. I wonder where she is now?

That was one of the best meals I ever had in my life, and dessert was excellent. THAT'S a pleasant memory.

amazing

I just deleted another 147 spam comments from my site. Those came since 10:00 this morning.

Assholes.

christmas

I become really depressed this time of year. I don't have a Christmas tree, I have no decorations on my house and I've done almost no shopping. I don't even like going to a store now, because they pipe carols over the intercom and I want to upchuck.

Christmas is for kids. And families. I have neither now.

I remember what Christmas ONCE meant to me, as I hung a goddam 20' tree in the big family room at the mini-farm mansion--because I tingled with the magic in the air, and couldn't wait for everyone to see the presents I bought them after the gifts were placed under that big, shining tree. Yeah, I wished "Joy to the World!!"

I really want to feel that way now. But I can't, I don't and I doubt that I ever will again. Those days are gone.

My idea of a great Christmas now? I'd like to go to sleep on Christmas eve and wake up just in time to see the bowl games on New Years Day. That plan would work well for me.

Christmas? BAH! HUMBUG!!!

more good advice

Anyway, you don’t argue law with cops—they’re not “law,” they’re “order.” As in, when the guns are out, they give the orders and you do what they tell you. And if the sum’bitch is in the wrong, you arrange to have his badge handed over to you after the fact so you can display it on your mantle.

Take his word for it. Trust me.

He's correct.

maybe i over-reacted

I hope I did not offend Kim and Connie du Toit with a post I wrote below. That certainly was NOT my intention, but when I read what cranked me into rant-mode in the first place, I didn't bother to research anything except my gut, and that was a mistake.

I should have checked the thread before I exploded.

But I didn't, and I apoloigize for that error, but meant every word I said. One of the things about the loony left that chapped my ass to a fare-thee-well before and after the last election was all the "OUR CIVIL RIGHTS ARE GONE!!!" and "JOHN ASHCROFT IS THE ANTICHRIST!!!" bleats those fucktards kept spouting.

Where did the REAL threat to your civil liberties come from? Huh? Let's see... gun control, "diversity," class-warfare, unequal rights, zero tolerance, hate crimes, political correctness, shitty public schools, tax-the-rich, and villify the successful... the list goes on and on. And EVERY ONE OF THOSE IDEAS came from the left, not the right.

Who really wants to dictate not only your behavior, but your thoughts as well? .

guilty!!!

Wal-Mart has blood on its hands. One of their stores sold a shotgun to a deranged woman who then used the weapon to kill herself. Wal-Mart should have known better.

All the store had to do was violate several state and federal laws restricting the release of private medical records and none of this shit would have happened. The fact that Wal-Mart followed every law on the books should cost the company $25 million, according to the suit.

The Bracys said Wal-Mart's gun department could have checked Wal-Mart's own security files or the pharmacy department's prescription records before selling her the weapon.

Oh. Really?

But pharmacy prescription records are confidential under a 1996 federal law, so stores cannot use them when deciding whether to sell a gun.

PISS ON THAT!!! We've got Wal-Mart, we've got a GUN, and we've got a dead woman. What more do you need for a suit?

I'll never get another gun from Wal-Mart as long as I live, even if the place starts GIVING them away, because the store is a nightmare to deal with. I won't even buy ammo there anymore.

But I have to take their side on this one.

shoulda known better

I was going to mention the refreshing lack of spam comments I've received over the past few days, because I thought that just maybe somebody somewhere did something to slow those shits down. I am glad that I didn't mention it.

More than 500 this morning, 250 of which came from some valium-peddler I've never seen before. I deleted them all, but it was a giant pain in the ass. I hate those fuckers.

Speaking of pains in the ass...

The Savannah Morning News now requires registration to read their esteemed rag, and I don't read or comment ANYWHERE that requires me to register, so I'm not going to link to the story. Just trust me on this one-- it happened.

Local police are searching for two wimmen who sexually assaulted a man after a night of cocaine-induced partying. The guy didn't realize he had been sexually assaulted until he woke up in the morning and found a set of barbecue tongs protruding from a certain orifice in his body. HE CALLED THE COPS AND REPORTED IT, complete with the cocaine story.

I heard the news on the radio and thought... "Barbecue tongs... a certain bodily orifice... why can't I get my hands on a spammer? I've GOT a nice set of tongs..."

(UPDATE: Check the comments. A sharp reader provided a link to the story. And some good advice, too.)

i think he's onto something

I post, you decide.

December 21, 2004

read it

I have several things to say about this post and none of them are particularly flattering to government. I know good and well that MY name is on some kind of list, because I am searched, scanned, hasseled and fucked-with every time I go through a customs line at an airport. The authoriries never FIND anything (and they never will---- because I AM NOT A CRIMINAL) but when they scan my passport, it sets off red flags like popcorn popping. I go to the "Group W" bench every time for a lesson in humiliation.

I don't like the way they treat me, but I remain polite and cooperative with whatever they ask me to do. I can't fight 'em and win in the airport and I never want to create any trouble I don't already have. They play the tune and I dance to it.

He got stopped in a routine traffic stop (his account of it is very confusing). He was armed (he has no CHL) with a firearm, openly carried, and unloaded (the clip was next to him though). In WA state, this is apparently legal ("open carry"), even in a vehicle.

He escalated the situation by challenging the officer on the traffic law involved, then on the carry law, etc. The officer then called for backup and Jason was arrested in a high-risk stop procedure, and held in jail overnight.

Jason's troubles started when he imagined himself capable of convincing the officer of the folly of his erroneous position. My 25 years of police work and 61 years of life tells ME that such a street conversion is unlikely to succeed, so unlikely that it doesn't bear trying.

Don't EVER do that. I don't care if you are TOTALLY in the right at the time. Argue with a cop, and you're asking to go to jail. Take whatever shit they dish out, take it like a man, keep your fucking mouth shut and fight it in court later if you believe that you were wronged. You cannot win a lip-contest with a cop. Don't even try.

None of this is the reason I wrote this post, however. Mrs. DuToit was obviously horrified as to the way her comments section was being used to promote extreme and violent ideas, so she gutted the post and deleted all the comments.

Mrs. DuToit doesn't write much about guns, but her husband, Kim DuToit, is the most prolific and widely-read gun blogger around. He is a mega-blogger. The DuToits are now worried about their position and their wide readership being interpreted to mean, to those who feel threatened about such things (read: the BATFE and all the lefty government hacks who worry about guns for a living), that she and Kim might become targets for some government action or other.

I hope the Du Toits are mistaken, but I can understand their worry. ANYBODY who voices a strong opinion about ANYTHING contrary to the sheeple mentality government wants "good" citizens to have is a potential target for government harrassment. That's what government DOES, for crying out loud, when its not busy picking your pocket to give your money to somebody who never worked for it. Government is a brute force, and it attracts brutes who love that kind of job.

If you don't believe that government is capable of outright thuggery, worse than anything an individual thug can do, you are a fool.

This blog cost me my job. Do you know why? Some things I wrote scared the shit out of a multi-BILLION dollar corporation, because they worried about getting in trouble with THE GOVERNMENT if they kept me on the payroll. That shit wouldn't look good in a court of law if the EEOC got involved. So, they dropped me like a hot rock to protect their asses from THE GOVERNMENT.

That's a MULI-BILLION DOLLAR CORPORATION, folks. THEY were scared shitless of the government. If government can cow THEM, what do you think government can do to a lonely individual if they put him in the crosshairs? That is not a pretty thought.

I love my country, but I FEAR my government. Yeah, I "beard the lion" frequently on this blog, but I fully understand the risks I take when I do it. I may be hauled off to jail some fine day for something I WROTE, right here in the land of the First Amendment. We fought a Revolution over that idea, but the government our founders fought and died for can and WILL do that to you today.

I enjoy Kim Du Toit's blog. He is an excellent writer and I like his appreciation of firearms and his knowledge about them. Hell, the boobage he posts isn't bad, either. The Mrs. strikes me as wonderful woman. I believe that the two of them together are one hell of a lot less dangerous to me and my personal freedom than Hillary Clinton is. Kim and Connie may lecture, but they AREN'T going to kick in your door and FORCE you to do what they suggest.

Government WILL. And it DOES, every farooking day.

I understand Rivrdog's concern, because I know that he's not a wing-nut, black-helicopter-seeing, conspiracy-minded flake. He's the kind of person I would like for a neighbor.

So, I have to ask a simple question: isn't it tragic that he even thought to write that post in this "land of the free and home of the brave?" Isn't it ALSO tragic that I read the post and felt compelled to write about it myself? Does that fact say something terrible about Rivrdog, me or the du Toit's?

Or does it say something about government?

another southern delicacy

Here is a plate full of fried, rind-on salt pork bacon. I bought it yesterday to season my pinto beans, but I used salt-cured country ham instead, and wound up with this stuff in my refrigerator this morning. So, I fried it and ate it for brunch.

It is EXCELLENT with leftover cornbread.

(The picture wouldn't be complete without the empty pack of Marlboros in the dirty ashtray. Welcome to MY home.)

bacon grease

Some people (mostly yankees) don't seem to understand a few basic facts of life that I learned as a young boy. First, you DO NOT put milk and sugar on grits. Second, you NEVER pronounce "y'all" with two syllables. Third, NOBODY with an ounce of pride drinks hot tea.

Bejus! My idea of a nightmare is to have someone serve me grits with milk and sugar, a cup of hot tea and then say, "YOU-ALL enjoy your breakfast." I see a case for justifiable homicide there.

But, I digress. What I really wanted to write about is bacon grease.

If you check out any decent Southern cook's kitchen, I guarantee that you'll find a big container of bacon grease among the rest of the herbs and spices used to season food. Bacon grease is the all-purpose Southern seasoning and it's good in almost ANYTHING.

The cook makes bacon for breakfast, but he or she SAVES the grease (or "the drippins") for later use. Put the grease in a container and allow the sediments to settle to the bottom. Then, you use the grease off the top when you cook something else.

Yeah, it's bound to clog your arteries, give you heart attacks and make you die before your time, just as it did some of my 90 year-old relatives. We once picked fresh greens from a spring garden, chopped them up in a bowl and had hot bacon grease as our salad dressing. That was called a "cracklin' salad" because you could almost hear the lettuce scream when that hot bacon grease hit it. It was damned good, too.

Biscuits, cornbread, beans, potatoes--- you name it. It's ALWAYS better if you season it with some bacon grease. I keep a container on MY counter and I use it almost every time I cook. I sometimes add a spoonful of bacon grease when I make boiled peanuts. It's good in EVERYTHING.

If you throw away bacon grease, you need to be dragged off and shot.

Shameless self-promotion

I like that quality in a person. Rampant ego reminds me of ME. So, I concur that this is the "Best New Blog You're Not Reading but Should Because it Will Get Better.".

I have spoken and no more nominations will be accepted.

interesting map

Check this. It damn sure matches my personal research.

I was born in eastern Kentucky, and a soft drink is a "pop" there. That fact shows on the map. I've lived most of my life in southeast Georgia, and a soft drink is a "coke" here. That fact shows on the map, too. I've been to Texas several times, and I believe that Dr. Pepper is the soft drink of choice in those parts, but the people still call it a "coke." THAT fact shows on the map.

As a Southerner, I KNOW that a "coke" is any kind of carbonated beverage that does not contain alcohol. Ask me if I want a "soda," and I just might bitch-slap your yankee ass. A "soda" is powder dumped in water that a Southerner drinks to cure a bellyache. It AIN'T a got-dam "coke."

I am curious about one thing, however. What are those "other" names, and why are they found only in New Mexico and Nevada?

stars in my head

As far back as I can remember, I've looked at the night sky and wondered what was out there. I've seen meteor showers, lunar eclipses and I've looked at the craters of the moon through a telescope until my eyes wore out. I once climbed Blood Mountain just to see Halley's Comet in an ink-black sky at night.

I've always had stars in my head.

I stayed up all night to watch the first men walk on the moon when I was still a teenager, and I KNEW that we were on the threshold of something special and I was seeing it happen. YES! We had slipped the surly bonds of earth and taken the first step toward... who knew what? But it was gonna be fantastic.

Boy, did we piss that opportunity away.

The same people who bitch about everything today that doesn't involve government taking money from one set of people and giving it to another set cranked up their whining, called the space program wasted money and pretty much put an end to it. We've been turning around and around in a very small circle ever since.

I will ALWAYS believe that human beings are natural-born explorers and space is the next frontier. We had the chance to really DO SOMETHING 35 years ago, but the same people who told Columbus that the world was flat and who told people NOT to take any risks (just sit right where you are and be happy-- if god wanted you to fly, he'd have given you wings) won the argument. Our space program is a fucking joke today.

We put the job in government's hands, and it has the creative imagination of a traffic light. Government also has an amazing ability to spend a whole lot of money without accomplishing very much. Stars in your head? You don't belong in government.

Wouldn't it be great if private enterprise took the next step that we should have taken years ago? It's possible-- especially if private enterprise discovers that it can make money in space.

I'm not the only one with stars in my head.

get the Kleenex

You never get over it. NEVER. Even though you saw it coming and everybody knew the result was inevitable and there wasn't a damn thing you could do about it, it still hits you like a bullet in the chest when it finally happens. And you NEVER forget that feeling.

Twelve years later, I still remember.

I watched my father die, too.

you be the judge

I don't know about you, but I count at least 10 store-bought titties in this picture. (That's 5 of the wimmen, for fellow English majors who don't do math.)

From left to right, I see... real, fake, real, fake, fake, fake, fake, real, real.

I'd like to do some more research on this subject, but I don't have a hot tub.

Merry Christmas!!!

When I can offend people by saying "Merry Christmas," I know that the world has become too ridiculous to take seriously anymore. So... I'm going to do something REALLY OFFENSIVE, just to put this "holiday" bullshit into proper perspective.

I'm going to announce ACIDMAN'S MOST OVER-RATED BLOG AWARD today. I took a non-existant poll, queried no readers and made up my mind all by myself, but the choice was easy. After tallying all the scientific results, I am proud to announce... the winner is...

vodkapundit

I base this choice on three obvious qualities:

First, TWO "writers" post there and neither one of them posts very often. Today, the last entry is five fucking days old. Lazy bastards. They remind me of French royality.

Second, people still visit the site in droves even though the lazy bastards seldom post anything new. That fact says a lot of bad things about blog-readers. That ain't a blog anymore. It's a CULT!!! And their followers are delighted to worship at an EMPTY THRONE!!! Maybe they see images of The Virgin in that martini glass, or something like that to keep drawing them back. Whatever the reason, it's pathetic.

Third, I don't think Stephen Green is THAT good-looking. In fact, I'm not certain that I want him standing too close to me at a urinal in a men's public restroom. He's got that "I wanna see your pecker" gaze in his eyes. You wimmen may like it, but I don't.

There. That's MY decision.

I may announce the runner-up later today.

bejus!

This guy doesn't want much for Christmas The Holiday Season. When I checked his list, I committed several mortal sins, lust being one of them.

If he gets ANY of that shit, I'm going to ask him if he wants a room mate.

damn good question

Science fiction today is NOT what I grew up reading. Most of that crap that passes for "science fiction" today is pure fantasy, kinda like the Tarnsman of Gor stuff--- which is okay for a beach-read, but it AIN'T science fiction.

Robert Heinlein was my idol when I was a boy. I believe that I read everything he ever wrote, including a lot of short stories from the pulps when he first got started. He was an excellent storyteller, but he was an engineer, too, and he threw things into his books that sounded fantastic back in the 1940s and 1950s-- such as water-beds, full-wall flat-screen TVs, cell phones, a DRUG that distorted time and he even speculated about "drop-sickness" long before anyone knew about the nausea induced by weightlessness in space. He was a visionary.

How can this be true?

Speaking of Asimov, I am reading an anthology called the Science Fiction Century that has fiction by writers who are supposed to be the best science fiction writers of the 20th Century. Notable by their absence are Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, and Arthur C. Clark. Huh? How can you put together a science fiction anthology of the 20th Century and not have those three in it?

Damn good question. Asimov, Heinlein and Clark are the fucking Holy Trinity of 20th century science fiction. Everyone else PALES by comparison. Just read these books:

*The Puppet Masters, by Heinlein.

*The Foundation Trilogy, by Asimov.

*2001: a Space Oddessy, by Clark.

*The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, by Heinlein.

If that's not some of the best science fiction you'll ever read (coupled with a whole lot of existential philosophy), I'll kiss your ass. That's GOOD STUFF. How could ANYBODY compile a collection of 20th century science fiction and leave THOSE out?

Who the hell is Nancy Kress?

another chapter

christina had a brain-fart thunk a thought one day. She had the idea of persuading a few bloggers to write a Blog Novella, with each blogger contributing one chapter, picking up where the last one left off to create... well, blog-fodder.

I was flattered to be asked to participate, but I really didn't expect much from the project. I was mistaken.

chapter five is out, fresh from the twisted mind of Velociman, and he has either raised the bar or shoved it right up the ass of mr. helpful, who must now write the last chapter.

If you haven't been following this project, go read it all. Every chapter has a distinct set of fingerprints (or drool) on it and the whole thing is shaping up nicely. Christina picked the right sick fucks for the job.

It's really not a bad story. I'm just happy that I don't have to write that last chapter.

December 20, 2004

think I'm lyin'?

Take a look at THAT!!!

Mmmm. Gooood!

arctic blasts

Today, I had to go fetch my lawn chairs, my trash can and my Indestructible Plastic Container of the Gods from my neighbor's yard. I have two sets of wind-chimes blown down on my back porch and some shit that doesn't belong to me in MY yard.

Tell me that the wind didn't blow last night.

writing

I think I wrote my first short story when I was six years old. That story needed serious editing, and something other than crayon to really get my point across, but looking back now, I realize that it wasn't bad for a six year-old boy.

I've been writing ever since, and I DON'T KNOW WHY.

Words just bubble up in me. They always have. If I try to explain the way I think to other people, even those who KNOW me well, they just shake their heads and say, "You've ALWAYS been weird." Am I? Really?

When Catfish and I were riding around lost in north Georgia, I started looking at all the farmhouses and abandoned outbuildings on those rolling fields, and I thought of DOZENS of stories that I could tell about them. When I mentioned that fact to him, Cat replied, "I'd rather you found a road back to Savannah. You can write later."

No, I CAN'T "write later."

That shit goes on in my mind all the time whether I put it on paper or not. One of the biggest disappointments in my life was when I wrote a humor column for the Effingham County Herald, which was so popular that it then was published in three sister newspapers all over southeast Georgia. I was proud of accomplishing that feat, but my BC ex-wife never read ANYTHING I wrote. She didn't care whether I was any good or not. The entire activity seemed ridiculous to her. I wasn't becoming rich and powerful from doing it, so what good was it? That's the way she STILL looks at life. I don't.

I was fired from that job for being politically incorrect (can you imagine THAT?) and the publisher fired the EDITOR, too. Jennifer told me that I got what I deserved. "Rob, you should write what people want to read, not what you want to write."

I pondered that statement for a long time. WTF kind of advice is THAT? I never know WHAT I want to write until it comes out on the page. If I had a dollar for everything I've written that NEVER saw another set of eyes, I would be a rich man today. If you don't write, you'll never understand what I mean.

I write for one reason and one reason only: I WANT to.

i had to

The high temperature in Effingham County today is supposed to be 42 degrees. That's fucking FREEZING where I live. This the the kind weather meant for snuggling under warm quilts and listening to a fire crackle while you spoon with your honey. It ain't fit for nothing else.

But I don't have a honey OR a fireplace, so I opted for a big pot of pinto beans and some cornbread. I need some comfort food. Here's how you do it.

*Buy a bag of dried pinto beans. Wash them, then throw them in a pot on the stove with plenty of water and allow them to soak on low heat for a couple of hours.

*I don't do precise measurements when I cook. I eyeball everything.

*Cut about a pound of salt-cured country ham into small slivers and throw those into the pot. You can add potatoes, too, but I believe that potatoes defile this dish. If you want some home fries on the side, that's acceptable. Make your own choice.

*Dice 1/2 of a large Vidalea onion. Toss the onions into the pot . SAVE THE REST OF THE ONION!!! You'll want it later.

*After about two hours of soaking on "low", turn the heat up and simmer the beans. Smoke a joint, get drunk, go screw your darlin,' read a book, masturbate or whatever else you can think of to pass some time. Good pinto beans require patience.

*Stir the pot every now and then to make sure that you're not fucking up. Add more water if necessary as the beans mature and absorb the water.

*Taste the broth that is developing after about two hours. Add salt if needed, but remember that the country ham will provide a lot of the salt for you. DO NOT OVER-SALT. You can always add more, but you can't remove it once you threw it in there. Be careful.

*Get a good, roiling simmer going in the pot, put a lid on it and leave that shit alone for a while. Go smoke another joint. Get drunk. Screw darlin' again. Find some way to kill about four hours.

*After about four hours, those beans should be smelled by neighbors a half-mile away, even if your house is buttoned-up like a funeral vault. The beans are getting just about right, so it's time to make the cornbread.

*Put a big dollop of bacon grease in a bowl. (I don't measure a "dollop." I KNOW what one looks like.) Add two cups of corn meal, a palm full baking powder, a handful of sifted flour, 1 and 1/2 cups of milk and one raw egg. Beat the shit out of that mixture until it is smooth, then ladle it into a cast-iron skillet (buttered beforehand).

*Bake the cornbread in the oven at 425 degrees for 25 minutes.

*If you time this right, the cornbread can sit on the counter and cool (that way it won't fall apart when you carve it) just enough before you decide to eat it with a big bowl of beans. Cut the leftover Vidalea onion into slices and eat those raw with the beans and cornbread.

That's what I'm having for supper tonight. You might want to stay upwind of me.

(UPDATE: Whoo-hoo! I've got a pretty good supper here! Just some words of advice for people who don't know how to make decent cornbread-- DO NOT put sugar in it and DO NOT add honey. Goddam blasphemers. That ain't a cake you're baking. If you can't make cornbread that stands up to the taste-test on its own, buy a tube of frozen biscuits, you pathetic swine!!! BWHAHAHAAAA!!!)

