June 30, 2006
-- How ya'll doing this morning?
Getting any? Personally, I'm in a really good mood. Because of something
called "summer flex hours" I'm allowed to leave work, on every
other Friday, as soon as the one o'clock ballbuster conference call
ends. And it just so happens that this is one of my weeks -- right up
against a big honkin' four-day weekend. How cool is that?
Originally we were supposed to work on Monday, and get Tuesday off for
the holiday. But The Company ended up giving us Monday as well. The day that
email arrived, early last week, Toney and I began frantically calling
around to various campgrounds, to try to secure a space. But it was not
to be. There's not a campsite within a two hundred mile radius of our
house.
So I guess it'll just be more lazing around the house, and maybe a deck
feast or two. But that's OK. Any downtime is good time.
I hope you're getting some time away from your job as well. Got any
special plans?
-- A few doors down from us lives a giant white dog. I don't know what
breed he is, but he's massive. He can literally walk up to the front of
our house, and look straight through the living room windows. He's big
and goofy and good-natured, and you'd have to have a black black soul
not to like him.
However, he eats shit and garbage. Those are his big character flaws. I
think I mentioned, a long time ago, that we saw him strutting up our
street one day with an entire Thanksgiving turkey carcass in his mouth,
aluminum foil and all. He'd dug it out of somebody's trash, and had his
head all ratcheted back, happy as crap.
He's always rooting through garbage cans, and ripping open plastic
sacks, and stringing moist, funky trash throughout the neighborhood. He
also eats, on a regular basis, Andy's yard biscuits, hot from the oven.
Blechh.
One of our neighbors had loads of
expensive landscaping done last summer, and this outsize hound dug up
their flower beds, within hours of completion. I saw him doing it, and
nearly wrecked my Blazer doing a cartoon double-take.
Sometimes I'll see a person chasing him away with a broom, but nobody
can stay mad at him. He's just so happy and stupid, and has a bark that
literally sounds like woof! His personality earns him a lot of
leeway, and that's for sure. If he was unlikable, I'm convinced he'd
already be poisoned or shot.
Anyway, when I was driving home from work last night, I took a slightly
different route, because I saw Half-Shirt in his yard and didn't want to
have to wave to him.
There's a house near us where the people apparently hit the lottery, or
had a rich aunt die, or something. Over the last year or so they've
completely remodeled their place, put in an in-ground pool with
waterfall, re-sodded and landscaped the yard, etc. It went from being
your average home, to something out of Architectural Digest.
And yesterday evening, as I drove past, the big white dog was lying on
their manicured lawn with his head completely inside a sack of garbage,
just going to town. The trashcans at the end of their driveway were
tipped over, and crap was strewn everywhere. Hilarious.
I told Toney about it when I got home, and we had a good there he
goes again laugh. She asked if I could take the oldest Secret to
swimming practice while she finished up dinner, and I purposely went
past the house again.
The guy was out there cleaning up the mess, returning big stringy gobs
of super-saturated paper towels (or something) to the trash cans, and
patting the dog on the head. I drove real slow, and heard the man
speaking in baby-talk: Dat's right big boy, dat's right.... You such
a good dog.... And he was saying this as he used a square of
cardboard to scoop something that looked like fettucine alfredo off his
driveway.
What kind of crazy hold does this dog have over us?? I'm convinced that
eventually we'll all be doing his bidding.
-- Something just happened to me that unlocked an ancient memory that
was, I'm pretty sure, almost lost forever. I went into the downstairs
bathroom, flipped on the light, and walked straight into a spider
dangling from the ceiling on a string(!). The thing was face-level, and
nearly went into my mouth. I almost tore down the shower curtain
flailing about like Skippy Hicks, and I have no idea what happened to
the spider. I keep thinking I feel it crawling in my hair....
And this reminded me of a story that a co-worker told me in Atlanta,
back when dinosaurs roamed the earth. She said she'd gone into the
bathroom at her apartment, to take a wizz. As she sat there, and without
realizing it, a cockroach dropped out of the air vent above the
toilet, into her underwear. Then she stood and pulled up her drawers,
with the roach still inside. And comedy ensued.
Heh. I hadn't thought about that in years.... I guess there's still a
little life left beneath the scar tissue?
-- And, since we're coming up on the Fourth of July, I was going to tell
you about some of my boyhood M-80s adventures. Like how they were
extremely illegal, yet I bought hundreds and hundreds of the things -- from
a South Charleston cop. Yes, good times. But Buck had the same idea,
and did a much better job of it than I could've, so I'll just let him take
it from here.
I'm not sure when I'll update again. I'm getting a feeling that it won't
be until next Wednesday, but we'll see. Today Toney and I are breaking
down and allowing Secret 1 to buy an airsoft gun, against many of your
warnings. So I might feel compelled to tell you about the resulting
mayhem on Monday.
In any case, have a great holiday, and I'll see ya next time. permalink
June 29, 2006
-- As best as I can tell, it's
been raining for forty days and thirty-nine nights here, and counting.
Lots of roads are closed or gone, and thousands of people near
Wilkes-Barre are under a mandatory evacuation order, because the levees
are about to shit the bed.
Several people didn't heed the warnings of authorities (they knew
better), tried to drive through high water, and... Well, let's just say
there probably won't be quite so many demanding old men yelling
at deli workers this week.
The holy land of Pottsville, home of Yuengling, is under assault -- a
real concern. And I think Poppa Half-Shirt is building an ark.
He's over there right now hammering frantically. Later today I expect to
see him load in several great stacks of Coors Light in the can, a rake,
his lawnmower, some gasoline, and four or five large rolls of sod. If
there's room, he might take his family too. But wherever he lands,
dammit, he's going to have a yard to care for, and some bad beer to suck
back as he surveys the fruits of his labor.
He's a man on a mission, the very survival of his culture hanging in the
balance. Time is of the essence, and he must quickly complete the
vehicle with which he will single-handedly salvage the entire suburban
way of life!
Or, I guess he could just be fixing a bookshelf. What do I know about
it, really?
-- Speaking of Yuengling, I did a search for it at YouTube, and found this.
