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October 31, 2008Unanticipated surprisesOriginally published April 13, 2002 I have been busy today. I did some laundry, fed my son and his friend, Jack, a lumberjack breakfast, cranked up the riding lawn mower and made exactly one pass over the horrible weeds sprouting in that sand-spit front yard of mine before I almost ruined the mower. I hit a 5/8" piece of rebar that was cleverly hidden among the weeds so that the three-inches protruding above ground could not be seen. It was a surveyor's stake, probably driven there since before construction started on the house. It was there while all those boys were playing all those games of tackle football on all those weekends when my son was here. I suppose I was lucky to find it with the mower. That thing could put out an eye or puncture a skull if someone fell on it. After I physically lifted the lawn mower off, I worked three feet of it out before it came free of the ground. It was a solid steel bar, slightly bent at the top from violent contact with a rapidly spinning object. I shudder to think what my brand-new lawn mower blades must look like. I took the boys to the Super Wal-Mart and bought a "Triple Play" baseball game for the Playstation II. My plan worked, because they stayed absorbed with that amusement while I did my income taxes. I GET A REFUND! YAY,YAY,YAY! My government is SOOOO good to me. Of course, I started over-withholding as soon as the divorce loomed on the horizon, which didn't give me a lot of time to prepare. From Get Out Of Here to court took a little over a month. Zap, zowie and swoosh. But I weathered the income tax storm in one piece by paying those vultures ahead of time. It's really less painful that way. But I look at what I DIDN'T get back, and it's still painful.
October 30, 2008I dance like a fucktardOriginally published August 31, 2005 I'll confess--- I really DO dance like a fucktard, so that's why I seldom dance. I have to be pretty drunk and totally uninhibited to get up and show my ass on a dance floor. I envy people who dance well. It looks like so much FUN and I wish I could do it, too. But I can't. You wanna picture ME dancing? Just try to imagine a monkey fucking a football. Then--- picture the monkey displaying more dignity than I do when I dance. I've never understood why I was so cursed. I'm a MUSICIAN, for crying out loud. I can play several different musical instruments and I've been in a lot of different bands. I don't have any trouble keeping time or picking up a beat when I play, but I get all discombobulated when I try to dance. Jennifer asked me once when she watched me play bass guitar with my old rock & roll band, "What are you doing with your feet?" I didn't know what she was talking about. "You're up there on stage tapping your toes in TWO DIFFERENT beats, neither of which matches the music. How do you do that?" I wasn't aware of doing that. I just felt the music and my toes started twitching. I wasn't paying any attention to my feet. But she damned nearly ruined my bass-playing because I STARTED watching my feet and almost forgot how to keep up with the band. Instead of playing, I was dancing. Some people just need to accept their limitations and be content with what they CAN do. Thinking too much is not good for you. After that night, I made peace with the facts. I can play, but I dance like a fucktard.
October 29, 2008Censorship is not "pc"Originally published April 2, 2002 When my son is with me every other weekend, we often watch the Cartoon Network together. He likes it and so do I, because fifty years of hard living still haven't quelled my love of Warner Brothers' Looney Tunes. Wile E. Coyote is my favorite character of all time, but I love Bugs and Daffy and Porky and Yosemite Sam and The Tazmanian Devil, too. I didn't realize until I read THIS UNBELIEVABLY POLITICALLY-CORRECT CRAP that I will not see Speedy Gonzales, the Mexican Mouse, racing hither and yon and wearing his big sombrero while screaming, "Arriba! Arriba! Andele! Andele!" again. No, Speedy has been banned as a terrible anti-Latino stereotype by whatever anal-retentive dorks the PC cartoon network world puts in charge of such decisions. I always thought Speedy was one cool dude. He outfoxed and outran the bad guys every time, and always came out on top in any situation. How is that a terrible, anti-Latino stereotype? Speedy never got arrested, he didn't bounce a low-rider up and down the road and he had no illegitimate children or tattoos. But he did have an accent and he wore a sombrero. We damned surely can't have that kind of racist crap in such a sensitive country as ours. Speedy, you're OUT! (Except in Latin America, where Speedy is still VERY POPULAR) Thank God we don't have an organized Coyote Anti-Defamation League or they would take away my dear, beloved Wile E., too.
October 28, 2008MeetingsOriginally published April 2, 2002 I hate going to meetings at work, because usually they take too much time, they don't accomplish a damned thing and if ever a decision is made, you have to call ANOTHER MEETING to make sure the decision is carried out. I went to one of those today that lasted an hour and a half. We assembled to discuss an engineering project that is nearing completion, and it is an obvious thalidimide baby. It won't do what we require it to do if engineering stays on the current path, and engineering is nearly out of money for the project. Engineering wants desperately to ditch that deformed baby in a production dumpster to see if WE can dig it out, resusitate it and give it a good life. No one involved has passed the point of no return on this project, and if we actually utilized all the teamwork, problem-solving and root cause analysis training we all received in the past, success remains a possibility. It STILL CAN BE DONE, even after that meeting. But here's what went wrong: Character #1: Already engaged in a pissing contest with the project engineer, he wishes to pillory his enemy rather than solve the problem. Lot's of hidden agendas here that had nothing to do with the problem. Character #2: A combination of three people from project engineering, there to protect their baliwick and outnumber Character #1 in a sustained pissing contest. More hidden agendas and an empire to protect, too. Character #3: There to present every grievance he has against "the system" instead of dealing with the subject at hand. Constantly beating his personal drum whether it has anything to do with this project or not, and since it's not HIS project, he doesn't want to talk about it in the first place. He would rather beat HIS drum. Character #4: My boss. He must make a decision that WE have to live with, and it damned sure ain't the one engineering wants to lay in our lap, and he does not want to referee the obvious pissing contest occurring before his eyes. He probably is the only one at the meeting who has a clue about what we can accept and how to go about getting it. He spoke less than charcters #1 through #3. But he laid out the correct, firm but polite demands, and got his way, God bless him. Character #5: The Training Department (two poor unfortunates). They kept their mouths shut and took copious notes during the proceedings. As an ex-trainer, I know the helpless feeling that creeps over you in a meeting such as this. WHATEVER THEY DECIDE, I'm going to have to teach this shit. I belong to a service organization. They command, I serve. I'll do the best job I can, but IF THESE ASSHOLES CAN'T MAKE UP THEIR MINDS WHAT THEY WANT, then how can I provide it for them? You start to notice an itching, burning sensation in your seat when the meeting goes really off-track. They were rooting hard for Character #4. Character #5: Me. Silent most of the time. I discussed the issue with Character #4 this morning, long before the meeting. He knows what we need and I totally agree. I was extraneous to the proceedings and mainly there to watch the show, which resembled a three-ring circus, complete with juggling clowns and dancing bears. My presence was not required, except for professional courtesy, which I could do without most of the time. We formed an action plan, after focusing all our energy for about five minutes straight on the problem we came to solve, while wasting the other hour and a half. If we do what we decided to do, we can keep this deformed baby out of the dumpster. I just hope SOMEBODY remembers the decision we made amid all that noise. If we end up with a deformed baby from this project, I'VE GOT TO RAISE IT, and I don't want that. Enough of my life is deformed already.