I'm gonna fart at the moon tonight...

obese people

At the risk of offending fat people, I'm about to post a politically incorrect blog entry. I did some research today and I have decided that some people are fat because THEY EAT TOO FUCKING MUCH!!!

Bejus! I ate lunch at the Western Sizzlin' Steak House in Pooler, Georgia today. I KNOW that they cut their steaks off old, ragged, diabetic cows and it ain't the finest food in the world, but I LIKE it. For $10, I can get a fine meal, all the genuinely GOOD sweet tea I want to drink and the waitresses flirt with me, too. How can you beat that in a fancy place that costs three times the money?

They serve a buffet that is loaded to the gills with all kinds of good food---fried chicken, fried catfish, roast beef, mashed potatoes, gravy, rice and every kind of vegetable known to man. You pay a flat fee and eat ALL YOU WANT from the buffet.

I usually get a small steak and a salad. I don't eat a lot. But I enjoy watching the buffet buffaloes.

Mother of Gawd! One woman, who probably wore a size=Circus Tent stretch pants loaded TWO PLATES full of food from the buffet, carted that crap, enough to feed a family of five, to her table just for HERSELF, then went back and loaded a goddam soup bowl with butter and sour cream to ladle over her food. She devoured the whole fucking thing, too.

"Honey? Does this dress make my ass look fat?" No, darlin.' It ain't the dress.

I watched a guy with a pot-belly, the size of which made it IMPOSSIBLE for him to see his own dick when he looks down, load up two plates the size of a CARE food shipment to starving children in Bangladesh and waddle off to eat everything except the plates, and HE went back for more.

These people NEVER pass on the dessert, either. The place was LOADED (and I do mean a LOAD) with them.

I cannot imagine what it must be like to take a shit after eating that much food. I'll bet the neighbors know, because the earthquake rumbles they feel when somebody voids THAT kind of turd-blast must make the windows shake. If they smoked on the toilet, they'd blow themselves into the next century if the methane gas ever ignited.

If fat people want sympathy from ME, they ain't going to get it, because I know what makes them fat. THEY EAT LIKE FUCKING PIGS!!! There is no goddam excuse for eating the way I saw those people do today. The fact that YOU don't know how much is "enough" doesn't mean that you aren't responsible for the way you look.

The sad part is, their kids are fat, too. Wonder where they learned that from?

WE NEED A LAWYER TO SUE SOMEBODY HERE!!!!

close to the truth

What this guy doesn't know is that I once applied for a job as a department store Santa during the Christmas holidays when I was in college. I thought at the time that the experience might make a good magazine article. Plus, I wanted to see how many hot chicks I could persuade to sit on my lap and have their picture taken with "Santa," as I copped a feel.

I didn't get the job. I was a victim of age discrimination and the store hired an old, fat fart with a real white beard instead of me. What kind of bullshit was that? I think I was profiled. I believe that my civil rights were violated. I had ALL the qualifications for the job, except for the beard, the fat belly and the jolly "HO! HO! HO!" laugh.

Hell, I could smoke a PIPE, although what I put in it back then probably wasn't what Santa preferred when he got ready to guide a reindeer-pulled, flying sleigh loaded with toys in the dark of night. I probably would have crashed the sleigh somewhere in the Alps while I was trying to relight my pipe in the wind.

But I still resent the way I was treated by THE MAN when all I wanted was a job. It's THE SYSTEM, brother! It's OUT TO GET YOU! Never forget that fact and make sure you carry that chip on your shoulder HIGH, so that everyone can see it. Got-dam! They hire a fat, bearded guy who looks like Santa and even has his own red suit and tell ME to go to hell? Tell ME that the other guy is more qualified???

That's racism... or something like that.

see?

I TOLD you that you can blog about anything.

I've been to only ONE whorehouse in my colorful life, and that was "Effies" in Athens, Georgia, a long time ago. The wimmen there serviced many a young college male, a LOT of whom lost their virginity in that place for a very reasonable price. (A 50-50 was $20 back then.) That place was an institution at the University of Georgia.

Effie's was a true whorehouse experience. You picked your partner, she took you to a room and washed your equipment with warm water and soap in a porcelan sink (a lot of inexperienced guys never got past that point without... well, you know what I mean), and then you did the deed in a perfumed bed. I thought the place was better than Disney World.

Somebody wrote me a tear-stained letter when the vice squad finally closed the place down sometime in the early 70s. That was like learning that a good friend died.

Every college town needs a good, honest whorehouse.

the pink letter

I do not believe that a skilled carpenter could take a belt sander to my ass and make me any more chapped than I am right now. I've been in a piss-fight with MCI ever since I cancelled my long-distance account with them months ago. MCI now has turned my "delinquent" account over to a collection agency and I received my first Pink Notice of Impending Death today.

What started this feud was MCI attempting to charge me more than $50 for less than $15 worth of long-distance calls. When I called to protest, they said that I didn't say "NO!" to the offer, so they signed me up for a money-saving plan where I paid $50 per month as a flat fee instead of hassling with those petty 32-cent phone calls I usually make.

Somehow, a bill with less than $15 worth of calls on it now amounts to $400 dollars in the gimlet eyes of MCI. I KNEW that company was fucked-up when they hired Danny Glover as their spokesman. I TOLD them that I would pay for the phone calls I made, but they could stick that $50 fee right up their ass.

Now, some faceless entity is threatening to "ruin my credit" unless I cough up the bucks. BWHAHAHAHAAAA!!! I've got money in the bank, but I have NO INCOME, so my credit already sucks, on paper at least. These people scare the shit out of me.

I changed my long distance service to Alltel months ago, and for curiousity's sake, I dug out my bills for the last FOUR MONTHS. During that time, I made a grand total of $4.32 worth of long-distance calls. That's typical for me, because I seldom make long-distance calls and when I do, it's usually to Recondo and Georgia. Those calls cost next to nothing because I don't stay on the phone long.

MCI wants me to pay them more than $400 in "fees" I don't owe them? I don't think so. And if they keep up their shit, I'm gonna stiff them on what I DO owe them and chalk it up as the cost of MY pain and suffering from this dickheaded harassment they're giving me. They've caused me to lie awake at night worrying about my credit rating.

If you have an MCI account, cancel it. The bastards are lying, devious crooks and their customer service SUCKS.

Fuck 'em.

set your priorities

I've lived on the cheap before and if I don't find a way to generate some income within the next...oh... ten years or so, I'll be doing it again. But even when I was flat broke, I refused to sacrifice certain pleasures, even if that meant not eating for a couple of days.

If I wanted to live like a monk, I'd move to a monastary. I believe that this guy thinks a lot like I do.

No insult intended.

my kinda dog

I've never understood why a lot of little, yapping dogs have an obsession with humping a stranger's leg when a stranger visits the house. The perveted little shit becomes an object of ridicule and usually ends up getting punted like a football for his lovemaking efforts.

But when a BIG DOG feels amorous, that can be an entirely different story...

justice is blind

If justice isn't blind, it at least doesn't watch The David Letterman Show, because I saw Dave Barry demonstrate the Flaming Pop-Tart in a Toaster trick several years ago on Letterman. Yes, dear people, Pop-Tarts WILL catch on fire if they get stuck in a toaster.

Of course, if that happens and your house catches fire, it's not YOUR FAULT for going off and leaving Pop-Tarts in your toaster.

According to Judge Kahn, the case began with the June 1, 1998, fire that damaged the Albany home of Clark Seeley, who left the house with Pop-Tarts still heating in the toaster. Seeley and Jannine Walton got $145,000 from Liberty Mutual in an insurance claim, but estimated their damages at $100,000 higher and sued Hamilton Beach/Proctor-Silex Inc.

I'd like to ask the dumbass the injured party one simple question: "You put the Pop-Tarts in the toaster and then left your house. Why? Did you expect the Pop-Tarts to bake and still be HOT when you got back home? Just how fucking stupid ARE YOU, anyway?" (Okay, that's two questions, but trust me--- a dumbass won't notice.)

I want to hire myself out as an "expert witness" to this court and offer some of MY scientific observations, once they cut me a large check for sharing my invaluable knowledge.

*A pot of hot grease, left unattended on the stove, can catch fire.

*If you light a charcol grill in your kitchen, you may die from carbon monoxide poisoning.

*Throw a lit cigarette into a trash can full of paper and flames may result.

*You are not wise to eat Alka-Seltzer tablets without dissolving them in water first.

*DO NOT put your hands or feet under a lawn mower when the mower is running.

My findings may be pretty self-evident to most people with normal brains, but judges always seem to wonder, "How could someone REALLY know that?" You see, NOBODY is a dumbass in a court of law, except the evil business that marketed a product a dumbass could abuse. We need expert testimony to show that the product was defective--- not the dumbass.

And juries must figure, "Yeah. We're ALL dumbass enough to do the same thing. That expert testimony surely convinced ME. Let's give the dumbass a couple of million dollars."

My aching ass.

December 19, 2004

more on blogging

This writer does not share my opinion about blogs. I'm not suprised to learn that fact (just look at his blog and compare it to mine--- we don't do the same kinda thang and I don't believe that we aim for the same audience), but I AM surprised by his statement about the end of the election circus ..."it means that each person has to make their own decision about what they want to write about..."

I thought blogging ALWAYS was about that. I suppose that I never understood the rules.

...since to do a credible weblog I had to write about main campaign issues and developments to keep the site updated and relevant...which meant ignoring some other big interests (such as foreign affairs, popular culture and serious media issues). I don't mourn the end of the campaign; I truly celebrate it — because it opens up more opportunity for writing and more challenges to work to expand and broaden readership.

What is a "credible" weblog? Do you HAVE to write about the news to be "credible?" I don't think so. A lot of blogs that DO write about the news aren't credible.

I'll blog about politics or the war or how much I hate cats or the medicinal benefits of target shooting--- hell, I'll blog about ANYTHING--- but I don't claim to be any kind of expert on a damned thing. I just offer MY humble opinion on whatever blows my dress up at the time and I don't mind my tongue when I do it. You can like it, or you can tell me that I'm full of shit. I'm just shouting from my soapbox.

It's a BLOG, for cryin' out loud. I write from a Crackerbox house in the boonies of Rincon, Georgia. I ain't exactly in hot pursuit of a Pulitizer here. I'm not out to change the world. I just want a few people to read what I write, purely because I like to write.

Don't get me wrong--- I take blogging seriously. Over the past three years, I've put a lot of work into this site. But I DON'T take MYSELF seriously as a powerful force in the new electronic communications era. I'm just an old fart with a PC, an internet connection and a big, foul mouth. I think there's plenty of room for ME in blogdom, along with all the "credible" blogs, too.

I don't see ANY street-signs directing people where to go with a blog. And I hope I never do.

i like it

I hope this kind of thing keeps happening. I usually rant against ridiculous lawsuits and call our legal system "idiotic," but every now and then they get one right.

A federal judge has awarded a Clinton Internet service provider over $1 billion in a lawsuit against companies that used the service provider's equipment to send spam, the Quad-Cities Times reported Saturday.

Good. It's about time.

Spam has become more than just a nuisance anymore. Spammers have mutated into internet terrorists who crash servers and corrupt web-sites with their incessant bombardment of ads for porn sites, Texas hold-em poker and drugs online. The maggots are thieves and vandals--- and they need to be treated as such.

What is the REAL difference between a spammer using my bandwidth as his personal free bulletin board and that same bastard stealing MY lawn mower to cut HIS grass? NONE, in my book.

Find 'em, fine 'em and lock 'em up. Assholes.

quotes

I like the various quotes I culled from other bloggers about me and posted on my sidebar. Hey! I don't mind the less-than-flattering ones. I'd rather make a shitty impression than no impression at all.

So, while I'm bored and listening to the howling arctic wind, imported from Canada (without official papers for crossing the US border, LET ALONE migrating to southeast Georgia), I'm going to keep myself warm by saying some nice, quotable things about other bloggers.

baldilocks: She ain't bad, even if she does live in California.

parkway Rest stop. Jim is a nice guy, when he's not hanging around in wimmen's bathrooms and leering.

mr. helpful. Hell, he said it better himself than I can: "This is the kind of guy who gives retards a bad name."

mad ogre. Damn pussy. I wish he'd say what he REALLY thinks once in a while.

hog on ice. A man's man and a macho storyteller... except for when he writes about baking light, fluffy pastries like some goddam French wussie.

evil white guy. I don't know how he came up with that name. He's not white. I'm not certain he's even from this planet.

oliver willis. Like aparagus-pee on the commode lid.

instapundit. How did a blog with THAT lame-ass name ever become so popular?

Feel free to use the quotes if you wish.

piss on this

This morning was a beautiful, sunny day. I decided to go visit my darlin' mama. I arrived at her house around noon, and the day remained beautiful--- for about two hours, after which the temperature started dropping like a nymphomaniac's panties at a fraternity party.

Now, the weather feels downright frigid to me. I could piss ice cubes and the sun isn't fully set yet.

The low is supposed to be around 15 degrees tonight in Effingham County. All you snow-birds, polar bears and yankees may think that's unimpressive, but ANYTHING below 30 degrees is impressive in southeast Georgia. This weather is NOT for ME. I don't know how you frost-bitten fuckers stand it.

I wish I had a fireplace in the Crackerbox. I need a real flame to take this chill out of my ancient bones.

piano man

I've always believed that Billy Joel's "Piano Man" is the best song ever written about being a bar-room entertainer. I WAS a bar-room entertainer for a number of years, and every line in that song rings a bell for me--- from beginning to end.

Here's a different take on "Piano Man," and it ain't bad.

sports fan

I watched three games yesterday and all three were absolutely mesmerizing, nail-biting vicarious thrills for me. The first one was the Kentucky-Louisville NCAA basketball game, where Kentucky came from 16 points down at the half to win the game with .06 seconds left on the clock. HOLY BEJUS!!! That was one hell of a game and I was pulling for the Wildcats all the way. Rick Pitino can bite my crank for ever leaving UK.

The second was the NY Giants-Pittsburg Steelers NFL game. I expected a blowout, but the Giants jocked up for that game and made it a real contest. The final score was 33-30, in favor of the Steelers, but it went right down to the wire. Eli Manning finally started reminding me of his father and his brother after resembling nothing more than Fido's ass in his previous starts. I believe that we'll be hearing big things from that young man soon. Damn good game.

The third one was the Atlanta Falcons-Carolina Panthers NFL game last night. That one was unbelievable. Every time the Falcons bitch-slapped the Panthers, the Panters came back to tie the score. Finally, the Panthers took the lead.

The Falcons had a fourth and goal from the 12 yard-line while trailing by a touchdown with about a minute to go when Michael Vick pulled off a dazzlingly athletic play to tie the game and send it into overtime. The Falcons won on a subsequent field goal.

That stuff made a damn good Saturday for a sports fan.

rummy

I don't give a shit what his critics say (hell-- just look at his critics). I believe that Donald Rumsfeld is an EXCELLENT Secretary of Defense. He is blunt, ballsy and brash, which is certain to make enemies in that ass-kissing power-sphere of Washington, DC, especially among preening Senators who expect regular ego-stroking as a perk of their highly-esteemed positions. Rummy is the kind of person we need in that job-- one hell of a lot more than we need those posturing Senators.

Say what you want to about Rumsfeld, but you've gotta admit one thing: the man is no pussy. And I don't want a pussy posing as HMFIC of the greatest military force ever assembled in the history of civilization. In MY humble opinion, Bush picked the right man, expecially in a time of war. Rummy scares the shit out of our enemies and I believe THAT is a good thing.

Look at who is after his ass:

John McCain-- that self-aggrandizing bastard has a unique claim to fame that people seldom mention when writing about him. As a fighter pilot, he was a REVERSE ACE--- he crashed five of his OWN goddam airplanes and he pilots his senate seat the same way. Incompetently.

Trent Lott--- I just gotta say it: "GET REAL." Trent Lott sits to pee ALL THE TIME, not just when he's too lazy to stand, the way I do sometimes. Seeing somebody with a set of balls probably makes his Tampax twist and bind uncomfortably.

John Warner--- Fucking crook. If I were on his shit list, I'd consider it a compliment.

Left-wing journalists--- Rumsfeld isn't frightened of reporters and that fact frightens and infuriates reporters. They've been after Rummy since day one, and the fact that their attacks have been about as effective as sugar-ants going after an elephant just chaps their asses even worse. They get exactly the respect the deserve from Rummy, and that's no respect at all. No wonder they hate him. The truth hurts.

I admire the man. He's got a tough job and I believe that he's handling it well. Plus, I think that you can judge a man's competence by the enemies he makes.

If McCain, Warner and Lott don't like him, that's a bunch of feathers in Rummy's war-bonnet.

i never knew

After I poked fun at jimbo's post about the unique aroma of aspargus pee, I did some research. Well, actually I just talked to a fellow blogger who knows about such things from years of reading Cosmopolitan.

Bejus! It's all TRUE!!! Aparagus will not only make your pee smell funny, but it affects the aroma of your sweat and the taste of your semen, too. I never knew that fact. (Of course, I never ate much semen, either, except for that one time back in high school when I tasted my own just to see what all the spit-or-swallow debate was about. My conclusion: I've tasted worse things.)

But, I digress...

My expert consultant says that a man should avoid aparagus and eat PINEAPPLE if he wants his semen to taste like a sundae topping instead of aparagus-smelling dog-piss. I would try that, because I eat a lot of fresh pineapple anyway, but all my plumbing was removed along with my prostate three years ago. I don't produce semen anymore.

But if I DID, I guarantee you that it would taste like pineapple today.

DAMN! The things you can learn on the internet!

December 18, 2004

dick-bit

This story is absolutely true. I'm not making ANY of it up and I still have the mental scars to prove it.

I once was dick-bit in a high school football game.

That was the first year the athletic association integrated the playing schedules for local HS football teams--- the schools themselves weren't integrated yet, but we started playing a mixed schedule that year. I learned right away that some of the black players learned to play football differently from the way I learned.

They trash-talked a lot, which I paid no attention to, but they also BIT and PINCHED in the middle of a pile-up. More than once I was tangled in a pile of fallen bodies when I felt somebody pinching the shit out of my belly while somebody else bit me on the leg. White boy screams of outrage were common in pile-ups back then, as you tried to fight your way out of that shit.

A LOT of black players did it. Ask anybody who played back then.

One night, I was involved in the tackle on an end sweep and everybody ended up in a big pile. The next thing I know, I feel some bastard biting me on the inside of my thigh, and he's biting HARD. I scrambled to get away, but all I really accomplished was to change his angle of attack. He didn't have my thigh any more.

He dick-bit me.

Yep, right through my silver Jenkins game britches and right through my top-of-the-line Thompson's Sporting Goods jockstrap, that maniac got a mouthful of Roscoe and he was gnawing like a hungry dog on a bone. By the time I got out of there, I had slobber marks on the front of my game pants, for crying out loud. I never knew who did it, either.

(I suspected that creepy-assed #52. He looked like the kind of person to gnaw on a foreskin when he was bored. Ugly bastard.)

At half-time, I dismasted in the locker room and examined my wound. "Hey, COACH!!" I shouted. "Come look at THIS!!!" I showed him my member with fucking TOOTHMARKS on it. "Somebody dick-bit me," I complained.

Coach Boyd was his usual concerned self. "If you're lucky, it won't hurt when the right person does it in the front seat of a car. You need some tape on it?" Adhesive tape cured everything from a scratch to broken bones to complete evisceration in Coach's mind. There wasn't ANY injury adhesive tape couldn't fix. But I didn't want any on my tender pecker.

"No, I'm okay. I just think that was weird." I replied. I still do, too.

Does that kind of shit happen in the NFL?

osama bin dead

I've said it all along and I'm sticking to my original opinion. Osama Bin Laden is dead, and he has been for quite a while. The guy's a natural-born publicity hog, kinda like a skinny Michael Moore with a better beard. Do you REALLY believe that he could have laid low and stayed out of the limelight this long if he weren't already... laid low and digesting in lime?

I don't. But even if I'm wrong, the bastard probably WISHES he were dead. Think about poor Osama. Three years ago, he stood astride the Muslim world like a collossus, thundering threats and promising to destroy the Great Satan. His followers danced in the sand, shot either other in celebration and fucked a camel or two while their wimmen uuluulated encouragement.

Now, Osama hasn't been seen for a while, a majority of his most ardent followers are either dead or in jail (some wearing panties on their heads), and Al-Qaeda is becoming more and more like the Southern Ku Klux Klan every day: nothing but raving, loser maniacs refusing to be dragged into the 21st century.

And we have not been attacked again since 9/11/01. Blind luck? I don't think so. The best defense is a good offense and I believe that a running terrorist is a terrorist who doesn't have time to plan anything except saving his ass one more day.

If those are the results of LOSING the War on Terrorism, as many leftists suggest, what would WINNING look like?

whaaattt? Part II

Some people may believe that this is a fascinating post. I read it twice and all I managed to get from it was a headache and a string of drool dripping off my slack-jawed chin. I dunno... I think I got a blown eye, too.

Talk geek to me and you may as well be speaking Latin. No--- I take that back--- I understand more Latin than I do geek.

After the old one was imported, I set out to move the new one to the root, just accidentalverbosity.com. There are a bunch of settings for file locations you change, and I did that, as well as copying everything to the root and the relative positions occupied to the location of index.php, and changing permissions on a couple of files.

Jay, if I ever meet you in person and you talk that way to ME, I swear to Bejus that I'll drag you off and shoot you. All that "root" shit and asking "permission" for "positions" for whatever perversion you wanted to perform? WTF was THAT all about? You should be ashamed of yourself.

That sounds like some sick crap to me.

whaaattt???

I don't believe that this guy ever recovered his senses after he head-butted a car door in the motel parking lot at the Helen blog-meet. He can blame that incident on an overdose of "home-made wine," but there is absolutely NO EXCUSE for posting about the aromatic qualities of "asparagus-pee."

