|
March 31, 2008A picture I will remember for a whileOriginally published August 1, 2003 We've got the whole beach to ourselves. The water is very still and waves barely lap the shore. I can see the boys laughing and splashing out there as they collect sand dollars. They run up about every three minutes to where I'm sitting to display their latest finds. Then they are off to the water again. They have ants in their pants. I remember having ants in my pants when I was their age. Yes, I had legs that ran everywhere I went, up and down the beach, through the water to the shore and back out again. I never got tired. I could play in the water like that until an adult made me quit, and even then I would bitch about it as soon as I was called to go back to the room. That's what the boys did to me. They didn't know how tired I became from watching their endless energy. Now, I stay tired anymore. I WANT ants in my pants, but I don't believe that I could handle it if I got a case of them. I'm coming to grips with something I never wanted to admit. I am old. I woke up at 0215 Wednesday night after a terrible nightmare. I was covered in a cold sweat and I had goosebumps all over me. Bejus! That dream had snakes and heights and the ex-wife and everything that scares me half to death all rolled up in there. It was hideous. I went to the bathroom to take a piss. When I turned on the light, it took me a few seconds to realize who that old bastard in the mirror was. It was me. Once I accepted that fact, I looked closely at the person I have become over the past couple of years. That accounting was almost as hideous as my nightmare. People once always supposed that I was younger than my actual age. They tend to err on the other side today, and I can't blame them. I have the eyes of an old man, and when I look right into them, I still see a young me in there, but that guy is buried in the wrinkles and lines etched all around my face. Hell, if that guy ever got ants in his pants, he couldn't make it out of that spiderweb. He's fucking buried, covered up, trapped. I splashed water on my face and wiped myself with a towel. That got rid of the sweat and the goosebumps, and I thought that maybe I would get better after that. But when I looked in the mirror again, there was that same wild-haired old fart staring back at me. I had better get used to it. That old fart is who I am today. I checked on the boys and they were sound asleep. So were the ants in their pants. I opened the patio door and smoked a cigarette in the dark. I was obligated to take the boys to the water park in the morning, then to the sand bar that evening. I promised them that I would, and I deliver on my promises. Lord knows, I didn't feel like it right then. I finished the cigarette, flipped the butt into the bushes and went back to the bathroom. I poured two fingers of straight vodka into a glass, drank it down and went back to bed. I didn't dream after that, but I was still old when I woke up in the morning.
I'd kill the guyOriginally published August 1, 2003 If I could hunt down and kill one person on the face of this earth, it wouldn't be Saddam Hussein. We'll get his ass, sooner or later, and I want the soldiers who have been sweating in the desert to enjoy that privilege. No, I would kill the person who invented the term "street-wise." That bastard deserves a slow and horrible death. He took two simple words, fused them together and justified the behavior of every black piece of shit on every street in America today. You no longer had a dumbfuck thug who was an illiterate dickwit, condemned to prison, crack-addiction or the life of a janitor because the fucker never bothered to learn to read. No, you had a "street-wise" person. He was COOL, with his hat turned around sideways, his baggy pants and his jive-talk. In fact, he was a HERO in a lot of movies. See, "street-wise" was the kind of person you really needed around when you wanted cheap dope, diseased whores and dirty heroin needles. Wait a minute. That's not how it was at all. The "street-wise" kid wasn't the one stealing bicycles, drinking Colt 45 and pimping when he was 15. He was SMARTER THAN THE EDUCATED GUYS!!!! That's what "street-wise" was all about. How many goddam "street-wise" characters did you see in movies during the 80's? That smart-mouthed thug kid without a fucking clue in the world was damn near a REQUIREMENT back in those days. I'll tell you what "street-wise" really is. It's the mentality that keeps your ass on the street, in the ghetto and eventually in jail or dead. It's the mindset that makes you a thug instead of an achiever. It's the shit that you smear yourself with to camouflage the stench of your own ignorance and failure. It's what puts you on Channel 4 news at eleven. It's what makes too many young black men die in the gutter. "Street-wise," my ass. You want "street wise?" Try goddam WALL STREET!!! That's where the real money is, you dumb fucks!!! But that would mean going to school, learning to read and write and acting white. Nope, no future in that for a "street-wise" kid. Thank Bejus that I am not raising a "street-wise" son. He's just smart, well-behaved and well-educated. He's probably a very uncool white boy. "Street-wise" kids laugh at him. From their fucking jail cells.
Work shitOriginally published April 30, 2003 I was insulted, along with every other salaried employee in the plant today, by the pinheads in Corporate. That's okay, because I am accustomed to that sort of behavior from Corporate weenies. It must be nice to live on Olympus instead of in the mud and the blood where I subsist. Having those Corporate bolts thrown at you is GREAT for morale, too. Bust your ass and get your ass busted. Yeah. I love you, too. The Union contract expires tomorrow and we have no Agreement. I may become a live-in operator next week if the communistic, mao-maoing idiots decide to strike. The truth is, just running a production job for a while would be a relief. I don't care if it IS twelve-on, twelve-off, around the clock for as long as it takes. Doing the TWO JOBS to which I am assigned, where I replace TWO operators, is a piece of fucking cake compared to what I do every day. I have to watch only TWO JOBS? Throw me into that briar patch. If those fools strike, it will be the worst mistake a Union ever made. I'll help run that plant without it ever missing a lick. Corporate can piss on us again after we're finished.
Pornographic movieOriginally published August 1, 2003 Am I the only person ever to watch SEX TREK: THE NEXT PENETRATION? Am I the only person to watch that movie THREE TIMES? Back-to-back? (Well, there was a lot of front-to-front and front-to-back, side-to-side and even some really sick shit in that movie. I liked it for the articles.) If you're a Trekker like me, you gotta love a big, overswollen dildo called the "Starship Betweenyourthighs" orbiting the planet Youranus. Captain Quirk is in command, aided by his close friends, Vulcan Lt. Sperm and Dr. McCoy (known as "Boner" to the captain.) Ensigns Screwyou and Jackoff man the helm. Lt. Youwhore controls the communication console. Yoman Randybitch waits for orders from the captain. Snotty runs the engine room and the transporter. Did I mention that there were a lot of nekkid chicks running around fucking anybody who would hold still? Was I the only person ever to see that movie?
March 30, 2008More quickiesOriginally published August 1, 2003 *The sea was extremely calm and muddy on Jekyll Island. It was like a huge, salty swimming pool where you couldn't see the bottom in three feet of water. The boys loved it. I had no trouble keeping track of them. *Show me a fat, 300-pound yankee woman drinking a Diet Coke and I'll blow snot out of my nose laughing. Every time. *I took the boys to Blackbeard's restaurant and Quinton saw whitecaps on the water outside the big picture window. "What is THAT, daddy?" he asked. I told him that it was a sand bar and I would take him there the next day. I did. It was one hell of a sand bar at low tide. *I am not certain about the status of my bionic dick. Wearing a bathing suit and soaking in the ocean has been really good therapy, but my dick just doesn't "feel" right. Neither do my balls. I get to inflate the hardware next week. I'll decide whether I like it or not then. *What the fuck do I do if I DON'T like it? *I have a woman who claims "First Dibs" on my bionic dick. She promised me a "first-rate sucking and fucking." She said, "Rob, it'll be like losing your cherry all over again, and you'll remember me FOREVER." She probably is correct about the cherry and the memory. *Yankee men need to groom their goddam toenails. I know that they don't go barefoot the way Southern men do, but goddam. You gotta know an ugly, untrimmed foot full of ugly toenails when you see it. Do those fuckers live in the dark? Don't they own toenail clippers? *DO NOT wear "water shoes" on the beach. Or goofy-assed goggles and swim-fins. You look like a dumbfuck yankee when you do that. Good Southern boys like Jack and Quinton make fun of you for hours after we go back to the room. You deserve it. *How can some people be SO GODDAM PALE? I saw some people that made me want to reach for the garlic, a crucifix and a wooden stake. They HAD to be vampires. Bejus! You can't be THAT PALE without living in a goddam coffin. *A skinny woman with big titties still gives me cognative dissonance.
More emailOriginally published April 30, 2003 My loyal readers (or people trolling for links on my most wonderful and semi-popular blog) send me all sorts of interesting stuff. I enjoyed this one from the Emuse. Saw an anti-smoking billboard the other day that tickled my sense of irony. I like the idea, but Emuse doesn't spend as much time as I do telling really spooky stories to little children. I am REKNOWNED in my neighborhood for my ability to scare the living shit out of children so badly that they are afraid to walk home after dark unless I go with them carrying a flashlight. The kids LOVE it and always come back for more. So, HERE is what I would tell them about smoking: Heh. Kids pay no attention to a smoke-blowing dragon, but the vision of a worm eating through their EYEBALLS hit a home run in their imaginations. After that story, you can THREATEN to put a cigarette under their pillow at night and make them run screaming. I could go on, but I believe you get my point by now. If you're going to scare the shit out of a kid, be willing to do it right.
Racist rantOriginally published August 1, 2003 I watched Jacksonville's Channel 4 while I was on Jekyll Island. They've had a "rash" of murders down there over the past four days. Every one was committed by young black males against other young black males. Such is life in "The Ghetto" and it's all the White Man's Fault, yada, yada, yada. Where the fuck is Jesse Jackson when this kind of pure shit is happening every day, all over the country? Why isn't HE down there telling the "brothers" to STOP KILLING EACH OTHER? Why do white people makes excuses for the fucking savages among us? I don't give a rat's ass what color you are. But I UNDERSTAND MANNERS. I was sitting around the pool yesterday and I saw two "brothers" come walking up, with their hats turned sideways and attitude dripping from every pore of their skin. They wore UNDERWEAR beneath their bathing suits so that they could wear the trunks about mid-crotch with half of their underweared asses hanging out the back. WTF is that all about? I wanted to bitch-slap both of them. I wanted to tell them both that they looked like Fido's Ass and they should go read a book instead of acting nigger. You keep that shit up bro' and YOU'LL be the next one I see on Channel 4 being hauled off in a body bag by the EMTs. You assholes are bound and determined to out-nigger the world, aren't you? I've got news for you: That plan won't work. Pulling that shit is why 95% of the murders in Savannah this year are just like the ones I saw on Channel 4 and that's why 12% of the population in this country occupies over 50% of the prison cells we have. Look around and do something totally politically incorrect: PROFILE SOMEBODY! Look at a black thug, dressed like a thug, acting like a thug. Then, CALL HIM a black thug. They are not accustomed to that. That's racist, and you're not supposed to call a spade a spade anymore. Gag me with that crap. You are the way you act. If you're a fucking thug, you're a fucking thug. Some black punks are FUCKING THUGS and there is no goddam excuse for that kind of rude, unmannerly behavior. It's disgusting and you wouldn't put up with it from white boys. But when blacks do it, you pretend it's not out there or ignore it because calling a black thug a black thug is "racist." We are programmed to do exactly that today. Well, most people are. That shit didn't take on me. I've been in charge of two young boys for the past four days. They behaved like gentlemen eveywhere they went because I MADE THEM DO THAT. They weren't going to show their asses while I was in charge. And if they had put on bathing suits with underwear underneath and tried to walk out of the room with their trunks almost to their knees and a goddam hat turned sideways, I would have strangled them both. I've got a bulletin for a lot of black parents: Letting your kids run around like that is NOT the gateway to success in this country. You're not doing them any favors. You're setting them up for the Channel 4 news. And Jesse Jackson won't give a lovely shit when they end up there, either.
March 29, 2008QuickiesOriginally published August 1, 2003 *Did you ever have "quickie?" You know, quick sex just crammed into a spare moment. Wasn't it fun? *I once got a blow-job while driving 75 miles per hour on Interstate 16 at 10:00 in the morning. I came like a sperm whale. I also realized RIGHT THEN that a man cannot perform oral sex on a woman while she drives a car. Her equipment ain't built for it. *If you buy bottled water, you should be dragged off and shot. That's the most pretentious, yuppified, pussified bullshit I ever heard of. I blame environmentalists for that mass-insanity. I still drink water from my garden hose. I ain't dead yet, either. *I like dogs better than I like cats. But I had two dogs who liked to eat cat turds. They would find cat turds in the yard, dig them up and eat them. Then, they wanted to lick my face. They never understood why I beat the shit out of them when they did that. *Wait a minute. I have NEVER had "the shit beat out of me," nor have I ever had "the shit scared out of me." I shit my pants once on the golf course for no other reason than scrambled eggs from a Shoney's breakfast bar. It just happened. No beating or fright was involved. *If you eat a lot of seafood for four days in a row, you can take a crap and it sounds (and FEELS) like a covey of quail is flying out of your ass. It's amazing. Little boys do the same thing. It feels weird to YOU, but THEY think it's funny. *I had a dog who didn't recognize his own farts. They always took him by surprise. He had a tail like a backward "?" so that I could always see his asshole. It would open and close with a ripping sound, and the dog would turn around ready to fight whatever made that noise behind him. He didn't know that HE DID IT. But if I said, "Bejus! You paint-peeling stinker! Get out of here," he always acted guilty. Dogs always act guilty. Cats NEVER do. *One of the greatest pleasures in my life was to buy three watermelons off a local farmer for $5.00 total and eat nothing but the hearts out of all three and throw all that seedy shit away. Damn, that was good. Wasteful, but what the hell. I didn't want to pick through all of those seeds. *I've had a woman scream "NO!" in the middle of nekkid, sweaty sex as she grabbed my ass with both hands and rode through her third or fourth orgasm; therefore, I naturally am suspicious of rape accusations. Especially from some asswit 19 year-old who probably drinks bottled water.
Cell phoneOriginally published April 29, 2003 I got a new cell phone at work today. I didn't know that my old one wasn't working until last weekend, when some friends came by unexpectedly and said, "We thought you were dead! We KNOW the land-line is always busy while you blog, but we've called your cell phone for THREE DAYS and it's been off the entire time." "Bullshit," I replied. "It's on right now. See?" I showed them the phone. It was turned on and fully charged. "I always keep it on in case somebody calls." "Bullshit your ownself. Let's see." One of them dialed my number on his cell phone. My phone didn't ring. "Aha!" he said. "Listen to THIS!" And I heard that familiar message about how the Sprint user was not available now. I dialed his number on MY phone and received some kind of message about roaming and using a credit card to make a call. I knew then that something was badly wrong. I took the phone by the Information and Communications Gods today. "My phone has quit working," I told them. "Did I break it?" "What are you doing with THAT THING?" one of the phone people asked. "We switched you over to Alltel and issued you a new phone two weeks ago!" "No, you didn't," I said. "You may have switched me, but you never issued me another phone." Much confusion ensued. They HAD cancelled me with Sprint, but issued MY phone to someone else by mistake. I ended up with a new one, even though I was treated as if the mistake was MY FAULT. That shows you how much I use a cell phone. I was toting a dead one for two weeks and didn't even know it.
Changing timesOriginally published April 30, 2003 I received another email from Smiling Dave today that echoed something that has puzzled me for a while now. He wrote: "One of our guys showed up about a half hour late to work today. As he was about to depart his home, he spotted some trouble on his block. A twelve year old boy had poured something flammable on his nine year old sister and set her on fire. I see it this way, Dave: A society GETS MORE of the lowest kind of behavior it is willing to TOLERATE. Too many parents want to be their child's "friend" instead of a mentor and a disciplinarian. Schools teach "self-esteem" whether the kid deserves any or not. We have bureaucratic minions of the State ready to prosecute a parent as a "child abuser" for taking a belt to a well-deserving rump. Outraged lawyers sue when Little Johnny is called a "pint-sized monster," even if he IS one. We accept unacceptable behavior today because we are taught not to be "judgmental" in a thousand insidious ways. As a result, we generate more and more unacceptable behavior because WE ACCEPT IT, rather than be judgmental. Yeah, I remember when I was twelve. By then, I had experienced a rich multitude of butt-whippins from both my mother and my father, who used whatever weapon was handy at the time, when they believed that I strayed from the path they expected me to walk. They steered me back on course with blows to my young ass. I had judgmental parents. They had rules. They were cheered and respected by other parents, too, as well as teachers and principals. If I screwed up in school, the teachers didn't have to discipline me. All they had to do was CALL MY PARENTS. They would handle the problem from there. My parents did not accept unacceptable behavior. As a result, I grew up flying right. About the biggest trouble I ever got into in my youth was a couple of fights on the school bus. Very few people raise their children that way anymore. The parents aren't judgmental and they don't make rules. They let the kids make the rules. That's why you have a 12 year-old setting his sister on fire. I'll bet he gets a real, loving discussion about how wrong it is to "act out" as a result, too, and then some anger-management classes. That'll teach him.
TrollsOriginally published April 29, 2003 I just read an email from someone who received a particularly nasty troll-attack because of a comment that person left on my page. Since the referrals came from MY address, the person asked my if I had written that brainless, anonymous filth. I may write some brainless filth sometimes, but I ALWAYS sign my name to it. I don't troll, either. If I come for a fight or a pissing contest, it will be with YOU, not with your family, and ESPECIALLY not with your children. I am a crusty old Cracker who doesn't mind his mouth or his manners, but I have certain principles. And as for the trolls--- I have stepped in dogshit that had more character and backbone than you have. Running around spraying anonymous, obscene graffitti on somebody else's wall is about as assholey as it gets. Real brave, too. If there WERE two of you (instead of one puke-bucket using two addresses, which I suspect) you don't have a testicle between you. Or half a brain either. Next time, just get your giggles playing with your blow-up sex doll. Bejus knows a real woman wouldn't have you.