October 27, 2008A trainer againOriginally published August 31, 2005 Let me tell you how a sulfuric acid plant operates. Very simply, and I'm not going into much detail. You start with a giant blower that pulls in outside air and runs it through a Drying Tower, where 1,800 gallons per minute of 93% sulfuric acid cascades through a maximum contact ABSORBTION system that removes any moisture from the air. The dry air is then fed into a Sulfur Furnace, where it provides oxygen to combust molten sulfur, carefully melted and heated to 380 degrees F before it is atomized in the furnace. It burns and produces SO2 gas. The SO2 gas is passed through a converter filled with vanadium pentoxide catalyst that converts the SO2 to SO3 gas as rapidly as possible. Maintaining temperature control is essential to make this reaction happen. Therefore, the gas passes through a series of waste-heat boilers and gas-to-gas heat exchangers before it hits the Interpass Tower, where the gas is ADSORBED (not ABSORBED) in a steam of 98% sulfuric acid, pumped at a rate of up to 3,600 gallons per minute. The temperature of the recirc acid is just as important as the temperature of the gas. Interpass acid MUST be between 170 and 190 degrees F or it won't ADSORB, and your fumes go right out the stack. As your 93% acid keeps ABSORBING moisture from the air, it gets weaker. As your 98% acid ADSORBS more SO3, it gets stronger. So, you cross-breed the 98% with the 93% and add water through dip legs that extend almost all the way to the bottom of a pump tank. That's how you ADD WATER TO ACID without causing an explosion. You do it from the bottom in a brick-lined tank. The gas leaving the Interpass tower makes one more pass through the converter, where any remaining SO2 is converted to SO3 and ADSORBED in another acid-bath. Ideally, at the end, you have nothing but nitrogen leaving the stack with a trace amount of unconverted SO2 gas (less than 3 pounds per ton of acid, according to our operating permit, and we ALWAYS beat that standard if things were working right). If you don't believe me about this shit, just ask catfish. He operated the acid plant for a long, long time. I was his boss for several good years. It's been a while since I trained anybody on how to do this (it's a complicated job), but I still remember how. Some things you just don't forget.
October 26, 2008One of "those" daysOriginally published on April 3, 2002 Today, I experienced one of those days where something was terribly wrong with my bio-rhymns from the time I got out of bed this morning. I woke up groggy and three cups of coffee didn't clear the cobwebs from my mind. I felt tired and distracted all day. Usually, I can juggle several tasks at one time; today, I had incredible difficulty focusing on even one. I have days like this, and I believe I've had them all my life. I don't know where they come from or what causes them, but I recognize the bottom of my mental sine wave when I feel it. If I were a contestant on Jeopardy tonight, I would embarrass myself, probably misspelling my own name in the little booth window and forgetting how the hand-clicker worked. If I actually got the chance to answer anything, my reply would be "DUH..." and I wouldn't remember to put it in the form of a question. I simply am not at my best and brightest today, so if my blogs suck, please forgive me. I will be better tomorrow. That's the weird thing about days like today. I usually experience a tremendous rebound effect and feel downright brilliant the next day. I hope it happens again this time.
October 25, 2008Bluegrass and the GrammysOriginally PUBLISHED February 28, 2002 I didn't watch the Grammy Awards last night. One reason is the fact that I have a Dish Network system and out here in the boonies where I live, they don't offer the Big Four commercial channels. I've never bothered trying to hook up my antenna and seek out the local stations, but even if I had, I would not have watched last night. I was certain that a bunch of manufactured, shuck and jive pseudo-musicians would win the awards. I was stunned when I saw the winners today. For my party two weekends ago, my sister-in-law brought a cake that had a picture of me, about twelve-years old, sitting on my back porch playing a Sears & Roebuck Silvertone guitar with heavy-gauge Black Diamond strings. I remember it well, because the damned thing had a neck like a pine log and those heavy strings would kill a cornshucker's fingers after thirty minutes of playing. But that is the instrument I utilized to teach myself to play guitar. When I saw the cake, I said, "Y'all can eat the cake, but I want that picture." "Rob, uh... I mean Acidman, you can't have the picture because it's not a picture. It's icing." "Bullshit," I responded. "I want that picture of me when I was fucking young and fucking innocent and playing a fucking Silvertone guitar." Acidman had been celebrating his birthday with several dozen other musicians for about six hours by then. I was going to peel that picture off the cake and save it whether they wanted me to or not. I went to grab it. And my finger slid under the edge and came up with nothing but icing on it. They weren't lying. Computers can scan a picture right into the icing on a cake now. I'm still amazed by that fact, which shows just how pathetically unsophisticated I am when it comes to computers. Hell, just look at this blog site for further evidence. But I remember being that twelve-year old boy, armed with that hand-killing Silvertone and a Mel Bay chord book. I was bound and determined to learn the guitar, and I did. I managed it the old fashioned way: practice, practice, practice. By the time I was seventeen, I was a fair finger-picker, thanks to Paul Simon. I put Simon & Garfunkle albums on my turntable and played them at a slower speed so I could listen to the finger licks done slowly. (you could do that a long time ago) The technique worked, and I became a legend in a small circle of friends when Mason Williams released "Classical Gas," because I slowed that rascal down and learned to play it when even the GOOD musicians wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole. People often ask me, "Can you teach ME to play?" I always say yes, because anybody can learn to play guitar. But I also say, "I'll show you what you need to know to get started, but the rest is up to you. Practice what I show you, then come back and see me in six months." Not many people have the want-to to do what it takes. They want to play guitar the same way they want buns of steel and killer abs-- as long as there is some electronic device you plug in to a wall socket that does the work for you and in one week, you've got it. It just doesn't work that way. I KNOW that anyone bound and determined to play guitar can do it, because my college roommate did. When he started out, he couldn't even tune the piece of crap Yamaha he had, but he shopped up quickly to a fine Epiphone that he still owns to this day. He couldn't tune that one either, at first, but it sounded a lot better out of tune than the Yamaha did. He knew basic chords and if I showed him a lick or a run, he would retire to his room and do it over and over and over again until he had it. On many occasions, I listened to his diligent practice as long as I could stand it, then kicked open his door, snatched the guitar from his hands, tuned it, and gave it back. "Yeah, that's better now," he said, picking and grinning. Of course, one night I listened to him playing the same thing over and over and over again out of tune and I snapped. I kicked open his door, snatched the guitar from his hands, and beat the living shit out of him with it until he lay dead in a bloody pulp on the floor. Then, I hauled the corpse off threw it in the woods outside Noble, Georgia, where it has not been found to this day, but may be found tomorrow if they dig deep enough around the creamtorium. Okay, I didn't ACTUALLY do that, but I thought about it more than once. Today, my old roommate is an accomplished musician who has electronic devices with which to tune an instrument. He does well. I started playing semi-professionally in 1974 on River Street in Savannah. My brother and I formed a folk duo and sang exquisite harmonies together. We weren't half-bad and took our act to Athens when we attended the University of Georgia together for two years. Making music beat flipping hamburgers, and we actually supported ourselves fairly well playing the motel bars during that time. I left journalism school in 1976 and became an advertising copywriter. My brother stayed, went to law school, and became a maggot. I was starving to death writing, so I went back to River Street, auditioned for a job as a solo entertainer and launched a five-year career as a one-man barroom band. I didn't intend it initially, but I had more fun, made more money and met a much better variety of people in the bars than I did writing copy, so I quit my REAL job and pursued music full-time. It was one hell of a ride. Looking back now, through the filter of time and my current miserable condition, I believe those were the best days of my life. I know I must have been unhappy a time or two, but I can't recall a single instance now. I remember keeping vampire hours, running through women the way Sherman went through Georgia and generally not giving a damn if the sun came up in the morning. It was a time of irresponsible, glorious bliss and I wish I could go back and live it all over again. Of course, I would require my young body back again to make it worthwhile. Two things happened to drive me out of the bars and into the chemical industry. First was the "Band in a Can" phenomenon that erupted around 1979. I knew a musician on River Street who played in the same place for years and he filled the room with music all by himself by picking a "guitorgan," which put organ chords on top of whatever he played on his guitar, pressing a set of bass pedals with his bare foot and using a beat box to provide drum beats and various percussion behind his songs. He could sound like a six-piece marachi band all by himself. I was impressed. So were others. The "Bands in a Can" came next. These were guys who RECORDED all their background music, including harmony vocals, then plugged some giant boom-box into the PA and basically lip-synched their entire show. It was loud, it was fancy, and the crowds loved it, drunken swine that they were. A goddam stage-hogging Karioke Show was all it amounted to, and the bovine public thought it was great. I remained a purist, playing an unbugged Martin D-28 through a microphone, writing my own songs, telling jokes, juggling tennis balls and generally doing what worked well five years earlier. But my time was running out. The last job I played was at one of the prestige places in Savannah at the time, and I worked there for three months. During the last two weeks, Margie, the bartender, began receiving threatening phone calls from her ex-husband. On one of my breaks, I listened to her tell him to leave her alone before she took out a warrant on his ass, and I asked her what was going on. "That man is crazy," she explained. "He's already killed two people and got sent to Milledgeville (the biggest mental hospital in Georgia) instead of Reidsville (the Big House) where he belongs. He's out now, and he's scaring me to death. He's crazy!" I didn't think much about it at the time. But I rethought a lot when I read the newspaper the week after I left the place. A woman who played piano and sang like a bird took over as entertainment when I left. She started on Monday and lasted until Friday, when the ex-Milledgeville nut-ball walked into the bar at 1:00 in the morning (last set!) with a shotgun and a pistol. Using the shotgun, he shot the piano player, shot her husband and shot two people at the bar. He aimed at Margie, but his pump shotgun jammed. She ran out the back door of the bar, which led to the swimming pool area of the motel. He followed and shot her six times on the cool deck. The piano player's husband lived. Everyone else was killed. The nut-ball was arrested and SENT BACK TO MILLEDGEVILLE! He may still be a free man again one of these days. If you think I'm making up this story, think again. It happened. I still hate "Bands in a Can," which is why I despise the Backstreet Boys and N-Sync and all the other twitching, spastic, non-musical hockwads who don't play instruments, don't write songs and don't do anything except look good, dance frenetically, spew crap that was spoon-fed to them by some asshole promoter, and make teenyboppers cream their jeans. As a former semi-professional musician, I can say: That Aint Workin'. (with apology to Dire Straits) That's why I LOVE IT when bluegrass rules at the Grammys. I know I am a former hillbilly who evolved into a genuine Georgia cracker, and I may be prejudiced. But "Bands in a Can" took a backseat boys, un-sync drubbing in this event. And I love it. Almost as much as I love my Martin D-28.