I mean, I like the stuff, but let's not get carried away.... Plus, if
he's able to do to that bottle what I think he was doing, I'm pretty
sure I know why his girlfriend dumped him.
-- One of your fellow Surf Reporters, Greg, suggested a movie to me a
few days ago, after I raved about Dawn of the Dead here. He swore
it was as good a zombie flick, or better, so I was compelled to check it
out.
Have you ever heard of Dead
Alive? I hadn't, but it was directed by Peter Jackson, the
guy behind all those Lord of the Rings dwarves-with-swords
movies. I was highly skeptical, but it turns out the tip was right-on.
The thing is hilarious, and filled with so much gore it's almost
impossible to take it all in. The term over the top doesn't come
close to doing it justice. Holy crapballs!
I don't want to give anything away (ha!), but the last thirty or forty
minutes of the film is just non-stop bloodletting. Yet I was roaring
with laughter. It was like some sort of masterful ballet of fucked-upness.
The lawnmower segment alone is worth the price of admission....
Oh, you've gotta rent this thing. Today. If I had any integrity, I'd
throw it on the line right now, and guarantee your satisfaction.
Thanks Greg! I appreciate the heads-up. And the dancing spinal
cord wearing a hat.
-- And finally, I'm gonna end this quarter-ass effort with two things
that are pissing me off.
First, all the coverage that the firing of Star Jones is receiving. WTF??
This is big news? It was the main headline at Drudge for at least 24
hours, and splashed all over CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News... I just don't
understand. I barely even know who this person is. I thought she was a
big sassy black woman who did sleazy reporting from celebrity trials?
Now she's skinny, and more important than world leaders?! What's it
going to be tomorrow, a special edition of the New York Times
because Jim J. Bullock is having hip replacement surgery? What in the
tan and sandy hell is going on here??
Second is a Ford commercial that features some twitching spazz from American
Idol. Skippy Hicks? I don't know, but the guy looks like a palsy
patient flailing about on a round stage, and singing some
"song" that doesn't have even a hint of a melody. The
dude is far too exercised and into it, and I feel like I see him twenty
times per day doing his Elaine Bennis dance. And I don't even watch much
television.... George is getting irritated!
What two things are pissing you off?
And that's gonna do it for today, my friends. I need to get to work and
finish out Thursday, and half of Friday, then it'll be four and a half
days off in a row for yours truly. Ahhh... I can almost feel my butt
cheeks sinking into the couch cushions already. May God continue to
bless the United States of America.
See ya tomorrow. permalink
June 28, 2006
-- There's a lot going on in the world
right now: a war in Iraq, renewed trouble between Israel and the
Palestinians, starvation and disease in Africa, local flooding.... So, I
feel a bit guilty that I'm going to dedicate today's update to a lengthy
discussion about farting. But there ya go. I'm confident I'll eventually
get over it.
I come from a background where Dads and sons fart, and Moms and
daughters do not. I know that's unfair, but I didn't set the rules; it
was simply reality. In fact, I'm almost certain that I never heard a
female break wind until I was well into my twenties. Yet I lived inside
a virtual vortex of male ass-blasting. It's the sexual politics of
flatulence, and I can't begin to explain it.
No, I don't know why society says that women must clench and pucker,
while men are allowed to showboat their gas with impunity, but I'm
pleased to announce that I'm doing my part to level the farting field.
Both of my grandfathers are probably spinning in their graves, possibly
powered by gaseous outrage, but I'm bringing a whiff of equality to the
farting game. So to speak.
I never made a conscious decision about this, I can't claim that any
deep thinking went into it, but I've never let one rip in front of Toney
-- not once. I believe it would be disrespectful. And unthinkable. I
never held back in previous relationships (on the contrary), but with
Toney it's somehow different. I instinctually choose to spare her the
agony of, say, a post-broccoli "event." It seems like the
right thing to do.
At the same time, though, I haven't turned my back on the time-honored
tradition of father/son fart-bonding. It just takes place when Toney
isn't around. Boys, I think, benefit from their fathers occasionally
dropping a well-timed neutron bomb in the potato chip aisle of a grocery
store, or suddenly letting loose with a big Price Is Right buzzer
fart in a darkened theater. It provides memories to share, and cherish
like heirlooms.
But the boys know that they can't just let it fly all willy-nilly.
Unlike some of their friends.... There's a time and a place for
everything, and I'm confident they'll continue down the path I've blazed
for them.
It's not always easy being a pioneer,
though. Sometimes the Old Way butts up against the New Way, and there's
friction. When Toney and I were in the early days of our dating career I
took her to meet my parents. While there, some friends of the family
came by, and the husband almost immediately tipped to one side and sent
up a rectal flare, right there in front of my girlfriend -- somebody
he'd never met before.
It pissed me off, which was a completely new fart-based emotion for me.
I remember being a little surprised that I was grinding my teeth and
thinking, wotta crass-ass pigman. I was changing, and realized it
at that moment.
Occasionally somebody tries to level the farting field in a different
way, and results may vary. I once had a girlfriend who was prim and
proper, and rarely said anything worse than gosh darnit. One day we were
driving in my little Chevy Luv truck, when she suddenly squinted up like
Renee Zellweger, and I heard something that sounded like a bald tire
spinning in mud. The hell??
She started to chuckle, but I guess the horrified look on my face cut
her off in mid-launch. I couldn't believe what had just transpired, my
brain couldn't process it. Immediately she began back-pedaling, and
making excuses. She claimed her stomach was upset, that it was all a big
mistake. But it was obvious that she'd put her entire abdomen behind it.
I mean, that baby had power. In fact, it seemed to increase in strength
as it went along.
Then the stench hit me, and I was officially disgusted. It was like
rotten produce and swamp water. I weaved all over the road as I
frantically worked to roll the windows down, tears streaming from my
eyes. Sweet sainted mother of Blind Lemon Jefferson! It was even worse
than the translucents' weird chemical dumps, and that's no lie.
If it had been one of my male friends who'd channeled the devil's
dumpster that way, I readily admit that we probably would've been
laughing and driving down the interstate with our heads hanging out the
windows. Big fun.