March 28, 2008Up at 5:00AM... againOriginally published July 28, 2003 I don't sleep much. I remember when I COULD and I DID and I miss the hell out of those days. I took most of my classes in college in the afternoons because I hated to get up early. Oh, man, the bed was my friend back then and I could sleep ALL DAY if I was in the mood. I frequently declared "Wonderful Wednesdays" and cut every class I had just to lay in bed asleep. I don't do that anymore. I wake up at 4:30 whether I want to or not. I can't go back to sleep. I get up, grab a Mountain Dew and check on the boys asleep on the couch. I see them asleep, with bare feet sticking out from under the covers. They played hard yesterday. I cover them up, tuck those bare feet in and they remain comatose. I go outside to listen to the frogs and the crickets. I like where I live. At 0600 every morning, I can hear the freight train let loose that mournful whistle as it roars down the tracks ten miles from here. I like that sound. It carries well in the early sunlight. Mist hangs in the air and you know that by noon it'll be another hot summer day, where sweat drips off your nose and always finds a way to burn your eyes. There's a good chance of rain this evening, because there ALWAYS IS when the weather is like this. A big, fat toad, bloated from a night of bug-catching hops onto the patio. He looks at me and I look at him. "Good morning, you ugly bastard," I say. He does not reply, but he doesn't hop away, either. The toad and I enjoy the morning together. I am out of milk and out of eggs. When the boys wake up, we may have to hit McDonald's or the Waffle House for breakfast. They WILL be hungry. Hell, they are ALWAYS hungry. Mr. Toad looks as if he did just fine on his own last night or I would take HIM to the Waffle House, too. Seems like a pretty good toad to me. It would be really nice to go back to bed and fall asleep right now. But I know that it's not going to happen. It never does anymore.
Vacations suck!Originally published April 28, 2003 I enjoyed ten glorious days off and I didn't do a single constructive thing the entire time. I went nowhere, I had no great adventures and I spent very little money. I blogged, ate, drank, had a few visitors over and pretty much laid around like a hound-dog in the shade. If I didn't really WANT to do something, I just didn't do it. If I didn't HAVE to do something, I DAMNED sure didn't do it. That vacation was the best I've had in years. Everybody who has a job where people expect you to DO THINGS and BE SOMEWHERE and MEET DEADLINES and FINISH THAT ASSIGNMENT all the time should do just what I did once every year. Get really lazy and say "FUCK ALL OF THAT!!!" For the next 10 days I AM MY OWN BOSS! And I gave MYSELF the assignment of sitting on my ass, playing some music, watching a few movies, reading a book and working on my suntan. I actually went back to work today with my batteries recharged. I felt good and I WANTED to work. I knocked out week-old stuff piled up from when I was gone that I usually would take all week to finish. I did it all before noon today. When I sat down at my computer this morning (I arrived at the plant at 5:30 this morning because of all the catching up I KNEW I had to do), and saw the 196 emails to read, the pop-up notices for all the meetings I am expected to attend this week and all the production numbers I had to digest, I actually felt energized. Usually, after a weeks vacation, when I see all of that crap on my first day back, I want to pull my trash can over between my legs and puke in it. Not today. I am glad that I didn't go to Merlefest. I am glad that I didn't go ANYWHERE, except to Randall's Liquore Store and to Kroger's. I need to take vactions like that one more often. I've had a lot of shit dumped on me over the past two years and I've spent my time off trying to run out from under it all. GO SOMEWHERE! DO SOMETHING!! I didn't run this time. I didn't even walk. I sat on my ass or laid in a lawn chair in my own sunny driveway. The experience did me good.
How old is "old"?Originally published April 28, 2003 That all depends on what "is" is. If I offended sweet miss indigo by bitching about Father Time, I sincerely apologize. Ma'am, you are older than my decrepit ass is and you seem perfectly content to be a fossil just because you have senority on me (yeah, I know we are BOTH WAY BEYOND the average age of most bloggers). But I ask you a favor, as a Southern Gentleman to a Southern lady: WOULD YOU PLEASE STOP BRAGGING ABOUT THE VIRTUES OF OLD AGE!!?? THERE ISN'T A GODDAM ONE I'VE FOUND YET THAT I WOULD SWAP MY YOUTH FOR!!! If you want to argue about boiled peanuts, I'll go there with you. If you want to argue politics or the war in Iraq, I'll go THERE with you, too. But old is old, Indigo, and when we start arguing matters of DEGREE we sound like the kind of senile, diaper-wearing coots that the caretakers watch carefully around the domino table in the "Shady Rest Place Where You Go To Die." I don't want to go there. Hell, I don't want to be where I am NOW. I have a head full of gray hair (at least I still have my hair) and lots of scars on my body. My skin isn't as tight as it once was, and the "laugh lines" around my eyes that once made me attractive to women now are full-blown wrinkles. I am known as "The Old Fart" by many of the young Turks at work today. Got a problem? Go ask "The Old Fart" what to do. I liked being a young Turk better than I like being an Old Fart, even if I am better at being an Old fart now. I don't like growing old, and I will rale against the fading of the light until that light goes out. But I'm convinced that I'm fighting a hopeless battle, all by myself. I believe that I've met an enemy who will kill me in the end. That enemy has struck some pretty impressive blows already, and I am unable to respond in kind. I don't see a damned thing good about it, and you don't need to rub it in.
March 27, 2008Yard equipmentOriginally published April 26, 2003 This morning is NOT the right time to even think about it, but I did anyway. I hired a guy at work to make me a still. He's a good welder and fabricator, and when I showed him the drawing of what I wanted, he said that he could do it for $250. He also said, "Rob, this would make a damned good still." I told him that I was going to cook seafood in it. He said, "How about giving me some of that 'seafood' after you cook it? I haven't tasted good 'shine in a while." I told him that I would and I believe that he reduced his price because of that. He should have it finished by next weekend. What I designed is a big, 30-quart stainless steel tub with a conical top. I want a 3" hole with a screw-in plug just above the straight edge on the tub. That's where I'll pour in the mash. I also want a 3/4" tube fitting at the very top. That's where I'll attach my worm. I can make my own condenser, ferment my own brew and take the rest from there. I believe that what I intend to do is against the law. I've done it before with a modified turkey-fryer and it worked very well until I blew my contraption up and caught everything on fire one day by heating the mash too quickly. I want the right tools for the job this time. My grandfather taught me how to make moonshine. I don't care what the government thinks about my illegal, garage-sized still. I'm just carrying on a family tradition. If I treat a 5-gallon batch of mash right, I can distill about one gallon of pure moonshine. I can cut that white lightnin' by 50% with water and end up with two gallons of likker that will be damned near 100 proof. I can make it out of ANYTHING as long as I have some sugar and yeast. The last time I brewed a successful batch, right before I blew up my still, I took a bunch of charred oak wood and put it in coffee filters. Then, I ran the liquid spitting out of the worm across that home-made cascade of charchol and caught it in one quart Mason jars. I added a small piece of charcol before I twisted the lid tightly on every jar. Leave that crystal-clear liquid alone for 30 days, and guess what you have? (I'll tell you what you'll have.) You'll have the kind of whiskey that you can't buy in a store. It's the fire-water that goes down smooth, tastes slightly smokey, hits your belly like a nuclear blast, runs down to your toes to make them curl, then rebounds up to make your scalp tingle. THAT'S REAL MOONSHINE! And I know how to make it.
Fair questionOriginally published July 27, 2003 I was asked this question in my comments:
I'm curious - you say Sugarmama (28?) is too young for you - what age range do you find attractive? I like wimmen with lines around their eyes who still laugh at my jokes. I believe that wimmen in their 40s are amazingly sexy. I like seasoned wimmen who know that they are not as buff as Angelina Jolie and still like to make love with the lights on. I like women who know who they are. I would LOVE to buy Sugarmama dinner sometime. I simply want to put a face with a name I've known for a long time. I have no intention of ever even TRYING to get in her pants. She may not believe that, but it's the truth. If I want to sport with a 28 year-old, I'll rent one, have my pleasure, give her a nice tip and send her away. I can't deal with those younguns for more than an hour or so. I have nothing in common with them. But if you are a 40-something woman who reads books, maybe writes a blog and likes silver-haired men, you and I can spend time together. We've got lots to talk about. Hell, we might even have really good sex. I DO have a bionic dick, after all. But I would rather just buy you a nice dinner and enjoy your company. If sex happens, that's fine. If it doesn't, that's fine, too. I just bought the bionic dick so that if sex ever DID HAPPEN I would be ready for it. I like wimmen. Hell, I LOVE wimmen. But nowdays I like 'em much older than 28. I see true beauty in a woman with a few years on her. They just look so... WOMANLY! They hit their peak of sensuality at around 45. They know what they want by then, the kids are almost grown and they're ready to enjoy good meals and good wine after years of Hamburger Helper and Spagettioos. That's MY humble opinion.
Why I like emailOriginally published April 28, 2003 I received this little nugget in a lenghty email from SmilingDave8, who called his rant, "An Old, Foul Dude Meanders." He had a lot to say about various topics, and I was fascinated. I believe that he and I have a LOT in common, what with both of us being old, foul dudes and all. But he almost caused me to hurt myself when he wrote THIS GEM, which was knocking around in the back of my brain-pan for a while every time I saw a picture of Susan Sarandon. I just never could drag it to the front burner of my mind and bring it into crisp focus: Dave, I've never smacked a Chihuahua on top of the head, but I would LOVE to do it to Susan Sarandon to test your theory. She DOES have the eyes of a Chihuahua. And the brain of one of those little, pea-brained rat-dogs, too.
March 26, 2008A matter of perspectiveOriginally published July 27, 2003 I have been known to "hit" on wimmen that I find attractive. I'll introduce myself, try to gin up a conversation, buy them a drink and flirt. The chance of getting laid never crosses my mind. I just want some company. Sugarmama says: *** I think (perhaps erroneously, but I don't care) that the kind of guy who tries to pick up women isn't my kind of guy. I've never been into the "suave", "wheeling and dealing", cell-phone talking, convertible driving, smooth talker who doesn't have a problem picking up women. I can't participate in some sort of impromptu rendezvous at the beach, with a guy who threw out a cheesy ice breaker while I was completely absorbed with writing a letter. Ugh. Cheese. There is no way to "pick Sugarmama up". No ploy, no attempt, no matter how clever, is going to work. The only pick-up that works is "getting to know one another through less contrived circumstances". Nothing against the guy... but I can't recall the last time I was "in the mood to be picked up". Maybe next year. ;-) I don't go to church. I don't sign up for on-line dating services. My friends don't attempt to set me up with a lonely-heart the wife knows. I don't hang out in bars. I ain't exactly tom-catting in my singleness. But when I see an attractive woman on the beach, on the street or at one of those company functions I get sent to regularly, I see nothing wrong with asking her out to dinner. She is free to say "no," and I won't get my feelings hurt. She also is free to say "yes" and expect nothing more than a nice dinner with a man who is not a half-bad conversationalist. It beats dining alone. I've been impotent for the last 21 months. I didn't ask wimmen to have dinner with me because I wanted into their pants. What was I going to do if I got there? I simply wanted to have dinner with them. I didn't want to dine alone. Some men actually DO THAT, with no strings attached. Some wimmen actually like men who do that, too. Sugarmama, every man you meet is NOT out to get into your pants. (MOST OF THEM ARE... I've got to admit to being a member of the brotherhood of SWINE. But there are exceptions which prove the rule.) You would be too young for me to hit on, but there may come a time when you're in a strange place by yourself and a polite gentleman introduces himself and invites you to have dinner with him. Don't automatically say "NO" in a knee-jerk reaction. Maybe all he wants is to buy you dinner and have some female companionship for a good meal. That really DOES happen. When the meal is over, he picks up the check, kisses you on the cheek and thanks you for the pleasure of your company. He'll walk you back to your room after that, make it easy to say goodnight, and you may never see him again. But you'll always remember a dinner that was better than one eaten alone. That's what I've done for almost two years now. My bionic dick won't change a damn bit of it except the walk back to the room. If she invites me in for coffee, I'll go next time instead of making some mealy-mouthed excuse about an early meeting I simply MUST attend because I don't want to tell her about my impotence. I hope I meet one who thinks highly enough of me to want to screw my brains out. That would be nice. But that will be HER call. Otherwise, we'll just enjoy a nice meal.
DisastersOriginally published July 27, 2003 I have this theory that movies such as The Towering Inferno, The Poseidon Adventure and Airport were instrumental in the growth of the scare-you-to-death environmental movement of today. Mankind was living on the verge of DISASTER!!! DEATH AND DESTRUCTION LOOM!! It was BOUND to happen any day. Well, it didn't for 30 years until the WTC attack, so the nutballs and barking moonbats created THREATS of disaster to fill in that lenghty gap. Global Warming. (That was right after the New Ice Age fell out of vogue.) Lead-based paint. Asbestos. Brain cancer from cell phone towers. Poison in the water. Poison in the air. Poison EVERYWHERE!!! People lived longer and healthier lives all during this time, but that didn't mean a goddam thing. WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!! became a rallying cry for the scare-mongering, money-grubbing interest groups out there dedicated to scaring the shit out of the ignorant, and they were amazingly successful. We banned smoking. We enforced the Clean Water Act. We banned perfectly safe insecticides. We passed gas mileage standards for cars. We went firing off environmental regulations like projectile vomit and made heroes out of scumbags such as Henry Waxman and Jim Jeffords. What was the end result? WE'RE STILL ALL GONNA DIE!!! It's worse now than it ever was. Now, OBESITY is going to kill us! Potato chips are going to kill us. Playground equipment is going to kill us. BUGS are going to kill us now that we banned perfectly safe insecticides. We are too rich and too comfortable today. If we were still grubbing for roots and berries, seeing a 50% death rate among newborns and dying before we were 40, the way people did in the "good old days" environmentalists harken back to, we wouldn't have the spare time to worry so much and INVENT crap to scare us to death. We would be too busy just trying to stay alive. I believe that I should be allowed to club environmentalists they way some people club baby seals. Environmentalists don't make the world a better place. They fuck it up. They would rather see a snail-darter live than a human child. They have twisted priorities and I hate every one of them. The bastards enjoy all the benefits civilization gave them and use those benefits to attempt to TEAR DOWN civilization. Talk about bipolar. Asswits.
Too muchOriginally published April 26, 2003 I had too much to drink last night. I stayed up much too late. I simply did TOO MUCH. I feel like Fido's ass this morning. I suspect that I LOOK LIKE Fido's ass, too, but I am afraid to peek in a mirror. If I had to go to work today, I would shoot myself in the head with both barrels of my new derringer. That would hurt less than the rusty railroad spike that someone drove into my head last night while I was passed out asleep. The rusty spike is still there, embedded like a CNN reporter in my brain pan, and I am afraid to pull it out. If I do, all of my spiritual essence may come swirling out like a White Tornado and whizz off to clean soap-scum from somebody's nasty bathtub. Speaking of nasty bathtubs, I believe that I drank out of one last night. Then, I believe that I moved on to the slime-encrusted toilet bowl in the same bathroom and drank out of THAT, too. I ache. I need to brush my teeth with Chlorox. I had a long night, a short sleep and LOTS of regrets this morning, even though I remember very little of what I did last night. My head hurts, my feet stink and I don't love Bejus. I see a big breakfast, a good puke and a long nap in my future.
March 25, 2008Good thingsOriginally published April 25, 2003 I've ranted, frothed and pissed a few people off today. I'm not going to do that any more (I believe that I've bagged my limit for a Friday). I am going to talk only of good things now. Do you know what's good? *The rain has been falling outside my house now for about three hours. I am inside and dry. If I didn't have a lick of sense in my head, I would be on the side of a mountain now in Wilkeboro, North Carolina, getting drenched 50 miles away from my nearest dry clothes. Where I am now is GOOD. *Prego spagetti sauce with Garden Delight spices is good. Whenever I get tired of Hot Pockets, boiled peanuts and the rest of the bachelor shit I eat just to make a turd, I like to cook a big pot of spaghetti noodles with some bell peppers, sweet onions and mushrooms, then slather the noodles with sauce out of a jar. I eat what I want and throw the rest away. That's GOOD. *I like taking a shower with a woman. If you get a nekikid woman really soapy in the shower, her titties feel especially nice. Kinda slick and clean, even when you dirty things to her. That's GOOD. *My son is a joy to be around. He is nine years-old and as fun as a little boy ever gets. He has the potential to become anything he wants to be in this world, but he doesn't even need to think about that fact yet. He just needs to be a happy kid. He doesn't have a single significant scar that I can see on his body yet. His head appears to be okay, too. That's a GOOD thing. *I sometimes look at myself in the mirror and say "Whoa! What the hell happened to YOU!" Then, this little voice in my head says, "football injuries, lots of fights, several car wrecks, a musician's life, a few years of shiftwork, major cancer surgery, two divorces and 51 years of gravity dragging your ass down." When I think about that, and then look at other 51 year-olds, I have to admit. Seeing myself in the mirror is a GOOD thing. *I knew two people, upclose and personal, who had the same cancer I did. They are both dead now. Seeing the morning PERIOD is a GOOD thing. *I don't like having a worm-song in my head, but I like being able to pick up a guitar and PLAY THE FRICKING SONG. Hell, as long as it's rattling around in my brain, I should be able to play it. That's a GOOD thing. *Did I mention that I was bored? That's a GOOD thing, too.
TraumaOriginally published July 27, 2003 Another one bites the dust. I hope he changes his mind. My blog deals with a lot of personal issues in my life and I almost got sucked down the vortex a month or so ago. I deleted my blogroll and damn near shut down the site. I experienced an identity crisis. I never would have gone there if I simply posted links all the time. But that's never been what my site is about and it never will be. I NEED to write sometimes and I NEED to exorcize demons from my head by putting words into the ether. I get it out of my system that way. I am a manic-depressive, borderline alcoholic with bipolar tendencies. Yeah, I've spent a lot of time in headshrinker interviews and they have diagnosed me to the Nth degree. I believe that they are crazier than I am. If I were a terrible person, I wouldn't have the friends that I do. They've been there for a long time, but they all are male, except for one. I've been way too trusting of wimmen for the skeptic that I am about everything else, and I have paid a dear price for my naivety. I knew the woman that I could have stayed married to forever, but I cast her aside to chase after a bloodless cunt. I will regret that mistake forever. I regret a lot of things. But I don't regret starting this blog and I don't regret the people I've met through it, both those who like what I write and those who hate it. I'm not going to shut it down in a fit of existential angst. I went through that once, and I think it's over now. I am here to stay. I need to feed a couple of hungry boys now.