Got-dam! What's next? Egg-farts? Dry food vs. canned food dog turds? Sweaty feet vs. unwashed asscrack?

Jim, sometimes I worry about you.

christmas tree ornaments

Sweet kate is asking people about their favorite Christmas tree ornaments. Here was MY comment:

I had one of Santa and Rudolph engaging in an act of beastiality. When you plugged this one into the tree lights, it vibrated and Santa said, "HO! HO! HO!"

Completely tasteless, but beautiful in a very strange way...

I don't think that was exactly the kind of ornament she was thinking about, but that's the one that popped into my recollections.

pensive

*I started to light into a couple of commenters on the post below, because they obviously are complete morons and missed the point of the entire post, but I just don't have that kind of fire in my belly today. Besides, I'd just be wasting my time. Assholes will always be assholes.

*My grandparents had the first flush toilet I ever saw when we lived in the coal mining camp at Louellen. I really wanted one of those in MY home. But my Papaw never stopped using the outhouse. He would leave that warm hearth, that flush toilet and slog through a foot of snow to perch his ass on a splintery, wooden bench and enjoy his morning constitutional the same way he'd been doing all his life. At the time, I thought he was crazy. I don't anymore, because I now know why he did it. I'm a lot that way myself today.

*I visited my son this morning. Damn, but he's growing fast. He told me that he could beat me in both football AND basketball now, because he was "meaner, smarter, tougher and YOUNGER" than I was. (I don't know if I've blogged about it before, but all of Quinton's life, I've told him that he couldn't beat ME because I was "meaner, smarter, tougher and OLDER" than he was.) I hammered his ass in a game of horse. Heh. Guile and experience beat youth and enthusiasm again. I did NOT agree to a rematch.

*I received a phone call today from someone I didn't know. She said that she found my phone number and called because I live next door to someone she was concerned about. "I've called for two days, and all I get is a rapid busy signal. Could you check to make sure she's okay and then call me back?" I said I would, and took down her number, which I was surprised to discover was toll-free, with an extension.

Nobody was home next door, but everything looked okay. The mailbox was empty, I didn't see bloodstains anywhere, nor did I smell anything to suggest a pile of rotting dead bodies inside. I went back home and called the number I had. IT WAS A COLLECTION AGENCY!!! I told them, "I think she moved," and hung up the phone. How the hell did they get MY phone number?

*One thing I like about the back-roads of north Georgia (even riding around lost) is the number of old barns, outbuildings and abandoned houses on those rolling farms there. I look at the weather-bleached, seasoned wood, the peeling planks, the holes in the roof and the stunted chinabeery trees and tall weeds that surround them now and I wonder about the stories those places could tell. Those building would make some great black-and-white photographs.

*Why am I deathly afraid of snakes when I like spiders and fascinating insects?

*Today I found a picture of me shaking hands with Arnold Palmer at the practice round of the 1992 Masters Golf Tournament. I forgot that I had it. Damn! I STILL love Arnie!

As you can see, I can't think of much to blog about today...

December 17, 2004

Problematic?

Here is the understatement of the year.

The argument against raising the minimum wage has always been that it tends to reduce the number of jobs available at the low end of the scale; however, since government demand for services is relatively inelastic, increased costs are generally greeted with shrugs rather than with layoffs. This suggests to me that while the living-wage programs may work, after a fashion, for the small number of employees they cover, extending them to the entirety of the private sector, where demand is elastic and cost control is more critical, is likely to be problematic at best.

I wouldn't call it "problematic." I'd call it "FUCKING IMPOSSIBLE!!!" Only starry-eyed whiners and people who already suck contentedly on the government teat believe that a "living wage" is practical in the business world.

Government doesn't HAVE to be efficient. It gets paid whether it does anything well or not, so usually it DOESN'T do anything well, and it just hires more people not to do the work it's already not doing. And everybody gets a raise.

It's not the same in business. If it costs you more to run your business than you can bring into the till, you're gonna go broke. Period. Them's the rules. So, you pay employees what the business can afford to pay and still make a profit. Without a profit, NOBODY gets any wages.

And before I get a blast of shit from the usual commie trolls who lurk here, I don't want to hear about "sweat shops" and "worker exploitation." Sure, it happens. So does murder. I say it's an exception to the rule and smart businessmen value good employees. They don't want a trained, capable person walking out the door. (Unless that person is old and he writes a politically-incorrect blog. But... I digress from my central point.)

If you're good at your job and you don't think you're making enough money, BITCH about it and ask for a raise. If the boss says, "NO!," either accept that decision or walk. If you let yourself be shit on, that's YOUR fault, not the boss'.

I want to ask small business owners: How much is a good employee worth to you?

a kick in the stats

Did Site Meter crash and burn this morning? When I came home from visiting my grandmother today, I saw that at noon I had a total of 120 visitors, all in the last hour.

Did everybody sleep late, or what?

my blog contest

I am pleased to announce the top five "Most Under-Rated Blogs" that I read regularly. If you didn't vote in this contest, that's because I didn't ask for any votes and I don't give a shit what YOU think. I am Tall Dog around here and Ultimate Ruler of my domain. What I say goes on my site.

I don't really have these in any particular order, so shut the fuck up about who's #1.

velociman. In real life, he doesn't look anything like what you would expect from reading his blog. He looks downright NORMAL. But he ain't.

blogospherics, or whatever he's calling himself now. I gotta meet this guy some fine day.

ravenwood. He's been at it a long time and his post are consistantly good. He likes guns and defends smoker's rights even though he doesn't smoke. What's NOT to like about the guy?

dax montana he doesn't always post enough to suit me, but when he does, it's always worth reading. If you judged him simply from his blog, you'd think he's a crazy, red-necked Jawja wild man. You would be correct.

key monroe. Okay... I know. She's a lazy blogger and she doesn't post much. When she DOES post, it's usually pure drivel, not worth wasting your time reading. I sometimes believe that she thinks I'm a nasty racing stripe on the asscrack-crawling underwear of humanity, too. So... why did I put her in the Top Five?

She's the best-looking.

gems

I keep finding blogs I never heard of before and I'm going to injure myself falling out of my chair laughing one of these days.

this one did it to me today.

she moved, too

Queenie has new digs, but she's still posting stuff that makes ME feel tame. I read the first entry and went immediately to brush my teeth.

Just one complaint: I'm not sure that I like having my esteemed blog called "Uncle Rob's Sit Down to Piss Emporium."

what's the big deal?

This story was all over the news today. Wimmen, especially, seemed breathless to learn the outcome.

Why?

And if I piss people off with what I say next, I don't give a shit. We need a good bitch-slap in the face for our misplaced priorities in this country. It's "the hand of God" that the baby "fetus" was found alive?

That baby was still a month short of the deadline for a partial-birth abortion.

dr. feelgood

Here's a piece of sheer brilliance that's bound to make the world a better place. Yeah, ban the private ownership of handguns and reduce crime. I mean, the idea worked perfectly in Washington, DC, didn't it?

Washington, D.C., is the only major American city that currently bans handgun possession by private citizens. Andrew Arulanandam, director of public affairs for the National Rifle Association, said San Francisco would be remiss to use that city as a model.

"If gun control worked, Washington, D.C., would be the beacon. However, it's the murder capital of the United States," he said.

A child learns not to touch a hot stove once he's burned himself the first time. But gun-control idiots NEVER learn, no matter how many times their foolish ideas backfire on them.

But it's San Francisco. What else do you expect?

bless her

My 93 year-old grandmother, waxing nostalgic today:

"I never thought much about the Great Depression, the soup lines and nobody having a job. We lived through it and didn't know anything about it. Where we were, we didn't have a radio and we didn't get a newspaper. Great Depression? We didn't know or care about what was going on 'out there.' We knew we didn't have any money, but neither did anybody else. We grew almost everything we had to have. If I needed flour, we'd shuck a bushel of corn and trade it for flour. I had about 25 good laying hens, so I collected eggs and traded them for salt, pepper and what-not, the stuff we couldn't grow ourselves. And your Papaw could build almost anything. We didn't have much, but we never went hungry."

I love that woman. They don't make 'em like that anymore.

bravo

Thanks to kim du toit I am reminded that yesterday was the 60th anniversary of battle of the bulge, Germany's last gasp at stopping the inevitable advance of Allied troops in WWII. That was an ugly event.

More than a million men fought in this battle including some 600,000 Germans, 500,000 Americans, and 55,000 British. The German military force consisted of two Armies with ten corps(equal to 29 divisions). While the American military force consisted of a total of three armies with six corps(equal to 31 divisions). At the conclusion of the battle the casualties were as follows: 81,000 U.S. with 19,000 killed, 1400 British with 200 killed, and 100,000 Germans killed, wounded or captured.

No mention of panties being put on anyone's head there.

I don't know if we have the stomach for that kind of sacrifice anymore. We have too many Michael Moore babies pussifying this country today.

I've always been fascinated with reading about that battle. The "Battered Bastards of Bastogne" earned their name and some incredible tales of guts and heroism abound in that story. Those were some tough bastards.

To me, two incidents stand out about that fight. The first one is the intended massacre of American prisoners by that Nazi shit Peiper.

The same day some Americans were taken prisoner at Baugnez and were shot by Colonel Peiper's unit while on a road headed for Malmeddy. Of the 140 men taken prisoner 86 were shot and 43 managed to survive to tell the story of what had happened.

The Americans were herded into a group, the Germans moved in some trucks loaded with machine guns, and they started firing away. But the Americans did something the Germans weren't accustomed to. The GIs didn't sit there and take their planned execution meekly. They scattered like a covey of quail and high-tailed it through the snow. Fuck just sitting there. They made moving targets and 43 got away. That's what Americans do. We're difficult to kill and we damn sure ain't gonna take it just sitting there.

The second incident is the response Brigadier General Mcauliffe gave when he was surrounded, in deep shit and asked to surrender. Do you REALLY believe that he said, "Aw, NUTS!"? I don't.

I believe that some selected editing occurred in that report. Of course, newpapers didn't print things like "FUCK YOU!!!" or "KISS MY ASS" or even "BALLS!!!" back in those days, but I suspect that his reply was a little saltier than "NUTS!" I could be wrong, but I don't think so. Mcaullife never struck me as the kind of man to keep a civil tongue in his mouth in a situation such as that one.

The entire affair was a waste of Germany's time, because the war was lost already, but a lot of good men froze their asses off and died there. It was one hell of a fight.

I should have remembered that fact yesterday.

excellent advice

I can't argue with any of these rules. I've played by them for too long.

(Link shamelessly stolen from here.)

the antichrist is gone

Don't ask me about the picture of my fiddle I posted last night. I deleted it today because I thought it was making my page load too slowly.

That wasn't the problem, but the picture is gone.

yee-haw!

Okay, he did change his name.

I like the new one.

Law

I was a member of a class-action suit once. I didn't KNOW that I was at the time, because I wasn't smarting from any thievery or fraud from anybody and I don't recall signing up for the lawsuit. I never realized that I was a victim until I received a check for $16.75 in the mail, courtesy of some bank that gave me a credit card several years earlier.

I never had a problem with the bank. I just cancelled their card and got another one at a lower interest rate when that offer came my way. As far as I was concerned, we parted friends.

I was curious about the suit, so I researched it on the internet. Lo and behold!!! Some people were deceived by the fact that higher interest rates applied to cash advances or debt rollovers than they did to regular purchases, so some enterprising bandit lawyer SUED. Everybody who had a card during a two-year period received $16.75 for their pain and suffering. The lawyer got $13 million for his selfless quest for justice.

That's class-action law today.

And the people running the show know what a joke this system is, but they pretend it's something else. I like this quote:

...they are class-action specialists and they objected when I wrote that they reminded me of bank robbers except that wasn't fair to bank robbers, according to my theory, because bank robbers don't pretend they're robbing the banks on our behalf.

If we don't clean up our legal system, we're going to destroy this country. You can't expect lawyers to police themselves any more than you can expect inmates to run a prison, and judges are nothing more than ex-lawyers who ain't about to rock the boat THEY ride in, and the same goes for politicians. Most of THOSE bastards are lawyers, too.

I propose that we institute a system where you have to pass a certification exam to serve on a jury. The test doesn't have to be difficult--- can you read and write, do you recognize the Bill of Rights when you see it, are you familiar with a document called "The Constitution of the United States of America," and do you pay taxes? Nothing complicated.

And the foreman of every jury should be equipped with a fire hose loaded with a spring-nozzle and 3,500 PPSI of water pressure. The first time a stupid suit is presented, and a lawyer says something absolutely ridiculous about the merits of his case, the foreman is allowed to flip the nozzle, fire away, wash that bastard AND the judge out into the street like the money-grubbing trash they are and be richly applauded for his efforts.

That's MY kind of legal system.

blogging

I seldom link the godfather because one hell of a lot more people read him than read me, but here he writes about a subject I think about a lot. My blog will be three years old this month. I've never made a dime off of it, and I have no idea how much money it has cost me.

Money was never on my mind when I started. Gut Rumbles was simply something I wanted to do and be good at. I've almost quit a dozen times, and my blog has cost me a lot in non-financial ways, but I still do it, and I believe that I will for a while longer.

Am I looking for a "payoff?"

Maybe so, but it's not in dollars. I like my audience and I've met some really great folks over the past three years that I never would have known except for my blog. I swap email with people from all over the world. I believe that I "know" a lot of individuals that I probably never will meet face to face. That's not a bad payoff for me.

But people blog so that they can express themselves -- to be producers, not consumers -- and we see this impulse across the world of new and alternative media. But it's not really new. Lots of musicians play music in spite of the fact that most of them won't get rich. (Most won't even do as well as my touring rock-musician brother, and believe me, he isn't rich). They do it because they like to play, and they want their music heard.

Indeed.

December 16, 2004

a rant

I'll apologize beforehand. I've met the woman and I like her. We sang "Please Come To Boston" together and harmonized, before she got drunk on moonshine and started runnin' nekkid up and down the creek in Helen, Georgia. That started a stampede and I was embarrassed by all those ugly blogger asses shining in the moonlight....

...but I digress, again...

If this is a chili recipe I'LL run nekkid down that creek in Helen on the coldest day you can find in January. WHITE BEANS???!!!??? Ohmygod!! CHICKEN???!!!???

I gotta go fire a gun off my back porch and just HOPE that I hit something. The world ain't right tonight.

Darlin,' that's the most yankeefied chili recipe that I ever read. In MY humble opinion, you should be dragged off and shot, NOT for making a shitty meal, because I believe that it probably tastes pretty good, but for CALLING it "chili."

*Real chili has no beans in it.

*Real chili is so spicy that it will melt your spoon.

*You can eat real chili with a fork. The fork will melt, too.

* Real chili has BEEF, not chicken in it.

* A bowl of cold chili should still make you sweat. A bowl of cold chili should TASTE GOOD, too.

* You experience real chili twice--- and if you don't know what I mean, you never ate any real chili.

Sorry, Mamma, but you need to try some REAL chili. You think that moonshine was something? I'll have you dancing nekkid on my ROOF if after a couple of bowls of my MY all-day, big-pot concotion.

I make some bad-ass chili.

Qualities I appreciate in a friend

Yeah, I'm gonna make another list.

But I find myself THINKING in lists anymore, and that fact really disturbs me. My mind has always been just as disorganized as my house, so I wonder WHY I'm starting to fit things into priorities, shuffle the blocks into the proper order and weigh things on a goddam scale every day.

I never did that before. Sure, I did AT WORK, because that's what I was PAID to do--- but I didn't do it in my personal life. At home, I just rocked along and figured that I could handle any problem that reared its ugly head. I was pretty fast on my feet. I'd fix it after it happened.

Whoa!! I fucked up with that calculation.

Do you know what was really wrong with me in those blissful days? I became COMFORTABLE!!! That's what!!! I see it all now, just as plain as daylight. WE ARE NOT MEANT TO BE COMFORTABLE in life. If you struggle every day, you stay sharp; as soon as you become complacient, you're dead. And the jackals of the world will rend your "comfortable" corpse with their sharp, ravenous teeth while nobody but the buzzards pay any attention at all. THAT'S THE TRUTH!!!

But... I digress.

Catfish and I talked about this subject on our (short) ride TO Athens, not the LONG ride back home. I have many, many dear acquaintences, but very few friends. The friends I DO claim as mine have stuck by me through thick and thin for a very long time. Fire and ice went into that mix. Let me tell you what it was:

1) Loyalty. This may sound stupid today, but once upon a time, I did things that I KNEW were going to cost me personally for the benefit of a friend. Why? Because I knew that if the roles were reversed, he'd do the same thing for me. At least I thought so.

2) Trust. I've always said that if my friends got together and wrote my biography based on what THEY saw, I'd be a fucking outlaw legend. I never hid a damn thing from them, and all have seen me at both my best and my basest. They all know stories that they've promised not to tell, not even to each other, and they HAVEN'T either. Yeah. I trust every one of them.

3) The Gimlet Eye. If you believe that your FRIENDS don't know everything fucked-up about you, you don't have a head on your shoulders. Friends don't ignore your faults. They accept you warts and all. They know your goddam faults better than YOU do. Try lying to one of them.

4) Nostalgia. Okay, he's not the same guy you went to college with. He looks a lot older, he's running his own business now, and he's got the wife and three kids. (Nod over the pictures extracted from the wallet.) We both feel lots of pressure in our jobs, because nobody is a little boy anymore. But for one golden moment, over a burger and a beer, you both remember a time when you were young and invincible, and you both laugh your asses off, thinking about the same moment at the same time. History matters.

5) Track Record. A good friend doesn't ask for many favors. But YOUR good friend won't abandon you when you need somebody. And the best thing about a good friend is that you don't even have to ask. He KNOWS. And he'll be there.

If you don't have friends like that, I pity you.

i give up

I am about one more frustrating moment away from taking my fiddle out in my back yard and jumping up and down on the sumbitch until I break it to splinters. Then, I'm gonna set it on fire and be done with the cursed thing. I'm NEVER going to learn to play it worth a shit.

The got-dam thing needs frets on it, and I should be able to play it with a pick instead of a bow. I am a MUSICIAN, for crying out loud, and the best I can do with that bastard is make noises like a cat hung on an electric fence--- and that AIN'T a pretty sound.

I never learned what I wanted to do on a harmonica, but at least I can play songs folks recognize on one of those. My harmonica playing isn't bad around a campfire in the woods. Sounds pretty good when there's nothing else to listen to except bean-farts and snores.

But people want to SHOOT ME when I drag out my fiddle, and I don't blame them one bit. I want to SHOOT MYSELF every time I fuck with that thing. The more I try, the worse I get.

I give up. I suck as a fiddle player, and that is that. I could practice for another ten years and I'm STILL gonna suck. Just DAMN!!!

Vassar Clements made it look so easy...

show some spirit

Go visit my daughter's new look blog. Buy some of that junk WONDERFUL STUFF she's selling on eBay. Tell her that her ass looks good when she's diving into dumpsters for treasure. (She IS a very pretty girl, if I do say so myself--- she looks a lot like her mama.) Send her some LOTS of money. Tell her that her dog is "cute," too.

I have no idea what to get her for Christmas, other than a holster for the pistol I gave her last year, which I already have, so I'll probably just give her money myself.

Yeah, that's MY Stormcloud. And I love her.

firm or flatulent?

Is this a case of tough love or child abuse? Read the story and you decide.

This one pulls me both ways, because I have SEEN a lot of five year-old boys who need a serious wake-up call before they become old enough to get their asses in serious trouble. These kids are headed down the wrong path and it's just a matter of time before they find the cuffs slapped on them for real. If anyone can turn them around NOW, that person is doing both the boy and the world a big favor.

Did the principal overstep his authority? I dunno, but it's not like the police pistol-whipped the kid. They just gave him a taste of a squad-car ride, and I hope to hell that he didn't like it. Maybe he learned a lesson.

Principal Sam Morgan is on leave from Thurgood Marshall Academy pending an investigation into last month's incident, board attorney Wayne Harvey said.

Morgan declined to comment Wednesday, but last week said he had spent more time on the boy ``than any kid in this building, trying to steer him straight.''

He said he had police ``put the handcuffs on one arm, put him in the back seat of their car and drive him around a little bit.''

Morgan added: ``This kid is heading for the Department of Corrections at 5. He fights, strikes somebody practically every day on the bus. He's a constant disruption.''

Morgan, a longtime principal at East St. Louis High School in Illinois, also spent eight years working in the Department of Corrections.

East St. Louis ain't the greatest environment for a boy to grow up in, and this little shit sounds like a natural-born thug to me. Plus, I have to appreciate the principal's creds. He knows a potential thug when he sees one.

But the sad truth is, it's not the principal's job to raise that boy. His PARENTS (or in this case, PARENT) should be doing that, but mama doesn't appear to have a good handle on that task.

The boy's mother, Aroni Rucker, said Wednesday her son had trouble adjusting to his first year of school and may have been disruptive, but he did nothing to warrant such treatment.

``They put handcuffs on my baby,'' Rucker said. ``That's for adults who murder and kill. He's 5. He's in kindergarten.''

Yeah, and when the undiscipined little fuck grows through juvenile delinquency and finally BECOMES an adult who murders and kills, he won't deserve the cuffs then, either, will he? Mama, "trouble adjusting" means that the kid cries a lot, misses his mama and wants to go back home instead of being in school. It DOES NOT mean that he attacks people every day and behaves like a savage.

That's not "trouble adjusting." That's thuggery.

If this were MY son, I think I just might be on the principal's side.

brag, brag

I agree with her insight, but she distracted me with the boob comment. A PICTURE would be nice.

I like boobies.

same name

He didn't change his name, but he did move to new digs. Update your blogrolls accordingly. He's good.

The fallacy of the Endangered Species Act has been illustrated in recent years with logging ended to protect an owl that nests in a department store sign, and federal employees planting false evidence to cause areas to be designated key habitat for an endangered animal that lives nowhere near the place. If the Act has ever played a positive role in heading off an extinction (other than of jobs), I’m unaware of it.

