October 31, 2006

New Blog

Okay, I have been posting on my new blog for a week or so now and I'm going to put the link up. It's a personal blog and an art blog. Work has been slow for the lest couple of weeks and I'm really trying to get my artwork sold, so I'm listing art on my blog. Leave a comment and let me know what you think!

Hope all is well with you all and thanks again to Stevie!

Cultural things

Originally published October 31, 2002

The RIGHT WING TEXAN waxed philosophical the other day and said, "I have always been interested in the cultural, political, and attitudinal differences in Texas compared to other parts of the country - particularly either coast. Believe me, the differences in general are huge."

I agree. I have visited Texas several times (my first ex-wife was from Fort Worth) and I've appreciated the unique Texas culture. Texas grows more pretty women than Pennsylvania grows mushrooms. I won't say the women all are 10s, but I damned sure saw a LOT of 9.5s sashaying around everywhere I looked.

Everyone I dealt with was friendly and polite, even the hairy, tattooed guy, laid back on his Harley and drinking an 8-pack of Miller ponies in a 7-11 parking lot when I got lost trying to find a golf course where I had a tee time. The Iranian dude behind the counter inside didn't speakee English very well, so I asked the biker if he knew where the course was. He said yes, and started to give me directions, then said, "Fuck it, man. It's easier to TAKE you there. Just follow me." I did, and he led me right to the place. He pointed to the entrance, gave me a thumbs up and thundered on down the road.

That's the kind of thing I am accustomed to, living down South. But Texas is NOT a Southern state. Texas is just too... TEXAS to be really Southern. We true Southerners have a LOT in common with our Texan cousins, but there are significant differences.

The obvious one is barbecue. Southerners barbecue pig. If you mention barbecue in Jawja, EVERYBODY knows you're talking about the other white meat. In Texas, they barbecue BEEF. I got my first lesson in that difference one day when I had a craving for some ribs. My first ex-wife was going to the grocery store, so I said, "Honey, why don't you buy some ribs and I'll barbecue them for supper tonight." She returned with beef ribs, and was SHOCKED when I asked, "Why did you buy beef ribs? I wanted to barbecue!"

The other difference is hats. Southern men like their hats, but they usually wear caps with a logo on the FRONT, because no true Southerner turns the goddam thing around and wears it with the bill pointing assward unless he's in a bassboat burning a 200 Mercury full-blast across a lake. Southerners turn the hat around then to keep it from blowing off, but as soon as the boat slows down, we turn the bill to the front again to keep the sun out of our eyes while we fish. My favorite hat right now is a camoflage number with "United Rentals" on the FRONT. Texans, on the other hand, like their cowboy hats, even if they've never been closer to an actual cow than the milk cooler at Krogers. I really have no problem with that, but it IS a cultural difference.

I won't even mention the boot thing. I'll just repeat an old joke: What do you get if you kick the shit out of a Texan? An empty pair of cowboy boots.

I don't mean to be anti-Texas, because I am NOT. I love the state, and I have more blog-buddies from Texas than I do from Georgia (Okay, RWT, I'll beat you to it--- that's probably because more people can READ AND WRITE in Texas).

Besides, we share an appreciation for pickup trucks, guns, football, the Great Outdoors, fishing, campfires, fiddle music, food cooked on an open fire and prolific alcohol consumption. Texas may not be Southern, but it's the next best thing.

And that's high praise from Acidman. If you've read this blog for long, you know what I think about yankees and left-coast lunatics.

Halloween things

Originally published October 31, 2002

Spooks

It's almost dark outside, and I hear excited children screaming and squealing in the street. I may require a time-out while I hand out candy to the spooks and goblins soon to reach my door.

Young Jack is a ninja tonight. He already stopped by to model his costume, but the dummy didn't bring his treat bag. Idjit. I would have given him a good start on the night even if it WAS still daylight outside.

Posted by Acidman @ 04:52 PM

Halloween

I played two of the best football games of my life on Halloween night.

The first was when I was 12 years old, playing for the Savannah Gas little league team. We were in a 7-7 tie with our most hated rival, the Jaycees, as time was ticking away in the fourth quarter. They had the ball. With less than a minute left in the game, I saw a trick play coming. One guy ran from the sidelines to the huddle, but TWO guys left the huddle and ran for the sidelines. They were gonna try "The Sleeper!"

My dad taught me every trick play he ever saw. He never played football, but he was a student of the game, and I knew all about flea-flickers, muddy-huddles, fumblerooskys and sleepers when I was 12. I saw what was coming.

On a sleeper, one of the two guys leaving the huddle and heading for the sidelines doesn't leave the field. He stops one yard short and becomes an incredibly invisible split end all mixed up with everybody else on the sidelines while remaining an eligible receiver. If the play works as designed, the defense doesn't notice him, the quarterback takes the snap and throws a quick-drop pass to that guy all alone on the sidelines, and he waltzes untouched for a score while the defensive backfield is busy pulling their jockstraps up from around their ankles.

I pretended that I didn't notice what was happening, but at the snap I broke for the sleeper as hard as I could run. I intercepted the pass and returned it 60 yards for a touchdown on the final play of the game. We won 13-7. I turned their sleeper into a nightmare.

Five years later, as a senior in high school, I intercepted two passes in one game against Groves High School on Halloween night. I returned one of those interceptions for a touchdown. My score didn't win the game (we beat them 48-0) but I was the only person on the team to score a defensive touchdown that season.

I always think of football on Halloween night.

Posted by Acidman @ 05:11 PM

Slow Night

Only six trick-or-treaters so far.

Of course, I did befuddle a couple of young ballerinas a moment ago when I opened the door, heard the high-pitched "TRICKERTREAT!" and solemnly announced that nobody lived here.

They hung their heads and started to walk away.

I had to shout after them that I was only kidding---come back and get some candy. They did, and said, "Thank you." Mom and Dad were holding flashlights and laughing their asses off out in the street.

I really shouldn't play such head-games with little kids. Yeah, and I shouldn't smoke and drink, either.

BWHAHAHAHA!!

Posted by Acidman @ 05:50 PM

October 30, 2006

Half rubber

Originally published April 18, 2003

No, this title does not refer to a downsized device for birth control and prevention of sexually transmitted diseases. "Half rubber" was a game I played many a time on beaches, in in open back yards, and sometimes in the street when I was growing up.

I haven't played the game in years. What's REALLY strange is that I haven't seen anyone ELSE playing for years, either.

The game required a broomstick, three people, a rubber ball and a knife. You used the knife to cut the rubber ball in half. You used the broomstick as a bat. You used the three people as Pitcher, Batter and Catcher.

The pitcher sailed that half-rubber toward the plate, and a good, fast pitch would curve, rise and dance like a demonic horsefly along the way. If the batter hit the half-ball, he had a man on first. If he knocked it over the pitcher's head, he had a home run.

If the batter swung the broomstick and missed, he was OUT if the catcher caught the ball. If the catcher couldn't catch it (which happened frequently--a half-rubber is a tricky bastard to throw, hit or catch) the batter just kept swinging until the catcher finally managed to snag a strike. Then, batter went to pitch, catcher went to hit and pitcher went to catch.

I played that game for hours on many a summer's day.

Legend says that the game was invented on Tybee Island at Savannah Beach, although the lying shits in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina occasionally make a bogus claim of their own. It was invented here where I live.

I just wonder why I don't see anybody playing half rubber anymore. It really is fun and it takes only three people for a game.

I never would have thought about this subject if Mr. Southern Nostalgia hadn't posted about it himself. Damn, he has a good memory.

And I like THIS on his blog:

"Whoever double-crosses me and leaves me alive, he understands nothing about Tuco." - Tuco Benedicto Pacifico Juan Maria Ramirez

I remember Tuco. "Blondieeeeee! You sonofabitch!"

