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August 31, 2005it's over for meI've been invited to a couple of blog-meets this fall. I ain't going. I talked with Catfish today and he agrees with me. The first two were a lot of fun. After that, things became political and I don't like that shit. As I asked Cat today, "when did you ever go to one of these "meets" when you DIDN'T end up giving money to somebody?" The answer was "NEVER!" and I've had enough of that crap. I'd rather drive down to the Catfish Manor and shoot alligators than go to another blog-meet. I bring my own beer when I see Catfish. I don't ask Cat for a fucking dime, but I know I always have a bed to sleep in there. And when I depart, I leave all the beer or liquor I brought in HIS kitchen. That's called good manners Down South. Usually, he feeds me, and I like to pay my own way. He and Nancy are good people. I like having friends such as those two, even if Joe's cats DO love me. But I'm done with blog-meets. Reminds me too much of cats.
i had a plant to restartYou assholes who think Vampire Bruce was a saint for selling ice at $10.00 a bag all need to be dragged off and shot. You fucking idiots. I didn't go to Charleston after the storm, because it whipped the shit out of my acid plant and getting THAT THING restarted was my highest priority. I spent 19-hour days out there at the time. My plant and a lot of people's JOBS depended on me. I worked my ass off. I DID NOT work in the lab the way Bruce did, with no samples to run because the plant was down, nor DID I SEE an opportunity to go fuck a bunch of desperate people the way he did. "Supply and demand," my ass. Bruce is one of the most craven sunsabitches I ever met. If you don't like that description, I hope you meet him in hell, too. You must be just like that worthless bastard. Some of you people make me want to puke.
hydrofloric acidIn all my years at the chemical plant, I never handled ANYTHING else that made me as nervous as HF acid did. That is some VERY evil shit. If you want to know something about it, just read here. We received it at the plant in 25-ton truckloads, pumped it off into a storage tank, and then watered it down to a 5% solution to use in the plant. Anybody involved with handling it wore a full "moon suit" and even then they had to be careful. Hydrofloric acid does not play. If you get a dose of the strong stuff on you, medical science can't stop the burn. It'll go all the way to the bone and right through there, too. I never liked dealing with that stuff. It was a lot worse than anhydrous ammonia in my book. At least you can run from anhydrous ammonia. You get strong HF on you, and you are simply fucked. I DID it for a number of years, but I never LIKED handling that shit. It was really, really dangerous. But I'm proud to say nobody ever got hurt on MY watch.
a world full of idiotsBejus! I actually have commenters DEFENDING what Vampire Bruce did after Hurricane Hugo. He made a $9.50 profit on every bag of ice he sold to people wrecked by a storm and some nit-wits APPLAUD his actions. Yeah. That guy is a fucking hero. Just make sure you keep your doors locked at night and a gun handy when he's around. That's damn sure MY KIND of hero. (You know how he got fired at work? Incompetence and cheating on expense reports after travel. He got another job and was fired from there. Know why? He went out on a "lunch break" and solicited a blow-job from an undercover police officer posing as a prostiute at 9:00 at night. He was married with children at the time.) There's your fucking hero.
a trainer againLet me tell you how a sulfuric acid plant operates. Very simply, and I'm not going into much detail. You start with a giant blower that pulls in outside air and runs it through a Drying Tower, where 1,800 gallons per minute of 93% sulfuric acid cascades through a maximum contact ABSORBTION system that removes any moisture from the air. The dry air is then fed into a Sulfur Furnace, where it provides oxygen to combust molten sulfur, carefully melted and heated to 380 degrees F before it is atomized in the furnace. It burns and produces SO2 gas. The SO2 gas is passed through a converter filled with vanadium pentoxide catalyst that converts the SO2 to SO3 gas as rapidly as possible. Maintaining temperature control is essential to make this reaction happen. Therefore, the gas passes through a series of waste-heat boilers and gas-to-gas heat exchangers before it hits the Interpass Tower, where the gas is ADSORBED (not ABSORBED) in a steam of 98% sulfuric acid, pumped at a rate of up to 3,600 gallons per minute. The temperature of the recirc acid is just as important as the temperature of the gas. Interpass acid MUST be between 170 and 190 degrees F or it won't ADSORB, and your fumes go right out the stack. As your 93% acid keeps ABSORBING moisture from the air, it gets weaker. As your 98% acid ADSORBS more SO3, it gets stronger. So, you cross-breed the 98% with the 93% and add water through dip legs that extend almost all the way to the bottom of a pump tank. That's how you ADD WATER TO ACID without causing an explosion. You do it from the bottom in a brick-lined tank. The gas leaving the Interpass tower makes one more pass through the converter, where any remaining SO2 is converted to SO3 and ADSORBED in another acid-bath. Ideally, at the end, you have nothing but nitrogen leaving the stack with a trace amount of unconverted SO2 gas (less than 3 pounds per ton of acid, according to our operating permit, and we ALWAYS beat that standard if things were working right). If you don't believe me about this shit, just ask catfish. He operated the acid plant for a long, long time. I was his boss for several good years. It's been a while since I trained anybody on how to do this (it's a complicated job), but I still remember how. Some things you just don't forget.
is he serious?Does he mean it, or is he just having a down day? I hope it's the latter rather than the former, but if he quits, he won't be the first one I've seen do it. Blogging can be difficult if you take it seriously. I've threatened to quit before because I got tired of the spammers and the trolls and some of the other asshats who show up on my site. Plus, I don't ALWAYS have something interesting to say. (I usually do, in MY humble opinion, but that's just me.) I would hate to see this guy quit. He's one of my favorites. If I could pick one blogger that I read that I'd like to interview (and I wouldn't toss him softball questions), it would be him. I'd really like to hear the answers. I suspect that it would make one hell of a post.
hurricanesI'm not going to post links to all the people helping with relief effort after Hurricane Katrina. The links are everywhere, and if you can afford to give, just make sure you pick an honest organization to contribute to. Thieves and con-men will be out just like the looters in New Orleans, the same way those bastards come crawling out after any disaster. I remember when Hurricane Hugo was bearing down on Savannah in 1989. I was still living in Savannah then, and things looked pretty bad. I stocked up on batteries, canned goods, filled a few gallon jugs with water, and bought some Coleman lantern fluid for my camping lamp. I settled down to ride out the storm. I had a decent house on high ground. We were lucky (again) because Hugo swerved north at the very last minute. It brushed Savannah, but it beat the living shit out of Charleston. I went to Charleston a year later and the damage still was evident. Entire forests of trees all laid down or broken off, with the trunks all pointed in the same direction. Businesses still closed from hurricane damage. Some people I worked with and a couple of church groups made a pilgrimage to Charleston shortly after the storm. They bought ice, bottled water, diapers, food, generators and whatever else they could think of to take up there and GIVE AWAY. They also took chainsaws to help clear the streets. I threw $50 into their pot. ANOTHER PERSON I worked with rented a refrigerated truck, loaded it with ice that he paid about 50 cents a bag for and drove to Charleston with his brother. Those two vampire bastards sold that ice for $10 a bag and emptied the truck in 30 minutes. He bragged about doing it, too. "Hey! I helped those people out! They needed ice and I brought it to them. Why shouldn't I make a little money off of it?" I called him scum of the earth. He could not understand my outrage over what he did. I tried to explain it carefully. "Bruce, if you enjoy making a profit from other people's misfortunes, I suggest you quit the chemical plant and get into a line of work that's more your style. Why don't you become a funeral director, you piece of shit! Taking advantage of grieving people seems to be something you're good at." Asshole. People show their TRUE colors in a crisis. And some of what you see isn't very pretty.
i dance like a fucktardI'll confess--- I really DO dance like a fucktard, so that's why I seldom dance. I have to be pretty drunk and totally uninhibited to get up and show my ass on a dance floor. I envy people who dance well. It looks like so much FUN and I wish I could do it, too. But I can't. You wanna picture ME dancing? Just try to imagine a monkey fucking a football. Then--- picture the monkey displaying more dignity than I do when I dance. I've never understood why I was so cursed. I'm a MUSICIAN, for crying out loud. I can play several different musical instruments and I've been in a lot of different bands. I don't have any trouble keeping time or picking up a beat when I play, but I get all discombobulated when I try to dance. Jennifer asked me once when she watched me play bass guitar with my old rock & roll band, "What are you doing with your feet?" I didn't know what she was talking about. "You're up there on stage tapping your toes in TWO DIFFERENT beats, neither of which matches the music. How do you do that?" I wasn't aware of doing that. I just felt the music and my toes started twitching. I wasn't paying any attention to my feet. But she damned nearly ruined my bass-playing because I STARTED watching my feet and almost forgot how to keep up with the band. Instead of playing, I was dancing. Some people just need to accept their limitations and be content with what they CAN do. Thinking too much is not good for you. After that night, I made peace with the facts. I can play, but I dance like a fucktard.
phAt least one person who reads me knows something about science. This is from somebody who must have stayed awake in school. pH is all about the concentration of Hydrogen ions, you know. I love science. Gordon is correct. The pH scale measures how acidic or alkaline a substance is, using a scale from 0 to 14, with 7 being neutral. The pH scale isn't linear--- it works in multiples of 10. In other words, a substance with a pH of 5.0 is TEN TIMES more acidic than a substance with a pH of 6.0. It works that way up and down the scale and it's all based on the arrangement of hydrogen ions (hydroxyls) in the substance. When I ran the Acid Plant, we made three basic "flavors" of sulfuric acid: 98%, 93% and 77%. 98% sulfuric acid freezes at around 45 degrees F. But if you add water to it and knock it down to a 93% concentration, the freezing temperature drops to something like 30 below zero. If you add some MORE water, and lower the strenth to 77%, the freezing temperature rises again, up to around the freezing temperature of water. At first, I thought that was PURE FUCKING MAGIC! But--- it's not. It's pure fucking chemistry. By changing the strength of the acid, you rearrange the hydrogen ions and change its chemical characteristics. There's a short and sweet science lesson for you.
quote of the dayI LOVE passionate missives such as this one: You may sneer at wanting to to save the Amazon rain basin, but it is the lungs of our ecosphere and if you studied meteorology as thoroughly as you did chemistry, you might be willing to admit that what our government is doing in the war on some drugs, by poisoning hundreds of thousands of sq miles of that snake infested jungle with untested herbicides, has the real potential to turn this planet into a useless piece of rock like Mars. First of all, I didn't know that our ecosystem has "lungs." I DO, however, understand the process of photosynthesis. That's just another example of what pisses me off about environmentalists. "Gaia" is a woman, not a big rock hurtling through space. Gaia has lungs and a heart and she FEELS pain when we do something bad to her. SHE must be protected. Second, the idea of the government spraying "untested" herbicides hither and yon is ridiculous. You can't market an herbicide unless it's gone through EXTENSIVE testing. I agree that spraying paraquat on marijuana or cocaine fields is disgusting, but don't tell me it's an "untested" herbicide. That just ain't true. I don't claim to be a meterologist. Most of the people beating the Global Warming drum with a frenzy aren't meterologists, either. Just look at the esteemed "scientists" who backed the Koyoto Treaty. Most of them are sociologists, psychologists and even DERMATOLOGISTS. WTF do THEY know about climate change? Plus, meterologists predict the WEATHER, and that's not the same thing as climate. Just look at a weekly forecast and see how accurate THAT is. Those same people who can't predict the WEATHER five days from now can tell me, with total confidence, that they know what the CLIMATE will be in 100 years? My ass. Yeah, and there's the inevitable WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!! line--- if we don't change our ways, we'll turn this beautiful world into a barren rock like Mars. That's utter bullshit. But bullshit works today. That's because too many people mistake bullshit for "science."
August 30, 2005Quote of the dayWhen Hurricane Floyd was bearing down on Savannah a few years ago (Floyd missed) I had this same conversation with Jennifer. She wanted to haul ass and I wanted to stay. People are often torn between evacuating and staying to protect their property. The policy of not letting people back in after the storm causes more harm than good. If people are willing to accept "wild west" conditions, let them back in! I told Jennifer that even if the roof blew off the house, I would stay there to protect what was mine. I had a lot of years and a lot of money invested in my stuff and I'll be damned if I was going to let some thief carry it off. Even if I was sitting in nothing but a pile of rubble at the end, I'd have been there with a few guns to dissuade bad guys from taking what was mine. Sometimes, in this day and age, you just have to crawl on top of it and claim it. If you DON'T, somebody else will. I ain't having none of that shit.
sounds like california to meLike it or not, I DID spend 24 years on my life working in a chemical plant. Even as an English Major in college, with NO solid background in those fields, I learned a lot of chemistry and science during that time. I ran boilers and generated electricity. I supervised the operation of a 900 TPD sulfuric acid plant (that's where the name "Acidman" came from, if you didn't already know.) and I handled, loaded, unloaded and shipped all kinds of hazardous chemicals. That's one of the big reasons I despise most "environmentalists." They don't have a fucking clue what they're talking about, but the public is ignorant enough to listen to them. Bejus! I've never seen an environmental reporter in my life that could tell me what pH is, but they all can work the word "toxic" into whatever they write. I'd like to see members of congress take a seventh-grade science test from back in the days when schools actually taught science. I doubt that many could pass the test, but that doesn't stop them from passing idiotic regulations based on voodoo that they CALL "science." I'll give you a few examples: 1) Second-hand smoke never killed anybody. It is an irritant to some people, but NO STUDY has EVER shown that it's a health hazard. 2) Radiation. The same people who tear their hair and gnash their teeth over the idea of a nuclear power plant pay good money to put themselves in a tanning booth to look more "healthy." Dumbfucks. What the hell do you think gives you a tan? (By the way--- just go here every now and then to see the scams "scientists" are pulling on ignorant people.) 3) Global Warming. That's the biggest crock of shit that ever came down the pike. Earth's climate has been changing for FOUR BILLION YEARS. If you think a Koyoto Treaty is going to change that, you are fucking crazy. Go ahead and buy yourself a Flintstonemobile and pedal it with your feet if it makes you feel good. But don't tell me you're "saving the planet." And don't FORCE me to own one, too. 4) "Saving the planet." My aching ass. That's about the most self-centered, egotistical, 1960s, spoiled-ass baby-boom bullshit I ever heard. People, to Mother Earth, we are fleas on a big dog's ass. Nothing more. Earth abides. We couldn't destroy it if we tried. We can't "save" it, either. 5) "Rain forest." That's a fucking jungle, but it sounds so much better if you call it a rain forest. A jungle is full of tangled vines, poisonous snakes, swarms of malarial mosquitoes and leeches. A "rain forest" is a beautiful place, where you can walk barefoot and pet Bambi in the wild. You just get out of your air-conditioned office and check out a REAL "rain forest" for yourself. See if you find Bambi before the mosquitoes eat you alive. 6) "Wetlands." That's a SWAMP. A boggy, nasty, smelly place that generates a lot of methane gas which is destroying the precious "ozone layer," according to science today. But if a duck can shit in it, we are bound to protect it as part of "saving the planet." Most people who spout that crap never saw a swamp in their lives. I live near the Okeefenokee, and THAT'S a SWAMP. Plus, the dumbest bastards I ever met in my life worked for the Corps of Engineers. 7) "The hole in the ozone." What a crock. How much money has that scare cost this country? "Scientists" found it, but they don't know what caused it or how long it's been there. Forever seems like a good guess to me, which is just as good as most "science" I read today. It's NOT science. It's guesswork. 8) "Acrylamide." That bullshit falls into the same category as any other product of combustion or cooking food. It's been around for 10,000 years and people are still around, too. What do you think happens when you build a fire? I am STILL certified by the ASME as a combustion engineer. Got-dam! I know a lot more about what happens in a fire than most of the screaming meemies do. 9) "Obesity." I don't know what aneorexic fuck came up with the standards government uses to measure obesity, but I took the test not long ago. I am 5' 7" tall and right now I weigh 135 pounds. I fall JUST BELOW the standard for being obese. I look like a toothpick man and I can barely get around anymore. In my prime, four years ago, I was the same height, but I weighed 170 pounds, with less than 10% body fat. According the the government, I'm more "healthy" now than I was then. Bullshit. I NEVER fell down trying to get out of bed in those days. 10) Never mind. If I don't stop now, I'll end up writing the longest post I ever put on this blog. Most people DO NOT understand statistics, so they can't tell when a "risk factor" is a risk or not. Wimmen read or listen to bullshit science, they hyperventilate and develop the vapors, then run off to vote for some idiot who is going to "protect" them. People chug cola drinks that have a pH of 2.5 and they've never heard of phosphoric acid (which is in EVERY cola drink), but they'll shit their pants if an environmentalist calls WATER "acid rain" because it has a pH of 6.0. Bejus. In the end, the dumbasses will rule.
this is gonna be badI thought New Orleans escaped with minimum damage from Hurricane Katrina, but that ain't so. A broken levee is threatening to flood the city. This is a terrible story, especially when you consider how some residents reacted. Amid the flooding, looters raided clothing, jewelry, grocery and drug stores, sometimes filling garbage cans and floating them away on pieces of wood and other building materials in waist-high waters. As I've said before, people will be people. Some display great nobility and courage in a crisis. Others behave like gutter rats. I hope the rats enjoy their ill-gotten gains.
August 29, 2005not much blogging todayThe morning got off to a bad start. I woke up at 7:30 AM because I needed to go take a whizz. I sat up on the edge of my bed, took one step and pitched face-first onto the floor. My left knee and left ankle just gave way. It was as if they weren't even THERE anymore. I almost knocked myself out with that pratfall. Got-dam! I didn't expect that to happen and that's why I fell so hard. I know that both of my knees are fucked up from playing football and I know that I tore up my left foot and ankle when that dumbass dog Oddball tripped me in my hallway one day. But I don't usually have that kind of trouble. I hurt bad after that fall. I didn't make it to Circuit City today. I was lucky to crawl to the bathroom before I pissed all over myself. I spent most of the day on my couch, dazed and confused. I thought I might have a concussion (I plowed my head into the floor really good) or maybe a cracked rib or two. I think I'm okay now. Fuck me anyway. I once climbed mountains and now I can't get out of my goddam bed in the morning.
ear wormARRRGGGHHH!!! I've got a song playing in my head this morning that I can't get rid of. The problem is, I don't remember the name of the song and I can't recall where I heard it. Besides, I have just one fragment of it playing over and over. I think it was called "The Pump" or something like that. It was about a guy crossing the desert and about to die of thirst when he comes upon a well-pump with a quart of water next to it and a note that says to pour the water in to prime the pump. "There's just enough to prime it with As I recall, the guy takes a leap of faith, ignores his thirst, pours the priming water into the pump and sure enough--- he is rewarded will all the cool water he wants to drink. Anybody ever heard that song? Did I dream that sumbitch? I've been thinking a lot about trust and faith lately and I think that's what the song was about. If I DID dream it, I need to write it down. I damn sure can't get it out of my head this morning.
bored?If you're bored, just read this. Heh. It's a good way to waste a few minutes and also discover how rotten a criminal you are. I'm guilty of a LOT of that stuff.
August 28, 2005i never understood it ,eitherI had a big, bad-ass, snot-blowing bull, with a set of nuts bigger than my marble bag, run me up an apple tree and keep me prisoner there for several hours when I was a boy on Aunt Chassie's farm. I never wanted to antagonize a bull again after that. That critter meant SERIOUS business. That's why this makes no sense to me. Why do the idiots do it? Macho is one thing. Being out of your fricking mind is another.
field tripI need to go to Circuit City tomorrow. I require a couple of devices to finish off my recording studio. I don't need much, but it's the kind of stuff that Willy doesn't sell. I'll have to go commercial to get it. You know the weird thing about this situation? I can get pretty much anything I want today NOT by going to a store, but simply by calling several people I know. If I want a gun, I can get one. If I want musical equipment, I can get it. If I want a piece of ass, I can order it. Hell--- I probably could buy all sorts of illegal drugs if I were so inclined. Just push the right buttons on the phone. If I don't know somebody who sells them, I'll bet that I know somebody who DOES know somebody who sells them. It ain't that difficult to do. That's one thing government doesn't seem to understand, or refuses to admit. There has ALWAYS been an underground economy and it'll ALWAYS be there, because people are people and they enjoy their vices. You can outlaw it all you want to, but it won't stop people from doing it. I learned that lesson when I played guitar in the bars. You CANNOT legislate human nature. You can try, but you'll fail every time. That's why I hate "dry" counties. You think such stupid laws keep people from drinking? Hell, no they don't, and that's why Randall's Liquor Store is a got-dam gold mine. He's perched right on the edge of the Chatham-Effingham county line. Ya can't buy liquor in Effingham County. Guess who 99% of Randall's customers are? They don't drive all the way across Chatham County to visit his store. In 1974, I went to visit my cousin Ernie in Kentucky. His mama (my Aunt 'Netta) had a wildflower garden in her back yard on the bank of the Cumberland River. Ernie and I went off to shoot guns, and Netta asked us to bring back some good, round creek-rocks for her garden border. Ern and I fired off all the ammunition we had, then threw all the guns in the back seat of my 1968 Javelin. After that, we selected some really choice creek-rocks that we thought would look good in the flower garden and put those in the trunk of my car. I was riding low when we left and we didn't make it ten miles before the State Patrol pulled me over. I was on the road back from Cumberland, and most cars riding that low were carrying bootleg alcohol into a dry county. That's what the cop thought I was doing. He never paid a minute's attention to all the guns in the back seat. He asked me what I had in the trunk. (Strange law in Kentucky back then---you could have one case of beer and one bottle of liquor PER PASSENGER in the car. If you had more than that, you were assumed to be a bootlegger.) I told him I had rocks in there and he laughed. "You mind showing me?" he asked. I popped the trunk for him and, sure enough, I was hauling a load of rocks for my aunt's flower garden. He fucked with us for a few minutes, then let us go. I am certain that he was frustrated that he couldn't charge us with SOMETHING, but hauling rocks is no crime in any state that I know of. The weird thing is, he never asked us about all the guns in the back seat of my car. I suppose that sight is pretty normal in that part of Kentucky. No big deal. (Can you imagine what would have happened to me in New York?) If I ran this country, that would be my motto, except for serious crime: "No Big Deal." Oh, I'd fry murderers, rapists, child-molesters and thieves, because I consider those to be "serious" crimes, but otherwise, I'd let people be people. They're gonna do that anyway.
the "gunsmoke" marathonI've been watching it, off and on, for two days now. Get ready for a trivia test. Matt Dillon has killed 68 people so far, but I had to sleep some, so I probably missed a few others. Miss Kitty killed one herself, with that little lady's gun that she kept in her purse. I also saw an episode today where some mountain man tried to molest her, was turned down, and he threw her in a horse trough outside the General Store on Front Street. Kitty came out of the water pissed off as she could be, grabbed an iron rod from a basket in front of the store and beat the shit out of the mountain man with it, until Matt pulled her off. It's NOT a good idea to piss off Miss Kitty. She meant to kill that man. One sad thing, though. James Arness is still alive and he was interviewed about all the time he spent making "Gunsmoke." He said those were shining times. But he looks like an old man now, weathered, wrinkled and feeble. Hell--- he's in his 80s today. Got-dam Father Time. He catches up to everybody eventually. I'm just about out of boiled peanuts now, but I'm going to watch until this show stops. It reminds me of my childhood, when I still believed that good guys win and bad guys lose. Justice always prevails. I don't believe that anymore, but I still like "Gunsmoke."
where religion goes wrongI am an athiest. I don't believe in God or any kind of afterlife, and I didn't come to those conculsions easily. I did a LOT of reading before I made up my mind. Churches were the center of the community when the west was settled. People came together to help a neighbor when times were hard and the church organized all that effort. You needed a barn raised? You needed milk for the babies after your husband died? The church took care of that. After my father died, the church was very good to my mama. The members kept an eye on her and were always ready to help if she needed a hand. They took care of the old widow-womman. When she was bald-headed from the chemo treatments, every woman in the church wore crazy hats one day to make mama feel better about wearing hers. That's what churches are supposed to do. She left that church a lot of money when she died, and I have no complaints about that fact. Those people are what Christians are supposed to be. But I DO NOT like stories such as this one. There is a BIG difference between being religious and being a zealot. Too many people don't know the difference.
I still don't trust himHe cleaned up New York City and was an outstanding leader after 9/11. But I will NEVER trust Rudy Giuliani. I'll tell you why, too. He PERSECUTED Bernard Getz for doing something that needed to be done. He hounded the man into jail for sheer personal aggrandizment and political gain. Giuliani was a prick about that. But he got want he wanted--- the Mayor's office. Those weren't choirboys coming after Getz on the subway. They were a pack of feral dick-wads who thought they saw easy prey. He had a gun. He shot the shit out of them, and they DESERVED what they got. My only complaint is that he didn't manage to kill them all to make the world a better place. You let a gang of thugs menace ME, and there's gonna be some shooting. And I won't quit until I lay them all down or they put me down. But I live in Georgia, not New York City. I can probably get away with doing something like that here. Southern juries don't think like people in New York or California. Tell your story, say that you were about to be robbed, you were in fear of your life, so you shot every one of the vermin sunsabitches. The jury will think about it, nod to each other and turn you loose, if they don't recommend pinning a medal on your chest first. We KNOW vermin sunsabitches down South. We don't like 'em. Nobody should. And we don't mind law-abiding citizens having guns, either.
another california dickheadSleep well tonight. The nanny-government of California is going to protect its Attorney General Bill Lockyer asked for a court order requiring McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's, Frito Lay and other companies to warn consumers that their fries and chips may contain acrylamide, a chemical the state says causes cancer. Yeah. People are dying in droves from eating french fries and potato chips. It's a fucking epidemic and SOMETHING MUST BE DONE!!! Bill Lockyer is an idiot, in MY humble opinion. I have two problems with this story. First of all, the science doesn't exist to back it up. Second--- most people don't pay a damn bit of attention to "warning labels" anyway. What does Lackyercommonsenseofagoose REALLY hope to accomplish other than make french fries and potato chips cost more because of ham-handed government regulation? This guy is an asshole. He should be dragged off and shot. As Attorney General, he doesn't have anything better to do? But it's California, the certified nut-bowl of America. That prick probably will be elected governor some day.
August 27, 2005interesting topicI once claimed that if I had to give up one of my senses, I would choose the sense of smell, because I believe that stinking things are worse than delightful aromas are good. I read this post and decided to turn it around. Everybody knows what smells good. I'm going to give you ten things that smell BAD!!! 1) Dog shit on your shoe. Especially when you're wearing a pair of those waffle-soled Nikes where you have to scrape the shit off with a toothpick. 2) Rotting garbage. At one point in my colorful career, I burned trash to fire two 60 KPPH boilers and generate 3 megawatts of electricity. The "pit" held 5,000 tons of trash and it stunk to high heaven. It was like working on a maggot farm. I was always worried about finding a dead body in there. 3) A dead skunk. I've tried to clean up a dog that fucked with the wrong creature, and I couldn't find any way to do it. That stench just has to wear off. But if a skunk gets hit by a car, you can smell it for miles. 4) A dog fart. Holey-Moley!!! Old Bud used to let one rip and wag his tail to fan the fumes around. He could clear out the entire house with just one. If he got into rapid-fire mode, HIS ass spent the night outside. You could not survive any other way. 5) Dead fish. That's a rotten smell. I met a woman once who appeared to be carrying one around in her panties. At least it smelled that way. She wanted to give me some, but I passed on that opportunity. 6) A paper mill. I live around three of those plants and despite the pollution-control technology introduced lately, they still smell like egg-farts. Drive by one and you'll gag. 7) Burning sulfur. During my years at the Acid Plant, I became accustomed to that aroma, but I never learned to like it. Get a whiff and your nose burns before you actually realize how bad the smell is. Get a good whiff and you smell NOTHING for hours after that. 8) Body odor. That's one thing that chaps my ass about airplane travel. You can't SMOKE on board the plane, but nobody restricts some asshole who hasn't taken a bath in a month from sitting in the seat next to you, making you wish you were back working at the trash-burner. What's even worse is when the asshole douses himself with a half-bottle of English Leather in a futile attempt to make himself smell good. GAG! 9) Bus station bathrooms. I think I'd rather smell piss and shit than the "disinfectant" custodians use in those places. That crap will peel the hair right outta your nose and damn near take it off your head, too. 10) A wet dog. Smells like an old carpet wiped by many sweaty bare feet. Have a good day. I hope all your smells are good ones.
if you're gonna be in jail...Being behind bars might not be so bad in this situation. Hell--- I admire the guy's ingenuity. Too bad he wasn't as good a bank robber as he is a pussy-hound.