Chicks crapOriginally published April 25, 2003 I wrote this reply to an email I received from a British (actually, he say's that he is Irish) reader in response to the Dixie Chicks controversy. Our US Constitution has its roots in English common law. As you said, I would put myself in harm's way to protect someone's right to voice an unpopular opinion, even if I disagreed with it, as long as it was THE GOVERNMENT attempting to shut him up. My government has done NOTHING to silence the Chicks, Tim Robbins, Michael Moore or ANY of their ilk. This fact is obvious to me. Why do so many people have a difficult time understanding it?
March 24, 2008Test yourselfOriginally published July 26, 2003 Stay awake for 36 hours and watch your father die. Then, have your mama say, "Handle the arrangements, Rob." Go do it. Have some used-car salesman at a funeral home try to convince you that you need to bury your father in a casket that costs twice as much as the truck he drove when he was alive. Tell that man to kiss your ass and pick out something just above a pine box. See to the plot and the vault and walk out of there feeling as if YOU died. But get it done. Then go home and cry like a baby for for an hour. Do that while you are alone. Nobody else needs to see that. Take a short nap. Then go stay with Mom the rest of the day while people from the church drop by to bring food and sympathy. That evening, put on the suit you were going to get married in and go stand at the funeral home for three hours and shake hands with everybody who comes by to pay their respects to your father. Mom, my brother and I all agreed that the lid would be closed on my dad's coffin. We didn't want to hear anybody say how "good" he looked in there. He didn't look good the last time I saw him. He looked dead. Put up with the assholes who ask you why the coffin is closed. Don't punch anybody. Don't cry. Be dignified. Keep your shit in one sock. I did all of that. I went home after the reception at the funeral home and took off that suit. It's been hanging in a dry-cleaner bag ever since. I got married in a different suit. I fixed myself a Jim Beam and water and sat on the couch. I listened to some music and felt the most complete exhaustion I have ever known. I still had the graveside service and the planting to look forward to the next day. I wondered how my mom would cope. I wondered how I would cope. I felt a tremendous sense of loss that I was too busy to think about until then. I finished my drink and went to bed. I slept like... a dead man. I still dream about my father. I miss him a lot. I believed that I would never experience a worse time in my life than those two terrible days. But I was wrong. A woman later treated me worse than the Reaper ever did. That one damn near killed me.
Being DadOriginally published July 26, 2003 I should get off my lazy ass and cut the grass today. Maybe I will. If I don't, the job will wait until tomorrow. I fixed bacon, eggs and biscuits for breakfast this morning and one of the three (or the combination) made me quite windy. When I felt the first gut-rumbles, I told Quinton, "Pull my finger." He did, and I let loose a fart with a three-foot tail on it. The boys rolled on the floor laughing. Young men find farts very amusing. They began attempting to "conjure" farts of their own by beating on their bellies and making horrible faces. I said, "THIS is how you do it," as I hiked one leg and let loose another thunderbolt. It was a nice 'un. No aroma but very loud. I put those younguns to shame. I also told them that I would sit on them and deliver a direct dose if they screwed up today. They have minded me well ever since. I just heard Quinton telling Jack "My daddy farts LOUD! Can YOUR daddy fart that loud?" Jack replied, "Your daddy is the best farter I ever heard." I have a claim to fame.
They're backOriginally published July 27, 2003 I admit to being a shitty housekeeper. (I need a put-upon woman to do that kind of stuff because wimmen enjoy the sense of martyrdom they feel when they are put upon by men. It gives them something to bitch about.) I live by myself and my standards for proper housekeeping are pretty low. But I don't have any roaches in my home. I have goddam CRICKETS instead. The bastards invaded me last summer and I thought it was merely an abberation. But they are back now. I have nothing against crickets. They make excellent bait when you want to fish for Bluegill or Redbreast bream, and they sound nice outside at night when they make their courting noises. But they should be either on a fish hook or OUTSIDE. I don't want the bastards in the Crackerbox. I killed more than 30 crickets in the house this week. They are in the bathtub in the morning and in the kitchen in the evening. They may come hopping down the hallway at any time. They park their asses in closets and in the corners and sing their songs of love at night, which force me out of bed to gas the noisy bastards with a can of Raid. Why the hell would ANY self-respecting cricket want to be in my house when he has all of Effingham County just outside the door? I don't know. I don't care. They are here, and I kill 'em when I find them. Goddam crickets.
Brain wormOriginally published April 25, 2003 I made a mistake last night. I didn't feel like blogging anymore (and NO the boiled shrimp and corn on the cob I ate for breakfast had nothing to do with that decision), so I put O, Brother, Where Art Thou on the VCR and watched that movie for the umteenth time. I think that the movie is a hoot and I REALLY like the music. But I went to bed with a song stuck in my head and it was still there when I woke up today. It's been going round and round all day. And it IS NOT my favorite piece of music in the film. I thought that MAYBE, if I picked up one of my guitars and played the song, I could run it out of my head. But that just made things worse. It's stuck in my mind like a chicken bone in the throat now. I can't cough it up. And it's beginning to drive me crazy. Remember the two little girls singing "On that Highway into Heaven" in the movie? If you don't, you are fortunate, because those two little shits have been worming my brain for about 16 conscious hours now, and I wish that they would go away. "On that highway into heaven On that highway into heaven On that highway into heaven I'll be somewhere a-working for my lord. There. I hope I wormed somebody else.
March 23, 2008The answerOriginally published April 16, 2006
Now you know where Easter eggs come from...
An Easter postOriginally published March 27, 2005 I am not a religious man. But I do not criticize other people's beliefs. My mama was VERY religious and her church stood by her to the end of her life. I see nothing but good and comfort in that kind of behavior. I'll jump all over you about your political beliefs and I'll attack you mercilessly if I think you're full of shit about anything else. But I will NEVER question your religious beliefs. I figure that you found yours pretty much the same way I found mine, and no amount of debate is going to change anybody's mind. That topic is off-limits to me, although I may blog about what I believe from time to time. But that's just MY BUSINESS, and I'm not going to try to change your mind about what you believe. That's why I don't like this kind of crap. Any time somebody resorts to a Biblical argument to attack what you believe as a rational person, you're dealing with a zealot who who already has a mind set in concrete. Nothing you say will break that concrete and arguing with that kind of person is futile. I've known Baldi as a blog-friend for a long time. I admire her independence, her outspoken manner and the way she writes. (She looks pretty hot, too. I'd love to jump her bones if I weren't so afraid that her mama would shoot me!) She and I disagree on religion, but that has NEVER been a point of contention between us. I really don't understand why the Terri Shavio case has generated so much bile and virtiol in blogdom. I don't care if her husband is a complete scumbag. I would not want to "live" the way she has been doing for the past 11 years. And I don't know why the Federal Government feels compelled to get involved in what really is a very minor matter. It doesn't take much to inspire people to heights of stupidity today. I just wish we paid more attention to really important things instead of this bullshit.
Happy EasterOriginally published March 27, 2005 If Jesus was buried in Rincon, Georgia, his body would have washed out of his tomb today. The rain started yesterday evening and it hasn't stopped yet. I've lived up her for more than three years and this is the first time I've seen Chimney Road flooded. I drove through that gully-wash to get to the store today and I had to maintain wake speed to keep from kicking waves up into people's houses. I saw families stacking sandbags around their front doors as the water was trying to make its way inside. I live on top of a sandhill. "High Point Drive." All the water that falls here runs down to where those people live, and there has been a LOT of it over the past 24 hours. There's another example of "fragile, pristine nature" for you. Bejus! People worry about harming nature when they SHOULD be worrying about nature harming them. Drive around Rincon, Georgia today. Take a good look at what's there. Then spew some more bullshit about "fragile ecosystems" at me. Asswipe. If you want to Save The Planet, go help some of those people stack sandbags around their front doors. Otherwise, shut the fuck up.
March 22, 2008Bite meOriginally published July 25, 2003 Here is a quote that I love, and I dedicate it to all the people who cat-bombed me for the past three weeks. Ya bastids! If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went."
DignityOriginally published July 25, 2003 I don't want to hear any shit about how somebody's dying daddy was SO SICK that marijuana suppositories were the only way to treat Dear Old Dad. I CALL BULLSHIT!!! I was visiting a girlfriend at 5:00 in the afternoon when I received a call from my grandmother, who told me that I needed to get to the hospital right away. My father had taken a turn for the worse and my mother needed some company. I went to the hospital. My mom was like a zombie from spending so much time at the hospital and my dad resembled a Frankenstein Monster from all the cutting they had done on him. He was hooked up to a morphine pump, an IV and on his way out. My mama was hopeful. She believed that my dad, her husband of 40-plus years, was gonna make it out of there. I talked to the doctor, who was a pissant kid 20 years younger than I was. He gave me the scoop. They could amputate both of my father's legs and MAYBE keep him alive for another month. If they left him alone, he would be dead within 24 hours. My only question was, "Can you make SURE he's not in pain?" The doctor said they would give him all the morphine he wanted and he wouldn't even know what was happening. I read "Lonesome Dove" then gave the book to my father and he always admired the way Gus went out. I would have no more told that doctor to amputate my father's legs than I would have done the deed myself. My dad raised me better than that. I made the call. Let him go, with no pain. Then, I told my mother that nobody was going to do anything else for Dad except keep him comfortable. I had to call my brother, who was on vacation in Nashville and tell him to get back home as quickly as he could. He and his wife made it back to Savannah around midnight and Dad died at 0700 in the morning. I watched my father die that night. And there were TWO THINGS the nurses were forbidden to do, because my family would have ripped them limb from limb for trying, and we made that abundantly clear to the "caretakers" who wanted to do it. "Hmmm... this IV doesn't seem to be working as well as it should. I want to move it to another vein." You do and you DIE, bitch. You've poked my father enough. Moving that IV won't make a goddam bit of difference and you KNOW IT. Leave the man alone. "Hmmm... he's sleeping from the morphine, so I'm going to take his temperature rectally. Would you mind leaving the room?" Would YOU MIND if I took that rectal thermometer out of your hand and shoved it up YOUR ass? That's what I'm going to do if you don't get the fuck out of here. My father is DYING! He doesn't need his temperature taken because it's becoming ambient shortly. Just GO THE FUCK AWAY and let nature take it's course. Don't give me any shit about marijuana suppositories. Goddam. What cheap leftist shit that is. YOU would have let them move the IV and stick a rectal thermometer up your Dad's ass as he was dying. I don't need YOUR kind of compassion.
FootprintsOriginally published April 25, 2003 I just left a few tracks on a couple of blogs that I read regularly. I also received some feedback from idiots, too. I LOVE IT when someone from Canada, who probably sees a black person once every three years tells ME about how black people think. How the hell would YOU KNOW? The workforce I supervise is 75% black, and MY ASS is on the line for being a racist every time I attempt to disciple one of them. Ever been THERE, Jane? I reckon not. I have. So don't sit on your frozen Canadian ass and tell ME about racism in the Deep South. That weathervane has turned 180 degrees. Now, blacks cry "RACISM!" any time they fuck-up and the burden is on YOU to prove that you're NOT a racist. Live with THAT SHIT for 23 years. THEN tell me how smart you are. Heh. You won't last 30 days. The pirhanas will eat you for lunch. That's the difference between a bleeding-heart liberal and ME. I understand my fellow man.
How it goesOriginally published July 26, 2003 A man in a hot air balloon realized he was lost. He reduced the altitude and spotted a woman below. He descended a bit more and shouted. "Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don't know where I am." The woman replied, "You are in a hot air balloon approximately 30 feet above the ground. You are between 40 and 41 degrees north latitude and between 59 and 60 degrees west longitude." "You must be a Republican," said the balloonist. I am," said the woman. "How did you know?" "Well," answered the balloonist, "Everything you told me is technically correct, but I have no idea what to make of your information, and the fact is I am still lost. Frankly, you've not been much help so far." The woman below responded. "You must be a Democrat." "I am," replied the balloonist, "but how did you know?" Well," said the woman, "You don't know where you are or where you are going. You have risen to where you are due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise which you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to solve your problem. The fact is you are in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but now, somehow, it's my fault." (thank you to Trease for the email!)
March 21, 2008Random stufforiginally published July 24, 2003 I deleted a couple of defunct blogs from my roll and added a couple of others. I'm really going to miss the ones I deleted, but they deleted themselves first. I left a couple of nasty comments to people who have blogs that hurt my eyes to read. I have a simple question to ask here: If you read books all of your life with black type on a white page, WHY THE FUCK do you think white type on a black page makes some kind of cosmic statement? Why do some people do red-on-pink, for that matter? What is WRONG with you people? Long ago, I took some good advice from a Creative Writing instructor who told me that when I sent missives off for publication, I should make them EASY TO READ. He said, "Rob, these editors read manuscripts all day long. That's what they do for a living. They'll shit-can something that taxes their concentration as soon as they see it. You want YOUR manuscript to be EASY to read. Otherwise, NOBODY is going to read it. Use good paper, large fonts and double-space every line. I don't care how goddam good you may write. If you make it difficult to READ, nobody's gonna look at it." I know many a blogger who should heed that advice.
CanadiansOriginally published July 23, 2003 The only reason that I don't just trash pot-suppository-stuffing Canadians without mercy is the fact that Gordon Lightfoot, one of my Primary Influences in music, is Canadian. I cannot trash ALL Canadians without trashing him, and I refuse to do that. My twelve-string playing is all Gordon, and that ain't bad. My finger-picking is a combination of Gordon and early Paul Simon. I also practiced some banjo rolls to go with it, and I believe that I can three-finger pick with anybody I've ever met, except when I'm drunk. Liquor slows down my twitch muscles tremendously. Give me an electric guitar and I play BETTER when I am semi-drunk. You don't need as much precision on electric and a nice foot pedal covers up a lot of mistakes. You just let that baby bark, and you always have the luxury of bending lighter gauge strings to get the note where it should have been before you fucked it up. Do it right, and the non-musicians think you did it on purpose. Your correction of fuck-ups sound halfway GOOD sometimes. The rest of the band may want to take you outside and beat the shit out of you during the first break when you stink like that, but they'll get over it as long as nobody boos. Okay, now to the point of this post (as if I ever had one). Can anybody name ONE GREAT CANADIAN electric guitar player? I can't.
A blast from the pastOriginally published April 25, 2003 I don't know how I ended up in my archives, but I did. Here is something I wrote over a year ago. I am beginning to reevaulate myself. What I once believed were virtues have cost me dearly and what I once considered vices have cost me, too. The difference is, I had A LOT MORE FUN following my vices instead of my virtues. I am not the same man who posted that entry back then. I still believe everything I wrote, but life is better now. I've dealt with the demons that haunted me during that tumultuous time and I've vanquished most of them. I still don't sleep much, and I have dreams that'll make your flesh curdle. But it's not the end of my world anymore, the way I once saw it. I dreamed about my father last night. He showed up as a contractor where I work and that seemed perfectly natural, even though I knew that he was 10 years dead. "Pop, what are you doing here?" I asked. "I just came back to check on my retirement," he said. It all made sense at the time. He was wearing a green hardhat, the way contractors do at the plant. I know for sure now that I dream in color. I dreamed about my ex-wife, too. I dreamed that she moved in across the street where Jack's mother lives and came over riding a skakeboard on her belly. When I asked what she was doing, she said "Oh!, this is a great inner-thigh workout." That made perfect sense at the time, too. But she wanted to come inside and visit and I told her that I didn't want that. She said, "Okay! Have a GREAT DAY!" and went down the street on her belly, riding a skateboard, still working her inner thighs I suppose. Those are the kinds of dreams I have when I do manage to sleep. Try it for a couple of years. You become accustomed to it after a while. I woke up remembering the dream about my father.
March 20, 2008I hate my fellow manOriginally published July 24, 2003 Today makes two days in a row that I have driven home in the rain. I am carefully supressing a homicidal case of Road Rage right now. I piss and moan about Florida drivers being complete fuckwits (because they ARE) but we damn sure have our share in southeast Georgia. What makes everybody believe that they are DRIVING ON ICE when the roads get wet around here? People become so CAREFUL (No! Myrtle! Don't you DARE go faster than 25 miles an hour on the Eisenhower Expressway. Can't you see that the road is WET?) It's not like these people drive worth a shit to begin with. Most of them should be dragged off and shot for never capturing the concept of turn signals and why it is UNSAFE to drive in the left lane slower than traffic in the right lane on the expressway. They perform that kind of blithering idiocy all the time and never think twice about it. But you let it RAIN and the goddam morons become the most insanely safety-conscious drivers in the history of the planet. DON'T go over 25 miles per hour. STOP at every mud-puddle in the road. KEEP your brakes lights on constantly so that no one behind you knows when you're going to STOP in the middle of the road for no good reason. Safe, safe, safe. No wonder I saw wrecks all over the place for the past two days. I don't drive SAFE. I drive WRECKLESSLY. And by that I mean NOT CAUSING WRECKS! When I went to Charleston last weekend, I did something I've never done before in my truck. I buried the speedometer. It goes only to 100 MPH, but I've got 350 cubes under the hood and I know the Crackermobile will go a lot faster than that. Hell, I wasn't halfway to the floor with the gas pedal. I was doing 85 in the right lane of Interstate 95 and people were blowing by me as if I were standing still. So, I got in the left lane and drove at their speed. I figured it would take a lot of cops to catch that many speeders and I went over 100 miles per hour for a while. I felt perfectly safe because I was going with the flow of traffic. SPEED does not kill. Some asshole on cruise control who pulls into the left lane in front of us at 71 miles per hour to take a hour to pass the car going 70 miles per hour in front of him could have wrecked us all. Fortunately, there were enough of us going fast enough that no asshole had a chance to get in edgewise. I enjoyed that part of the trip. I have NOT enjoyed my drive home from work the past two days. It reinforced a theory I've had for years. You take a naturally stupid person, put them behind the wheel of a car and they become MORE STUPID THAN EVER as soon as they crank the engine. That's a scientific fact, now proven beyond a shadow of a doubt BY ME, just watching it happen over and over again. I want an Urban Assault Vehicle.