The Velociblogger sounds like a man I could enjoy a drink or two with.

Strange things I do

Originally published April 16,2003

After breakfast with the CEO today, he held a question and answer session. He does that every time he visits one of the production sites he governs and he has rules for this exchange. He brings out a baseball and asks if today is anyone's birthday. If today isn't someone's birthday, he goes for the next upcoming birthday and tosses that person the ball. You'd better catch it.

If you catch the ball, you get (ARE REQUIRED) to ask the CEO the most important question on your mind about the company. If you DROP THE BALL, he reaches under the table, picks up a beach ball with a map of the globe on it, and tosses THAT ball to you. Catch it, and you get (ARE REQUIRED) to ask him two questions. Drop the beach ball and you get to ask THREE questions.

This was a "communications session," which is a really good idea, although it can be most intimidating in that format. This guy is the MOTHER OF ALL BOSSES where I work, and he is the MOTHER OF ALL BOSSES around the globe in his company empire. He is not a person you wish to piss off for no good reason.

After the CEO answers YOUR question, you are required to announce the name of another person in the room and toss the baseball to him or her. I had five good questions written down on paper before I entered the room this morning. I've been to one of these sessions before and I know that if you don't get the ball early, someone else will ask your "good" question and you will be stuck, sitting there with a thumb up your ass, when the ball comes your way. I took precautions to assure that I WOULD NOT be caught with a thumb up my ass in front of the CEO of my company.

I had a deal with my friend and fellow coordinator, Leo, that if the ball came to me, I would call him next, and if it came to him, he would do the same for me. You really want to get this shit over with before all the good questions are asked. Plus, we can both toss and catch.

Leo got the ball first. He asked his question and got about a 10-minute reply from the CEO. It was a good question. Then, he said, "Okay, ROB!," and tossed the ball to me. I caught it.

I may write a blog entry about the question I asked and the answer I got, because it involves Iraq and oil prices. My company is heavily invested in Oil and Gas as one of it's core businesses. The CEO is an old wildcat oilman. He spoke about 20 minutes on my topic and I was very comforted by what he had to say.

I own a lot of stock in my company.

Then, it was my turn to toss the baseball to someone else. I stood up. I don't know what came over me, because almost everybody in the room (a few imports from cross-country may have been out of the loop, but the CEO and everyone else there knew that I was in the room with my ex-wife-- they had seated her as far away from me as possible) but I saw her, looking away from me, but still at a perfect throwing angle.

I said, "Jennifer!" She turned my way, surprised, and I gave her a nice, easy, underhanded toss that she caught. "Good catch," I said, and sat down. She gave me the strangest look from those beautiful blue eyes of hers, then turned and asked the CEO her question.

After the meeting was over, I went outside to smoke a cigarette and she walked up to me. She looked puzzled.

"Why did you do that?" she asked.

"Do what?" I responded, while she lit a cigarette of her own.

"Throw the ball to me and make it easy to catch," she said.

"You were easy to throw to where you were sitting. Plus, I know that everybody likes to get their questions in early before somebody else steals them. Call it Professional Courtesy."

"Rob, you did it because that's YOU. You ALWAYS try to do the last thing anybody expects you to do. That was your way of telling the whole room to kiss your ass, wasn't it? I should have known you would throw me the ball. That was SO YOU! (Did I mention that I wanted everybody in the room to KNOW that I could handle being there with my ex-wife? Did I mention that I threw the ball the HER because that was the LAST THING anybody expected me to do? Sorry. I should have mentioned that.))

"By the way, I need you on a team I'm forming to track steam usage and costs in the plant. I would never have been tasked with this job if I hadn't listened to you talk about it for years. That's how I know what I know. But I don't know what YOU know. If it makes you uncomfortable, you can say no, but I really need your knowledge on this team."

Oh, the things I should have said! Oh, the things I THOUGHT ABOUT saying! But I didn't do any of that. This was about work. I said, "If it's about steam, you know I'm in. Other than Zeigler, who else in the plant knows diddly-squat about it? And I taught him most of what HE knows."

We ate lunch together. I enjoyed that. It was really nice to talk to her again, in complete civility, even if it was all strictly business. I have as much passion for my work as she does for hers. We've always had that in common.

But I remain an ex-husband to her. I am a "resource" and a "subject matter expert," for this project, and that's it. But I'll be exactly that if she needs me to do that job. She knows where to go to find the right people to make herself look good, but I wouldn't turn down the assignment if it came from someone else.

I'll do it. That's my job.

But somebody in my comments nailed the situation just right. I don't hate her. I still love her. And I will for a long, long time.

October 28, 2006

Pickin'...

and grinnin'...

(Top photo is listed as being from January 2004.
The bottom one, from February 2003.)

People's court

Originally published October 31, 2002

I found a post on SAMIZDATA that almost cured all my sinus problems by causing a full swallow of white zinfandel to come out of my nose. The following is actual courtroom testimony in the trial of a man accused of stealing 40,000 coathangers from hotel closets.

Counsel: What is your name?

Chrysler: Chrysler. Arnold Chrysler.

Counsel: Is that your own name?

Chrysler: Whose name do you think it is?

Counsel: I am just asking if it is your name.

Chrysler: And I have just told you it is. Why do you doubt it?

Counsel: It is not unknown for people to give a false name in court.

Chrysler: Which court?

Counsel: This court.

Chrysler: What is the name of this court?

Counsel: This is No 5 Court.

Chrysler: No, that is the number of this court. What is the name of this court?

Counsel: It is quite immaterial what the name of this court is!

Chrysler: Then perhaps it is immaterial if Chrysler is really my name.

Counsel: No, not really, you see because...

Judge: Mr Lovelace?

Counsel: Yes, m'lud?

Judge: I think Mr Chrysler is running rings round you already. I would try a new line of attack if I were you.

Counsel: Thank you, m'lud.

Chrysler: And thank you from ME, m'lud. It's nice to be appreciated.

Judge: Shut up, witness.

Chrysler: Willingly, m'lud. It is a pleasure to be told to shut up by you. For you, I would...

Judge: Shut up, witness. Carry on, Mr Lovelace.

Counsel: Now, Mr Chrysler, for let us assume that that is your name, you are accused of purloining in excess of 40,000 hotel coat hangers.

Chrysler: I am.

Counsel: Can you explain how this came about?

Chrysler: Yes. I had 40,000 coats which I needed to hang up.

Counsel: Is that true?

Chrysler: No.

Counsel: Then why did you say it?

Chrysler: To attempt to throw you off balance.

Counsel: Off balance?

Chrysler: Certainly. As you know, all barristers seek to undermine the confidence of any hostile witness, or defendant. Therefore it must be equally open to the witness, or defendant, to try to shake the confidence of a hostile barrister.

Counsel: On the contrary, you are not here to indulge in cut and thrust with me. You are only here to answer my questions.

Chrysler: Was that a question?

Counsel: No.

Chrysler: Then I can't answer it.

Judge: Come on, Mr Lovelace! I think you are still being given the run-around here. You can do better than that. At least, for the sake of the English bar, I hope you can.

Counsel: Yes, m'lud. Now, Mr Chrysler, perhaps you will describe what reason you had to steal 40,000 coat hangers?

Chrysler: Is that a question?

Counsel: Yes.

Chrysler: It doesn't sound like one. It sounds like a proposition which doesn't believe in itself. You know, "Perhaps I will describe the reason I had to steal 40,000 coat hangers... Perhaps I won't... Perhaps I'll sing a little song instead..."

Judge: In fairness to Mr Lovelace, Mr Chrysler, I should remind you that barristers have an innate reluctance to frame a question as a question. Where you and I would say,"Where were you on Tuesday?", they are more likely to say, "Perhaps you could now inform the court of your precise whereabouts on the day after that Monday?". It isn't, strictly, a question, and it is not graceful English but you must pretend that it is a question and then answer it, otherwise we will be here for ever. Do you understand?