But this was different. It had come from a girl.
She'd clearly made an attempt at farting a line in the sand that day,
but there's no way I could handle such a thing -- double-standard be
damned. Maybe she eventually found a man who could, but I am not him.
...NOT a preferred way of leveling the farting field.
So there you go. Are my theories sound, or way off? Am I unfair in my
beliefs? Is my "transformation" typical, or should I be
clinging to tradition? How is it handled at your house? Tell us about in
the comments section.
And I'll be back tomorrow with more of this high-brow material.
See ya then. permalink
June 26, 2006
-- So, how was the weekend?
Despite the fact that it feels like we're living in sub-Saharan Africa
up here, ours was pleasant enough: a pretty low-key affair.
The oldest Secret is working us over, trying to convince me and Toney to
allow him to buy something called an airsoft gun. I'm not even 100%
clear on what they are, a BB gun kinda thing that shoots little plastic
dingles? I just don't know.... But I do know that it's literally one
thing after another with him. And the pros and cons of these guns
dominated conversation on Saturday and Sunday, just like similar
"discussions" dominated previous weekends.
Any opinions? I'm a little hesitant to allow our first-born to go all Scarface
on us. I have visions of him leaping from the woods, filthy and
stripped to the waist, barking at the moon and just spraying bullets in
every direction. Am I getting carried away? Again?
-- Toney and I have been talking about digging our bicycles out of the
garage, knocking off the cobwebs, and jumping back in the saddle. A few
years ago I went through a brief jag where I'd ride my bike after work,
and it was a lot of fun, and cathartic as well. I'm not sure why I
stopped, because I have only pleasant memories of the experiment. But
you know how it goes....
We've been casually floating this idea for the past few weeks, and I was
ready to pull the trigger. You know, once the humidity breaks. But over
the weekend Toney received a magazine in the mail, Better Homes Than
You'll Ever Have In Your Entire Fucking Life and Gardens, and
there's an article inside about people returning to bike-riding after
years away from it.
And now the waters have been officially muddied.
Apparently one of those dorky helmets is pretty much required at this
point? Is that true? According to the article it's completely foolhardy
to ride without one, and if you do you'll almost certainly end up like
the Mylar balloon lady, staring at a drop-ceiling for the rest of your
life with your teeth all bucked out. Shit! And they say you'll need
special pants, and all sorts of nonsense.... Hell, I'd look like a
complete fruitstack in all that gear.
Also, the article recommends that you spend at least $700 on a bike(!).
I think mine cost about a hundred bucks, from Target. So, what does that
mean? It won't be able to handle my heft, and the wheels will go all
egg-shaped within half a block, before the frame snaps in two and I'm
impaled on jagged metal?
I'm about ready to just say fuck it.
-- And speaking of novelty pants, I'm sitting here right now in swimming
trunks. All my regular shorts are in the dryer, so I dug these crazy
things out of the drawer. Truthfully they're not too bad, except for the
built-in ball net. I'm not really a fan of the ball net, and am thinking
about cutting it out with a pocket knife. I've got far too much crotch
fabric going on.... And when was the last time I went swimming? I'm
pretty sure Reagan was still president, so it won't be a great loss if I
wreck these bad boys.
-- I seriously considered driving down to Williamsport on Saturday, to
attend this
Garfield Convention. I saw a news report about it, and was dazzled. From
what I could tell, it was just wall-to-wall future and current spinster
cat ladies, many sporting pajamas(!?). I wanted to go there and do one
of my Pulitzer-caliber articles, but, unfortunately, I peaked too early
and lost enthusiasm. If only I'd seen the report on Friday instead of
Thursday.... Today you could all be reading about me getting my ass
kicked by an angry mob of Garfield fanatics, and how I was kicked
unconscious by a frenzied gang of forty-five year old virgins in
feet-pajamas. Too bad.
-- On a related note, Brad sent me this
pic last night, along with this description:
Barry Williams, best known for his character of Greg Brady on the TV
series "The Brady Bunch", autographs the stomach of Tiffany
Witt of Norfolk, Neb., following an appearance during the Osmond
Summerfest 2006 town festival in Osmond, Neb., Sunday, June 25, 2006.
"When I take a shower, I'm going to put saran wrap over it so I can
show it to all my friends," Witt reasoned for getting the autograph
on her stomach.
He labeled it Further Evidence, but I'm not so sure. Greg apparently
still has the power to trigger impromptu outbreaks of Farm Girls Gone
Wild! And that's to be admired, I think.
-- I checked my webstats yesterday and saw that somebody in Israel was
reading Buck's latest
update. Why do I think that's funny?
-- Last night's episode of Deadwood was, once again, a little
light on the fucks. It started with Trixie just a-stringin' them
together, and I was preparing myself for a bunker buster. But,
unfortunately, it petered out during the second half. A real shame. Here
are the numbers.
-- And finally, the Phil Hendrie Show is no more. I listened as long as
I could on Friday, to the final broadcast, but finally threw in the
towel around midnight. The next morning I played the last hour, and it
was a bit odd. He was doing just a regular show up until the last
few minutes, when highlight clips started playing. That was followed by
a call from Margaret, one of his regular characters, who sang "Come
Sail Away" by Styx. Phil yelled, "Get the hell outta
here!" then it was nothing but static. The end.
Weird. The last program was almost as confusing as the first one I
heard. As it should be? I don't know. But here's
how "the greatest show in the history of radio" ended its
sixteen-year run. Net-shittingly sad.
On a positive note, though, I bought this
mouse pad on Saturday -- and they were all sold out on Sunday. Did I
get the last one?! Cool. So, at least I'll have a little Phil here in
the bunker: the mouse pad and about a million hours (and counting) of
mp3s.
Say what you will, but I am completely feet-pajamas about the Phil
Hendrie Show. Funniest motherfucker, ever. I hope we haven't heard the
last of him, I really do.
And that'll do it for today, boys and girls. Thanks for stopping by.