The emphasis is mine, but the opinion is his and I agree with it completely.

worth 1,000 words?

I don't know what's going on in this picture and I don't think I WANT to know. Obscene possibilities occurred to me.

The picture may not be worth 1,000 words, but it ought to inspire a few interesting captions.

December 15, 2004

musical tastes

I'm a troglodyte.

I always though that if I was locked up in a jail cell with Rod Stewart, I'd make him my bitch inside a week. Skinny, raspy little fuck. Wimmen loved him, though, but they loved EVERY singer who sounded as if he had his nutsack in a vice with somebody slowly turning the handle back then. (why do you think wimmen LIKED that sound?)

I miss ballsy bands with ballsy front-men.

Elton John? BEJUS!!! I'd have to pay the guards to keep HIM offa ME in jail!!! The same goes for that bald-headed Genesis guy... what's his name?... oh, yeah... "Take a Look at Me Now" and yada, yada... Phil Collins? Was that his name? Who gives a shit?

You know who I think was a gutsy, tear your balls off singer? I know a few:

1) Jim Morrison. ("The Doors.")

2) John Kay. ("Steppenwolf.")

3) John Cougar Mellincamp. (if you don't already know, then fuggataboudit.)

4) Warren Zevon (Just try "Werewolves of London")

5) Bob Seeger ("Down On Main Street" is one of the meanest songs ever written. I LOVE that lead guitar part.)

I'm tired, so I quit right here. But YOU tell ME any girly-boy singer who can compete with those five. I'll tell you to kiss my Cracker ass.

I know what's good.

amazing

If you had the chance to talk to my grandmother, my mama, or my aunts and uncles, they'd all tell you the same thing. Looking back NOW, they realize that they grew up poor. But they didn't know that fact at the time, and they never FELT poor. They might have slept three to a bed and ate a lot of pinto beans and cornbread, but they had a roof over their heads, clean clothes to wear and they knew that they were loved.

How much richer do you really need to be?

Besides... even though we can afford steak today, we still like to eat pinto beans and cornbread. That's good home-cooking.

just ask

Ask me why I love this woman.

My maternal grandmother died in childbed, on the mill-hill, in 1943. Of HER family - her momma bore 15 children, and only nine lived to adulthood. Of those nine, five were killed in WWII.

They didn't have indoor plumbing until 1955. They had no health-care.
Advertising told them that women should douche weekly with a solution of
Lysol and water (no kidding) and to walk a mile for a Camel. There were
winters during which the children lost 30% of their body weight, from
lack of food - but my gram would sooner have seen them DEAD than take
charity. That was for "poor people" and it made you "beholden". These
people went their entire lives without being a party to a lawsuit, too.

Damn, THOSE were tough people. WE are cream-puffs.

She's no cream-puff and that fiber shows when you meet her. Leave HER out of all my mysoginistic posts. Kelley reminds me of MY family.

just in case

Somebody dared me, in a most nasty tone. Okay, asshole, here goes.

My home address is:

Rob Smith
133 High Point Drive
Rincon, Georgia 31326

If you're in the neighborhood, drop on by! I don't hide from anybody. I may not have any alcoholic beverages on hand, but I'll offer you a Coke and we'll shoot the shit for a while, if you don't mind my messy home. If you want a drink with some more fortitude in in, we'll take the dirt road down to Randall's Liquor Store and buy some. My treat.

I might even play guitar and sing for you. I am a gracious host.

Just don't be alarmed if I open the door with one hand and the other hand behind my back. I don't own any guns, but I sometimes pretend that I do.

I like company and I am not afraid of ANYBODY who wants to visit me.

So, drop by... any time you want to.

i've never seen it

A small cemetary rests somewhere on the side of a hill in eastern Kentucky, and it is dotted with small, white tombstones, some of which are so old and weathered that the carving is difficult to read anymore. My Uncle George went there a few years ago and took a video of the place.

A lot of my family is buried in that ground.

The stones read, "Baby Jacob," born 10/11/22, died 10/13/22. "Our beloved Clara," born 2/25/06, died 6/14/08. "Davy," born 11/21/03, died 11/21/03. Bejus! I watched that video and I wept. My grandma came from a family of fifteen children, but only 13 survived to reach adulthood. The same was true all over the family. Dying young was common in those days, and childbirth was a risky proposition.

Too many people don't appreciate how good we have life today. My grandma still jokes that when my mama was born, the midwife who delivered her charged two live chickens and a dozen eggs for the job. "I think I rooked her," she still says. "Those were the two worst chickens I had." My uncles still tell my mama, "You shut up! You ain't worth no more than two chickens and a dozen eggs."

Yeah, we sit around and laugh at those things today. But there is a tear in every laugh. How many smart hillbillies who could have clawed their way out of those hills and made something out of life lie buried there without ever having the chance to prove what they could do? Nobody will ever know.

Maybe that's why I have little patience for the professional whiners of the world. Got-dam, people! You think life is rough NOW? You couldn't have cut the mustard back then.

You are pathetic.

I've never visited that cemetary, but I intend to go next summer. My roots are buried there.

kill me!!! kill me now!!!

ARRRGGGHHHH!!!

Bejus! I went to the grocery store today. I listened to the "Golden Oldies" station on the radio in my truck. One of those rare Ultimate Truth moments washed over me in the Kroger's parking lot.

Tommy James and the Shondells are the SHITTIEST BAND THAT EVER EXISTED!!! Hands-down. Beyond a shadow of a doubt. So far beyond other shitty bands that the contest isn't even close. In fact, I believe that they DEFINE a shitty band and will for a long, long time.

Now, I've got "Crystal Blue Persuasion" stuck like a worm in my ear.

If you shoot me immediately, it would be a mercy killing.

the third rail

I have a shameful confession to make: I am a member of AARP. Yeah, I joined even though I despise their political views--- but I can get EXCELLENT motel rate discounts with my card, and I'm old enough to qualify. Why not take advantage of THAT???

But, deep in my heart, I agree with this post. Geezers are the most greedy, money-grubbing, selfish, hooray-for-me-and-fuck-YOU people in this country today. They've already torn off a large chunk of the American Pie, and they hover over it like ravenous dogs while they clack their dentures and bark for MORE, especially now that they aren't paying for it.

Greatest Generation, my ass.

Anybody with a functional brain KNOWS that Social Security is headed for a train-wreck. The Geezers know it, too, but they don't give a shit, and the craven politicians we call "leaders" today don't give a shit, either. Geezers get their checks and they vote in droves, so politicians kiss Geezer ass. Both sets of shitbags expect to die before the perfidy of their actions comes home to roost. It'll be somebody else's problem then.

The common philosophy is: I got MINE!!! That's all that matters.

I go to Florida a lot. I see Geezers living in resort communities, enjoying the high life. They play golf every day, drive like fucktards, dress as if they believe they are still young and whip out pictures of their grandchildren at the drop of a hat. Oh, yeah. They LOVE those grandchildren, but they don't care about the load of debt their Geezerdom is heaping on Little Timmy's head.

I tried this once, when I was fairly drunk in Winterhaven, Florida.

ME: "Yeah, Timmy is a cute kid. Poor bastard."

Geezer: "What do you mean?"

ME: "You're bankrupting his ass. You KNOW that, don't you?"

Geezer: "What do you mean?"

ME: "What did you do today, before we sat down here and had a $50 lunch?"

Geezer: "I had breakfast at the Country Club and then I played golf."

ME: "You hurting for money? Having trouble paying for your prescription drugs"

Geezer: "No, I'm doing okay. I worked 40 years for the same company and I invested well. Sold the house in New Hampshire and made a killing."

ME: "Bush wants to cut Social Security."

Geezer: "KILL HIM!!! VOTE HIM OUT OF OFFICE!!! He's trying to take MY MONEY!!!"

Forget about little Timmy. THAT'S the real Geezer mentality.

My daddy

When I was about 10 years old, I needed to earn some money, so I contracted with a neighbor to cut her grass and edge her curb. My daddy told me that I could use his lawnmower (as long as I paid him back for the gas--- which was about 26 cents a gallon at the time) and I negotiated what I thought was a fair price-- $2.50, I believe, for the job. I told her that I would be there bright and early on Saturday to do the work.

I showed up on time and I cut the grass. But... DAMN!!! It was a Saturday in July in southeast Georgia and the temperature was as hot as the gates of hell. I was hacking away at the weeds on her curb when some of my friends came by on bicycles and invited me to go skinny-dipping in the Gun Club Lake with them. Ohhhh... the thought of that water washing over my sweaty self almost made me swoon. I wanted to go.

I thunk a thought. I could finish this job TOMORROW and go skinny-dipping RIGHT NOW!!! I wouldn't ask Mrs. Johnson to pay me until I was done, and I was pretty sure that I could talk her into giving me a break. I tried, and I was correct.

I ran back to my house to get my bicycle, but I was intercepted by my daddy. "Where are YOU going?" he asked. He had been watching me from the living room window.

"Ummm... I'm going to play with my friends," I replied. Skinny-dipping in the lake was strictly forbidden, so I kept those plans to myself.

"You finished with your work?"

"No... but Mrs. Johnson says that I can finish tomorrow. I just have a little more of the curb to do."

"Then go do the rest of the curb. You gave her your word. If you didn't want the job, you shouldn't have asked for it."

He made me go back and finish that job before I went off to have a good time with my friends. I resented what he did at the time, but I don't anymore.

My daddy was that kind of man, and he taught me a valuable lesson that day. He was not much of a multiculturalist. He believed that if somebody paid you to do a job, you DID IT. Just as simple as that.

Too few people teach their children that lesson anymore.

happy horseshit

The "multiculturalists" in this country are Anti-American dingbats who hate everything that makes the USA the best place in the world to live. They rant about "marginalization" as a horrible crime against humanity while doing everything in their power to marginalize as many people as possible. They are sick, twisted folks.

The multiculturalists, by stark contrast, do not see the United States at all as a good country with common values worth transmitting. They grossly divide Americans into "oppressors" (all whites of European descent) and the "oppressed" (all persons of color from minority cultures).

What is their concept of an ideal society? Sudan? The now-defunct Soviet Union? France? Iran? CANADA??? Gimme a fucking break. The United States of America is a land of opportunity, no matter what your skin color or heritage.

Some people have to climb harder than others, because life is never FAIR anywhere, but you have your best chances to achieve whatever you dream of here. The secret to success is simple, too: Get an education, work hard, and don't have babies until you are ready to raise them. What's so "oppressive" about that?

They want to mold future teachers into agents of social transformation who will reject the continuing Anglo/Western influences on the core curriculum and denounce what they contend is a legacy of unrelenting oppression that should cause all white Americans to carry a heavy burden of guilt.

I looked around for that heavy burden of guilt I'm supposed to be carrying and I can't find it. My family came from dirt-poor roots in the Appalatchian Mountains of eastern Kentucky. We never owned slaves (hell-- my grandaddy sold moonshine to buy SHOES for his kids so they didn't go to school barefoot, and those kids wore 'em for a year, whether they outgrew them or not. MY MAMA was one of those kids.)

I listen to such happy horseshit from air-headed academics and I want to puke. How much of real life have THEY ever seen? Assholes. My parents had enough sense to KNOW that the only way out of a coal-mining camp for me and my brother was an education and some ambition. They pounded that idea into our heads and we both turned out okay, downright prosperous in fact. The opportunity was there and we grabbed it.

Their hearts bled in particular for English-language learners, the immigrant children who now constitute one-tenth of the U.S. school population. As did others at this conference, the presenters were bitter at inroads made in federal and state law to jettison so-called bilingual education in favor of English immersion.

Yeah, right on. If you really want a kid to succeed as an adult, DON'T teach him English. The fact that Europeans already know that English is the international language of business and commerce, and they teach THEIR children to speak it as a key to success doesn't mean diddly-squat to academics. How are you going to keep the downtrodden under the boot of the man if you teach them a way out? Noooo... we can't have that.

At a general session, one California activist wailed that "[immigrant] families are torn apart by children who no longer share their language and culture." What to do? She said new teachers should be taught to "resist," to take back the curriculum.

Is THAT a brilliant statement? It's now a teacher's moral obligation to "resist" educating students with the tools they need in life. Shove propaganda down their young throats and leave them more "marginalized" than they were when they entered school. I suppose that "self-esteem" and "pride" are more important today, whether it's worth a dime in the marketplace or not.

Yeah. Send them off to "Black Studies," "Feminist Studies" and "I'm Just All Fucked-Up Studies." Don't teach them to read and write. Then, when they fall on their highly-self-esteemed asses in the real world, you can blame their failure on "marginalization," and THEY WILL, too, having been taught by specialists in that subject.

Good grief.

the story of my life

The last three years of my life have been a lot like this.

December 14, 2004

pissing sitting down

I've always bragged that one of the benefits of being a man is the ability to stand up and pee. Hell, we can water a tree, stop ANYWHERE on the side of the road and even write our names in the snow if we want to. Instant relief is no problem.

A pecker is a nice thing to have.

I've always laughed at the female squatting thing and the half-a-roll of toilet paper it takes them to daub their delicate pussies dry when they finally generate the nerve to squat outside a pristine-clean cubicle with a perfumed stall and a locked door in the first place. Plus, wimmen are always afraid that someone will SEE them pissing.

WTF is that all about?

Guys don't give a shit about someone seeing them piss. If you maybe look longingly at a guy's wang when you're in one of those watery conga-lines, the gawkee may just turn and piss all over your Reeboks, but that's not a shameful thing, at least not to the gawkee. He'll wave that thing at you and say "Take a GOOD look, buddy! Is THIS what you wanted???"

Not that I would know, but I'm just sayin'...

Wimmen don't do that. They piss sitting down and they like padded toilet seats to rest their fat pretty asses on, too. I was about to get wound up and pontificate about how disgusting that practice is until I thought...

Bejus! I piss sitting down sometimes. I know a lot of other guys who do, too. That's just fucking sad.

Catfish caught me doing it in Athens. He saw me sitting on the john and asked, "Whatta ya doing, bow-legs? Pissin' or shittin'?" (Can you imagine a woman asking that question? Guys do.) I confessed that I wasn't certain. My body would make its mind up whenever it was ready.

I caught Cat on the john the next day, his ass on the commode and his face buried in a USA Today. "Okay, Big Cat. Whatta ya doin'? Pissin' or shittin'?" I loved his reply.

"I THINK I'm pissin,' but I ain't taking any chances."

I just had a hideous thought. Old men become... WIMMEN!!!!

poetry

There once was a woman named Key
Who wore high-heeled boots to her knee
When I tried to seduce her
She became an abuser
And threw a beer bottle at me

Thank you... thank you...

I once had a buddy named "Sam"
Who said, "I'm not sure where I am"
We said, "Trust me, my dear,
For you are right here.
Take a drink, then you won't give a damn."

Oh! You people are too kind! Thank you again...

Watch out for a fellow named "Cat."
He's tall and tattooed, getting fat--
But if you're feeling poorly
I tell you most surely
He's got a cure for all that.

Please, please... no more applause...

Kelley was not feeling well
But she hung so that no one could tell
The pain in her head
Finally sent her to bed
With everyone else raising hell.

Yeah, I'll be here all week...

Eric remains a Marine
He's so red that I think he bleeds green
If you feed him some scotch,
Then you'd better watch--
He's about to do something obscene.

See? I can write shitty poetry, too.

(Ya'll remember the "$2 Bed Blues?")

see?

I like Costa Rica. I wonder why? You can own a personal firearm there, but you have to convince the government that you NEED it to qualify for a permit.

Taxi drivers qualify.

editing

I almost never delete troll comments from my blog. Other bloggers do, and that's their right, but I prefer to leave the shit right where it fell. Trolls do a good job of making fools of their own silly asses, so I let their words speak for themselves. They don't bother me much, unless they become TOO obnoxious.

But I DO spend an hour or so getting rid of comment spam every day. Spammers are one of the lowest forms of life on this planet, and I would gladly participate in a ritual evisceration if I ever got my hands on one. I'm all for making a dollar off the net if you can, but this shit is obscene.

I wrote a tearful post about the death of my best friend. What comes after some comments from people who understood my grief? SPAM, featuring cum-in-your-face porno, Asian anal sex, barnyard antics of beastiality, on-line Texas hold-'em, Direct TV, Viagra almost FREE and penis enhancement bullshit. I saw that crap and wanted to kill somebody.

But spammers don't care. They'd take a post titled "My Mama Died Today" and smear it with offers for Big Dicks in Teenage Pussies, Best Vicodin Online, Hot Gay Anal, Refinance Your Mortgage and Call ME for Wet Sex on the Phone.

Shitbags.

Yeah, I get rid of them. I just wish that I knew how to exterminate their asses once and for all. I may dance with prostitutes, but I would NEVER have anything to do with a comment spammer. Prostitutes have some things that even THEY won't do. The same can't be said for spammers.

They are the lowest of the low.

she must still be drunk

I love shitty poetry and this is a damn fine example.

You gotta explain that "spat something gay" line. I musta missed an event of note that night.

violence

"You sumbitch! I oughta KILL YOU for that!"

I heard that line once after I dropped a cigarette butt into a buddy's still half-full beer can at a party. Hell, I thought the can was empty at the time, but I ruined the rest of his beer and pissed him off. Did I believe that he really meant to kill me? No, I didn't and he simply was protesting a waste of perfectly good beer. I knew what he meant.

I felt guilty about what I had done, so I gave him a fresh beer to assuage his wounded feelings, I apologized for being a careless bastard and the party rocked on with the two of us remaining good buddies. In MY humble opinion, that was not a violent incident.

But under the law, he made a terroristic threat and I could have called the authorities on him, had him locked up and pressed charges. I could have trembled in front of a judge, let a frightened pee-stain darken the front of my pants and said that the man put me in fear of my life.

I could have sent him to jail for nothing. Wimmen do that kind of thing a lot.

To me, violence is a simple concept. If I tell you that you are full of shit and that you need to be dragged off and shot, that's not violence. That's a big mouth gnashing the wind. If I punch you in the nose, however, then actually drag you off and shoot you, THAT'S violence.

A lot of people don't understand the difference today, and I blame it all on the Pussification of America, led, sponsored and supported by wimmen. Just look at how they have managed to redefine the word "rape."

Before wimmen's Bizarro World took over, rape meant a physical, sexual assault. Now, some poor bastard can be standing at a bus stop and minding his own business when he decides to scratch his balls. If some hyperventilating woman sees him do it, she can cry "RAPE!!!" and the courts take her seriously instead of putting her in a rubber room, where she belongs.

That guy scratching his balls is VIOLENCE to some wimmen. And if she "feels" threatened, by Bejus, then she IS THREATENED, no matter if the threat is all in her tangled, feminine mind. She was RAPED, even though the guy never even saw her. That's the LAW!!!

That's the central flaw in the Fem-Lib movement. Wimmen want to play on a level field with men, but they also want to ability to be whining, helpless, overly-sensitive pussies when the situation benefits them. I say you can't have it both ways, but they do. Wimmen are independent and strong when they're winning, but they become shaking blobs of formless jello when things don't go their way.

I am Woman. I am sorta strong, but I tend to fall apart easily, I can't handle pressure and I see sexual harassment everywhere, even though I couldn't pay a guy to fuck me with somebody else's dick. I want to run with the Tall Dogs, but that field is just so HOSTILE and ICKY. Clean it up to MY standards so that I can get a fair game. And you've GOT to let me play.

Guys engage in fistfights when they get violent. Wimmen drag you into court when they want to show their cat-claws.

Guess which one I believe is more bloodthirsty?

anti-cat aussie

Here is a man after my own heart. He doesn't like cats any more than I do, and he makes a brilliant point about feline genetic engineering:

"If you genetically engineered away all the bad things about cats, wouldn’t you just end up with a dog anyway?"

Inspired

This is a beautiful rant and I couldn't agree more. But it's going to get the writer in trouble.

Wimmen get mighty pissed off when men say true things about them.

all i want for christmas...

... is to live through it.

More Americans die from heart attacks and other natural causes on Christmas, the day after and on New Year's Day than on any other days of the year, the researchers reported.

It is probably because people are feeling too busy or too festive to go to the hospital over the winter holiday season, the researchers wrote in Monday's issue of the journal Circulation.

Road Rage, deadly physical assaults in shopping malls, kids killing themselves with new toys and spouses shooting one another over adulterous activities at Christmas parties I could understand. But just keeling over and dropping dead on Christmas seems odd to me. Stress comes in many forms.

By the way, I want to thank all my readers who have sent me Christmas cards and gifts this year. I am stunned, impressed and pleased by your generosity. I would say that I am HUMBLED, too, but you know me better than that. But I thank you all, just the same.

I really mean that.

December 13, 2004

I lie!

I didn't buy this gun, and it DOES NOT have a 10-shot magazine. I just made that shit up.

just what I needed

I bought another gun today.

I realized that after I gave my 9mm to my daughter, I didn't own another semi-automatic pistol, and I wanted one. I actually prefer revolvers for reliability, but a good semi-auto is better for firepower (lots of shots quickly) and ease of reloading.

I bought a High-Point .380 ACP. I haven't fired it yet, but I intend to tomorrow. It came with two 10-shot magazines and 50 rounds of ammo, but I may cruise by Mack's Gun Shop tomorrow, pick up some cheap ammo and see if they have the 15-round replacement mags. Now that the Clinton Assault Weapons Ban has expired, I want to take advantage of it.

I'd like a holster for that pistol, too. It would make a good carry-gun. Flat and not very heavy, even with a full mag. Nice piece.

I don't really know why I wanted the gun, but I did, so I bought it. Sometimes, it's just good to be an American.

let it flow

How "fresh" is this?

I don't think I want to know.

i don't understand

First of all, let me attest that I believe Scott Peterson is guilty. Yes, I believe that he killed his wife and dumped her into the ocean, taking his unborn son out with her. He strikes me as the kind of guy capable of doing such a horrible thing.