Chrysler: Yes, m'lud.

Judge: Carry on, Mr Lovelace.

Counsel: Mr Chrysler, why did you steal 40,000 hotel coat hangers, knowing as you must have that hotel coat hangers are designed to be useless outside hotel wardrobes?

Chrysler: Because I build and sell wardrobes which are specially designed to take nothing but hotel coat hangers.

I thought that was a parody lifted from The Onion but it's TRUE. I hope Mr. Chrysler beats the rap.

October 27, 2006

Bore-blogging again

Originally published April 5,2003

* I went to my son's baseball game today. His team lost, but he got a hit. Those steel grandstands hurt my butt when I sit on them. If they were wet, they probably would give me a case of the itchy-ass, too.

* I bought some frozen White Castle cheeseburgers at the grocery store on Thursday. The boys and I ate them tonight. They were pretty good, for frozen cheeseburgers. Nobody is farting yet. I may buy some more of those.

* I washed my kitchen garbage can today. The numb-nutted Chuhuahuahuahuahahaha! next door barked its silly ass off at me the entire time I was outside. I got tired of that shit and walked over and barked back real loud at the dog. It laid down on its back, pissed straight up in the air, and got wet all over itself. Dumbfuck dog.

* Chuhuahuahuahahahahas! can't be smart. Look at their tiny heads. There's no room for a brain in there.

* If I were a dog, I would lay in the road and lick my balls like every other good dog. Of course, if I could lick my OWN balls, I wouldn't have two ex-wives.

* Today, the boys finally got around to opening a "Build Your Own Race Car" kit I bought Quinton for Christmas. They built a big race car and a small race car. Then, they spent more than an hour exploring different ways to make them crash and come apart. Boys do that.

* I'm going to buy a gun on April 15, just to tell Michael Moore to kiss my Cracker ass, and to show my support for that fine African-American, kim du toit in his quest to turn this country into a nation of riflemen, one individual at a time. But I'm not going to buy a rifle. I'm buying a derringer that I already have picked out at Mack's Gun Shop on Highway 80 in Garden City, Georgia. They're running the background check as I write, which Mack still has to do, even though I have purchased seven firearms from him in the past. I'll post a gratuitious gun picture when I get it. Hell, maybe I'll get carried away and buy a rifle, too. In Georgia, when you're cleared for one, you're cleared for anything else you want to buy.

* I lose an hour of my life tonight because of Daylight Savings Time. How do I LOSE an hour and SAVE anything? That's bullshit.

* Okay. Quinton just farted and it smells like the toxic emissions from a paper mill smokestack. He is proud of his stench. I just crossed any more of those frozen cheeseburgers off my shopping list.

* I had something else to say, but I forgot what it was.

The home front

Originally published April 9,2004

I visited with my daughter today over at Mom's house. Almost two years have passed since I last saw Samantha and I had forgotten just how beautiful she is.

She's tiny. She MAY be 5 feet tall, but she's probably an inch or so shorter. She weighs less than 100 pounds, but it's all shaped in perfect form. Her skin is smooth and glowing now, after a successful bout with adolescent acne, and she owns the most equisite pair of feet I've ever seen. She was wearing red tonail polish today, and I wonder if she did that just for me. She DOES read this blog.

Sam and I had our serious ups and downs over the years, but she's done well since she went out on her own. A lot of the gray silver in my hair came from trying to deal with her when she was a teenager. She's done a lot to make me proud of her since then.

She and Stacey want to eat oysters today and usually I would go with them because I LOVE oysters. But I'm still feeling kinda puny and my body will not accept solid food. (Is an oyster "solid food?") I told them where to go for good local oysters, which are better than anything shipped out of the Gulf, and Samantha knows how to get there. I hope they enjoy themselves.

Mama is finished with her chemo treatments and the results look great. Her hair is beginning to grow back and she's feeling better every day. The doctors pronounced her "cancer-free" after the last round of tests they ran. The news is good, at least for now.

Have you ever seen a Yorkshire Terrier with a Marine Corps haircut? I did today. When I saw "Fancy," Mama's dog, who ALWAYS comes to greet me and cavort when I visit the old home, I asked, "Ma, you've got a rat running around your house! What the hell happened to your dog?"

Mom explained that Fancy had so many tangles and knots in her long hair (it dragged the ground and picked up sticks, leaves and stickers everywhere the dog went) that Mom couldn't brush them out. She took Fancy to a Poodle Parlor and let the experts go to work.

They shaved that dog down to the skin. That is one ridiculious sight. Mom was very upset at first, but she's starting to see the bright side now.

"Look at it this way, Mom," I said. "Now, you and your dog are BOTH damn near bald. Misery loves company."

"Fancy will like it when the weather gets hot," Stacey observed. "She's got air-conditioning now."

"She doesn't look THAT bad, Mamaw," said Sam. "I think she looks cute."

I think Fancy looks like Fido's ass, but if I were a long-haired dog heading into a Savannah summertime, I believe that I could handle the cut simply for the heat-relief I gained from it. I've buzz-cut my head more than once. It's not the end of the world.

I had to leave sometime around 1:00 today, because I've developed a new set of peptic ulcer symptoms (or symptoms of whatever the hell is wrong with me): I get a severe pain in my gut all of a sudden and I break out in a cold sweat. Goosebumps raise up on my arms while I perspire like a blacksmith at his forge and shiver like a virgin on her wedding night at the same time.

I needed to go home a lie down for a while. I barely made the drive.

I feel better now, but I know that this crap isn't over yet. I wish to hell that it was, because I don't like being sick and I've never been this sick before in my life.

Just Damn!

October 26, 2006

Acid thoughts

Originally published April 12, 2003

I got the nickname "Acidman" when was General Foreman over the 900-ton per day sulfuric acid plant where I worked from 1987 until 1992. That place never frightened me, although I learned to have a healthy respect for molten sulfur, SO2 and SO3 gas, and all forms of sulfuric acid.

I once walked up on a small rattlesnake at the acid plant one day, and the little shit coiled up and struck at me. He was acting like a real badass, so I walked inside the control room, grabbed a 500-ml bottle of 98% acid, went back outside and doused him with it. Nothing happened. The acid didn't bother the snake at all. Its skin was dry enough that the acid had no moisture to react with.

So, I picked up a water hose and doused the snake with some good old H2O. A cloud of steam erupted and the snake straightened out like a walking stick, cooked to a crisp. We were hell on animals back there.

We also had the largest army of bald-headed, blind rats in the southeast around the old scale house, where we weighed the acid trucks that we loaded. That building was constructed in 1954, and it had seen better days. There was a baseball-sized hole in one corner of the floor, and marsh rats would enter and exit as they pleased through it to raid operators' lunch boxes. I once went in the scale house and discovered a rat bigger than most house cats and with nuts the size of golf balls sitting on the desk and grinning at me as if he worked there.

One of the guys got pissed one day and hung a chicken bone from a string over the hole and armed himself with several bottles of acid. The rats would come out of the hole, grab the chicken bone and wrestle with it until he poured 98% sulfuric acid on their heads. They became bald-headed and blind after that, and when they emerged from underneath the scale house to run in blind circles out in the open, we killed them with pipe-clubs.

Yeah, PETA. I clubbed several myself.

Here's some acid trivia for you:

* It takes acid to make acid. If you burn molten sulfur, it reacts with the combustion air to form SO2 gas. Run that through a catalyst bed and the SO2 reacts with the remaining oxygen to form SO3 gas. Run that gas stream through a cascade of 98% acid and the SO3 grabs the 2% moisture in the acid stream and forms H2SO4, which is sulfuric acid. If you scrub well, nitrogen is the waste gas leaving the stack. (our atmosphere is 78% nitrogen, 20.9% oxygen and 1.1% trace gases, of which that global-warming monster CO2 is .03%.)