August 26, 2005re: the post belowOnce in St. Augustine, I took my family out to eat at a seafood restaurant. Samantha loved fried clams, so that's what she ordered. When the dish arrived, it smelled rotten to me. Sam took one bite and said, "Daddy, something is wrong with this." I summoned the waitress. I did not cuss, pitch a hissy or create a scene. I simply said, "Darlin,' would you smell those clams and tell me if you'd want to eat them?" She took a smell and became defensive. "I didn't cook them! I just wait tables!" I told her that I was well aware of that fact, I wasn't angry with anybody, but I wasn't feeding that crap to my daughter. Could she please bring me an order of fried shrimp and take the clams away? She did. The manager of the restaurant came over to apologize shortly thereafter. He offered to put our entire meal on the house and even gave us a bottle of wine for free. I took the free wine, and Jennifer and I drank it, but I paid for the meal, minus the clams. The shrimp were good. I didn't show my ass in there and I don't think anybody pissed in my wine. The clams WERE bad. But I didn't storm the kitchen and raise holy hell about it (although any cook who made THAT dish needed to be dragged off and shot--- he KNEW the damn things were rotten). I minded my manners. Too many people don't do that any more. Get what you ask for. But be nice about it.
a lesson in lifeHere is a reason that it's not a good idea to show your ass in a restaurant. If a guy does this at a gas pump, just imagine what a "chef" can do to your food. I speak from almost 10 years of food-service experience, too. I saw some shit... well, never mind. Manners, people. Mind your manners. It's really not that difficult to be nice. Show your ass, talk big and act like a prick and trust me on one thing. The people working there have a way of getting back at you. YOU may not notice it, but THEY do. Think you cussed out a waitress and didn't end up drinking some tea with piss in it? Think again. I once saw a guy in the kitchen rub his dick on a hamburger after some asshole sent it back because it wasn't "medium well" done. The cook dick-wiped it, wrapped the hamburger, sent it back out and the prick sat there and ate it. I'm just saying... be careful who you fuck with. Some people fuck back. Good manners prevent such problems.
quote of the dayI started this blog on December 28, 2001, one of the most miserable days of my life. That was a Friday, and I was supposed to have Quinton that weekend, for his birthday, and I had a cake and all kinds of presents for him. He never showed up. I called his house, got no answer and left a couple of messages. At about 8:00 that night, Jennifer (who probably checked her messages to see what was happening at work) called me from somewhere to inform me that she, her unemployed, dope-smoking I remember thinking how cruel that was, and I remember tossing that cake into the trash can. I came REALLY CLOSE that night to blowing my fucking brains out. But instead, I left the pistol alone and started a blog. Now, I read this question: "Did you ever think when you first dipped your toe into the pool of blogging that your site would take off the way it has"?erica. No, I didn't. I've always liked to write and I think I'm pretty good at it, but I never expected the traffic I have now. I don't market this blog and I don't shop myself. (A lot of other people do--- shit--- why do you think I don't like Venemous Kate? She wrote a fucking MANUAL about how to whore yourself in blogdom to generate traffic.) I still believe that I write notes, stuff them in a bottle and throw them into the ocean. If somebody reads the note, I am delighted. If they don't, that's fine, too. When you come here, you get what you get because it's the real me. I'm not going to whore to get you here, and I don't charge you a penny for visiting. You've got nothing I want except a few minutes of your attention. Yeah. I'm surprised that so many people read my blog. I never expected this to happen when I started. But I damn sure ain't disappointed with the results. Some people must like to read notes in bottles.
this is funFor a long time, I just let my trolls run loose and spew whatever idiocy they had to offer. It provided entertainment on the blog. Sometimes, a particularly obnoxious one gave me reason to ban them, but I seldom did that. I don't behave that way anymore. What's MORE fun is to take a troll's comment, re-write it myself and post it with the troll's address still on it. BWHAHAHAHAHAHAAA!!! THAT is FUN. I don't do that to people who disagree with me or people who attempt to be civil in my comments. I conduct an open forum. But I know who the trolls are and if you read this blog, you do, too. They can comment all they want to, but it ain't gonna look the way they intended when it hits the page. All I ask now is that you trolls give me some more ammunition. You make a tired old man's entire day. I do have God-like powers on this blog. I can put words in your mouth. I'm enjoying doing it, too. So... as "W" said, "Bring it on."
Clever. Very cleverMy old rock & roll band was scheduled to play a concert for a Confederate Memorial Day celebration on Isle of Hope. Everybody in the band knew that "Dixie" was gonna be a request. It's not a difficult song to play and the band could have perfected it in less than an hour, complete with three-part harmony on the vocals. But... somebody in the band thunk a thought. "How about we do it REGGAE?" If you've never heard "Dixie" played reggae-style, you have not lived a full life. The song actually LENDS itself to that intrepretation and it sounds damn good. Plus--- most people have never heard it done that way before. I don't play with the band anymore and I haven't for years. But they still play "Dixie" that way, and it brings the house down every time. Ya, brodda man. Smooth.
sick, sick, sickBEJUS! Wanna talk about sick posts? this one grossed me out!!!! And that takes a lot.
this ain't rightMy buddy catfish and I were discussing this very subject on the way back from Willy's house the other day. Cat needed to buy some gas and he was bitching about the prices. But he DID NOT pull into a station and light into the operator of the place in a fit of rage. That's asinine, impolite and criminal. Plus, as I pointed out in my wisdom, if you factor in the change in the worth of a dollar, we're really not paying outrageous prices for gasoline. When I was a teenager, gas cost 26 cents per gallon. I also had a GOOD job that paid $1.65 an hour. So--- I worked an hour to pay for six gallons of gas. Today, six gallons of gas costs $15.30 where I live. Before we quit working at the chemical plant, Cat and I BOTH made a lot more money than that per hour. These "record" gas prices are a pain in the ass, because I don't like spending $40 to top my tank when a couple of years ago I could do it for $20, but it's still not bad. Not if you put it in perspective. And ESPECIALLY NOT when you look at what gas prices are in other places. (Try looking at more than a dollar per LITER.) I think this statement says a lot: Hutton, who has done extensive research on consumer decision-making and energy usage information, said there's also a sense of entitlement among consumers today. Yep. People seem to believe that they are "entitled" to a LOT today. Thank you, Federal Government. People expect to hold their hand out and have somebody give them something, whether they deserve it or not. Assholes. If you can't pay for your gas, buy a bicycle. And shut the fuck up.
August 25, 2005combo cookingI am multi-tasking today. I have a pot of fresh green peanuts cooking on the stove right next to a pot of chicken and dumplings. The Crackerbox smells wonderful. I intend to eat the chicken and dumplings for supper tonight and save the boiled peanuts for tomorrow, when the 50-hour "Gunsmoke" marathon starts on the Western Channel. I'm going to eat boiled peanuts and count how many people Matt Dillon kills. I was up to 185 when they started re-running re-runs of re-runs, so I kinda lost track after that. Hell--- I saw Matt kill Bruce Dern, George Kennedy, Jeremy Slate and even Jack Elam a dozen times apiece so far. Matt killed Leonard Nimoy, Denver Pyle and Slim Pickens more than once, too. He got Warren Oates, Albert Salmi, and even Ken Curtis once before Ken started playing Festus. Matt gunned down some of the best. I'm going to start my count from scratch tomorrow. And I'm going to eat boiled peanuts while I do it. (UPDATE: I think it was an Emmy award James Arness received that night, but it happened long ago and I can't be certain what the award was. But John Wayne presented it, and that's the only time in my life I saw The Duke look small on stage. James Arness TOWERED over John Wayne. That's a big man.) (UPDATE II: If you don't know what boiled green peanuts are, you have my heartfelt sympathy, except for the fact that you're probably a got-dam yankee.)
well...You write when you have something to say. When you don't feel like writing, you post shit like this. And this. Ya gotta admit. It's amusing.
it was his flagI've got no problem with what this guy did. I don't think I would have done the same thing with something I paid $25,000 for, but HE had the right to do it. It was HIS flag.
palmetto bugsDoesn't the term "Palmetto bug" sound sweet? Almost "cute?" Well, you can forget that shit right now. A palmetto bug is a giant fucking COCKROACH, about the size of a nice cigar butt and capable of flying, too. I read this post about 'em and it send shivers up my spine. I came home from a night of playing guitar on River Street and went into my bathroom. I'll admit that I wasn't perfectly sober at the time. When I turned on the bathroom light, a saw a MONSTER palmetto bug crawing on the mirror. I was gonna KILL that sumbitch. I slipped off one of my shoes and took a swing at it. I missed. The damn thing flew off the mirror, hit me in the face and scared the shit out of me. We were in an immediate bug-tussle. We went at it tooth and nail, with no quarter on either side. The palmetto bug was flying around the room, I was swinging at it with my shoe and things were getting hairy. I ended up tearing down the shower curtain, breaking one end off the towel rack and putting one hell of a knot on my head when I fell into the bathtub, but I finally got that bastard. He crunched like fresh celery when I slammed my shoe on him. I picked him up and flushed his broken body down the commode. I won that war. But it was one hell of a battle. I looked like I had been in a pretty good bar-fight when it was over. I HATE palmetto bugs.
she's pissedAnd I don't blame her. I think Israel is making a mistake. History may prove me wrong, and I hope that it does, but my gut tells me something different. The only thing I DON'T like about Erica's blog is all that colored type. I just hope she doesn't paint her toenails that way.
re: the post below this oneGo read the comments. They come from every direction and all parts of the political spectrum. I quoted Kim on a very touchy topic. Maybe I need to explain myself better. 1) Understand one thing right off the bat--- doctors run a business, just like some guy who sells shoes or pizza. They are in business to make money. The more "treatment" they give you, the more money they make. 2) I DO NOT support euthenasia, but I DO believe in doctor-assisted suicide. Sound contradictory? I don't think so. There's a BIG difference. I don't want some public official or a greedy family member with my will on his mind to tell a doctor to kill me. But if I'm worn out and in constant pain, I should have the right to cash my chips when I'm ready. 3) My grandmother is still fairly self-sufficient. She's very healthy for her age and she is capable of enjoying life. I'm not advocating dragging off and shooting anyone over the age of 50. That's bullshit. 4) I watched both of my parents die of cancer. I don't know how much money was poured down a bottomless rat-hole for "treatment" that didn't do anything but (especially in my father's case) extend the life of a person, bound surely for death, a few more months. And THAT TIME was spent in absolute misery. 5) My mama went through two rounds of chemo and radiation. That shit made her feel worse than the cancer did, and the fact was obvious to all involved that it wasn't doing any good. The doctors wanted to do a third round. Mama said "NO," and let nature take its course. More people should do that when the time comes. 6) Anybody who thinks "insurance" pays a $500,000 medical bill to keep an 80 year-old alive when he can't remember his own name anymore is a fool. Why do you think YOUR medical insurance costs so much? 7) Death is just as natural as childbirth. Everybody's expiration date arrives some day. Why cling by a thread and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy another couple of months in a hospital bed? If that's "life," I want no part of it. 8) Organ transplants should be given to children ahead of old folks, and I don't care how much money you've got. Period. A child may have died so that dottering old fart Pat Summerall could squeeze a few more years out of his already long life. I think that's criminal. 9) I'm an organ donor. Says so right on the front of my Georgia driver's license. I figure that by the time I croak, not many of my organs will be fit for transplant (definitely NOT my liver), but if I could save a kid's eyesight or give him (or her) a kidney, I'm all for that. I DO NOT want my organs going to some geriatric fuck with a lot of money so that he can play golf again. 10) There's a BIG difference between being "alive" and "living." Medical science has a lot of ways to keep your heart beating and your lungs breathing long after the lights went off upstairs. It's incredibly expensive and I see no real purpose in it. I hope I cleared up a few questions here.
quote of the dayMy grandmother is 94 years old and I like having her in my life. She's old and frail, going slowly blind, but she can still take care of herself. I'm going to miss her when she's gone. I still agree with this statement: "We don’t maintain Model T Fords anymore—in fact, it costs a jillion dollars to keep a Model T in running condition—and there’s no real reason to keep old people alive past their threescore and ten, either, because the costs of doing that make maintaining a Model T seem like a bargain, by comparison. And in comparative achievement terms, a nonagenarian works even less efficiently than a Model T."kim du toit It may sound cruel, but I don't believe we should spend extraordinary amounts of money to keep elderly people alive. Hell... I thought Pat Summerall's liver transplant should have been denied. We all wear out eventually. Accept that fact, and when you REALLY start to fall apart, have the good grace to go away quietly. Make room for somebody else. Yeah. WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!! Don't be ridiculous in postponing the inevitable.
August 24, 2005Got my banjo backCatfish came to visit today and we rode over to Willy's House to visit for a while. I picked up my banjo (freshly repaired most nicely by Randy Wood) and I also bought a guitar stand that will hold three instruments at once. That stand, combined with the ones I already own, will allow me to keep a lot of my stuff out of the case and just sitting there within arm's reach. I needed something like that. Catfish ended up buying two guitars. One of 'em is a damn fine Washburn that I was tempted to buy myself. BEAUTIFUL guitar that plays easily and sounds GREAT. It's a new design that doesn't have a pick guard on it, but as I told Cat--- whatthefuck do you need a pick-guard for anyway? Wear a hole in the bastard the way Willie Nelson did his old Martin. The other guitar was a $75 Oscar Schmidt that played and sounded good. I could tell by looking at the woodwork and the innards that it was a cheap guitar, but BEJUS!!! Why didn't somebody show me one of THOSE when I was first learning to play? I started out on a $19 Silvertone that had a neck like a pine log. To learn guitar on that instrument took a lot of desire. It was NOT easy to play. Over the years, I've seen a lot of "cheap" guitars and they all shared the same characteristics: they were difficult to play and they sounded like shit. Now, however, you can spend $75 dollars and get an instrument that may not rival the high-list stuff, but it's about as good a starter guitar as I've ever seen. The wood is not solid pieces and the insides are not put together as well as a really good axe. But it still plays and sounds GOOD. I'll give this piece of advice to anyone who has a child interested in music (or even if YOU are interested in learning how to play now) --- buy something decent to start with. Learning to play is difficult enough without having an instrument you have to fight to learn. I did it that way... but you don't have to anymore.
more toilet humorThis is another true story. I was backpacking with my late friend Steve Hamby when he went off in the woods with a roll of toilet paper in his hand one morning. I was cooking breakfast at the time and I figured he was just taking a nice morning constitutional. A few minutes later, I heard his plaintive moan, "Rob! Look in my backpack. Get my Swiss Army kinfe. It's in the top left pocket." I found the knife and asked, "Do you want me to bring it to you?" "Not yet," he replied. "Open it up until you find the thing that looks like needle-nosed pliers." I did, and I found it. "Got it, Steve," I said. "Good. Now come over here and pull this turd outta my ass. I think it's stuck!" I would have sacrificed my life for Steve. I would have done almost ANYTHING he asked me to do. But this was one time he was on his fucking own. I was NOT going to use a Swiss Army knife to pull a turd out of his hairy ass. Friendship goes only so far. "Pinch it off or live with it, ya prick!" I yelled into the woods. I was greeted with silence. Steve eventually emerged from the bushes with toilet paper in hand about 15 minutes later. "Did it all come out all right?" I asked. "Yeah. Once I blew that first plug out of my ass, everything was fine. YOU were no fucking help. And all along I thought you were my friend." We laughed about that incident right up until the day he died. I think about it and laugh today. Toilet humor.
fartsWhy is it that kids, especially little boys, think farts are funny? If they can't fart naturally, they'll learn to make the noise with their armpits, or any other way they can figure out. I once had Quinton and Jack over at the Crackerbox one night and they both fell asleep on my couch while watching a movie. I covered them both with blankets and left them where they fell. I awoke about an hour before they did the next morning and made myself a pot of coffee. I was sipping on a cup when I saw the boys begin to stir. AND I SWEAR THAT I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP!!! They saw each other, stuck a hand under the armpit, pointed fingers at each other and started making fart-noises, like gunshots fired with reckless abandon. "I GOT YOU!" "NO! I GOT YOU FIRST!" Poot-poot-poot-poot they went. It just so happened at the time that I had a good one coming on. A REAL one. A big-time Daddy-fart. I walked over to the couch, bent over and let 'em both have a blast that must have recovered some refried beans I ate in a Mexican restaurant a year earlier. It was a WONDERFUL fart. LOUD. LONG. STINKY. I could not have choreographed anything better. "Now," I said. "I killed you both." The boys ducked under their blankets making all kinds of gagging and retching noises until Quinton stuck his hand out with a napkin from last night's pizza supper. He waved it like a white flag. "We surrender, Daddy! Don't do that again!" "You guys stop the fart-wars and I won't nuke you again. Whadda ya want for breakfast?" In answer to some female questions about whether little boys ever outgrow thinking farts are funny--- no, they don't. Not ever.
gunsHere's a story that bothers me in several ways. I can understand the judge. He is correct. Too much of this crap happens in the cities anymore. But don't blame it on guns. If GUNS, all by themselves, made 12 year-old boys go out and fire them on street corners, I would have been dead or in jail a long time ago. But--- I'm not. You notice the ONE THING suspiciously missing from the news report? No mention at all of the "yoot's" parents. I'll just hazard a guess here and wager that the boy's mama didn't know where he was or what he was doing that night, nor did she care. I'll also wager that if he knows who is daddy is, he seldom (if ever) sees him. I grew up around guns. My grandfather and my daddy taught me to shoot. One thing they drilled into my head over and over again was that A GUN IS NOT A TOY. You treat it safely and you treat it with respect. If you can't do that, you don't get to shoot. My daddy once took my BB gun away from me for a month because he saw me shoot at a wad of Spanish moss in an oak tree. I was gunning for a squirrel, and I SAW that sumbitch run into the moss and not come out the other side. So, I shot into the moss. My daddy was on me in an instant. "What were you shooting at?" he demanded. "A squirrel," I replied, with a sinking feeling in my belly because I already knew what was coming next. "Could you SEE the squirrel?" Dad asked. "No... but I know he ran into that moss..." and Dad took my gun away from me and put it up in his bedroom closet. I knew the rules and I violated one of the most important. I shot at something I couldn't see. I never did that again after I finally got my gun back. I read stories such as the one I linked and I cringe. The gun-control nutballs will jump all over this one. I can hear them now: "GET RID OF GUNS AND THIS WON'T HAPPEN ANYMORE." Bullshit. Any kid raised by responsible parents can be taught to handle a gun. It's those gang-banging street thugs that cause problems. And the REAL problem is that they never had decent parents.
correct again!See? I told you that electrical work is dangerous. You run into all kinds of live wires in that occupation.
August 23, 2005fart stewWhen I was supervising the Acid Plant at work, we had a custom. The Acid Plant contol room had a mini-kitchen in it, because the operator couldn't leave that place. Bad things could happen quickly there. The operator had to mind the store for his entire shift. So, we occasionally made a big pot of "Fart Stew" down there. We had a custodian who cleaned the Acid Plant control room at 8:00 every morning. We bought all the basic stuff and left it in the mini-fridge. If we let her know a day ahead of time that tomorrow was "Fart Stew Day," she would brown a couple of pounds of hamburger meat, toss in some minced onions and bell pepper and let that stuff cook while she cleaned. After that, a few cans of tomato sauce entered the mix, and if you wanted to EAT any, you brought something to add to the pot. ANY kind of beans (the more beans, the better!), whole kernel corn, diced tomatoes, salted ham, or even just some dry crackers to go with it. Just as long as YOU contributed something. When we started a "Fart Stew Day," we had a damn good meal ready to eat by noon. All you had to do was drop by the Acid Plant when you got a chance and pig out. Hell--- I even had my acid loaders drop off go-cups of that stuff on their way to the lab with their samples for people who couldn't make it to the acid plant. If you put something in the pot, you ate from the pot. On the other hand, if you didn't contribute--- fuck you. You could smell it (and it always smelled GOOD at a place where real, hot food was unavailable), but you couldn't eat it. You didn't do your part, so you got no reward. We called it "Fart Stew" because after two hours of digesting all those beans we threw in there, it would turn your asshole into Gabriel's trumpet. You could blow down the walls of Jericho with your wind. We actually had moments of silence when somebody felt one coming and said, "Be quiet! Listen to THIS ONE!!! BRAPPPPPPTH!!!" We gave scores based on athletic pose, noise level, length of fart and hang-time of the resulting aroma. See? Working in a chemical plant ain't ALL bad.
blogs you ought to readI've been blogging long enough to know the difference between Linkers, Thinkers and Stinkers in blogdom. (I put myself in the "Stinker" category, because if my blog has a theme, I have no idea what it is.) I'm going to give you a list of ten good ones that you should read every chance you get. These aren't the Tall Dogs, either. They don't get 20,000 visits per day. They are simply good at what they do, and these are NOT in any particular order. 1) velociman. He's the only blogger I ever met that I think is crazier than I am. 2) baldilocks who is something that I thought was a total anomoly. She's a black conservative woman who lives in California. Until I started reading HER, I didn't realize that such a thing existed. She's having computer problems now, but she'll overcome that. 3) hog on ice. What can I say? The guy reminds me of ME! 4) ravenwood. I wanna meet this guy some day and shoot some guns. 5) Grouchy old cripple. I've met this guy on several occasions and he's like me-- he gets grouchy ONLY when you piss him off. But I believe that he shows tremendous courage in the way he conducts his life after his accident. And yeah... he's OLDER than I am, but he looks younger. 6) parkway rest stop. A good blog and the best head of hair you ever saw on a man. Just keep him from wandering into wimmen's bathrooms. He's prone to do that. 7) dax montana. One of my Original Crew and even more crazy than Velociman. His mind goes flying off in places MINE hasn't gone yet. 8) alphecca. Probably the most unique blog I've ever read. Just go visit and read his description. A gay yankee who likes guns? Who woulda EVER thunk of THAT? 10) indigo insights. Go there if you want something sweet from someone who reminds me of my mother. No profanity. Totally G-rated. I'll bet she makes good cornbread. I left some others off this list because their sites appear to be down right know. I hope they know I still love them, but that's what you get for using mu.nu. instead of a host worth a damn. Read those ten and let me know what you think. (UPDATE: I KNEW that if I posted that, I would hurt some feelings. I didn't mean to. Kim Du Toit--- I disqualified you because you get plenty of hits already. Eric--- Your site wasn't working when I tried to link it. Stevie--- honey, I just ran out of room. Maybe I'll do this again with another list a few days from now.)
not ninny moreWhen Quinton was born, I had a lot of "expert" parents tell me that I was going to have to move everything in the house out of his reach when he started crawling. I called bullshit on that idea. I put those safety covers on the light sockets in the house, but I didn't move a got-dam thing. I figured that if I could teach a dog not to shit in the house, I could do the same thing with my son. When Quinton started crawling, he went BACKWARD all the time. He learned reverse before he learned forward. But he could damn sure get to where he wanted to be, whatever gear he was in. My stereo fascinated him because it had a lot of blinking colored lights on it. He always wanted to touch it and push some of the buttons. I always told him "NO!" and he listened for a while. But one day, he was bound and determined to mess with the stereo. He crawled (backward) over there and reached out with his pudgy little hand. "NO, Quinton," I said. He stuck out his bottom lip, gave me a hateful glare and kept reaching for the stereo. I walked over and gave him a slap on the back of his hand. "I said NO, Quinton. Not any more." Tears welled up in his eyes. That bottom lip stuck out farther. And his hand went groping for the stereo again. I popped him on the back of the hand again and said, "No, Quinton! You don't touch that. Not any more!" He tried one more time, and that's when I grabbed his hand, picked him up and popped him a couple of good spanks on his young ass. I put him in his "rocky-chair" while he howled for his mama. Tears and snot were flowing. You'd think the boy was dying to hear him carry on. He was still in diapers, so I KNOW the spanking didn't hurt his padded ass. I just made a lot of noise and scared him. I'll give Jennifer credit for what she did on that fine day. She came in from wherever she was in the house and asked, "What happened in here?" I explained the situation. She said, "Quinton, you know better than that. You got what was coming to you. Don't touch that stereo. Not anymore." After that, Quinton would crawl over to the stereo, watch the lights he liked to see, and put both hands behind his back as he shook his head in a "no" gesture. "Not ninny more," he said. That became a pet phrase Jennifer and I used for several years because we thought it was amusing at the time. "Are you gonna do THAT at work?" "Not ninny more." I still kinda like the sound of it, and I'm in a position now where I can say it anytime I want to, and live by it, too. "NOT ninnie more."
don't be fooled
That picture of me on my left sidebar is three years old today. I'm posting a current picture now. I've changed a LOT in the past three years.
a brilliant idea!I'm not gonna delete troll comments anymore. I simply will EDIT them. BWHAHAHAHAAAA!!! That's easy to do and I cAN make them sound like one of my hated "minions" WITH ONLY a modicum of effort. Yeah. "Rob I hate your opinions, but I want to suck your dick." I can do that.
a brown recluse
I've written before about how much I like spiders. I believe that they are fascinating creatures and watching the mathemetical precision with which they build a web is impressive. But if you ever see a Brown Recluse Spider, kill that sumbitch immediately. Everybody talks about Black Widows being bad, but they don't hold a candle to a Brown Recluse. When I worked at the chemical plant, one of my operators had his nine year-old son bitten on the leg a Brown Recluse. The boy almost died, and he came within a hair of losing his leg because of the ensuing rot that occurred. The doctors took a while to understand what happened to the boy, and they almost waited too long to figure it out. He ended up being okay, but it was nip-and-tuck there for a while. He was in the hospital for a month and had to undergo skin grafts to repair the damage that spider did to him. I always liked a fire at night in the winter, and every house I've ever owned except the Crackerbox had a fireplace in it. But I NEVER went outside to gather wood without wearing gloves. I was worried about two things: First, copperhead snakes, who like to crawl into woodpiles, and second, Brown Recluse spiders. They are not called a "recluse" for nothing, because they like dark, seldom-disturbed places. Like woodpiles. I'm giving you some good, Southern advice here--- learn to identify those bastards and kill 'em when you see 'em. They are evil creatures. And if YOU are ever bitten by one, or if you have a child bitten by one, try to take the dead spider with you to the doctor, so he knows what he's dealing with. Otherwise, those damn things just might kill somebody. (UPDATE: The picture I posted makes the spider look too big, almost like a Grandaddy-Long-Legs. A Brown Recluse is about the size of a nickel, no bigger. But they pack a wallop.)
watch out!
This is what a bite does to you.
cats and electricityI don't know about connecting them in series or just using one, but I DO know that cats sometimes climb electric poles with very poor results for the cat. Volts don't kill you--- amps do. And there is a BIG difference between AC and DC current. AC will blow you up and knock you off the pole. DC will grab and hold you. If you want to conduct an experiment, just grab hold of a live spark plug on an automobile or lawn mower engine with your bare, sweaty hand. THAT will pop you hard enough to make the fillings in your teeth glow in the dark for at least one day. I was surprised by some comments on this post. Anybody who says that a squirrel never knocked out their power is full of shit. Those tree rats LIKE to crawl into transformer boxes in the winter, because it's warm in there. Then, they start gnawing on wires. All they have to do is make a ground and the transformer goes out with a big BOOM and a shower of sparks. I know a lot of high-voltage repairmen I met during my days at the chemical plant. A LOT of them carried a long, telescoping rod designed to pull a toasted squirrel (or a racoon) out of a transformer and reset the "stinger" after one of those animals crawled in there and shut off power for a few city blocks by cooking itself. Happens all the time.
butt out!This "problem" is none of the government's business. Environmentalists love the idea, because they'd rather see us all riding bicycles than driving cars, but it's none of their business, either. If the price of gasoline becomes outrageously high, people will start buying lighter, more fuel-efficient cars on their own. That's called a free market at work. But if you can afford $3.00 a gallon for gas, you should be able to drive whatever gas-guzzling monster you want. And if enough people, willingly, switch to fuel-efficient cars, the auto companies will stop making the gas-guzzlers, WILLINGLY, because they don't sell. We don't need government's finger in this pie.
August 22, 2005trainingHere's what I learned from a US Army sponsored training class. You want to teach somebody a skill? You explain it, then show them how to do it. You explain it AGAIN, then show them how to do it again. After that, you have the trainee explain it to YOU and do it by himself. You make him do it over and over again until you are convinced that he knows what he's doing. Then... you have him show it and explain it to somebody else while you watch. If your trainee can do that, you've got him (or her) ready to go. Our public schools don't do that today. They should.
Just becauseKnow what? I PAY for this blog. It's MY money that I spend. I don't mind doing that, because I accepted that deal when I took it. What I DON'T like are assholes who come here, because they are too fucking cowardly (or on the run from the law or angry wimmen they've conned out of money--- no, JB-- I wouldn't be talking about YOU) to diagnose me and track dirt all over my floor. Have some got-dam manners. (UPDATE: After I quit being Manager of Training and went back to being a pigmenteer, the guy who took my old job disgusted me. He didn't "train" anybody. His entire objective was to show other people how smart HE was. They were supposed to be dazzled by his brilliance, and he didn't give a damn whether they learned anything or not. Does that ring a bell with some of my trolls?) I am now known as a complete shitass in certain circles because one sanctimonious sumbitch said "If your opinions can not stand up to criticism, perhaps you should change your opinions." I questioned HIS opinions, and he went running off welping like a scalded dog, and he's pouted at me ever since. Bejus, but the "Divas" love him. Pussy-boy. I don't give a damn whether you like me or not. That's MY right to put whatever I want to on this blog. I pay for it (and boy... I HAVE paid for it) and you can read it or not. Suit yourself. But DO NOT use MY platform for idiotic rants that run for 10,000 words or psychoanalyze me from 1,000 miles away. Shut the fuck up. Buy your own goddam bandwidth.
stupid catI told you that high-voltage power lines are dangerous. This cat found out the hard way. The firefighters believe the cat was on the pole, because a bird's nest was found on top and there was a large black spot where something had touched a relay switch on the 25,000-volt line. Can't blame ME for this one.