But I STILL DO NOT BELIEVE that the government proved that case.

I was surprised when he was convicted. All the evidence against him is circumstantial and the prosecution has no witnesses, no murder weapon, and nothing serious to tie Scott to the crime, other than pure supposition. I don't think I could have voted "guilty" based on what I saw of the case.

But 12 people did, and now Scott is facing the death penalty. "Cheers" may have gone up outside the courtroom after the decision was read, but I wasn't cheering. This kind of shit bothers me.

First, I am FOR the death penalty, but only in cases where the evidence is a slam-dunk, the perp BRAGS about what he did after the smoking gun is ripped from his hand and nobody has ANY DOUBT about who did what to whom. Yeah. KILL that bastard.

But Scott Peterson does not fit that profile.

Second, I believe that if the full power of government comes after an individual citizen, the government should be made to prove its case TRULY beyond a reasonable doubt, because government has more resources to throw at you than you can muster to defend yourself. I don't care who you are or what you're accused of doing, you should be treated as the underdog until the government can PROVE otherwise.

But Scott Peterson does not fit that profile.

Third, nobody should be convicted in the press and given the soap-opera treatment before the case ever goes to trial. Call me paranoid all you want to, but I have to wonder... what if Scott Peterson DIDN'T do it? Do I believe that he received a fair trial? No, I don't, not will all the pre-trial bullshit that occurred. I'm just saying... this kind of shit is DANGEROUS, folks. Scott could be YOU next time.

I hope they got the right man. But I am not CERTAIN. I could not vote for the death penalty in this case, and I wonder about those people who cheered when it was announced. Does the idea of burning witches still fascinate them?

Our legal system needs a lot of work.

a blog party

Our confab in Athens wasn't exactly a blog-meet. It was something else... a prayer meeting or a summit conference or a drunken Southern orgy or... hell, who cares? I don't know exactly what it was, but a few facts were apparent to me.

#1-- Bloggers don't talk much. You have to use a tire-iron to pry a word out of their mouths. I've never seen a bunch of more stone-faced, lip-locked people in my life. Shyness ran rampant.

#2-- Bloggers don't drink much. EVERYBODY brought liquor and beer, but nobody drank any. (BWHAHAHAHAAAA!!!) I almost cried when I tossed all those still-unopened liquor bottles in the trash on Sunday morning. If those people would just loosen up a little, they might be fun to be around.

#3-- Hotels don't understand the nuances of this kind of gathering, and the staff sometimes threatens to call the gendarmes because of complaints (from tight-assed, yankee pucker-butts) about alleged noise coming from the room where everybody is being perfectly silent. We're still not a very high-tech world. Some people cannot tell the difference between "virtual" noise and the real thing.

#4-- Some female bloggers are hotties. (One gives a damn good neck massage, too.) The men are all swine, but the ladies more than take up our slack. We grow sweet magnolias down South.

#5-- If you want to hear deep thoughts and stunning wisdom, enroll in a college philosophy course. If you like a constant stream of knee-deep bullshit flowing like a lazy river, attend a blog-meet. Opinions will NEVER die of loneliness there.

#6-- Nobody is nice, everybody is an anti-social shitass, fights break out all night long and everybody ends up hating everybody else in the morning. I don't know why I bother to go to such disgraceful events. It's a just a nasty, disgusting slice off the worst face of human nature. It's ugly.

You wouldn't want your children to see you there, not after the way YOU behaved during the festivities. Blackmail pictures are a distinct possibility. I don't know why I go.

But I can't wait to do it again.

cute

I don't like the word "cute." In fact, I believe that is one of the most foul, useless words in the English language. It's just such a SHITTY description of anything.

"Awww... that's so CUTE!"

What image pops into your mind when you read those words? An infant, stinking to high heaven, in a crap-filled diaper with dried baby-food and puke on it's face? A puppy chewing up one of your favorite shoes? A cat clawing your sofa to shreds? Brad Pitt? A pink, self-lubricating, solar-powered vibrating butt-plug?

Yeah, they're ALL "cute," when described by a woman. "Cute" is a feminine word, and I want to bitch-slap any man I hear use it, unless he says, "Oh, THAT was cute," right before he punches you in the nose for being an asshole. Guys don't like "cute."

Wimmen don't like specifics, because that gets in the way of all their feelings, so "cute" is the perfect way to avoid actually describing anything. It's a one-size-fits-all word that can be used on any occasion and all wimmen hearing it will nod in agreement.

Yes, cute is good. It's non-confrontational and warm, fuzzy and comfortable. Cute. Comfortable. Sweet.

My ass. I would rather be dead than "cute."

the beat goes on

Chapter Four of the blog novella is up. This thing is becoming a really interesting project.

Two more chapters to go.

December 12, 2004

the scenic route

My friend Catfish and I rode up to Athens together. He drove and I navigated. I took us via the backroads, where we didn't have to deal with traffic or those pesky policemen with radar guns who infest the main highways. It's a pretty ride the way I like to go and we made the trip in about four hours.

Catfish bitched all weekend about my choice of routes. "We drove all the way around our assholes to get to our elbows," was his favorite saying. "When we go back, we're taking MY way," he promised. Today, we did.

I have to admit one thing about Cat's choice of roads: he set the all-time speed record for a trip from Athens to Savannah. NEVER BEFORE has that trip taken SEVEN FUCKING HOURS!!!

I knew something was wrong when Cat took a left off highway 78 just outside Washington, Georgia. "Where're you goin,' man?" I asked. "This is 77 NORTH. We don't want to be going north. Savannah is SOUTH."

"We take a right in Elberton, the Granite Capitol of the World" he replied. "I know these roads like the back of my hand. I once sold insurance up here. I've been all over this place. I know exactly where we are."

I shut up and let him drive. And drive. And drive.

The only right turn out of Elberton was another road going north. We took it and before long, we were in South Carolina, 52 miles NORTH of got-dam Augusta, Georgia. If this was a short-cut, it was the damnedest one I ever saw. "Bejus! We're on the other side of Clark Hill Lake!" I exclaimed.

"Hmmm..." Catfish replied. "I think I fucked up. But I SWEAR that I remember coming home from Athens by going through Elberton." That kind of memory may be the reason he got out of the insurance business.

We finally arrived at my house seven hours after we left Athens. What the hell. I had nothing better to do today than ride around lost for hours in northeast Georgia and bumfuck South Carolina. As usual, Catfish was unrepentent over his fuckwittery.

"Ya gotta admit one thing," he said. "We saw some great scenery. And those were damn good roads." Yes, I agreed, those were great roads. All 160 extra miles of them.

I'm never letting him navigate again.

no way!!!

Can you believe that Britany Spears has stinky feet? Bad enough to make people on an airplane complain when she took her shoes off?

Don't tell me that, even if it's true. I don't want to know.

(Link shamelessly stolen from here.)

random notes

*If a hotel throws you out of your room for making too much noise at night, do you still have to pay for the room?

* I am convinced that The Mutant and velociman are the same person. He just wears contact lenses to hide those eyes in daylight hours. After the sun goes down, however...

* My darlin' key monroe has the most wonderful, beautiful rack hands I've ever seen. She massaged a kink out of my neck last night and I feel like a new man today. I STILL don't know why she wouldn't give me a theraputic blow-job to go along with the neck-rub. My request was strictly medicinal. I asked politely and she threw an empty Killian's Red beer bottle at me. Thank Bejus she missed me and hit Catfish instead.

* Yeah, we almost had a knife-fight. That's what happens when an ex-marine gets heavily into the Scotch bottle.

* DO NOT allow this guy to handle a loaded firearm whether he's been drinking or not. If you say, "Don't pull the hammer back," the next thing you hear is a "CLICK!" followed by "What did you say?"

* This woman is a real trooper. She was sick, but she came anyway and was as delightful and vivacious as always. Kelley, your husband is one lucky man.

* Last night, I tasted the worst goddam moonshine home-made wine I've ever tasted in my life. The bearer of that gift kept saying, "It's FRESH!!!" Yeah, it certainly was. That shit could kill a Clydesdale horse and leave an ugly expression on its face. Aging is a GOOD thing for whiskey. "Fresh," as in uncut, right out of the copper worm, ain't exactly a taste-enhancer.

* I didn't see a whole lot of this guy. He brought a girlfriend with him and I believe that they kept slipping off to play "hide the salami" all night long. I wanted to take flagrante delecto photos, but he wouldn't let me. He also said that I turned him into a Democrat with my blog. I didn't sleep well after he told me that.

* My room this morning resembles a third-world village after a bloody battle in a savage civil war. The place obviously has been ravaged by marauding Visigoths. I don't have any dead bodies HERE, but I'm afraid to check the hallway.

* We all agreed on three top peeves about blogging. #1 was comment spammers, #2 was trolls and #3 was... I forget what #3 was, but I know we all agreed on it.

* If I tried to do this every weekend for a month, I'd be dead in three weeks.

December 11, 2004

the garden of eden

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.

occam's razor

Are you familiar with the theory of occam's razor? In a nutshell, Occam's Razor says that when you try to explain something, the simplest explanation usually is the correct one. The more complicated you make your explanation, the more likely you are to be wrong.

I believe that theory, but a lot of people don't, because the simple explanation doesn't fit with what they WANT to believe.

``Examinations of X-rays and all imaginable tests ... are still with the same results, the inability of reaching a clear diagnosis,'' Al-Kidwa said in English at a news conference in Ramallah on Saturday.

``That is precisely the reason why suspicions are there, because without a reason you cannot escape the other possibility ... that there is unnatural cause for the death,'' he added.

That's right. You can't rule out the possibility that space aliens kidnapped Arafat and left a pod-creature in his place, whisked the great leader off to a distant planet and left the pod to decay and die just to fool everybody about what really happened. Don't laugh--- it's POSSIBLE!!! (Improbable never enters into these kinds of discussions.) Yeah. I can buy that idea, if I'm stupid enough.

A lot of people do. That's why they vote Democrat.

i love it

I have just one comment on this story, and that is... BWHAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!

Okay, you holy-rolling divorce court judges with your legal formulas and Fuck The Husband philosophies. Whadda ya gonna do NOW? You've got two GUYS wanting a divorce. Who gets the kids? Who gets the house? How do you figure alimony and child support? Whoa! You might actually have to JUDGE this case.

That's is the reason I support gay marriage.

a selfless act

I love people who are always on the alert and ready to save the children, no matter who they have to sue. Think about how rotten, depraved and immoral the world would be without such selfless people.

The complaint, filed Thursday in Washington County Circuit Court, seeks an order requiring Wal-Mart to either censor or remove the music from its Maryland stores. It also seeks damages of up to $74,500 for each of the thousands of people who bought the music at Wal-Marts in Maryland.

``I don't want any other families to get this, expecting it to be clean. It needs to be removed from the shelves to prevent other children from hearing it,'' said plaintiff Trevin Skeens of Brownsville.

I believe that Skeens and his attorney are setting a wonderful example for the children: we ain't allowing no F-word on a CD; that's really offensive. So, we'll try to fuck Wal-Mart. (forget about the money-- this isn't about money.)

Oh, yes, little children. This is how responsible adults behave.

December 10, 2004

a serious question

Matt, the high school student mentioned below, flattered me by asking what good books he should read as he "mulls" becoming a writer. I'll talk about books for hours if anyone is willing to listen (or even if they're not), because reading is a WONDERFUL way to spend your time. That's good exercise for the mind.

Matt may not like what I have to say now, but the truth is, he's not yet ready for some of my favorite books. Once he gets some more life under his belt, I'll change this list, but for a young man in high school who has ambitions of being a writer someday, here is my list: (in no particular order)--- and these are not "GREAT" books--- just nice reads and good writing.

* Catcher in the Rye, by JD Salanger.

* Call of the Wild, by Jack London.

* A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, by Mark Twain.

* Tarzan of the Apes, by Edgar Rice Burroughs.

* Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson.

* The Right Stuff, by Tom Wolfe.

* Treasure of the Sierra Madre, by B. Traven.

*The Norton's Anthology of Poetry.

*Carrie, by Stephen King.

I think that's a good start.

opinions

*From kiwi pete in response to the picture of my Fender Telecaster I posted the other day:

Telecasters are soo fucking ugly. I've never liked that shape. But by christ if I could get my hands on a cheap one, I would buy it. They are sweetest things to play with.

"sometimes the ugliest girls are the best lays".

Pete, all Telecasters are NOT "ugly." Mine IS, but that's no reason to brand the entire line of guitars with a hurtful label. I like Telecasters because they are capable of making just about any kind of sound you want to make, from crisp country to screaming rock-n-roll. And they play wonderfully. Fuck a Strat. Gimme a Telecaster anytime. My ugly girl sure has been nice to me in the past.

*Do a good deed. Email "Matt" at mdally@comcast.net and answer the question he sent me:

Recently I won a $50 gift certificate for a local book store, and I've been wondering just what I'm going to spend it on. All the books we're reading today in my AP Language and Composition class are crap...which is why I turn to you. I got a short glimpse of some recommendations in a recent post, but what are some must-haves that I probably don't have right now? I'm mulling a career in writing, so the stronger the foundation I can build by reading fine books, the better.

You gotta love any high school student who uses the word "mulling" in an email. Send him YOUR recomendations.

*At my undisclosed location, I am with an old friend of mine. When we checked into our room, I took my .22 derringer out of my pocket and laid it on the nightstand. "You brought a gun?" my friend asked. I replied that NO, I didn't bring "a gun"--- I brought TWO, and that's when I showed him the .38 in my bag.

"Well, you might like THESE," he replied, as he extracted a 9mm and a .380 from HIS bag. We passed them around and handled them as tenderly as grandmothers hold new babies. I believe that we are the two most heavily-armed guests in this hotel. It's a Southern thang. I don't leave home without it.

*Most bloggers I read have been really slack about posting for the past couple of days. I have been, too, but I've got an excuse. I was sick yesterday and I was on the road most of today.

What's YOUR goddam excuse?

*If I had one thing to do over again in my life, I'd probably forget to do it.

*For men: what is sexier--- big titties or a fine ass?

*For wimmen: what is sexier--- a big dick or a silver tongue?

No fair answering "BOTH" on that last one.

Hidden away

I am blogging from an undisclosed location right now, just to check a "wireless cocoon" that I read about a couple of days ago. It damn sure appears to work.

Heh. That's Acidman--- always on the cutting edge...

December 09, 2004

how about some cheese with that whine?

Thanks, I think, to reader Tony Ellis for this link. Sweet Bejus on a bicycle. I've never read a more pathetic brain-fart in my life. NO WONDER she doesn't like grades in school. She's dumb as a red brick.

We are currently paying a large amount of money to attend this University and receive an education. If I have paid to be taught something, shouldn't there be a repercussion for the teacher rather than, or at least as well as, the student when knowledge has not been taught?

Although teachers cannot be responsible for the self-failings of their students, it still seems unfair that they are allowed to judge how much a particular student is learning. I pay the teacher to teach me, and then I get slapped with the label of failure if the teacher deems that I haven't learned the correct information?

Yeah, darlin.' That's how the system works. A university DOES NOT strap you down on a surgical table and stick an IV in your arm to pump you full of "knowledge." The professors throw the knowledge out there and YOU are expected to learn it. If you don't, you fail. See? The whole secret to this process is that IT TAKES A LOT OF EFFORT FROM YOU to get an education. That knowledge isn't gonna be spoon-fed to you from a baby food jar.

Then there is the constant fountain of stress, emerging from that oh-so-reviled spigot of essays, quizzes and final projects. There seems to be an assumption that stress is the best way to facilitate learning. People willing to admit this underlying assumption would rightly be told to go sit in a corner and think about what they just said. Stress usually leads to two things: Procrastination, because stress makes every assignment more daunting than it actually is, and poor work as a result of this procrastination.

STRESS??? In COLLEGE??? BWHAHAHAHAAA!!! Wait until you land your unprepared ass in the REAL world, you delicate little chickie. You don't get an "F" GRADE when you can't handle the work a boss gives you when you're being paid to do a job. You get FIRED when you don't produce. You don't know what fucking stress is. If you can't handle exams, what the hell do you think you're gonna do when REAL stress comes your way?

Eliminating the system of grading would surely do away with both of these problems. Suddenly, the purpose of schoolwork will be to garner knowledge, rather than to gain an artificial mark of how much learning one had achieved. Instead of concern about the symbol of achievement, achievement itself will be most prized. Stress in students will be significantly lessened once work is being done for reasons of personal satisfaction. Although some may argue that grades in college are essential to determining that the hardest workers are accepted to graduate school, perhaps a decrease of focus on grades will actually lead to more fair admission policies. Time not spent calculating grades could be used by teachers to write recommendations for the students who have truly shown the ability to work hard and be motivated to educate themselves.

Why am I hearing John Lennon playing "Imagine" in my head right now? Grades are an "artificial mark" of how much you learned in class? I suppose a "salary" is an artificial mark of how well you do in the workplace, too. I'm with YOU, girl. Competition and performance standards are just so... icky. We should get rid of them, hold hands around a campfire and sing "Kum-Ba-Ya." The world will be a better place.

This columnist understands that a world without grades is a fantasy utopia, populated by over-enthused learners who work hard not out of fear but out of excitement for their own continued education.

Huh? Run that one by me again. If you have a point in that frothy statement, it's a slippery one that I can't grasp. If a world without grades is a "fantasy utopia" (which it isn't--- it's called "Communism," and it's been an abject failure every place it has EVER been tried--- did you take any history classes and pay any attention?), then why did you write this pathetic whine in the first place? Little one, you don't know what FEAR is yet. And you damn sure ain't gonna be ready to handle it when you see the real thing.

If that is an example of the best and the brightest of our next generation, this country is in deep shit.

wayback machine

Don't we all wish that we could go back and change a few things in our lives? I sure as hell do. But you ain't gonna get that chance. We're stuck reaping what we sowed and there ain't a damn thing you can do about it.

Still, it's a wonderful life.

good question

I think some people explored this same thought when I first started blogging, but maybe it's time to recycle the idea.

TOKYO (AP) - Someday your nose could get a workout while your fingers click the mouse. Japan's top telecommunications company NTT is adding smell to the sights and sounds of the Internet.

A broadband connection controls a machine that has 36 scents, blends of natural oils, such as eucalyptus, sandalwood and basil.

I have an idea about what some blogs should smell like.

Gut Rumbles-- cigarette smoke, stale beer and sweaty feet.

mr. helpful-- cedar boughs and sweaty sluts.

velociman-- decaying human flesh. DO NOT check the crawlspace under his house.

parkway rest stop-- that cloying, sickly-sweet soap provided in wimmen's public bathrooms.

laurence Simon-- a cat-litter box in dire need of emptying. (By the way... the Dead Pool is open for next year if you're interested.)

evil white guy-- Oh MAN!!! Who cut the cheese?

stevie-- leather, horse crap and fresh-cut meadow grass.

dax montana-- nasty, greasy hair wax and home-made wine.

key monroe-- sugar, spice and everything nice. (My ass!!!)

peoria pundit--- A wet sack. A wet sack lying. A wet sack full of something foul.

Not a damn one of them smells good.

Hell, now go play yourself. I'm feeling poorly today. (Goddam cold!!!)

slick

Here is the story of one really slippery criminal. I've been bored in a motel room before, but I never thought of killing time by doing what this guy did.

I suppose it seemed like a good idea at the time.

December 08, 2004

put it in perspective

My ass is still chapped about some things people said about Rosemary. Before I crawl off to bed, let me try to clarify something for you pricks who don't seem to be able to wrap your Americanized brains around this simple idea. Life in Costa Rica is NOT LIKE the life you lead here, you buncha spoiled pussies.

I tipped the maid who cleaned my room for four days at Canciones Del Mar 5,000 colones. That's about $12 USA. Rosemary almost shit when she saw what I was doing. "Too MUCH!" she said. After a period of confabulation in three different languages, I gathered that hotel help earned about 2,000 colones per WEEK there (about $5 USA) , and I was paying that pleasant woman who took great care of me WAY too much money.

"NO!!! THIS MUCH!!" Rosemary said, and handed me a 500 colones coin. That's about one US dollar. She called me loco, but I left the tip I meant to leave anyway. I liked my housekeeper. She was very sweet to me. I hope she buys something nice with the fortune I left her-- and to her, it probably WAS a fortune.

Hell... she was older than I am. Maybe she was an ex-prostitute with no kids to support her now.

I paid Rosemary 40,000 colones for two days. She would have to work half a year cleaning rooms in a hotel to earn what she got in two days from me. Jobs aren't that plentiful in Costa Rica. What would YOU do in her situation? Whine to the government? Good fucking luck.

It's always easy to sit on a high horse and look down at others. But shame on you if you do. You haven't been where they are and you don't know diddly-shit. Who the hell are YOU to judge?

Sometimes, you just do what you have to do.

peeves

*I wanna know why Eric, Key and several others can't fix their goddam comments to remember my personal information. WTF is that? If I didn't really LOVE you guys, I wouldn't bother with typing the same shit in those little boxes every time I want to share my wit with you.

*Why do most wimmen bloggers become obsessed with "skins" and all the got-dam decoration they can cram onto a page? That shit reminds me of a toilet seat with a fuzzy cover on top, ANOTHER THING wimmen love. A guy can't piss in there without grabbing his dick in one hand and holding the lid up with the other. If you don't hold the lid up, it'll slam down and guillotine your precious member. I sometimes piss on the frilly lid-cover just for spite.

*Why does ANY woman find John Kerry attractive? That guy repluses me.

*I am SHORT. I stand 5' 8" tall. I am NOT "vertically challenged," nor am I claiming to be a member of a victim group. I'm just SHORT. I know it, you'll know it if you meet me, so why say anything different? Calling my height something else isn't going to make me any taller. Cut that shit out. I don't see anything wrong with the words "crippled," "retarded," or "old," either.