* We sell acid to paper mills, battery manufacturers and all the other likely suspects. But we also sell to Nutrasweet and Anheiser-Busch.

* You can make sulfuric acid that is MORE THAN 100% concentration. It's called "oleum," it fumes on contact with air, and it can be MORE than 100% acid. Go figure.

* 98% sulfuric acid is less corrosive to metal than 20% sulfuric acid is. Remember my snake story.

* 98% sulfuric acid freezes at +46 degrees F. Lower the concentration to 93% and the freezing temperature drops to -30 degrees F. Lower the concentration further, to 77% and the acid freezes at +10 degrees F. I've read that this phenomenon is caused by hydroxyl ions, but I call it "Pure Fucking Magic."

* If you have dry hands, you can pour 98% acid into your palm and not get burned. DO NOT pour it on the back of your hand, ever. That's a totally different skin surface. Refer again to my snake story.

* Let a black person get hit with 98% acid and he turns pink everywhere he is hit. We ARE all alike under the skin. I've seen proof.

* The worst injury I ever saw in 23 years of work in a chemical plant (other than the time a contractor fell through the roof and landed on concete 100' below-- yeah, that fall killed him. But he was a contractor. He doesn't count.) was sulfuric acid burns to two mechanics who violated every line-breaking rule we have and got covered up with 98% acid. One of those guys still works at the plant and still has horrible scars from that accident. He can't stand direct sunshine anymore, either. See him with his shirt off and you'll cringe.

* That accident DID NOT happen at the acid plant under my watch. It happened inside the plant where I pumped the acid to end-users. I never got anybody burned (other than the gnat bites you feel that tell you there's a leak somewhere) the entire time I ran the place.

* I loved that job. I had a chance to return two years ago, but I turned it down. I'm a white-end guy now, and too accustomed to farting dust to go back to making acid. You don't make pigment at the acid plant. I make pigment where I am now. If I don't eat and breathe about 2.2 pounds of TiO2 dust every day at work anymore, I might go into withdrawal. To me, it's like SPICE on Dune. I gotta have it.

If you have any questions about sulfuric acid, feel free to ask. Acidman probably knows the answer.

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Thank You

This is Sam...

I just wanted to say thanks a bunch to Stevie for taking the time out to post some of dad's BEST every day. I wake up and check Gut Rumbles every morning and for the last week have read some awesome posts that I had forgotten about. Girl, you are picking some good ones. I always loved when he'd post personal stories and memories. You are true "Acidfriend" and I know dad would be proud. Thanks again girl!

A boy and his dog

Originally published September 2, 2003

When I was about twelve years old, Missy got pregnant. She was a semi-cocker-spaniel who belonged to Finn and Michael Moffett (of tree-jumping fame). Missy spit out seven puppies and I got the pick of the litter.

I never knew for certain who my dog's daddy was, but I always suspected Old Black Sam from just down the street. He was a night-time courter and a midnight rider and pretty much a Black Lab, with some unknowable other breeds thrown in. He had a head as big and as flat as a coffee table.

He was an outside-dog and didn't take shit from any other dog. My dog resembled him a great deal except for a white blaze on his nose and four white paws. He was jet black everywhere else. I always figued that Sam nailed Missy and produced my pup.

My dog was a fat, grunting little rat. My dad suggested that we call him "Spats" because of his white feet. But my brother and I decided on "Pudgy," because we didn't know anything about spats at the time and we had a fat pup. He was our dog for the next eight years.

I liked to take him out in the woods with me when I went to shoot my BB gun. Pudge was a natural-born bird dog and always liked to fetch my kills. He would hear me shoot, see the bird drop and go get it. Then, he would bring it back and drop it at my feet. I never had to teach him to do that.

I made a bad mistake one Saturday morning in February. I took Pudgy to the Gun Club Lake, where I used to tresspass regulary. That dumb dog took one look at all that water, let out a yelp, and in he went. The temperature was about 40 degrees that morning, but the cold water certainly didn't bother that dog. HE WAS HAPPY!!!

I kept calling for him to get out, but he was showing off his swimming skills and having a blast. That's when I saw the white pickup truck coming around the lake. That was the Caretaker of Death.

All the "NO TRESSPASSING" signs warned of fines and jail sentences, but I heard worse stories than that about The Man In The White Truck. Rumor had it that he carried a shotgun filled with birdshot (or maybe rocksalt... either way, it was a horrifying tale) and he LOVED to shoot 12 year-old boys right in the ass whenever they tresspassed on his baliwick. He'd kill your dog, too.

I looked at the truck, yelled at the dog and realized that Pudgy was NOT going to get out of the water. I couldn't run off, save myself and leave my dog to be killed.

I shucked my clothes, jumped into that cold-by-God-freeze-my-ass-off water and dragged the dog out. The truck was so close by then that I didn't have time to get dressed. I kept the wet dog under one arm, grabbed my clothes with my free hand, dropped one shoe, had to stop and pick it up, then hauled my nekkid, freezing dog-toting self off through the woods. I kept waiting for birdshot or rocksalt to hit my fleeing bare ass.

That never happened, but the blackberry vines I sprinted barefoot through damn sure took a toll on me. I was picking thorns out of my feet for two weeks after that. Plus, I almost turned blue before I could dress myself again, because I had to keep one hand on the dog's collar to keep him from running back to the lake again.

Did I say that he was a GOOD dog?

Well, he was. He was PERFECT for a young boy who loved roaming the woods, even if that dog DID make me believe that I was going to be shot right square in my nekkid ass at the Forrest City Gun Club Lake on one cold Saturday morning in February.

Kids and dogs need adventures like that.

I was in college when he died and I STILL cried for him.

October 25, 2006

My thoughts

Originally published October 1, 2003

I've been blogging for 21 months now. I almost quit once because I felt totally stressed out by it. But that experience allowed me to take a step back and realize what I really wanted to do here.

I just write. I don't want to go fang and claw in competition with other bloggers for popularity or links. I got caught up in that nonsense once and it really fucked me up. I'm not doing that crap ever again.

Don't get me wrong. I like my readers and the really clever comments I receive from them. That "ceaseless quest for adoration from people who don't know me" is part of my motivation and I'm not going to lie about that. I like attention. I put up with the trolls even though they piss me off. I don't know why anyone wants to be a troll, but I really don't know why I want to blog the way I do, either.

I've used this analogy before, but the longer I write this blog the more I believe that it's true. The internet is a big, vast, surging ocean. I like to stand on the shore, watch the waves and stick a note in a bottle. I then throw the bottle into that big, vast, surging ocean on the outgoing tide just to see where it might land.

The note may be read, or it may not. Maybe nobody ever finds the bottle. Maybe somebody does and passes the note to other people. Maybe, after they read my note, THEY start throwing bottles in the ocean, too. That can happen.

I just like blogging a lot better since I stopped whoring for links and checking the Ecosystem every day to see where I stood in the rankings. I could give a shit about that anymore. What I put here will be here every day, just because I want to do it.

Pick up that bottle you found on the beach and read the note inside if you want to. Otherwise, don't. It really doesn't matter one way or the other. I'll still keep putting the notes in bottles and tossing them into the ocean.

That's what I do.

Fuh-de-duh

Originally published July 1, 2003

Somebody asked, so I'll explain. Long ago, at a drive-in movie far away, I was as stoned as a sphynx. I don't remember the movie I was watching, but some little Oriential boy ran up to the hero and started yelling what sounded like "Fuh-e-duh! Fuh-e-duh!" while trying to drag the hero to whatever the boy wanted to show him.

I was in my 1968 Javelin with my friend, Junior Walker. The reefer-smoke was thick as London fog inside that car at the time. Junior said, "I know how he feels. I'm pretty well fuh-e-duh myself right now."