Good timesOriginally published April 24, 2003 I remember the first time I climbed to the top of Hangover Mountain and took a pretty good 360-degree series of pictures from up there. I also took a picture of my hiking boot on the 5,608 foot benchmark on a big granite rock at the top of the mountain. I went back three times after that, but never took any more pictures. That was one hell of a climb. I once went tubing in the Applachee River outside of Athens, Georgia, hit something shortly after I entered the rapids and deflated my tube. I rode my ass down that river for about seven miles. That was one hell of a ride. I took some really good illegal drugs in the mountains one night and danced nekkid around a campfire while waving a 12" Bowie knife in one hand. My friends were worried about me but afraid to come take the knife. They thought I was crazy, and they were right. I was in close touch with Indian ghosts. That was one hell of an adventure. I once spent a weekend with a female music student from Jacksonville University. We stayed in the Ebb Tide Motel at Jacksonville beach and we didn't wear clothes for three days. We ate pizza and Chinese food, delivered right to the door. I think that I was seen nekkid by people bringing us something to eat. I never saw the beach. That was one hell of a weekend. In Key West, I met a woman with no pants on who asked me where she could take a leak. I was pissing off a dock at the time. I said, "Right here, I believe," as I finished what she had interrupted. She asked, "Can I get in the water to do it?" I said "Sure! You've got MY permission." I wasn't really certain where I was at the time. She took off her flannel shirt and handed it to me. "Would you hold this while I pee?" she asked, butt-assed nekkid. "You go right ahead, darlin,'" I said, holding her shirt. She did, then climbed out of the water, and thanked me as she walked away donning the shirt with no pants on. Key West is one hell of a place. I once won an incredibly large bet by drinking a six-pack of beer in less than five minutes. I don't know if I could still do that today, but if you've got $100 I'm willing to try it again. That was one hell of a night.
Things I learned backpackingOriginally published April 25, 2003 * I read about this fact in some Jack London short story when I was a kid, but I never was desperate enough to try it until I thought my feet were going to freeze off one really cold day on the trail. I took off my boots and socks, then stuck my feet into a mountain stream with icicles hanging hanging off the rocks. I almost lost my breath, but when I dried my feet, donned fresh socks and put my boots back on, my feet were toasty warm for hours after that. It really works. * If you need to build a fire in the rain when all the deadfall wood is soaked, find a hemlock tree. They always have dead branches at the bottom that have enough sap in them to burn like fatlighter if you stick them to a decent flame. Hemlock branches have served to build many a fire for me when no one else could make one. * A racoon can pull down every zipper on your backpack and steal you blind if given the chance. I've seen the crafty bastards do it. From having exactly that kind of coon-theft happen to ME one night, I can testify that they don't like cigarettes but they WILL eat a Three Musketeers candy bar, wrapping paper and all. * A bear will not attempt to unzip anything on your pack. If a bear gets your pack, the bear will rip the whole thing to shreds and take whatever he wants. You will cower in the tent and let him do it, too. That's never happened to me, but it DID to COP 3. He needed a new pack after that experience. * A porcupine pays no attention to you if you walk up on one in the woods. You will not intimidate him. Wake up hearing a noise at night, turn on your flashlight and look dead into the business end of a skunk, and YOU WILL be intimidated. Trust me on that. * If you build a campfire near a stream in the mountains, the heat or the light attracts some kind of salamander that will come tearing through the leaves, making a noise that scares the shit out of you, then run right into the fire. They'll never slow down until they cook themselves to a crisp. I don't know why they do that, but I've watched a dozen or more do it in a single night everywhere I've been in the mountains. * No matter how far off the beaten path think you are, somebody has been there before you and left litter behind. I HATE walking a trail that seems as if no once has hiked it in years, only to find a couple of empty beer cans laying in the dead leaves next to the trail. That's why I pack OUT or bury whatever I pack IN. Leave the place the way you found it. And I AM NOT and environmentalist.
NicklesOriginally published April 25, 2003 You once could make a phone call with that coin. Then the price escalated to a dime. I don't know what a call costs on a pay phone now. I don't use pay phones anymore. I have a cell phone now, but I prefer just not to call anybody. I also remember buying 8-ounce cokes for a nickel from a vending machine at "Coke Field," where I played Little Leauge baseball. (There's one for the nostalgia guy. Remember Coke Field, off President Street? BWHAHAHAHAHAAA!!!) You once could buy a candy bar for a nickel. Those were the days. Of course, comic books were "STILL 12 CENTS" back then, and sales tax was a penny, so I could get a Superman and a Batman comic for 25 cents. Lord, I am old. A nickel isn't worth much anymore, so I remain unimpressed by the US Mint offering one with a new design. So does the Possum. I can't say that I blame him. Other than putting a couple of rolls of those things in a gym sock and going after muggers in New York City the way Charles Bronson did in Death Wish, what good are they?
The post about nickels started me thinking, and that's always a bad thing anymore. Here's what I recall about money during my teenage years: * Gas was 26 cents per gallon. * A 1969, brand-new Plymouth Road-Runner cost $1,999.99. * An all-night, dusk-till-dawn horror-rama at the Montgomery Drive-In cost $1.00 per car. Cheapest and best date site in the world. * A double-feature at the Avon Theater cost 50 cents. * A Shoney's Big Boy cost 49 cents. Krystal hamburgers were 10-cents each, or twelve for a dollar. * The minimum wage was was 80 cents per hour. When I got my first raise to $1.00 per hour, I thought I was in high cotton. Man, after taxes, I was earning SIX BUCKS A DAY! * Kelly's and Chip's hamburgers (just like McDonald's today) cost 15 cents. French fries were another 15 cents. A 12-ounce Coke was a dime. For 40 cents, you had a meal. For less than a dollar, you fed your date, too. * Pabst Blue Ribbon beer was $4.99 a case just over the bridge into South Carolina, where the drinking age was 18. Georgia still had the drinking age at 21, but I had a damned good fake ID, so I could buy whatever I wanted in my home state. I went to South Carlina for beer because it was a short trip and a LOT cheaper than what I paid in Georgia. * $100 was a LOT OF MONEY!!! * Hell, $20 was a LOT OF MONEY!!! * My college tuition cost $90 per quarter. That was A LOT OF MONEY!!! *When I collected football cards, they were $1.00 for a hundred if you bought an entire box. I negotiated with the owner of Wyndam's Market to sell me a box for 95 cents. I saved a nickel. I was proud of making that deal. * No wonder I don't give a shit about money anymore. I've got enough, and that's all I need. What it's worth makes no sense to me at all.
March 19, 2008I was wonderingOriginally published April 24, 2003 The sky was blue around the Crackerbox today, and I was beginning to wonder whether I made the right decision about not going to Merlefest today. Forecasters are wrong a lot of the time. I had until 6:00 this evening to cancel my motel reservations and I DID spend $180 for the ticket. I thought about just grabbing my bag and leaving as the sky started to change. It became hazy, then slightly overcast. I cannot see the sun anymore. I decided that I was correct this morning. I called the Holiday Inn and cancelled. It's going to rain here, too, but I'll be inside, listing to the sound of bacon frying that the rain makes when it falls off my roof and hits my front porch. I WILL NOT be in the mountains of Wilkesboro, North Carolina being miserable. Sometimes, a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.
Today suckedOriginally published July 23, 2003 The shutdown was just as bad as I expected it to be. Things were going fairly well until a goddam semi-hurricane blew over the plant at about 1530 today and the lights went out. Everything crashed and burned. My shift supervisor was over in personnel dealing with a termination issue and I was running the show. I knew from the outage where the problem was, but even GOOD electricians (and thank Bejus I have a couple of good ones) don't like resetting 13,800-volt breakers in a driving rainstorm. I don't like that, either. Shit can blow up and kill you when you do that. I am good with all the hazardous materials. Give me acid, chlorine, caustic, titanium tetrachloride and every bit of the rest I deal with. I can handle it. I am trained and certified to deal with that lethal crap. It doesn't frighten me. But you show me a substation door with "DANGER: 13,800 VOLTS," and I am out of my comfort zone there. I don't like to be around it, I don't like to open those doors and I wish fervently that I never had to do any of that crap. But I HAVE TO sometimes, and I am eternally grateful that I have electricians who can handle that shit in a driving rainstorm. Nothing blew up and the electricians restored power. After that, it was my job to get everything running again. I KNOW how to do that. I must admit one thing. "Reddy Killowatt" is no friend of mine.
Scary stuffOriginally published April 24, 2003 I started reading one of those Stephen King wanna-be novels today. It's called The House, by Bentley Little. The book isn't bad, so far, but I'll be damned if I would go through life with a name like "Bentley Little." People send me hate mail and call my DICK by that name. I've collected a few names to use if I ever get off my lazy Cracker ass and try to sell what I write. Trust, me... Bentley Little isn't one of my pseudonyms. I like "Jack Packett." If I were going to write a Mickey Spillane-type novel, with a tough-guy private eye as a main character, that's the name I would use. "Rob Smith" just plain sucks as a writer's name. I also favor "John Graystone" if I ever decide to write a spook-book like the one I'm reading now. I thought about writing a romance novel, too. I want it to be written by "Janice J. Wheeler". I like the sound of Js. I use J-words a lot when I write songs. I also like "Ben Hardon" and "Lance Sheffield". Those names are good for ANY kind of book. So is "Max Staffman". Yeah, I know that I'm putting a lot of phallic undercurrents into my pseudonyms. But, HEY!!! Sex sells!!! Besides, I can show you 28 Robert Smiths in the local phone book. They are a dime a dozen, not just around here, but EVERYWHERE. You'll never sell ANYTHING writing under that name. Hell, I don't even post under it on this blog. I prefer to be "Acidman." Update: At least I didn't suggest Haywood Jablome as a pesudonym.
If I were a womanOriginally published July 23, 2003 Maybe I am sick to think this way, but I've always wondered what kind of woman I would have made had I been born female. My brother should have been my SISTER. Maybe then I would have a better perspective on this question. I grew up in a predominantly male household. I spent much of my life being terrified of wimmen because I didn't understand them. I STILL don't understand them, but I was cursed with lust in my heart and I laid a bunch of them during my guitar-playing career. I married two, lost two homes and two childrern as a result. What did I do after that? I bought a DICK IMPLANT so that I can chase wimmen until I die. Tell me I'm not fucked up. Yeah, I cuss wimmen a lot. But I am a damn fine one to do it, seeing how much I like their company. I want to take a female companion to Charleston and feed her catfish, okra and fried green tomatoes, with a bottle of really nice wine. After that, we'll walk the Historic District, then we'll ride down to the Battery and see Fort Sumter. After that, we'll go back to the motel and fuck like wild dogs. If I were a woman, I WOULD DO THAT! It's a good thing I'm not a woman.
March 18, 2008Adios, amigosOriginally published April 23, 2003 I've posted a lot since I've been on vacation, and from a peek at the site meter, I see that I might go over 1,200 visitors today without a 'lanch link from one of the power-bloggers. That's a good way to retire for a few days. I'm leaving for North Carolina early in the morning. I'll post about Merlefest when I return on Sunday. Don't forget me while I'm gone.
I'm not goingOriginally published April 24, 2003 I got out of bed at 4:00 this morning and turned on the television. My bag was packed and I had a handfull of paid bills in their envelopes to stick in the mailbox before I left for North Carolina. I watched The Weather Channel. The weather is going to suck. SERIOUSLY suck. It's a five-hour drive to find my motel room, then another hour from there to Wilkesboro. I AM NOT going to do that kind of travel to drown my Cracker ass in a lightning storm while all the musicians run for their trailers. I've been there and done that. I didn't like it. I'll have to eat a $180 ticket, but that's less painful to me than sitting in the mud during a rainstorm 50 miles from where I have any dry clothes. Fuck it. I ain't going. I'm too old for that shit. You're just stuck with me for the next few days.
Kids todayOriginally published April 24, 2003 I have a guy who works for me that I shuddered at when I interviewed him for a job. He had bleached-blonde hair with a purple streak down the middle, a red top-knot in the back and more face-piercings than I had ever seen before. He had rings in his ears, his nose, his lips, his tongue and Bejus knows where else. I was afraid to ask about the condition of his Unit. But he answered all the interview questions well and we hired him. I have never regretted that decision. He is a bright fellow and a hard worker. I once made the comment that he appeared to have taken a head-first dive into a tacklebox, and word must have filtered down to him. We ALL (including the Plant Manager) have to wear our names on our hardhats at work. This guy now has "Tacklebox" on his hat above his real name. If there is one thing I've learned over the years, it is that you can't judge a book by its cover. This kid is young, and I remember what I looked like when I was his age. I didn't PUNCTURE MYSELF with all kinds of hardware, but I looked like Fido's ass. My father wanted to throw rocks at me every time he saw me and then take barber shears to my head. Still, I was a bright fellow and a hard worker. I did well at the plant. I've known many people who were beautiful on the outside, but totally rotten on the inside. I married one of those. I wouldn't trade one "Tacklebox" for three slick-talking, well-groomed assholes. It ain't what you look like that makes you good or bad. It's how you behave.
10 greatest american womenOriginally published July 23, 2003 I kept my list to ten because, quite frankly, I find it difficult to make a list of 20 Great American Wimmen. I don't mean that in a chauvanistic way, either. Wimmen just haven't been allowed to participate in the moving and shaking of the nation as long as men have. I believe my picks illustrate that fact clearly. Here are mine, in no order of importance. They are in order of how they popped into my head. 1) Condolizza Rice. That woman has brains, determination, beauty and strength. Whatta woman! 2) Annie Oakley. The original American Tomboy. Good with a gun and fit for a Wild West show. Ya gotta LOVE that! 3) Lucille Ball. An American Icon. "Lucy" entertained generations. I'll never forget her in the pie factory. 4) Clara Barton. She was an angel on the battlefield and founded the American Red Cross. 'Nough said. 5) Sandra Day O'Connor. The first female Supreme Court Justice. I don't believe that she's always been a great judge, but she beats the shit out of Ruth Bader-Ginsberg. 6) Sally Ride. The first female astronaut. Plus, you just have to love that name. Ride, Sally, ride! 7) Billie Jean King. A true, fire-breathing champion. She sat Bobby Riggs right on his big-mouthed ass. I LIKE strong wimmen. 8) Amelia Earhart. Wimmen weren't supposed to do what she did. She did it anyway. The fact that she crashed and died on an attempt to circumnavigate the globe does not change my mind about her. That woman had BALLS. 9) Babe Diedricksen. The best female athlete who ever lived, period. That is one amazing woman. 10) (This is a tie) Rosa Parks, because I've always admired people who refused to take shit and Katherine Hepburn, because she didn't take any shit, either. I like UNCONVENTIONAL wimmen, too. Okay, there they are. My picks. Now I need to go check my email and comments to see how many people agreed with me.
Polar oppositesOriginally published July 23, 2003 I posted my Ten Greatest American Wimmen below, but I want to finish this thread with the The Greatest, No-Good Bitches in American History. 1) Jane Fonda. That woman should be in jail for treason for what she did during the Vietnam War. 2) Rachael Carson. The Godmother of today's rabid environmentalist movement. She has the blood of MILLIONS on her hands for banning DDT. The woman ranks right up there with Hitler as a mass-murderer and her minions continue her work today. 3) Patsy Schroeder. She was an idiot, and seemed to believe that the only way she could be taken seriously was to develop a facial expression where she appeared to be perpetually constipated and trying to take a shit all the time while sucking on a particulary sour lemon. Thank Bejus that raving moonbat is out of politics now. 4) Hillary Clinton. Living a history of making excuses for having her husband fuck around on her like a wild mink has given her a senate seat. Prostitution is illegal in every state but Nevada, but New York elects those who practice the trade to high office. 5) Maxine Waters. That scowling gargoyle symbolizes everything that is wrong in Black America and she makes a career out of exploiting it. She is pathetic and people who vote for are, too. But she LIKES it that way. Okay. I am finished ranting about wimmen now.
March 17, 2008The school busOriginally published April 23, 2003 I rode a school bus for most of my sordid public-school academic career. It was always a big, yellow road-barge with "Blue Bird" stamped on the back of every seat. I got kicked off twice for fighting and got my first handfull of teenaged female titty on the back seat one glorious day. Our driver was known to take down a stop sign every now and then when she turned a sharp corner. I usually leave for work at 5:30 in the morning, and when I'm on vacation I usually go somewhere, so I've never watched the school bus make its rounds here before. But I have for the past three days. The kids gather in the street. The boys act crazy, running around with too much energy in their legs, while the girls stand together and act demure. The bus comes rumbling down the road and everybody lines up and climbs on board. Then, the bus goes rumbling off to the school with lots of little heads looking out the windows. Bejus, but it makes me feel old to watch that scene. I wish that I COULD DO THAT AGAIN. I want to be the boy with too much energy in his legs. I want to ride the Blue Bird on my way to school with my homework finished in my book bag. I want to try to cop my first feel on the back seat again. I want... Shit. I just want to be young.