October 24, 2008fallOriginally PUBLISHED November 15th,2004 But I like the fall. It's football season, time to steam fresh oysters, and have back-yard parties. It's jacket-weather and temperatures where it's really nice to build a big fire in the back yard while neighbors stand around, cooking hot-dogs on a stick, warming their hands and drinking alcohol. It's the time of year when the kids come running into the house with red ears, rosy cheeks and runny noses and they are shivering from the cold. You fix hot chocolate with marshmellows and make them all sit still while they drink a cup; then, you send them outside to play again. Gawd! I remember what fall was like when I was a boy. And it hasn't changed.
October 23, 2008things you just doOriginally PUBLISHED September 01,2004 * Nothing in this world is free. * People you trust, and even LOVE, are capable of stabbing you in the back. * The only thing in life that never goes away is a sense of family, if you have one. * Hard work pays off. * You're a victim ONLY if you allow yourself to be one. * Government is NOT my friend. * Money isn't everything. * But being broke sucks. * Everybody makes mistakes. A wise man learns from his mistakes and a fool repeats them. * It's wonderful to be loved. * It hurts like hell to be betrayed by someone you love. * I get along with kids so well because I still remember what it was like to be one. That's a magical time in life. * Santa Claus doesn't exist, but he should. * Never stop dreaming. That's where great ideas come from. Okay, that's it. My brain is full.
October 22, 2008democrats can't governOriginally PUBLISHED October 24,2004 Democrats believe that we should "reach out" to shitty people. I don't. You're NEVER going to change a shitty person into a saint by groveling at his feet. If you do THAT, you just showed him that being shitty WORKS for him, and he'll be even MORE shitty after that. Democrats seem to believe that if we all get together in a group-hug, sing "Kum-Ba-Yah" around a campfire and raise taxes, the world will be a better place. Their mindset is that there ARE no shitty people on the world... only people that we don't understand. Oh, they'll vandalize Republican campaign headquarters and throw cream pies at Ann Coulter, but that's not shitty behavior, at least not to them. See... there ARE no shitty people in the world. And if you do really shitty things for THE CAUSE, it's not shitty anymore. It's just a natural reaction that any sane, logical person would take given the same circumstances (Yeah. I've been a vandal and pie-thrower all of my life). The shitty people take refuge in the excuse that the act was too deeply rooted in morality for most people to understand. Democrats believe that we are stupid because we don't understand shitty people. We're not. THEY ARE. But they believe that behaving like a religious cult, forgiving shitty people for being shitty, and gazing at your own navel to understand why some people are shitty is a GOOD thing, for everybody. I don't. Those mindless zealots scare the shit out of me.
October 21, 2008old loversOriginally PUBLISHED September 1,2004 I can smell the scent of a certain perfume and I remember Holly Beth. That's what SHE wore, and I'll never forget those blue panties she liked to strut under nothing but a T-shirt at night. I hear certain music and I remember Cheryl, in Jamaica, when we were both young and dumb. We stayed for a week in a place with no electricity and one cold-water shower outside. We had a blast. Vonnie was a waif in need of rescue, so I helped her out. I have NEVER regretted being her lover. If I saw her tomorrow, I would call her "Yvonne," and never mention the past, but I would still like to give her a big hug. The most cruel thing I ever did in my life was leaving Dora the way I did. She deserved better, and if anybody wants to call me a sumbitch, just point to that incident. I can't argue. Then, there's Jennifer. You know a really sad fact I must admit? I still dream about her. I sometimes believe that she's still in my bed. I don't know if I'll ever get over her. That woman was my One True Love and she shafted me. I remain stunned. I don't know... sometimes I just think too much.
October 20, 2008dry countiesOriginally PUBLISHED May 29, 2005 Of course, as soon as you cross the border into North Carolina, you're in liquor store heaven. If you stop there and check the tags in the parking lot, almost every one is a Georgia tag. This "dry" crap doesn't stop people from drinking--- it just makes them go somewhere else to buy what they want. That's one reason Randall's Liquor Store is such a gold mine. It's right on the line between Effingham and Chatham counties. You can't buy liquor or mixed drinks in Effingham County. You can in Chatham. Check the plates in Randall's parking lot. EVERY GOT-DAM ONE is from Effingham county. The Baptists and the holy-rollers think they're keeping people away from sin with these stupid laws, but what they're actually doing is costing Effingham county a lot of money. It's just like the War On Drugs. You're not gonna STOP people from getting fucked-up with any law you pass. YOU may feel all righteous and pleased about the law, but people are going to find a way to get fucked-up anyway. If they have to drive a little farther, they will. If they have to deal with a shady character or two, they will. But, in the end, they'll GET WHAT THEY WANT! And no law is going to stop them. Harlan County, Kentucky was dry for as long as I can remember. If you wanted to buy booze or beer LEGALLY, you had to drive 35 miles to Cumberland to get it. Thanks to my cousin's connections, I learned that you could get anything you wanted less than two miles from his house, smack-dab in the middle of Harlan County. Bootleg places were EVERYWHERE around there, and they didn't card, they didn't ask for IDs and they'd sell you anything you wanted if you rode up on a tricycle wearing a set of diapers, as long as you had the money. My Aunt Netta always said that Harlan stayed dry because the Baptists and the bootleggers BOTH wanted it that way. The Baptists could feel holy and the bootleggers made money. People still got drunk. I'll never understand idiots who try to deny human nature when they see examples of it every day. The idiots may not want what they see to BE TRUE, but it is. If you know the right people, it's easier to get a drink in a "dry" county than it is in a "wet" one. Bootleggers are already violating the law, and they have no liquor license to lose. They'll sell to anybody, regardless of age. Buying dope is the same thing. You can get it if you want it. No law will EVER stop that, either. There's just too much money in the business and people like to get fucked-up. What the laws do is make it easier for kids to get it, when you never know what you're REALLY getting and you have to deal with shady characters to score it. I really don't see the wisdom in that shit. A 13 year-old kid can buy a bag of reefer easier than he can purchase a pack of Marlboros today, and if you think I'm lying about THAT, you've got your head up your ass. That's what all these "dry counties" and "War on Drugs" laws accomplish. The laws don't stop people from drinking or doping, but they make criminals rich and turn otherwise law-abiding citizens into criminals. You will ALWAYS have vendors and customers in that kind of trade, because the demand has been there since the dawn of mankind. The same thing applies to prostitution. Wimmen always have been willing to sell pussy and men always have been willing to buy it. No law in the world is EVER going to stop it. In fact, these laws usually make the problem WORSE. And wasting law-enforcement resources on trying to stop human nature lets a lot of murderers, rapists, thieves and thugs sneak right under the radar screen while the cops are busy busting some poor bastard who solicited an undercover police woman for a blow-job on Friday night. That crap sure makes ME feel safer in my bed at night.