*WHY do people think posting pictures of cats is a "cute" thing to do? The only good cat picture I ever saw on a blog showed one dead on the side of the road with a "FREE CAT" sign stuck in the ground next to the corpse. I stole that one. Otherise, I HATE cat-blogging.

*What's with the "F**k" and "A$$" things some people do on blogs? If you're gonna cuss, then CUSS, by-damn. If you ain't gonna cuss, then don't. Just stop acting like your mama is watching every fucking thing you do and you're trying to avoid her disapproval.

*Stop making fun of the picture on my page because I'm not wearing a shirt. That's the way I look most of the time. I don't wear any clothes AT ALL unless I absolutely have to.

*I think I own a tie, but I don't know where it is. I hope I never find it, either. I damn sure never intend to wear one again. A necktie is an abomination almost as bad as a woman's girdle. Okay, a girdle is worse, but you get my drift.

*Screaming, crying, wailing kids should be tranferred to the cargo hold of an airplane immediately after take-off and not released from there until the plane lands. Parents who RAISE screaming, crying, wailing kids and don't know how to shut them up should be jettisoned from the aircraft at an altitude of no lower than 20,000 feet.

*I don't want to be President of the United States, but I should be.

.

blow it out your ass

If I thought you were fucking SERIOUS, I might join. Yeah, it sounds good, but I'll guarantee that your idea of "freedom" is pretty damned selective, and not much like mine.

Let's make it clear to those who seek to take away our freedoms that they are on the wrong side of the law... the wrong side of core American values... and the wrong side of history. Take the pledge now and stand strong in support of freedom.

Yeah. Except for anti-smoking laws, sexual harassment bullshit, gun-control idiocy, suing over "God" in the pledge of allegiance, tearing down Christmas manger scenes, forbidding the Ten Commandments, stamping out the new Hardee's gut-buster burger, supporting handicapped militancy, Affirmative Action, environmental whackwittery, greedy lawyers, a huge government poking a finger into more parts of your life than a proctologist ever reaches and never blinking an eye about THAT kind of batshit. Spare me from your balled fists and gimlet eyes now after you've not only ALLOWED but ACTIVELY SUPPORTED such crap in the past.

Freedom means a lot more than protecting yourself from what you THINK George Bush might do somewhere down the road. You act as if we're free NOW, which we aren't. Most people don't even UNDERSTAND the concept of freedom anymore, thanks in large measure to the ACLU. You assholes blew your chance to be serious about FREEDOM a long time ago.

Don't get self-righteous with me now.

okay!!!

Here is a Tacoma Papoose, (on the left) posing next to a Fender Telecaster in my living room. I put the Fender in there just to give you an idea about the size of the dwarf guitar. (Plus, my Fender is so goddam ugly that you just have to love it!)

The 'Poose plays like the real thing, though.

a tacoma papoose

Do you know what one of those are? Allow me to enlighten you. (I would post a picture of mine, but my camera still hasn't recovered from the trip to Costa Rica.) It's a dwarf guitar with a 13" neck and 21 frets.

It is tuned to sound just like a regular guitar with a capo on the 5th fret. If you look on some album covers and see someone listed as playing "high-string guitar," chances are the musician is playing a Papoose. The little bastard rings like a bell, too.

I first saw one when Ricky Skaggs and Marty Stewart BOTH brought them out on stage and played the living shit out of them at a concert I watched. I knew I had to own one after I saw that. Mine is more than five years old now and it still has a very interesting sound.

I've been playing it a lot lately and I have my mind made up now. I'm going to rent some studio time after Christmas and record some of my music with nobody but ME playing on the entire tape. I'm gonna do all the guitars, high-string guitar, bass, autoharp, banjo, mandolin and whatever I can figure out for the drum part and sing three-part harmony with myself.

I need to do this while I still can and before I die.

imagine that

I posted a picture of my "companion" in Costa Rica and I've received some nasty, racist comments and email about it. Yes, Rosemary is a very dark-skinned woman and I am a white man. That fact seems to chap a few people's asses very badly.

I don't give a shit.

I DO find the situation ironic because so many people ceremoniously de-linked me for using the forbidden N-word on this blog more than a year ago. I was branded a racist and insulted far and wide.

I didn't give a shit about that, either. The whole thing just reinforced my opinion about the sanctimonious, holier-than-thou fuckheads of the world, a species I despise. They love to sew a Scarlett Letter on someone else, but never bother to check their own goddam clotheslines.

(If you want an example of what I'm talking about, just go here, if you can stand the stench of rotting brains and self-righteous gaseousness.)

Let me tell you something about Rosemary. She is a prostitute. She has two sisters who also are prostitutes. (I met both of them. In fact, Rosemary wanted me to go to San Jose with her to meet her mother. I begged off on that one. I just don't like San Jose very much.) Their mother is a retired prostitute and the girls all give money to support their mama in her old age. That's why Rosemary went to San Jose on Tuesday to visit her mama.

I didn't make the rules in Costa Rica, but I played by them. That's just how it is there.

Also, Rosemary was a damn fine companion for two days. Yeah, I got laid, but that's not all I got. I had somebody to talk to and be with when I was lonely. She didn't speak much English and my Spanish still sucks, but we communicated quite well. She could throw in some Jamacian dialect whenever we hit an impasse and we figured things out from there. I have very fond memories of her. We laughed a lot.

Prostitution is NOT a dishonorable profession in Costa Rica, as long as you are clean and honest about it. Rosemary pays her "bite" and the police look the other way while she plies her trade. She is NOT diseased and she doesn't steal. That's her living we're talking about, and a bad whore gets branded quickly in a place like that. You can't do business with a bad reputation.

In fact, the way she described "the life" to me reminded me of my guitar-playing days. You don't last long if you skip gigs, get drunk on stage or piss off bar managers. You've gotta play by certain rules.

All you people who wrote about "cottage cheese," "Dennis Rodman" and "that ugly ni**er bitch" can kiss my Cracker ass. I know her and you DON'T, so shut the fuck up, assholes. She and I became friends and she DID come back from San Jose on Wednesday to give me one last freebie and a big kiss to send me home.

She didn't have to do that. She was already paid in full and she didn't ask me for another dime. I think she really liked ME, too.

I have her mama's address and I intend to correspond with Rosemary. As I have written before, I make my own friends, my own way. And if you don't like it, I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll say, "FUCK YOU!" So, here I go:

FUCK YOU!!!

i never liked the name anyway

Go help someone who needs it. this guy is contemplating a name change on his blog but the one he wants is already taken.

I'll give a genuine Cuban Cohiba cigar to anyone who comes up with a name he likes. Just call this MY blog contest.

predator

I received a nasty email that accused me of being a sexual predator and treating wimmen as sex objects. I was confused after I read that missive. What I do is a BAD thing? I don't see it that way.

I like wimmen. Everything about them fascinates me, from their hair to their pretty titties to their red toenails on their pretty feet. I like the way they look, I like the way they smell, and I like the way they are so DIFFERENT from men. And I am a serial flirt.

I also do all that nasty, male-chauvanist shit such as undressing them in my mind and imagining what they would be like in bed as soon as we meet. I should feel guilty about my impulses, but I don't. I'm a guy who likes wimmen. I don't apologize for that fact. Those impulses have kept mankind reproducing for centuries now. That's survival of the species stuff. It's only natural in MY humble opinion.

YES, I probably WILL try to get in your pants if I'm attracted to you, but it won't be by physically attacking you in a fit of blind lust. No... I am going to CHARM your britches off, if I can.

If I can't, that's fine. Those are YOUR britches, after all, so the final call is yours. Trust me--- I understand every part of "NO" that there is. And I don't push that issue. But I'm gonna try, just the same.

I am NOT a predator. I am a holy warrior. I do what I do for the good of mankind.

Or something like that...

this weekend

I'm going to Athens, Georgia this weekend to visit some friends. A lot of them are bloggers, and I'm thinking about turning this party summit conference into a mercenary endeavour. I may try to free-lance a feature story for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution about Jawja Bloggers, if the people I see there don't mind me mentioning them in the article. (And I doubt that they will.)

Most newspaper stories I read about bloggers are written by someone who never heard of a blog before he or she received the assignment to go write about blogs. That ignorance shows in their writing. To be perfectly blunt, I think I can do a better job. I already know a lot of these people and I've been reading them for years. Besides, I am a blogger myself. I have the creds to write about it.

I believe that blogs will become more influential and more well-known over the next few years. We in the pajama brigade are just emerging from infancy, but we're growing fast. Hell, I've spawned so many offspring that I can't keep track of them all anymore. And MY OFFSPRING have produced offspring, too. I am the patriarch to a whole bunch of bastard children and grandchildren.

I love that family. Them's good people.

Blogs may never replace MSM, but they can give people an alternative to the crap we've had to put up with for years because nothing else existed. Besides, a lot of them are just plain, fun reading.

I think I can make a good story out of that subject.

beware

I'm posting some pictures today. I have no idea how long they will take to load, and I recommend that you view them carefully and consider where you are before you scroll down my site today. Let's just say that some of them display "adult content" that may be frowned upon at work.

I don't frown at those pictures. They make me smile.

will this work on spammers?

I'd be willing to try it. Those things worked well for me in Costa Rica.

ready for a day on the town

I think I was in Puerto Viejo when this picture was taken. I think I was getting ready to prowl the town. But I really don't remember. I was living on Tico time.

Costa Rica does that to me.

buying fish

This is how you can buy fish in Costa Rica. That's a nice catch, but I preferred something more akin to tuna. BE CAREFUL with the posts below this one.

Some may not be work-safe.

tourist

This is Heidi, from Holland. I met her in Puerto Viejo and I'm really sorry that the picture doesn't show the tattoo on her left shoulder. She had been in Costa Rica for three weeks and intended to stay two more before going home.

Yeah, I tried to get in her pants, but I was unsuccessful. You win some and you lose some.

Tourist attraction

This one attracted me. That's Rosemary.

Costa Rica

Here is a view of the Arenel volcano, as seen from Main Street in downtown La Fortuna. If you look closely, you can see the smoke coming from the top and steam venting from fissures in the mountain. That sumbitch is more than 10,000 feet tall--- a VERY impressive sight when it is angry.

The post below is ANOTHER very impressive sight that I never saw angry. In fact, it was friendly ALL the time. Stop right here if you're at work. Don't say I didn't warn you.

i warned you

Here is one of the many OTHER beautiful sights I saw in Costa Rica.

wait and see

9/11 demonstrated that we need some vast improvements in our intelligence system. I can't argue with that fact. So, more than three years later, we get this. It looks okay on paper, and if passes, Congress can mop its sweaty brow and start congratulating itself for doing SOMETHING.

But I still wonder: How long before this Intelligence Bill is used to go after people who have nothing to do with terrorism? If a way exists to pervert this law and apply it simply to further harass an already harassed citizenry, somebody will find it and use it. Mark my word.

Just name ONE such law that WAS NOT perverted that way in the past.

December 07, 2004

see why I hate cats?

They'll make you fucked-up in the head.

I rest my case.

i remember

I wasn't going to let this day go by without posting about pearl harbor. 63 years ago, more than 2,000 people were killed in that attack. That day may still live in infamy to ME, but most people have forgotten about it.

Japan made a big mistake that day. They underestimated the resiliance of the American people. They woke a sleeping giant, and angered him. Japan was nearly destroyed as a result, and the giant has walked tall ever since.

Remember this day. It changed the world forever.

yeah, I disagree

I don't like this poll. I've read all but one of the books, so I feel qualified to comment on the post.

* Where the hell is Huckleberry Finn, the finest American novel ever written?

* Where is Catch-22?

* Did you forget about Atlas Shrugged?

* How about Earth Abides? Bet you never HEARD of that one.

* Try Stranger in a Strange Land when you have nothing better to do than slaver over anything Carl Hiaasen ever wrote. Besides, Striptease was the best thing he ever put on paper.

* I could suggest Call of the Wild, too, but you probably never heard of Jack London.

I could go on, but I won't. People, just remember that THESE are the enlightened ones handing out some kind of blog-awards this year. The truth is, Dead Solid Perfect was a shitty book. A long Walk Wasted was a lot better, if you really like golf.

Bah. I'm just a bitter old man.

high praise

I don't know whether or not I would describe myself as a "genuine Southern bon vivant and addled miscreant," but I can't really argue that point. Maybe Matt is correct. If Mama didn't drop me on my head when I was young, I probably brain-damaged myself during the late 1960s. Still, I am flattered by that link.

I'm gonna plead the Rodney Dangerfield defense: It ain't easy being me.

warning!!!

I'm getting ready to post some pictures from Costa Rica that aren't exactly work-safe. Yes, nekiddity is involved.

via catfish

My good friend ain't right in the head. He reminds me of ME!

Sarah, a recently widowed Jewish lady, was sitting on a beach towel at Cocoa Beach, Florida. She looked up and noticed that an elderly gentleman had walked up, placed his blanket on the sand nearby and began reading a book.

Smiling, she attempted to strike up a conversation with him.

"Hello, sir, how are you?"

"Fine, thank you." He responded, and turned back to his book.

"I love the beach. Do you come here often?" She asked.

"First time since my wife passed away last year." He replied.

"Do you live around here?" She asked.

"Yes, I live over in Suntree." He answered, continuing to read.

Sarah persisted. "Do you like Pussy Cats?"

With that, he threw his book down! jumped off his blanket! jumped onto hers, tore off both their swimsuits and gave her the most passionate loving of her life!

As the cloud of sand began to settle, Sarah gasped and asked the man...

"However did you know that was what I wanted?"

The man panted... "Never mind that lady! How did you know my name was Katz?"

I liked that joke.

a heavy heart

I didn't want to do this, but my conscience wouldn't leave me alone. I want to announce a Ceremonious De-Linking, and I want to do it with all the pomp, circumstance and pissy little sanctimonious shit that goes with it.

I shot a Tall Dog today.

always good

Yeah, he's one of those guys who make me hang my head and whisper, "I am not worthy." mark Steyn is ALWAYS good.

I own firearms. I live in a county where almost EVERYBODY owns firearms. Hell, I live in a STATE where almost everybody owns firearms, except for those in places such as Atlanta, which is a blue-state enclave in the middle of a really red state. That's one of the many reasons why I hate Atlanta.

People don't tend to break into houses where I live, especially if someone is at home. A burglar is likely to be shot dead, and the police will call it a justifiable homicide when they drag the goblin's body off. That policy tends to discourage "hot" burglaries.

But the trouble is that this kind of burglary - the kind most likely to go "wrong" - is now the norm in Britain. In America, it's called a "hot" burglary - a burglary that takes place when the homeowners are present - or a "home invasion", which is a much more accurate term. Just over 10 per cent of US burglaries are "hot" burglaries, and in my part of the world it's statistically insignificant: there is virtually zero chance of a New Hampshire home being broken into while the family are present. But in England and Wales it's more than 50 per cent and climbing. Which is hardly surprising given the police's petty, well-publicised pursuit of those citizens who have the impertinence to resist criminals.

Yeah, if you resist a burglar in Britain, YOU become the criminal. If this isn't a page right out of A Clockwork Orange, I don't know what is. If you "invade" MY home, you'd better shoot me before I shoot you, because I'll protect myself and my property by whatever means I deem necessary. If that means killing you, I'll do it. And I know that I probably will NOT go to jail for doing it.

The British establishment's current complacent approach accepts that ever greater and ever more violent crime is a fact of life, rather than a historical aberration encouraged by the unprecedented constraints placed on the law-abiding and the boundless licence extended to the criminal class. That policy leads remorselessly to more deaths, and to lives lived under small but ever more insidious and corrupting restrictions.

People, government is NEVER going to stop crime. Government can investigate crimes after they happen, occasionally arrest the perpetrators AFTER the crime has occurred and file lots of paperwork, but government can't protect you. The mess happens first and then the government gets involved. It's too late for YOU by then.

Fuck ANY government that disarms its citizens and then takes the side of the lawless when a citizen attempts to defend himself from rogues intent on killing him or stealing his property. I have never fired a gun at anyone, but I've saved my ass from a nasty experience TWICE by just showing that I had one.

And one of the main reason the goblins ran instead of continuing their planned robbery on me was the fact that they knew that I could get away with shooting them. THAT'S a damn good deterrent to crime.

I once heard a lecture by G. Gordon Liddy (excellent and entertaining speaker) where he talked about meeting a lot of professional criminals in prison. He said that the two things burglars fear most is an armed homeowner and a barking dog, in that order. Britain has outlawed the armed homeowner. They'll probably outlaw barking dogs next, although what good is a barking dog if you can't defend yourself and criminals have free right of passage into your home?

And they wonder why crime is up.

he needs practice

Go see this, and be ready to laugh your ass off.

It gives the term "gun control" a whole new meaning.

(Link shamelessly stolen from here.)

some guys are assholes

I will usually rush to defend my fellow man when he is attacked by liberated wimmen. It's a guy thing. We know that if we don't stick together, you wimmen will kill us and eat us, once you've taken all of our money and left us homeless.

But sometimes, even I have to admit: some guys are assholes. There was no excuse for that bastard to reply the way he did, and he is a disgrace to the male species. A simple, "Oops! I'm sorry I bothered you," would have sufficed. But that wasn't enough for him.

Just damn! Read that blast of shit he wrote and then imagine going out on a date with THAT guy. If I were a woman, he'd be enough to make ME a lesbian.

(Link shamelessly stolen from here.)

surprise me

The standards of decency on American telivision are going right down the toilet and people are outraged by this... OUTRAGE! Or maybe not.

The number of indecency complaints had soared dramatically to more than 240,000 in the previous year, Powell said. The figure was up from roughly 14,000 in 2002, and from fewer than 350 in each of the two previous years. There was, Powell said, “a dramatic rise in public concern and outrage about what is being broadcast into their homes.”

What Powell did not reveal—apparently because he was unaware—was the source of the complaints. According to a new FCC estimate obtained by Mediaweek, nearly all indecency complaints in 2003—99.8 percent—were filed by the Parents Television Council, an activist group.

I don't need the Parents Television Council playing decency watchdog for me. I have both a channel selector and an "off" button on my TV, and I know how to operate both. I resent any group that sets out to protect me from things I don't want to be protected from.

These people need to get a life.

steriods

Nobody in their right mind can look at before and after pictures of Barry Bonds and believe that he went from being a lean, athletic player to a bulked-up Incredible Hulk through exercise and diet. He had some chemical help to make that kind of transition in such a short period of time.

But Barry is not alone. Athletes have been doping for years, and they will continue to do so no matter what drug testing policy is instituted. Smart guys will find a way around it. Competition is tough at the professional level, and a lot of players will use whatever edge they can find. After all, look at what drugs did for Barry.

Is it cheating? I think so, and I believe that Barry's records are tainted by his use of steroids. But I can't become howling mad about it.

What is the difference between what Barry did and the various plastic surgeries movie stars, politicians and models have to enhance their allure? Fake tits, botox injections, a nose job or two, a tummy-tuck, a butt-lift, wrinkle removal, hair transplants and a chin rebuild are okay. We don't have a problem with that crap. To me, that's cheating, too, but it's par for the course for people who want to look better than they really do.

Lots of people cheat in this world. Why is Barry Bonds any different from Joe Biden? That ain't Joe's REAL hair you see on his head.

that's the ticket

If your ideas fail at the ballot box, what do you do? Why, you stick with the same failed ideas--- you just call them something else.

During the 2004 campaign, Lakoff suggested that instead of talking about how Bush had run up the national debt, Democrats should label it a "baby tax'' the Republican president had imposed on future generations.

He has suggested that same-sex marriage should be referred to as "the right to marry.'' Trial lawyers like vice presidential nominee John Edwards should instead be called "public protection attorneys,'' and the term environmental protection, which brings to mind big government and reams of regulations, should instead be termed "poison-free communities.''

When your idea of the perfect state is big government and reams of regulations, that's the last thing you want to actually TELL people. And I would be careful about that "baby tax" talk, given the mess Democrats have made with Social Security and Medicare--- a CRUSHING baby tax on generations to come.

Plus, I enjoy the irony. When you lose an election largely because voters see your party as being too liberal, where do you go for help? To a professor at UC Berkeley, that bastion of mainstream thought.

This is downright comical.

oh, no!

This post may not mean anything to people unfamiliar with Savannah, Georgia, but it means something to me. william's seafood restaurant was arsonized and the whole place burned to the ground yesterday. That's the death of an icon.

William's Seafood Restaurant had been serving fresh, delicious seafood for 52 years at the same place on Wilmington Island. It wasn't a fancy restaurant, but the food was good and reasonably priced. I liked the place. Downright homey. I probably ate a ton of their cooking during my life. People stood in line to get in there on weekends.

Now, it's all up in smoke. Some dickhead burned it down and threw 40 people out of work right before Christmas.

I hope they catch his ass and burn HIM, too.

December 06, 2004

raw honesty

This is either one of the most honest posts I ever read, or the tallest, most imaginative stack of bullshit I ever encountered in blogdom.

Either way, it's still a good read.

I have a dream!

I'll post before and after pictures when the meal is done. I'm gonna throw a recipe out here: Acidman's Ultimate Rib-Eye Steak. It goes like this:

* Buy a big, fat, marbled rib-eye about 2" thick.

* Throw that sucker in a plastic baggie, add soy sauce, black pepper, lemon pepper, fresh garlic and a dash of MSG. (I don't measure that crap. Just make it LOOK right.) Then rub the baggie around in your hands until you have all that juicy stuff smeared all over the steak. When you're finished playing with your meat, throw it into the refrigerator overnight, in the plastic bag. Let it brood.

* Get really hungry about 1:00 the next day. Light your charchol grill.

* If you knew what you were doing, you already had a Vidalea onion, a small bell pepper and some portabella mushrooms on hand. If you DIDN'T KNOW, run to the store and get some NOW, while the charchol is getting ready.

(Warning ALERT!!! Wash all ingredients before going any farther!!! I don't want a bullshit lawsuit on my hands.)

* Whack a softball-sized Vidalea onion in half. Cut 1/2 the onion into thin rings.