August 21, 2005wimmen do talk!Anybody who says they don't get together, cackle like hens and compare notes is full of shit. I was just informed by someone who lives 1,000 miles away from me, who has never seen me in my life and wouldn't know me from Adam's housecat that she "knows" me. (She heard it through the grapevine.) Been talking to the "divas?" Sure you know me, darlin.' If you knew me so well, you wouldn't have said such a cuntly thing to me. But that's what cuntly wimmen tend to do. I hope you find some dick on the internet. Lord knows you're trolling hard enough for it.
get this straightI deleted several long-winded, idiotic comments I received on a post below. I also want to congratulate "Grandpapinhead" for living up to his name. I don't sell ANY ads on this blog. I never have and I never will. The opinions you read here are MINE and MINE only. I don't owe any "equal time" to anybody. Television stations are not the same thing, and I suggest that Grandpapinhead, who lives up to his name, read that link before he spouts off again. I never said that the TV station didn't have the right to refuse the "Crying Cindy Look At ME and my Grief" ad. I said that I would not refuse to air it, because that station is in business because it sells ads. If I were making money selling ads, I wouldn't say NO to anyone and I'd let the public decide for itself about what it saw. And JB--- cut the shit. I'm sticking with what I first said. If you are so fucking smart, able to talk in "riddles" and write 1,000 word comments on a 200 word post, start your own fucking blog. I don't need your ass stinking up my place. And have the balls to own a legitimate email address. How else will your adoring fans be able to flock to your wisdom and praise your brilliance? Bite my ass. I think you and Pinhead would make a good couple.
what has happened to me?I was offered a perfectly willing and GOOD piece of ass today, and I turned it down. I wasn't interested. ME!!! One of the most voracious pussy-hounds who ever lived. Not interested anymore. Shit. I should have done it just to prove that I still can. But I have NO libido anymore. I'd rather talk than fuck, even though I don't have to worry about getting a hard-on. The bionic Roscoe works every time. For a man who once loved all the pussy he could get, I have changed a great deal. I don't care much about it anymore. Maybe I'm just fucked-out.
lightningI was playing golf one day with my friend Leo. It was about 4:00 in the afternoon. The sky was overcast, but there was no rain and we didn't even hear distant thunder. We were on the 17th hole. I hit a good drive off the tee and had a little sand wedge left to the green. But we'd both been drinking beer all day and I needed to piss. So--- I stepped out of the cart, grabbed my trusty sand wedge, unzipped my pants, flopped Roscoe out and started to piss, right there in the the fairway. I was in the middle of telling Leo how I was gonna birdie the hole and win all of his money when.... KA-BOOM! A bolt of lightning shot over our heads and hit a pine tree on the other side of the fairway. That's ONE TIME when I saw lightning and heard thunder at the same time. I almost snatched my Roscoe off. I cut myself off in mid-piss to get back in the cart, but Leo already had the pedal to the metal heading for the clubhouse, that rotten bastard. I had to chase him down to jump on board. Behind us, the pine tree was in flames and limbs were falling out of it. I could smell ozone and I noticed that Leo and I BOTH had hair standing on end all over out bodies. That wasn't from fright, either (although that incident scared the shit out of both of us)--- it was from electricity in the air. Mother Nature ended that round of golf right then and there. I didn't even go back to retrieve my brand-new Titleist golf ball. So much for making a birdie on THAT hole. Never trust lightning. It can come from anywhere at any time. I realized later that we were lucky that one or both of us weren't killed. Especially ME. I was standing on the ground, wearing a pair of metal-spike golf shoes, with a Wilson Staff sand wedge leaning on my knee and PISSING ON THE GROUND at the time. I know why I survived. My expiration date wasn't up yet. I once saw lightning hit a pine tree across from my mini-farm and it blew my neighbor's concrete driveway to pieces when it made the roots of the tree explode. That was an impressive sight, and the lightning killed the hell out of that big tree. My power was out for five hours after that, but my neighbors had to pay to have the tree cut down and then repair their driveway. Mother Nature is a real bitch.
i disagree with thisI believe that Cindy Sheehan is a howling moonbat who is disgracing her son's heroism with her nit-wit behavior. But I would not censor her. Hell--- the more she talks, the more she sounds like a nit-wit, howling moonbat. Feed her all the rope she needs and she'll hang herself. I don't agree with trying to silence ANYBODY in this country, no matter how much you disagree with what they have to say. Even howling moonbats have the right to howl, especially when they pay for their advertising time (or their BLOG) and they aren't using tax dollars to do it. If you don't like the message, don't listen to it. Or listen to it and call BULLSHIT! That's YOUR choice. I hate Michael Moore's fat, lying ass and I think Ted Rall should be dragged off and shot as a mealey-mouthed traitor. I ain't real fond of Al Franken, Barbra Streisand or Dan Rather, either. But they have the right to irritate ME just as much as I have the right to bitch about them. That's what "Freedom of Speech" means.
see? i told you so yesterdayThis stuff just happens sometimes. Here's another person who appeared to be perfectly healthy (in fact, more healthy than most others) who just keeled over dead. It's that damned expiration date I keep warning you about.
a sunday postI went through a religious phase when I was in college. I read all the holy books and the writings of holy men. I was Baptised in the Church of Christ, but that didn't last long. When the water dried up, so did my religion. I never could decide whether I wanted to be a Christian, a Jew, a Muslim, a Buddist, a Zorastrian, a Hindu or something else, so I finally settled on being an athiest. It was a difficult life-choice, but I finally made it. I kinda like the idea of God running a place called "heaven" that's a lot like Key West, but with beer-spewing volcanos and Big Rock Candy Mountains, where everything is free, the wimmen all wanna get laid, the weather is nice and YOU end up toting God back to his cloud and pouring him into his holy bed one evening, because he's drunker than YOU are. I wouldn't mind going to that kind of heaven, where the fish always bite, ALL wimmen swallow instead of spit and nobody wears any clothes. Yeah. No mosquitoes or fire ants, either. Sunshine all day and gentle rain at night to help you sleep. Fighting is not permitted, but fucking is encouraged. I could join a church that fed me THAT line of superstition.
expiration datesThis guy is damned lucky to be alive. His expiration date obviously wasn't up yet. High-voltage electric lines are nothing to fuck around with. They'll kill you. When Hurricane David blew through Savannah sometime in the late 70s, it knocked down a live power line in the street right across from my house. That thing was bouncing around and throwing sparks as if it were some kind of live, angry snake. A local dog made the mistake of attacking it. The juice not only killed the dog, but it cooked him well done. By the time the firemen and the electricians came to fix that line, the dog smelled like pork ribs on the grill. After the SEPCO people cut the power on the line, the firemen dragged the dog away and it just fell apart, the way well-cooked stew-meat does. One of the firemen told me, "I haven't eaten anything in two days. That dog doesn't smell bad..." I worked around all kinds of toxic chemicals and dangerous stuff in my life. I learned a healthy respect for that kind of thing, but it never frightened me. High-voltage electricity does. I've run generators and I've done a sinc many a time. I've thrown more knife switches than most mama's have sliced tomatoes. That shit ALWAYS scared me. You get only ONE MISTAKE dealing with that stuff. This guy was extremely lucky.
August 20, 2005quote of the dayPeople (including several wimmen) have asked me why I named my dick "Roscoe." I dunno. I just did. It sounded better than pee-pee, weiner, crank or schlong when I was a boy. Plus, it's always been a favorite pet of mine. I named it "Roscoe." And it damned sure sounded better than "penis." "To me it is perfectly natural for a little boy to be able to whip it out and say "Lookit my wiggy!" See what I mean?" I can't argue with that. My boy LIKES to pee outside, and he's hung like his daddy once was. When you've got a "wiggy" like THAT, call attention to it. Just DO NOT call it a "penis."
I'll passI've decided that i don't want the job But YOU can apply.
I know what he was looking forI laughed out loud when I read this story. I LOVED my goats when I owned them, but I also learned to appreciate what strange creatures they are. You let a male goat get a whiff of a female in heat, and he goes totally nuts. He starts pissing in his beard, becomes very aggressive, wanting to head-butt other male goats, and he'll tear down a well-built fence to get to what he wants. I think that's what happened here, but the goat didn't follow his nose correctly. He ended up where he didn't want to be. When he jumped on the hood of the car (goats like to climb almost anything they can stand on), I'm surprised that the critter didn't eat the rubber off the windshield wipers. Goats will do that. Goats kill snakes. They dance them to death. If a goat sees a snake, it'll start bouncing around, tuck all four feet together and JUMP on that snake. Then, it starts working its hooves like the bobbin on a sewing machine. The snake is shortly reduced to hamburger meat. I once cut down a couple of small trees in my "north 40," where the goats roamed. I walked outside one day and saw my biggest goat, the Tall Dog himself, standing on a tree stump that was MAYBE 3" in diameter. He seemed quite proud of himself there, perched like a big, fuzzy bird, with all four hooves planted together on that small surface--- pretty much the same position the goats assumed when they were getting ready to jump on a snake. Big Billy was ALSO the one that tore a hole in my fence, made an escape and sent me on a goat-roping expedition because he was after a MARE in heat down the road. He got a whiff of that and he wanted some, even if he needed a step-ladder to reach it. Goats are interesting animals. But they're horny as hell, too. I think the boy in that story came to town to get laid.
it works!!!!I'm not as dumb as I sometimes think I am. My recorder works, just the way I set it all up!!!! But I see a couple of minor problems. First, I did a KISS recording today (Not the band KISS, but just a Keep It Simple, Stupid test-drive). It came out okay. But this damn thing can do a lot more than I understand yet. The Owner's Manual is more than 100 pages long, and that's going to take me a while to digest. Second, I AM going to need to buy a playback system for this thing. I don't want to drag my Bose stereo in here. I like it staying in my living room. I don't need anything really fancy, just something good enough to play the music back before I burn it onto a CD. I can hear the song on my headphones, and I think I know how to dub extra tracks on it now. But I can't invite several people over to hear it all at once, or play along with it. I have only one set of headphones and only one headphone jack on the recorder. If I want to do ensemble recording (which I DO) I'm going to need a little more. I figure that I can get everything I want for about another $150.00. That STILL keeps the total price less than a trip to Costa Rica, and I'm gonna have some really neat shit set up around here after that. BWHAHAHAHAAA!!! I can see this plan coming together! (UPDATE: I think I already have everything that I need. I have more musical equipment in the house than I remembered having. Damn! Some of this stuff is still in the box it came in, never opened. Now... all I have to do is hook these little gizmos up to the recorder and I should be good to go!)
i have a winning way...What can I say? When someone calls me misogynistic, obnoxious, and working his way into my heart, what's NOT to like about that? My only complaint is that the writer forgot to mention "profane, drunken, red-necked, loud-mouthed and entirely worthy of ritual de-linking by ANY self-respecting blogger." I am guilty of all charges. If you want Mr. Nice Guy, go the hell somewhere else.
bulletproofI’ve mentioned before that my cousin Alan is a policeman in Florida. He wears a vest every day, even when he goes to testify in court, and I know that thing has to be hot as hell in Florida. But to him, that’s just part of the uniform. It’s NOT a “bullet-proof” vest, but it’s the next best thing. I’d like to have one. I don’t blame him for wearing it, either. You never know when you’ll run into something like this on the kind of job he does. According to Alan, the vest will stop most handgun rounds up to a .45. But if you’re shot in the head, it’s just tough shit for you. If you’re shot in the nuts or the kneecaps, the vest doesn’t do much, either. But it’s damn sure better than nothing. I just wonder if the cops in this story were wearing theirs? I once suspended an acid loader when I caught him not wearing all his gear when he loaded an acid car. It was hot. He didn't think he needed it. I thought he did, so I gave him three days off without pay and told him that he'd be FIRED if I ever saw him do something like that again. That was better in MY mind than attending his funeral or visiting his burned-up ass in a hospital.
sandalsCheck the comments on this post I wrote yesterday. Damn! I kicked the top off an anthill. I'll give the government credit for doing a few things well. Our military has the best training and the best equipment in the world. (And I'm not saying that just because I'm some kind of super-patriot. I was Manager of Training for six years at the chemical plant and I went to a LOT of "Train the Trainer" seminars that the US military conducted. They knew their shit and they taught me a lot.) We wouldn't have an Interstate Highway System today if the government didn't build it. (But I DO have one question to ask--- WHO started it and WHY did government build it?) What I DON'T like is dealing with assholes at the DMV or the post office who seem to think that a customer is nothing more than a pure annoyance to them. I saw my father deal with Social Security and that wasn't a pretty sight, either. Plus, when I fly now, I've learned to wear sandals anymore. I don't give a damn what kind of shoes I wear to the airport or what kind of weather we have outside, I sit down in the terminal, take off my street shoes, stick them in my bag before I check it and put on a pair of sandals. They are easier to slip off and put back on when those fucking idiots at Airline Security make me walk through the metal detector barefoot. Hell--- I'm getting to the point now where I'm thinking about not wearing shoes AT ALL when I fly, just to make these overworked government employees not have to stress themselves. Here's a Golden Rule that even hard-working government employees need to understand. Government does NOT "create" wealth, nor does it "give" anything away. Whatever government spends, it stole from somebody else first. Government TAKES wealth. It doesn't make it. And don't even get me started on the IRS, the EPA, OSHA, DNR or the other similar government agencies I've been FORCED to deal with in the past. I'll just say this, because I don't want to piss any of them off for fear of going to jail. They are GREAT people. Skilled in what they do and ALWAYS POLITE to a taxpayer. And fucking pigs fly, too.
sign languageI read long ago that the gesture of a handshake was started to mean that you meant peace and you had no quarrel with the other person. You offered him your empty right hand to show that you didn't intend to pull a sword or a knife to try to kill him. That sign language goes back a long time in history. The American Indians did something akin to that gesture. They raised an open right palm to show that they didn't have a weapon. That meant that they wanted to talk rather than fight. The "flipping finger" (meaning FUCK YOU!!!) was invented by the British after their masters of the longbow became feared by their opponents. If longbow archers were captured by their enemies, the captors frequently cut off the middle finger of the bowman's right hand, so that he could not shoot a bow anymore. Shooting "the bird" was a sign that you could still fight with the best of them. You still had your middle finger, so you were good to go. Look at pictures of Winston Churchill during World War II. He was always showing that "V" for victory sign. I learned later that if he did it with the palm of his hand pointed AT the camera, that meant nothing but a "V" for victory. But if he showed you the BACK of his hand with two fingers raised, it was just like shooting the bird. It meant, still have my fingers and I'll shoot you if I get the chance. That gesture came from people who fired longbows. I tried shooting a longbow once. Just STRINGING the damn thing is one hell of an effort and I was in good shape back at that time. It was damn nearly as long as I was tall, and I had to wrestle with that bastard for a while before I got the bowstring on it. It had a 170-pound draw and it would fire an arrow an incredible distance, IF you could draw the device all the way back and hold it for more than ... oh, about two seconds. You have to be a bad-ass to handle one of those. It's like doing a 170-pound sideways bench press. I like reading about such things. I've attended several supervisory training seminars that were designed to teach me how to read "body language." I paid attention and discovered, with experience, that most what they taught is true. I've just been piss-poor at reading wimmen in my life.
assholesI don't like unions. I never have and I never will. I believe that they do really insane things, such as protecting "workers" who SHOULD be fired for not working and setting the lowest possible common denominator for performance while demanding the highest possible wages and benefits. Who the hell do think REALLY pays for their crap? You and I do, in the end. But this is how unions think. After months of talks broke off in Washington, D.C., just before midnight Friday, union spokesman Jim Young said the mechanics would rather see the airline go into bankruptcy than agree to Northwest's terms. The Airline Mechanics Fraternal Association represents about 11 percent of Northwest's 40,000 workers. That's smart thinking. Run EVERYBODY out of a job rather than understand and accept the law of supply and demand. Assholes. But that's what unions have become today. A bunch of lazy, whining assholes. And they don't even see what they are doing, while they stay busy cutting their own throats. The old days are gone. These dinosaurs don't realize that fact.
vacation ideasSavannah made this list and I agree. River Street isn't what it once was, but if you like history, excellent food and friendly people, visit Savannah. You'll enjoy the parks and watching those weird-looking SCAD students walk by. (That's the Savannah College of Art and Design. I think the students specialize in wearing strange garb, and getting a lot of tattoos and piercings.) Visit the Old Colonial Cemetary and take a trip on one of those tour buses that'll ride you all over the place with a guide to tell you what you're seeing. Eat at the Exchange Tavern and try one of their Bloody Marys. Go piss in the Savannah River (I've done THAT plenty of times!). Buy a copy of the book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and read it. Trust me... if you come to Savannah, you'll LIKE it. As for elsewhere, I would recommend: Costa Rica. Get out of San Jose as fast as you can and see the rest of that country. Beautiful, and it's a fairly cheap trip. Key West, Florida. I've had some true adventures there. It's about as laid-back as the world gets and it's chocked full of pretty wimmen. Unfortunately, about half of them are gay. Lake Tahoe, Nevada. That is a BEAUTIFUL place. Go in the winter after a nice snowfall. St. Augustine, Florida. That's only about a three-hour drive from where I live and the beaches are great. If you go there, eat at "Saltwater Cowboy's" restaurant, but be prepared to stand in line to get in the door. The food is worth the wait. Just drive across the country. If you've never done that, you should. You'll never really appreciate just how BIG the United States is and how much different landscape we have without seeing it for yourself. It is an awesome experience. Just my two cents.
It happensWhen I was playing sports, something just like this happened to four different people that I knew. I wasn't there to see it happen, but they just upped and died at a practice or in the middle of a game. All four guys appeared to be healthy and in excellent shape--- until they keeled over dead. It's strange how that happens sometimes. Hell... life is strange.
August 19, 2005quote of the dayIf you want a job done, poorly, just give it to the government. Yeah, putting the government in charge of airport security was a fucking BRILLIANT idea. Having flown frequently over the past couple of years, I have to agree with this statement: "My impression of TSA screening at airports is that it's not any better than things were before, nor is it any faster or better organized. Certainly on this last trip, the security -- and the immigration -- folks at the Atlanta airport seemed poorly organized and inefficient. I nearly missed my flight because people who were supposed to be organizing the lines were standing around talking instead."Glenn Reynolds He sounds suprised to see that. He must not deal with government employees very often.
almost ready to energizeI've got almost everything hooked up and I think I know how to operate it now. Here's what I have: 1 Tascam DP-Olex recorder Every bit of this cost me less than $1,000. And that's NOT a lot of money when you're talking about good musical equipment. One thing I noticed today that I never paid attention to before. I may have to do some sound-proofing in this room. I ALWAYS have some kind of noise outside, even at night. If it's not kids playing and cars going down the street, it's somebody running a lawn mower or a chainsaw. At night, the frogs and the crickets start singing. My microphones will pick that noise up when I record. I can hear them outside now. I think I've got everything ready to go, so I'm going to start fooling with this toy tomorrow. I'll know then how offensive the outside noise is once I lay down a few tracks. Maybe I'm just over-reacting. But I think the old mini-farm would have been a better place to set up a studio. That really WAS in the middle of nowhere.
give me a breakHere's another jury gone crazy. Almost $250 MILLION? You've got to be kidding me. ``Anyone who said they are too small town or won't understand, they are crazy,'' said Mrs. Ernst's lawyer, Mark Lanier. ``They know truth and they know justice.'' No... they don't. Lanier must have done a good job of picking twelve total dumbasses for that jury. NO 59 year-old man's life is worth 243.4 million dollars, and I don't care if Merck put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger. Which Merck DID NOT do. Goddam. Some people think serving on a jury gives the right to hand out checks as if they run a fucking lottery. That ain't so and they are out of their minds.
government knows bestThis story is one of the most insane things I've ever read. When the government starts taking YOUR property and giving it to illegal immigrants, something is badly wrong here. Morris Dees Jr., co-founder and chief trial counsel of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which represented the immigrants, said he hoped the ruling would serve as a cautionary tale to land owners or civilian patrols considering hostile measures against border crossers. Forget the fact the the writer doesn't know the difference between "losing" and "loosing." Just go ahead and puke. Illegal immigration is a BIG problem in this country and government needs to be doing something about it. But government is fat, lazy, inept and it can't find its ass with both hands, no matter how much money we feed into its voracious maw. What a fucking joke. I've got no problem with foreigners wanting to come here to pursue the American Dream. This is a land of plenty and opportunity is out there for YOU to grab. But you DON'T do it by swimming the Rio Grande and jumping a fence. And you DAMN SURE shouldn't be rewarded for doing that. One of my biggest problems with "Homeland Security" is that the government has used its new power to go after pornography and medicinal marijuana while IGNORING the fact that our borders are Swiss cheese. Is THAT what I pay taxes for? It must be, because that's the way it is. Yeah, we can pay people to go after Martha Stewart, but we can't mind our own borders... and now we REWARD people for shitting on immigration law? That's MY kind of government. Give me more of that crap and I'm moving to Costa Rica when my grandmother dies.
cod liver oilCod liver oil was considered to be a "tonic" in eastern Kentucky when my parents were children. You got dosed with that shit every spring, whether you needed it or not, and if you had ANY kind of illness, that was the first medicine forced down your throat. It tastes like unholy shit. I have TWO uncles who are avid fishermen, but they don't eat fish. They catch and release or give the fish away. Having cod liver oil as a child did that to them. I had one dose in my young life. That was the most foul thing I ever tasted and it made me shit like a goose for two days. The first time I tasted caviar was on a Russian oceanographic ship, and even with the liberal amount of vodka they poured, I couldn't stomach that crap. It reminded me of cod liver oil. If you ever get ONE taste of that stuff, you'll never forget it. Dosing kids with cod liver oil was a common practice years ago. I think it qualifies as child abuse.
step one is completeI've got all the recording equipment hooked up and plugged in. NOW I need to read the owner's manual to figure out how this thing is supposed to operate. I'm tempted just to wing a song and see what happens, but Jack's sister is cutting my grass right know and I know the microphones will pick up that noise. I think I'll read the book until she's finished with her work. I'm familiar with most of this, because it looks a lot like the Yamaha PA head I used years ago. The mixer and the effects are pretty much the same. The only thing that looks different is this "digital" shit as opposed to analog recording. I bought one good vocal mic and a directional for my instruments. (Plus a set of headphones.) I also got a "Puff Pad" thrown in for the vocal mic. But if I understand correctly right now, I think I can run an electric or a bass guitar straight into this thing and not use an amp at all. That's why I need to read the book. I have a wire that plugs from the recorder straight into my computer, so I can burn CDs. I don't need to power this device with an amp. It's got its own brain and power supply. It also has an incredible amount of "memory," so you can record for a long time, save it all right there, and burn CDs when you're happy with they way they sound. It's got only eight tracks, but you can bounce them and compress them to make 64 tracks once you know what you're doing. I don't know what I'm doing yet, but I will shortly. This may be the best toy I ever bought.
that's itI am NEVER answering my phone again. If you need to talk to me, leave a message and I'll call you back if I want to talk to YOU. My phone has rung 15 times today. Four were wrong numbers and the rest were telemarketers. I almost hanged myself trying to get to the phone with all the wires and other obstacles I have strung out as I set up the recording equipment. I'm flat-out not doing that anymore. I can think of about four people on the face of this fucking PLANET that I MIGHT want to talk to on the phone, but none of them called me today. Assholes did. So, call all you want to. I'm not answering the goddam phone.
damn!Why doesn't he say what he really means? America is being pussified today. And when these barf-bags pushing the cause claim to be advocating "understanding," that's NOT what they're doing. They are demanding ACCEPTANCE of something that I believe is totally wrong. Goddammit! My father taught me how to fish, he taught me how to shoot and he taught me to be a man. That was HIS job, not my mama's, and damn sure not the job of some homosexual PR guy in an air conditioned office, where he wouldn't know a yellow jacket from a bumble bee. But people LISTEN to those assholes today and think they make sense. I don't. I think they are out of their fricking minds. But that's just me, and my trolls already tell me how fucked-up I am.
Pet namesThis is an interesting article. I've had several good dogs in my life and only one had a human name. The first dog was a mutt named "Pudgy," because he was a fat little puppy. He had a lot of black lab in him and he loved the water. He ran the woods with me all the time when I was a boy. Pudge was a damn good dog. He got hit by a car crossing Whitefield Avenue as he followed my brother one day. I still blame my brother for that. He should have NOT run across the road in traffic knowing that the dog would follow him. Pudge made it back home, but he died shortly thereafter. He's buried in my mama's back yard. The second one was "Wiggles." He lived up to his name, too. I picked him up at the dog pound in Athens, Georgia when I was attending UGA. That was the ugliest damn dog I ever saw. He was some kind of mixed-breed, with some kind of terrier in him, and when he got excited, he bent himself into a semi-circle and beat his face with his own tail. I kept old Wigs for 15 years. That dog would rather ride in a car than eat when he was hungry. If I wanted him to come running, all I had to do was rattle my car keys. He'd hang his head out the window and slobber all down the side of my car, wherever we went, and he traveled all over the southeast United States with me. He went deaf and blind finally. I think he got the doggy version of Alzheimer's. He's the one I shot, to put him out of his misery. I couldn't stand to see him in the shape he was at the end, and I didn't want a vet putting him to sleep. That was MY job. I cried like a baby afterward, but I laid him down quick and easy. He never knew what hit him. "Bud" was Jennifer's dog when I met her. He was a BIG sumbitch and mean as hell when he wanted to be, even though Jennifer had him de-nutted as a pup. (Jennifer is GOOD at de-nutting males of any species.) Bud turned out to be a great dog. He'd kill a cat when he saw one, but he was always gentle around children. He had a bark that rattled the walls. NOBODY wanted to walk into my house after they heard Bud bark. The fucker weighed more than 90 pounds and DID NOT take shit from any other dog. He lived for 17 years and was a damn fine animal, and the only dog I ever had with a human name. I didn't name him. Quinton told me several months ago that Bud "went crazy" and Jennifer had him put to sleep. I hated to hear that news. Bud was a good dog. I don't want another dog now. If I get a pup, he'll probably outlive ME for a change. But if I got one, I'd give it a doggy name, not a human one.
b moviesI read this post and it started me thinking, which is a dangerous thing at this time of the morning. I should be putting my recording studio together, but instead--- I'm sailing down memory lane, remembering shitty, cheap movies that I really like. Night of the Living Dead. Got-dam!!! I STILL love that movie. Big Bird Cage. That movie made me a big fan of sid haig. I still see that guy in movies today. He was in one episode of "Star Trek." He is one of my acting heroes. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The original. I saw it at a drive-in when I was stoned out of my mind and I loved it. Excellent movie. Reefer Madness. That's a classic. The "Night Flight Cafe" on River Street in Savannah used to show old movies like that one on Monday nights, when beer was $1.00 for a pitcher. I used to go there, buy a pitcher of beer and watch those flicks. The sad thing about "Reefer Madness" is that a lot of people believed that bullshit, and that's where a lot of our marijuana laws came from. People watch it now and guffaw, but the laws are still on the books. The Evil Dead II. Two scenes in that movie are teriffic. The first is when the hero looks in the mirror and tells himself that he's NOT going crazy, only to have his reflection reach out and grab him by the throat. The second is when that dislocated eyeball goes flying across the room and ends up in a screaming woman's mouth. Rocky Horror Picture Show. I don't believe that anyone can set out to create a cult classic. It just happens by itself. It happened with that one. The Angry Red Planet. That one has all the ingriedents if a 1950s B-movie. They have a monkey on board the spacecraft and castor wheels on the control room chairs. Can't beat that! The Brain That Wouldn't Die. Here's the plot. A mad scientist has a girlfriend who is killed in a car wreck. He cuts her head off and preserves it in a vat of chemicals, and she remains alive--- even able to talk to him, when she doesn't have a neck anymore. He's got some kind of creature that he's been working on in his laboratory. That thing rips off the arm of his associate one day and kills the mad scientist. The lab goes up in flames and the girlfriend is happy to burn, too. Scared the shit out of me when I was 12 years old. I am a fan of "Mystery Science Theater," too. I like those old, really cheesy movies.
other sportsThis sounds a lot better than football camp. I don't mind working up that kind of sweat.
hot weatherThe heat index has been running about 110 degrees around here for the past week or so. High temps in the mid-90s with humidity thick enough to swim in. Sweat won't evaporate in those conditions. It's pretty got-dam miserable. I was thinking today that this is just about the time "summer camp" always started for the football team. I don't know how I survived that shit back them. Even with the first week being nothing but helmets and shorts, the coaches ran our asses off with conditioning drills in the summer heat. I saw many a boy pass out unconscious or fall out with horrible cramps. Summer camp was a form of pure torture. Three-a-day practices. Unrelenting heat. Not enough water in the WORLD to quench your thirst. When you jocked up in full gear... it was even worse. Then, you knocked the shit out of each other in that swealtering heat, while wearing enough garb to fry you from the inside out. It wasn't easy to do. What the hell. The coaches said it made us tough. You run the goddam "Burma Road" a few times in full gear with a 110 degreee heat index, you'd better be tough, or you'll never make it. I am delighted that I don't have to do that today.
August 18, 2005moonshineDo YOU know why illegally distilled whiskey is called "moonshine?" I do. If you ran an outdoor still in the hollows of eastern Kentucky, federal agents rode around looking for smoke coming out of the woods. That's how they found and destroyed a lot of stills. But if you did it AT NIGHT, by the light of the moon, you were less likely to be caught. Can't see smoke in the sky at night, at least not as well as the Feds did in the daytime. Plus, the Feds went to sleep at night. Moonshiners didn't. I'm just making this shit up. I have NO IDEA what I'm talking about. My grandfather NEVER made moonshine, and I don't, either. But you're better off doing it at night if you're in that line of business. UPDATE: Words and music for the entire song written by Rob Smith. That's one I intend to record.
Quote of the dayThis dirty-minded guy reminds me of ME. " Yep, find myself quite taken with that cute thing, to the point that I could see coming up behind her and going "Isn't that a buffalo nickle down there? Yes, go ahead, bend over, and pick it up. I'll steady you..." Yep, when you have fantasies of the pixie, there is no doubt as to prevert status..." That's from laughing wolf, who obviously has been hanging around wild canines too long.