See ya tomorrow. permalink
June 23, 2006
-- Recently I mentioned that I'd been
trying to track down a copy of an old movie I used to watch during the
early days of HBO, Damnation Alley. It's a cheesy
post-apocalyptic tale of four survivors traveling across what's left of
the United States, in some kind of crazy sand-burrowing war
wagon. Along the way they encounter giant scorpions and armor-plated
cockroaches (among other delights), and a splendid time is guaranteed
for all.
It's not available on DVD yet. However, that didn't stop Surf Reporter
John from securing a copy, via highly-mysterious means, and sending it
my way. A few days ago I checked my PO Box (usually a barren wasteland
of pizza coupons and Wal-Mart fliers), and there it was, snuggled
inside. Cool!
Last night I dimmed the lights, popped open a lager, and watched this
long-lost film for the first time in probably twenty-five years. The
quality was pretty good, especially for a Chinese mafia bootleg, and the
movie was just as I remembered it: This entire city is infested with
killer cockroaches! I repeat: KILLER COCKROACHES!!
Yes, it was an enjoyable evening at the Compound. Thanks John! I
appreciate your efforts. Give my regards to Big Louie Wu.
And if you're interested, and have access, it looks like Fox
Movie Channel is actually going to show this cinematic classic three
times over the next few weeks: June 24 (tomorrow!), July 30, and August
7. Check it out if you're so inclined. It's a lot of fun, and hard to
find. Now's yer chance.
-- When we first moved here our neighborhood was crawling with children
in the first years of elementary school. They rampaged through the
yards, set up lemonade stands, and squealed and laughed at all hours...
Now, to my horror, they're all growed up.
It's a disturbing state of affairs. I feel like we just recently moved
to Scranton, but the kids in the neighborhood tell another tale. All the
little girls look like women now, and the little boys look like Matthew
Sweet. How did it happen??
Yesterday I heard a rumor that a kid
who lives nearby is a well-known pot dealer(!). He supposedly takes
payment in cash or iPods, and works regular shifts on weekends and
evenings. WTF? I swear he was a second-grader just a few weeks ago, in a
Winnie the Pooh sweatshirt. Now he's The Pusher, lurking in the shadows
and saying things like "The eagle has landed?!" Say it ain't
so.
I don't know... A year used to seem like a really long time to me, and
now they click by like telephone poles beside the highway. It's
depressing. And it's the kids that make you notice. Adults don't change
much, they just expand over time, slowly like a glacier. It's other
people's younglings that rub salt in your wounds.
And now I'm so bummed-out I'm thinking about paying Pooh a visit....
Should I wear a fake beard?
-- Tonight's the very
last Phil Hendrie radio show. After today, the laughter dies. I
usually listen to the previous night's show the next morning, using the
"on demand" feature at his website. But I think I'll listen
live tonight. He says it'll just be a regular show, nothing special,
except he'll be hammering back shots of tequila. I feel like I need to
be there, in real time.
When we first moved to California I worked crazy hours. I'd go to work
in the dark, and come home in the dark. We had a young baby, no money,
and were living in an apartment complex in Santa Clarita. Life was a tad
challenging.
One night I was driving home and was half paying attention to a talk
show on the radio. But something was a bit off about it. I can't
remember the topic they were discussing, but the guest was ridiculous.
And the callers were telling him about it. There was lots of shouting,
and hilarious scatological insults.
By the time I reached the parking lot of our apartment, everything had
escalated (devolved?) to complete chaos. It sounded like three people
were talking at the same time, carnival music was playing in the
background, and somebody was scratching himself into the phone receiver.
It was insane.
But I couldn't stop listening. I sat outside our apartment in the dark,
unable to turn off the radio. I wasn't able to figure out what was going
on during that first night, but I knew I liked it.
And I've been listening ever since. His show got me through those years
(along with the Pabst brewing company), and several times he had me
laughing so hard I nearly lost control of my car and crashed into a
ravine. It, and our youngest son, are about the only good things that
came from those California days.
I don't like tequila (I always wake up thinking I've got a hatchet
buried in my skull), but I'll be there tonight with another adult
beverage in-hand, saying goodbye to a mad genius. It sucks that's he's
leaving, but at least he was here for a while. Right?
-- And that'll do it for me, children. Kinda lame, I know. But, luckily,
I've got Buck to bail me out. Take
'er away, my friend.
Have a great weekend, and I'll see you folks again on Monday. permalink
June 22, 2006
-- There's some serious caterpillar
activity going on outside. The neighbors (not Poppa Half-Shirt, the
other ones) have a big oak tree in their front yard, and it hangs over
our driveway. A few days ago, as I was leaving for work, I saw that both
of our cars and one entire corner of our property was covered in a weird
mixture of shredded leaves, a white gooey grossness, and tiny
dingleberries. Huh, I thought, there must've been one helluva storm
during the night; wonder why I didn't hear it?
But it wasn't a storm, it's caterpillars. A whole gang of them have
beset the oak, and are going to town. Every morning the remnants of
their orgy cover my Blazer, and the driveway. Yesterday Toney washed her
car, and is now parking it on the street, away from the tree. I might
have to start doing the same. Here's
a couple of pics I took this morning, to give you an idea of the havoc
those little bastards are wreaking.
Yesterday Toney also called some agriculture department dude (Hank
Kimball?), to get a little information on this weirdness. The guy said,
in a nutshell, that it sucks for us, but it's worse for the tree, that
the invasion might literally kill it. And he added that we can expect
all the shredding and nonsense to continue until the first freeze.
Well, that's excellent.
The whole thing is kinda creepy. I look at the tree and it appears
normal and comforting. But I know that the branches are just seething
with thousands (millions?) of tiny creatures, wriggling over each other,
breeding with abandon, and eating to beat the band. It reminds me of the
opening scene of Blue Velvet, and triggers a full-body shiver.
Last night, as I was waiting on Andy to sling his urine one more time
before bed, I'm almost certain I heard munching sounds coming
from that tree. And I felt a twinge of fear. Is that irrational? Is it
crazy that I'm now imagining myself waking up in the middle of the
night, every square inch of my body covered in constantly-moving
caterpillars? Because that's what happening. Shit!