That gave me a case of the idiot giggles and I damn near pissed my pants. For a few years after that, "fuh-e-duh" meant that you had ENOUGH of whatever you were doing at the time.

It sounds like how you'd say "fucked up" when you're really fucked up.

It was funny at the time. But I guess you had to be there.

October 24, 2006

A Fond Memory

Originally published June 30, 2003

Rick, Steve and I went up to Joyce Kilmer State Park in North Carolina for our third trip up to the top of Hangover Mountain. I fell in Slickrock Creek on the third crossing and told them to go own while I put on some fresh socks and dry britches. (It's not called "Slickrock Creek" for nothing) We had been drinking and doping all night long on the way up there.

I changed clothes, ate a can of vienna sausages and smoked a cigarette. Then I went to catch up with them.

I made it to the base of the mountain, where it's nothing but STRAIGHT UP from there, and I never saw my friends. I walked out onto a rock ledge and shouted at them but heard no reply. I KNEW that the fuckers didn't go any farther than where I was, because it was the last decent campsite before the grueling climb to the top of the mountain. Ain't no way they went past there with the sun going down.

So, I camped there by myself that night and had a goddam wild hog come tearing down off the mountain to terrorize me. That sumbitch had a severe case of attitude and sounded like an army of trolls when he came rushing down the streambed in the dark. I bounced several large rocks off of him, but he paid no attention. Shit, I think the bastard LIKED being hit by rocks.

He started snorting and grunting and rooting around the campfire and I am sitting there in my hammock with a Bowie Knife in one hand and a canteen full of bourbon in the other. I looked at the knife, I looked at the hog and I took a drink from the canteen. What else are you going to do?

Bohunkus Boar finally got tired of fucking with me and wandered away. He sounded like a goddam elephant stomping through the woods. I laid down in my hammock and went to sleep.

The next morning, I figured that I would give Rick and Steve until 11:00 to become unlost. Otherwise, I was going on to the top of the mountain without them. I would make my own way back home from there. At 10:45, I saw two heads bobbing up the trail. It was them.

"WHERE IN THE HELL HAVE YOU ASSHOLES BEEN?" I asked, politely.

"Fuh-e-duh! Fuh-e-duh!" said Rick.

"We got all fucked-up, Rob," said Steve. "Where the trail turns down by the river we kept going straight and found a dead end. Rick just said "Fuh-e-duh" and went to sleep. I said "fuh-e-duh" and went to sleep, too. We figured that you would be okay and you would wait for us."

Well, they were right. They left me asshole deep in a creek, ran off and got lost, delared "fuh-e-duh" and went to sleep, depending on ME, who fell in the creek when they didn't, to take care of myself. See what good friends I have?

Steve died in February of this year. The last time I saw him, we laughted about that backpacking trip. We were young, dumb and full of cum back then.

Bejus. I miss those days.

October 23, 2006

It just took a while (for him to figure out how to post this picture)

Originally published June 4, 2003

Acidman fishes the mighty Chatooga River. In keeping with his image, he wears no shirt. He also catches no FISH, either, but that's beside the point.

One thing leads to another

Originally published January 30, 2002

Remember Sidney Harris, the late newspaper columnist who wrote the "Things I Learned While Looking Up Something Else" pieces? I believed he was a really ignorant individual if he spent the majority of his life looking up stuff and always getting lost along the way, never finding what he set out for in the beginning. He reminded me of Wiggles, the best dog I ever knew. Wiggles didn't speak English, but he understood about 100 different words in that language. He had a box of toys in my bedroom and I once amazed visitors and seduced women by demonstrating my dog's intelligence.

If I said, "Go get your ball," Wiggles would run to the bedroom and return with a ball in his mouth. The green one was his favorite, so I always shot down the fallacy about dogs being color-blind by saying, "No, not that one. Go get your RED BALL." Wiggles would run back to his toy box, drop the green ball inside and return with the red one in his mouth. When Wiggles had retrieved his rope, his doll, his chew-bone and his bandanna, I usually fed him a Krystal hamburger, which was another talent show, because the dog could cram the entire hamburger in his mouth, gnash vigorously for a few seconds, swallow the hamburger and spit out the pickle slice every time. Women loved that.

Wiggles always put on a good show for spectators. Occasionally, however, when we were alone in the house, I would command, "Wiggles, go get your ball," and he would tear into the bedroom, rummage through his toy box, snort a few times and come up with his chew-bone. Then, he would flop on the floor and gnaw contentedly.

It was simply a case of "Things I Found While Looking For Something Else."

October 22, 2006

Interesting Question

Originally published March 16, 2004

"What do you want your son to remember about you?"

That came from my comments and I'm happy to answer that question. I want my son to remember me as the man who always kept the booger-man away when he was frightened. I want him to remember me as the one who taught him to throw a football, the one who taught him to catch and the one who told him to rub some dirt on his wounds when he fell down crying.

I want him to remember me as the one who taught him to cut a green stick to roast hot-dogs over an open fire in the woods ("Make sure it has a fork on it") and I want him to remember the ghost stories I told at night. I want him to remember my favorite line that I always used when I spun outrageous yarns designed to frighten kids around a campfire: "Look at this face. Would I lie to you about something like that?"

"YES! That's what you do best!"

I want him to remember the times I tucked him in at night and cooked him my famous Lumberjack Breakfasts in the morning. I want him to remember the times I announced, "Oops! I just tripped," and fell on him for some hugs and wrestling.

I want him the remember how proud I was of that BEAUTIFUL kickoff return he made last football season. I want him to remember how we practiced spelling tests. I want him to remember me reading him the first three Harry Potter books at the kitchen table before the divorce.

I want him to remember me with love.

That's all I ask.

Sunday Visit

Originally published June 27, 2004

I went to visit my mama today.

When I arrived at her house, nobody was home, so I went next door to see my 93 year-old grandmother. Her birthday was in May, but I kept forgetting to bring her the present I bought back then, so I gave it to her today. Better late than never. We had a nice, long talk, during which she kept trying to get me to eat something, anything--- just EAT.

My grandmother comes from the old hillbilly school of hospitality that says any guest who visits must be FED, or it's not good manners. I told her that I wasn't hungry, but I probably should have eaten a bowl of Cheerios or something to make her happy. Even if it's just a piece of candy, you're supposed to eat SOMETHING when you go to Mommie's house.

Mama came home from church about an hour later. She was wearing a bright pink dress and a wide-brimmed hat. She looked better and healthier than I've seen her look in a long time. I believe the reason she looks and feels better now is because she stopped going to all those doctors who were cutting slices out of her, injecting her with lethal chemicals and probing in places better left unprobed.

Mama walked two miles yesterday. She's back to doing her morning walks and that's a good sign. My mama ain't happy being bedridden and too weak to get around. She's always been a fiesty wench.

Mama sang in the church choir for years. After she got sick, she was too weak to go to church, so the church came to her. People brought her food, offered to clean her house, take her to the doctor or just come and sit with her if she needed company. I am not a religious man, but I truly am touched by what the church has done for my mama.

That's Christian Spirit in action.

The preacher came to visit a week ago and asked mama to come back and sing with the choir. Mama said, "I've got no hair left on my head, it's too hot to wear a wig, and I would feel ridiculous being up there with the choir wearing a hat."

The preacher said, "If you will come and sing, everybody in the choir will wear a hat." Mama took him up on that promise, and guess what? Everybody in the choir showed up wearing a hat that Sunday. Mama thought the entire affair was hilarious, but she appreciated the gesture.

It got even better this Sunday. Mama walked into the church and discovered almost EVERY WOMAN in the congregation wearing a hat. And these were not ordinary hats. Those wimmen made them out of collanders, with kitchen utensils dangling off them, out of paper bags, out of whatever they could find, and the more ridiculous the better. It was like a clown show out there.