He's rightThis is what you get when government attempts to "mastermind" the economy. It's happened every damn time some smart-ass decided that he knew how to "plan" things for everybody else. Supply and demand takes care of itself if government leaves it alone.
mama's cookingMany times I've wondered whether my mama was really a good cook, or I just liked the food because it's what I grew up eating. Now that she's gone, I know the answer. We didn't eat fancy when I was a boy. Money was tight. We ate a lot of "miner's strawberries" (pinto beans) and cornbread. Sometimes, supper would be scrambled eggs, home-fries, biscuits and gravy. (we always had eggs for breakfast, too.) "Steak" was a hamburger patty, and we didn't get that very often. Collard greens were a staple. Chicken and dumplings was a luxury meal, saved for special occasions. Soup or stew was usually supper-fare. Once in a blue moon we MIGHT get to eat some pork ribs or fried salt bacon, but dad had to make a big overtime check for that to happen. We ate beans, cornbread and potatoes as a rule. Shuck beans, pinto beans, string beans and navy beans. If it was ANY kind of bean, we ate it. I grew up with beans coming out of my ears. But my brother and I both grew up healthy and strong. We never went hungry. We just didn't have gourment food on the table. No steak. (The first real steak I ever tasted was a T-bone that I bought and cooked for myself when I was 16 years old.) No seafood. No fish. (my parents were dosed with cod liver oil in their youth and couldn't even stand the smell of fish after that.) I miss mama's cooking. She could take next to nothing and make a good meal out of it. I'd LOVE to have a big bowl of pinto beans and cornbread right now, if only she were alive and sitting across the table from me. She always said that she had "sweet fingers" and that's what made her a good cook. I believe it now.
yellow jacketsDo you have those things where you live? They are extremely evil creatures. The first time I got tangled up with those bastards was on a backpacking trip in North Carolina, when I stepped next to a rotten tree stump on the trail and my foot sunk 6" into the ground. The next thing I knew, a SWARM of yellow jackets came boiling out of the ground and they stung the living shit out of me. I did a St. Vitus dance down the trail for about 100 yards before I got away from them. I don't remember how many times they popped me, but it was a BUNCH. Luckily, I chewed tobacco in those days, so I had a ready-made poultice for those stings. I applied tobacco-juice generously on the welts I had. That incident worried me at the time. I have a very bad allergic reaction to honey bee stings. I've had to be hospitalized before because of ONE bee-sting. There I was, on the side of a mountain in the middle of nowhere with AT LEAST 30 yellow jacket stings on me. (the ones on the head hurt the most) I took a couple of Benadryl (which I always carried backpacking) and tried not to worry my companions. Know what? I was okay the next morning. I still had knots and welts where those jackets hit me, but I felt fine. I think the tobacco juice cured me. I later met a lot of guys who marked timber for a living and they ALL carried tobacco with them to treat yellow jacket stings. Get in the woods and step in the wrong place and you'll never see 'em coming until it's too late. They are merciless bastards, too. Maybe that's just another reason I find it so easy to say "Fuck Georgia Tech!"
damn! I didn't know I had it so goodWow! I thought sand spurs, hornets, yellow jackets, "seven-year itch," fire ants and poison ivy were bad. But those are NOTHING compared to what you face in joisey. Just damn! I'm happy that I don't live THERE.
bastard!This is a friend of mine. How does he repay me for my undying loyalty and years of friendship? He cat-blogs on my ass. Fuck YOU, Catfish! Cat DID get that big gator in his creek. I thought he did when he told me about putting a couple of 12-gauge slugs into that rascal's head about a month ago. When he started smelling something rotten and seeing the buzzards around his pond, I told him then that it was probably the gator. He just never could find it. It floated up, finally. His picture doesn't do it justice. That was a BIG sumbitch, well over 10' long, but time and predators took most of the meat offa that boy. Not much left but hide and bones now. And he wondered why the fish quit biting....
i've got it!All my recording equipment is here. Now... all I have to do is figure out how to operate it. It doesn't look too complicated, but I'm an electronic dickhead, so this may take me a while to master. But this sumbitch looks like exactly what I wanted. It's got more fucking knobs on it than Carter has liver pills. I think I can make myself sound good even when I suck on this thing. Willy gave me a good deal on it, too. I am happy. (UPDATE: I'm going to plug his web site again because I don't know of anyone he's dealt with who wasn't happy with the quality or the price of the instruments and equipment he sells. Most music stores are rip-off joints. The mark-up they charge is outrageous. Willy gives you a good deal. I've known him for more than 25 years now, and he's a friend of mine. He loves music and he will treat you right, with anything you want--- from band instruments to electric guitars. And I'm NOT being paid to write this. I just like what he does, and I'm trying to save YOU some money if you want to buy an instrument. Check with this guy or this guy if you want other references. They've shopped at Willy's. Ask them what THEY think. I could NEVER have bought what I have today without paying twice the price at a music store. And if I can steer a few customers Willy's way, I'm doing everybody involved a favor.)
piss on thisBejus! Technology is outrunning me today. Now, we have a piss-powered battery. That should be good news for beer drinkers. The government-funded Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology said in a statement placed on its Web site that the device was the "perfect power source for cheap, disposable health care test-kits for diseases such as diabetes." Got anything that cures a bad attitude? I need some of that.
this is sadI don't know whether Israel is right or wrong here. I just don't like the idea of soldiers running people out of their homes. If the same things were done to me, I'd probably be dead. I'd stand in my doorway with every gun I don't own loaded, with a cigarette hanging out of my mouth, and I'd say, "STOP! OR I'LL SHOOT!" The troops could blow me to hell after that. I probably wouldn't shoot at them, because they didn't ask for the job, but I'd fire a few rounds, make 'em kill me and drag my dead body away. It's MY HOME. It may not be much, but it's MINE. And I won't allow anyone to take it away from me without killing me first. I MEAN that.
August 17, 2005autoharpsHow many people even know what an autoharp is? They were invented as a substitute for pianos in frontier churches so that people could have music to accompany the hymns. It's got 44 strings on it and a set of buttons that you push to make chords. Kids love playing one, because it takes no real musicial skill to push those buttons. Set in your lap. Push a button. Strum it with a pick. PRESTO! You've got music! Good players (such as Gove Scrivener and Brian Bowers) play with the autoharp cradled against the neck, as if they were holding a tender lover. That's the way I play. You play with fingerpicks and you never look at the buttons. Just SENSE IT. That's enough to make good music. If you don't know what that feels like, I can't explain it to you.
i'm a gooberI've said before that I'm an internet maroon. I am, and I make no bones about it. I just write for rhe pleasure of writing. I am no computer guru. But I recived a call from my daughter today. After all the shit she's received recently, she asked to use my site to track down a few really nasty trolls. Using my site meter, she had them (particularly ONE, using multiple names) identified by name, address and phone number. I am absoultely amazed by what she did. We can prove that those assholes WROTE the shit they posted, too. I believe that some of that crap falls under libel or slander laws. "A reckless disregard of the truth" coupled with "malicious intent?" I wanna sue them. I've got enough money to do it, too. I say go for it. Those fucks probably don't have a pot to piss in, but I don't mind spending money to make sure they NEVER have a pot to piss in, ever again. Hell. I may make internet history. It's about time somebody did.
good questionTry this on for size: ANY attention is GOOD attention on a blog. Why is what I do so difficult for some people to understand? I've BEEN offered money for ads on this blog. I turned them down. I'm not starving to death and I'd feel like a whore for doing that. I write what I want to when I want to and I'm not trying to sell you a got-dam thing except what I write. And THAT'S free! Why do I do it? The best reason in the world. I WANT TO! Nobody pays me and nobody bosses me around. I am beholden to NOBODY for this site. That's a really strange concept for some people to grasp today.
just looking aroundJack fell down one day and poked a hole in the back of my Tacoma Papoose guitar. I think it sounds better now than it did before he broke it. I may try some nylon strings on it when I start recording. I tuned my old Guild to an open "D" today, and it sounds great when played with a slide. I can use that on a lot of songs. "D" is a very friendy key for my voice and for a mandolin. I put new strings on my Martin. Damn! That's the best-sounding guitar I ever listened to. It may not be the easiest to play, because I kept the action a little bit high for the sake of the sound, but that thing rings like no other guitar I ever heard. I can't figure out what to do with my 12-string guitar. I have some ideas, but I'll probably have to experiment for a while until I decide what to do. I usually keep it tuned two steps down (to avoid neck-stress) and play with a capo. I don't like the way it sounds noosed with a capo. I think I'll tune it up to concert pitch and just go from there. I need new strings on my autoharp. I'll be damned if I'm going to do that myself. You're talking SERIOUS work there, and I'm retired. I think I have a visit to Randy Wood in my immediate future. I am NOT a great banjo player, but I can fake it. I own a good one and I expect to incorporate that sound into my music. I'll make you THINK I'm good, even when I ain't. Percussion? No problem. I don't need drums. Finger-snaps, thigh-slaps, a tamborine and a couple of "egg rattlers" can handle that. Besides, drummers are just plain fucked-up to work with--- and I speak from working with a LOT of fucked-up musicians. (Sorry, jim, but that's been my experience.) So... what I intend to do, starting tomorrow, is record a bunch of MY songs and a few others that I really like. I'm going to play every instrument on the first few tracks, sing harmony with myself, then invite a few friends over to put icing on the cake. Sounds like a plan to me.
this must be troll dayI don't pay much attention to time anymore. I have ONE functioning clock in my house and it hangs next to my front door. That way, if I decide to go somewhere, I know what stores, banks and businesses are open. Otherwise, I could give a shit. I don't wear a wristwatch. In fact, the one the company gave me when I retired I sent to this guy in exchange for some good cigars. I think we were both happy with that deal. Yeah, I'm a lazy old Cracker who doesn't do much anymore. I don't go out of my way to bother anybody and my neighbors like me, because I help them when they need help but leave them alone otherwise. Still... today I have been called: "...mean drunk who spends his life blaming other people for his problems." "I thought it was just more vile, angry invective about nonsense floating in your head because you don't have enough dignity to get a job, a hobby, help somebody out." I'd be DELIGHTED to help that commenter out. If he were on fire, I'd piss on him. Maybe. I'm a mean, vile, drunken, angry man. It must be true. You read it on the internet, from a troll. Well, I'm just stinging all over from that tongue-lashing. I'm starting to believe that about 1/4 of the people who show up here every day come just for the purpose of telling me what a dickhead I am and how much they hate me. I don't mind. It generatres more traffic. What have I got now? 101,500 visits since I hit the TWO MILLION mark a few weeks ago? Y'all keep it up. ANY attention is GOOD attention on a blog.
it's here!All of my recording stuff arrived today! Okay, I lied about it being HERE. Willy has it, because I was away from the house most of the day and he couldn't get in touch with me. He's going to deliver it and help me set it up tomorrow. This stuff should be a lot of fun. I've already received calls and emails from musician friends who want to come over and record with me. That kind of response warms the cochlear regions of my heart. I'm not lying when I say I played professionally for a while, and I met a lot of GREAT musicians. It'll be sweet to get back together with those people and make some fresh music. In MY recording studio. The best thing of all is that most of them settled down the way I did. They won't break me by drinking beer that I pay for and I won't have to retrieve their instruments from the pawn shop anymore. Life is interesting...
being differentHere's my Quote of the Day, spoken by someone who would have joined the mob to burn a witch or attack Dr. Frankenstein's castle with torches and pitchforks. ""read recently that Michael Jackson's legal bills are well over ONE MILLION DOLLARS. He has to pay that, even though the state couldn't convict him."" You know the problem I have with that kind of thinking? If you don't, you don't know me very well. Is Michael Jackson a pedophile? I don't know, but I DO KNOW what he's guilty of. He's different. In fact, that crazy bastard is downright ALIEN if you look at what he's done to himself over the years. But that shit doesn't make him a criminal. People are always too eager to jump on ANYBODY who is "different." I know that fact because I've been different for my entire life. Individuals suffer when they don't join the mob. Think back to high school. You needed to wear the "right" clothes, hang around the "cool" people or face scorn and ostrascism. I tried that shit for a while, until I realized that MY worth wasn't what some fucking spoiled teenager said it was. Being different is no crime. But being different WILL bring you a lot of grief in life. Just try it and see if a mob doesn't come after you. They will. They always have, too. Just read history.
great songsIn memory of Elvis: 1) "Heartbreak Hotel." 2) "Jailhouse Rock." 3) "In the Ghetto." 4) "Kentucky Rain." 5) "My Way." 6) "Love Me Tender." 7) "You Ain't Nothin' But A Hound Dog." 8) "All Shook Up." 9) "Teddy Bear." 10) "Treat Me Nice." I could name a lot more, but that's plenty. I grew up listening to that music. My parents had parties on Saturday night, when they moved all the furniture off the dining room floor and danced to Elvis, The Coasters, Buddy Holly, Danny and the Juniors, The Everly Brothers, Johnny Mathis and a host of others, all played as 45 RPM records on an RCA Victrola. I sat on the stairs and watched while my folks had a good time. Occasionally, my Uncle Gene would slip me a sip of beer. I still remember that music and I still love it.
litigationI have a friend who once operated his own water treatment business. He knew his shit and he taught me most of what I know about boilers, heat exchangers, cooling towers, generators and turbines. He started out working as an operator for the TVA when he was 18 years old. He stoked those big-ass, coal-fired units and then became interested in water treatment. He left the TVA and went to work for Deerborne (which I believe was absorbed by Nalco a few years ago) and became a Regional Manager. He handled a LOT of water treatment. When he decided to start his own business, he quit his job and signed an agreement with Deerborne stating that he wouldn't steal any of their business for two years. He kept his end of that bargain. At then end of that two-year period, he started calling on some old clients. Where I worked was one of them. We opened up one of the boilers for an annual inspection and found the tubes completely fouled with calcium deposits, so bad that we had to hire Haliburton (yeah--- the same people who are responsible for the War in Iraq) to chemically clean the sumbitch before we dared light a fire in it again. We opened up another boiler and discovered the same thing. We fired Deerborne and hired my friend to handle our water treatment. What did Deerborne do? They SUED THE SHIT out of him. They didn't have a legal leg to stand on, but that didn't stop them. They had lawyers just hanging around all over the place. Give 'em something to do. This crap is what's wrong with our "justice" system today. After about four years, Deerborne dropped the ridiculous suit, but my friend was out nearly $50,000 in lawyer's fees by then. He had to pay to defend himself. I believe that we need a "loser pays" legal system in this country. If you sue somebody (or send someone to trial) and you don't win, YOU pick up the tab for everything. Fuck this crap of being able to break someone by hauling them into court, whether they deserve to be there or not. I read recently that Michael Jackson's legal bills are well over ONE MILLION DOLLARS. He has to pay that, even though the state couldn't convict him. That just ain't right in my mind. Of course, I have a very poor opinion of our legal system. I've had to pay my ex-wife's attorney too many times.
i forgot about itI should have blogged about this, but I forgot all about it. I remember exactly where I was 28 years ago when Elvis died. I was in Jamaica with a girl named Cheryl. We heard the news over the radio at Rick's Bar on the cliffs outside Negril. That news depressed the hell out of me. Elvis was an icon of rock & roll, and falling off a toilet with a heart attack was an ignominious way for "The King" to die. Even though he became a drugged-out parody of himself by the end of his career, he had a BIG influence on music. My mama worshipped him. Hell... I did, too. Elvis never recorded a song he wrote himself. I don't think he knew more than three or four chords on a guitar. But he could sing ANYTHING and make it sound good. Plus, he had the kind of handsome looks that drove wimmen to wet their panties. I should have remembered the anniversary of his death.
August 16, 2005for the recordListen, assholes. My daughter DID NOT murder anybody. My daughter WAS NOT murdered herself. She is, however, involved in the aftermath of somebody else's foolish actions, because she cares about the family involved. She's trying to help and she took down her blog to make a lawyer happy. So... please stop sending me idiotic emails asking about shit you don't know because you're too fucking lazy to find the facts for yourself. Bejus. What's with some of you people? Goddam assholes. I'll bet you vote, too, don'tcha? (UPDATE: just for all of you "National Enquirer" rubbernecks. My daughter would NEVER stab you with a knife. She owns a nice .38 pistol and she knows how to shoot it. And even at her age, she's smart enough to know that you NEVER bring a knife to a gunfight.) (Update II: I am proud of my daughter. I am proud to say that, too. I just don't want to see her quit blogging)
your way onlyWhen I was married to Jennifer, she often said that she could never forgive lying or having an affair, and that seemed like a fair deal to me. I had nothing to lie about and I didn't want any other woman. She turned around and did BOTH to me. We were on the family vacation at Clarke Hill Lake in July of 2001. I KNEW something was wrong, so I asked her straight out about it. I remember her exact words: "Nothing has changed, Rob." Of course, she was having an affair with an unemployed dope-smoker at the time and she already had divorce plans in the works, but to HER, she didn't tell a lie. "Nothing has changed" meant that her plans didn't, she was going to fuck me over to a fare-thee-well, but she didn't lie to me. My ass, she didn't. One of the biggest surprises of my life was going to divorce court the first time and discovering that what Jennifer did meant nothing. She lied to you? She's fucking another man and even moved him into YOUR house? They grope like wild minks in front of your friends? You had prostate cancer while this was happening? Tough shit, boy. You'd better get as much joint property as you can, but you'll end up giving it all back to her in child support, over time, because that's how the system works. Now, just shut up and sign the papers. This is the best deal you're gonna get. That's how it works, too.
riskOne of the few wimmen I ever knew in my life who WASN'T afraid of "risk" was my mama. It took a lot to scare her. Even terminal cancer didn't frighten her. Risk? She married a coal miner. She never hyperventilated and developed the vapors, even after having a son such as ME. What is it about wimmen and this "risk" thing? Go back and google Al Gore's speeches from the 2000 election. See how many times he worked the word "risk" or "risky" into his speeches. Know why? It was to court the female vote. The plan worked, too. He didn't win the election, but he got 55% of the female vote. Got-dam! That's pathetic, in MY humble opinion. Wimmen fear risk. Tell 'em something is "dangerous," and most of 'em will believe you and piss their panties. The hormones kick in and their brain goes away. DANGER??? Gotta STOP THAT!!! It's risky!!! Sweet Bejus. Getting out of bed every day is risky. Taking a shower is risky. Driving a car is risky. Of course, growing a 200-pound ass that won't fit through a normal door is risky, too, but wimmen seem to have no trouble doing THAT. I guess the ass is behind 'em so they don't mind 'em. It's those cigarettes 25' away that bother them. Wimmen. If they didn't have a pussy, there'd be a bounty on those idiots.
an ass-whuppin'I got the living shit beat out of me one night when I was young and dumb. I went down to a bar called "Tom's Warehouse," where they served cold beer and free roasted peanuts. You ate the peanuts and threw the shells on the floor. The place crunched everywhere you walked, even the bathrooms. I met a couple of "friends" there one night and we were having a good time until one of my "buddies" started a quarrel with three guys at a table next to us. I don't even recall what it was about, but it reached the "Let's go outside to the parking lot" stage. The three strangers got up and walked outside. I didn't want to go. I was feeling mellow and I didn't want to fight anybody. But my "friends" shamed me into it by saying that three-against-two wouldn't be a fair fight and that I should go with them just to even the numbers. Like a complete dumbass, I went. I also made the mistake of being the first one out the door. I was looking over my shoulder, telling my "buddies" that I didn't think this was a good idea, when I turned around to see a fist coming right at my nose. The world exploded, I hit the ground, and the last sight I saw was Wally and Stinker running like hell. Bastards. THEY picked the fight, then ran off and left ME with three very angry people pounding on me. I was punched. I was kicked. I covered up my head and my nutsack as best I could and tried to crawl under a car. Those guys dragged me out and beat on me some more. They whipped my ass and left me lying on that asphalt parking lot in a bloody heap. After THEY left, I gradually took an inventory. I could still see, although my vison was blurred. I could move my fingers and toes. My ribs didn't feel good, but I could still breathe. I managed to crawl to my car and drive home. I tried to take a shower to wash the blood offa me, but the water pounded too severely on the knots on my head for me to take much of that. I had two black eyes and bruises all over me, some of them showing treadmarks from the shoes those guys wore. I was lucky that I wasn't killed that night. I pissed blood for a while. I healed fairly quickly back in those days, so I was okay after about a week of misery. I went looking for Wally and Stinker after that, but they did a good job of avoiding me. I couldn't find them anywhere. I was carrying a sawed-off baseball bat at the time. I owed them some payback. Those fuckers hid from me for two years. In the end, I learned a valuable lesson from that night. If you want to pick a fight, YOU fight it. Leave ME out of it. And know who your REAL friends are.
can't find it in the newsWilly called me today and said that my recording equipment should arrive tomorrow. He wasn't able to fix the tailpiece on my banjo, so he took it to Randy Wood to get the job done right. While he was at Randy's shop, the phone rang. Somebody called to let Randy know that Vasser Clemmens is dead. You may not know who Vassar Clemmens is, but I do. He is one of the best bluegrass fiddle-players who ever lived. I may be announcing his demise too soon, because I can't find a mention of it in the news yet, but I'm just reporting what Willy told me. If it's true--- there goes another great one.
my, my!Can you serve divorce papers on a non-flying dingbat? I know that it's poor sportsmanship to shoot a bird on the ground, but I'm NOT sure that dingbats deserve the same respect. I say get them when you can. You GO, girl! Go away.
happy birthday!Go wish this guy a happy birthday. He once toted me down the street in Helen, Georgia, when I was having trouble negotiating the sidewalk, due to spending all morning in "The Troll" bar while drinking a serious amount of beer and watching my beloved Jawja Bulldogs play a football game. This is one spooky fellow--- he's BIG and he can mix drinks that'll knock your dick in your watchpocket, even if you're a woman. He also looks pretty good in that pimp-hat on his main page. Happy Birthday, Dax!
whooo-hooo!Got-dam! this writer got cranked up to a rant on a subject I've mentioned before. Yeah, I grew up in the South. I saw segregation and separate bathrooms. I saw a lot of things that I thought were just plain WRONG! But today? All a black person has to do is get an education and develop a work ethic. Doors are held open for you. Opportunity is dangled in front of your face. The world is your oyster, if you have the wherewithall to grab it. But too many of them would rather wear baggy pants hanging to their knees, speak in Ebonics, drop out of school and end up in jail. Then bitch when they don't win "life's lottery." People--- you have a big hand in making your own fate in this world. When you fuck-up that chance, don't blame somebody else for your grief. YOU did it. Accept the responsibility. Forget that silly idea. We've got an entire industry called the Democratic Party dedicated to telling you that NOTHING is YOUR fault anymore. All you really need is more government. If you swallow that shit, you deserve to choke.
August 15, 2005anti smoking incidentThis is a true story. I had a couple of friends come over to my house one day to eat supper with me. (Well--- the guy was my friend and I didn't really know his new wife.) While the meal was cooking, I lit a cigarette. This woman snatched it out of my hand and stubbed it out in an ashtray. "You're trying to KILL me," she announced. I got up from the sofa and walked to my front door. I opened it and said, "Get out. Both of you... right NOW! Get the fuck outta my house!" Bill said, "Rob, she just doesn't like cigarettes." That pussy-whipped bastard was defending her behavior. All she had to do was ask me not to smoke and I wouldn't have done it around her delicate ass. I had a good meal almost ready to eat at the time. But SHE didn't ask. She snatched a cigarette out of MY hand in MY house and gave me a blast of typical woman pussy juice for daring to light one up around her. I kicked both of them out of the house and ate that meal by myself. I smoked a cigarette afterward, too. I never invited either one of them over again. I could tell you a story about how THAT relationship ended up, but I'll let you use your imagination. I'll just say that there's more than one bloodless cunt in the world. I just have one request. Have the fucking manners to ask me NOT to smoke around you if you're in fear of your life. I won't smoke. It's as simple as that. But DO NOT snatch a cigarette out of my hand in my own home, and DO NOT advocate idiotic anti-smoking laws. Get your head out of your rectum and realize where this kind of thinking leads in the long run. Do you have a fat ass? That offends me and something needs to be done about it. You need to be dragged off for government liposuction! And it's all for your own good (and For The Children, of course.) Some people just can't handle freedom.
interesting...I should get all my recording equipment sometime this week. If I decide to put my songs on the internet, can I get paid for it? I'm just asking.
my aching assThis shit-drivel is what passes for "wisdom" today. And YEAH! I AM in a crappy mood. But this is an example of incredible stupidity: A year in prison is insane by the way but I say fine the hell out of em. Pamela, I MEAN to insult you when I say that you have the brain of a chicken. You are a dumb-fuck of a woman. People like YOU are what's wrong with this country today. Somebody smoking a cigraette 25 feet away from you is endangering your health? You're out of your fucking mind. Look up the word "freedom" in the dictionary. Never mind. Don't bother. It wouldn't make any sense to YOU anyway. But that's what wimmen typically do. They get all hormonal, develop the vapors and hyperventilate when they see something they don't like, no matter HOW fucking crazy it may seem to innocent bystanders. Second-hand smoke is NOT a health hazard. A lot of government-types have tried to prove that it IS, as a way to justify more intrusion into the "rights" we have as Americans, but they've never been able to do so. That's because the proof doesn't exist. The facts don't stop YOU, though, do they? Government LOVES people like you. Just say "Baaaa" and join the line of sheeple. It's for your own "safety." Got-dam! The day somebody demands that I behave like Pamala is the day some government troop is gonna have to shoot me in the back as I run away. And THEN they can pry my cigarettes from my cold, dead hand. You dumb-fuck cunts never should have been allowed to vote. Why don't YOU go stand in a ditch along with that Cindy-what's-her-ass maniac. You'd make a good couple. Bejus! The 19th amendment was a bad idea.
quote of the dayThis is from one of my trolls who claims to be working on a PhD in history now: "I admit I know nothing about the cotton tarrif. Give me a gun...." Bejus! That's one "educated" person, isn't it? I'd be happy to hand her a gun if she'd shoot her ignorant self with it. But she'd probably miss. I don't trust people like Beth with guns. You don't have to go to college or "work on a PhD" to learn history. Just read. It's all out there for you to absorb by yourself. Try these books: 1) The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire. Probably too long for Beth's short attention span, since she's so busy working on another degree now, but it proves my idea about human nature. 2) The Iron Mistress. That's historical fiction about Jim Bowie. Some ellaboration, but damned accurate over all. 3) Abraham Lincoln. I think William Safire wrote that book and I found it fascinating. It's WAAAY too thick for Beth to read. 4) The Blue and the Gray. Don't talk to me about the Civil war until you've read both volumes. Some of the best entries in those books were written by wimmen at home while their husbands were gone to war. Talk about steel magnolias... 5) The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. That's another one I'll bet "Beth" never read. It's too thick for her. That book is difficult to plow through, but it's worth the effort. It shows you how Hitler was able to do what he did. 6) <Inside the Third Reich. I've always thought Albert Speer was an interesting man. I think he was willing to do ANYTHING Hitler asked him to do during WWII, then he spent the rest of his life trying to revise his role in history. His Spandau Diaries are a perfect example of that fact. (Yes, Beth... I read those too.) 7) I by Jan Creamer. A damn entertaing book about a Dutch artist who scammed the entire world. 8) The Longest Day. Cornelius Ryan wrote that book and it is a very good account of the D-Day invasion of France. Beth probably saw the movie but never read the book. That's how you get a PhD in history TODAY. 9) Midway. Cornelius Ryan wrote that one, too, and it is excellent. Out-gunned and out-manned, the US Navy turned the tide of the war against the Japansese in that battle. Amazing stuff. 10) In Cold Blood. Yeah, I know Truman Capote wrote the book, but it's a good story about a couple of worthless criminals who committed a senseless crime and paid for it with their lives. I just wish more of those bastards suffered the same fate. I could list a few more, because I am a prolific reader. I especially enjoy reading history. Just hand The Jim Thorpe Story to your son and see if HE doesn't like reading about one of the best natural athletes who ever lived. Beth, when you get your Doctorate in History, get back in touch with me. You might be able to teach me something, and I'm always willing to learn. BWHAHAHA! I don't believe that you've ever read a book in your life!
more insanityBejus! Every time I think the world can't get any crazier (or that government has enough foot-pressure on your neck already) I read something like this. The stupidity never stops. Smokers beware: Puffing within 25 feet of the door of a publicly used building, a park or in other public spaces could cost you $500 or a year in prison. Stop and think about that "law" for a moment. Cigarettes are a legal product, heavily taxed to the tune of BILLIONS OF DOLLARS by states and the federal government. Those same assholes performed one of the most blatant and obvious Mafia-like extortion schemes EVER with the infamous "tobacco settlement" that reaped governments even MORE money, by doing something that would get a Mafia Don locked up in prison under RICO charges. A $500 fine and maybe a year in prison for smoking a cigarette? That's outrageous. That's insane. That's the height of stupidity. That's government. "You can smoke -- with limitations. You can drink -- with limitations. You just can't go wild," said Councilwoman Lorri Burgess, one of those pushing the law that would ban smoking in many public places or within 25 feet of a doorway of a publicly used building. Just who in the hell is "going wild" here, Lorri? I think it's YOU, you fucking Nazi. I'm all for "limitations" on bad behavior. I just wish that more were put on flaming assholes such as YOU. I love my country. But more and more, I despise my government.
rock shrimpI buy rock shrimp whenever I can find them. They are like a combination of crawfish and lobster. They have a VERY thick shell and they are difficult to peel. They are considered to be "junk" by most commercial shrimpers. But if you peel the shells off those bastards (you WILL receive some wounds doing that), soak them in butter and garlic, then bake them in the stove, with some Old Savannah Seafood Seasoning sprinkled on top. you'll have a delicious meal. But if you don't eat them right away, they start to smell like bad pussy in a couple of hours. I like rock shrimp better than bad pussy, but I've never had either one that was REALLY bad.
seems clear to meA lot of people simply DO NOT read history. A lot of them are spoon-fed leftist or "politically correct" cant and that's all they know. They are either too lazy or too fucking dumb to go read about what actually happened in the past. History fascinates me, because people haven't changed in 10,000 years. TIMES and TECHNOLOGY have changed, but people haven't. The same things motivate people today that motivated a cave-man: Money, sex and power. I honestly ask you to find ANY significant piece of history that can't be traced to those three things. The Civil War was no different. Yeah, it's politically correct today to say the war was fought to end slavery, but that's not true. Very few Southerners owned slaves. Most of 'em lived a hard-scrabble life trying to make a living off a dirt farm. They damn sure didn't go to war to protect some plantation owner's right to own his "nigras." The abolitionists and the "fire-eaters" were out there, but they were a mouthy minority. A lot like some leftist assholes today, who blame every problem blacks have on racism, no matter what the actual evidence shows. The "black community" has a lot of problems. But a legacy of slavery is NOT the root cause of that. You don't end up with a 70% illegitimate birth rate and 50% of the prison population because your great-grandfather was a slave. Somebody made some personal choices along the way. The choices were the wrong ones, but we don't dare say that today for fear of being branded a racist. I'd like to ask my darling troll, BETH, who seems to have a Master's Degree in everything, to explain the impact of the cotton tariff on the South right before the Civil War. That may not have involved sex, but it surely was about money and power. Cotton in the South wasn't called "King Cotton" for nothing. It was the life-blood of the Southern economy. Northern politicians decided that they could dictate what a bale of cotton should cost and the federal government could take a slice of that money right off the top. Southerners didn't like that idea. There's a great, two-volume book that you can buy at historical museums (it's on display at Fort Pulaski) called The Blue and the Gray. I recommend that ANYBODY with an interest in history read both books. It's a compilation of diary entries, old letters written to loved ones, and journals written by people who FOUGHT in that war. You want to know the strangest thing? Almost NOBODY mentions slavery in their writing. States rights and the Union are mentioned frequently. Love of country and state is very evident (you have to understand--- we were only 60-odd years from the American Revolution at the time). The South fought for their "rights." The yankees fought to subject Southerners to a federal government. I'm being simplistic here, but you have to understand one thing. A LOT of those soldiers in the war had fathers who fought the British for independence. They simply disagreed about rights. Slavery was a minor side-issue. And anyone who says differently is a fucking liar.
tiger ridgeI've been there a few times. Tiger Ridge is famous in Georgia for being the most inbred place on the planet since the French kings of the 1700s. I received THIS in an email today: The Tiger Ridgers tend to be either Edwards or Atchleys, from what a few who hail from there tell me. I'm doing a research on them for my master's thesis. Wanna help the guy out? I have his email address.