October 19, 2008just thinkingOriginally PUBLISHED November 24, 2004 Iīm supposed to go see Fernanda in two hours. Iīm not sure I want to go. When I met her last night, I thought she was about 30 years old. She is very beautiful, with skin the color of a fresh-picked pecan and one of the brightest smiles Iīve ever seen. Her eyes are wide, limpid and very attractive. Yes, she is a goddess. But sheīs ALSO 20 years old. My goddam DAUGHTER is older, and once I learned how young Fernanda was, I really felt like a cradle-robber. That fact didnīt stop me or her from doing the dirty dance last night, but I felt bad about it today. Iīm not kidding. I did. I told her that I was an old goat. She said (as nearly as I could translate--- Fernanda speaks no English---), "You are not old. You are ALIVE!Ļ" I think she also said that I have a light in my eyes that shines like moonbeams on a rusty hubcap on a wrecked car in the summer night, and my smile should be dragged off and shot for crimes against humanity. My Spanish isnīt that good, but I think thatīs what she said. Something about me attracted her. Hell, she liked the way I sang Ļ"Hotel California." Iīll probably be there. Iīll do that even if itīs just to say goodbye. I owe her that respect. I walked the streets of La Fortuna today and found myself down some scruffy alley around lunchtime. I could smell something good cooking, so I followed my nose and wound up at a little cafe/bar that the locals really seem to like. All the construction workers and bus drivers showed up there to eat. I had something called "Sailorīs Rice," as near as I could translate from the menu. I believe that they make that stuff in an industrial-sized cement mixer out back and put it on plates with a snow-shovel. They almost needed a fork lift to bring me my meal. That plate was LOADED with rice, shrimp, fish, chicken, beef, sausage and assorted vegetables. I ate until I thought I would bust and the plate STILL looked loaded when I was finished. Muy Grande. Why arenīt Costa Ricans fat from eating such food? Costa Rica has more pretty wimmen per square inch than anyplace else Iīve ever been. Maybe they arenīt all 10s, but the 9 and 1/2s are EVERYWHERE. My face gets tired from gawking at them. I also see no reason to ever get in a hurry or become pissed off here. According to Rick and Georgia, Iīm that way because I am a "yuppie" and I like my life scheduled. I donīt understand the REAL Costa Rican experience of clusterfuckdom, fightdom and fitdom in a rental car that resembles a kidīs purple high-topped basketball shoe, but with worse suspension. Bwhahaha!!! Whatever. Theyīd rather scream at each other while lost in a rental car going bat-out-of-hell to nowhere, speaking not a word of Spanish nor making any attempt to learn, stressing, yelling and making those obnoxious tooth-sucking sounds that they like so much than be a "yuppie" like me. Fine. I donīt think Iīm going back home on time. Iīm supposed to be at the San Jose airport on Sunday, but I donīt believe that I will make that flight. Iīm gonna hang around for another week or so, maybe longer. I enjoy "La Pura Vida" and my yuppie ass likes using the bus or a taxi to get where I want to go. As long as itīs all "scheduled," donīt you know. I believe that Iīll see Fernanda tonight-- I just donīt know for how long or what for. I believe that Iīll be in Jaco tomorrow. I also believe that I will have a good time no matter what I decide to do. I really like it here.
October 18, 2008life goes onOriginally PUBLISHED November 25, 2004 I caught my ride right on time this morning, but the van broke down on the road and left me stranded at a small cafe on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean 35 km from Jaco. You know how my yuppie ass hates it when a schedule goes awry, so I ranted, raved, bitched, pissed and moaned ate some really good soup with fresh bread and I flirted with a young woman from Sweden until another bus came to pick us up. Her name is Inga, and I'm having dinner with her tonight. I also started taking pictures today. I'm gonna make a real statement on this blog: Costa Rican wimmen are BEAUTIFUL, and I am gathering the proof. So far, I have asked 30 wimmen to pose for me and all 30 agreed. I haven't been slapped yet, either. These aren't porno shots---just smiling Costa Rican wimmen--- but if you see the pictures and have pornographic thoughts, I won't blame you. Costa Rican wimmen do that to a zesty man. I have a nice room right on the beach. I rented it for seven days, at $20 per night, which means that I won't be making my scheduled flight home on schedule, which is very frightening for a schedule-freak yuppie such as myself, who wants everything scheduled, according to Recondo. Of course, he's off bitching and lost somewhere, while I'm staying at the beach in a town I know well. Who is the asshole here? I don't know how to get in touch with Rick and Georgia, but I imagine that when I don't show up at the airport on Sunday, they'll figure out that I'm either dead or being a well-scheduled yuppie. I really don't care what they think. Fuck 'em. I'm going home when I feel like it and not one minute before. Yup THAT, and stick that schedule stuff up your ass!!! Enjoy fighting in the rental car, cussing each other and seeing Costa Rica at 60 kilometers per hour, you sophisticates. I'm going out to dinner tonight with Inga and I intend to see an old friend named Ailea tomorrow. If things go according to my "schedule" I may get laid by three different wimmen in four days. Not bad for an old goat. I LOVE Costa Rica!!!
October 17, 2008faking orgasmsOriginally PUBLISHED September 6, 2004 Recondo 32 and his lovely wife Georgia came over yesterday to spend the night at the Crackerbox, eat chili dogs and drink up all of my beer. I don't remember how we got on the topic, but I mentioned something about fake orgasms. I said that I could fake an orgasm now as well as any woman. Georgia was outraged. "I never faked one in my life," she announced indignantly. "I don't know why anybody would want to fake one. But I could tell if a man did... even YOU, Smith." "She probably can, Rob. She knows when I fake sex with her," Recondo said. "That when I tell her that I'm going to jump her bones and I don't. I by-pass that whole fake orgasm thing." I bet her that she couldn't tell, but I didn't get the chance to really...DEMONSTRATE my acting ability. You see... I don't ejaculate anymore, thanks to having a lot of my natural plumbing removed, so I leave no evidence of an actual male orgasm. So, I did all the vocals and the facial expressions of a really good, porno-movie cum-shot while sitting on my couch. Then I asked Georgia, "What did you think of THAT?" "It was fake. Obviously fake." "OF COURSE it was fake. I told you ahead of time that I was going to fake one. But if you and I were tangling the sheets and I did that, I'll guarantee you that you'd believe me." "I could tell. I just KNOW that I could tell." Men can't. Why should wimmen be any more perceptive?