I don't understandOriginally published April 23, 2003 Here are 10 Things I Really Don't Understand 1. Child pornography. A am a kinky and sexually adventurous man, but I have NEVER found children to be anything but kids to me. Who can possibly become sexually aroused at the prospect of diddling with a CHILD? I don't get it. 2. Rap music. That shit just plain sucks, and that's all there is to it. That ain't music. It ain't even good noise. 3. Baggy pants worn with the waistband below your nutsack and your underwear hanging out the top. If I ever see my son dressed that way, I will snatch him bald-headed and shoot his mama. That fashion statement is PROOF that rap music kills brain cells. 4. Vegetarians. There is not another animal on the face of the planet that has canine teeth and does not eat meat. Why do vegans deny what Mother Nature meant for them to be and somehow feel BETTER ABOUT THEMSELVES for being unnatural idiots? Notice to vegans: Give me a steak and stick that tofu up your ass. 5. "Peace Protesters" who throw things at people, riot in the street and set places on fire. How do you protest for PEACE by acting like a war-like savage? 6. The free pass Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson have always gotten from the press and leftists no matter how many times they fuck up and get caught. The bastards are both crooked as snakes and somebody ought to stand up and say so. Black "leaders," my ass. 7. Soccer. Bejus! That game is more boring than watching grass grow. If women played it nekkid, I might gain some interest, but even then it would be difficult. Soccer sucks. 8. Obvilious drivers who stay puttering along in the left lane of an Interstate Highway while people are passing them on the right. I'll see a bunch of those tomorrow on my way to North Carolina. I should have the right to shoot them and collect a reward. 9. People who advocate gun control laws. It has NEVER reduced crime, it never will and it has failed everywhere it's ever been tried. Goddam. How many times do you have to be wrong before you admit it? 10. Someone who would vote for Hillary Clinton in ANY kind of an election. That woman is worse than her husband and he's a bucket of slime. Congratulations, New York.
Things to doOriginally published April 23, 2003 It's a beautiful day outside. I'm going to change the oil in my truck, then lay on a lawn chair and read a book while I work on building a bronze-god tan for the summer. I think that I'll drink a beer and eat boiled peanuts, too. Life is good sometimes...
Roscoe updateOriginally published July 21, 2003 IF I CAN'T GET RID OF THIS SEMI-WOODY I AM GOING TO CUT IT OFF!!! I need some flaccidity. I am tired of this torture-device. Goddam. Having a constant throbber might be nice in a cat-house, but I don't need it at work. Something's got to give here.
Roscoe updateOriginally published July 22, 2003 Things are getting better. But we have a massive shutdown going on at work right now. I need to be centrally involved and able to handle the unanticipiated shit that goes wrong. My dick doesn't enter into this equation. My dick bothers me, but I WILL NOT allow it to to interfere with what I've got to do. Sometimes, you just have to suck up some pain and go on. That's what I'm doing now. Do I LIKE IT ? Shit, no! Will I do it until I'm finished? Shit YES! Thats what I am paid to do. And anybody who can't do that is a fucking wimp. If this crap was easy, ANYBODY could do it.
March 16, 2008I grow maudlinOriginally published July 20, 2003 Perspective is an amazing thing. As I grow older, I care more deeply about certain things than I ever did before, but others don't matter diddly-squat anymore. I've probably had my last bar-fight. There was a time when I would take no shit from nobody and rather absorb an ass-whuppin' than walk away from a challenge. Today, I'll walk away and never even look over my shoulder. I KNOW who I am now. I don't have to prove it to anybody else. After my visit with Ken, I've been thinking a lot about the concept of love. Not LOVE itself, but the idea of it. Ken is quite the philosopher and he put an eggbeater in my head. Don't drink a lot of wine and sit around talking with him. He'll make you decide: *Love comes in lots of flavors. If you don't know what I mean by that, you don't understand love. *You can love someone and still get very pissed off at them. If you STAY pissed off, you never loved them to begin with. Love is tough sometimes. *Loving someone is better than being loved. I cannot imagine a better feeling than to look at someone and think, "I love her." Even if she doesn't love you back, you are the better person. You grew a soul. *Kids love you because they are supposed to. If you gain your child's RESPECT when the child is grown, you've been a good, loving parent. *You can love someone without doting on them. Sometimes you have to love from a distance. *If you love someone, TELL THEM that you do. Otherwise, they'll never know for sure. *Be selective about where you spend your love. Love isn't alms for the poor and it isn't charity for the needy. It is YOUR LOVE, which is a precious commodity that you share only with those who deserve it by YOUR STANDARDS. You never GIVE it away. You REWARD someone with it. *Love also is something that you'll never run out of, no matter how much you give. In fact, the more you give, the more love you have to take its place. Love. The best and most dangerous four-letter word I know.
I wouldn't call this post "maudlin"Originally published July 21, 2003 I wasn't certain how that trip to Charleston was going to play out. I mean, Ken and I were good friends a long time ago, but a lot of blood had passed under both our bridges since then. That all happened more than 20 years ago. I wasn't certain that it would be like old times. I wasn't certain that we would even be comfortable together anymore. I wasn't certain that we even spoke the same language. But our meeting hit as if we had never missed a beat in 20 years. How often do you get a chance to do that? Lose a friend, find him over 20 years later and discover that you feel as if he was never lost. The years vanished as soon as I saw him. We both look a lot different now, but we picked up conversation right where we left off. One thing really stalled the truck on Memory Lane. Ken asked about several people he remembered, and I said, "He's dead now. Car wreck. That one died about five years ago from cancer and this one died last year of a heart attack and that one comitted suicide..." and telling those stories depressed the shit out of me. I am 51 years old and I remember a lot of dead people in my life now. But every now and then I run across one of the living that I haven't seen for a long time and it makes me feel really alive. Going to Charleston was one of the best things I've done in a long time.
Bore bloggingOriginally published April 2, 2003 * I have broken my nose, my left hand and my left elbow. All three hurt like hell but the hand hurt the worst. * I have saved three people from drowning. One of them almost drowned me. * I have written over 100 songs. Most of them suck, but I heard that one of my songs is being played in Seattle, Washington now. I think that's cool. * I once had a Fu-Manchu moustache and hair halfway down my back. I refereed little league football games at the time. * I had a dog named "Wiggles" that could put a whole Krystal hamburger in his mouth, chew it, swallow the burger and spit out the pickle every time. * I bought my dog a $10 sofa from the Goodwill Store. He wasn't allowed to get on MY couch, but nobody was allowed to get on HIS couch, either. He liked that couch. * I lost my virginity when I was 16 years old, on Valentine's Day. I was really surprised that I didn't feel like a totally different person after that. * My favorite sport is football. When I played, I was a maniac. Now I just act like a maniac when I watch the game on television. I still have dreams about playing that game. * I once was a very good golfer. I broke 80 almost every time I played, and I played two or three times every week. But I haven't touched a club in almost two years now, except for walking through my house with a five-iron last night. * I've known the One True Love of my life. She shit all over me. * I like kids, but I prefer little boys over little girls. I understand what makes little boys tick. I'll NEVER understand women. * I buy guitars just because I like them. I own seven. I usually play only three of them on a regular basis, and the others just stay in their cases. I'll buy more, eventually. They may stay in THEIR cases, too. I just like guitars. * The happiest day of my life was not as good as the saddest day of my life was bad. I am an emotional guy. I really should be taking Xanax. * I once topped out the speedometer on a 1990 Eagle Talon on Interstate 16 on the way back from the Atlanta airport. I hit 140 miles an hour. It was like flying. * I never smoked a cigarette until I was 20 years old. I smoked marijuana when I was 18. * I've been to jail once. I didn't like it. * I've had two women in my bed at the same time. I DID like that. * I have voted in every election since I was old enough to vote. * I have five really good friends. I once had six, but Steve died. I am a lucky man. * Did I mention that I was bored?
All time favoritesOriginally published April 22, 2003 The best bar in Savannah is Jim Collins' place on Whitaker Street. Jim has been dead for a few years now, but the place is a Savannah landmark. Leon Redbone always visited there years ago. You don't go there to get laid. You go there to soak in Jim's special ambiance. Michael Jordan is the best basketball player who ever lived and Tiger Woods is the best golfer in the world. Both are rich and behave like gentlemen. Why are so many other athletes complete assholes? What makes Barbra Streisand, Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins and Sean Penn think that they are smart people? They are idiots. It really takes a hard head and a dumb ass to look in the mirror every day and still think you're SMART when you've showed your butt to the entire world. That's what "celebrity" will do to you. I thought I was smart when I was 16 years old. I believe that I am wise now. Nahh... I am a dumbass. Just look at what I've done with my life. I can read and write. A lot of kids today can't do either one of those things. It takes a 4.0 GPA to get into the University of Georgia today. 50% of those 4.0 students end up in remedial math and English classes. What's wrong with that picture? The best waffle I ever ate was cooked by my Aunt 'Netta. That was my mama's older sister, but she's dead now. I WAS brighter than some of my high school teachers. Edgar Rice Burroughs was a terribly underrated writer. James Dickey was a terribly OVERRATED writer. Yeah. I played guitar with him, too. The best book I ever read is Earth Abides. Da Goddess read it when we were at Daytona Beach together and she liked it, too. It was written in 1949. But you wouldn't know that fact if you didn't check the copyright. The book is eternal. I once was fired from a job that paid me no money. I mourned about that for all of 30 seconds. I've slept with three women in my life that I thought were extraordinary in bed. They were shameless and lusty. If I were a woman, I could outdo all three. If I had one wish, I might choose about 16 hours of sleep. That would be nice for a change.
March 15, 2008The haunted houseOriginally published April 22, 2003 The air conditioner was making all the strange noises I heard last night. Quinton and Jack left a piece of plastic from some toy box stuck to the ceiling in the hallway right under a vent. Every time the blower kicked on, the plastic flapped on the ceiling and sounded just like footsteps in the hall. I found it today after a very uneasy night. Be glad that you didn't come to visit me yesterday evening. I might have shot your ass. That sumbitch piece of plastic had me FREAKING last night. When you live by yourself, you become accustomed to the usual noises in your home, and when something starts making sounds that you ARE NOT used to, it'll make your skin crawl. Bejus knows I was froggy last night. I walked my entire house with a pistol in one hand and a golf club in the other. If I found a stranger, I was going to shoot him, and if I found a wild animal, I was going to break its neck with a King Cobra five-iron. Or vice-versa, depending on how excited I was at the time I encountered the goddam noisemaker. Hell, I was nekkid and wild-eyed at the time. I might have just scared the shit out of anyone I encountered and made them die of a heart attack at the sight of me. But I found nothing. I didn't sleep well last night. I didn't find the culprit until an hour ago, when I happened to walk under it when the air conditioner kicked on. "Thump, thump thump," it said, just like a kid's feet walking down the hall. I saw what it was. "You son of a bitch," I thought. I peeled it off the celing and threw it in the trash can. Now the sounds are back to normal around the Crackerbox. Have YOU ever had something like that happen?
FriendsOriginally published July 20, 2003 I am a lucky man When Ken was waxing philosophical last night, he said that as we grow older we learn the difference between friends and aquaintences. Very few people have real friends. If you have one, you are fortunate. If you have two, you are blessed. If you have more than two, you probably need to check your criteria. I disagreed at that point. I have FIVE really good friends. My criteria is exacting, too. I've got Recondo 32 and his lovely wife, Georgia. I've got COP 3 and Donnie. And I have Willie. That's not counting my brother, who is due a big hug and an oral confession of "I love you," which Ken insisted that I do the next time I see my brother. "If you never say it, they will never know. You BLOGGED about that. Tell your brother that you love him." I am going to do that. In fact, I am going to tell ALL FIVE of those people that I love them the next chance I get. It's the right thing to do.
My interviewOriginally published April 22, 2003 Nobody ever asks to interview me. Hell, I have to juggle, play romantic guitar music and pay for all the liquor just to get a WOMAN to talk to me anymore. I am going to interview my own goddam self, since nobody else will. Acidman, if you had one wish to make the world a better place, what would you wish? To see Nichole Kidman, nekkid in my bed. That would make MY WORLD a better place. Acidman, do you have any regrets in life? I won't after I KILL YOU, you dumbfuck! You don't read my blog, do you? Acidman, what is more important: Love or Money? Money. If I have enough cash, I can buy all the love I want. Acidman, if you could relive one day of your life and make it different, what would it be? The day I was born. I never would have come out of there if I had known what I was getting into. Acidman, who is your greatest hero? My father. Behind him is Johnny Unitas, Arnold Palmer and Ronald Reagan. Did you know that Johnny Unitas and Arnold Palmer both had prostate cancer? If not, now you know. See what good interviews I give? If you could do anything you've never done before, what would it be? I want to walk on the moon. I always wanted to go into outer space and be weightless while I looked at planet earth as a bright, blue ball far away in a black, star-filled sky. I'll never get a chance to do that, but my son might. He may be able to buy a ticket and take a vacation to do that. I envy him. Acidman, if you could meet and have dinner with any person in the world, living or dead, who would that person be? Sam Clemens. He is the greatest American writer who ever lived and I would love to smoke a cigar with him after a fine meal. I also would like to see if I could make him laugh at MY jokes. Acidman, how would you like to be remembered after you die? That question is irrelevant, because when I die, the world stops. I made all of this shit up, just for my own fascination. If I didn't KNOW that for a FACT, I would tell all you artificial people that I invented for my amusement that I want my son to remember me as a good father. Of course, I invented HIM, too, but if any of this crap lasts after I'm gone, I hope that he is part of it and he thinks of me the way I do about my father. Yeah. That's what I want. Now go away and leave me alone.
TrafficOriginally published April 22, 2003 I receive somewhere between 800 and 1200 visitors per day. (You can check the Site Meter-- I don't password-protect MINE the way SOME anal-retentive people do.) The numbers go up during the week, then down on the weekends, but I seem to be mired in a rut right where I am. Not much has changed during the past month or so. I think that I need to try something different on this blog. Here's my plan: * I am going to STOP USING FOUL LANGUAGE when I write. My mama doesn't like it, and I may put some people off with my salty vocabulary. So, I'm stopping * I am going to broaden my horizons and try to become more... OPEN MINDED. Leftists MAY have a point if I stop to consider it. Michael Moore MIGHT be a really perceptive individual instead of the fat, self-aggrandizing * I'm not going to drink when I write anymore. I will never again put a thief in my mouth to steal my brain. Never, ever again. I want GUT RUMBLES to be a serious, sober forum of intellectual give-and-take. I can't run that kind of site when I'm * I'm going to add some lefty bloggers to the roll and read them every day. I may I'm going to try that. I want to boost my traffic.
March 14, 2008CharlestonOriginally published July 20, 2003 The drive from where I live to Charleston is about an hour and a half, and it's pretty where Highway 17 curves through the salt marshes and tidal creeks. Lowcountry Georgia and South Carolina is beautiful, and I love the fecund smell of salt, marsh grass and mud. When you cross the bridges, you almost always see a small boat with somebody on board casting for shrimp, dipping crab nets or fishing. Sea food is "WE FOOD!" around here. The water is our garden. GAWD! I love it. I found Charleston just fine, but I couldn't find the goddam hotel, so I made a fool of myself asking tourists who were just as confused as I was about where the hell this place was. I finally stumbled upon it, walked in the front door and heard a voice. "Good morning to YOU, Rob Smith." It was Ken. The most amazing thing occurred. After 25 years, we picked up a conversation just where we left off. It was as if no time had passed, as if "as I was saying..." had been hanging in the air all that time. We just picked up the thread and went from there. Damn! That was fun! We went to his room and drank a bottle of really good wine, talked for a while, then prowled the streets of the Historic District of Downtown Charleston. That city reminds me a lot of Savannah, with the Greco-Roman architecture and the cobblestone streets. It is a very pretty place. If you've never been there, I recommend that you go. It ALSO HAS TO BE the pretty female, red-toenail foot capitol of the world. Just DAMN! I never saw so many pretty red toenails in my life. It was better than Key West. Ken said, after I put him on RED TOENAIL alert about 50 times, "At least you are honest about your fetish." I said, "What fetish? Is there something WRONG with liking pretty red toenails?" We went down around the Old Slave Market and ate an excellent lunch of fried shrimp and whatever-the-fuck-came-with-it, drank some locally-brewed beer and staggered back to the hotel for a dip in the pool. Ken made reservations at "The Hominy Grill" for dinner that evening. He said I would like it because they served "genuine Southern food" there. I am always suspicious about a place that claims to serve "genuine" Southern food. My mama cooks "genuine" Southern food. I've seen very few restaurants that did. We got out of the pool just before a frog-strangler rainstorm descended, and it flooded the streets so badly that we almost didn't make it to the restaurant. Ken, using the driving skills he learned as a young man in Boston, hogged the road, dared anybody to ram his rent-a-car and got us there via the back roads, right on time. I NEVER want to drive in Boston. Get this: I had a meal of catfish and okra with fried green tomatoes. Ken had shrimp and grits. KISS MY ASS, BABY! That was "genuine" Southern food. It was damn good, too. We drove out to The Battery after that and watched a tremendous lighting storm over Fort Sumter. Yeah. I stood right where the first cannon shots of the Civil War were fired and watched Bejus hurling thunderbolts from the sky. I cussed myself for never going there before. We went back to the hotel and listened to a pretty good guitar player in the lounge while we imbibed a couple of nightcaps. I told Ken, "That guy is a better guitar player than I am." Ken said, "But YOU were a better ENTERTAINER." We made it back to the room, talked for a while and then slept. We took a morning dip in the pool. Then I drove home. Ken is probably on a plane back to Maryland right now. I am delighted that I made this trip.
Haunted?Originally published April 21, 2003 I've been hearing strange noises in the Crackerbox all day. Just a moment ago, I heard someone walking down the hallway. No one was there when I looked, but I damned sure heard someone walking in my house. It sounded just like Quinton, that ham-footed rascal. I wouldn't be surprised to turn around right now and see some strange boy in my home asking for something to eat. Hell, I would feed him and tell him to be quiet. I think that the little shitass has been playing here all day. It sure sounds like it.
FestivitiesOriginally published April 21, 2003 merlefest doesn't start until Thursday, but I'm thinking about heading for North Carolina on Wednesday. I thought about leaving tomorrow, but I don't feel like packing right now. (BEJUS! I just heard a kid walking down my hallway again! I got up to see and no one was there. I am NOT kidding. This crap is getting spooky. I think the Crackerbox is haunted.) Where was I? Okay, I might go Pisgah National Forest on Wednesday and camp for a night, then go to the festival the next day. Or I might not. I'll play whatever I do on the first bounce. Too much of my work life involves serious planning. I'll be damned if I'm going to PLAN while I'm on vacation. Fuck that. I was supposed to have a woman over here tonight to eat boiled shrimp with me. But I didn't call her and she didn't call me and I don't feel like taking a shot in my dick this evening anyway. She might want some rumpus, swing from the ceiling fan sex and I'm really not up (HA!!) for that. I don't want any company, to tell the truth. So much for planning. Maybe I'll see if she wants to come over tomorrow. Maybe I won't. I just don't want to commit to ANYTHING right now.