August 14, 2005more on bloggingI became friends with a lot of "Army Brats" during my youth. They never stayed in one place very long and I often cried to see them go. Those were my friends, moving away. But that's what daddy's job demanded, so that's what they did. I always felt more lucky than they were. My folks made the big jump from the hollows of Harlan County, Kentucky to Savannah, Georgia, but once we got here we put down roots and intended to stay. THIS was my home now, and it has been for more than 40 years. I learned to like it here. I like it a lot. To this day, I still feel sympathy for the "Army Brats" who have to move every two years or so. That's not an easy life for a kid. Going from Kentucky to Savannah was pretty traumatic for me, and I had to do that only once. That's why I liked reading this: Knowing someone cares, or at least finds me slightly entertaining, is pretty cool. I was an only child who moved A LOT, making it hard to make friends. My friends as a kid were books and my poetry. Now--- her friend is her blog and the people she meets there. I don't see anything wrong with that. She's okay in my book. She doesn't get sanctimonious and claim to be writing "only for herself." If you blog and DON'T want people to read you, why the hell do you bother to write? Still, I consider myself lucky to have stayed in the same place for a long time. It's better than moving every two years. Now, when I move it's because an ex-wife took my house.
great songwritersI like what I like. I've written about 50 songs that I still remember how to play, and some of them ain't bad. But I can't hold a candle to these guys. #1) John Prine. He makes it SEEM so simple, when it's not. #2) Bob Dylan. A true wordsmith. I still play his stuff all the time. #3) Paul Simon. Bejus! His body of work covers it all. #4) James Taylor. From "Fire and Rain" to "Millworker," he's managed to impress me. Plus he has a very unusual style when he finger-picks a guitar. #5) Willie Nelson. "Crazy" still breaks my heart. #6) Stephen Stills. All the way from "Bluebird" to "Love the One You're With," he's been damn good for a long time. "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" just may be the best song I ever heard. #8) Hank Williams. What can I say? I can't leave him off this list. "So Lonesome I Could Cry" still makes ME cry today. #9) Joni Mitchell. I cannot write if I have her music playing on my stereo. I get so carried away listening to the words that I can't think straight on my own. I will admit one thing--- one of the biggest disappointments in my life was seeing her in concert. She was fucked-up when she came on stage and she passed out on her piano about halfway through her opening set. But I also got to see Leo Kottke that night, so I came out okay. #10) Mac McAnally. A lot of people never heard of this guy, but he's been writing good songs for years. Check the liner notes on your CDs. You'll probably find a Mac McAnally song in there somewhere. I first started listening to his music when he was 19 years old and I couldn't believe the maturity of his songs. Recondo 32 and Georgia turned me on to him after they saw him play one night on River Street. He's damn good. Barney sat on the gossip bench, he said "I barbecued a dog... That's the kind of words Mac writes. Maybe you have to hear it to appreciate it. I do. I appreciate ALL of those songwriters. (UPDATE: I should be dragged off and shot for not putting Roger Miller on that list!)
slaveryWe didn't need a Civil War to end slavery. That "institution" would have died of its own weight with the Industrial Revolution. Why house, clothe, feed and support 50 slaves when you can buy a combine to do their work in half the time? I live in farm country. NOBODY picks cotton by hand anymore. We still grow a lot of cotton in Georgia, but farmers have machines to plant it, weed it, fertilize it and harvest it (usually in THREE passes anymore. You get first cut, second cut and third cut.) I see that stuff baled in semi-trailer sizes all around the fields where I live. No human hand ever touched it except for loading the seeds in the planter. Some farmers pool their money and buy one of those nice machines and share it. Those fuckers are air-conditioned and have a GPS system on board so you know EXACTLY where you are on your property. You never miss a furrow, and when harvest time comes, you don't miss any of that, either. Nobody needs field hands for that kind of work. Migrant workers still pick Vidalea onions, but those Mexicans who once did that kind of work are getting into construction and opening grocery stores now. Machines are taking their jobs. Don't tell me that the Civil War was fought over slavery. It was part of the mix, but it WAS NOT the central cause.
read and enjoyI'll admit--- sometimes my comments are more interesting than my blog. You can see that fact right here. Let me attempt to explain what I meant in that post (I already know that the leftists lunatics won't understand, but maybe some of you other people will). My father and mother weren't old enough to become involved in WWII, but they participated in scrap metal drives, Victory Gardens and everything else they could do to help the war effort. My mama "adopted" a Marine and wrote him a letter every week until he was killed on Tarawa. She never met the boy, he never knew her, but I'll bet he enjoyed those letters. Mama cried when he died. Hillbillies are patriotic and they ain't afraid of a fight. Harlan County gave up more than its fair share of young men, both in WWII and Korea. And I wasn't kidding about everybody watching that black car come down the road, and waiting to see where it would stop. Everybody with a son in service prayed that it wouldn't stop HERE, but sometimes it did. When that happened, you handled it with as much dignity and grace as you could manage. What has happened to that kind of thinking? Maybe hillbillies were more accustomed to death than most folks, but this got-dam whining I hear today is intolerable to me. If we had listened to the voices of today's leftists in our past, we'd all be wiping milk-puke off our chins and speaking German. IF the Germans gave us any milk. War is NOT a pretty thing. But it's better to fight one and win than refuse to fight. I've not seen a damned thing in this life that came easy. If it was easy, any asshole could do it and it's not worth fighting for. But some things are. We're looking at that situation right now.
bearding the lionI'm going to do something I've never seen done on a blog before. I'm going to Fisk the Gettysburg Address. It is taught in school as one of the greatest speeches ever made, but I call bullshit on that. If you put it into historical context, it was a razzle-dazzle political smoke-screen worthy of Bill Clinton, or someone even more craven than he is. I am NOT a great admirer of Abraham Lincoln. I can understand a lot of what he did and why he did it, but that fact still doesn't make it right. Did he REALLY "preserve the Union," or did he demonstrate that the federal government was powerful enough to crush any opposition that dared to question its authority? Think about it. Lincoln didn't "free the slaves." In fact, he was quite the racist if you read what he really thought about negroes. He wanted them all packed up and shipped back to Africa. He believed that they were a sub-human race, incapable of being civilized. His Emancipation Proclamation freed slaves in the South only, which he had no authority to do but did anyway, hoping to stir up a slave rebellion as a weapon of war. The guy was a fucking politician. I can understand why Lincoln opposed the South leaving the Union, although I believe that the states had the right of secession. The South formed a very loose "Confederacy" and they wouldn't have lasted long as a nation without England or France getting a foot in the door on this contenent. I know why Lincoln didn't want that to happen on his watch. He saw bad things happening somewhere down the line. He thought it was worth fighting a long and bloody war to stop it. But I think the man is deified today FAR beyond who he really was. In MY humble opinion, Abe Lincoln was a master politician and a man who put his personal desires far above the US Constitution. He was President, and he didn't hesitate to preserve his power. Just read this and think. Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Yeah, except for slavery and treating wimmen as chattel. "Equal," my ass. And YOU showed that "liberty" was what the federal government said it was. More than 600,000 men died proving your point. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. YOU made sure we had no choice, Abe. I live in Georgia. People here still remember what Sherman did when his yankee ass came through. Did you enjoy receiving Savannah as a Christmas present? We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. A lot of people died so that Old Abe could have his way. I agree that it was "fitting and proper" to honor the dead soldiers, but they wouldn't be dead in the first place if Abe Lincoln hadn't decided that preserving his precious Union was worth any cost in life and limb. But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. Lying bastard. That last line SHOULD read: "This nation, without regard to what YOU think, will BECOME GOD, dictate every aspect of your life and even tell you how much water your toilet can flush, once we invent flush toilets. GOD--- excuse me... GOVERNMENT will tax everything you do, take your property if you don't pay and irritate the living shit out of you by being mostly incompentent in handling the "services" it is supposed to provide." Honest Abe? My ass. He shit all over the Constitution. Although Andersonville gets all the bad press, he allowed Elmira to exist, and there was NO fucking excuse for that. Confederate soldiers in the field didn't live much better than prisoners at Andersonville. But... at Elmira, the Union DELIBERATELY starved rebs in the middle of plenty. The guards were well-fed and fat, while the prisoners picked through horse shit, looking for corn. In case you don't know already, I'm NOT a big fan of Abraham Lincoln. I believe that his assassination hurt the South, but we never would have had Reconstruction if Abe had been as "honest" as he claimed to be. In MY humble opinion, he's the most over-rated President in history.
chickensI once owned a lot of chickens. I kept them in a coop and fed them every day. The hens gave me fresh eggs and I liked watching the roosters engage in their sexual antics. All chickens are sluts. But those are about the nastiest animals I've ever seen. A chicken will eat ANYTHING, no matter how rotten or disgusting it may appear to YOU. That's what chickens do. A neighbor of mine showed me how to skin a rooster. I sent Quinton out to feed the chickens one day and a one-eyed rooster attacked him and spurred the hell out of my boy. Quinton was only six years old at the time, and the rooster was getting the best of him. Quinton was screaming, so I ran to the coop outside and shot that rooster with a .22 pistol. He had NO EYES after that, the bastard. I cut his head and feet off. I cut him down the middle, pulled his guts out, rolled the skin off from the inside-out, which takes all the feathers with it, and I cooked the sumbitch for supper that night. He never spurred Quinton again. I left his feathers, guts, head, feet and hide in the coop. It was all gone the next day, except for a few stray feathers. His brothers and sisters devoured the rest of him. That's life on a farm.
Quote of the dayI've argued with sanctimonious bloggers who say they "write only for themselves." I call bullshit on that. If they were writing only for themselves, they wouldn't post it on the internet. They'd keep a diary and stuff it under the bed every night. Here's an honest blogger: This is an ego-driven blog, I write for me and you!critical section Anybody who says they DON'T do that is lying to you. You know the person who was most adamant about telling me that he wrote only for HIMSELF and nobody else? It was JB, back in the early days. If that's true, why does he troll MY blog today? JB, if you write only for yourself, why do you feel such an urge to share your idiot wind in MY comments? I make no bones about it. I've been an entertainer for most of my adult life and I LIKE an audience. I write because I have the urge, but I want to entertain YOU, too--- my beloved readers. This blog would be worthless if nobody read it. It's taken me a while, but I've managed to do okay with GUT RUMBLES. A LOT of people drop by every day. I'm proud of that fact. That's what I wanted to do when I started out. I NEVER lied about "writing only for myself."
this is whyI've never wanted to jump out of a perfectly good airplane, even though Recondo 32 has attempted to persuade me to do it many times in the past. Today, I'd probably shatter like delicate glass when I hit the ground, even if the chute worked. I don't know. Maybe I should try it. dying like this beats croaking in a hospital bed.
August 13, 2005smell the coffee... breakI've blogged numerous times before about what I think of unions. I can put it simply in two words: FUCK 'EM! They served their purpose long ago, before OSHA, the EEOC and federal labor law came along, but after that, unions mutated into greedy, selfish, lazy bastards who want top wages for no work and benefits that would embarrass a congressman. Unions ran the coal mines out of eastern Kentucky. They sent much of our steel business overseas. They continue to destroy American industry, so they moved down the food chain to organize government employees, teachers and service workers. Look around. See what good work they did? Government employees and teachers have never been better than they are now. Just look at the kids coming out of school today who can't read and write because their fucking TEACHERS CAN'T, EITHER. You've got unions to thank for that sad fact. Wanna know the Union Creed? It's this: 1) Why should I bust MY ass? I get paid by the hour. 2) They pay ME from the neck down. I ain't paid to think. 3) It's us versus them at work. You're either Company or Union, and we have NOTHING in common. Read this: BANKRUPTCY BOONDOGGLE Delta Airlines is setting up the financing it will need to declare bankruptcy. Unions have outlived their time. They make a few big-shots rich and cost everybody else a lot of money. They also insist on biting the hand that feeds them. Even a dog knows better than that. Unions don't. Dumb fucks. Don't say I didn't tell you so: Keep up your mindless "solidarity" and you'll union yourself right out of a job. It's happening more and more every day. (UPDATE: The union where I once worked can thank itself for costing about 500 people their jobs. The company told them that we couldn't compete in a tight market without higher standards of performance. The union (United Aerospace Workers and Machinists) told the company to go fuck itself. Guess where the dick went? Into their own goddam members is where. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you...)
i ain't dead yetHere is a thoughtful, damn good comment about a post I wrote earlier. No mama wants to outlive her son, but some lines should be drawn. I was thinking yesterday of the number of people I know from high school who were killed in car wrecks. It's really astounding when I contemplate it. About 25, out of a class of 400. SIX of them died at the same place, on "Dead Man's Curve" on LaRoache Avenue, just off Isle of Hope. Shit happens. You aren't born with a life-time guarantee. Lincoln used to hold a weekly audience to meet with citizens -- war widows / grieving mothers included. I wonder how many Cindys he had to endure. I would argue that there was a much larger percentage of mothers then who believed ending slavery in the US was not worth the sacrifice than there are mothers now who believe the propoganda this woman is spewing. Well... about 600,000 men died in the Civil War. We've lost less than 2,000 in combat in Iraq. You do the math. Plus... this guy wasn't a combat infantryman. He VOLUNTEERED to go rescue his buddies and went into harm's way by his own choice. That was an act of courage. He died, but that's better than hitting the oak tree on Dead Man's Curve in a car full of drunks. I think his mother is disgracing his memory. My only question is... why is this lunatic woman getting the publicity she's receiving? It couldn't be left-wing media, could it? We know from listening to Al Franken that no such thing exists. I wasn't alive at the time, but I heard my parents speak of it many times. During WWII, a lot of boys from Harlan County, Kentucky, enlisted in the military and went off to fight the Germans or the Japanese. Back then, there was one road in and one road out of Harlan. Every time a government car came down the road, people watched anxiously from their windows to see where it was going to stop to deliver the message that nobody wanted to hear. It was always a house with a star in the window. The mother wept, and people came over to deliver food and offer any help she might need. The minister came by to pray for her and ease her pain as best he could. But NOBODY stood in a fucking ditch and blamed Franklin Roosevelt for "killing" her son. And if anybody HAD done such a thing, nobody would have paid any attention, or they would have dragged them off and shot 'em. That woman didn't have the only son ever killed in a war. She's just got a really big mouth.
I'm ready to go--- anytimeI once took a lot of pride in my body. Even at the age of 50, I could walk young bucks into the ground on stairs. I was tough. I don't feel that way anymore. I can barely hobble to my mailbox and back every day. The vertigo is getting worse and I'm damn nearly afraid to drive a car anymore. The swelling in my feet came and went--- then it came back again. I can't put on a pair of shoes today. I hurt all over and I think I'm becoming dependent on pain medication to get me through a day. This ain't no fun at all. I can't walk down to the creek to shoot anymore. I can't make it there and back, even though it's a beautiful place. My mind still feels sharp, but my body is quitting on me. I ain't livin' long like this.
crawfishI called them "crawdaddies" when I was a boy, and I never ate one. I CAUGHT a lot of them in the canals around where I lived, but that was just sport, not for food. But--- things changed. I met some Cajun fuckers who cooked crawfish the way we do shrimp around Savannah--- in a big tub, outside, over an open fire. They dump the finished product on a table paved with old newspapers and you dig in. Crawfish is a lot like a shrimp, only different. Unique taste and very good. And YES!!!! I suck the heads. I can eat those things until my gut explodes.
weird dreamI dreamed last night that I was broke again. I didn't have enough money to pay my bills and everybody from the IRS to Jennifer was after me for cash. How was I gonna pay it all off THIS TIME, when I'm too sick to work anymore? I've done it twice, but I damn sure ain't the man I used to me. I don't think I could do that again. I woke up in a cold sweat. But it was just a dream. Thank Bejus. I'm never going to worry about money anymore. I think I have enough to last me the rest of my life, but if I don't, I'll just see if somebody knows how to squeeze blood out of a turnip. Nobody can take what I don't have. I've always believed in paying my own way. If I owed you, I paid you. One thing that stunned me about Jennifer after she cleaned me out was the fact that she had done the same thing once before with her FIRST husband. EXACTLY the same thing, except they didn't have a child together. Jennifer stayed married to him for eight years until he paid her way through college. Then, she got a job, bought a sports car and divorced his ass. She lived with ME for ten years, I paid her ass out of debt, she got a REALLY GOOD job, bought a sports car and divorced me. I see a pattern there. I once really sweated paying the bills when I was married. I felt an obligation to take care of my family, and I would work as long and as hard as it took to get that job done. I was bringing home the bacon. My loved ones depended on me. I found out how fucked-up I was with THAT attitude. I won't ever do it again. I'm old, I'm tired, and I'm not in good health. If I die owing you money, you're just gonna be fucked. The same way I've been, several different times. Hell--- in the big picture, nasty wins. It's beat ME every time I went up against it.
Southern injuriesI don't know if people outside the South experience things I did when I was a boy. I learned a lot of lessons the hard way about this shit. 1) Sand spurs. Those nasty bastards grow in BUSHELS around the beach and any kind of sandy soil. Step in a patch of them barefoot, and you WILL regret the experience. 2) "Seven Year Itch." That's a stinging nettle that grows around here and it'll go right through a pair of Levis. That sumbitch burns, itches and will cause you to break out in a bright red rash. It's like a jellyfish sting that comes from a plant. 3) Poison ivy. Any kid past the age of six should learn to recognize and STAY AWAY from that venemous plant. That sumbitch will make you wish you were never born if you get it all over you. That's nasty stuff. 4) Hornet's nests. They hang from trees and I've seen some as big as a watermelon. They usually have one sentry on patrol outside, circling around the hole at the bottom of the nest. DO NOT hit a hornet's nest with a stick or a rock. You may think you can run fast, but you ain't gonna outrun angry hornets when you piss them off. They'll tear your ass up. 5) Rock salt. A lot of farmers keep shotguns loaded with that stuff to run varmits away and keep horny boys such as I once was away from their daughters. Get shot with a dose of that and it won't kill you. But your ass will burn for a week. I could go on, but I'm hungry now. I want to eat something that's BAD for me.
an old picture
I still like this one. That's my daughter crabbing on my "honey hole" just outside of Bluffton, South Carolina. I took the picture while I was sitting on my ass in the shade of the bridge and letting Sam and Stacey do all the work. I was "supervising." Is that a pretty creek, or what? (I like the perfect reflection in the water that I caught. Two Sams in one!) At high tide, the water comes up several feet deep into the marsh. Just around the bend you see there is the May River, one of the prettiest deep-water salt rivers that you'll ever see. I've been skiing on the May River many a time. Bluffton earned its name because of the May River. Over time, that water carved its way into the banks and left a lot of high ground that is now a 15 to 20-foot drop down to the bank. I started going there when I was in high school and there wasn't shit anywhere, except for fishing shacks and old oak trees. Now, the yankees have moved in and million-dollar homes squat on the bluff above the river. To me--- they are an eyesore. But nothing ever stays the same forever, and if you have a million-dollar home on the May River, may Bejus bless you with a long life. Just don't call the law on me if I ride over and crab in your creeks.
the usualA lot of people talk about "Old Bay" for cooking seafood, but right here where I live is something better. It's called "Old Savannah Seafood Seasoning" and it's perfect for almost anything you want to cook. Just Damn! I thought I still had a tin of that stuff around the house, but I must have used the rest of what I had when I cooked shrimp the other night. I wanted to list the ingriedients. Don't matter. I can make something close to it myself. It's salt, ground red pepper, black pepper, celery salt, oregano, garlic, Cayenne pepper, terragon, and you throw some Worchestershire sauce in on top of that. Man! That will make your house smell like a good seafood restaurant. It also makes any kind of fish, shrimp or crab you cook taste delicious. Still... if you ever see a tin of "Old Savannah Seafood Seasoning" in the grocery store, buy it. It's the best out there. And if you like barbecue, try the Original Johnny Harris sauce in a bottle, or a pint of "B.S. Mutha's Home-Made Sauce." Both are great. Yeah. I live near a restaurant called "B.S Mutha's."
grabbing a blue crabThere is an art to picking up a live blue crab with your bare hand without being snagged by a claw. I dared this guy to tell how it's done, because he obviously knows something about blue crabs. I am waiting for a response. Let ME tell you how it's done. You've got to grab that rascal by his two back legs, pinch them together, and hold him (or HER) parallel to the ground. Those claws will come around reaching for you, but they can't hit the meat of your hand if you hold them by the back legs only. Let a finger slip under the belly, and you ain't gonna like what happens next. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
quote of the dayThis guy thinks a lot like I do (he's a pretty good guitar player, too!). I've always said that my blog is MY house. You are welcome to visit, but have the manners to behave when you're here. Don't shit on my floor and expect me to forgive you. I can do that---- but YOU can't. It's MY house. A few months back, a French troll called me a tyrant. He's right. I am a tyrant. This blog is not a democracy. I pay for the site. I pay for the bandwidth. I make the rules.grouchy old cripple That's right. Dammit, if trolls want to shit on the floor let them find their own house to do it in. I'll tell EVERYBODY who reads this blog the same thing: It's MY fucking party and I'll conduct it any way I want to. When the day comes that I ask YOU for money, I may consider your input. Until then, sit down and shut the fuck up. Help yourself to a beer. Enjoy the free ice cream. Just don't shit on my floor. Some people can't understand such a simple concept. Their mamas did a fine job raising them.
my kind of musicThis guy knows what he's talking about. He also has a beautiful picture of a mess of blue crabs before they're cooked. Crabbing is a lot of fun if you do it with chicken necks, twine and dip-nets. Throwing a trap off the dock is just too damned easy. He's right about something else, too. Stuff a bedroom slipper with crab meat and it would be good to eat.
August 12, 2005the woman is a foolI hate to say that about her, because I've seen too much death around me lately. But this woman is a fool. Grief is one thing. But making yourself some kind of martyr over it is ghoulish. I remember two of the most difficult days of my life. The first was my father's funeral and the second was my mama's. That included all the "visitation" and crap that went along with them. I grieved. I was heartbroken. I hurt from the depths of my soul. But I made up my mind that I would not cry, I would not display my grief and I would be as stoic as possible both times. I managed to do it. I cried later, but I did that by myself. Of course, both of my parents died of cancer, so I couldn't point an accusing finger at the President for "killing" them, but I personally think that this woman needs to shut the fuck up and go back home. Grieve with some dignity, for crying out loud. Bush did not kill her son. Her boy enlisted in the military and he knew the job was dangerous when he took it. But he did that of his own free will. He drew a bad hand in life's poker game. Should the US military be in Iraq? I think so, because I've always believed in taking the fight to the enemy before he brings it to you. And anybody who says that Saddam Hussein wasn't a threat to the US is full of shit. Saddam Hussein was a threat to the WORLD. Plus, we NEED a military presence in that festering pus-boil of the Middle East. (If you can't see that, you ain't much of a chess player.) Mutant Islamists hate our guts, they hated us BEFORE we invaded Iraq and they would come HERE to kill us if they could. (Hell--- they already have) I'd rather have well-armed, well-trained troops fighting them THERE than have them killing innocent civilians HERE. I'm sorry that the woman lost her son. But pitching this kind of hissy-fit won't bring him back. What does she want? NO MORE WAR!!! EVER!!! Sorry, but I believe that some things are worth fighting for. Iraq is one of them. Go home and shut up, woman. (UPDATE: I deleted all of PJ's idiotic comments, just as I will continue to do every time that bastard shows up here. I can put up with a few fools, but PJ is a true asshole.)
quintonThe little shit hasn't called me all week, so I called him tonight. I was surprised to catch him at home. I wanted to know how his first week in Middle School went. He says it's a piece of cake, but he has a lot of homework. He took some kind of test last Tuesday and got moved from regular classes into the "GS" Program, which is for "gifted students." That's where the really smart kids go, according to Quinton. He's proud of that, as well he should be. I have to admit one thing. His mama is an underhanded, lying, two-faced, greedy, adulterating bloodless cunt, but she ain't dumb. She is VERY intelligent, which is one of the things that attracted me to her. We made a very smart boy together. I just wish I could spend more time around him.
a rantSometimes I get cranked up and really think I'm blowing the doors off with a rant. But I know when I've been bested, and I bow humbly at the feet of a true master. this is a rant, and I agree with every word he wrote.
don't sell us shortOld men are smarter than some people think they are. An elderly man in Florida had owned a large farm for several years. He had a large pond in the back, fixed up nice; picnic tables, horseshoe courts, and some apple and peach trees. The pond was properly shaped and fixed up for swimming when it was built. (Thank you, Bob! I liked that one!)
Sad? I don't know...I once worked with a guy whose wife had a job in a nursing home on Tybee Island. this post made me remember some of the stories she told. One of her most difficult jobs was breaking up the fucking that went on among those demented oldsters. 90 year-old men and 80 year-old wimmen getting it on in a broom closet. Some guy in a wheelchair who couldn't recognize his own children anymore but damn sure liked having a woman sit on his lap, and he could find one willing to do it in the nursing home. With NO panties on. Remember the movie Coccoon? I don't think those old farts needed to be rejuvenated they way they were. Seems to me that nature takes your mind sooner than she takes away your urge to get laid. I hope I die in the middle of a good fuck.
i've hit it bigBWHAHAHAHAAA!!! When I start getting emails from somebody using the address "Acidmansucks" I KNOW how good I am. Glenn Reynolds, eat your heart out..
Crabs in a pot
This is what they look like when they're ready to pick.
picking crab meatI've been catching and eating Georgia (and South Carolina) blue crabs all of my adult life. (Taught my daughter and stacey how to do it, too.) There is a technique to getting the meat out of those critters, and I was taught to do it by an old black woman many years ago. Take the crab (COOKED!), peel off the top shell and scoop out all of the "dead man's fingers" (gills) on the inside. Also get rid of that yellow shit in there (although some people like to eat that, too). Break the crab in half, sideways. Crush the shell around the back leg and tug gently. You'll end up with a big chunk of beautifully white crab-meat that looks like a flower bouquet. Then, pull the other legs off one at a time and do the same thing. After finishing that, break the half-crab in half AGAIN, and get the meat out of the middle by pulling gently where the legs once were attached. That's a little more work, but it's well worth the effort. The claws are easy. Just break them off, grab them by the short part on the bottom of the claw, crack the shell, and drag the whole thing out in one piece. Get rid of that strip of cartiledge in the middle. I've picked many a crab in my life. Hell, I thought I was GOOD at it until I watched a show on TV one night about the wimmen who work in crab factories around Baltimore. BEJUS! Those wimmen work with little knives and can pick POUNDS of crab meat in 15 minutes. Watching THAT impressed the hell out of me. I'll never be THAT fast, but I don't do it for a living, either. Still... I could teach YOU how.
things I've heard but don't know from experienceI live around a lot of farmers. I like to talk with those grizzled old bastards, because some of them remind me of my grandfather. Here are some things they told me that I've never tried myself. 1) If you raise cattle, get a mule. Turn it out to graze with the cows. It'll take care of any predators that try to raid the farm. Mules become territorial, and they are real bad-asses in a fight. 2) Tobacco juice is not only good for relieving the sting of insect bites, but it is a VERY effective insecticide. Boil a bag of Levi Garret as if you were making tea and pour the juice all over your orchads or roses. Bugs won't touch 'em. 3) This one I DID try, and it works. If you want to keep deer out of your garden, put up a scarecrow and piss on it every day. Deer once raided my garden on a nightly basis until I started doing that. But the scent of human urine makes them wary, and they'll stay away. 4) Bees won't sting you once they become accustomed to you coming around. A LOT of farmers where I live keep bee-hives. They harvest the honey and sell it, but the main reason for keeping bees is to pollenate their fields. They tell me that they can walk right into a swarm around their bee-boxes, take the honey and the combs and never get stung. I wouldn't want to try that myself. 5) Kerosene cures mange on a dog. The dog doesn't like the application, but it works. 6) You can housebreak a pig. They are smarter than dogs. 7) Plant during the time of a full moon. Everything grows better if you plant it during a full moon. 8) Don't plant hot peppers next to anything that you don't want to be hot, too. Those old farmers tell me that you can produce hot ANYTHING if you plant hot peppers next to it. 9) You can tell if a pregnant woman is going to have a boy or a girl by seeing the way the baby is "carried." Boys hang low. Girls ride high. 10) Animals can tell when a storm is coming. If you see a blue sky and all the animals want to get back to the barn, they know something that YOU don't. Pay attention to them. I DEFINITELY believe #10, because my goats did the same thing.
see?This is what owning a cat will do for you. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Do you think a CAT would ever run into a burning building to save YOU? A good dog might, but a cat won't. Piss on cats.