But the message was clear to my mama: There's no shame in wearing a hat to church, and we love you even if you ARE bald. I'm not sure who teared-up worse when she told me that story--- me or her--- but I had to put my sunglasses on in the shade.

I love you, too, mama. Hat or no hat.

The Genesis of Crap Blogging

Originally published on March 27, 2002

Okay. I just hit myself to see what the page looked like and I found everything tangled up in blue (as Bob Dylan would say) after I did the link on my last post. I went back and attempted to edit it, but everything seemed to be fine. I hit myself again and it's still blue. That has happened several times to me (scroll the archives) and I still don't know what causes it. If anyone reading this knows what I'm doing wrong, e-mail me at: pigmenteer at yahoo dot com and tell me how to correct it. I would have my e-mail address over on the left side of the page for everyone to see all the time if mercenary Scott had not taken my money and run before he taught me how to do that.

At first, I blamed all the blue fonts on the fact that Blogger was so asleep and then soooo sloooow when he woke up that I had too much time to sit at my desk and eat fresh barbecued spare ribs and wash them down with several glasses of white zinfandel wine. I bought the ribs and a wonderfully-cooked Boston Butt from a street vendor in the Food Lion parking lot in Garden City after work today. The naturalists and nudists I met in Key West were amazed at my tales of barbecue, grits and eggs, low-country boils and oyster roasts (where you cook 'em on an old car hood over an open fire) and I'm pretty sure they thought I invented a lot of what I said. I may have elaborated somewhat (that's a writer's perogative) but I didn't invent ANY of it. That's what we do down South. I certainly didn't invent the guy in the cowboy hat with the portable smoker who was hawking his wares in the grocery store parking lot. I paid a total of $17 after a few minutes of haggling over posted prices, for which I received supper tonight and fixins for my son's visit tomorrow, because he loves barbecue as much as I do. The ribs will be gone by the time he gets here, but he thinks it's funny when I tell him we're gonna have Butt for supper. "Does it poot?" he asks. "Yeah, but only from the inside out," I reply. He eats well, and poots well afterward, very proud of himself.

I marvel at the fact that ALL KIDS THINK POOTS ARE HILARIOUS. Burps are good, and worth a giggle or two, but a good, loud, stinky cutting of the cheese can make a room full of younguns fall on the floor and roll as if they were being tickled by the hand of God. They come by it naturally, both male and female, although the women outgrow it when they start plucking their eyebrows and wearing makeup. Boys never do.

I still remember the time about five of us boys were spending the night in the "woods" of somebody's back yard and Andre said, "Y'all wanna see something neat?" We all agreed that something neat was exactly what we wanted to see inside that tent right then, so Andre started pounding his fist against his belly.

"What are you doing," I asked. "I'm conjuring a fart," he replied, with a look of complete concentration on his face. We all sat back and marvelled. Suddenly, he said, "All right! I'm ready! Get back!" We scattered to the walls of the tent.

Andre struck a kitchen match, half-masted his pants and farted over the match. A foot-long blue flame lit up the tent and we all thought it was the funniest thing we had ever seen. Talk about fire-breathing dragons? We had a genuine, four-star, fire-breathing ass right there in the tent with us. We laughed for hours and nobody slept much that night because when it finally got quiet, if one person started giggling, everybody else ignited, too. Forty years later, I still chuckle when I think about it. Of course, those were the days of two-channel, black and white TV and it didn't take a lot to entertain us back then.

I'm afraid to tell that story to my son, because he may try it himself and burn my house down. He can be a windy boy sometimes. But I sure do love him.

October 21, 2006

Wonderful Wednesdays (even if it is the weekend)

Originally published on March 28, 2002

As an English major in college and a semi-professional musician for a number of years, I often am amazed to realize that I have been a supervisor in a chemical plant for more than twenty years. I have done well where I work, judging from my performance reviews and the money they pay me, but I remain amazed that my life played out the way it did.

In college, I declared a "Wonderful Wednesday" whenever I felt like it. That was a Wednesday when I decided I had better things to do than go to class all day, so I cut them all. I laid in bed some days, played golf on others, or pulled out all the sofa cushions to find enough spare change to buy $1 pitchers of beer in the afternoon at the old railroad station in Athens, Ga. I was a professional student at the time, so academic work could easily take a back seat to real-life experience; I could make good grades standing on my head back then. My roommate was a law student and I was such a corrupting influence that even HE indulged in a few Wonderful Wednesdays. For me, it was part of a bohemian lifestyle; for him, it was a liberating experience.

Once I hit my semi-professional musician stage, I became accustomed to living vampire hours. I woke up at the crack of noon, or maybe later. I staggered off to bed at about four o'clock in the morning, or maybe later. Time was very fungible in those days, as long as I showed up where I was SUPPOSED TO BE on time and did what I was SUPPOSED TO DO, which was work from 9:00 till 1:00, Tuesday through Friday, then work 9:00 till 2:00 on Saturday nights. That made for a very difficult 21-hour work week, where I kept my nose to the grindstone, did exactly what I wanted to do at the time and got paid very adequate wages for my artistic suffering. A great employee benefit package was included, too, because women like musicians. I won't go into details about that part of the job, because I don't remember enough details to elaborate. Let's just say that I recall a grand moasic.

But I put away those childish things a long time ago. Now I go to work at 5:30 every morning and come home whenever the work is done. Ten hours is a typical shift, plus an hour travel time each way to and from home. I wear a beeper and stay on call 24 hours a day. People from work call me at ungodly hours of the night. I work weekends every tenth week as the "duty" supervisor. I suppose I'm a great American success story.

I've been divorced twice. My son from my second marriage is with me tonight, on a visitation. We played basketball on the GOAL FROM HELL (damn, but I'm proud that I finally got that thing assembled instead of shooting it!) and then I threw football passes at him until the sun went down. He is fed, watered and bathed. He's on his Play-Station II now, but his eyelids are drooping. He'll be out like a light shortly.

My daughter from my first marriage will be in town tomorrow. I have not seen her in five years. She is nineteen and lives in Fort Worth, Texas. She wants to see my son and my son wants to see her. But that may not happen because my BC (bloodless cunt) ex-wife usurped my weekend visitation by booking a trip to Vermont for my son's spring break and she will come to reel him in at 7:00 tomorrow night, whether he sees his sister or not. So it goes. She has airplane tickets and at least one other guy to sleep with.

I could raise a big stink and hire a lawyer to sort this out, but the truth is that I don't care anymore. I just wish I could declare a Wonderful Wednesday every now and then.

I miss the good old days.

Music

Originally published March 31, 2002

The electricity blipped during the storm, so I had to tour the house and reset every digital clock I own. I set them all a few minutes apart, just to put some variety in my life. A time warp occurs if I walk from my bedroom to the kitchen. Weird.

I dug through my CDs and found some old stuff I had not listened to in a long time. Remember Highway 101? Paulette Carlson broke up that band to start a solo career and neither she nor the band has been heard from since. Too bad, because the band made good music and Paulette sang like a bird. "Sleeping in the Bed You Made For Me" is a classic. Then, I ran across Mary Chapin Carpenter and listened to "This Shirt" three times in a row with the volume turned up loud. I popped Dire Straits in next and played "Sultans of Swing" over and over again. I believe that might be the greatest rock and roll song of all time, with extremely tasty guitar licks by Mark Knopfler. I also have "Neck and Neck," where Mark plays with Chet Atkins, and that's downright obscene. I've played guitar for more than 30 years and I HATE IT when people blow my doors off and make it look so easy. A lot of good guitar players cruise around out there, but I can always distinguish Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler and Leo Kottke anytime I hear them, no matter what the music. They are stylists and their sounds are unique. Hell, I'M A STYLIST, TOO; I just don't play as well as those guys do.