Living aloneOriginally published April 21, 2003 I think that I will sleep with my new derringer AND MY SHOTGUN close by tonight. I believe that there is a poltergeist in my house. These noises aren't right. I keep hearing things that don't belong here. I am NOT kidding about that. Something doesn't feel right and it damn sure doesn't SOUND right. I've walked the entire house and found nothing out of the ordinary. But my home is making noises that it usually doesn't make. It's giving me the creeps.
March 13, 2008Just pissing aroundOriginally published April 21, 2003 Since I don't have a damned thing that I MUST DO today, I've been slurping Bloody Marys and listening to music this morning. I have decided a few things. * The best folk song ever written is Gordon Lightfoot's "Early Morning Rain." That is one hell of a good song. It's got everything a folk song should have. I actually play it better than HE does, but that's just MY humble opinion. * The best lead guitar riffs ever played is the shit Mark Knopfler does with Dire Straits in "Sultans of Swing." That's squeezing a guitar neck until it chokes. I CANNOT play that better than he does. * Whatever happened to Mary Chapin Carpenter? "Mary's Land" is a damned good song, but I suspect that she is one of those people who spent years making it to the Big Time, then couldn't crank out the music anymore. If you write two songs per year and spend ten years doing it, you have 20 songs when you are discovered. That's not Paul Simon or Billy Joel proclivity. That's a Roman Candle. A couple of big bursts, then gone. * It it just ME, or does old Elvis Presley music STILL sound good? I don't give a shit what you think. Elvis remains the KING! That man could sing some bad-assed rock-n-roll. * I shouldn't listen to the Beatle's White Albumn. Whoa. That brings back too many memories. * John Prine is my idol. I drank a beer with him once at Kevin Barry's on River Street, but I want to sleep on his couch for about a week and try Deuling Lyrics. I play guitar better than John does, but he writes better songs than I do. I want to camp out with that guy. * I wish that Linda Rondstat never got fat. She has the best voice for a female that I've ever heard. She makes "Poor, Poor Pitiful Me" walk like a dog. That woman can SING! * I want to see Stevie Nicks nekkid. I can't help myself. Fleetwood Mac is a damned good band and Stevie is a sexy woman. * I want to marry Emmylou Harris and cook her breakfast every day. She let her hair go gray, the same as mine. I think she looks foxy that way. And that woman sings like a songbird. I could make beautiful music with her. * "Born to be Wild" just may be the best rock-n-roll song ever written. Yeah, I got my motor running...
Emotional baggageOriginally published April 21, 2003 I just did something that I haven't done in years. I watched a piece of a Soap Opera, the "Hung and the Breastless" or some kind of shit like that. There was a mighty emotional scene because someone was dead, or hung and breastless. or going to jail. I wasn't paying a lot of attention to the plot. But this guy, who looks a lot like a male model says, "Ashley may need time to recover from the emotional trauma she's experienced. This sort of event is difficult in a child's life." I busted out laughing. I know something about difficult events. Discover your wife in bed with a man you considered to be a friend. Find out that you have prostate cancer at the same time. Lose your wife, your home, your chickens, your goats, your dogs and your son while you lay up with tubes running in places where you don't want tubes running while your NOT YET EX-WIFE has her lover IN YOUR HOUSE and is giving her pussy away out of both pants legs. Wear a fucking diaper for three months while you try to re-learn how to keep from pissing your pants every time you cough. Have a judge who looks exactly like Howard Sprague from the Andy Griffith Show rape you in divorce court and take LOTS of your money and give all to a bloodless cunt. Learn to give yourself a shot in your dick when you want to have sex. Trauma? Emotional baggage? Naw. I've got none of that.
Simple pleasuresOriginally published April 21, 2003 There are some things that really SMELL GOOD in life... * I like the smell of fresh-cut grass. There's something very earthy about that aroma and I like it a lot. It also makes me think about golf courses. * I like the smell of gasoline. That explains my loss of brain cells over the years. * I like the smell of burnt gunpowder. It is crisp, acrid and stinging in my nose. I don't just like it... I LOVE IT!!! * I like the smell of a new car. But I saw something the other day that was just plain WRONG. I saw a blonde woman in a mustang convertable with a HANDICAPPED license plate on the back. Explain that to me. No handicapped asshole has any business driving a mustang convertable. He has no business letting a blonde woman drive his car, either. I hope his handicapped dick falls off, the shitbird. I'll bet that the blonde smelled good. * I like the smell of peanuts boiling in a big pot on my kitchen stove. It smells like home ought to smell. * I like the smell of a sweaty woman. Okay! Okay! I KNOW that I'm a pervert! But women smell musky when they sweat and I like that scent. It reminds me of shady places in the mountains. I get all horny just thinking about a sweaty woman. My face can be her bicycle seat. Just hop on and pedal your ass off. * I like the smell of a Wild Cherry scented candle while I drink wine with a pretty woman and I hope to persuade her right out of her britches, drawers and all. I didn't succeed last night, but I may tonight. I can be very persuasive. * I like the smell of low tide in the Savannah marshes. Some people don't like that armoa, but I DO. It smells like raw oysters and fiddler crabs. It is a rich, fecund smell that makes me think of sweaty women. * I like the smell of pigment, too. If the organic level is correct, it smells just like fresh-cooked biscuits. It'll make you fart dust, but it smells good.
AccretionOriginally published July 19, 2003 When I moved out of my parent's house to live on my own, I hauled everything I took with me in the back seat of a 1968 Javelin. When I moved to Athens a couple of years later, I hauled everything in the same car. It took two trips to bring everything back a year and a half later. When I moved out of my apartment in Savannah two years later, three friends with pickup trucks were needed to haul all the crap I had accumulated. I got married, got divorced and left that house with some clothes, a stereo and a 1964 Martin D-28 guitar. I was right back where I started. I could haul all of my shit in one trip. I met the BC and we bought a home together. We moved everything from her place to the new abode in one trip with a small Ryder rent-a-truck. Two years later, we moved to Effingham and I made TWO trips in a 28' U-Haul to transfer all of our belongings. When we sold that house and moved to the mini-farm, we hired professionals to do the heavy lifting. It was just too much to handle by ourselves. By then, we had a lot of shit that wouldn't fit in the bed of a pickup truck. I got divorced again and moved into the Crackerbox with two pickup loads of stuff, some of which remains unpacked in boxes in the garage. I was damn near back where I started again. I had to buy $4,000 worth of furniture and appliances just to make the place barely civilized. Now I don't have room for all of the shit I have accumulated since then. How the hell does that happen? All I know is, I never want to move again.
I am offOriginally published July 19, 2003 I am gone to Charleston to meet an old friend. I'll be back sometime Sunday.
March 12, 2008A tripOriginally published July 18, 2003 I'm going to Charleston, South Carolina tomorrow to rekindle a relationship with a friend that I have not seen in 25 years. (No, you lust-crazed assholes, it's NOT a woman.) His name is Ken and he has a PhD in Marine Biology. I met him when he did reasearch at the Skidaway Island Institute of Oceanography here in Savannah back in the 1970's. He and his group of scientists were some of my regular bar patrons when I played guitar for a living. How a semi-hippie guitar-player and a Doctor of Marine Science became good friends back in those days would take a longer post than I want to write to explain. Just trust me on this: It Happened. But he moved onward and upward as time passed. He moved to Maryland, and I lost track of him. Ken is one of the most interesting people I've met in my life. He has many stories to tell and they are both baroque and bizantine, plus fascinating besides. If I could remember how to spell, I would call him what I believe him to be, which I know is totally incorrect spelling: a "Renaissance Man." I always aspired to be that which I cannot spell. I am more of a "recessive gene" kind of guy. I am going to see him tomorrow, whether I can spell or not.
NostalgiaOriginally published July 18, 2003 I last visited Harlan County, Kentucky in 1988. My daughter was three years old. I got a wild hair and decided to make a Kentucky vacation for my ex-Texan wife at the time, who had never seen my roots. We drove a mere eight hours to get there, complete with piss-stops for two wimmen in the car. I remember when that was a sixteen-hour drive and you pissed in an RC Cola bottle if you had to go, then pitched the piss out the window of the car. My dad was a stop-for-gas-only guy an a road trip. We made that trip a lot in my childhood, and always called it "going back home." I needed to go back when I did, just to know, once and for all, that Harlan was NOT my "home" anymore. I was a certified Cracker by then. I had a Texican wife and a Jawja daughter. They didn't know crap about that place and they didn't need to. But I remembered. We stayed at my Aunt Jenetta's house, right on the banks of the Cumberland River. Aunt 'Netta was flooded out of that house four times that I knew about. I could see water-marks 6" below the ceiling in every room. The river was AT LEAST 30' below basement level in her back yard until the river became angry. Then, it became angry very fast. She learned to grab important shit and run when the river started to rise. She kept her album of family photographs and lost almost everything else during the floods. She was dying of breast cancer when I went to visit. She was in-between the trip to Nashville every two weeks for chemo treatments, and she was feeling weak, but glad to see me. I had a wonderful visit. We went everywhere I wanted to go. Aunt 'Netta drove, too, and scared the living shit out of my ex-wife. 'Netta had been driving those mountain roads all of her life and doing 70 on a suicide curve with the tires squealing like tortured cats didn't bother her at all. My ex-wife almost shit her pants riding in 'Netta's car. I didn't. I trusted Aunt 'Netta. We went to Lewellen, where I was born. The coal mining camp is gone now, but I stood where my grandparent's house once was and I saw a tendril of smoke curling through the trees and into the sky when I looked down Highway 26. "Netta, is that damn slate dump still burning?" I asked. "Honey, you KNOW it is. That thing caught on fire before you were born. It'll still be burning when the lights go out on us all." It probably will. That's a LOT of slate to feast on. My daughter ran happy in the streets of Loyal, Kentucky that night and caught fireflies in her hand. We put them in a jar and that night in her room, the jar lit up like a Coleman lantern. She wanted to take them back to Savannah and turn them loose, and we tried... but the bugs didn't make it. The next day, we went up on Pine Mountain and explored the limestone caves. We also picked a passel of what I always knew as "Mountain Tea," a wild, low-growing vine with red berries on it. Forget the berries. Grab a handfull of those leaves and chew them. It always tasted like spearmint to me. We left the next day and drove almost all the way across the state to Owensboro, (home of Jim Beam and Red Man chewing tobacco) which may as well be in Indiana as far as I am concerned. That part of the state ain't Kentucky to me. I am a child of the hollers and I always will be, deep inside. Aunt 'Netta died about the same time my father did, and that slate dump is STILL burning on the side of the mountain in a place once called Lewellen, which doesn't even exist anymore. I'll go in my sweet time, too, but that lonely slate dump will outlive me. My grandson probably could go see it burn with HIS grandsons, and not a one of them would sense ANYTHING about the lives that once were lived in that place that doesn't exist anymore. That once was my home, and it's all gone now. But Earth Abides.
Roscoe updateOriginally published July 18, 2003 I wore the same pair of customized underwear that I wore yesterday. Hell, they were good to go. They COULDN'T have racing stripes in them, because I cut out the part where racing stripes go. I sniffed them. They smelled fine to me, good for another day. I rummaged through my closet and found a pair of gangsta-rap blue jeans that I remember some deviant asswit on my ex-wife's side of the family giving me for a Christmas present several years ago. I had to cut the tags off that ugly construction, because I never intended to wear them, and threw them in the closet just to get them out of my sight. I donned my modified underwear, put on the gangsta-rap jeans and looked at myself in the mirror. "You look like a FUCKING IDIOT!" was my first impression. But I could turn, move around, bend over and touch the floor, rise up again, and MY PRIVATES DIDN'T HURT! So, that is the uniform I wore to work today. I had only one simple problem. That semi-woody has receded somewhat, but he has not gone away. If you wear baggy pants with a semi-woody, you may be comfortable, but the bulge is obvious. It sticks out like a sore dick thumb. I received a lot of strange glances today, and a few outright, blatant stares. My only regret after today is that I work in a chemical plant full of mostly men. I wish I worked in an office full of curious wimmen.
Strip pokerOriginally published April 21, 2003 I've mentioned making home-made porno movies, but I'm REALLY curious about... wanting to know if you ever played strip poker. Have you? I'll admit that I have. I didn't mind losing, either. I just like getting nekkid, but SOME of you people must have done it and felt SHAMEFUL when you clutched your arms to your chest and quivered in your nekkidity. You probably SWORE that you would never do THAT again, then did it again anyway, didn't you? Bwhaha! I am butt-ass nekkid right now. I LIKE blogging with no clothes on. I go to nudist resorts. I'll drop my trousers in a Key West minute. I am PROUD of my Cracker ass. I think I look good nekkid. Wanna play Strip Poker?
March 11, 2008Roscoe updateOriginally published July 17, 2003 Did you ever have a nagging, throbbing headache that just wouldn't go away, no matter what you did? I'm not talking the kind of headache that makes you want to lie down in a dark room with an icebag on your head while you pray for death. No, I'm talking about the minor kind that becomes major just because you can't live with the nagging discomfort anymore. Today was Chinese Water Torture Day. I invented a pair of underwear that I thought would work. I cut a hole in a pair of tighty-whities so that my twins could breathe while Roscoe stayed tightly penned. That felt pretty good when I put them on today, and as I drove to work, I felt no pain or irritation at all. Shit, I thought, I got THIS job! But as I was walking into the plant, I realized that more work was required before I had THIS job. It was nothing really specific. It was more like that nagging headache developing in undefined parts my of crotchital area. It didn't get worse as the day wore on, but it didn't get any better, either. It just ached and ached and ached. By 1400 this afternoon, I was ready to scream, "I can't TAKE THIS ANYMORE!!! MAKE IT STOP!!!" Moutrin didn't help. Walking didn't help. Sitting didn't help. Cussing didn't help. Repositioning the equipment didn't help. I didn't have the strong, nauseating pain from Tuesday, or the constant, specific pain from Wednesday. I just had this low-rent, telemarketer kind of pain-in-the-genitals that almost drove me apeshit. (By the way, "low rent" pain by my standards keeps other people out of work. I learned to suck it up from playing football.) I STILL feel it, although not as badly, now that I have my pants OFF me and several stiff drinks IN me. But goddam. I called the doctor today and he said that everything I was experiencing was completely normal. "Discomfort" should be expected for about two weeks following the surgery, and my semi-boner was a result of swelling at the base of the penis, from the incision (and the fact that he stuffed about a pound of luggage through that hole), and I should see that go away shortly. (It IS going down a little every day.) Right now, I would like to show him a little "discomfort." "Doc, go stand on that fire ant mound for ten hours. Does that count as "discomfort" in your book? I just want to make sure we're on the same page here, as far as "discomfort" goes. Sonofabitch. I can make one more day, and then I'm off for the weekend.
Female companionshipOriginally published April 21, 2003 I actually DID end up with a woman in my house last night. I didn't get LAID and wake up with a nekkid woman in my bed, but I damn sure had a someone of the female persuasion drinking wine with me until almost midnight. I am one charming rascal. I'm hoping that she comes back tonight. She said that she would and she might spend the night this time. I'm going to boil some shrimp this evening. THAT will get her drawers off. At least I hope so.
PissantOriginally published April 21, 2003 Damn the nostalgia guy. He put a bug in my head today. The two best westerns ever filmed were The Wild Bunch and True Grit. I still recite lines from those movies as part of my life. "Get crossways with ME and you'll feel like a thousand of brick had fell upon ya." Yeah. Try me. I also remember the line Ernest Borgnine said to William Holden when the Robert Ryan character was chasing them across Mexico. "HE GAVE HIS WORD!" Pike said. Dutch grabbed Pike's arm and shook him. Spittle flew from his teeth as he said, "IT AIN'T YOUR WORD THAT COUNTS!!! IT'S WHO YOU GIVE IT TO!!!" Truer words were never spoken. I am an honest man. I try to live a good, honest life. But I KNOW that I work and I live in a jungle full of liars and back-stabbers. If you lie to ME, I'll lie right back at you. I've been shit on. I don't like that feeling. I have learned to play by whatever rules YOU dictate, and I'll try my best to beat you by them. I wish that the world was a good, honest place. But it's not. My Beaver Cleaver attitude has gotten me fucked before. That happens only once to ME. If I can't learn from it, I DESERVE to be fucked again. I know one thing now. It ain't your word. It's who you give it to.
March 10, 2008No garden this yearOriginally published April 20, 2003 My mama has grown a garden for more than twenty years. Like me, she comes from a long line of farmers, and we LIKE playing in the dirt. Usually, I haul my tiller over to her house and plow the garden for her in the spring. She didn't ask me to do that this year. She's 72 years old. She taught me how to compost and how to grow green beans. She'll probably get a lot of cherry tomatoes growing by themselves this year, but she's not putting out the squash, tomatoes, cucumbers and beans that she's always done before. She says that she's just too old for that stuff anymore. She asked me if I was going to plant a garden this year. I told her, "no." I'm going to disappoint some neighbors, because everything I grew last year I gave away, and I'm not going to do that again this year. I'm not too old for it, but I don't have a reason to do it anymore. I don't have a family to feed from my garden and that crap is a lot of work. Two years ago, I had a half-acre busting at the seams with corn, beans, tomatoes, squash, zuchini, potatoes and cantelopes. I took a WHEELBARROW out there when I picked things and I usually FILLED IT UP before I rolled it back to the house. I really liked doing that back then. It's just not the same anymore. I'll miss farming. But I won't miss it a lot. Shit. Kroger's farms for me now.