* Cut the bell pepper into thin strips.

* Slice the portabellas into nice chunks, about the size of the end of your thumb.

* Put the steak on a big piece of aluminium foil. Throw the onion, the pepper and the mushrooms on top of the steak, add a dash of salt and 1/4 a stick of butter.

* Fold the aluminium foil carefully around the steak, poke a couple of holes in the foil, then throw that rascal on the grill and put a lid on it. Go bake a potato. Take a piss. Relax for about 25 minutes.

* Then, go pull that package off the grill and pour it onto a plate. Hot Damn! THAT'S good eating.

Baked potatoes and salad are optional. But if you can't cook THIS delicious meal, you need to be dragged off and shot.

got 37 cents?

If you do, spend it here.

My real-life nephew and cherished blogson Robbie, aka Slaglerock at http://combatarms.mu.nu has a friend who will be deployed on Christmas Eve. He has challenged Robbie to get as many letters from the denizens of blogdom as possible, which he will in turn print out and hand carry to Iraq to be distributed between the holidays.

The last time we did this, during the summer months, we managed to get
320 letters which were also hand carried and distributed.

If you'd like to participate, we'd love to have you. Our goal is 500
letters, and we do have until Christmas Eve to accumulate them. I
believe that you have lots of readers who would participate, Rob, and being
the gold-digging, mercenary female that I am, I'm asking you for a
post. If you can't fit it in, that's fine. It doesn't hurt to ask.

A lot of people are forming various "alliances" to support the troops and I'm all for that. I've donated a goodly sum myself. But I really like this idea a lot.

How long does it take you to write a letter? When you sign it and send it, a trooper in the sand receives something he can hold in his hand and read over and over again. It's a voice from home that rings clearer and lasts longer than throwing $20 into a money-bucket. Take the time and effort to write a letter.

I know that I would appreciate that gesture of support if I were over there.

all true

If you've never supervised people, you may have a whole different take on the matter, but I believe that this one is dead on. People will follow a strong leader. People will piss all over a weak leader. A strong leader surrounds himself with people who want to lead by themselves. Yeah, it can be a combatative atmosphere sometimes, but in the end, a strong leader makes his subordinates more competent when they finally gain their own command. A weak leader never thinks of such things.

I worked in that kind of environment for 24 years. I was fired NOT for being a weak leader, but for writing a politically incorrect blog.

Guess which kind of leader fired me?

lazy man

I finally got around to making some changes on my blogroll today. I dropped a few who seem to have died mysteriously and I added a few that I really like. I de-linked Wizbang just for the hell of it. He did it to me first.

For all pedants of the blogosphere, I'll give you a few strict and unbending rules for being on my blogroll:

1) I have no fucking rules. I'll link you if I like you, but just because I don't put you on the roll doesn't mean that I don't like you. Check your referrals. I lurk a lot.

2) If you don't post, I'll dump you. Period. I don't consider once-a-month posts blogging.

3) Come to a Jawja Blog-Meet. That act GUARANTEES you a spot on the roll, even if you suck as a writer, as long as you continue to blog.

4) Send me red toenail pictures if you're a woman. Damn right! I can be bought.

5) WRITE instead of posting a series of links. I wanna know who you ARE, not what you read.

6) Cuss every now and then. I agree with Redd Foxx on this issue. Anybody who slams a car door on the hand and doesn't cuss is someone NEVER to be trusted. If you can't find something to cuss about in the world today, you ain't paying much attention.

7) DO NOT post pictures of your adorable, widdle, fuzzy CATS!!! I fucking HATE cats. I've made a few exceptions to this rule because I really like the writers and I have no rules anyway, but don't push me on this issue unless you're really GOOD.

8) Don't email me asking for a link. I've never begged for a thing in my life and I don't like people who do. That may sound harsh, but that's the way I see life. If your blog is any good, people will find it. Just keep throwing it out there, like a good fisherman. If your bait is any good, you'll catch a few.

9) Be yourself. I've never met the person behind a blog I liked when I didn't like THE PERSON after I met them. Honesty counts, and it shows in a good blog.

10) Forget where you rate on some ecosystem or somebody's bullshit popularity contest. If you're out for a sales career, try insurance or used cars. I like the blogs I like because I am NOT dealing with salesmen there. I think I'm dealing with real people.

Anyway... adios to the old ones and in with the new.

a car wreck

On the way to a backpacking trip, I was passed out taking a snooze in the back seat. We didn't leave Savannah until almost 3:00 in the morning, after I got off work playing guitar all night long. We were drinking beer and absorbing illegal smiles until we were well into South Carolina. I decided to take a power nap while Steve drove. We had a long way to go to reach the Cantrell Creek Trail in Pisgah National Forest.

I awoke from my slumber when I was bounced off the ceiling of the car and tossed head-over-heels onto the floorboard, where I rattled around amongst empty beer cans while I waited to die an ignominious death as the car went thumping and bumping down the shoulder of the road. I didn't know what the fuck was happening.

"Got-DAM!!!" shouted Cop III. "That crazy bastard HIT US!"

Sure enough. Right there in the middle of nowhere, in absolute darkness, on a long, straight South Carolina road, some idiot coming at us, the only other car we had seen for about an hour, swerved into our lane and tried to get us head-on. If Steve hadn't been alert and dodged most of the impact, we all would have been a small story in the newspaper about four people dead on the highway. It was still one hell of a lick.

"Rob! Rob!! Are you all right!??" shouted Steve, as he leaned over the driver's seat and grabbed my arm.

"I'll be okay if you'll get your fucking hands off me," I replied, crawling up from the floor. I stunk of stale beer and I felt as if I had just been bitch-slapped by Mike Tyson, but I didn't think I was hurt badly. "What the hell happened, anyway?" I asked. Steve and Cop III told me.

The other car was still in the road with the motor running. My immediate thought was, "Don't let that person get away." I got out of our car and went to check on the other driver and get the license number if nothing else.

Oh, Bejus! The "bastard" that hit us was an attractive young woman, obviously as drunk as a worm. She was sprawled in the driver's seat and mumbling, "Ohhh..no....Oh....Nooooo.... I have fucked-up again." The reek of sour mash whiskey wafted from her like a visible vapor.

I didn't see anything obviously wrong with her, except for extreme inebriation, so I asked her, "Are you all right?" About that time, an 18-wheel truck came screaming down the road at about 90 miles an hour and gave me a blast of his air-horn as he dodged that car in his path. Bejus, again!

I reached inside the car and switched the engine off. It was an automatic transmission, so I put the shift in neutral. "C'mon, guys! Help me push this car out of the road before somebody, maybe ME, gets killed!" Steve ran to help, but Cop III went into full lawyer mode.

"I don't think we should move anything. Right now, it's her word against ours about what happened. She could be the governor's daughter for all we know. If that's the case, we're in deep shit here. I say get rid of the empty beer cans and call the police before she sobers up."

This happened in the days before cell phones. We had no way to call the police.

I saw another 18-wheeler coming down the road. I thunk a brilliant thought. I'll get HIM to stop and he can use his CB radio to call the police. I stood in the road and attempted to flag him down. The sumbitch never even slowed down, almost ran over me and left a screaming air-horn blast in his wake. Steve and I pushed the offending car out of the road after that incident.

"Rob, think about it," Steve suggested. "If you were a trucker, would YOU stop out here in this god-forsaken place after seeing US?" I had to admit that he had a point there.

Cop III got rid of all the empty beer cans, Steve made sure that the dingbat saying, "Ohhh...Nooo..." in the other car didn't die, and I went to look for a telephone. I figured that I could find a farmhouse somewhere around there, because I saw lights in the distance. I took off walking.

The first place I saw had about 100 yards of curving driveway leading to the front door. I started down the driveway, but quickly changed my mind when a dozen or so slavering dogs appeared out of nowhere to menace me physically. They barked their asses off and scared the shit out of me. I put that house on my "Do NOT visit" list and walked farther down the road.

The second one I saw still had a porchlight burning, and I wasn't attacked by packs of protective dogs when I approached. I had a game plan. I would knock on the door, stand well back under the porchlight, and tell the gentleman of the house that we needed HIM to call the police. I wasn't going to ask to go inside, use his phone or any of that shit I had been taught NEVER to allow a stranger to do. I was gonna be polite.

I knocked on the door and took two steps back. I heard heavy footfalls inside the house; then, the door opened and I was looking down the barrel of a shotgun in a sturdy farmer's unflinching hand. I realized right then that he wasn't one bit afraid of my arrival--- but he surely put the fear of Winchester into ME.

"Sir," I said, trying to act as cool and unoffensive as possible, "we've had a car wreck about two miles down the highway. I think a girl may be hurt. Could you call the police for me?"

"Don't got no phone," he replied, but he took his finger off the trigger of the shotgun. "Got a CB radio. I can probably get the Sheriff that way."

"Sir, I'd appreciate it if you would. I think that girl might need some help. Will you make that call?" I started backing off his front porch.

"Okay. I'll do her."

I walked back to the scene of the crime and told Steve and Cop III that I thought I had help on the way. Boy, did I. Within 30 minutes, half the pickup trucks in that county showed up to view the calamity. That farmer I woke from honest slumber showed up, too, after calling all his neighbors on the CB. In a procession line, they all went to the car that hit us, examined the drunken twat inside, and then moseyed over to look at OUR car, as Steve and I were busy with a lug wrench, trying to pry the left-rear quarter-panel off the tire on that side. Steve's car was kinda fucked-up from the collision.

Finally, a State Patrolman arrived on the scene about two hours later. He pulled up with lights flashing, climbed out of his unit with the quiet creak of leather and authority, and approached the offending vehicle. He took one look inside and said, "Angela, are you all right?"

Cop III said, "Jesus Christ! He KNOWS HER! We're fucked. I just KNOW we're fucked! Look around. We're in Deliverance country here! That's probably HIS goddam daughter. We're fucked."

It turned out that we weren't fucked. Angela was well-known in those parts for pulling similar stunts before. The State Patrolman actually apologized for our inconvenience after he issued several tickets to Angela, loaded her into his cruiser and called for a tow-truck on his radio to impound her car. With all the excitement over, all the pickup trucks headed back home.

By then, Steve and I had our vehicle operable again, so we headed off to finish the backpacking trip we started. We did that, too. Angela's insurance paid to get Steve's car repaired, so that story had a happy ending.

I'd have a heart attack if something like that happened to me today. Plus, I don't believe that I can walk there and back anymore as far as I did that night.

Young, dumb and full of cum. You can't beat it.

bad roads

We discussed the road from Puerto Viejo to the Caribbean coast with Stefan and Tina (they had just come back from there) and they warned us that it was very bad in places. I've SEEN bad Costa Rican roads, so I warned Recondo that the trip might take longer than what he calculated from looking at a map. I received a lecture in return.

"Smith, you have to understand one thing. THEIR IDEA of a bad road is not the same as ours. Roads are very good in Germany. If they see one pothole, they shit their pants. I'll bet that road is better than half of what you drive in Effingham County, Georgia."

You look at the picture and you tell me.

Beware those potholes after a rain. You can't see how deep they are and some of them will swallow a rental car and not even burp up a bubble afterward. 15 MPH is a good pace through places where we went.

"Good" roads may be a matter of perspective, but a bad road is a bad road every time.

grunge

I haven't had a cold in almost two years. I've damn sure got one now, and that bastard is merciless. I've blown enough green slime out of my nose during the past few days to supply a special-effects team with all the slime they need for a full-length horror movie. Somebody sneaked into my bedroom and packed my lungs full of sand and rusty nails while I was asleep. My eyes feels as if they belong to this guy.

I have that annoying, low-grade fever that makes you ache all over and hallucinate from time to time. I am freezing one minute and sweating the next. I nod out and have tumultuous dreams. So far, I've based my defense on Alka-Seltzer Plus, Nyquil and chicken soup, but I fear that I am being overwhelmed.

Right now, I think I'd have to get better to die.

testing

Okay, I'm playing with photos here, so let me know if they take forever to load. I'm trying the easiest piece of advice first. And I thank EVERYBODY who responded to my request for advice. Y'all are good folks.

This is a picture of me, Stefan, Tina and Recondo in Puerto Viejo one night, when we were practicing international diplomacy. You can see our empties diplomatic tools on the table.

Stefan and Tina are from Germany and I met them again in La Fortuna, two days later. I thought Tina was a hottie and she spoke three languages. I wanted to see her with her shirt off, but I never got the chance.

Those Germans sure can drink beer...

i won something

I was voted #3 in the "Most Annoying Right-of-Center Blogger" category in this contest. I received only three votes, but I'm proud of all three.

Hell... I didn't even know I was nominated.

showing my age

I don't watch much television anymore, but I watched a lot when I was younger. Here is a list of my all-time favorite television shows:

1) Best Western-- "Gunsmoke," without a doubt. Good writing, good acting and unforgetable characters. Matt Dillon will ALWAYS be a Tall Dog in my mind.

2) Best Comedy-- "All in the Family." This choice was tough, but that show was a trailblazer and it changed the face of television while being absolutely hilarious at the same time. But even back then I knew that I would rather live next door to Archie and Edith than The Meathead and screechy Gloria.

3) Best Drama-- "The Fugitive." I LOVED that show. I can still quote the opening: "The man... Richard Kimble. Destination... Death Row, State Prison... the irony... Richard Kimble is innocent." Just damn!

4) Best Science Fiction-- "Star Trek." That was the first science fiction show that didn't feature bug-eyed monsters and ridiculous scenarios as a staple for every plot. It was legitimate SCIENCE fiction. Remember communicators, tricorders and that neat medical table that ran a full body-scan? We have every one of those things now.

5) Best Mystery-- "Perry Mason." Perry never lost a case and the trial ALWAYS ended up with the TRUE guilty person spilling their guts in court, but I enjoyed the show and I had the hots for Della Reese.

6) Best Police Show-- "Dragnet." Say what you will, but that rapid-fire dialogue, the EXCELLENT stone-faced acting and the documentary style made that show great. Just the facts, ma'am.

7) Best Kid's Show-- "Captain Kangaroo." Fuck Mr. Rogers, Barney, the Telletubbies or any of that other pap kids get fed via the tube today. The only other show that ever came close to The Captain was "Pee-Wee's Playhouse," and Paul Rubens screwed that up by getting caught with his personal "pee-wee" in his hand in a porno theater. I thought that was a shame.

8) Best Cartoon-- "The Road Runner." Wile E. Coyote still remains my favorite cartoon character of all time. I never understood why he could afford all his expensive bird-catching hardware from the Acme Company, yet never placed an order with some freeze-dried, ready-to-eat, boneless Road Runner outlet. He could have saved a lot of money and gained weight if he only shopped better. (Honorable mention goes to Bugs Bunny, who remains the quintessential American--- smart-mouthed, cocky and always a winner.)

9) Best Variety Show-- "The Smothers Brothers." If you don't know why I picked that one, I would be wasting my time trying to explain. Maybe you had to be a teenager in the late 60s to understand.

10) Best Show Ever-- "The Twilight Zone." I still watch the reruns every chance I get, although I think I've seen every episode ever made at least a dozen times. Many other shows later tried to copy the format, but they never managed to pull off the trick. Best damn writing of any show EVER.

Hmmm... I don't think I picked a single show that's not a golden oldie. I'm not surprised, because that's how I think of myself today.

I am a golden oldie.

ouch!

This is really bad. So bad, in fact, that I was compelled to steal it from here.

I happen to like really shitty puns.

(Be sure to check this, too. Pictures speak louder than words sometimes.)

not my fault!

If you fire up your SUV, back out of your driveway and run over your 2 1/2 year old daughter, killing her, whose fault is that? Why, it's nissan's fault, of course. They made the car and they didn't provide a back-up video system or electronic sensors to warn people about objects behind them.

I hate it when idiots are idiots, fuck up royally and look for somebody to sue in the aftermath of their idiocy. This same tired cant goes on in courtrooms all over the country all the time. "I was an idiot--- but that's because the manufacturer of the product I was an idiot with didn't make it IDIOT-PROOF; therefore, this tragic accident was THEIR fault, not mine."

The really said part is, idiots often WIN such cases.

December 05, 2004

just damn!

I downloaded all my Costa Rica pictures today (I ran the battery dead on my camera this trip) and I wanted to post a few today, but they're all too big. I don't want to clog people's dial-ups with pictures that take all day to load, but I don't know how to resize the pictures without emailng them to myself and allowing Yahoo to do the resizing for me.

I can change the dimensions to make the picture fit my page, but I can't change the SIZE of the goddam picture. Help me here.

How do I do that?

believe it or not

The Peoria Pundit says that I am a lying sack of crap. Well, he's right--- I HAVE been known to be "imaginatively inventive" on a few occasions--- but I really DID kiss both Donna Douglas and Barbara Eden back in my younger days.

I believe that Bill does me a severe injustice in the photo-comparison he presents. The picture of me doesn't show my best side (teams of scientists armed with lasers and GPS devices are still trying to locate that mysterious place) and it ain't like I claimed I screwed 'em, or something outrageous like that. I said that I kissed them. That's all.

I'll release the details of the screwing part later. When I'm feeling more "imaginatively inventive."

He's alive

And like a good trouper, he's adapting to the situation. Good luck, Dave.

And stay out of the deer shit.

why?

I pondered this picture for a long time before I posted it. I sat on my couch in "The Thinker" pose, cradling my chin, wrinking my brow and occasionally scratching my nekkid balls while I thought. In the end, I was left with no answers, only a question that bothers me still.

WHY THE FUCK WOULD ANYONE WANT TO DO THAT TO THEMSELVES????

still impressive

Brett Favre's streak of 38 straight games throwing a touchdown pass ended today in Philadelphia. He played like shit when he was an Atlanta Falcon, but he sure blossomed in Green Bay. Throwing for six in 38 straight games is pretty impressive to me. (The only person better was MY IDOL-- johnny Unitas, who still holds the record at 47.

Way to go, Brett. That's good football.

justice

Here's one arrogant bastard who shouldn't be a judge. I believe that his reaction to the situation was beyond extreme. It was stupid and sadistic.

By the time the 11 finally discovered that they had been misdirected by court personnel and asked to appear before the judge to explain what had happened, he would not see them and ordered their arrests.

Bejus. I think that's an abuse of office.

disgusting!

This is sick. Just plain sick.

crusty old bastard

I have lived more than half a century. I believe that my senority gives me certain privileges that I enjoy exercising. Here are a few.

* I don't drink bottled water. The best water I ever tasted came from an artesian well, through a rusty pipe in a ditch by the Bartlett Junior High School football field. I drank gallons of that stuff, and it was GREAT!

* I've never had a cup of Starbuck's coffee. Don't want one, either.

* Diet Coke tastes like chalk-filled shit to me. I won't drink it and I don't like those pretentious pansies who do. I don't want ANYTHING "diet," "sodium-free" or "low-carb."

* I've never watched an episode of "CSI" or "The West Wing." I probably never will. I don't watch much TV.

* I'd have to get some serious booze in me before I found Julia Roberts attractive. Pretty Woman? Give me a break. I've seen rag dolls that were better looking.

* If Brad Pitt is a heart-throb, then most wimmen are closet lesbians. He's more feminine than Julia Roberts is.

* I don't brake for animals, especially not squirrels, cats or armadillos. I've left my share of road-kill along the highway as a result, but I don't care. The stupid bastards should have stayed out of the road. Besides... buzzards need to eat, too.

* I won't buy ANYTHING with an "organic" label on it. What a brain-fart idea "organic" farming is. Check out a rice patty in China that's floating knee-deep in shit. THAT'S organic farming.

* I believe that "You Are My Sunshine" is a beautiful song. I love to play it on my autoharp, and the harmonies can be great. So simple, yet so RIGHT! A commenter on this blog also told me that "The Yellow Rose of Texas" was written about a mixed-blood prostitute in some cowtown whorehouse. Yeah... a high yellow woman. That information gave me a whole new appreciation of the song.

* I think the "designated hitter" should be banned from baseball. Having the pitcher hit is a vital part of the game.

* When I played football, I would have taken steriods if I knew what they were and how to get them back then. I wanted to gain weight and become stronger. Anybody surprised by athletes who DO take performance-enhancing drugs never played ball.

* I don't believe that there IS a "woman of my dreams" out there, and I've stopped looking for her. Previous searches have been very disheartening and very expensive. I could rent one hell of a string of whores for the money my two ex-wives squeezed from me. And I'm STILL paying that bill.

* Cigarettes are filthy, smelly, unhealthy and deadly. I love 'em. I'll smoke until the day I die, if I get that chance. I just wish the anti-smoking Gestapo would be honest about what they're doing. Stop "blowing smoke" about the deadly effects of second-hand smoke and just ADMIT that you don't like cigarettes because... YOU DON'T LIKE SMOKE, PERIOD!!! Then pass your stupid laws.

* I dreamed that I played basketball with Michael Jordan last night. I was proud, and I remember thinking in the locker room after the game, when Mike shook my hand, "I have played with THE VERY BEST, and I didn't embarrass myself." I regretted waking up from that one.

* When I start dreaming about Michael Jackson, someone drag me off and shoot me.

don't put words in my mouth

I never did this. Okay... I tried high heels ONCE (for "Rocky Horror Picture Show), and I busted my Cracker ass trying to walk in them. I never did that again.

But the quote does sound like something I might write.

spooky

Remember this woman in her blonde wig and low-cut dress, making cowboys horny when she sang? I do.

And time has not been kind to her.

December 04, 2004

Sometimes people call

I don't like telephones very much. I prefer to SEE the person I'm talking to.

But I enjoyed the call from Cindy tonight. She's my friend Steve's widow, and we talked for about an hour. She and her children are doing well, and I am deighted by that news, even though Scott is going pretty hormonal now, as a 17 year-old boy. I told Cindy to expect that crap because ALL 17 year-old boys do it.

Damn! The phone call was nice, but I sure do miss my friend.

dogs

I can't just leave that post below without saying something else. I don't like cats, but I love dogs. I've had three really good ones in my life, and I killed all three of them. I did that because I couldn't stand to see them suffer anymore. The youngest one was nine years old.