October 16, 2008sex is goodOriginally PUBLISHED December 22, 2004 I know that this idea will make some people hyperventilate and get a serious case of the vapors, but I don't care. I believe that our Puritan heritage has fucked up more people than it ever saved from sin, because we're all supposed to feel GUILTY for having fun, especially if sex is involved. When I DON'T feel a bolt of guilt after I do something I like doing, I am supposed to stop and think about what's wrong with ME? THAT'S fucked up. Not me. If GAWD didn't want sex to feel good, then why did he give me a pecker in the first place? Why did he create Woman and give her a pussy? Why did he make wimmen like pecker just as much as I like pussy? He did THAT, and then told us all NOT TO USE WHAT HE GAVE US??? Bullshit!! I ain't buying that crap. He gave us both a blessing and a curse, which is what a clever, tricky God does. This is the WORD OF GAWD, so I'll put it in italics: "Man, you have a pecker. Woman, you have a pussy. Together, you will find all kinds of ways to mess up my creation, but I'm gonna turn you loose on the world anyway. I think I fucked up when I made you." And he turned us loose. And he was correct when he said that we would mess up his wonderful creation. We did. Most of the time. But he stuck one other small detail in there that he neglected to mention at the time. Yeah, sweaty, romping sex is wonderful. EVERYBODY should do it every day. But making love is totally different. I've known that feeling and I've shared my soul with someone in passion so sweet that I would have been happy to die right then, because life could not possibly be any better. Yeah, peckers and pussies were involved, but that's not what I felt at the time. I felt.... ONE with someone else. If you've never known that experience, GAWD cheated you out of something special. Know it once and you'll never forget it. I like the romp, and I'll rent me a hooker to get one. Sex is good. But it's nothing like making love to someone... you really love.
October 15, 2008a true storyOriginally PUBLISHED January 10, 2005 I don't know what made me remember this incident from my past, but it came back as clear as a bell today. I was 15 years old and working at Chip's Drive-In on Waters Avenue around 1966. Yeah, I was the kid in the paper hat with the apron around his waist standing behind the stainless-steel counter at a burger joint. I saw a car pull up outside. Out poured (and I do mean POURED) four Jenkins High School cheerleaders. At that point in my life, I believed that these were the most beautiful, sexy wimmen in the world and my palms became sweaty when I saw them. They came giggling and wiggling and throwing tits and ass at me when they approached my window. "Hey, Robbie!" one yelled. I was flattered that they knew my name. "We're HUNGRY!" I took their order. They wanted hamburgers, hot dogs, a couple of fish-burgers, some fried chicken, six orders of french fries and four large cokes. I put the order together, bagged it and said, "That'll be $8.29." Dee-Dee, the head cheerleader, leaned over the counter and gave me one hell of a dose of teenaged cleavage. "Uh, Robbie, sweetheart... can't you just charge us for the cokes and let us walk away with the rest?" She licked her lips sensuously. "I sure would appreciate it." When I refused to do that, they all walked away and left the entire order on the counter, and they laughed all the way back to their car. They were just seeing what their pussies could get them that day. Wimmen learn that shit from an early age. I stood there at the counter and looked at all the food they stuck me with. Me in my silly paper hat and my goddam apron. Feeling like a fool. But I knew that I had done the right thing. I wasn't going to cheat my boss, and even if I DID, I damn sure wasn't going to get any pussy from those girls. They were just being young cunts. I turned around and ran face-to-face into my manager. He saw the whole episode. "You done good, Rob," he said. "Don't ever let the split-tails get the upper hand on you." I wish I had followed his advice all of my life.
October 14, 2008some wimmen are coolOriginally PUBLISHED March 22,2005 A lot of lesbians worked for the Savannah Morning News when I was playing guitar on River Street. They got off at 11:00 at night and came down to the bar to drink heavily and listen to me play before they went home. I used to flirt with them and tell them that I could change their persuasion if they would only give me a chance. A couple of those wimmen were damned good looking. Never happened. They were set in their ways, but they liked my music and they liked the way I flirted with them. We became friends. One night, a bunch of them stayed until closing time and at about 2:30 in the morning, I told them that I would walk them back to the parking lot, just to be chivalrous and all. I don't know what good I would have done them with a guitar case in either hand, but I had a derringer in my pocket, and I enjoyed their company. So, five of them and one of me took a hike to the parking lot. We didn't make it before a FLASHER jumped out of an alley and bared himself. I AM NOT MAKING THIS SHIT UP!!! The guy popped out of nowhere and spread his trench coat like a set of bat wings, and he was wearing nothing but the coat and a pair of running shoes. One of the girls said, "Oh, my God. That looks just like a dick, only a lot smaller." The guy turned and ran away. I had to sit down on the street and laugh for a minute. That was the perfect cut at the perfect time. I WISHED that I had come up with that one, right out of the dark sky the way she did. All the girls were laughing and giving high-fives to each other, too. I finally recovered enough breath to say, "Why don't y'all walk me to MY car? I believe that you can take care of yourselves." They did exactly that. Don't try to intimidate a bunch of lesbians. That plan won't work. They'll make fun of your dick.
October 13, 2008fragile egosOriginally PUBLISHED July 10th,2005 I was in the Atlanta airport when I saw four of our troops eating hamburgers as they awaited their flight to the Middle East. I flagged a waitress and told her to put their meal on my tab and send a round of beers over to them, on me. One of the guys, dressed in camo, walked over to thank me for buying their meal, but said that he was only 18, and he couldn't have a beer. He'd just stick with good old Southern iced tea. I told him that iced tea was fine with me. Whatever he wanted. Then, I thought, WTF? We're going to train, arm and send this fine young man off to fight in a WAR, where he may be killed or have important body parts blown off by some idiot Islamist, and the poor bastard can't drink a BEER before he climbs aboard that plane? We'll give him an M-16 but NOT a Budweiser? Where's the logic in that? THAT's how men have ALWAYS been treated in western society. I prefer the ways primitive people handle things. When a boy turns a certain age, you drag his ass into a tent, chant over him, burn some sacred smoke, send a concubine in to lay the hell out of him, and when he emerges from that tent in the morning, he is treated like a MAN instead of a boy, from then on. We don't have similar rituals in the western world. I don't believe that I ever thought of myself as a man until I buried my father. I was 40 years old, I had a good job, I owned a home and I had a child. But... I never KNEW that I was a man, at least until I took care of getting my father planted in the ground. I believe that a LOT of men feel that way. That's one reason THIS ARTICLE (Ed. note: link no longer current to time)chapped my Cracker ass. And I'll also be totally politically incorrect by saying the Rise of Feminism has not helped things, either. Yeah. Wimmen want it ALL today--- independence, abortion on demand, shrill screaming when they don't get their way, EQUAL treatment and "rights" that were invented by a hallucinating judge. Fine. Give 'em all that stuff. But let's ALSO change the rules about alimony, child support, child custody and all the OTHER baggage still hanging over from the old days, when wimmen were delicate flowers instead of sniping, ball-cutting, STRONG bitches. I don't believe that wimmen should have it both ways. You can't faint, develop the vapors and hyperventilate because you saw a Rigid Tool calender on an office wall and then sue for sexual harassment when you ALSO want to show how fucking "strong" you are. Men ALWAYS had it rough in the western world, negotiating that twilight zone between boy and man. It's worse now. With all the pussification going on, men don't know WHERE they stand anymore. I shoulda been born a woman. I could show Hillary Clinton a thing or two about getting what I wanted.