-- Check
this out. When I was in grade school that movie was the talk of
the kiddie kommunity. There were constant over-the-top radio commercials
for it (on WKAZ, home of Super Duper Charlie Cooper), claiming it was
"rated V for violence" and that theaters were required to pass
out barf bags at the door. It all just seemed so cool. Some older
kids in our neighborhood claimed to have actually seen it, and we'd
stand around listening to their tales of unthinkable cinematic fucked-upness,
eyes wide. I still haven't seen the flick, and have no interest in doing
so, but I might have to bid on them regurgitation sacks.
-- A couple of days ago I wrote about our recent trip to a state park,
and how it seemed to be overflowing with criminals and mental patients.
I'd meant to link to a picture I took during another such experiment
last year, while visiting a state park in New York state. But I forgot,
so I'll do it now.
This is a couple preparing to have a light lunch (as evidenced
by the snack sacks). The young lady didn't want to walk all the way to
the picnic table, and had "asked" her boyfriend/husband to
bring the table to her. I'm a-coming, baby! Heh.
-- I'm proud to announce that our dog Andy is still undefeated, after
nearly five years on the case. Our beloved border collie joined the
family two days before 9/11, and during the ensuing years has never
failed to make the mailman leave our property. Not once. Each weekday
and every Saturday the personification of evil appears once again, and
has the audacity to walk on our porch. Andy immediately launches into
his patented ass-over-tits frenzy, and the guy leaves. Every. Single.
Time.
He's completely undefeated, with no end to the streak in sight. When he
passes the five year mark, I might have a plaque made.
-- Slowly but surely I'm buying up the new Boomtown Rats reissue
CDs. They're completely remastered and sound great, but there's one
small problem.... Geldof (or as they say in WV, Geldorf) was
involved in the project, and, for reasons unknown, insisted that the
order of the songs be changed. He shuffled them all around in bizarre
combinations, and I don't like that. Oh, they're all still there, with a
few extras as well, but it bothers me that they're not presented in the
order I remember. Is that nuts? It's sorta like when cartoon characters
(Fred & Barney, Cap'n Crunch) suddenly have voices that are
completely different than the old days. It makes me sad.
-- Speaking of music, right now I'm listening to Lloyd Cole's Don't
Get Weird On Me, Babe, and enjoying it with gusto. Masterpiece.
-- The oldest Secret came home a few days ago and was all jacked-up on a
rumor he'd heard about The Wizard of Oz. One of his friends
(Johnny Paul Jason?) told him that a munchkin committed suicide during
the making of the film, and you can actually see him hanging in
the background for a few seconds, while Dorothy and the gang skip
by.
The words Urban Legend immediately flashed in my brain, but I didn't
kill his buzz. He asked if we could go on the internet and find
"the website." I said, "What is it, stubby kicking legs
dotcom?" He said no, there's a site out there somewhere where you
can watch the scene.
It only took a minute or two to find it, on
Snopes, where they ruin the whole thing.
But I didn't tell him that the rumor is horseshit, I just played the
video. And I can tell he's skeptical, but wants to believe. Because, as
I'm sure you're aware, stubby kicking legs are awesome. Almost as
much as movie theater barf bags.
And I have more, lots more, but I think I'm gonna stop right there.
More of this stuff tomorrow. See ya then. permalink
June 21, 2006
-- When I was but a young hillbilly
child with unfortunate hair, we had a full lineup of distant relatives
who lived "way out in the country." Outhouses, chickens in the
living room, water from a pump in the yard.... They lived the way the
rest of the world thinks all West Virginians live (despite the
fact that I grew up with the Buzzcocks on my turntable, and an
auto-renew subscription to the Village Voice).
My great-grandmother lived on a farm that was so removed from
civilization you couldn't drive there. Literally, the roads didn't go
that far. My Dad would drive until he couldn't anymore, then we'd
abandon the car and start walking. The rest of the journey required us
to climb fences and avoid roaming bulls in grassy pastures. My Dad
always teased me and my brother and told us that bulls hate
whatever color shirt we happened to be wearing that day. (I always
believed him.) And we'd all laugh at the sight of our aunts tumbling
over wooden fences. Good times.
The great-grandmother herself wasn't very nice. There was no warmth
there, none whatsoever. She used snuff like a man, and scared me a
little. Her husband was nice enough, but full-on crazy. We'd all be
sitting on the porch talking, and the guy would suddenly cock his leg
like a dog, get up and run as hard as he could, way out into the middle
of cornfield, where he'd drop to his knees and start talking to Jesus.
What in the pan-fried hell?? And when he walked downhill he turned
circles for some unknown reason.
You think I'm joking? Oh, you would be mistaken.
There's a story about this man, who's long dead by now, that's recently
been circulating amongst family members. I'm highly skeptical because it
seemed to pop up years after the fact. But supposedly he was so dumb he
didn't know how to get into a car. The story, as told by some of those
very same fence-tumbling aunts, is that they were taking him somewhere
in a car once, and he didn't know enough to bend his body when getting
in. So, he walked straight into the side of the vehicle, standing bolt
upright, bouncing off again and again. Could this possibly be true? I
think there's a little creative embellishment at play here....
My grandmother's sister, on my mother's
side, lived way out a holler where, it was said, "they had to pipe
in the sunshine." She had a house that was little more than a shack
with a big ol' Drucker's Store potbelly stove in the living room. There
was no indoor plumbing and she had to go out in the yard and pump a big
red handle that was sticking out of the ground, to get water to cook
with and to drink. There was an outhouse in the yard that my Mom
wouldn't allow us to go into alone, for fear we'd plunge down one of the
holes to our turdly graves. There was also a "fruit cellar"
near the house that was basically a door in the side of a mountain.
Here's
a picture of my parents, with me and my brother, beside the
"crick" on one of our visits there. I'm the one standing up
(and probably scared shitless that a copperhead snake was about to
spring from the bushes and attach itself to my face). And check out my
Dad! Rockabilly.