If I decide to ditch my career in the chemical industry, I believe I could make a living as a minstrel again in Key West. The going wage is $50 an hour and a typical set is four hours. The pickers start at noon and somebody's on stage until 4:00 AM. I thought I was better than at least half of the people I saw playing there. Hell, I'm better than 90% of them. I'm pretty wonderful when you get right down to it. If I only had a little humility, I would be perfect.

I put new strings on my Martin today and she sounds good, a lot better than that damned alarm clock is going to sound in the morning. If I threw some stuff in the truck and left right now, I could be there around sunrise. It's a tempting thought.

October 20, 2006

True Confessions

Originally published October 20, 2004

I have decided that I am one crazy mo-fo. The body doesn't work the way it once did, and a lot of that fact has to do with the crazy, mo-fo shit I did in my younger days. But there's very little of my past that I would swap for something else. I've enjoyed my life. I squeezed the juice out of it.

*I've made music with some famous people.

*I've been to bed with more wimmen than most men have.

*I've seen my writing published.

* I've been flat-assed broke.

* I've had a lot of money.

* I've owned more than I ever thought I would.

* I lost it all and I didn't die.

* I have known True Love. I also have known True Heartbreak.

* I trust very few people in this world, but the ones I DO trust, I trust deeply. I have never swallowed a more bitter pill than to have one of those people I trusted betray me.

* I like the mountains better than I do the beach.

* I don't want to live forever.

* I like guns. I once was an excellent marksman, but I'm not as good now as I once was. My eyesight has declined and I don't have the steady hands I once did. I can still shoot, but not like I could 25 years ago. Where did THAT boy go?

* I'm not done yet.

Early Acidman Mars...

Originally published Saturday, December 29, 2001

At least I put last night to good use. I watched my beloved Georgia Bulldogs receive a disgusting ass-whipping from Boston College in the Music City Bowl, did my laundry, opened this blog site, stayed up late drinking wine and slept on the sofa. I woke up looking and feeling like Fido's ass. Now I don't know whether to make a pot of coffee and a lumberjack breakfast or just fix a very large Bloody Mary and waste this entire day.

Maybe I'll do both and finish cleaning my brand-new crackerbox house, except for my son's room, where it appears a daisycutter bomb went off, scattering GI Joes, plastic army men, assorted military equipment and one dirty sock all over the place. No, I'll just keep the door closed to that room and save the mess for the next time he visits so he can clean it up.

Maybe I'll break out my new collection of hypodermic needles and the magic elixer and give myself a crank injection. No, not the drug "crank," but an injection IN my crank. It's a long story, partially told below.

Before my bloodless cunt of an ex-wife started screwing her unemployed, dope-smoking lover and divorced me, I had a 3,200 square foot home on five acres of land, with four goats, 28 chickens, 3 dogs, 2 cats, and a half-acre garden. It was a genuine country estate, located more than a mile down a dirt road off Highway 30. I loved it there, not only because I could tend my animals, collect fresh eggs every day and pretend to be a farmer, but also because I could piss off my back porch any time I wanted to without worrying about being seen. Of course, I sometimes do that now, and even though I don't WORRY about being seen, I probably am.

I really liked my goats. I started out with two, Billy and Opie. I kept them in my fenced, two-acre North Forty out back, where they made great lawn mowers, keeping the prolific bermuda grass in the pasture neatly trimmed and providing entertainment in the evening when they would butt heads and attempt to hump each other in spite of the fact that they were both males.

The people who owned the house before me had kept horses back there and they (the horses) had torn a lot of holes in the fence. In the first spring I lived there, this presented a problem when a female goat down the street went into heat and I discovered that Opie should have been named "Houdini" for his ability to find escape routes in his quest to run down the street and service the available and willing "Elvira," a complete slut of a goat that now reminds me of my ex-wife. Every time I discovered him missing, I would drive my truck down to Bob and Sue's, find Opie in their goat pen, catch the horny bastard and have Sue drive me back home while I pinned Opie down in the bed of my truck until I could put him back in the pasture. I kept patching the fence and Opie kept escaping.

Finally, when Sue called one more day to announce, "He's Baaaaaak!" I had had enough. I went to Choo Choo's building supply store and bought enough fence to redo the entire area that the horses had damaged. When I started hanging the new fence, Billy stood by watching, munching bermuda grass and seeming only vaguely interested in what I was doing. I was mumbling to myself about how this would fix that rotten Cool Hand Luke once and for all and I would never have to go rope and wrestle his smelly ass back home again. When my big dog, Bud, walked up beside me, I didn't think twice about it. In fact, I believe I started telling him about how I was going to make it impossible for Opie to break out, run down the street and get laid again.

Then I heard "baaaaa." I looked over the new fence I was hanging and saw Billy on the other side, giving me the closest thing to a goat-grin I had ever seen. I dropped my hammer and said, "Whoa. You stay right there. I've got something nice for you." I ran to the barn, poured some goat feed into a bucket and ran back, hoping to lure the wandering goat back home. By then, however, he was nowhere to be seen. That's when I realized that Bud, being smart and powerful enough to unlatch the gate with his nose, had done exactly that when he came to see what I was doing. He also left the gate wide open behind him. Although Billy never crawled through holes in the fence that were barely larger than his head the way Opie did, he couldn't resist the sight of the open gate, where he could stroll to freedom with no effort whatsoever. Now I had two escapees to capture.

I finished hanging the fence before I went goat hunting. Opie, of course, was looking spent and satisfied, smoking a cigarette, barely able to keep his eyes open in Sue's goat pen. The slut-goat Elvira was asleep in the hay. But Billy was nowhere to be found. I captured Opie and took him home, which didn't take long because I was having so much practice at it. Then I drove around on a Billy-hunt and couldn't find him anywhere. I finally gave up.

About an hour later, I heard a knock on the front door and answered it to discover a teenaged boy that I didn't recognize. "Mister, are you missing a big, white goat?" he asked.

"Umm... that depends," I answered. "What did he do?"

"He's down at my house eating grass with our horses. Miss Sue said she thinks he belongs to you."

I confessed that the big, white goat was probably my missing Billy and that I would go retrieve him directly. I saw my neighbor, Cathy, an experienced goat-roper herself out in her yard, so I stopped and persuaded her to drive my truck back home after I captured the wandering Billy. We went together on the goat-quest.

Sure, enough, Billy was munching grass with the horses at the teenager's house. I still had my bucket of goat feed, so I first attempted to lure the hammer-headed creature to the truck by waving food under his nose. He preferred to eat grass with the horses. Then I decided to get physical. I would simply catch him unaware, snatch all four legs off the ground and carry him, bleating and grunting, back to my truck. It always worked on Opie, so I knew I could do it.

One factor I left out of my carefully calculated equation was the fact that Billy was at least half-again larger, heavier and meaner than Opie. When I attempted to wrap one arm around his neck and the other arm around his smelly ass and lift him off the ground, he didn't lift. He took off running. I found myself hanging on to a running goat by one arm around his neck while I was being dragged like a ragdoll along the ground, through a muddy ditch, and back onto some grass. I thunk a brilliant thought then: I'll grab one of his back legs and trip him up! So, I did, which threw him down on his side with all four cloven-hooved legs pointed right at me as I lay beside him. He proceeded to kick me with an action much like the bobbin on a sewing machine. As I am getting the upper hand by crawling on top of him to stop those painful leg-kicks, he commences to piss like a racehorse all over us both. Then he jerks his head up suddenly and gives me a head-butt right between the eyes with that Klingon forehead of his.