October 12, 2008more on nipplesOriginally PUBLISHED May 13, 2006
A lot of wimmen seem to think that that's a highly-erotic thing to do, and I appreciate their sense of adventure, but I would just as soon have 'em stick a finger up my ass. And I don't like THAT, either (thanks to my urologist for making me entirely probed-out). Still, if you wanna do either thing, go right ahead. If it's good for YOU, it's good for ME, too. I'm all for doing whatever YOU like in bed. (Just don't bitch to me about giving an enthusiastic blow-job after you've rammed a finger up my ass. If I allow you to have YOUR way with me, you should allow me to have MINE. It's only fair.) But, I digress. I was gonna write about nipples here... My first wife, the mother of my darlin' daughter, had BIG titties, with a set of nipples that resembled bitten-in-half Vienna sausages. But they had more style than substance, kinda like water balloons that just rolled around on her chest with large warts stuck on them. She was a good-lookin' woman, but a lousy lay. Looking back now, I wonder why in the hell I ever married her in the first place. I think the fact that she threw away her birth control pills without telling me and then got pregnant had something to do with my decision. Bejus knows that I wouldn't have done it in my right mind. My darlin' second ex-wife had GREAT nipples. (By the way... someone at the Austin blog-meet asked me NEVER to use the words "Bloodless Cunt" on my blog again, because she found it "offensive." Instead of telling her to go fuck herself, I agreed, so I stored that term on the shelf right next to the forbidden N-word, where they will NEVER be used again.) My action doesn't take niggers persons of colour out of this world, nor does it keep my darlin' ex-wife from being a Bloodless Cunt, but if it makes even ONE PERSON feel better, I'm willing to do MY part... as soon as I get back on-topic about nipples. Jennifer didn't have BIG titties, but she had exquisite nipples. Her boobs were a perfect fit for the palm of my hand--- any more would have been a waste--- and she was blessed with dark brown areoles about the size of a quarter, with nipples like .45 longs. They were very much an erogenous zone, too--- she demonstrated MANY times her ability to achieve orgasm JUST from having her nipples stimulated. I LIKED playing with those things. She liked it when I did it, too. But Dora possessed the All-Time Best Boobs I ever had the good fortune to enjoy. She was a genuine red-head, and her breasts were as white as new-fallen snow, with PINK nipples the size of Grand Cameroon cigar butts. She was a woman who didn't LOOK stacked until you saw them critters unleashed--- and then your jaw dropped in pure wonder. Even today, YEARS after I last saw Dora, I think of HER when I think about excellent, beautiful titties. And I remember the time we made love on a sleeping bag in the wide open outdoors during a hailstorm on top of a mountain in North Carolina. THAT was uninhibited sex in the wild, and the next day I had bruises on my ass from hailstone licks to prove it. In my journey through life, I have discovered something wonderful. No two titties are alike, even on the same woman. And I love them all.
October 11, 2008Beach townsOriginally PUBLISHED June 11,2004 I'll admit that sometimes the words come more easily than they do at other times. I don't know what circumstances make the difference between a good day and a bad day, but something does. If I could figure it out, I'd bottle and sell a cure for Writer's Block. I want to believe that staying at Folly Beach stirred my creative juices. I LOVE beach towns, especially the ones that are small, populated by natives who don't give a big shit about much of anything, and where you can walk from one end of town to the other in an hour or so, even with a couple of beer stops along the way. Folly Beach is like that. People walk around in wet bathing suits. You don't HAVE to wear a shirt to go into most bars there, and a lot of people don't wear shirts (you KNOW that I like that!). Wimmen are barefoot, or wearing sandals, so I get to indulge in my foot-fetish at will, as long as I don't drop to my knees and start licking a set of pretty, bare, red toenails on the sidewalk. A bearded old fart such as myself fits right in at Folly Beach. I've decided to take another field trip tomorrow. I'm going back to Key West. I'll travel tomorrow about as far as Hollywood Beach, where I intend to stay at the hotel with the rooftop pool that allows nekkid sunbathing. I'll try to keep from becoming a "baboon butt" this time, but I WILL take all of my clothes off and lie in the sun. I enjoy doing that kind of thing. Modesty is NOT one of my strong points. I'll be in Key West about mid-day on Sunday and stay there until next Wednesday. Bejus, that's a long trip, but it's worth it. Key West is the ULTIMATE beach town. It should be fairly quiet this time of year (compared to Spring Break-- or at least as quiet as Key West EVER gets) and I know a couple of very nice internet cafes where I can blog. I'm taking my camera with me and I hope to post some interesting Key West pictures when I return home. I won't be blogging tomorrow, but you'll hear from me when I reach Key West.
October 10, 2008Pissing sitting downOriginally PUBLISHED December 14, 2004 I've always bragged that one of the benefits of being a man is the ability to stand up and pee. Hell, we can water a tree, stop ANYWHERE on the side of the road and even write our names in the snow if we want to. Instant relief is no problem. A pecker is a nice thing to have. I've always laughed at the female squatting thing and the half-a-roll of toilet paper it takes them to daub their delicate pussies dry when they finally generate the nerve to squat outside a pristine-clean cubicle with a perfumed stall and a locked door in the first place. Plus, wimmen are always afraid that someone will SEE them pissing. WTF is that all about? Guys don't give a shit about someone seeing them piss. If you maybe look longingly at a guy's wang when you're in one of those watery conga-lines, the gawkee may just turn and piss all over your Reeboks, but that's not a shameful thing, at least not to the gawkee. He'll wave that thing at you and say "Take a GOOD look, buddy! Is THIS what you wanted???" Not that I would know, but I'm just sayin'... Wimmen don't do that. They piss sitting down and they like padded toilet seats to rest their fat pretty asses on, too. I was about to get wound up and pontificate about how disgusting that practice is until I thought... Bejus! I piss sitting down sometimes. I know a lot of other guys who do, too. That's just fucking sad. Catfish caught me doing it in Athens. He saw me sitting on the john and asked, "Whatta ya doing, Bow-legs? Pissin' or shittin'?" (Can you imagine a woman asking that question? Guys do.) I confessed that I wasn't certain. My body would make its mind up whenever it was ready. I caught Cat on the john the next day, his ass on the commode and his face buried in a USA Today. "Okay, Big Cat. Whatta ya doin'? Pissin' or shittin'?" I loved his reply. "I THINK I'm pissin,' but I ain't taking any chances." I just had a hideous thought. Old men become... WIMMEN!!!!
October 09, 2008a coal mining campOriginally PUBLISHED August 3,2004 The Lewellen mine opened sometime in the 1920s or '30s. It had been there on the side of that mountain for a long time before I was born. I still remember watching the man-trip run up and down the tracks on that hill and waiting by the fence to watch my daddy walk home with his entire body covered in coal dust. He was often the blackest man I ever saw. I showered with him once at the Bathhouse next door to the Company Store. I was six years old and intimidated by all the hairy, nekkid men around me. These were all rough-cob coal miners with large muscles, calloused hands and dicks a lot bigger than mine, enveloped in the steam from the showers. My daddy told me not to worry. "These men are my friends," he said. "Nobody is going to mess with you." Nobody did. In fact, one guy who worked for my dad scrubbed my back for me. I walked out of there feeling like a full-grown man at the age of six. I had been to the Bathhouse. I washed with the coal miners. I thought I was a Tall Dog. I have a picture of the house we lived in back then and it's pretty much a shack. Hey! But it was a GOOD shack because my daddy was a supervisor and we lived on Front Row, right next to the highway, just across from the railroad tracks, where all the really good shacks were. We didn't have indoor plumbing and I know quite well what a winter wind feels like blowing up through the hole in an outhouse while your tender ass is perched on it, but we didn't live on Back Alley, on the bank of the Cumberland River, where the drunks and promiscuous wimmen lived. We had status, for what it was worth. The mine ran out of coal and shut down in 1958. It had operated for more than 40 years on a good seam of Golden Ash coal, the finest coal in the world. $15 a ton back then. My daddy was without employment, without insurance and the father of a diabetic son, who required a lot of medical treatment. He had a decision to make. He was offered several other jobs in mines all over Kentucky, but he turned them all down. He KNEW that if he stayed there, my brother and I would grow up to be coal miners. That's all there was to do back then. He and my mama loaded up all they could pack into a 1957 Chevy Bel-Air and moved to Savannah, with no prospects and no idea of what they would do next. We had a place to stay, at my grandmother's house, but that was it. Do you realize the kind of courage that took? I didn't back then, but I do now. I admire my father more than any man I've ever known in my life. He was a hard-ass and we didn't always get along, but he had more balls than any other TWO men I've encountered in life. My dad was one hell of a man. I think in a lot of ways I've always felt that I didn't measure up to his standards. I still wonder about that today, even though my father has been dead for 12 years. The Lewellen coal mining camp is gone now. The company bulldozed all the houses and and sold the lumber for scrap. Somebody was growing corn there the last time I saw it in 1983. I doubt that I ever will go back. But I'll never forget it, either.