A good dog WORSHIPS you. You are Tall Dog, God Of All Things and the HMFIC in doggy world. You provide food, you bring water, and you make fire in the house when it's cold outside. Dogs are impressed by that kind of shit.

YOU can tell your dog to sit down and shut up, and he will, because you are keeper of the Big Foot In The Ass and the Wrathful Slap On The Nose, accompanied by much cursing. Dogs are impressed by THAT shit, too.

But if you have somebody fuck with you, he's got the dog to fight, too. Dogs are territorial and protective. They take care of what they believe to be their own. Dogs that adopt you are on your side, no matter what the odds. Yeah. They'll fight for YOU, and death be damned. They'll do whatever it takes to keep you safe.

That's what's so painful about putting a good dog down. He TRUSTS you. You've always fixed what was wrong and taken care of him. He LOVES you. Look into those big, loyal eyes right before the needle goes into the leg. Watch the light go out in those eyes.

Man. That's the most difficult thing I've ever done in my life.

make me cry

If you've never done this, you won't understand. But if you HAVE done it, keep some Kleenex nearby when you read that post.

You'll cry.

i don't do math

I was a got-dam English major. I don't do math. I'm better with Chaucerian Early Middle English than I am with numbers. But I'll try this formula:

((1 + A + B)/(1 + C)) X 5

Let's see... take that naught and put it into the gozinta... eat a square pie... base the hypotenuse... invert and multiply... cheat off the smart guy sitting next to you... and announce:

I scored a 55!!!

But I just got back from Costa Rica. My numbers will change drastically in the next week.

blog novella

I agreed to do this, and I made my deadline, too... even though I am vacation-depressed and a walking snot-factory from the cold I brought home with me. I take deadlines seriously, but Eric really did back me into a corner with where I could go with the story. But that's the Marine in him.

Here is chapter one.

Here is chapter two.

I don't write about heros. I write about flawed people.

So, I submit my chapter:

James awoke sweating and trembling. The dreams were back and sleep was frightening to him now. Blood and death, the hospital, the pain, the noise and the smell, every night. He lit a cigarette in the darkness and waited for his heart to resume a normal beat. He needed a drink.

He threw the stump of his missing leg over the side of the bed and thought about strapping on his prosthesis, but he didn’t have time for that effort. He wanted a drink right now, so he grabbed his crutches and hobbled over to the kitchen counter, where he poured three fingers of straight vodka into a dirty glass and drank it down quickly. The liquor burned at first, then began to spread a soothing warmth outward from his belly. His hands stopped trembling. He felt better. He felt so good that he followed the first shot of vodka with a second.

A half-pint in the morning. Breakfast of champions.

What day was this? James wasn’t certain, but he thought it was Thursday, so Maria would be by shortly to clean the shack and do his laundry. Christ. If today was Thursday, he had to meet Griffith at noon to discuss progress on the new book. The publishing house had paid him a nice advance after the success of his first novel, “The Road to Dogwood,” and he told them the second one would be easy. All he had to do was pick up where he left off and keep going.

But the words wouldn’t come. Getting out of Belize and into Costa Rica was a great idea at the time, richly supported by certain Belizian authorities, and one damned expensive lawyer. James ran, but he couldn't hide. He didn't have another book in him and he knew it. He had a lot to think about.

James rode his crutches to the bathroom and took a nice, long leak. He didn’t fall into the commode, so he felt that he made a good beginning to the day. But then he made the mistake of looking in the mirror.

Good Gawd! When was the last time he shaved? When was the last time he bathed? When was the last time he brushed his teeth? He couldn’t remember, but he KNEW that the face staring back at him was enough to send little children screaming.

He looked like Fido’s ass. It was okay for Maria to see him this way, because she was accustomed to it. She knew that she was dealing with a crazy American, but she got paid on time, so she never bitched. Griffith, on the other hand, would shit his pants to see his star writer resembling a homeless person. That image just wouldn't do.

James sniffed one of his own armpits. Yep. He smelled like shit, too. He turned on the water in the shower and removed his clothes. He managed to sit in the bathtub and wash himself. In fact, he fell asleep in the shower and didn’t wake up until the hot water ran out. Whoa! That was the kind of shock he needed to start the day.

Of course, by then he needed another drink, so he crawled out of the bathtub, turned off the cold water and walked, still dripping wet, on crutches back to the kitchen. He had a glass full of vodka almost to his lips when Maria arrived.

She always walked in unannounced and this time she caught James standing wet and naked in the kitchen, balanced on his crutches, and a glass of vodka ready to chug in his hand. James just smiled at her while Marie stood there staring.

“Good morning, darling,” James said, and he drank the vodka. “You can start cleaning anytime you want to. The dirty laundry is in the hamper and you can throw away anything that’s not on my desk. I’m gonna get dressed.”

James hobbled off and left Maria to do her job. She was only sixteen years old, but James liked her. Maria had two sisters who were prostitutes in a local massage parlor. She was trying to go straight. James paid her well, and also threw a few bucks into a mysterious family fund when they needed extra money. He wanted Maria to do well in life. He didn’t care that she saw him naked, legless and drunk. Hell, if she had never seen a nekkid man before, it was about time she did. And James was drunk all the time anymore.

James shaved, combed his hair, brushed his teeth, and donned the state-of-the-art artificial leg the US government gave him for free, after about 180 days of therapy when, after the explosion, his original leg went flying like a boomerang, spinning through the air, so that it went far away but almost curved and came back to him. James missed the old leg and still felt pains in it sometimes, even though it wasn’t there. But the fake one wasn’t bad.

It was a damn fine fake leg. James liked it whenever he wore it, but he preferred going legless most of the time. He didn’t need a leg to write. And he didn’t need a leg to drink. James stood up by himself and felt proud.

Then, he slipped on a pair of pants and a shirt and felt like going downtown. After one more drink, of course. He’d leave Maria her wages on the kitchen table and catch a taxi to town. He would think about what to tell Griffith during the ride. Let’s see… “I haven’t written a fucking WORD!” probably wouldn’t be the way to start the conversation. “It’s coming, but coming slowly,” is a lot better. I’ll tell him I’ve been sick. I’ll…

What the hell. James nested his head against the back seat of the taxi and fell asleep. He would think of something to lie himself out of this situation.

He always did.

But he did wonder... just a LITTLE... how he was going to produce another novel when he didn't write the first one?

like her or not

Ann Coulter pisses a lot of people off. She happens to delight me. Some people believe that Ann Coulter is a right-wing, screaming fear-monger who writes with a poison pen.

Of course, those are the same people who adored Madeline Albright and who called Condi Rice an Aunt Jemimah. I love this line:

George Bush chose a black woman to be his top adviser on national security. Now he wants her as his secretary of state. And when she becomes the first black female secretary of state, Rice will replace the first black secretary of state -- both appointed by right-wing Republican George Bush. The entire Bush cabinet is starting to look like an Image Awards telecast minus the fisticuffs and gunplay.

Democrats are terrified that black people might start to notice.

Democrats SHOULD be frightened by that possibility. If thuh nigrahs get off the plantation, move into positions of responsibility and power, and do it without a government handout, the Democrats are fucked. They've spent 40 years cultivating the black vote as THEIRS, because the nappy-headed, little simple people NEEDED them as protection against the rampant racism that is EVERYWHERE in the USA. Well, they really just needed the VOTE, but crying "racism" was a good way to get it.

So, they did, using burning churches and dragging behind a pickup truck as ways to scare the darkies into voting for them. I would resent being treated the way Democrats treat blacks if I were black.

Where do you find the most racist, derogatory, demeaning and repugnant slurs against black people today? Those come from leftist asswipes anytime somebody mentions Condi Rice, Colin Powell, Clarence Thomas, Thomas Sowell or walter Williams. Who is the REAL racist here?

Being 68, I lived at a time when the idea of a black Cabinet official was little more than a pipe dream. Robert C. Weaver's 1966 appointment to the Department of Housing and Urban Development made him the first black Cabinet officer. Since that time, there have been other blacks appointed to high office. None has encountered the vicious attacks visited on Dr. Rice and Gen. Colin Powell, and what's worse, the most vicious attacks have come from their fellow blacks.

I wonder why. Does the word "Applecart" ring a bell?

December 03, 2004

eeeek!!!

Allah must really be pissed if he's sending giant spiders to fight US Marines in Fallujah. That's against the Geneva Convention, isn't it? Cat-bombing is one thing, but GIANT SPIDER DROPS??? That's just too horrible to contemplate. What will those rag-headed bastards do next?

They'll probably turn hordes of giant rats loose to.... wait a minute. The giant rats are already there.

They are the enemy.

great minds think alike

I was gonna rant about the pussification of America, but what I intended to say is all right here. People who fear second-hand smoke, red meat, guns, salt, SUVs, global warming and "toxic" chemicals should not be allowed to vote. In fact, they should be expelled from the country for the good of the American gene pool. They are a bunch of whimpering assholes.

I have some comforting words for these ninnies. Here's a little therapy for you. You PANSIES. You snivelling PUNKS. You gutless, nutless sacks of limp tofu custard. Has anything REALLY bad ever happened to you in your worthless LIVES? I wish George Patton would come back to life and slap the shit out of you.

George Patton would step in deep shit if he did that. I can just imagine the sexual harassment lawsuits, the neckbrace-and-cane shufflers into tort court and the cries of "FASCIST!" from what is actually the most fascist bunch of people in the country today. They know that you don't SLAP people. No... you REGULATE them into submission with a powerful, all-involved government, staffed by bureaucrats who handle the slapping enforcement.

Unless you want to pass a "global test," that is. Then, you kiss ass like a toady and allow the French to dictate what you do. After all, you are ALMOST as sophisticated as they are, and cowardly buttwipes flock together.

Ask me again why the word "progressive" makes me want to puke.

health concerns

I have a friend who hasn't cut his toenails in years. His feet resemble Fido's ass. But he drinks bottled water because it's healthy. He smokes five packs of cheap cigarettes every day, but he drinks bottled water, because it's healthy. He won't wipe his own ass, but he drinks bottled water because it's healthy.

He whines about being "disabled" all the time. His back hurts, his legs hurt and he has funny feelings in his chest. He lives on a diet of Big Macs and McDonald's cheeseburgers, but he drinks bottled water because its healthy. His idea of exercise is to lay on the couch all day, but he drinks bottled water because its healthy.

He's also started calling carbonated beverages "soda," which NO self-respecting Southerner ever does.

It's that goddam bottled water erasing his brain.

bottled water

I still believe that bottled water is the biggest joke in the world. The goddam CONTAINER costs more than the water does, and you assholes cheerfully pay more than $1 a bottle for that shit, because it's "healthy." My ass.

I've drunk water all over Costa Rica, right from the tap, and I've NEVER been sick from doing it. Maybe I'm just more resistant than the tree-hugging, delicate, earth-saving dorkles who tote their bottles of Aqufina like trophies wherever they go, but just MAYBE I am right and they are wrong.

You need bottled water in the USA like you need a boil implant on your ass. You need bottled water in Costa Rica like you need a slice of your butt cut off and boiled for supper. You need bottled water like a dog needs fleas.

If I offended any bottled water drinkers here, I apologize profusely. I happen to believe that I could PISS in that bottle and you would tell me how much better that water was than what you get from the tap. It's the fucking bottle with the label on it that gives you the warm fuzzies, isn't it?

P.T. Barnham must be rolling in his grave right now, wondering "why didn't I think of THAT?"

Suckers.

i choose die

I like this post. I have long noticed the tendency of celebrities to assume a lot more influence on the world than they really have because so many people kiss their asses all the time. Just look at Barbra Streisand, for crying out loud.

She's about as bright as a twenty-watt light bulb, but she is convinced that she's BRILLIANT! Why? Because she's a CELEBRITY!!! We don't set standards of worship very high in this country.

I'd like to see Princess Barbra play poker, Jeopady or chess with me. I'd clean her fucking clock. Plus, her nose really appalls me. Barbra, you may be able to SING, but you are both dumb and ugly. I'm delighted that you are out there, proving just how stupid rich, famous people can be. You are a trailblazer.

I have a few tee-shirt idea of my own:

* Kill Puff-Daddy or DIE!

* Drink bottled water or DIE!

* Recycle or DIE!

* Vote Democrat or DIE!

* Save the planet or DIE!

* Whine or DIE!

* Become a faggot or DIE!

* Worship celebrities or DIE!

The day a clown such as Puff-Daddy tells ME what to do is the day I choose to DIE! He and Barbra combined don't make a pimple on a gnat's ass when it comes to intellect. Together, they couldn't generate a decent brain-fart between them.

I'm just a red-state Cracker Boy, but I know pure bullshit when I see it.

hmmm...

I check my site meter and I discover that several people from KMG.com are reading me every day. I wonder if that's the Legal Department of Kerr-McGee checking up on me or just some of my old compatriots fucking off on the computer at work.

Either way, I am grateful for the traffic.

bullshit

I hate blog contests. The fucking things remind me of high school, where "cool" people decided who was "in" and who was "out," what kind of clothes you should wear and what parties you should attend. I call bullshit.

I know that Wizbang has about as much use for me as I do for him, so I'll leave this subject alone. He staffed his list with his ass-kissing cronies, so go vote for one of them. I recommend velociman as "Best Humor Blog" because I like what he does, not that I mean he kisses Wizbang's ass. I wouldn't put ass-kissing past him, but Velociman is a unique entity in blogdom.

He never ceremoniously de-linked me. Wizbang did.

fevered dreams

Okay, he has a cold. Big fucking deal. I think I caught one on my various airplane rides yesterday and I am a walking bag of cloggy snot today. It's just a good thing that I managed to smuggle all of that dope out of Costa Rica to ease my misery.

I decided to make a medicinal soup out of the dead hooker's head.

Jim lists 20 things that he WANTS to do before he dies. A bad cold will make you go existential and start thinking about death, but I prefer to go the OTHER WAY when I'm feeling badly. Here are 20 things that I HAVE DONE, and I hope to do again some day:

1) I kissed Donna Douglas (Ellie Mae Clampett).

2) I finished writing a novel. The book sucked, but at least I finished it.

3) I've pegged the speedometer on three different vehicles I owned.

4) I survived a terrible car wreck with only a concussion and a cut on my nose to show for it. We totalled a brand-new Chrystler LeBaron in a high-speed T-bone crash. Wow! How the driver and I both walked away from that wreck with only minor injuries is still amazing to me. I've believed in the value of seat belts ever since.

5) I've seen a lot of my writing published.

6) I once fought the baddest ass in school when I was in 10th grade. I got in one good lick and knocked out his two front teeth before he beat the shit out of me in that fight. I did the right thing that day. I never had to fight him again. In fact, I never had to fight ANYBODY for a couple of years after that incident.

7) I've made love slept with more than 100 wimmen in my life.

8) My friends don't know, but the three of us were invited to a fraternity party when we started college. The brothers had beer, a stripper and lots of good party atmosphere at their place. During the evening, I was dragged aside and told, "We want YOU in the fraternity. But your friends... well, they just aren't Pike material." I told that bastard that I pick my own friends. If THEY weren't good enough for the stupid club, then neither was I. I left that night telling both of my friends that WE didn't make the cut.

9) I've been to several nudist resorts. I like walking around with no clothes on.

10) I kissed Barbra Eden, too. (I dream of Jeanie)

11) I've played guitar with John Prine, Davis Causey, Mike Cross and The Zombies. I also jammed with Gove Scrivenor and Gamble Rogers. I am proud of that.

12) I've had sex with two wimmen at one time. Several times.

13) I once left Atlanta headed for Athens and I ended up in Chatanooga with $5 in my pocket and almost no gas in my car. I ended up staying three days in Chatanooga. I make friends easily.

14) I shook Jimmy Carter's hand when he was President of the United States. I never voted for the grinning bastard, but I think shaking a President's hand is a memorable experience.

15) I survived the same cancer that killed my best friend and my father.

16) I started blogging. I've made both enemies and friends from my blog, and I like the friends enough to tolerate the enemies. I don't really give a shit whether you like me or not.

17) I was voted "Most Talented Boy" in my high-school graduation class. 400 people, but they knew talent when they saw it.

18) I have NEVER done something for money that I didn't believe in doing anyway.

19) I have a large and powerful ego. That's not a character flaw---that's an asset. You've gotta have a cast-iron ass to do some of the things I've done in my life. I wouldn't have it otherwise. If I piss people off along the way, so be it. Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke.

20) My autobiography would be a fascinating read.

That's MY 20 things to think about today.

December 02, 2004

facts of life

* I walk into the Crackerbox and I feel a Circle of Negativity forming around me. I'm really beginning to hate this place.

* I feel no shame about renting prostitutes in Costa Rica, and I would LOVE to see my bloodless cunt, ex-wife bring up the subject in court. Yeah... I rented a few hookers. Jennifer, you did... what? While married? In front of a six year-old boy? Explain THAT to the judge if you want to bring up MY sex life.

* Rosemary explained how mordida, or "the bite," works in her line of business. Got-dam! I pay HER and half the people in town get a cut of the money. THAT'S what greasy-guy was doing on the street that evening.

* Homeland security is a joke. I was manhandled by those people today because I was profiled--- NOT as a potential terrorist or drug-smuggler--- but as a silver-haired white male that they could fuck with impudently. No, I take that back: nobody was impudent with me. The people were all polite and professional. But they fucked with me anyway, because they knew that they could. I didn't enjoy the experience.

* Some people call themselves "aggressive" or "self-confident" when all they really are is feral. They don't see any difference between a tiger and a hyena.

* I came to hate a dog in Costa Rica. I never saw the fucking mutt, but he was the damnedest barkaholic that I ever heard. He was one of those Ingersol-Rand dogs, the kind that don't have to breathe a single time to bark for thirty minutes straight. He liked to crank up at 3:00 in the morning, too, barking at nothing just because he could. That dog is why I left my first hotel in Jaco. He gave me thoughts of anti-freeze and mole pellets, and I don't like to go there.

* I asked Rosemary the other night: "You are young and attractive now. How much longer do you think you can keep doing what you're doing?" She said 10 more years. I asked her what she planned to do in 10 more years. "Be dead, mon," she replied, and she meant it. That's a sad philosophy. I know the feeling.

* Comment spammers really are the scum of the earth. I have serious cleaning up to do tomorrow.

* Rosemary said that she was 30 years old. I would put her closer to 40, but I didn't pursue that topic. I fucked up when I told her how old I am. "No Waaaay!" she said. "You no 52. You 58, maybe 60." That hurt. She said that I had old eyes. That statement may be true, because these old eyes have seen a lot, but I don't believe that I look 58 years old. C'mon. Even on a bad day, I don't look any older than 57.

* I really missed not having a guitar to play a few times in Costa Rica. That place makes me want to sing.

* This blog will be three years old this month. In all modesty, I do not believe that another blog like mine exists anywhere on the net. I have no idea how to "classify" my blog in any specific category. I just write. Some people like what I write and some people don't. I ain't stretching for an audience and I don't care which way you lean. But I'll be here next year, too.

* What's the difference between a "crust" and a "patina?"

* I am tired. I have one ear still stopped up from riding airplanes today. And I still have to figure out what I'm going to do with the dead hooker's bloody head in my duffle bag.

thanks

I want to offer my heartfelt appreciation to my guest-blogger, who performed admirably at keeping the standards of good taste very low on this blog in my absence. I owe you one, buddy.

With a little training, you could earn a fine and foul reputation for yourself.

i came home

I didn't want to leave Costa Rica, but the logistics of staying any longer were too complicated and too expensive for me to consider. I put my ass on a plane at 6:00 this morning and made it to the Crackerbox 13.5 hours later. I am exhausted.

Also, I MOST DEFINITELY was the target of Customs Officials from the beginning to the end of my journey. My bags were searched thoroughly at the San Jose airport when I checked in. Then I was pulled out of line as I handed over my boarding pass and I was subjected to a frisking and a few passes with a hand-held metal detector.

At Dulles, I was flagged for a "NIT-SEARCH," whatever that is, and I was removed from the line once again to have my bags ransacked again. I TOLD those people that I wasn't toting any contraband, but they obviously didn't believe me. I was treated to a SECOND search before my bags made it on the plane to Savannah.

I don't know if it was my blog, the one-way ticket out of Costa Rica, the fact that I was traveling alone, the Domestic Violence Order still hanging over my head or that little incident of me taking more than $10,000 in cash out of a bank account about a month ago (that money went to keep the Bloodless Cunt off my back--- "child support," don't you know). Maybe I just looked scuzzy enough to ring alarm bells in alert inspectors' minds. Whatever it was, my baggage and I were handled like set of pretty titties in the hands of a horny sailor.

I believe that I WAS PROFILED!!!! Oh! The Humanity!!!

Nobody discovered anything, and I did not get whisked off to jail. How those highly-trained people missed the three pounds of ganja, the kilo of cocaine, the gross-pack of amphetamines, the dead hooker's bloody head and the two hand grenades in my one small duffle bag amazes me. Four different searches and they didn't find any of that shit. Just goes to show what you can get away with if you try.

I think I have a real talent for smuggling. I can make it look just like NOTHING ILLEGAL is in my bag.

December 01, 2004

maybe so, maybe no

I'm thinking about staying another couple of days here. I'm leaving the internet cafe and seeing what I can do about travel arrangements. I think I'm going native.

Besides, the flight they have me booked on now goes through Dulles in Washington, DC on the way to Savannah. I believe that I can find a straighter route. I fully expect to be strip-searched and treated like a terrorist WHEREVER I land, but that's just an inconvenience. I like Costa Rica. I also don't want to see this beautiful country through the bars of a jail cell, so I NEVER buy dope here or carry it for anybody else. I will be clean as a whistle when I go through Customs.

If they want to dig through my bag full of soiled underwear and clothes that smell like sweaty feet, they can be my guest. I have nothing to hide.

At least not yet, but the day is young.