August 11, 2005kosher pigmentWe made a food-grade pigment at the plant that went into a lot of foods and medicines. TiO2 is a brightening agent, so it makes cakes look more delicious, some pills easier to take and icing shine. We sold a lot of that stuff to a Jewish bakery in New York. I am NOT making this shit up. For a while, once every year the bakery that bought a lot of our product flew a bearded rabbi to Savannah so that he could "bless" our pigment and make it Kosher. I watched the guy do it a few times, right there in the warehouse. Times got hard later, and that's when I learned that a rabbi can declare pigment "Kosher" by telegram. Sure enough. They didn't fly the rabbi to Savannah anymore. Some kid showed up in a Western Union shirt and handed the shipping people a telegram pronouncing our pigment Kosher. We could ship it then. It was GOOD pigment, but it was the same stuff I made every day. Calling it "Kosher" didn't make it any different from anything else we put in a bag. Wanna bet? I'll bet YOU that you've eaten pigment I made, at least once or twice in your life. If you ever ate a cake, some M&Ms or took a white pill, you ate what I once made. Didn't kill ya, either, did I?
deviled crabFor yankees and inlanders who don't know what deviled crab is, I'm going to enlighten you. It's a damn fine, tasty meal. I catch my own crabs in the creek where they live, but you can buy crab meat, already cooked, in almost any grocery store. If you're using fresh crabs, boil them in a pot of water for 15 minutes on the stove with plenty of salt and seafood seasoning. Pick out the crab meat, put it in a bowl and throw away everything except the top shell on the crab. Mix one egg (maybe TWO if you had a good day crabbing) a splash of milk, some diced Videlia onion, maybe some diced bell pepper and a handful of cracker crumbs with the crab meat in the bowl. Stir it all up into a nice goo, while adding celery salt and some more seasoning. Pack the crab shells with the goo, put them on a baking sheet and pop them into the oven at 350 degrees. Bake until they are brown on top (usually about 15 to 20 minutes). You will NEVER taste anything better in your life if you like crab meat. (UPDATE: You can play with this recipe all you want to. Add diced celery. Tabasco Sause is good. Put anything in there that you like to eat--- just don't forget the egg and the cracker crumbs. That's what holds the whole thing together.)
you have been summoned!Okay, people--- de-link me! Jack has spoken, that witless turd. So let it be written-- so let it be done.
outrageous!I bought ten pounds of green peanuts at the grocery store today. I paid $1.40 a pound for them. They were good-looking peanuts, and I'm almost out in my freezer, but DAMN! $1.40 a POUND? I usually buy green peanuts by the bushel (50 pounds) for $35. Well... it was my choice to buy them or not. I also saw something else in the produce section that made me stop and think. They had "Personel Watermelons" for sale. Those little suckers were about the size of a soccer ball and priced at $1.99 each. I hefted one and put it back in the bin. "Personal Watermelon," my ass. What's next? "Designer Grapes?" Goddam yuppies. I did buy six ears of Silver Queen corn still in the shuck. They were three for a dollar and that ain't a bad deal for fresh corn, since I don't grow my own anymore. I'm going to eat that tonight, along with a special treat I also have. I went by the seafood market and bought two pounds of fresh shrimp and a couple of frozen deviled crabs. That's all cooking now, and I'm going to pig out. I also have a six-pack of Shiner Wheat beer that I purchased at Randall's today when I stopped by there for cigarettes. BWHAHAHAHAA!!! Sometimes, it's good to be me.
a reliefEvery time I start to think that MY mind wanders off in strange directions, I just have to go here to make myself feel sane again. That bastard is sicker than I am. Siamese Twin Sex. Bejus! But... I can't help imagining the possibilities...
the best shot I ever sawMy Uncle Gene was my father's younger brother. He was more than six years younger than my father and served in the 82nd Airborne in Korea. Near the end of his enlistment, he made a jump at night, got tangled up in another trooper's chute and they both fell like rocks to the ground. My uncle managed to land on top of the guy he became tangled with. He lived, with severe injuries, but the guy he rode down with died. Gene told me that the chutes caught just enough air to keep him from bashing his brains out when they hit the ground. He spent six months in Walter Reed hospital after that. His back and legs were never right again. But that sucker could shoot a rifle. He was the best shot I ever saw. Gene got out of the service, bought a brand-new 1958 Chevrolet and came back to Harlan to visit when I was a boy. We went to a turkey shoot one day and the sponsor finally ran Gene off because he never missed. We went out together one day and Gene said, "See that apple tree over yonder?" I followed his pointing finger and saw the tree, at least 100 yards away. Yep. I saw it. "Now, count up three limbs from the bottom. See that blossom hanging there?" I saw it. "Okay, watch this," he said, and picked that blossom off with one shot from a .22 rifle. He was good. He wasn't much like my father. He was short and stocky, like me, and his mama took him with her when her husband died and she dumped my father. Gene never spent much time around my dad unless he needed money. He was a hellion and he cut a wide swath through the wimmen, too. He had a boat called "The Blue Moon" and took me fishing many times. I once told my mama that I thought I was more like Uncle Gene than I was my father. She agreed, but told me that THAT was nothing to be proud of. Gene died in Las Vegas several years ago, on the run from the IRS and several ex-wives. I've got some cousins out there somewhere that I've never met. Hell, maybe even HE didn't know them. But he was the best rifle shot I ever saw.
a 'coon-dick boneHave you ever seen a coon dick bone? They exist, and Jerome gave me one to hang over my office door for good luck. Yes. When racoons have a "boner," they ain't kidding.
steel drumsI took a vacation to Saint Martin in April of 2001, shortly before the bloodless cunt dropped her bomb on my head. We went out to eat one night at an excellent restaurant. But even better than the food was the band playing there. Three guys--- one on electric guitar, one playing keyboard with bass pedals and one guy playing TWO steel drums. (Caribbean xylophones) They were damn good and the music was PERFECT for the atmosphere. When they took a break, I walked up to the stage, introduced myself, told them that I played some myself and threw some money in their tip-bucket. I asked to look at the steel drums and the player handed me his hammers. He let me bang on those things for a while. That's just about the most amazing musical instrument I've ever seen. It's nothing but a piece of metal, curved into a semi-circle, but it plays NOTES, depending on where you hit the drum. This guy played two because one was smaller for higher notes. I asked him how the hell he learned to play it and he said his father taught him. I can understand that, but it still amazes me how good a skilled player can make steel drums sound. I might get a wild hair some day and buy ME a set.
racoonsI didn't know until I stared working at the chemical plant just how popular 'coon-hunting is around here. Catfish can attest to this--- one guy we worked with at the Steam Plant had a champion coon-dog and he was paid $1,000 a pop, plus the pick of the litter to BREED that dog. (We told a joke--- on cold nights, Jerome brought the dog inside to sleep in his bed and threw his wife outside to sleep with the other dogs.) Racoons are smart animals. They'll drown a dog if they can get it into water. They'll push it's head under and hold it there until the dog stops struggling. Most of the time in the woods, racoons will run up a tree to hide. Those fuckers are better than squirrels at making themselves invisible. If you don't see that bandit face peeking around the trunk to look at you, you'll never even know that they are there. My problem with them is that they like to raid garbage cans and they carry rabies. I've shot several of them while the bastards CAME AFTER ME when I tried to run them off at night. I NEVER went outside on the mini-farm at night without a shotgun. I never knew what I might find. I've eaten racoon once in my life. It resembled a big rat, after it was skinned and cooked, and it tasted about like what I imagine rat-meat would be. I didn't want a second helping. I might try it again if I were on the verge of starvation, but no other way. I read once that you can trap a racoon by carving a hole in a tree and sticking a shiny dime in there where the coon can see it. The coon will reach in to grab the dime (they like shiny objects), then its fist is too big to come back out of the hole. The greedy bastard will hang onto the dime until you walk up and knock its brains out with a club. I've never SEEN that, but it makes sense to me. Makes more sense than $10,000 coon dogs and walking the woods at night to hunt those nasty critters.
geniusI've known two people in my life who totally astounded me with their intelligence. One was a friend of my brother. He was a sorta geeky guy, but he scored a perfect 1600 on the SAT, made straight-A grades all through school, was a national STAR student and ended up working for the government. He was a smart guy. But he had an AMAZING ability to solve word-puzzles. I've enjoyed crosswords and logic problems all my life, and I'm pretty good at solving them. I've just never seen anyone else who could do what he did. Ever seen those WORD SCRAMBLE puzzles? Those are 10 letters, all scrambled up that form a word when put in the right order. I watched that guy work an entire page of the "Expert" puzzles in about one minute. My jaw dropped. He looked at those letters and SAW the word in them. He could do it every time. He's also was the only person I ever saw pick up a Rubik's Cube for the first time and have it all figured out in five minutes. It was easy for him to do. The other guy is a friend of mine from high school. He was Captain of the Jenkins High Quiz Bowl team the year we won the state championship. He claimed that his area of expertise was "trivia." He was cursed with a lack of ambition. He flunked out of the University of Georgia because he seldom bothered to go to class, and ended up working as a projectionist at the "Paris Adult Theater" for a while. He never did get a degree. But he DID get into the auto parts business, made a killing, built his own home (I helped him some with that work) and retired at an earlier age than I did, in a nice place on a salt water creek. His garage is where my old band once practiced. I think they still play there today. I once thought I was a pretty smart fellow. But after meeting those two guys, I saw that I was wrong. I was "bright," but I was no genius. They were.
fakin' itI can tell the difference between a fake orgasm and a real one when I bed a woman. I've had a lot of practice at this. The moans and groans don't mean anything. Wimmen learn to do that stuff early in life just to make YOU feel good. (See the movie: When Harry Met Sally) But the REAL THING is easily discovered if you know what to look for. 1) She will blush red across her chest. Don't ask me why, but wimmen do that when they have an orgasm. 2) Muscular spasms. Maybe some wimmen can fake that, but not many. It's like an epleptic siezure with joy mixed in. That's when you just hold on and enjoy the ride. 3) Afterglow. A woman who feels royally fucked, after MULIIPLE ORGASMS, will cuddle and coo at you. You don't get that unless you pulled their bell rope well. Of course, I'm just making this shit up. I'm still a virgin.
trollsI am about to ban one. I don't mind when an asshole shows up here and wants to critize my political beliefs, my fascination with guns or my sex life. The prick can call ME anything he wants to. I don't care. But when he starts insulting MY MAMA, he's asking for trouble. A finer woman never lived, and any bastard low enough to go there must have been raised by a crack-addicted hooker. I pity someone with the morals of a snake, but they're out there. And the really weird thing is... they are PROUD of the way they are.
the old man and the seaI watched that movie yesterday, and it was damn good, starring Spencer Tracey. I read the story long ago and loved it. I think it was a piece of Hemmingway's finest work. The day I caught the 40-pound amberjack, I wrestled with that fucker for almost 30 minutes before I got him to the boat. I would tug and reel, then he'd take off again and make my drag spin with an evil hiss. I didn't know WHAT I had at the time, but I damn sure didn't want to let him go. By the time I landed that fish, my arms were weary and my hands were cramped from working the rod. I can only imagine what it must be like to catch a big marlin, when you spend HOURS trying to reel that bastard in. I don't know that I could do it today. But I'd sure like to try.
coyotesThe last time I was in North Georgia, somebody told be that coyotes were starting to become pestiferous. I've never seen one or even heard one howl at night. But this guy swore to me that wild coyotes raided chicken farms and even killed young calves on farms in that area. If anybody sees one, they shoot at it up there now. Do YOU have coyotes roaming in your area? The worst things I have to worry about where I live are rabid racoons, armadillios and rattlesnakes. I can handle those. But a pack of feral dogs... that's a different story.
August 10, 2005something else I've learnedWimmen who talk about being horny all the time aren't really good in bed. That's a fact. Oh, they'll spread their legs and fuck, but it's not good pussy. They just do it because... who the hell knows why. Have you ever been to an oyster roast and found ONE oyster among the bushel on the table that wasn't wide-open and ready to eat? ONE oyster that took some prying with a good knife to get into? Wasn't THAT ONE the sweetest you tasted that night? Wimmen are the same way. The ones you have to pry open are the sweetest. Those that lay there gapped are just like any other oyster. Can't tell one from another. THAT'S why I don't remember how many wimmen I've had sex with.
i'll bet you moneyI worked 24 years in a chemical plant. I was around and in charge of some highly dangerous shit. ONE careless mistake could kill a lot of people. I paid close attention to what I was doing and I wanted my operators to do the same thing. When you fuck up in a place like that, you're not just gambling with your own life. You're gambling with the lives of everybody around you AND the ones who respond to clean up your mess when the shit REALLY hits the fan And dickheads like PJ wonder why I fired some people. Just wait until this story comes to its grim conclusion. I can already tell you, from a LOT of experience, what caused it. ONE person fucked up. ONE person ignored the safety rules and decided to do it HIS way instead of the right way. ONE person thought that the rules applied to everyone except HIM, and if he violated them, he wouldn't be caught. He'd probably done it before and gotten away with it. Har-Har-Har! Ain't he one clever bastard? He doesn't look so smart to me anymore. THAT'S why you have supervisors in a chemical plant.
a romantic storyThe eventual marriage of my mother and father started with egg salad sandwiches. My father was a semi-orphan. His dad died when my father was 12 years old, and his mama flipped out, dropped him off with an aunt and uncle (who was a Baptist minister and a shitass), and left Dad to fend for himself while she ran off to God knows where. Dad had a hard time of it. In all the old pictures I have of him, he's skinny as a rail, but he WAS a strikingly handsome young man. In high school, Mama noticed that my father never ate lunch at school. In those days, you brought your own lunch or you didn't eat. Nobody made my dad a lunch. He didn't eat. Mama started making egg salad sandwiches--- one for her and one extra one--- and taking them to school. She walked up to my father one day and said, "I brought more than I can eat. Would you like an egg salad sandwich?" She started feeding my father every day after that, they became sweethearts and the rest is history. They're both dead now, but I still like to tell that story. I wouldn't be here today except for an egg salad sandwich.
Nice stormIt lasted only about 30 minutes, but it was intense. I sat in my garage and watched it. A tremedous bolt of lightning hit a pine tree behind my neighbor's house and it blew flaming limbs out of the tree and filled the air with the aroma of turpentine. I started to grab a fire extingusher and take care of it, but the rain put the fire out. Damn! That was a fine show. The power never even blinked, either. I probably ought to walk across the street and make sure that Sherry is okay. That was HER pine tree that got hit by the lightning. She may be cowering under a bed in a fetal position right now. I think I'll wait a little while and see if we have a Second Wave coming. I still don't like the look of that sky.
thunderstormsAnother one is about to roll over the Crackerbox shortly, because I see the clouds and hear the rumble. Damn! I LOVE IT when Mother Nature gets angry. Is it just ME, or do other people like to see violent weather? (I'm going to turn off the computer now. It's getting interesting outside,)
like being in the third worldOne thing I noticed when I took my Car Ride Across America was how I received a very nasty email from someone today, who called me a bigot, a racist, and all the other ya-da-da I get from those people. See? He has FAMILY living on a reservation! It's NOT their fault that they live there in ignorant, drunken squalor! It's SOMEHOW MY FAULT!!! Well... my heart bleeds for him. I was born in a coal mining camp in Harlan County, Kentucky. You want squalor? I've seen it. I've LIVED IT, even though I thought life was perfect at the time. Hell, I was a little boy. I didn't know any better. But my father and mother did, and they got themselves, me and my brother OUT of there. They took one hell of a risk doing it, but it was the best decision they ever made. Yeah. I had good parents. Don't piss and moan to ME about life on the reservation. Go tell your worthless kin to get outta there. Oh, excuse me. They GET PAID for staying there, don't they? SHIT! My bad. Who WOULDN'T live in squalor for a free check every month? That's the American way. Just ask Ted Kennedy.
A LOT OF PUSSYI like the comments my buddy catfish gets when he writes about his spectacular love-making abilities. I KNOW that he cut a wide swath in his younger days, but I still say that he can't hold a candle to ME. We're both broken-down old farts now, who would rather shoot guns off his back porch, eat shrimp and hunt gators in his creek than fuck anymore. But in our prime, we were damn good. When I was single and playing guitar for a living, I had sex with a LOT of wimmen. Sometimes two at a time. ONCE three at a time. Those were happy days for me. I once had sex with eight different wimmen in one week. I'd have one walking out the door while another one was walking in. I was known as a good lay, and wimmen swap that kind of information. They wanted to share and share alike. Strange thing... I've been married twice and I never cheated on either one of my wives. I made a committment and I stuck with it. That's just the way I am. I had pussy OFFERED to me in those days, but I never accepted it. I keep any deal I make. I can no longer say that about most people. When I left my first wife, I was broke. She cleaned me out and left me deeply in debt, ALL of which I had to pay off. But I always managed to scrounge up a couple of dollars to hit "Cookie's Down The Hatch" bar during Happy Hour. That's when the nurses from the hospital across the street got off work. Have you ever been to bed with a nurse? Got-Dam! They not only are as hot as a red pepper, they all give good back-rubs, too. They drink like fish and fuck like minks. I think that comes from working around dying people all the time. So... I cut another wide swath for a while. Then I started living with Dora. I was happy there, and she had a real sense of adventure. She was as kind to me as any woman has ever been, and she loved me. But I didn't love her back. I LIKED her a lot, but I just never had that one-ness feeling that I always had been looking for. Jennifer attacked after I had been living with Dora for more than a year. I went out on a date with her, fully intending to run her off and get rid of her. I already had a good woman. But my plans went astray. I fell in love with HER, in a way I had never felt before. I soon found myself having to make a choice (both Dora and Jennifer knew about the "other woman" in my life. I'm a storyteller, but I'm NOT a good liar.) I had to pick one or the other. I chose Jennifer. That turned out to be a poor decision, but I didn't think so at the time. I was IN LOVE, for the first time in my life. NO OTHER WOMAN (and I've had hundreds of them) ever touched me the way she did. I chalked it up to fate. I'd waited all of my life to find someone like her. I finally did. I wanted to grab it and growl. Jennifer and I lived in a dump for a while, paid ourselves out of debt, bought a house before we were married, and moved into it. It was a dump, too, but it had possibilities. We fixed the place up and had a pretty nice home after about six months of hard work. That's when I married her. That's ALSO when she said she wanted a baby. I wasn't for that idea at first, but you know how a man can become putty in a woman's hands. I loved her, I trusted her and I thought our shared DNA might produce something special. So... we tossed the birth-control pills and went on a sexual rampage to produce a child. We were successful about six months later. (Weird aside: the Savannah Seafood Festival was being held on River Street one weekend, and I rented us a room at the Hyatt Hotel, so we could eat seafood, drink beer and not have to drive anywhere. We had no more than checked into the room when Jennifer started her period, and she sat on the balcony and CRIED, because she didn't make a baby yet.) Eventually, practice made perfect, and that's how Quinton came into the world. He is a fine boy, too--- a son to make any father proud. But I'll tell you one thing now. If I had it all to do over again, I'd stick with Dora.
leftist thinkingMy father worked shiftwork most of his life on blue-collar jobs. He busted his ass. He never got rich, but he kept a roof over his family's head, clothes on our backs and food on the table. To this day, there is no man in this world I admire more than my father. But I get shit like this all the time: "...we visit your site to feel better about ourselves. There aren't too many dinosaurs like you left, guys who regard being a supervisor at a chemical plant as their greatest accomplishment (a normal person would view that plant as one of the lower levels of Hell) and then wonder why they got cancer." If visiting my site makes you feel better about yourself, I'm happy to provide that favor for you. Makes ME feel good. Of course, if that comment is from a "normal" person, I don't want to be like that. I love the implied science that my career in a chemical plant gave me prostate cancer. Typical Democrat or environmentalist thinking. I'll admit that my job WAS "hell" sometimes. I was on call 24-7 and the phone rang often in the middle of the night when the shit hit the fan. I was required to carry a beeper everywhere I went, and later a fucking cell phone, too. But that went with the turf. I knew the job was dangerous when I took it. I worked a lot of long hours, but I was paid good money to do it. Like my father, I kept a roof over my family's head, clothes on their backs and food on the table. I've never asked for a hand-out in my life and I never will. I've been broke, but I've never declared bankruptcy. Today, I am a fairly well-to-do man. I owe a few more years of payments on the Crackerbox, but that's the only debt I have, other than the child support I pay the bloodless cunt every month. I buy what I want when I see it. If I want to go to Costa Rica, I go. If I want a recording studio, I get one. How many of my trolls can say that? If that makes me a "dinosaur," then so be it. I did something most of them never did. Like my father, I WORKED my ass off.
shock and aweThis is high praise indeed, and I always love flattery. I knew when I started blogging that some people would like me and other people would hate me. I speak my mind, and some people just don't like that anymore. Fuck 'em. That's one reason I attract so many trolls. They can't STAND the idea that a Cracker such as myself can be successful in blogdom, writing the way I do. Well... that's THEIR tough shit, not mine. I yam what I yam.
August 09, 2005take a guessLet's see how old you are. These were famous tag-lines from commercials when I was a kid. What product were they advertising? *1) "Look, Ma! No Hands!" *2) "Take a puff. It's SPRINGTIME!" *3) "Its TWO! TWO! TWO mints in one!" *4) "Double your pleasure--- double your fun!" (I've done that a few times, but those stories are off-topic.) *5) "Bellyache? Just send SPEEDY to the rescue!" *6) "LS/MFT" *7) "I'm Gertie Smirtz. I iron shirts. I iron shirts 'till MY FINGERS HURT!" *8) "I'd walk a mile..." *9) "You're soaking your hands in dishwashing liquid???!!! What kind is it? *10) "You'll love to run you fingers through his hair." (Hint: a little dab will do you.) Young shits won't have a clue, but some of you old farts should remember this stuff.
i bought a nail gunI haven't figured out how to operate this fucker safely yet, nor do I have any idea what I'm going to do with it, but I now own a Dewalt Nail-Gun. I own a small air compressor, and if I pump this baby up, I think I might be able to hang shingles at a distance of 20 feet. Don't ask me why I bought it. It just seemed like a good idea at the time. It was a Home Depot Moment. One of these days, that rascal will come in handy for something, although right now I have no idea what that might be.
something i missMy mama made the best chicken and dumplings I ever tasted. She cut up a whole chicken and cooked it in a pot of water until it made the entire house smell of chicken broth. Then, she'd mix up some flour and water, with just a dab of buttermilk and lard, and hand-roll the dumplings on the kitchen counter. I used to like to eat the raw dough, but I liked the dumplings cooked even better. NOBODY else ever made dumplings like my mama did. I always ate at least three plates full when she made that delicacy. In fact, if she ever really wanted me to come for a visit, she'd call and say, "Why don't you come over? I've got a pot of chicken and dumplings on the stove." She knew I'd be there for that. I can come close to making them the way she did, but I don't think I'll ever master that recipe. My mama had magic hands when it came to cooking. I'm good myself, but I'll never be THAT good. Damn. I miss her. Quinton started middle school on Monday. I haven't heard from him for the past three days. Whatever generated the phone calls seems to have passed. I'm not surprised. Still, I really miss him, too. Willy called me today and said that it may be next week before I get my recording studio. It's all ordered and is being shipped--- but it may take a while to get here. I told him that it was okay with me. It'll get here when it gets here. I can wait. I don't miss what I've never had. But I DO miss things I once had.
i am an amazing manYou've gotta admit it. I attract some of the best trolls of any blog anywhere. These people fly down from the Constellation Feces and can't bear to miss a day without telling me how full of shit I am or how much they hate me. I kinda like that. ANY attention is GOOD attention. I especially like the ones who question my masculinity and brag about how much pussy they get. BWHAHAHAHAHAAA! Nobody who trolls a blog gets a lot of pussy. If you were getting a lot of pussy, you wouldn't be trolling my blog! I've HAD a lot of pussy! I know how this works. Wimmen like men who WRITE a blog, play guitar, feed them nice dinners and court and spark. They DO NOT like some pathetic cockroach who crawls around with a fake email address and thinks he's being "clever" when he trolls. Well, maybe he can get laid, too, but I wouldn't stick MY dick in the kind of woman HE attracts. I'll admit that my sex drive isn't what it once was. I don't feel the urge to put any more notches on my gunbelt. What for? I left that "trophy" thing in my rear-view a long time ago. I'd rather have a woman I could talk to than someone who wanted to fuck all the time. Of course, if you're a horny woman, you can have me while I'm sound asleep. Just pump up the bionic Roscoe and climb aboard. It'll last longer than YOU will--- just don't ask me to power it with my ass. Not anymore. I'm a tired old man.
quote of the dayJust when you start to believe that the world can't get any crazier than it already is, you run across a story such as this piece of lunacy. Sweet Bejus on a bicycle. I've WARNED you people that the nannys wouldn't stop with smoking bans and a war on junk food. They're going after TITS now!!! Oh... the HUMANITY. THE EU has declared a crackpot war on busty barmaids — by trying to ban them from wearing low-cut tops. Po-faced penpushers have deemed it a HEALTH HAZARD for bar girls to show too much cleavage. See? It's a HEALTH ISSUE!!! SKIN CANCER!!! We damn sure don't want to be spending taxpayer's money to cure titty-cancer when we could be poking it into Kofi Anon's pockets. Or whoever brain-farted this idiotic idea. Just damn! I thought Hillary Clinton was dangerous. She doesn't hold a candle when compared to the European Union.
why i quit drinking wineI once LOVED White Zinfandel, and I am such a heathen that I bought in in five-liter boxes. It was like having a wine-tap in my refrigerator. When I wanted a glass, it was there. I bought some really nice, impressive wine glasses, too. I haven't taken a drink of wine in more than six months now. I don't want it anymore, because it upsets my delicate belly. I once believed that wine was ESSENTIAL with good seafood or well-cooked chicken, but I don't now. I don't mind other people drinking it (my Mama never drank much, but she liked a glass of wine in the evenings) but it's just not for me anymore. I buy beer by the six-pack now instead of the case. That stuff may sit in my refrigerator for a couple of weeks before I drink it all. I want a beer ONLY on special occasions. Yesterday, I ate a bag full of Krystal cheeseburgers and a bowl of chili. THAT was a beer-worthy occasion. I drank my last Shiner Bock to wash the meal down. I haven't quit drinking, but I just don't like the stuff I once drank all the time anymore. Georgia was pissed at me when she and Recondo came over to the house a couple of days ago. I told her that I had some beer and she could help herself to what she wanted. She opened the refrigerator and pitched a hissy-fit. "Smith! This isn't BEER! You've got Shiner Bock, Red Stripe and Sam Adams! Where's the Busch you used to have?" I don't stock that shit anymore, and after a couple, even Georgia admitted that Shiner is damn good beer.
a bartending storyI think I blogged about this before, but if I did, it's buried deep in my archives. It's a story worth telling again. I was supposed to open the bar at 4:00 in the afternoon. I drove by the owner's house to pick up the keys and my $150 bank. I went to River Street, opened the bar, turned on all the lights, put my bank in the register, turned on the jukebox (we had special "house" quarters for that thing, just to make a little noise--- the quarters were dyed red and they stayed in a box next to the cash register), filled the ice bins and made sure the beer taps were primed and working. I left the front door propped open to maybe lure in a few early customers. I was behind the bar when I saw a silouette appear in the door. It was a man holding a very LARGE gun. I almost shit my pants. I KNEW that I was about to be robbed and killed for my $150 bank that wasn't even MY money. The guy walked up, laid a shotgun down on the bar and asked for a beer. I told him that I couldn't serve him if he was carrying a shotgun, and I ALSO told him that he scared the shit out of me walking in the way he did with that weapon. He laughed and said, "Ya'know... I didn't even think about that. I guess I DID look kinda scary, but I just bought this thing. Whadda ya think of it?" and he handed it to me. It was a very nice Remington 12-gauge pump. Not loaded. I handed it back to him and said, "Mister, I'll be more than happy to sell you all the beer you want to drink, but you've got to get that gun outta here." He went to the parking lot, put the shotgun in the trunk of his car and returned to the bar. "Can I get a beer now?" he asked. I poured him a beer, but my hands were still shaking. I thought I was gonna be killed that afternoon. At the age of 26, on a job that paid $1.20 an hour, for a $150 bank in the register. I didn't want to go in such a trivial fashion. He actually turned out to be a very pleasant fellow, and he left me a good tip. But he scared the living shit out of me when he walked in the door. The only thing we kept behind the bar to handle bad-asses was an empty Galliano bottle, and that ain't no match for a shotgun. Tend bar for a while and you'll have some stories to tell.
linkage for the hell of itHave you ever spilled (or lost) something in your car that started smelling like "watermelon in a pile of rotting cow shit?" I have. I feel her pain. Or maybe her husband's. Here's a damn good post about leadership. As PJ is so fond of reminding me, I never served in the military. But I held a job for a long time in a fairly dangerous place to work, and I had to make snap decisions that could have killed somebody if I fucked up. Sometimes, you have to go with your gut when the shit hits the fan. It ain't easy, and some people just can't do it. If you think those situations don't make your testicles hurt, you've never been in one. That's the difference between leaders and followers. Obviously, this guy doesn't know the difference between a "Trekkie" and a "Treckker.". Pitiful... Just pitiful. Are you hungry? Here's a pretty good food review. Hell, I may go try one of those today. Blessing and curses. somebody else has a problem with the names some parents give to their children. Bejus! Some people... Heh. I had forgotten about speargrass. Yeah, I fought many a battle with that stuff and got stuck on a few occasions, too. It must grow in Texas. Okay, that's it. I'm going out to buy a couple of chicken sandwiches.
good newsDiscovery made it back safe and sound. Good. Now, let's mothball the shuttle and get on with better things. We are capable of more than that. I won't live long enough to see it happen, because we've dragged our feet for too long, but man's destiny lies in outer space. Fuck this orbital stuff. We should have been looking at the moon and toward Mars years ago. We should be doing it now. We didn't stop building new cars after the Model-T Ford, so why are we still driving the technological equivalent of that vehicle into space today? I can't believe that we have so little imagination or ambition. We're better than this.
sex sellsYes, sex DOES sell, but I think this doesn't speak well for the state of American politics today. I'm all for tits and ass, but usually politicians want to BAN that stuff instead of use it in a campaign. Asked if he thought a risque event might offend some voters, Bernace said he wasn't concerned and suggested the event might help get young men interested in politics. It'll get young men interested in SOMETHING, but I'm not certain it will be politics.