October 08, 2008A MentalistOriginally PUBLISHED October 23, 2004 I can't remember his name, but he billed himself as a "mentalist." The first thing he did when he came on stage was hold up an envelope that held his paycheck for the performance (or so he said). He told the audience that he would give the check to somebody, exit for five minutes and give us a chance to hide it. If he couldn't find it by the end of the performance, he would work for free. About 500 people were in the room. The President of the Student Council took the check and finally placed it under the asscheeks of a good-looking woman somewhere in the middle of the crowd. "Don't put it in your pocketbook," he said. "Just sit on it." She did. The performer came back on stage, announced that the FIRST thing he was gonna do was find his money, and he asked for two volunteers who knew where the check was hidden. A lot of hands went up and he picked one man and one woman from the group. He grabbed their hands, went into some kind of cosmic trance and walked straight to where his check was hidden as if using a divining rod. "Honey, I believe that you're sitting on my money," he said. She stood up and he retreived the envelope. The crowd went wild. I figured he had a spotter out there working for him that TOLD him where the check was hidden. That's the oldest trick in the book. But he did some other things that blew my mind. He could add a series of ten four-digit numbers in his head and get the right answer every time. I KNOW that he didn't fake that stunt because I yelled out "1177" and my number went onto the list a person was keeping on a big marker-board behind him. When all ten numbers were recorded, he gave the answer without ever looking at the board. He did that trick five times. He was correct every time. If he was wearing some kind of wire, I couldn't see it. He also hyptonized some people and that was a hoot to watch. I tried to volunteer for THAT, but I never made it to the stage. The guy picked a few members of the basketball team and put them to sleep on stage. He told one guy that when he woke up, everybody in the auditorium would be nekkid. He told another one to take off his shoe, hold it over his head and be VERY ANXIOUS about where his shoe was when he woke up. He told another one that HE was nekkid and nobody else in the place was. He brought them out of their trances and the reactions were incredible. The one who saw everybody nekkid was grinning like a goof-ball. The one with his shoe over his head was distraught about losing his shoe. The one who thought HE was nekkid, covered his private area and almost crawled under his chair. I don't know if hypnotism really works, but it appeared to that day. I talked to two of those guys after the show and they confirmed that they weren't acting. If you ever get the chance to see a good "mentalist," take it. You'll remember the experience 25 years later.
October 07, 2008THINGS I LEARNED ON JEKYLL ISLAND WITH MY SONOriginally PUBLISHED July 26, 2002 1) It's a beautiful place. You really don't want to leave when your time is up. You also can spend a lot of money really fast there. 2) Every restaurant has a chef in a big, white hat and his job is to drench everything you eat with exquistie, garlic-laden sauces. The food is delicious, and my son and I ate it all, then raced for the bathroom afterward to see who could make the loudest "barking fish" noises on the commode. Damn! That's good stuff, but four days of seafood will make you believe that a covey of quail is flying out of your ass every time you have to fart. I wouldn't recommend that experience to everybody I know. Only the really staunch can survive it. 3) The weather was perfect. We went and ate the breakfast buffet at around 9:00 in the morning, lounged around the pool for an hour or so, then went to the beach, which doesn't exist at high tide. The waves come all the way to the big granite breakwater (which didn't exist the last time I was on Jekyll Island), so you have to wait for the tide to ebb before the beach becomes visible. Once my son saw a foot of sand, we hit the Atlantic Ocean. We collected sand dollars and hermit crabs and sea shells and we built the most exotic sand castles on the strand. My son attempted to make friends with some of the yankee boys in their clown-like costumes (you know-- the water shoes, the fins and goggles with a shark's fin on top, the jiggling, white, jelly-bellies and the SWIMMING GLOVES, for crying out loud) and Quinton finally asked me, "What's WRONG with those guys?" He stood there knee-deep in the surf, barefoot and bare-backed, looking tanned, muscular and altogether comfortable as the waves broke around him. I told him, "They're YANKEES and they can't help being dorkles. They don't know any better. Just try to be nice to them." He did, but he learned the EARLY WARNING SIGNS of a yankee and identified them left and right from them on. "DADDY! LOOKY THERE! THAT'S YANKEE FOR SURE!" Uh, Huh. Water shoes, doofus water toys, snorkel, mask and a bad attitude. "Don't point," I told him. "That's bad manners." 4) We returned past the Tiki-Bar at around 5:00 every afternoon. I bought my son a cherry coke and a frozen marguarita for me. We went back to our room and waited for the evening fireworks, which happened on schedule every day. Around 6:00, thunder, lightning and cosmic rainfall fell from the sky for about two hours, then we went out to eat. We did rent three movies that we watched during the rainstorms. The Scorpion King is one of those entirely witless, highly-entertaining movies you really want to watch during an early-evening thunderstorm. I LOVED IT. Bwhahahaha! I insisted on watching Blackhawk Down because I read the book, and the movie was excellent, except for the fact that Quinton couldn't keep track of all the characters and kept asking me pestering questions all the way through it. I shut him up when I told him that he was acting like a YANKEE! I made a mistake last night by renting Blade II which was a shitty movie filled with more fucking F-words than the fucking law should allow, and I didn't like all the fucking dialogue, which was mainly, "Fuck you!" "Oh, yeah? Fuck YOU, TOO!" My son didn't like it either, and asked me, "Why does everybody have a potty mouth in this movie?" I said, "They're yankees. They can't help it." 5) My son wants to start his own blog. He wants to tell scary stories on it. I think it's a great idea.
October 06, 2008Natural artOriginally published October 29, 2002 The spider that has lived behind the commode since I moved into the Crackerbox has expanded his (her?) domain. The web reaches all the way to the towel rack by the bathtub now and it is intricacy in its layers are fascinating. It catches a lot of mosquitoes and houseflys, and I'm all for that, but the damned thing needs to know that it can't take over the entire bathroom for itself. I like my pet spider. It's not a BIG spider, but it's pretty fierce-looking and it's a web-spinning dervish. It has a voracious appetite, which is a good thing, because I like it when it eats pests in my home. But I'm beginning to believe that it thinks it OWNS the place. I figure it'll weave my toilet paper into its web in a day or so, then we'll have to come to an understanding about who's in charge around here.
October 05, 2008AcronymsOriginally published September 29, 2004 Who can identify these: HMFIC BOHICA WABOS BOSWA AUWTDA (pronounced "ought-da.") FUBAR FUAAW (pronounced "foo-ow!") I used these acronyms in my supervisor's notes for years at work, because people considered me impolite if I wrote obscenities in a formal record log. So, I didn't use obscenities, but everybody knew what I meant. Do you?