I never really liked going out there. Oh, I enjoyed the fact that the
road to the house sometimes was the creek itself (cool!), but once we
arrived... far too snakey for my tastes. I remember us all hoofing it to
an ancient cemetery once (where the headstones featured dates from,
like, George Washington's time), and we heard rattlesnakes a-rattling. I
just about shit straight through the Earth's crust.
And the local younglings, which we were always encouraged to play with,
were like creatures from a different planet. I could barely understand a
word they said, and when I did I was even more baffled.
The best part was the homemade ice cream they always made after dinner,
in some kind of wooden-barrel contraption with a rusty crank on top.
Mmmmm... Beyond that though, no.
Speaking of snakes, and as an aside, I went with my friend Mike to his
grandparent's house a few times, way out some horrible Cape Fear river
somewhere. And there were black snakes everywhere. It was PhobiaWorld! I
remember being in a boat and the things were swimming all around us in
the water. And, worst of all, there was a section of the river where
snakes were literally hanging from the trees like Spanish moss. Man,
talk about your nightmare-generators...
The grandparents had a birdhouse in their yard, at the top of a tall
pole. We were having lunch outside one day, and heard what sounded like
frantic bird-chirping. Everybody jumped up to investigate, and saw one
of those nasty-ass snakes climbing the pole, winding round and round and
inching its way up. Holy shit! Without a word, the grandfather went into
the house and returned with a gun. He took aim, and blasted the snake
before it could reach the baby birds at the top. The lifeless carcass
then corkscrewed its way back to the ground, and I just couldn't believe
what was happening before me.
Then the grandfather said, in an excited voice, "You boys want to
go look for the head?" Look for the head!? Sweet Maria, it was the
devil's egg-hunt! But, of course, we found it, down by the entrance of
yet another country cemetery. He'd gotten good distance on that head.
Another of my grandmother's sisters lived way out a holler as well, but
in a real house. In fact, they owned quite a bit of land and there were
three houses and three families (all related) living together. It was
like the Kennedy compound, with Bondo-colored Dodge Chargers in the
yard.
There were a lot of wild-ass kids that lived nearby, and we generally
had fun with them. We'd rampage through the woods and throw rocks at
beer cans and try to catch crawdads in the creek.... For some reason I
didn't worry about snakes there, and allowed myself to have a good time.
The only thing I didn't like was an angry asshole husband who lived in
one of the houses and was married to one my mother's cousins. He'd
routinely kick his dogs, for no reason whatsoever, and it makes me sick
to my stomach just thinking about it. I hope that old prick died a
painful death.
Yeah, we had a good time with those wild-animal children. But one was a
little different from all the rest.... He was roughly my age, but rarely
wanted to play with us. He seemed to prefer staying indoors with the
women, eating lemon squares and talking about the latest diet fads. We
were in his bedroom a few times, and it was always neat as a pin;
nothing like any boy's room I'd ever seen. Against one wall was an
electric organ, and we'd begin hammering the keys upon sight, causing
the kid to fly into some sort of over-exercised hissy-fit and almost
completely break down in tears.
He clearly didn't like us, and was snotty at all times. But once we were
invited to a "performance" in his room, and something
instinctual kicked-in and told me to be on high alert. But it was
nothing to be worried about, he just wanted to play the organ for
us(!?). We sat down and the kid took his place behind the keyboard, and
proceeded to roll his fingers and smile and camp it up like some sort of
freaky Appalachian Liberace.
Ho-ly shit! I didn't yet know what gay meant, but I knew something
was askew. And what's that kid doing today? That's right, he's a hair
stylist. No joke. He was born and raised in Mudsuck Holler, or whatever,
and is gay as the day is long. Go figure.
And I think that'll do it for today, kiddies. I know I've already
covered some of this territory before, but I started thinking about ol'
Elton John of the Hills this morning, for reasons unknown, and one thing
led to another.
Do you have any country cousins, or backwoods relatives? Why not tell us
about them in the comments?
See ya tomorrow. permalink
June 20, 2006
-- Have you ever felt so lazy that
you'd really like to know what time it is, but just can't bring yourself
to expend the energy required to turn your head and look at the clock?
I'm not saying that this has ever happened to me.... I'm just curious.
Hello?
-- I keep seeing commercials for those fancy-ass gadgets that give you
directions while you drive: "TURN LEFT AT NEXT CORNER!" Pretty
cool, I guess. But don't you need the mailing address of every place
you're going, before it can help you? Who knows this information? I
barely know my own address, I sure as shit don't know the address of the
Frackville Cracker Barrel. Ya know?
I think it would be better if you could buy a special fast food model,
and it would alert you when you're approaching one of several
pre-determined restaurants: "DAIRY QUEEN IN FOUR MILES! AND IT'S
A BRAZIER!!" Now that's some technology I could get behind.
I'd also like to be able to adjust the voice that comes out of the
thing. On the ads it seems to always be a soothing female talking.
That's fine, but I have a feeling I'd be craving variety in short order.
I'd like a full package of regional accents, foreign accents, genders,
and races to choose from. Maybe a few wildcard selections as well, such
as "hick" or "brokeback." Perhaps celebrities could
even get involved, and Colonel Klink (or whatever) could tell us how to
get to the airport?
Yeah, I don't know much about it. For all I know, my concerns and wishes
are completely misplaced. Anything's possible. But I'll never find out,
one way or the other -- because I ain't clamping stuff to my dashboard.
That goes for GPS or satellite radio or whatever other outsize
signboards they're trying to convince us to erect in our vehicles. Years
ago I made a vow, and I'm sticking to it.
When I was a youngster there was an old man who lived near us, and he
drove a little station wagon. It was like a full-sized station wagon,
with wood paneling on the side and the whole nine yards, but it was
little. Did Ford ever make a Pinto wagon? For some reason I think this
ridiculous vehicle was Pinto-based....
In any case, when I was sixteen and had
just secured my driver's license, he asked me to move it for him. I
can't remember the details of it, but he was in my grandmother's kitchen
drinking coffee one day, and asked me to move his car from its regular
parking space beside the railroad tracks, to the street.
Um, OK.