August 08, 2005bartendingIn my younger days, in between guitar gigs, I tended bar to make a little money. Sometimes, I made more money tending bar than I did playing guitar. That's not a bad job, but sometimes you have to hustle your ass off. I learned very quickly that on those nights when I hustled my ass off, I didn't make much money. I was paid $1.20 per hour, plus tips. I made my money in tips. If the bar was crowded, the OWNER made money, but I didn't. He either stole the tips or I was too busy to notice whether someone left one or not. The "Semi-Busy" nights were a lot better. Then, I had time to talk to people and pay attention to their needs. A good bartender is a combination of friend, psychologist and interested ear for anyone who wants a drink. I got to know the "regulars," and when I saw them walk through the door, I'd have their usual waiting for them. I made a lot more money on those kinds of nights. Your ashtray stayed clean, your glass never went empty and I might even slip you "one on the house" from time to time. I took care of the good tippers. You wanna know the WORST people to bartend for? Black Wimmen. Got-Dam! Where did THEY ever learn to drink? They'd come into the bar wanting something with cream and five different sweet liquors in it. WTF is THAT? I had a Bartender's Guide behind the counter, but some of those orders just blew my mind. WHY would anybody want to drink that shit? Plus, I never understood how anybody can order top-shelf brandy at $5.00 a shot and want it mixed with shit under the bar that had mold growing on it. I didn't work at Baskin-Robbins. I poured beer and whiskey-- I didn't serve ice cream. But that's what some people seemed to want. I think everybody needs to tend bar for a while. It'll teach you a lot about the human race.
my new bathtub readI just finished a couple of other books and I've started this one now. It's by Jimmy Dean, and it's called "Thirty Years of Sausage and Fifty Years of Ham." So far, it ain't bad. I like to take a long, hot bath in the evening, and I read in the bathtub. Being retired and semi-rich, it's not like I have anything else to do. I just sit in the tub and read until I get pruney, while I nibble erotic fruits, drink a Shiner Bock and wait for the next "Gunsmoke" rerun to come on my television. It's a rough life, but somebody has to do it.
if you haven't, you should*1) Go crabbing. Catch a bunch of 'em, take them home, cook 'em and eat 'em. *2) Make a Low Country Boil and eat it outside on a picnic table with your friends. *3) Learn to throw a cast net. *4) Do some target shooting with your buddies. Argue about who is the best shot. Sit around, bitch and cuss and clean the guns when you're finished shooting. *5) Start a blog. It just might change your life. *6) Take a kid fishing. *7) Plant a garden. I'm not talking about a couple of tomato plants in pots. Till some ground. Work your fingers into it. Plant some stuff and watch it grow. Fight the bugs, the pests and the weather. Then pick your bounty when it's ripe and eat it all. That's the best food you'll ever taste. *8) Hug your mama the next chance you have. *9) Be loyal to your friends, but understand who they really are. I once thought I had a lot of friends. But as I grew older, I realized that I had a lot of aquaintences and very few friends. There's a big difference. Learn to tell them apart. *10) Have at least ONE DAMN GOOD DOG in your life. A good dog is one critter who loves you unconditionally, who will obey your commands and give up his life for you out of pure loyalty. Any boy who never has one is missing something important. No fucking cat will ever do what a dog will. Cats are aristocrats. Dogs are good ole boys. That's MY humble opinion.
why 90% of blogs are pure shitI want you to consider MOST SERIOUSLY the deep, philosophical thinking behind this comment: "Reality is not what we make it, but it is indeed made up of the sum of our choices. Can anybody in their right mind explain that quote to me? I'm serious. Oh, the words are pretty and they flow just fine, but they don't mean a got-dam thing. What is this "sum of our choices" crap? We didn't MAKE "reality" with those choices? You could sure fool me with that shit. You're goddam RIGHT that your choices become "reality," but that is no existential dilemma. That's what YOU MADE, through your own choices. I don't see anything "subtle" about it. Let me put the same idea in pure Cracker language. Actions have consequences. When you dance the wild jig, you pay the piper. If you fall out of a tree, you're gonna hit the ground. If you don't like heat, stay the fuck out of the kitchen. If you aren't certain that this is "reality," just take a hammer and bash the shit out of a finger. If that doesn't hurt, then it's not real. Otherwise, go back to writing for pre-pubescent girls, and wet their panties the way Rod McCuen did. Fuck me dead. If you can't run with the Tall Dogs, keep your puppy ass on the porch. If it was easy, any asshole could do it. Shit in one hand and wish in the other and see which hand fills up first. Don't write checks with your mouth that your ass can't cash. I suppose some people are too "sensitive" to understand those simple facts about life. But that's "reality" to me.
JawjaWhen I linked a post somewhere below about the great state of Georgia, I did it because I thought the observations were amusing and dangerously close to the truth. One thing I like most about the South is the fact that we red-necks and good ole boys can laugh at ourselves. We ARE better at that than most yankees are. But I want to correct the writer on one important historical detail. Savannah was the first settlement founded in Georgia (in 1733). and THIS STATEMENT IS NOT TRUE: "Georgia was originally populated by settlers from England and drunk people from Alabama who couldn't find their way home." Bullshit! Jawja was settled by a few aristocrats from England and all the trash they could persuade out of debtor's prisons to go to the New World rather than die miserably, chained in a dungeon. In almost 300 years of time, nothing has changed. We still have our aristocrats and our trash. I think I fall somewhere in the middle, but sometimes I identify a lot more with the "trash" than I do the aristocrats. I don't like "uppity" people. They'll ride right by with you broke down on the side of the road in the rain and not even wave at you. Good ole boys will stop to help. Changing a tire or fixing an engine problem for a damsel in distress is a vital part of Southern nature. I've done it many times myself, including ONCE when I had to crawl through a mud-hole to drag a woman's car out of a bog. That's what good ole boys do. My mama had flat tires TWICE after my father died, and she got a got volunteer good ole boy to change 'em, both times. When she tried to pay him, he wouldn't take any money. "No, ma'am," he said. "I just hope somebody would do this for MY mama if she needed help." Mom always said after that. "All I have to do is stand around and look pathetic. I'm a gray-headed old woman. Somebody will come to help me." She was correct. Down South, somebody WILL come to help you, just to do a good deed. We learn manners from an early age down here. And chivalry is NOT dead. Other people can make fun of us all they want to, but that doesn't change who we are. If you don't live Down South, you won't understand, and I pity you.
my celebrity friendYou need to go check this link and scroll down to the second picture. That scraggly-assed looking degenerate on the far right, holding the AGAINST sign, is Recondo 32, at a Vietnam Vets Against Kerry rally in Washington DC. (He's the "Rick Ellison, from Bluffton, South Carolina.") That man DOES NOT like John Kerry.
i can't argueI think this post pretty well pegs Jawja. I would mention chewing tobacco and guns, good dawgs and collard greens, pretty wimmen and fast cars, heavily armed pickup trucks and deer meat for supper, but I don't think he needs my help. He did a pretty good job on his own. Crackerland. No place I'd rather be.
you decideWhy do you voters in Massachusetts keep electing this bastard? LOOK at him, for crying out loud. He's the god-dam Picture of Dorian Gray. His ass belongs in jail instead of in the US Senate. Bejus. I've done some things in my life that weigh heavy on my conscience. But at least I HAVE A CONSCIENCE! I don't believe that the Fat Rich Kid does.
memory laneWanna take a stroll? Go here. BWHAHAHAHAHAAA!!! Got-dam! If I had a dollar for every time I passed out on the floor in a cloud of dope-smoke while listening to those albums, I'd have bushels of money today. I've read that your sense of SMELL is the one sense plugged most directly into the memory banks of the human brain. I disagree. I can listen to certain music and remember EXACTLY what I was doing and who I was with at the time. Smells have never done that for me. I'll tell you something else, too. I once took a bite of an oyster po'boy sandwich and remembered the first time I tasted one just as clearly as if I were back then again, doing the same thing. I closed my eyes and allowed that delightful flavor to wash over me. I remembered exactly where I was and who I was with the first time I tasted one of those sandwiches. It really was a kind of time warp. I just wish I could go back and do it all over again. I'm about outta gas nowdays.
home depotI was a big fan of "Home Improvement" when that show was on television. I could identify with Tim The Tool Man, because I'm just about as fucked-up as he was when it came to performing "projects" around the house. Still, I sometimes do them, whether they turn out right or not. It's a guy thing. That's why I like this quote: His eyes instantly glazed over , he was in full "going to Home Depot" mode. He bought some blower thingy to blow leaves or something in the yard. Muslims have Mecca, Jews and Christian make a pilgrimage to Israel, my husband's Nirvana is Home Depot...He is a charter member of the Most Sacred Church on High of Power Tools, he worships at the altar frequently, and yes, he is faithful about tithing. To hell with 10%, he gives 80%!! So, all is well, kids have school clothes and daddy has a brand new toy!! Damn...I'm good...LOL (stolen from here.) I KNOW that look! I get it myself every time I walk into a Home Depot store. That place is testosterone heaven. When I go to Wal-Mart or the grocery story, I know exactly what I want and I buy it, then I get the hell out of there. But I can graze like a cow in a Home Depot. What causes that? I look at some of those power tools and literally SALIVATE over them, even though I KNOW that if I bought one, I might use it just once and then store it in my garage until I'm dead. Hell, I even consider buying something I ALREADY HAVE when I'm in there. That's a dangerous place. I've displayed more self-control in a whorehouse, for crying out loud. I went to a whorehouse once and didn't buy anything. I don't think I've EVER done that at Home Depot.
good ideaWe don't get enough of this kind of reporting in the mainstream news. We should honor our heroes, not ignore them. I don't believe that anyone knows for sure how he or she will behave in a crisis situation, even if the person has been trained and has practiced handling such events. When the REAL shit hits the fan, some people panic. Some forget everything they were taught to do. Some cut and run. Others, sometimes the people you might think LEAST LIKELY to do it, show true courage, grace under fire, and get the job done, even when it costs them their lives. Such behavior is worthy of admiration. The Vikings had the right idea. Gather in the mead hall and drink to the memory of heroes, tell their stories over and over, and honor them. Tell the children. Don't allow heroes to vanish when they die. They are in short supply today as it is.
this is pure bullshitI personally believe that "gotcha" journalism is blowing up in the faces of the MSM. Too many alleged "journalists" have been caught manipulating stories and spouting outright lies (and blogdom has a lot to do with exposing them) so that their credibility becomes more doubtful every day. Now, the New York Times is doing this? Got-dam! That's bottom-feeding at its worst. Bejus! The National Enquirer looks more legitimate every day.
i never liked himPeter Jennings is dead. I never liked him and I thought he was a smarmy, lying, America-hating sumbitch. I won't mourn his passing, but I will say that I hate to see anybody go the way he did. Cancer is a merciless bitch.
I wish she was my sisterI found this post over at a slack-jawed, mouth-breathing fool's place and I stole it, most shamelessly, while he was masturbating in a Lay-Z-Boy recliner and watching an animal porno video. All right. I made most of that shit up. I found the post here. Okay... maybe I DIDN'T make that shit up. That's just one hell of a post.
Quote of the daySome people damn sure ain't gonna like this post. Hell, when I wrote about popping a cat in the ass with a pellet gun to keep it from killing my baby mockingbirds, I had people calling me everything from a "cat-killer!" to a child abuser. Hence, my Quote of the Day: ..."cats are wild animals in their hearts... and on a very deep level I simply don't trust them." Neither do I.
August 07, 2005tough guyI always thought I was tough. I could take whatever came my way and keep on truckin.' I didn't miss a day of work for my first three years at the chemical plant, and when I finally DID miss, it was for the birth of my daughter. I didn't miss another day until three years after that, when I developed a near-fatal case of strep throat. I've had teeth knocked out, I've broken bones, I've lost the cartiledge in both knees, I've survived horrendous car wrecks and I've been knocked unconscious a few times. That crap never bothered me at the time. It was inconvenient, but not fatal. I recovered quickly. The prostate cancer knocked me on my ass, and I don't think I'll EVER be the same man again. Hell, I KNOW I won't. I suppose that I'm lucky to be alive, but that was the most hellish experience of my life. I never believed that ANYTHING could lay me that low for as long as that did. The other stuff happening in my life at the time didn't help my recovery, but that would have been rough in the best of circumstances. Now, I don't feel so tough anymore. When I get out of bed in the morning, I sound like a LOUD bowl if Rice Krispies going off. I snap, crackle and pop all over. My neck is stiff. My back is sore. My knees ache. My belly burns for a shot of Maalox. I need a hot shower and a good 30 minutes of blood flow before I feel halfway human. Even then, I walk like a crab for a while until I get straightened out. I think Oscar Wilde said that when a man reaches the age of fifty, he has the face he deserves. My face doesn't look too good anymore, either--- but BEJUS! My body is falling apart.
i need helpI consulted with an expert, and I now can operate my new digital camera, and even transfer the pictures to my computer. But they all come out HUGE and I don't know how to compress them. Hell, they're so damn big that MT won't upload them. I figure that I can email them to someone else, have them copy and shrink them, then mail them BACK to me, but there's got to be an easier way to do this. Anybody got an idea?
this is coolSomewhere buried in my archives is a post I wrote about my visit to a Russian oceanographic ship that docked for a week or so in Savannah. (AHA! here it is!) I was big buddies with a lot of people who worked at the Skidaway Island Institute at the time, and I enjoyed that visit. The Russians I met didn't seem any different from me. They dressed poorly and smoked shitty cigarettes, but they seemed just like regular human beings. They were trapped on that ship except for escorted visits ashore, where they were herded around like sheep, but that wasn't THEIR fault. Their government took "care" of them. Imagine being a Russian sailor seeing River Street for the first time. Shit! The sight of the wimmen alone might make me consider jumping ship. That damn sure ain't the USSR out there! I'm a big believer in doing the right thing, even for someone you don't know. I don't hate anybody who doesn't give me a damn good reason first. If I saw you drowning, I'd jump in the water to save you. Just because I'm built that way. I've done it before. That's why I really like this story. Some of those crazed Islamofascists ought to read that and consider what "God" really wants in this world. That rescue showed the best side of man. I wish I saw that more often.
impeccable logicLouisville, Kentucky is considering a ban on smoking in restaurants. Wanna konw why? "If a ban isn't passed, Louisville will be behind the curve," said Ellen Hahn, an associate professor in the University of Kentucky's College of Nursing. "A smoking ban would put the city right in the mainstream of other American cities." I love that kind of thinking. If all the other lemmings are flying off the cliff, LET'S JUMP WITH THEM!!! Asshole. I read one single breath of sanity in that article. It's something strange and almost never mentioned anymore when people go on the warpath about smoking. "More Kentucky businesses, especially restaurants, are going smoke-free voluntarily," said Jim Waters, a spokesman for the Bowling Green-based Bluegrass Institute for Public Policy Solutions. "If an increasing number of restaurants are doing that on their own, why do we need government interference? Why not let the market decide?" Good fucking question.
wild childI know good and well that I caused my mama many a sleepless night with the way I behaved as a "yoot." I did some foolish things. But I didn't go swirling down the toilet like a turd when all was said and done. I learned to "straighten up and fly right," as my parents always said. I think I blazed a lot of trails for my brother. He was never as wild as I was, but he did a lot of the same things two years behind me. When I did it, it was THE END OF THE WORLD!!!! When HE did it, it was "boys will be boys." That shitass still owes me for the punishment I took that he never got. Don't get me wrong--- I LOVE my brother. But I've always wondered what my life would be if I'd had a sister. Maybe something like this, but I doubt it. Still, it would have been different if I'd learned more about the feminine mystique when I was young. See... if my BROTHER had been my SISTER... well, never mind. It didn't work out that way.
an email from JBI HAVE to post this. He didn't write to cuss me out or preach at me. He sent me this JOKE, and I like it. An old Italian man lived alone in the country. He wanted to dig his tomato garden, but it was very hard work as the ground was hard. His only son, Vincent, who used to help him, was in prison. The old man wrote a letter to his son and described his predicament. Now... THAT'S funny to me.
good postThis is very eloquent. That's all I'm gonna say.
August 06, 2005depends on your perspectiveIf I had been Harry Truman in 1945, I would have dropped the atomic bombs on Japan. I wouldn't have had a moments hesitation about it, either. We already HAD LOST thousands of men in that war and the predictions of casualties if we INVADED Japan ran somewhere close to a million. That wasn't a Monoploly game, people. It was a fucking WAR and a bloody one. The atomic bombs ended it, and I'll go to my grave believing that doing what when did when we did saved more lives than it cost. I like this post. Yeah. We had to give 'em both and we had to do it when we did. That was the only way to get the point across. Most whining, piss-their-pants leftists must have been picked on and bullied all of their lives. They NEVER stood up and fought back. They want government to take care of the bullies now (or even better--- THEY want to get into government and become bullies themselves.) I've got no use for those people. Some people just don't seem to understand that we have been a most gracious nation never to use atomic weapons since 1945. We've got 'em--- in plenty, too. But we don't drop 'em, because we are a civilized nation. But if the Islamo-nuts keep up their shit, it just may be time to cleanse some filth off the face of this planet. And if we leave nothing but glazed sand behind, so be it. That's better than the festering boil that's there now. What did the great hero, William T. Sherman say after he was finished burning the South to the ground? He said, "War is hell." What did Sherman say when he was sent to exterminate the Indians on the prarie, where he slaughtered wimmen and children? "Nits make lice." I hate that bastard, but he had the right philosophy. If you're gonna fight a war, you go at it full-tilt boogie and you don't stop until the enemy either quits or is dead. We don't have the fucking guts to do that today. And we just may lose this war because of our "sensitivity."
just damn! I missed the boat!Quinton called me tonight and I asked if Mr. Jesse had any peanuts for sale this year. That's where I usually buy mine, a couple of bushels at a time, because (Miss Lelia) Jesse's wife often baby-sits Quinton. Damn! Jesse made only 42 bushels this year and he's already sold them all. I was stunned when I heard that, but I started thinking. Jesse is NOT a young man anymore. He retired from the chemical plant when I was still a line supervisor. He must be close to 80 now. I've seen his farm, and he once planted about 50 acres of peanuts. That's a lot of work. I'll bet that he cut back on his planting this year. I'm just sorry that I didn't get my order in soon enough. He grew damn good peanuts. I guess I'll have to hit the farmer's market or a roadside stand to get me some this year.
if i were godIf I were the Almighty, I don't think I'd change a thing about the earth's geography. The variations in landscapes and the oceans are good things. Imagine how boring it would be if everywhere you went looked just like the place you came from. Even deserts have their place. I can see the wisdom in that. What I DON'T understand is how flawed we are as human beings. Let's start out with basic design flaws. If I were an omnopetent God, and I created man, I would have given him better teeth, something made out of 316 stainless steel sunk in gums of concete, designed to last a lifetime. We NEED teeth, but God didn't do that. I would have made hair that didn't fall out or turn I'd have done a better job on eyes, too. I had to make a choice several years ago: either have an eye operation to correct my nearsightedness, or start wearing bifocals. I opted for the operation. I have the vision of a hawk at long distance now, but I can't see shit in front of my face anymore. My arms aren't long enough for me to read without glasses. You ought to see me, Recondo 32 and Georgia in a restaurant. We pass around the reading glasses so that we can see what we want to order from the menu. A merciful God wouldn't do that to semi-old people. I might take my mighty fist and smite some assholes in the Middle East, who claim to be killing themselves and others in MY name, just to let them know who is in charge. Plus, as God, I would wonder... I made all of this and I gave it to you, and all you want to do with it is FUCK IT UP???? Pissants. I'd step on them like the roaches they are. Of course, I'm not God. But if I were, the world would be a better place.
erotic fruitIf you parse some poetry from the Romantic Era, you'll discover that THESE were "erotic" fruits. Peaches. Pears. Plums. Strawberries. Figs. Melons. There may be some more that I left out of this post, but THOSE are the ones most mentioned in Romantic poetry. The poets who wrote back then had never seen a banana, so that one is out, no matter how horny Livey gets about it. I once didn't like ripe figs. I ate some as a boy and I thought that they were disgusting. Of course, I didn't like crab meat in those days, either. Now, I eat both with gusto. Live and learn.
humorI once took a creative writing course in college that involved a mini-seminar on "The Theory of Humor." I was fascinated by what I learned. The guy teaching the class walked into the room, said hello, and fell right on his ass. People laughed. He got up and asked, "WHY did you laugh when I fell down?" That's how he set off on his quest to explain the theory of humor. That man knew what he was doing. Humor, comedy or whatever you want to call it involves two essential ingriedients. First is SHOCK! You didn't expect it. You laugh to relieve your nerves and also to thank Bejus that it wasn't YOU busting your ass on that banana peel. The second is SURPRISE, which is much akin to shock, because any good joke never telegraphs the punch line (and why do you think it's called a "punch line?"). I like to play with words and I believe that I can write some amusing stuff. I MEAN to do it when I do, too. I remember those lessons I learned in that class, and they work. Don't telegraph the punch line. HAVE a punch line. SUPRISE people with it. Slip on a banana peel yourself, if it gets some attention. Make it funny. There IS a science to it, whether you believe it or not.
yo-yosI'm sorry that I didn't mention this toy on a post I wrote earlier. When I was a kid, I could buy a cheap yo-yo for 25 cents, and one of those was what I learned on. As I got better, I graduated up to a 50 cent model. It was better and I could do more tricks with it. I saved some money and finally bought myself a genuine Duncan Butterfly that cost a dollar. DAMN! That just may have been the best yo-yo ever made. I could walk the dog, rock the cradle and do every other trick I ever saw with that thing. I finally wore out the string, but when it broke I put a new string on it, and the yo-yo was as good as it ever was. That's another toy you don't see kids playing with today.
the world is going crazyI junior high school, I played football for the Bartlett Braves. In high school, I played for the Jenkins Warriors. Were those "hostile or abusive" nicknames? I didn't think so at the time and I still don't now. Besides, I have some genuine I do not understand this crap. I'm becoming really insensitive to "sensitive" people anymore. My advice to them is to quit whining and get a life. I haven't used the forbidden "N-word" on this blog for a long time now. I said that I wouldn't and I kept my word, because I didn't want to unnecessarily offend anybody. Lo and behold. The word didn't go away when I stopped using it. I still hear it every day, usually spoken by black people. Wow. My "sensitivity" sure made a difference in the world, didn't it? I don't care what name anyone calls me, no matter how insulting they mean it to be, because I know who I am. Call me a Cracker, a Red-neck, a hillbilly, a hick, a hayseed, or a queer. It ain't gonna matter to me. Words don't change who I am. People who DO worry about such things need serious help.
not no moreHere are things from my youth that nobody ever sees anymore: 1) Wallpaper cleaner. It came in a can and it was a white clay. The adults used it to clean coal-smoke stains from the walls and ceilings then gave it to us kids to play with when it was "worn out." That was hillbilly Play-Dough. 2) Marbles. Got-dam! Why don't kids play marbles anymore? I spent many an hour on my hands and knees in the dirt, playing "Rings," "Chase," "Rolley-hole," "Pig's Eye" or any other game we could invent. And we played for "keeps," too. Kids just don't do that anymore. 3) Red wagons. I guess NOW, the idea of tugging a wagon around seems ridiculous to kids. If it doesn't have a motor on and run by itself, it's no damn good. 4) Tops. I wonder if you can still find a kid under ten years of age today who can spin a top? Did YOU ever do it? Bejus! I had "Fighters," "Spinners" and "Widowmakers." Today, I may as well be speaking a foreign language when I talk to Quinton about such things. 5) A Vacuu-Form. When I saw the commercial for THAT device, I just HAD to own one. It looked like the neatest thing I had ever seen! You could MAKE YOUR OWN TOYS with that thing. I got one. It was a piece of shit. I think that experience made me skeptical of EVERY advertisment I saw from then on. I just don't know why kids miss out on the simple pleasures I knew as a boy. Shit. They have too many Playstations, go-carts and toys that play with themselves to do what I once did. They are missing a lot.
should have saved itI really should have posted this joke tomorrow, but I liked it so much that I couldn't resist. Sunday Morning Sex I can think of worse ways to die.
my toyI got some of the pieces today. The rest should be here early next week. this is what I'm buying. (scroll down to #2) Looks like everything I'm gonna want. Or need. Twenty-five years after the introduction of the first Portastudio™, the new DP-01FX 8-track Digital Portastudio makes hard disk recording affordable and simple enough for all musicians. Continuing TASCAM's "Capture Your Art" campaign of making recording approachable to all musicians, the DP-01FX features the one-knob-per-function design that has made TASCAM cassette Portastudios the choice of thousands of musicians. It shatters the confusing page-shift-menu interface popular with most other digital recorders. And at a price under $500, multitrack recording to hard disk has never been more affordable. See? It fits my KISS theory and still gets the job done.
victimless crimesThis country may be approaching its 300th birthday, but we've never really strayed far from our Puritan roots. How many laws do we have on the books now that punish "lifestyle" choices instead of criminals? I read this article and it really set me off. That's just one more example of government killing someone in the name of God, or whatever it is that motivates the nanny-folks to LEGISLATE your life to match theirs. THEY know the ONE TRUE WAY. If you don't subscribe to their beliefs, well.... they'll ARREST YOU and throw you in jail. That'll teach YOU a lesson. In my younger days, I was a hellion. I smoked dope, I danced with prostitutes and I gambled. I tried every kind of dope known to man and I had sex with every woman who would hold still for me. I did some shit that would curdle most people's grits, but I enjoyed every bit of it. I didn't hurt anybody. I didn't steal or rob from anyone. I just cut a wide, wild swath. What the hell is wrong with that? Because YOU don't like it, it should be forbidden for EVERYONE? Who died and made YOU the Pope, you pompous ass? When did YOU become God? I'll give you MY humble opinion on that idea: Fuck YOU and the great white horse you rode in on. Some people really have a hard time handling the idea of freedom. I don't. I've done fairly well in my life with no help from government or any kind of nanny watching over me. Some people fuck up. Just look at the welfare rolls. But "life" didn't do that to them--- they did it to themselves. I've said many times before--- get an education, work hard and the world is your oyster. Decide NOT to do that, and reap what you sow. I don't need a got-dam nanny government to take "care" of me. I've been on my own for a long time, and nobody except ME ever bailed me out of the holes I dug for myself. And I dug them ALL myself. If I were in charge of this country, I would stop the insane "War on Drugs," I wouldn't worry about when some blue-nosed asshole developed belly-cramps over "smut," I would legalize prostitution, gambling and drugs, and I would put a bounty on the head of ANY self-righteous lawmaker who had the unmitigated gall to force HIS beliefs on me. Just look up the word "freedom" in the dictionary. Do you think we live that way today? I don't. (By the way--- I agree with Locke's Social Contract, but we've gone waaaaay beyond that now.)
August 05, 2005the studioI should have my recording studio by early next week. I talked with willy yesterday, and we have a deal. I'm going to buy a good eight-track unit with two Shure microphones (including stands--- with one being a boom) and the entire package will cost me less than a trip to Costa Rica. I can have a lot of fun with that. My only problem now is... I'm going to need to borrow or buy a bass guitar. Or get a bass-playing friend to come over and record with me. That really shouldn't be difficult, because I know a LOT of people who just like to play, but I'd prefer to do as much of it as possible by myself. I can play the bass, but I don't own one right now, nor do I have a bass amp. I'll worry about those logistics after a lay down a few tracks with what I DO have. I don't own a set of drums, either, but I know people who do. I can make this work. Shit. I'm gonna ask Jay Urban or Don Cogdell to come over and lay down some lead guitar tracks for me, too. I'm an okay guitar player, but both of those guys can play rings around me. I DO want some hot licks on my music, and they can do it. Hell... maybe I can get 'em here TOGETHER! Heh. This studio may be better than good drugs. Get ready for the "Acidman's Greatest Hits" album.
quote of the daySometimes, simple words make the most sense. “A bean is a bean, but a pee is a relief.”Billy Bob Makes sense to me. (Shamelessly stolen from here.)
erotic fruitWhen I was taking a class in Romantic Poetry in college, the professor (a woman) asked the question: "If you read carefully, you'll find a lot of allegorical connotations in these poems. Erotic fruit is one of them. Can someone name an erotic fruit?" I blurted out, "A BIG banana!" That was not the correct answer, but I thought it was funny as hell. I was never known for keeping my mouth shut. So... I'm taking a poll. What do YOU think is an erotic fruit? (and any reply containing the name of Michael Jackson WILL be deleted.) (UPDATE: What made me think of this topic is the fact that I BOUGHT some "erotic fruit" at the grocery store today. I am enjoying eating it. It might be nice to have someone to share it with, but right now, it's MINE!!! ALL MINE!!!)
time for good newsI'll just let this post speak for itself. My only question is... can we make sure the bastard buys a one-way ticket?
i just gottaI have to link this post for three reasons. First, it's funny and well-written, as usual. Second, he mentions COOKING WITH LARD. Bejus! When I was a boy, I didn't think anything else existed for frying food. My grandmother is 94 years old. She is one of 13 children born to her parents. The ones who didn't die young all lived to ripe old ages, and every one of them ate eggs, drank milk straight from a cow, dipped snuff, chewed tobacco, smoked cigarettes, ate salt-cured pork, never heard of tofu and wouldn't have touched that shit with a stick if they had. They fried with lard and ate real butter. Bacon grease was a seasoning that went into EVERYTHING cooked on the stove. Hell, you could feel your arteries clogging if you got within 100 yards of the house. But somehow, these people managed to live longer than most really tight-assed, health-conscious metro-fucks do. 'Splain that to me. I think a lot of health nuts are as crazy as shithouse rats. Recondo 32 and his lovely wife Georgia made it back from their Beliz adventure yesterday and we went out to eat at my favorite Mexican restaurant. I told them they would like it and that I was a "regular" there. I walked in and saw a waiter I knew and said, "Querimos fumar. En la cantina?" That's where I usually sit to eat. "No es possible," he replied. "No fumando." I forgot. Our brilliant legislators in Georgia succumbed to the idiot wind blowing around the country today and banned smoking in ALL restaurants, as of August first. My aching ass. These anti-smoking laws go up my Cracker butt like barbed wire. ALL of them are based on the panic the EPA created in 1992 with a totally bogus study about "second-hand smoke" that's been debunked many times. Still, people are convinced that WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE if somebody lights a cigarette in the same county they're in. I ALSO think it is a goddam out-of-control government that dictates MY customers can't smoke in MY place of business, when I pay the taxes, buy the licenses and cough up a lot of bucks for the public coffers. Of course, the idea of private property and free will is something the smoke Nazis don't consider in their zeal to do "good." Assholes. But that's just an editorial aside. I just wish the people who claim to be worried about my health would worry more about my freedom. I don't WANT to live a long life if I have to do it in a government cage. The third thing about the post I was going to mention (before I became distracted) was this: "It's amazing, the things you can learn about family history by getting 3 Chopin Martinis into your dad." That line hit home with me. I think the first time I ever really got to "KNOW" my father was long after I had left the nest and lived on my own for a while. We played a round of golf, then spent a couple of hours at the Nineteeth Hole. We both got fairly well-oiled on bourbon. That was the first talk I ever had with my father where he addressed me as a man and told me a lot of stuff I never knew before. I will remember that day for as long as I live. It was also the first time I ever talked to my dad as a friend instead of a father. I'll just give you guys (and it probably applies to you wimmen, too) a piece of advice: if your dad ever invites you out for a drink, GO. It may be a wonderful experience. I wish I could do it again today.