October 04, 2008Potential brewmeisterOriginally published October 28, 2002 Rich of BRAIN SQUEEZINGS has decided that he wants to start brewing his own beer and is asking for advice from anyone who knows anything about the subject. Always willing to share my knowledge of the arcane with anyone who will listen, I offer this missive on home brewing. It is FUN! Making your own beer is like conducting an experiment with a really cool chemistry set and being able to drink the end result without turning into a hairy, murderous freak like Mr. Hyde. You just turn into a drunken, slobbering freak like a lot of fans you see at professional hockey games. My beer-making tools were a 5-gallon glass carboy, a funnel, a bottle capper, a four-foot piece of 1/2" plastic tubing, a rubber stopper with a hole in it for the neck of the carboy, a long glass tube that fit the hole in the stopper, and a short glass tube that did the same thing. I also had a bubble-counter device that fit the stopper, too. All these nifty things are available over the internet and likely for sale at a brewpub, if you have one nearby. I bought mine at The Mill in Savannah. I also bought 10 pounds of corn sugar, a 3-pound bag of spray-dried malt extract (for dark beers), three packs of various hops (they are rated on a bitterness scale), 1,000 bottle caps, and two cans of kit beer. I then bought four cases of long-neck beer bottles for $2.00 per case from the bartender at The Blue-Collar Lounge, a bar down the street from where I lived at the time. I poured two cups of bleach into a clean plastic garbage can and filled the can with enough water to sink all the bottles. That will soak the labels off the bottles and disinfect them at the same time. I started out making kit beers because they are the easy way for a beginner to learn and they usually turn out well. A kit beer basically is beer syrup in a can with a packet of yeast and cooking instructions included. The first batch I made was a "Cooper's Ale" (I think) from Australia. Step one before brewing is to sterilize all your equipment. Bacteria love the nutrient-rich environment of sugar, yeast grains and hops that you are about to create and they will thrive there, turning the beer cidery and undrinkable if you give them a chance. I ran everything I used through the dishwasher first, except the carboy, which wouldn't fit, so I rinsed it thoroughly with a 5% bleach solution, then filled it with water and added four effervescing denture-cleanser tablets. I cooked my batches on the kitchen stove. Just put some water in a big pot, bring it to a boil, and add the kit beer syrup. Lower the heat to a simmer and add sugar, stirring constantly to a) keep from "scorching" your beer and 2) keep the damned concoction in the pot, because it will boil over like Vesuvius if you aren't careful. Most kit recipes call for four cups of sugar. I always used six-- the more sugar you add, the higher the alcohol content of the resultant beer. Mine usually ran around 7% (14 proof!) when finished. With the Coopers, I used four cups of corn sugar and two cups of malt extract. The beer came out a beautiful red color that way. Cook the mixture for 45 minutes, then empty the carboy. Add about 4" of tap water to the carboy, insert the funnel into the neck of the carboy, and CAREFULLY pour the still-boiling contents of the pot down the funnel. Remove the funnel, fill the carboy to 5" air space with water and cover the top of the carboy (I used a dishwasher-sterilized baggie and a rubber band). Allow it to sit and cool until it is no more than titty-warm to the touch. Then pitch in the yeast. Insert the rubber stopper in the neck of the carboy. Stick the short glass tube in the hole and connect the plastic tubing to the glass tube. Fill a coffee can 1/2 full of 5% bleach solution, poke a hole in the plastic top, and stick the other end of the plastic tubing through the hole that the end of the tube is beneath the liquid. Set the carboy in a safe place-- I used my laundry room. Now wait about two weeks. Within the first 24 hours, the mixture in the carboy will begin to bubble furiously as the yeast devours the sugar and gives off CO2 and alcohol. The coffee can will bubble furiously, too, as the gas escapes. By day 2, the mixture is working alive and the coffee can starts making noises like a baby alligator, hissing and grunting. This process continues for a few days, then begins to subside. When you see very few bubbles rising from what is now about 2" of sediment in the bottom of the carboy, remove the blow-off tubing and insert the bubble-counter in the stopper. The bubble-counter is a small plastic cylinder with a ball that seals the bottom. Fill it with 5% bleach solution and watch as gas forms in the carboy, lifts the ball, and allows a bubble to escape. When you see one bubble every two minutes, the beer is ready for the bottle. Add 3/4 cup of priming sugar to the carboy. This sugar will give your beer its foam. I always ran the bottles through the dishwasher on the rinse cycle and bottled my beer with the bottles still in the washer for easy cleanup. The long glass tube with the plastic tubing attached is the siphon. Fill the bottles, cap them, and set them in a cool, dark place for a few days. WARNING! DO NOT siphon the sediment at the bottom of the carboy. That stuff has truly amazing laxitive qualities and if you don't enjoy shitting your pants, stay away from that stuff. Always leave about an inch of beer in the carboy. You should end up with 48-52 bottles. The beer should age for two weeks, but I always liked to try a bottle after two days, then another one at four days and then another one after a week, just to see how the process was progressing. Sometimes, I pronounced the batch ready to go in 7 days. I made more batches of more different kinds of beer than I can remember. But I remember that they ALL were good. Go for it, Rich! UPDATE Something ate every comment on this post, and this post only. I DID NOT DO THAT, because I wasn't fucking with anything at the time. At least I don't think I was. If you wanted me to know what you said, try to comment again or email me.
October 03, 2008Why not?Originally published September 29, 2004 This will be a long and boring post, but I've got nothing better to do today. Besides, a lot of OTHER bloggers are doing it, and I don't want to swim against the tide. 200 Things 01. Bought everyone in the pub a drink--damn right I have. There. Wasn't that fun?
October 02, 2008More ex-wife bullshitOriginally published October 30, 2002 I received an email from the Bloodless Cunt at work today informing me that my son now is enrolled in a wrestling class that practices from 6:30 until 8:45 every SATURDAY NIGHT in Springfield, 14 miles down the road from where I live. This Saturday night my beloved Georgia Bulldogs play the hated Florida Gators on ESPN with a 7:30 kickoff. I have a somewhat different attitude toward Quinton wrestling and Quinton playing soccer. If my school had offered a wrestling program, I would have been better at that than I was at football, and I was pretty good at football. My boy is built a lot like I was in my younger days and he is strong as an ox for his size. He has big legs, a low waist and good upper-body strength. Like me, he is built to wrestle. The little shit has practiced enough on ME that he should fear no opponent he faces, ever. He seems to be ready to rumble, even when matched against older, heavier opponents. He suprises those bigger boys by whipping their asses sometimes. I hate soccer with a passion, because I believe that it is a titty-hugging, pussy-assed game that only mamas can enjoy, mainly because they like the social life that goes with it. I believe that soccer sucks as a sport and is downright unAmerican as a game. It's WAY too French for me. But wrestling is different. Yeah. That's mano-a-mano, like fending off a pulling guard and making a tackle in the backfield. And if my boy has found a sport where he can kick some ass, I want to be there to watch. We'll be there Saturday night.
October 01, 2008Anal sexOriginally published September 29, 2004 I'm going yoo-hooing off the cliff into deep waters here, and I probably will horrify a few readers, but that never stopped me before and it's not gonna stop me now. I want to say some plain and simple: I have known a few wimmen who really enjoyed anal sex. They had multiple orgasms doing it. I liked it too, because it was different and kinky, but I never understood it from HER... ummm... point of view?... point of impact... the eroticism of it for HER? I don't know. My brain gets full quickly when I think about these kinds of subjects. I've had prostate cancer and I've had more fingers, tools and weapons of mass destruction shoved up my ass than I can remember. I DON'T WANT to remember any of it. I didn't find one bit of that stuff erotic. In fact, I HATED every bit of it, and I'm not certain that my pucker-string will EVER be right again. They ruined me. I fear a fart now. It might come with a lump in it. That biopsy device the doctor uses to take tissue samples looks a lot like a Big Bertha Calloway driver, with the extra-large head. He is kind enough to lube your poop-chute with a generous supply of K-Y Jelly, but that doesn't really help when he shoves that thing up your ass and starts firing it like a shotgun. I almost bit one of my fingers off when I had that done to me. It WAS NOT a pleasant experience. I am confused. Homosexual men do the same kind of thing for PLEASURE? Sorry, guys. I don't get it. I don't WANT to get it that way. I've HAD IT that way and I didn't like it. Oh, well... to each his own. And if you're a woman who likes it that way, I'll do you if you want me to. Whatever is your pleasure is my gift. Just don't buckle up a strap-on and try to return the favor. I've had enough of that.
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All content Đ Rob Smith
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