I am seeing stars, I believe I have some broken ribs and I know I have goat-piss soaking my clothes. But by then, I have an audience of about a dozen people, including several children who know me and who shout "Get him, Mr. Rob! Get him!" while the adults piss all over themselves laughing at me. I finally get a rope around his neck and wear him out just before I expire from exhaustion, pain, shame and humiliation. I wrestle the nasty bastard into the bed of my truck with the help (better late than never) of the teenaged boy who alerted me of my goat's location. I return Billy to the fenced North Forty, where he resumes his duty of eating grass as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred that day.

I went to the kitchen table and fixed myself a strong drink. Cathy had one, too, laughing and pinching her nose shut while she described the manly scent, at least for a goat, that surrounded me like a cloud. I had mud and goat-piss all over me and my left eye was swelling closed and turning black from the vicious head-butt I had received from that Klingon skull. When my slut of an ex-wife came home (of course, that was before the adultery, the unemployed dope-smoker lover and the divorce, so she was still my darling then) she took one look at me and said, "My God! What happened to you?"

"You oughta see the other guy," I replied.

October 07, 2006

If I'm Not Mistaken...

...this post claimed the "Crap Daddy Of Blogs" award.
Personally, I almost peed mah panties (laughin'!), when it was originally posted on Feb. 15, 2006.
Thanks for findin' it for me Cat.
Lil T~

A Crap Tale

I think it was the spring of 1977. I was playing guitar for a living and Recondo 32 was attending some kind of basket-weaving classes at the University of Georgia so that he could milk the GI Bill for all it was worth. He and his lovely wife Georgia came home to Savannah at the end of the Winter Quarter to visit with friends and family.

Recondo needed to return to Athens for his last final exam on a Tuesday, and he asked me to give him a ride. I had Monday off, I was still familiar with all the good watering-holes in Athens and I had nothing better to do, so I agreed. I planned to go on Monday, get drunk and spend the night in Athens. I could make it back home in time to play Tuesday night.

We piled into my 1974 Vega and headed off for adventure. The weather was warm, so I was dressed in a tee-shirt, running shoes and a pair of Bill Rodgers satin jogging shorts that resembled a loin cloth, the better to display my sexy, muscular legs.

The shorts had no pockets, so I stuck my wallet in the elastic waistband, in the back where my wallet rode safe and secure, just above my asscrack. I wore no underwear (this fact is important). We stopped for beer and gas somewhere along the way, at a convenience store that sold Polish sausages the size of donkey dicks.

Those sausages turned slowly on a rotating grill behind a glass window and smelled wonderful as they sizzled and sweated globs of grease. I was hungry, so I bought one. I ate that sucker in about three bites and washed it down with cold beer.

I must not have chewed that thing sufficiently to fully subdue it in my belly. A few miles down the road, that sausage began to percolate and mortify as it combined with beer and my digestive juices to produce some fascinating noises and a few farts of world-class quality. Recondo cursed mightily with his head out the window a few times. I was proud of myself.

Before we arrived in Athens, I stopped farting because I felt something other than gas attempting to escape my anus. I knew what it was. Past experience had taught me the signs of a Sneaking Turd, that wiley dungwad that poses as a fart and fools you into shitting your pants.

I wasn't falling for THAT trick again, so I clenched my asscheeks and held on grimly all the way to Athens. By the time we arrived at Recondo's place, I was growing desperate and my clench-muscles were beginning to fail. As soon as he unlocked the front door, I duck-waddled as quickly as I could to the bathroom to relieve my anxiety.

I heard a plop! as I half-masted my jogging shorts and besat the throne, but I didn't think anything about that noise. I was simply delighted that I had reached the pooper in the nick of time. A foul eruption of beer, Polish sausage and other semi-digested detritus spewed from my bowels. The stench was horrible, but the relief was exquisite. Oh man, that felt GOOD.

When I was finished, I turned to look in the toilet before I flushed. (Do YOU do that? Y'know... admire your stool, check for worms or just make sure that you didn't blow your asshole off after a most excellent crap expulsion?) I'm glad I did, too, because I suddenly realized what made that plop! when I first sat astride the stone pony.

It was my wallet.

Yep, in my desperation I had forgotten all about my wallet being in the back waistband of my pants. It had fallen into the toilet and I had buried that sucker in sausage-shit.

I have seen many terrible things in my life, but that sight still ranks among the worst. Worst EVER. One lonely corner of my wallet, like the tired hand of a swimmer going down for the third time and praying for rescue, stuck just above the cess and the mess. I had no choice but to fish it out.

You can talk about "filthy lucre" all you want to, but I have SEEN it with mine own eyes. I will not regale you with the details of what I did next, but let's just say that the bathroom sink and a lot of soap and water were involved. So was a mighty test of my gag reflex.

In the end, I saved my wallet and the money in it. I also spared my dignity by never telling Recondo what I had done. In fact, the only reason I'm telling the story NOW is because I want to win this contest foul and square.

I AM the Crap-Daddy!

October 03, 2006

Playing By The Rules

Originally posted October 11,2004.

I really wish that life was fair, but it's not and you'd better learn that lesson early in life. I grew to be only 5' 7 tall and weigh 150 pounds. There went my dreams of playing professional football. My size dictated my fate and I had no choice in the matter. I REALLY wanted to be a professional football player, too.

That's just not fair, is it? Government should step in and pass a law requiring NFL teams to have AT LEAST one 150 pound white boy on the roster. You know, kinda like Affirmative Action. Tilt that playing field for ME and call it an act of "fairness."

One reason I like poker so much is that the rules are damned simple and everybody plays by them because they don't want to get shot for cheating. The cards don't give a shit how big you are or how much money your daddy makes. They just hit the table the way they're dealt. You take it from there.

Why can't we run governmant by rules as simple as the ones you play poker by? A flush beats a straight. You gotta have Jacks or better to open. You can check and raise, but it's a $2.00 limit on the bet and a $5.00 limit on the raise. Three raises maximum. If we play high-low, an ace can be played either high or low. No wild cards. Simple.

Our real problem today is that we have TOO MANY RULES, and those slimebags in government keep making more rules every day when they can't enforce the ones they already have. Buncha dickwits.

Some of the rules are absolutely ridiculous, too. Anti-smoking, anti-gun, anti-whatever blew some sanctimonious asshole's dress up. Spank your kid and you are guilty of child abuse. Have a bloodless cunt of an ex-wife and you're guilty of domestic violence just because she said so. Really ponder whether a cold-blooded murder is a "hate-crime" or not.

Do you know what happens when you have too many rules? People start violating them, and once you've broken one rule, it's easy to break another. Plus, if you get caught violating a bullshit rule ("What? You're gonna fine me $1,000 for lighting a cigarette in the park?") you lose all respect for the law.

I don't respect the law today.

I WANT to play by the rules, but I want the rules to be simple. They're not. I cringe when I listen to the Presidential debates because both men want to make more rules to govern my behavior. MY behavior, when neither man knows me from Adam's housecat.

Fuck the rules. I'll make my own and live with the consequences.

October 01, 2006

Ahem

Originally posted April 05,2005

I Get Bunches of Them

I love the leftist emails I receive from people who basically say the same thing: "Yeah, Clinton may have gotten a blow job in the Oval Office, but he never killed 1,500 soldiers in a foolish war."

I can't argue with that kind of logic. To suggest that Clinton should have kept his dick in his pants and dealt with the terrorist threat that HE KNEW was aimed at this nation would be reactionary on my part. To suggest that The FUCKING PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES should have been able to keep his dick in his pants at all is very judgmental on my part.

I mean... you have Osama Bin Laden threatening to blow you up on one side... and you have Monica Lewinsky offering to blow you on the other. Which would YOU pick as leader of the free world? Clinton made his choice.

And if you are stupid enough to believe that 9/11 wasn't a direct result of Bill Clinton's paralysis, execept when he was getting good head, you are out of your fucking mind. But that's what I expect from a kool-ade drinking leftist.

You are ALL out of your minds.