Trigger fishOriginally published April 21, 2003 I go deep-sea fishing a couple of times every year and I always come home with a load of black sea-bass and red snapper. Those are good fish to eat, but my favorite fish in the ocean is a trigger fish. They are ugly. They are big, discus-looking critters that have no scales, but possess skin like leather. I've always been able to trade some sea-bass or a snapper for triggers when my fishing party gets back to the dock, because nobody wants the pain in the ass that it is to clean them. I don't mind that pain in the ass because the fish is worth it. I clean a trigger by starting out with a hatchet. Once I chop the ugly rascal's head off, I can get my fillet-knife under that leathery skin and peel him from the inside out. And you PEEL a trigger. You don't scale him. You end up with a fish that you can put on the grill, broil in the oven or cook on a stick over an open fire. It's all tender, white meat that falls away in hunks the size of your thumb if you cook it right, and the bones all come out in one connected piece. I LOVE trigger fish. But I'm kinda weird anyway.
A testOriginally published July 17, 2003 I scored 43 points on this one. Musta missed some points somewhere, cause I should have AT LEAST 50. 1. When do you feel your best? >2. You usually walk..... >3. When talking to people you... >4. When relaxing, you sit with... >5. When something really amuses you, you react with... >6. When you go to a party or social gathering you... >7. You're working very hard, concentrating hard, >8. Which of the following colors do you like most? >9. When you are in bed at night, in those >10. You often dream that you are... POINTS: >1. (a) 2 (b) 4 (c) 6 Now add up the total number of points. OVER 60 POINTS: Others see you as someone they should "handle with care". You're seen as vain, self-centered, and who is extremely dominant. Others may admire you, wishing they could be more like you, but don't always trust you, hesitating to become too deeply involved with you. 51 TO 60 POINTS: Others see you as an exciting, highly volatile, rather impulsive personality; a natural leader, who's quick to make decisions, though not always the right ones. They see you as bold and adventuresome, someone who will try anything once; someone who takes chances and enjoys an adventure. They enjoy being in your company because of the excitement you radiate 41 TO 50 POINTS: Others see you as fresh, lively, charming, amusing, 31 TO 40 POINTS: Others see you as sensible, cautious, careful & practical. They see you as clever, gifted, or talented, but modest. Not a person who makes friends too quickly or easily, but someone who's extremely loyal to friends you do make and who expect the same loyalty in return. Those who really get to know you realize it takes a lot to shake your trust in your friends, but equally that it takes you a long time to get over it if that trust is ever broken. 21 TO 30 POINTS: Your friends see you as painstaking and fussy. They see you UNDER 21 POINTS: People think you are shy, nervous, and indecisive, someone who needs looking after, who always wants someone else to make the decisions &who doesn't want to get involved with anyone or anything.
March 09, 2008How sick we areOriginally published April 20, 2003 Did you realize that NOW (Nimwitted, Off-the-wall Wangheads) has a problem with Laci Peterson's husband being charged with a DOUBLE MURDER? Well, they DO because if people consider that dead baby a murder victim, it may WEAKEN ABORTION RIGHTS. My aching ass. If this is murder, well, then any time a late-term fetus is aborted, they could call it murder," Morris County NOW President Mavra Stark said on Saturday. Marva, go home and make love to the largest cucumber you have in your refrigerator. Stick a carrot up your ass while you're at it, you blithering dumbfuck. This is a horrible crime and you don't give a shit about Laci or that baby. You're worried about your CAUSE. Got-Damn! I wasn't married to the only bloodless cunt in the world. You want me to believe that a dead baby after eight months of gestation is NOT a dead baby. Well, you WON'T convince me of that assininity. A dead baby is a dead baby. Get your head out of your feminist ass. People like you make me want to puke.
Lyin' bastard!Originally published July 16, 2003 I was listening to Sean Hannity on the way home from work today I heard one of the bigger lies I've heard lately. I almost wrecked my truck when I heard it, because I was totally outraged, but I also realized that the dumbfuck who said it was SERIOUS! "I am a Democrat because the difference between Rebublicans and Democrats is that Democrats want to help unfortunate people more than Republicans do." (I am paraphrasing, but that was the gist of the message.) I've never heard more unmitigated bullshit in my life. You want to help unfortunate people? Teach them to read and write and work hard. What do the Democrats offer? Handouts and teacher's unions. You want to help unfortunate people? DON'T EXCUSE THEIR SELF-DESTRUCTIVE BEHAVIOR. What do you get from Democrats? A culture of victimhood because they didn't win "life's lottery." You want to help unfortunate people? TELL THEM TO RAISE THEIR CHILDREN TO BE BETTER THAN THEY THEMSELVES ARE. What do you get from Democrats? Third-generation, welfare-plantation "unfortunates." I am sick of this shit. If Ted Kennedy cares so much about the "poor," why is his lilly-white, never had a fucking real job in his life, FAT ass still rich? Why hasn't he dedicated HIS wealth to what he says he believes in? He could damn sure "help" a few unfortunates by throwing some of HIS millions at them. But he doesn't. Hollywood liberals don't. Rich Democrats DON'T. They want to feel good by spending MY money on THEIR worthy causes. That's their idea of compassion. CARING about "unfortunate people?" You bet your sweet ass the Democrats do. They need to KEEP them unfortuntate, too. Who the hell else is going to vote for the evil bastards?
All over againOriginally published April 20, 2003 I saw Quinton off with a hug and a "Bye, daddy" from him. That's how it goes every other Sunday evening at the Crackerbox. Jack left with all of his stuff in a plastic Kroger's bag after saying, "I sure do like staying at your house, Mr. Rob. Can I come back again?" This shit sucks. We went to see my Mom and Grandma today, and I took some more pictures. I can't get the bastards to load on my computer. Every time I try, the satanic forces embedded in the HP netherworld hiss and grind at me, but they never cough up an image. I have a picture of my new derringer in there, too, dammit. This shit also sucks. I don't expect a knock on my door and a lusty woman ready to share my bed tonight. I expect the day to go downhill from here, where it sucks already, and I'll have the entire evening all to myself, in all its suckdom. For a fairly small house, the Crackerbox surely can feel empty sometimes. At least I don't have to get up and go to work tomorrow.
I quit for the nightOriginally published July 16, 2003 I am going to bed. I gotta invent some new underwear in the morning.
March 08, 2008I've been robbed!!Originally published April 2, 2006 Somebody stole an hour of my life last night. I don't know why we bother with this Daylight Saving time change twice every year. The government keeps expanding the change (in 2007, DST begins on the second Sunday of March and ends the first Sunday of November, which means that we have more "fake" time than "real" time in a year), so why don't we just get on DST and STAY THERE? Fuck this bouncing back and forth. When I was working for a living (expecially when working shiftwork), the time change always screwed up my body clock for at least a month before I became acclimated to it. I don't have that problem now, but I still don't like the time change. It's just too got-dam arbitrary to suit me. Besides, I don't like change anyway. So, I advocate a revolt! How about a little passive resistance when government wants to go back to "real" time this fall? Let's just refuse to do it! Leave the clocks alone and stay on DST. See how long it takes the government to adjust to US, when everybody starts showing up an hour early for EVERYTHING! Okay, forget government. Government loves inertia anyway, and it'll just make you stand in line an extra hour to receive shitty service from its bloated bureaucracies. Government doesn't give a damn about YOUR convenience. But private-sector businesses do, and THEY will change to accommodate YOU. There's money in it for them. If we say "frog," they'll jump. Here's a by-Gawd revolution that The People can WIN. When the government says, "Fall Back!" this autumn, say "BITE ME!" in reply and don't change your clocks. See what happens. Besides, does anybody REALLY know what time it is? (UPDATE! I see that my reference to a song by Chicago did NOT go unnoticed by some sharp readers. Yes, we all have time enough to die.) (New update... Set your clocks ahead tonight, y'all. -Ed.)
Roscoe updateOriginally published July 16, 2003 I am going to post one of these "updates" every day until I either get well or get laid. I am doing it ONLY to help others who someday may follow in my footsteps, so I now give of myself to relieve some of their suffering and doubt later. The thought that I satisfy a lot of prurient interests here has nothing to do with these posts. Hell, I wish SOMEBODY HAD WRITTEN A BLOG LIKE THIS before I had the surgery. I might not be so ignorant about what's going on now. I got the bright idea to wear baggy shorts underneath my work pants today. That was a bad idea for two reasons. Oh, my balls felt just great, all liberated and free-swinging. But those bastards, after their hospital shave, have grown a terrible five-o'clock shadow that felt like sand spurs and cactus bearding my inner thighs all day. I am fucking RAW from that. And that semi-boner did NOT go away. I just gave him room to roam and become obvious unless I kept a hand in my pocket to subdue his enthusiasm. I think I'm going to take a pair of my tight shorts and cut part of the crotch out of them. Then, I'm going to put duct tape on MY INNER THIGHS! That way, my jewels can roam free and I can pen Roscoe in a coop without any more damage than the bikini wax I'll get when I remove the duct tape. After today, that bikini wax is NOTHING to fear.
Putt puttOriginally published April 20, 2003 Two years ago, I won a putting contest. I was playing in a charity golf tournament and I threw five dollars in the pot but never intended to actually participate in the putting contest. I putt like shit anymore. I once was a good golfer, and from tee to green, I'm better than I ever was. But I can't putt worth a damn. That day, my partners insisted that I try, so I did. You had three putts on a severe sidehill lie to a hole 60' away. I hit the first one and it felt good. I watched it take the break, roll down the hill and duck into the hole like a homesick gopher. I said, "I don't believe that I'll need the other two. Can't get any closer than that." One other guy aced the hole and it was Jerry Wesse, the same guy I beat in the company golf tournament. We had a playoff. Jerry putted first and ran his right by the hole but about three feet long. All I had to do was get inside of him. I putted high up the hill and heard people groan when they saw my putt. But I was dancing, waving my Ping Asner in the air. "Watch it! Watch it!" I said, as the sumbitch died on the hill, rolled down the slope and ended up six inches from the hole. I won a case of toilet paper, two free rounds of golf and a custom-made putter. The toilet paper was used. I played ONE of the free rounds of golf. But I've never used that custom-made putter. WHY IN THE HELL do you give a fucking PUTTER to a guy who wins a putting contest? HE ALREADY HAS A GOOD PUTTER!! That's like giving a driver to the guy who wins the Longest Drive contest. HE DOESN'T NEED ANOTHER FUCKING DRIVER!!! He won with the one he's got already. Bejus! Give ME the driver and the long-drive guy the putter. That makes one hell of a lot more sense to ME. But that's just MY humble opinion. I could be wrong.
New toyOriginally published April 20, 2003 I bought a gas-powered 3500 PSI pressure washer at Home Depot last weekend. The Crackerbox is covered with plastic siding and it needs a bath. I'm going to crank my new toy and give my house a scrubbing. If the boys get in the way, I'll scrub them, too. Heh. I LIKE power tools.
March 06, 2008EggsOriginally published April 20, 2003 I hid 14 Easter eggs last night. The boys found 13 this morning. I have no idea where the other egg is. If we don't find it shortly, I suppose that ants, flies or buzzards will remind me of where I put it, sooner or later. I should have made a list. I wonder where that fucker is?
My bedOriginally published April 20, 2003 I washed the sheets and made everything fresh yesterday. I have three pillows and lots of room in there. I wouldn't mind some company tonight, as long as the person is female and enjoys rambunctious little boys. I hope she enjoys rambunctious, gray-haired grown men, too. Red toenails are a plus, and a big, nekkid smile for the video camera wouldn't be bad, either. Stay with ME and I'll make you a star. But we have to wait until the boys go to sleep. Never mind. Both boys go home at 6:00 this evening. I almost forgot about that. I'll miss them when they're gone. The Crackerbox is going to seem very empty after the all fun we've had. I will be very lonely again. Unless you come and visit me. We can have the whole house to ourselves! I have boiled peanuts, wine and beer. I even have some Southern Comfort in the cabinet under the kitchen sink. I'll cook fried chicken and mashed potatoes, too. I don't have to go to work in the morning. I don't sleep late, but you can, in a bed with clean sheets and three pillows. Plus, you can help me hunt for that one lost Easter Egg tomorrow...
Shooting poolOriginally published July 15, 2003 I haven't shot a game of pool in almost ten years now and I once was good at it. I played a lot of eight-ball on the quarter-per-game tables when I was making a living in the bars, but I also liked to go to the pool halls and play nine-ball and regular billards on the big turf with the best players in Savannah. They wouldn't fuck with me after 8:00 at night, (and I didn't fuck with THEM, either) after the big money rolled in, because I was small fry. But just to warm up, win a few beers and maybe a $5.00 "get even" with a spot for the last game, they showed me a lot of good pool shots. I usually paid for it, but I also watched how they hustled. THAT is an art. After that, I could catch a greenhorn and pay for my lessons many a time. When pool halls went upscale, they lost a lot of magic they once held for me. Hell, you've probably got 'em now where you CAN'T SMOKE in 'em. That ain't no fucking pool hall. That's a yuppie joint. Gambling in the pool hall was illegal and signs were hung everywhere proclaiming that dictate. So, you went up to the guy behind the counter and said, "This one is for just a beer," (you each handed him $2.00) or "This one is for $5.00 (and you both handed him a five) and he handed you a fresh rack. You played the game and walked back up to the counter to say, "We'll have a couple of beers now!" Or, "Fresh Rack!" and the money was handed over to the winner with a 10% tip due to the guy behind the counter. That's how pool halls worked when I was a young and wild man. I learned a lot about life and a lot about people in such places. Do I want my son ever to visit those dens of iniquity? No... But if he never does, he ain't his father's son.
Update before I go to bedOrigianlly published July 15, 2003 I came home today and immediately got nekkid except for my shirt, Man, that felt good. With all the pain that my GOOD FRIEND Roscoe had caused me today, I examined him carefully and noticed that he was bent severely to the right and didn't want to straighten out. I thought he was ruined, but at least he was pointing the correct direction. I applied another ice pack and left him alone. I blogged nekkid for three hours. Guess what? Now he's hanging just like he's supposed to except for a semi-boner that won't go away. I gotta figure how to let my nuts dangle tomorrow while keeping Roscoe straight and sheltered. Got any advice? And I don't want to hear about silk, because I don't have any. I'll figure out what to do in the morning.
March 05, 2008Middle ageOriginally published April 19, 2003 I am 51 years old. My hair is gray and my dick is broken. I am lean and trim, but I'm starting to get the sagging flesh that OLD MEN get as they age. My ass is dropping, my tits are drooping and I feel tired all the time. I don't like what is happening to me. I can still outwalk the young bucks at work, and I'll kill them on the stairs, but most of them are pussies anyway. I just know that I couldn't outwalk MYSELF from ten years ago. THAT young buck would kill ME today. "Middle age." What a concept. The best years of my life are spent. I lived them well, but I wish I could do it all over again. I've had a LOT of fun. I LIKE having fun. I don't want to be an old Cracker watching his body fall apart around him, alone in a shitty house. But that's the hand I play today in the card game of life. I am Acidman, but I want to be Peter Pan.
I did itOriginally published July 15, 2003 I went to work and gimped my way through the entire day. It wasn't easy, and I told both my boss and the people I boss that I would be available AT MY DESK most of this day. I was, too, in complete misery, uncomfortable sitting down, downright nauseated when I stood for long and damn near unable to climb stairs at all. I started to bail out and go home at noon today. But I didn't. I discovered that the more I walked, the better I felt, as long as I kept popping Moutrin like pez candy. I wasn't striding with my usual gait, and I did attract some attention. A couple of people asked, "Rob, you don't look so good. What's the matter?" I said, every time, "I just got a bionic dick implant and it hurts like hell. Want to hear all about it? Wanna SEE it?" Nobody wanted to hear all about it OR see it, so they left me alone after that. But I think my legend of being one rough cob spread because of the way I handled the situation. That legend is worth a lot more than actually BEING a rough cob, (even though I AM) so I accomplished a lot today. I also did something politically incorrect in my office. I locked the door first, then hid behind by desk so that I could pull my pants down and just let my wounded privates BREATHE for a few minutes. That's when I saw the source of a lot of my misery. That "We Are The World" nutsack the size of a huge toxic goiter and purple as an over-ripe fig is almost back to normal now. It looks like a genuine scrotum, except for a rapidly-healing, small-caliber bullet wound right between the two jewels. That part is starting to look okay. ROSCOE is the problem! He's still multi-colored (mainly shades of blue, black and purple) but most of the hideous swelling from this weekend is gone now. Ice-packs are wonderful things and the power of positive thinking accomplished a lot for me last night. Roscoe is beginning to look like his old self except for one not-so-small problem. I don't know if the doctor did this on purpose or if it is a natural part of the surgery, but I'm sporting a damn semi-boner all the time now. That fact actually intrigued me for a while today, because it's been so long since I've felt anything like what once was normal several times every day, but I'm tired of it now. The damn thing is causing me discomfort. I am not circumsized. The semi-woody I am toting is just enough to make a bulge in my pants and keep my foreskin slightly retracted all the time. Roscoe is getting a constant Indian sunburn on his tender head with every step I take. Neither he nor I are accustomed to that kind of friction and it began to hurt by the end of the day. I don't know what I am going to do about this problem. I'll have to think about a cap for his head. But so far, so good. That's my bionic dick update for the day.