I walked down there, a little nervous (what if I backed it into a pole
or something??), and climbed behind the wheel. And there was so much
crapola in that car, I could barely concentrate on the task at hand.
On the driver's seat was some sort of wooden bead affair that dug into
my back and was uncomfortable as fuck. He had a big fuzzy steering wheel
cover that was so thick you almost had to drive with the flat of your
hand. All over the glove compartment was a hundred or so refrigerator
magnets, or stickers, or somesuch. One, I remember, said "Archie
Bunker For President in '72"
And on the dashboard: all manner of apparatus. There was a crazy-large
compass, some sort of gauge that measured novelty-distances (I just
don't know), and a handle that controlled one of those extra-bright
police lights that was mounted near the driver's side mirror. There was
also a myriad of mysterious toggle switches and, I think, a section of
shag carpeting.
Shit! I could barely drive that thing. I had wooden balls eating into my
spinal column, the compass was spinning round and round, big
heat-generating floodlights kicked on when I put it into reverse.... It
was too much to take in.
I finally got it landed without incident, but my opinion of the old man
was changed forever. From that day forward I suspected that he was
probably some kind of mental case, one heartbeat away from the state
"hospital" in Spencer. A sane person just doesn't take things
so far....
I made a vow that day that I'd never indulge in such ridiculousness; I
would always keep it simple and clean. And twenty-seven years later I'm
sticking to my guns.
I've never had crap hanging off my rearview mirror, or
"comedy" signs in the windows, or stuffed animals, or wind
chimes, or crystals, or any of that stuff. Yeah, it's usually a little
rough around the edges (generally there are four or five crumpled Burger
King bags in the floor), but stripped down to the basics: no nonsense.
My car is the first Ramones album, and that Pinto wagon was something by
Emerson, Lake, and Palmer. What band is your car? What kind of crap do
you have in there? Do you have a baseball-sized compass clamped to the
dash? I'd like to know.
Hey, maybe I'm the one with the hang-up? Like I say, anything's
possible.
-- I don't have any idea how this update happened the way it did. I'd
meant to write two or three paragraphs about those direction gadgets,
and now look what's happened. Oh well, I'll get to the other stuff
tomorrow....
One reminder before I go, though. This is Phil
Hendrie's last week on the air, supposedly forever. After
Friday, no more new shows.
I hate that fact deep down in my groinal area, but he's been making it a
little easier on us by not showing up for work very often, and turning
in some weak (by his standards) performances. If he'd been hitting it
out of the park every night since he announced his retirement, all us
Phil phanatics would undoubtedly be in a fetal position right now.
So thanks Phil, for half-assing it over the last six week or so! It was
very thoughtful of you.
Anyway, this week is your last chance to check out a live radio
broadcast by, in my opinion, one of the funniest people who's ever
waddled the Earth. People throw around the word genius all the time,
diluting its meaning, but Phil Hendrie is a genius -- undiluted and
full-strength.
And that's that. More of this stupid shit tomorrow. permalink
June 19, 2006
-- We've officially entered the hot and
hazy days of summer up here in northeastern Pennsylvania. Yesterday when
I was driving home from Lowe's (don't ask) my Blazer told me it was 100
degrees outside.
The thing has a tendency to exaggerate, but its heart is in the right
place; it was crazy hot. At a certain point on Interstate 81 it's like
you're looking down on the entire world from on high, and I saw this
gross, suffocating haze hanging over the valley: the devil's weather.
Some people claim to love this kind of heat and humidity, but I suspect
it's just showboating. That, or they're shit-juggling crazy. No sane
person could actually enjoy this. It's simply the worst.
Over the weekend Toney and I finally bit the bullet and installed the
new window air conditioner we bought at Sam's a few weeks back. Yes, yet
another one.... We have four of those ridiculous Soviet humboxes now,
and it pisses me off. But ya gotta do what ya gotta do.
We'd been putting it off because the installation process is far more
complicated than what we're (I'm) used to; those little bedroom units
are up and running within minutes. But with this big baby you have to
install the case first, then slide the works into it, etc. The whole
thing sounded like one huge aggravation to me, so I kept saying,
"Yeah, we'll get to that tomorrow."
But we'd put it off as long as we could, and on Saturday we got down to
bidness. And within an hour that thing was in the window, completely
sealed-off, a-purring and making wonderful cold air. It didn't take long
before the temperature in the living room, dining room, and kitchen was
noticeably lower, and eventually Andy stopped panting and drizzling
slobber everywhere, sighed with relief and went to sleep on the cool
hardwood floors. I nearly wept with joy.
The thing even has a remote control!
I'm not joking, that humbox changed
everything. Our quality of life improved instantly. No longer will we be
sweating directly into our mashed potatoes at dinner (no table salt
required), and no longer will I be walking around peeling the underwear
off my ass like the backing of a bumper sticker, after it becomes
suction-sealed across the great expanse.
Yes, I'm a happy, happy man. At least until we get our first electric
bill, and Toney says we can't use it anymore.... But that should be,
like, several weeks, right? Ahhh, it's gonna be paradise until the first
bill arrives.
-- On Sunday we were experiencing a bit of camping fever, and decided to
go on a scouting mission to a state park not too far from here. Lots of
people had suggested the place to us (Toney), but we'd never been. So,
we took Subway up on their Three Footlongs For Thirteen Dollars deal,
dropped them into a cooler, and hit the highway. With any luck, we'd
finally discover our local camping paradise, that most elusive of
destinations.
Supposedly it was only thirty miles away, but I think it was farther
than that just to the interstate exit. Then we drove for what felt like
another hour before we actually reached the park. But it looked really
nice, and we had high hopes.
Toney went into the office to ask for directions to the campground, and
I stayed in the car and cursed the FM transmitter I recently bought for
my iPod, which works great for a half-hour or so, then just suddenly
shits the bed for no reason. Grrrr.... That kind of thing makes me want
to start kicking out windows.
Make a left, they said, when exiting the parking lot, and we couldn't
miss the campground, "just a little ways down the road." And
we drove and drove and drove. What the shit?! Did we do something wrong?