bail him out!The man is not a criminal, but he's being locked up for a good cause. I usually don't condone "blegging," but he's doing it for one of the charities I contribute to every year. Go bail him out of the hoosegow.
bullshit!Get picked up for a DUI and you'll be treated worse than this. Just go read this, then puke at your leisure. People, we're talking about a KILLER here, a deranged girl who once threatened my daughter with a knife. I don't give a shit how old she is. I don't want that kind of pissant sociopath on the streets. And the only way I would ever give her a blow-dryer is if she were in the bathtub and the dryer was plugged into a wall socket. Bejus! She stabbed a man to death. She needs to be treated like what she is. Scum.
my responseI found this in my comments and I had to read it a couple of times to figure out what the person was saying. YOU try it on for size: My problem (and it's my problem) is that I'm having trouble with anything Jewish right now. My soon to be ex became re-energized with her religion and between that and the in-laws similar attitudes my puny protestant values became irrevelent. Now I find myself working to keep my kids open minded about religion. Every activity my wife (and her new boyfriend, nice jewish boy) finds for them seems to be centered on the Temple. I am firm believer in that religious beliefs are to be decided upon as a youth, it is a adult thing. Why is it OK to brainwash kids with a certain set of beliefs or with a set way to practice religion. All religions/sects are guilty of this. I want my kids to learn to understand all forms of religion and if they find one they like as an adult have an informed knowledge base to choose from, not one slanted from a single perspective. Religion can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on how the individual intreprets the teaching of whatever "Good Book" he reads. Mark Twain once said that we could float the armadas of every navy in the history of the world in the oceans of blood that have been spilled in the name of God. He was correct. Look at Islamofascist terrorists now. Do they REALLY believe that they are doing God's work? If so, they are one fucked-up bunch. But they aren't the first to be fucked-up in the name of God. Read your history. When the Spanish conquistadores came to central America, they always dragged a priest along. The priest gave the locals a chance to convert to Christianity, probably while he spoke in Latin, and the locals never understood a word he said. When the locals didn't immediately convert, it was okay for the soldiers to kill them all, because they were heathens. That murder was done in the name of God. I am NOT a religious man, but I have spent a lot of time around Jewish folk. I like them. They practice three things that remind me of the way I was raised. 1) They have a great family bond. 2) They believe in hard work. 3) They push their children to be more than they were themselves. If that's a fault, I can't see it. I speak a modicum of yiddish, and I think it's a great language. I can cuss you out to a fare-thee-well in yiddish, you... well never mind. I can say it, but I'm not sure that I can spell it. One of the most joyful weddings I ever attended was a Jewish wedding, complete with a band and enough food to feed an army. Damn! That was one fine party. I even danced to that "have-a-tequila" tune, or whatever that was. I took two days to recover from that one. But I'm getting away from my point here. Religion is a personal choice, and I think nobody should be shoved into it, nor should anybody be brainwashed by it. My mama's church was very good to her from the time my father died until she closed her own good book. THAT'S what churches are for. If you have to develop a faith you don't already have to marry someone, don't do it. That's a mistake. You either believe or you don't. But anyone on the sidelines casting stones should put down the rocks, too. It's a no-win situation.
competitionFour years ago, I didn't know what a blog was. Now I have one. I've had it for almost four years, too. That's amazing when I think about it. Something about writing on the internet will suck you in if you give it the chance. My blog has been a real adventure for me, from the days when I had NO visitors, to today, when I have thousands every day. I never marketed my blog. People just found it and liked it all by themselves. I once called it "putting notes in a bottle and throwing them into the sea." That's the way I STILL look at it. I opine, cuss and talk about whatever I want to. I think it's GREAT that we now have a tool that allows you to do such a thing. Read this: The reason for asking that question is the announcement this week by blog tracker Technorati (a great site, by the way, for continuously following the state of the Zeitgeist), in its annual State of the Blogosphere report that the number of blogs in the world has jumped from 7.5 million in March to 14.2 million today. I hold with the Den Beste theory that 90% of blogs are pure crap. But YOU do the math on those numbers (I was an English major--- I don't do math) and you'll find that 10% of 14.2 million is... well, it's a LOT. I find good new ones every day. And I think it's a good thing.
i like this!What is NOT to like about someone who describes herself as "Dr. Jewlove (Or how I learned to stop kvetching and kvell in being a 29-year-old Brooklyn-born Yiddish-speakin', terrorist-hatin', Israel-lovin', country music two-steppin,' iced-coffee drinkin', pool-playin' sista of Zion)" Got-dam! Is THAT sassy, or what? I admire sass, when it come from someone who can back it up with ass. This is a pretty good blog. And YES---- it is possible for two men to sleep in the same bed with no homosexual connotations about it.
August 04, 2005gratuitious linkageI don't know what it is, but something about This woman reminds me of my mama. And if I say that about ANYBODY, it's a high compliment indeed.
what i mean about wimmenMen and wimmen think differently. I'm speaking in generalities here (but the exceptions prove the rule), and I'll say right here, right now: Wimmen crave safety and men crave danger. Maybe "crave" is the wrong word to use, but it's damned close. I'll just let the evidence speak for itself. Go back through the comments on the posts I've written about Quinton and gather what you will. EVERY SINGLE COMMENT I've gotten about how "stupid" I am to allow my son to operate a chainsaw or to be around loaded guns came from a woman. EVERY FUCKING ONE!!! I went back and looked. Not one MAN saw a thing wrong with the way I've treated Quinton. But wimmen, as usual, hyperventilated and developed the vapors because my boy MIGHT GET HURT!!!! doing things I've watched him do. My aching ass. My daddy stopped taking Mama to my football games for a while, because every time I got knocked down or ended up in a pile of bodies, she wanted to run out onto the field and "mother" me. My Dad once said, "I'm not gonna take you to the game if I have to hog-tie you to keep you in your seat! Robbie can take care of himself out there!" My dad was correct. Of course, he also taught me to handle power tools, to build a fire and to shoot a rifle when I was younger than Quinton is now. What a heartless, careless bastard he was. He never seemed to get fully in touch with his feminine side. THAT'S why a boy needs a father.
talking out of schoolWhy the hell not? The first time I laid Jennifer, she had a bush fit to make Davy Crockett a coonskin cap. She wasn't a hairy woman elsewhere, but her pubic area was fertile enough to grow a crop like underbrush. I had to fight my way through that tangle to get to the goodies underneath. At the time, I thought it was worth the struggle. After we dated for a while, we took a bath together one night, and I offered to give her a haircut. She agreed, and I did a fine job. I trimmed that fur-bucket of hers into a nice, smooth Van Dyke, and I was proud of my work. It looked good enough to eat, so... never mind... I'm digressing. The point of this post (if it has one) is the fact that looking at those old Playboy magazines today made me think about the way things have changed over the years. A LOT of wimmen shave their pubes now. I don't really like that. Jennifer kept her Van Dyke (except when she turned it into a Mohawk for skimpy bathing suits) and I was quite happy with that. I don't like a totally bare cootchie. I like cootchie as much as any man, but the totally bald ones make me feel like a child molester when I see one. I'm sorry if I offend any wimmen here. But a little bit of hair around that pie makes it look and taste a LOT better to me. Grown people have beards. I prefer it that way. I don't want to hack my way through a forest, but I don't want something that looks pre-teen, either. You can find a happy medium somewhere in there. Of course, that's just MY humble opinion.
old playboy magazinesI have a box full of old "Playboys" that date back to 1975. I flipped through a couple today and noticed THREE obvious things: 1) I DID read the articles. 2) NONE of the wimmen have a blemish on their bodies. 3) Playboy Playmates don't have pubic hair. I don't believe that photographers EVER doctor photos to make them look better (or worse) than the real thing, but I gotta wonder.... Guys, how many wimmen did YOU ever see nekkid without a blemish on the body and NO pubic hair?
He got me!One thing in Quinton's Care Package that I didn't mention the other night is a picture taken of me around 1977, when I was posing on the driftwood beach on Wassaw Island. I was playing guitar for a living back in those days and my hair was LONG, 'way past my shoulders. Tell me I don't have a smart boy. "Daddy, you can't ever say anything about MY hair again, because yours is longer than MINE in that picture!" he told me tonight. "Yeah, poot, but that was a long time ago and I was a guitar player then," I replied. "I was supposed to have long hair." "Oh..." Quinton said. "It was the STYLE, right?" "Yeah... I guess so." "Daddy my hair is the STYLE now, so I'm just doing the same thing you did." How the hell do you argue with that logic?
quote of the dayBad law is bad law. Period. Correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I learned from reading history, we became an independent country because we didn't like some distant, powerful government telling us what to do, taking our property and taxing us. We figured that we could take care of ourselves, and a lot of people were willing to fight over that principle. We fought, and we won. Now, we have a distant, powerful government that taxes us more mercilessly, puts its boot on our necks, and tells us EVERYTHING to do, a lot worse than the British ever did. Now, they can take our property, too. "When legislatures start new sessions in January, I expect the majority of states to take up bills that would restrict the use of eminent domain for economic development purposes," said Larry Morandi, environmental program director for the National Conference of State Legislatures. I hope so. And I also hope "emminent domain" takes Justice Souter's home and builds a big hotel with a nice swimming pool on the property he once "owned." That's certainly a better idea than allowing HIS weasel ass to live there. He doesn't generate enough tax revenue. Fucking idiot.
i've been interviewed!I said I would answer questions, and I wasn't kidding: 1. Do you believe in an afterlife and/or reincarnation? No. I don't. I don't believe in heaven or hell, either. No way. Not EVER. A part of me will always love the woman I THOUGHT she was, but too much damage has been done. I could never trust her again. Once that's gone, so is love. I hope I haven't seen that one yet. But being the youngest General Foreman in the history of the chemical plant and doing a good job bossing people older than my father in the "widowmaker" area is something I'm proud of. Hell, I'm proud of being good at almost ANYTHING I ever put my mind to. I dream vividly and in technicolor. I also have many extremely STRANGE dreams. And I remember them all. No. I don't. I just want him to be happy and grow up to be a responsible man. I hope he has better luck with wimmen than I did. Love is a feeling of closeness-- of ONE-ness with someone else. It's a peaceful, easy feeling that you get when you see that other person, EVERY TIME you see them. There's no one else in the world you'd rather be with. You give up a big chunk of your soul when you love someone. I hate viscerally. I hate with an anger that makes me see red and go beserk. You've got to do something to MAKE me hate you, but if I ever do, I never change my mind. Shit. You name it, I've got it. I wanted to be the Great American Writer. That didn't pan out, a woman I didn't love got pregnant on me and I had to do something to support my family. I didn't choose that career as much as I had it thrust upon me by circumstance. But I ended up being good at it. See? I'll answer interview questions. (Excuse me. The questions came from surfie, but I forgot to link her. I've been busy today.)
words of wisdomI must be a really shitty father. I've allowed my son to play with dangerous toys, I bought him a BB gun and I've let him use matches to build a fire. It's a pure wonder that he ain't dead yet. Allowing your son to use a chain saw at nine years old is beyond stupid. Dorothy, you need to get laid, and I pity any pussy-whipped son YOU ever raise. Quinton KNOWS how to light fireworks. He's been doing that since he was seven years old and he hasn't blown himself up yet. He also knows how to build a fire, and I sometimes let him do that all by himself. I always supervise, but I let him do the work. As far as "nature" goes, Quinton learned a lot about goats, chickens, snakes and bees when we lived on the mini-farm. I'll bet he could teach YOU a thing or two. Quinton knows the difference between a "bad" snake and a "good" snake just by looking at the snake's head, because I TAUGHT HIM THAT! (I also told him that there's really no such thing as a good snake. Don't EVER bring one home.) This comment just reinforces my belief that we're raising a generation of pussy-men today, thanks to the input of "liberated" wimmen.
mutha fu...never mindI thought I killed my computer last night. I still had one program running that I couldn't shut off, no matter what I tried. I KNEW what it was, but I couldn't find it and delete it. I got pissed. I often do irrational things when I get that way. I think I pretty much wiped out my memory and ended up with NOTHING on the computer except a cursor and a black screen. I got up this morning and reloaded everything from scratch. The computer works, but I really don't know what I did. I'll have to play with it for a while and figure out what I lost in this transition process. I hate this shit.
August 03, 2005got dam!!!What makes it so fucking difficult for computer nerds to handle the English language? I'm serious about this question. In my past, I wrote a lot of operating instructions and procedures at the chemical plant, and I always tried to do them like a recipe in a cookbook. I wanted to make the instructions easy to follow. In fighting this spyware invasion I've had, I am ready to shoot my computer and go into a Death Wish mode on the people who allegedly run "support" systems for spyware I pay for. WHT fuck does that shit mean? Okay, I wanna update. I click HERE. Now, I have all kinds of options, but NO one single button that says "update." I try a lot of buttons. I can't discover how to update. I CALL their alleged "customer support" and I get a recorded voice telling me to go back to the page I'm looking at RIGHT NOW. Well, fuck ME. If I couldn't figure it out before, how do you expect me to do it now? I swear to Bejus. I think I'm going to quit blogging and work on a couple of books. I just ain't cut out for the internet.
it's money, isn't it?I've written before about paying a fine with pennies and I don't see why any judge should be pissed off about someone doing that. A penny is still legal tender, isn't it? If you believe that paying an unjust fine is a pain in your ass, why shouldn't you be allowed to be just as big a pain in the ass when you pay it? Let those tax-crazed fuckers count it. Come and arrest me if I'm a penny short. Bejus! Government not only taxes you to death (and beyond) but it wants "its" money in a certain form, too. Fuck that idea. We rebelled against Great Britain over a tax on tea. Now, we allow the government to tax us to death (and beyond) and have them tell us HOW TO PAY THEM, too. We've come a long way since the American Revolution, haven't we? We have a more tyrannical government now than we did back then.
premonition?I don't know why I wrote about raisin' babies yesterday. Maybe it was looking at those pictures I put in Quinton's Care Package that triggered some memories. I haven't held a baby in years. I still remember how, because I did it just fine again today. I went out to check my mail and fetch my garbage can back in from the curb. I heard someone yelling, "Mr.Rob! Mr.Rob!" and I saw Young Jack coming down the street. He was pushing a stroller and he made a bee-line to my driveway. "I'm taking my brother for a ride," Young Jack announced proudly. "Well, drive carefully," I said. "You're hauling precious cargo there." "His name is Jake. It's almost the same name as mine." I agreed. "He doesn't like strangers much," Jack added. But Jake liked ME. That little fart started grinning and holding his arms out, waving his little hands like some Navy-trained signal officer. "He wants you to pick him up, Mr, Rob," Jack said. I picked him up. And I'm going to confess something that I usually wouldn't do. IT FELT GOOD! Bejus. Jake is about one year old, and he has that innocence that attracts me to children and he thought I was a fine figure of a man. He grabbed my nose. I grabbed his. He let go of my nose and I released his. I played baby games with him for about 20 minutes until his mama came home to relieve Jack of baby-sitting duties. Mom said, "Y'all seem to be getting along just fine. Should I go off and run a few more errands?" I told her NO. From my vast experience with babies, Jake needed a new diaper, because he had pissed himself most badly. I put Jake back in his stroller and Jack wheeled him across the street. Now, I blog smelling of baby-piss. It ain't a bad smell. It ain't bad at all. (Believe it or not, but I have a way with small children and animals. Most of 'em like me... even CATS!)
dangerous toysI allowed my son to operate a chainsaw when he was nine years old. I had cut down a tree and was sawing it up into pieces when he asked, "Daddy, can I try that?" I thought for a minute. Then, I said, "Okay, you can probably do this. But you have to be really careful. See how that saw cuts through a tree? It'll cut through YOU the same way." I gave him some pointers about how to handle the saw, to keep his legs out of the way and to stand slightly aside to watch for a kickback. I handed him a pair of safety glasses, cranked the saw, and told him to go forth and cut. He did. I thought I taught him a valuable lesson that day. I watched him carefully, but he takes to teaching quickly, and he did a good job. Quinton had a BLAST doing it, too. He LIKED doing what he saw Daddy do, and he was proud of himself for helping. He became my assistant lumberjack after that experience. His mama probably would have shit her panties if she witnessed that episode, but it made ME proud. My boy was just like me. He wanted to cut my grass on the riding lawn mower, too, but he didn't have enough ass to satisfy the safety-switch on the seat. He told me recently that he's gained enough weight to cut his mama's grass now, and he does it all by himself. Good for him. He's not afraid of dangerous toys and he knows how to handle them correctly, because he was TAUGHT to do so. I wish I could do the same thing now with guns.
fun, fun, funI WAS infected with some kind of spyware, I and spent more than four hours this morning getting rid of it. For a computer maroon such as myself, that's not an easy job, but I think I took care of it. That crap just about took over my C-drive on the computer. How did I pick that shit up on the bottom of my shoe? I have virus protection and a spy-firewall, and STILL those termites got in here. I'm careful never to open attachments to emails and I NEVER click on a pop-up ad. But I was infested anyway. Just damn! What causes that?
August 02, 2005is it that difficult to understand?I blog to have fun. Period. That's what I do and I like to write. I suspect that if I culled my posts carefully, I might have a pretty good book in there. Read this post and make up your own mind. I don't proclaim to be an expert on anything, but I know a lot. I write about what I know. I never intended to change the world when I started blogging and that's not my objective now. What I write today damn sure ain't gonna affect my career, because I don't have one anymore. I blog because I can. I dunno. I think some bloggers take themselves way too seriously.
sleeping in a hammockThe first time I went backpacking, I did it frontier-style. I picked a spot to sleep, I threw a blanket on the ground and I crawled into my sleeping bag to take my rest. I was totally fucking miserable all night long. Some kind of root or rock was poking into my ribs, I rolled off my blanket a couple of times and I slept fitfully at best. The next morning, when I was bitching and moaning about my miserable night, Recondo 32 said, "Get a hammock. You can sleep anywhere in one of those as long as you have two trees to tie it to." He was correct. You can buy a jungle hammock for about $10.00 at any store that sells camping supplies, and once you learn to pitch one, you'll never want to sleep in anything else again. It's not rocket science, except for the part of getting INTO the hammock and into your sleeping bag at the same time. I always found two sturdy trees, tied my lines to them and stretched the lines as hard as I could. If you don't tie them tight, your ass will be dragging the ground by morning. Once I had that done, I ran a tarp over where I intended to sleep and hung my pack in a tree. Even after becoming semi-drunk around a campfire, I learned how to do this: 1) Sit your ass in the hammock and don't fall out. 2) Pull the sleeping bag up to your waist, or higher if you can. 3) Roll into the hammock, without falling out, and then pull the sleeping bag up nice and snug around you. Trust me, people. You'll sleep like a baby that way.
idiot windI have a question. Is it ME, my computer, or has Internet Explorer become kinda froggy lately? I've started getting those pesky warning notices about loss of "virtual memory" (whatever the hell that is) and when I try to log off the internet, Windows won't close the program. If I TELL it to, it locks up everything and I have to do a hard-boot to get the damn thing running again. I've been very careful over the years NEVER to open any attachments on emails. (Sorry, Catfish-- if you send me something that way IT WILL NOT be opened) I also beware when these pop-ups come to tell me that "NEW DOWNLOADS ARE AVAILABLE. WOULD YOU LIKE TO INSTALL THEM NOW?" I always just delete that shit. So, I ask. Is it ME, my computer or Windows that's causing this problem? Should I download those ubitquitous "updates?" Or, should I stick to my guns the way I've always been doing? I've said before that I am a computer maroon. I know NOTHING about this crap. But I know that someone out there can help me. I'm asking now.
care packageI have some old stuff that I picked up from mama's house that I want to give to Quinton. He called me tonight and I told him that I would bring it over tomorrow. I'll probably end up just hanging it on his doorknob because he won't be home, but that's okay. I want him to have it. He's ten years old. One of the things in the Care Package is an old scrapbook. On the front page, it says "Robbie Smith's Sports Memory Book." I started clipping and pasting articles from the newspaper about my games when I was ten years old. I kept it up all the way through intramural sports in college. I have a lot of neat stuff in there. Quinton may not appreciate it now, but if he keeps it safe, he will treasure it some fine day. It may be something he wants to show MY grandchildren years down the pike, when I'm long gone. I also have my high-school letters in there (I was a multi-sport jock) and I put together something I believe is beautiful. It's first a picture of my father holding ME and beaming with pride when I was six months old. Next to it is a picture of ME, holding Quinton when he was six months old. I added this caption: "Daddy's always love their sons." I hope Jennifer doesn't throw that away.
i wanna knowWhy would ANYBODY spam my email with an offer for "Christian Family Loans?" BWHAHAHAHAAA!!! Boy, are THOSE people barking up the wrong tree.
raisin' babiesI have sired two children, yet I'll still be the first to admit that babies scare the living shit out of me. If they start crying when mama isn't around, I figure either that a) they have a dirty diaper--- or b) they are hungry. If I check and find a clean diaper, and then the baby won't eat, but it keeps on crying, I'm out of ideas. I want to hyperventilate and develop the vapors. I want to run around in a circle and pull my hair out by the roots. WTF is wrong? WHAT SHOULD I DO NOW???!!! What I usually did back in those days was call my grandmother. She knows babies the way Carter knows liver pills. She could diagnose the cholic and prescribe a remedy that usually worked and she saved my panic-ridden ass many a time. She also told me what kind of food I shouldn't feed to a baby. She's just an old mountain farm-woman with not much formal education. But she damn sure knows about babies.
pride or prejudice?Here is a list of ten things that I simply WOULD NOT DO, on general principle, under ANY circumstances. #1-- Accept a blow-job from Jane Fonda. I depise the woman and I respect my dick more than that. #2-- Shake Michael Moore's hand. I watched Farenheight 9/11 last night, and that was one of the most purile pieces of propaganda I've ever seen. It wasn't even GOOD propaganda. Six years-olds are smart enough to see through the shit he filmed. #3-- Vote for Hillary Clinton. Forget it. NEVER! Not for any office, ever. And I DAMNED sure don't want a blow-job from HER! I think she's the Antichrist. #4-- Apologize for our military being in Iraq. We don't know how many American lives were saved by us occupying the terrorists over there instead of giving them a chance to attack us here. We never WILL know, but I'm satisfied that we did the right thing. #5-- Say ANYTHING except "Fuck Jimmy Carter" every time he opens his possum-grinning mouth for the rest of his life. And, yeah, PJ--- there's an "alleged" Southerner who still has all of his teeth. I don't want to be anything like him. #6-- Give up the guns I don't own. That's all I'm gonna say about that, because it could get me in trouble. #7-- Live in the north. I just couldn't do it. I'm allergic to snow and I don't like most yankees I've met. #8-- Own a cat. Sorry, folks. I tried that a couple of times and the cat and I just didn't get along. #9-- Get married again. I wonder why not? Let's see... how about losing more money than most people see in their lives, TWO houses and some brand-new BMWs for divorce-court lawyers, while everybody else ran away with my money and left me broke? No... two doses of that is enough for me. #10-- Change the way I blog. I read a person the other day who complained about "internecine blogging" in certain circles. Maybe he was talking about me. If so, I fall back on something I've been saying for years. If you don't have a cast-iron ass, you shouldn't be blogging. If you can't handle heat, get out of the kitchen. Not EVERYBODY is going to LOVE you on the internet. Those are my thoughts and you can take them or leave them. But that's the philosophy I live by today.
quote of the dayI'm not going to say where I found it or who wrote it, because both of them hyperventilate and get the vapors if I ever criticize them. I'll just let you read the words of wisdom and decide for yourself: If anyone misses my point, here it is in plain words: Those who burn the flag of the United States have a better understanding of the significance of that flag than the yahoos who wear the flag as a cape, being in their own feeble minds "patriotic" when an American wins an athletic competition. So... lemme get this kind of thinking straight. If a few 15 year-old boys steal the American flags out of the yard where a KIA veteran is being mournned and use those flags to set a car on fire... THOSE ASSHOLES understand the meaning of the flag better than I do? I fly the American Flag off my front porch every day. I was chanting "USA! USA!! when Lance Armstrong won the Tour de France again. I guess that makes me "feeble-minded." Well... it must, in some feeble-minded minds. Of course, I don't spend a lot of time in France, which the writer of that quote does. I'm just not as "contenential" as he is. I'm not a complete ass like he is, either.
don't blame the gunAfter I vented about trigger locks yesterday, lo and behold... this story shows up in the news today. I don't blame this tragedy on the gun, and I don't blame it on the lack of a trigger lock. I blame it on an irresponsible parent. Yeah, that may sound harsh, but I taught BOTH of my children early in life that guns were not playthings. I kept weapons (loaded) in places that I could reach but they couldn't. But the main point I rammed into their little heads was, "YOU DON'T TOUCH THEM!" and they listened to me. That's discipline, which is sorely lacking in a lot of parents today. Kids get curious about such forbidden fruit, and that's when you take them shooting and let them see for themselves what a gun can do. Once you do that, they KNOW it's not a toy. Most kids are a lot smarter than people give them credit for being. I grieve for the parents who experienced this terrible loss. But a guy who is an employee at the county jail should have known better. Sorry. But if this story is gonna be another Gun Control Example, I call bullshit.
cow farts=brain fartsWanna save the planet? Find a way to stop cows from farting. You can't do that? Well... that fact doesn't matter. We'll just pass a law REQUIRING you to do it; then, it's YOUR problem, not ours. The dairy industry will be forced to invest millions of dollars in expensive pollution-control technology in feedlots and waste lagoons, and may even have to consider altering animals' diets to meet the region's planned air-quality regulations. Not surprisingly, industry officials challenged the estimate as scientifically unsound. Rational thinking stopped driving environmental laws years ago. The Blue Ridge and the Smokey Mountains earned their names long before any industry (or even cows) came to that part of the country. TREES "pollute," people! They always have and they always will. So, what now? We cut all the trees down to save Gaia? Pay for a government crew to poke corks up cow's asses? Quit dairy farming altogether? Bejus! Where do these idiots come from?
August 01, 2005let's celebrate!A BLESSED LUGHNASADH TO YOU ALL. Today is the start of Lughnasadh. I had never heard of it before until this woman blogged about it. I really like the idea behind the holiday. Lughnasadh is traditionally a harvest festival celebrating the ripening of grain and the first fruits of the harvest. It is named after Lugh, one of the heroes appearing in early Irish literature. Heh. I know how those "festvals" go when people start celebrating fertility. There'll be a whole lot of he-ing and she-ing going on in the dark. They'll go at it like wild minks because... IT'S AN IRISH FESTIVAL! and that makes everything okay, especially he-ing and she-ing. If you don't believe me, come to Savannah on St. Patrick's Day. I'm all for celebrating Lughnasadh. Let the good times roll.
trigger locksRequiring trigger locks on guns is a really doofus idea. It had to be thought up by gun-fearing wussies, because anybody can make a pistol or a rifle safe to handle WITHOUT a got-dam trigger lock. Put a trigger lock on it, and you've lost the ability to use the firearm quickly if you ever need to. The last three firearms I But it damn sure won't be to lock the trigger on any of the guns I don't own. (And if you're just fooling around tonight, go to ravenwood's place and just keep scrolling. He's got a lot of good posts up.)
have you see my car keys?I lose things all the time. I misplace my car keys about once every week, I'm missing TWO sets of reading glasses that the Crackerbox appears to have stolen and pawned, and I've been known to run my wallet through the washing machine because I forgot which pair of pants I left it in. In fact, I've even lost my teeth before, although I believe that I would have noticed had I inhaled them. No kidding--- I was fitted with a four-front-upper-teeth bridge for a while that was a "flipper," meaning that it slipped in and out and wasn't attached to any other teeth. (I lost those teeth playing football in 1968.) The thing got uncomfortable to wear after a while, so I often took it out and laid it down somewhere just to let my mouth rest. Jennifer never liked it when I took my teeth out, especially after the second or third time she helped me hunt for them. "Rob, keep your teeth IN, dammit! You look like a red-neck geezer without them. If that wasn't bad enough, you LOSE them all the time, too" That was the truth, although I didn't think I looked like a geezer without them. Most people never even noticed. But I DID lose those elusive fuckers several times. I'll admit... it is kind of embarrassing to walk through the house and ask, "Anybody seen my teeth?" I have them locked in my mouth until the rest of my teeth fall out now. VERY EXPENSIVE permanent bridge. If you can even SEE my teeth when I smile, which most people can't because of my moustache and the way I smile, you're looking at the price of a new pickup truck, plus several expensive firearms. Modern dental technology does not come cheap. But I never have to worry about asking, "Where are my teeth?" anymore. Still... I think I would REMEMBER inhaling my "flipper." I damn sure would remember inhaling an entire set of dentures.
tmoI'm not certain that even I would tell this story. That's just waaaayyy too much information. Or maybe that's what somebody means about "shitting a brick."
I'd need some helpI don't know what to think about the picture on this post, except to say that I might call for reinforcements. You CAN have too much of a good thing.
i like trees, tooAnybody familiar with Savannah will testify--- one of the most impressive things that lends a unique quality to the city is the number of centuries-old live oaks that remain in the downtown area. They are beautiful, with huge, speading limbs draped in Spanish moss. "Magestic" is the right word to describe them. They not only please the eye, they shade the parks and the sidewalks when the heat index is 110 degress. If you go out to southside Savannah, you find the typical urban heat-sink, created when developers cut down all the trees to build mini-malls, doctor's offices and apartment complexes. It's ugly, and to ME anyway, it always feels 10 degrees hotter on the southside than it does downtown. I read this post and totally agreed with the writer--- except for one small detail. Having big trees growing in an urban area today is a legal liability. People often decide to "err on the side of caution" and cut those things down before somebody sues them. Some cities have ordinances that say if the roots of YOUR tree grow big enough to tear up a sidewalk, YOU are liable for the repairs to the sidewalk. Also, if somebody trips and falls on the broken sidewalk that YOUR tree broke, you are liable for their injuries. I won't even get started on what happens when a tree in YOUR yard blows down in a storm and lands on somebody else's house. In MY humble opinion, a lot of the same people who claim to "love" nature are the ones who sue, first to "protect" the trees and then to gouge the hell out of anybody who actually protected one. That's just one more reason I believe that "environmentalism" is a totally dislexic cult full of idiots. Trees are great, and I love 'em. But they are risky business today.
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