Why I am not a leftistOriginally published April 19, 2003 * I do not believe that the meek shall inherit the earth. I believe that the world is filled with rotten, nasty-assed people who will take advantage of me if they have the chance. I do not love my fellow man. I distrust him and I want him to fear the idea of fucking with me. That's why I buy lots of guns and act crazy. * I believe that war is sometimes necessary. I also believe that the best way to avoid war is to make people certain that you WILL fight one if they ask for it, especially when they know that you intend to win. Bullies pick on weaklings. They leave badasses alone. Be a badass. That's all some dipwits understand. * I believe that government creates more problems than it solves. Sic a government agency on a problem and the agency has a vested interest in making SURE that the problem never goes away. If they solve the problem, they're out of a job; therefore, the problem always gets worse, they need more money and the agency grows like an underarm wart. Name ONE problem that government ever set out to solve that didn't become worse as a result. * I believe that I can think for myself. I have a lot of bad habits. I KNOW that they are bad habits. I indulge in them anyway, and if a Nanny Bloomberg tries to stop me through legislation, I'll just sneak behind his back and do it harder, faster and more often for pure spite. I had a mom and dad in charge of raising me when I was a child. They eventually let go. The governmant should, too. Who made government my mom and dad? That ain't the fucking government's job. I am an adult now. Get outta my face. * I own every dollar I am paid at work. My money does NOT belong to the government. I never want to hear about how we "can't afford" a tax cut, as if the government deserved that money to begin with. Those pork-slurping gas-bag assholes spend worse than I did today at Wal-Mart. The difference is, I SPENT MY OWN MONEY!!! They are VERY generous when spending other people's money. When they stop voting themselves raises, I'll listen to those asswipes. Fuck them. * If you grow up stupid, fuck up your life and end up with the well-deserved shit-end of the stick, IT IS NOT MY RESPONSIBILITY to pay you a "dumbass tax" for your mistakes. You had the same chance I did. You fucked up, and I didn't. I don't owe you a goddam thing. Stop whining. I've got your reparations hanging. * I have the nerve to tell old people to put their dentures in and grit their teeth. Why should I pay for your goddam prescription drugs? You wrinkled fucks already made a 1000% profit on Social Security. You've sucked enough from the public trough already, and you're taking what belongs to ME now. Either have the good grace to die, or shut up. You're stealing your children's money with every whine you make. "Greatest Generation" my ass. Retired whinebags who can't handle turn signals when they drive a car. Florida is full of them. * I suppose that I will never be elected if I run for public office. I say what I think. A good politician doesn't do that. * Leftists try to, but they don't think. Period.
March 04, 2008The contractOriginally published July 13, 2003 Somewhere in all the souvenirs of our wrecked marriage, my ex-wife may still have the contract she wrote and signed when I agreed to have a child with her. I told her that my FIRST marriage changed overnight when Samantha was born. I took one woman to the hospital and brought a different one home. I liked the first one a LOT better. Jennifer thought that I had an amusing idea, so she wrote out a contract PROMISING not to lose her mind or change in any way after Quinton was born. She signed it, dated it, and had me sign as a witness. The contract was official. Quinton came along and I didn't notice the difference at first. My ex is an EXCELLENT actress. She can be whatever she needs to be for whover needs it as long as SHE benefits most from the performance. I've seen her do it a thousand times, and she's better at it than ever now. She practices her art daily. It was at Clark Hill two years ago that I sensed something was wrong, and I asked her about it. "Rob, NOTHING HAS CHANGED," she replied. One week later, she snuck off to fuck a friend of mine and got caught doing it. That happened on July 12th and I had my prostate biopsy on Monday, July 16th. The following weekend, she told me that she didn't love me anymore. She was always so big on honesty that I asked her to forget about her sneaking off to commit adultery; what about that fucking lie at Clark Hill? Her reply was that she was perfectly honest when she answered that question. Nothing HAD changed because she stopped loving me a long time ago. She just never bothered to let me know until now. It started... about the time Quinton was born. So much for that contract. She damn near killed me that weekend, although it would have been NONE of her responsibility if I had not lived. She went off to spend that weekend with her new lover because she was "frightened that I might try to come back home." See? What she did was LOGICAL, not hormonal. That's what I really like about a lot of wimmen. They want a man to "understand" them when they don't know who the fuck they are to begin with and they can change like a chamelion at any moment and never admit to doing it. THEN, they can take your house and your child and a large chunk of your paycheck every month because THEY are victims. BULL! SHIT! They are ugly bags of mostly water with FAR TO MANY hormones swimming around in that bag. They'll nut up on you in a minute and believe that their behavior is totally rational while YOU are the crazy one to question what they do. They bust out crying for no good reason? DON'T ASK WHY! If you weren't such an insensitive bastard YOU WOULD KNOW! And don't you DARE suggest that the freshly-opened box of Tampax in the bathroom has anything to do with this. No, it's YOUR fault. A woman sees clearly all the time. Men are just blind swines. Don't bother signing a contract with a woman. They don't play by normal rules. And if I sound bitter, it's because I am.
Wally dayOriginally published April 19, 2003 As soon as the boys manage to splash all the water out of the bathtub, I'm taking them to the Super Wal-Mart. I told them that they had $100 to spend, on whatever they wanted. I intend to spend $100 on myself, even if I don't need the shit I buy. Money means nothing to me. After you watch your father and your best friend die miserable deaths and find yourself diagnosed with the same disease, a lot of your perspective changes. I can't take the money with me if I die, and I don't have a family to worry about anymore. I already have Quinton and Samantha set up pretty well in my will, and I pay a LOT into what is supposed to be Quinton's "College Fund" every month. That would be Child Support. I have no idea where that money goes. I resent paying it only because I resent my ex-wife for being a bloodless cunt about the divorce. It didn't have to be that way. She made that choice. I will never understand, nor will I ever forgive her for that. She knew how to hurt me, and she pushed every button. I really don't know why. Whatever. I'm going to blow some loot, spend some change, toss some cash, shoot my wad and make Wal-Mart stock go up. What I hope for in life now is to have the last check I write bounce as I take my last breath. (I call that Breaking Even.) I earned it. I'm going to blow it like a drunken sailor.
Goober peasOriginally published April 19, 2003 From people who commented about boiled peanuts, I gather that some poor souls are confused about this Jawja delicacy. Boiled peanuts ARE NOT like roasted peanuts. Roasted peanuts are crunchy. Boiled peanuts are soft. You boil peanuts in the shell with lots of salt in the water. Genuine Jawja boiled peanuts are picked green and cooked as soon as you can wash the sand off of them. Boil them for about an hour, then let them soak in the salty water for another hour. Eat them with lots of beer. Freeze what you can't eat if you buy them by the bushel the way I do every September. They'll keep and still be good a year later. North Carolina CLAIMS to have boiled peanuts, but they lie like dogs there. They take DRIED peanuts and boil them. The shells turn dark and the nut inside tastes like a goddam blackeyed pea when they're done fucking up a perfectly good peanut. Those ARE NOT genuine Jawja baby green boiled peanuts. They are an abomination and anybody who sells those things and calls them "boiled peanuts" should be dragged off and shot. I am passionate about my boiled peanuts. They are Mother Nature's perfect food, good morning or evening, winter or summer, day in and day out. The five pounds I bought yesterday? Gone. The boys and I went through them the way Sherman went through Georgia. I bought another five pounds today. They're cooking now. The kitchen smells good. Much deliciousness will come from that pot. "Democracy, whiskey, sexy?" Bullshit. Try "Salty, Peanutty Ecstacy." With beer.
Porno moviesOriginally published April 19, 2003 I find pornography to be sexually stimulating. I have a pretty big collection of movies that I NEVER FINISH WATCHING if I have a person from the female race with me at the time. We start out watching the movie. We become aroused, I take a shot, and the movie plays in the background while we sin like the wicked, shameless animals we are. The kind of woman I LIKE does that. Have you ever made your own porno movie? C'mon now... BE HONEST. You NEVER got kinky and broke out the video camera? Taped some sexual aerobics and watched them later, which made you aroused and led to more sexual aerobics? If not, you are one pathetic, lousy fuck. Technology is good. Take advantage of it.
March 03, 2008Women should not read thisOriginally published April 18, 2003 I am not circumcised. I was born in a six-room clinic on the side of a mountain in Harlan County, Kentucky, and I came from a long line of uncircumcised men. That surgical alteration of personal equipment simply wasn't done back then. So, I've lived all my life as natural as Bejus intended me to be. When my son was born, I made the decision that HE would not be circumsised, either. He will be a rarity in football locker rooms and showers, the same as I was growing up. But he will thank me some day. To me, circumcision is a barbaric act. It is penile mutilation. Regular application of soap and water will do everything circumcision is supposed to do, without the surgery. I'll wash my dick when I don't brush my teeth. That's called HYGENE and I'm teaching my son to mind his tool the same way I do mine. I hope it serves him just as well as mine has, too. Jack has been clipped. No wonder. He lives in a world full of women. But most kids are like him no matter where they live. Uncircumcised men are rare today. My son is unique and he wears a dick that fits him. It's unique and just as Mother Nature made it. I hope he finds a woman who appreciates it someday.
Gut RumblesOriginally published July 13, 2003 Goddamit! This guy just made me hungry. [Blog no longer seems to exist. -Ed.] I loaded my small grill with charchol and mesquite and I'm about to grill some Kingfish steaks. That's not barbecue, but it's outdoor cooking on a grill and I like to do that. A King Mackeral is a fish that is a lot of fun to catch, but too "fishy" for a lot of people to like to eat. People who tell me they don't like Kings just never tasted them cooked right. The ONLY way to eat kingfish is grilled, and if I really want to impress you, I'll make pasta with Alfredo sauce and asparagus in butter sauce to go with it. Yeah, you'll slap my ass and call me "Fanny" after you taste THAT! Hell, you'll call me "God!" (As in, God! that was good! God! I can't believe I ate that much! God! I gotta have that recipe!) I'm not out to impress anybody today, so I'll probably just open a can of mixed vegetables and cook boil-in-bag rice to accompany my meal. This is, however, one of those times when I wish I had someone around to enjoy my prowess on the grill. The King steaks are fresh and they deserve a good audience as they perform the act they they were intended for on this planet. They are the main course on a big plate of food.
Kites at nightOriginally published April 19, 2003 I had forgotten all about flying a kite with a glow-stick attached to the tail, at night, on the beach until I read Dragonfly Jenny today. She's done it, too. [Blog no longer seems to exist. -Ed.] Of course, she probably did better than I did the last time I tried that. I drove a 1974 GMC Suburban back then, which was good for carrying all of my musical equipment and a ready-made bed wherever I decided to park. I had curtains on the windows. I kept a sleeping bag and a foam-rubber mat in the back and I crashed there frequently. Got laid in there a few times, too. You've never experienced raw, nekkid sex until you've balled in the back of a GMC Suburban in a K-Mart parking lot... But, I digress. I got off work at the bar at 2:00 AM and decided to spend the night at the beach. I parked on 6th Street and broke out my kite. I cracked the glow-stick, tied it to the tail of the kite and sent that sucker up into the night sky. The wind was brisk and I played out at least 500 feet of string, until the kite was WAAAYYY up there. Then, I tied the string to the bumper of my truck, grabbed my sleeping bag and climbed up on the roof of my vehicle to watch the kite fly and leave green streaks from the glow-stick in the night sky. It was beautiful. Yes, marijuana was involved. I woke up a few hours later with people coming down to the beach in the morning and giving hairy eyeballs to the long-haired guy asleep on top of his truck. My kite was still flying. I untied the string from the bumper and let it go. It was still flying the last time I saw it. I remember that night amazingly well. I wonder why?
Everybody's got a listOriginally published July 13, 2003 I kinda liked this one. I'm just amazed that there wasn't a single refernce to mushrooms or electric fences in there.
March 02, 2008BejusOriginally published April 18, 2003 The boys have decided that they are both Navy Seals and they are launching attacks on me. I just had a plastic knife held to my throat while they demanded unconditional surrender. I took the knife, whipped their karate-kicking asses and sent them running back to Quinton's room to plan their next attack. They will come again, but I am ready. Boys. They are what they are.
I gotta do it againOriginally published April 18, 2003 This fuckface put this screed in MY COMMENTS when I was not asking for a fight. The belly-crawling cocksucker came out of his slime-hole and said this: No.1 wtf is the big deal bout her site to begin with , she is someone who actually has the guts to put up what she feels and thinks. If you dont care for her blog then why the hell be a asshole bout it, lord knows the world is full of them already and they are like opinions, everyone has one and dont want another.Dont go back and read a second time and so on. No. 2 Yuh i'm her ex hubby and her leavin wuz to be happy with life, which she is now. We talked things out and both agreed that things were over. The things she is into is her business and her choice, not some asswipe with another blog site that dont have a life to begin with so he has to set at his pc all day and read bout other peeps and then put them down. Kinda like tekwh0re said u must be a "real catch" cough cough. Oh and with these parting words , this is bout the most PLAIN site i have seen as far as blog sites, might take some tips from Chelle bout design and stuff >=) These are the words of a Dominant Alpha Male. BWHAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!
The fuckwit can't spell, can't write and can't think. YOU DA MAN!!!! Bwhahahahaha!!!! What a miserable asshole you are. By the way, you dickless wonder, there has never been a fence around my ass. I am NOT a submissive person. Grow some stones. Come see me. Email me and I'll give you the goddam address. I bought something just the other day that I would LOVE to show you. Come get some, pissant. I have shit better turds than you will ever be, asswipe. Don't fuck with me. But you are certainly welcome to bring you bad ass to my front yard. Let's explore that dominant thing and talk about my page. Let's do that. I'm willing. Are YOU? You like to beat women. Try someone who fights back. I dare you.
Who woulda thunk it?Originally published July 13, 2003 I cannot believe that Kim du Toit knows shit about music. [And, I quote: The requested URL /dr/weblog.php was not found on this server. -Ed.] He doesn't play any instruments, unless you consider a semi-automatic rifle going off in four-shot groups a form of music. (I do, but that's another story, and I don't want to digress.) I am STUNNED to read this: It's a difficult concept to explain, but bass and drums are essentially one instrument -- the bass gives music to the beat -- and not many people realize that when these two are played as two instruments instead of as one, the song sounds "loose" (it loses cohesion), and the listener is actually disconcerted, in the literal sense of the word. Kim is correct. As an ex-bass player, I know THE TRUTH: The bass guitar is a PERCUSSION instrument, just like the drums. The drums lay down the beat, but the BASS lays down the bottom that holds the song in one place. You provide background for the lead and rhythm guitars, but you play bass to the drums. If you don't, the music is all out of whack. An electric bass is easy to learn to play half-assed but very difficult to become accomplished on. It requires a completely different mindset from what most guitar players are accustomed to. My short, stubby fingers didn't help me any, but I could hit the notes. I just could never SING and play the bass at the same time. It involved two different rhythms and it fucked me up. It still does to this day. I have to CONCENTRATE when I play bass guitar and I've got to stand where I can hear the drums clearly. I don't like to do that. It makes my head hurt to CONCENTRATE and listen to drums at the same time. Hell, I don't have to THINK when I play a regular guitar, acoustic or electric. The fingers just go where they're supposed to and life is simple. That goddam bass is a different story. I never would have figured Kim for someone who recognized that fact.
I am in awe!Originally published July 13, 2003 This may very well be the best fucking rant I ever read. All hail that post!
March 01, 2008GuitarsOriginally published April 18, 2003 The boys are savaging that pizza like a two-man pack of hyenas. I suspect that they will eat the whole thing. I keep my hands out of their way when they go into a feeding frenzy like they're doing right now. My hands... I don't really have the hands to be a musician. I have wide hands with short, stubby fingers. Those are blacksmith's hands. They don't fit a guitar player. I could be good at forging horseshoes. I am built for that kind of work. Everything I do on stringed instruments comes from "WANT TO," not talent. I have worked my ass off at it and I will NEVER be as good as I want to be. I don't have the hands for what I really want to do. Music is in my blood and I always will play as long as I have... my hands. I feel a spiritual joy when I play in the Crackerbox all by myself. I like the feeling even better when I get together with friends and we do the Home-Made Band thing. Sometimes the music gives me goosebumps. I own seven guitars. I can't play a damned one of them as well as I want to. I just don't have the hands for it.
Quiet timeOriginally published July 12, 2003 Chris went home about 5:00 and I fed cheese pizza to Quinton and Jack tonight. They were wired and cranked, but I cut off the Mountain Dew before supper and they both finally decaffenated and fell out a few minutes ago. The BC will be here at 0700 to pick Quinton up for the annual trip to Elijah Clark State Park, on that big, beautiful lake just outside Augusta. It's a traditional family thing that we did every July for nine years, but it's HER family, so I don't go anymore. That was the last place I played golf, on July 3, 2001. I haven't touched a golf club since then. This month will mark a lot of anniversaries that I don't want to celebrate. Two years ago, this was a rough month for me. The shit storm descended, but I made it through. Now, two years later, I am bruised and sore, and I just took my last pain pill. The swelling in my scrotum has gone down enough that I can feel my pump now, although I damn sure have no desire to use it. Looks like I grew a third nut out of this deal. Roscoe remains deformed and I believe that he is angry with me. He's been holding his breath until he turned blue while he puffed up like a bullfrog for three days now. I'll make this insult up to him. I promise. (Any lusty lady willing to help Roscoe out of his slump is free to email me. The address is on the left side of this page and I believe that you can just point and click there. Yeah, I am trolling, but it never hurts to ask.) Where was I? Oh, yeah. Here in the Crackerbox, out of pain meds and still a norse god. Very Thor. Quinton is looking forward to going to Clark Hill, but he would stay here if he had the chance. He told me so this evening. That broke my fucking heart because he doesn't have that choice and neither do I. He'll be gone at 0700 in the morning. That's the way that the world goes 'round. Dingbat Jane says that I excuse murder (yeah, and winged monkeys fly out of my ass, too) and her loyal minions call me an asshole. Just another day in the life of a blogger, but I DO wish that some of those people would AT LEAST READ THE FUCKING POST before going ballistic. I suppose that is too much to ask. Quinton tried to tell me a joke today. He asked, "Daddy, why couldn't the glass tell a lie?" "Because you could see right through him," I replied, without even thinking. "AW, MAN! You HEARD it before!" He stomped away disappointed. So was I. I DIDN'T hear that joke before, but I possess a jokester's mind. I come up with punch lines and that one was obvious. I wish now that I had kept my goddam mouth shut and let him tell the joke. I am going to watch out for that mistake next time. This evening, I told the boys to take a bath, and they were going to do it, but the pizza arrived about the same time. They ate, but they didn't bathe. I forgot all about that assignment. So did they. Oh, well. Quinton will be a dirty boy when the BC picks him up in the morning. You don't think I'm going to wake them up for hygene NOW, do you? I saw Y.A. Tittle on television today and I RECOGNIZED HIM! That should give you something to think about.
|
|
All content © Rob Smith
|