I thought I could hear "Dueling Banjos," and somebody way off
in the distance say, "You've got a mighty perty mouf."
We passed through a section of forest that was especially creepy, and we
almost aborted the mission. There were big rocks everywhere and bizarre
plants, and, I'm almost certain, pterodactyls in the sky. I was sure
we'd taken a wrong turn in Albuquerque, but we eventually found the
campground, along with a sense of relief.
But, unfortunately, our good feelings didn't last; the place was
chockfull of hicks and derelicts. We drove around and saw people living
in what appeared to be semi-permanent dwellings constructed of travel
trailers, plywood, and trash bags. We saw filthy children walking around
with great drooping diapers that didn't appear to be even touching their
bodies, and lots of guys in horribly-stained undershirts and splotchy
facial hair.
We went around a corner and saw some snaggle-tooth hag sitting in a
radically-unlevel camping chair, with her cig plugged between her
skeleton fingers and pointed straight up like a flag. She was hollering
at her buzz-cut kids, just hollering. Her "man" was
nearby, buried to the waist in the engine of some horrible car, and his
back was covered in tattoos that looked like telephone book doodles.
Fuck dat. I hate to be a snob, but I ain't camping under those
conditions. In fact, I think state parks are out altogether; their
prices are not high enough to weed out the shitty. There's one about
five miles from our house, and it's extremely nice, but the campground
is often populated with people who look like they're on the run from
something or other. One time we saw a couple just sleeping in the dirt
beside their Camaro; they didn't even have a blanket with them. They
were probably exhausted after a long day of armed-robberies-gone-bad.
No, my idea of camping is fifty dollars per night, a full package of
premium cable channels, wireless internet, heated pool with water park,
an on-site lounge with happy hour, and a full-time fire-building
concierge. And I'm only sorta joking.
Hell, I'd be terrified to be in that place after dark with all
those Flannery O'Connor characters. Ya know?
-- And since we're on the subject, check
this out. You can now view both Jesco White documentaries, right
on your computer. If you haven't seen 'em, you owe it to yourself to set
aside a little time. Both are mind-blowing affairs, and highly
recommended.
-- Here
are last night's Deadwood numbers. A little lower than normal, but I
have no doubt they'll make up for it in the coming weeks. It feels like
some shit is about to go down.
-- And finally, I need some help here. My Norton ant-virus is about to
expire again, and I really don't want to give them anymore of my money.
Are there some good alternatives out there, possibly even free services?
I don't know anything about it and would appreciate any guidance you can
provide.
See ya tomorrow. permalink
June 16, 2006
-- I'm still not feeling so hot.
Yesterday I stayed home from work and put in some couch time. It helped,
but there's still a ways to go.
Buck called me a pussy via email, so I'm going back to work today, and
squeezing out this pitiful update. I will not be lumped in with
Nostrildamus, even if it kills me. Plus, computer keyboards are fairly
inexpensive these days, and can be easily replaced if, say, someone
vomits full into one. Right?
I'm usually very antsy, and can't just sit around for hours on end
during the day. (Like some people I know.) But yesterday I hung around
and read the last sixty or so pages of the Lincoln
book (excellent!), and the first twenty or so pages of my next
selection. I ate a bowl of Rice Krispies around noon, and nothing
else until the evening, when I had a strong craving for, of all things,
a Burrito Supreme.
Toney went and got me one, but it wasn't properly prepared. The
ingredients weren't distributed evenly, so one bite would be nothing but
refried beans, and the next would be nothing but sour cream, etc. Those
things are among of the world's most perfect foods, but only when a
manager makes them. Kinda disappointing.
And last night I finished off, with a little help from my Netflix
friends, the first season of Kojak.
Good stuff. New York City at its 1970s-era grimiest is almost a
character in the show, and I love that. Plus, Theo is one tough-ass mofo.
I really hope they continue releasing them, but it's been over a year
now and there's no news about the second season coming out. The
bean-counting pricks.
Now that I'm finished with Kojak, I think I'll jump back into Homicide.
I recently devoured the first two seasons in short order, and am ready
for more. I might also slide Northern
Exposure in there somewhere; for some reason I think I'd dig it.
And next month the first season of Perry
Mason comes out, and I'm gonna be all over that like a pack of
rabid monkeys on a Labor Day picnic.
What old TV shows would you like to see
come to DVD? At the top of my wish-list are Mannix and Fernwood
2Night. I know there are others, but I'm not currently able to
access the files because of a virus. Help me remember, won't you?
-- Wednesday night I thrashed around in bed so much Toney abandoned ship
before midnight. I couldn't get comfortable and kept getting up to blow
my nose (shockingly high-yield) and pee with abandon. When I woke up on
Thursday the sheets were twisted in a tight rope, like I was preparing
to drop them out the window of a prison cell and attempt an
escape.
Last night I slept straight through, but Toney said I was snoring so
loud people in passing aircraft could probably hear it. I suspect
that she was exaggerating (I've never heard myself snore, not even
once), but have a feeling that my wife isn't just thinking of me
when she says, "I hope you start feeling better soon." Ya
know?
-- Yesterday I spent a few minutes updating the Search Engines page, and
you can check out the latest entries at the top of the list here.
-- And finally, here's
something new from Mr. Tough Love himself, Buck.
You guys have yourselves a great little weekend, y'hear? permalink
June 14, 2006
-- I'm sick today. I suspected that
something wasn't right yesterday afternoon and evening, and it turns out
I was correct. My throat and eyes(?!) hurt, I've got the snots, and my
stomach is gurgling and possibly fizzing. And the weirdest part of all:
every time I sneeze or blow my nose, a gag reflex kicks in. So it's ahhhchoo!
followed by an instant pre-puke humpback. And I don't like that.
So, I'll do the best I can here, but I wouldn't be expecting much. The
couch is calling my name, in a soft, seductive voice.
-- Last weekend I watched three movies that I thought were exceptional,
for a variety of reasons.
Since I pay Netflix eighteen bucks (or whatever) every month, I'm
required by common sense to watch an ungodly number of flicks. And while
I enjoy most of them, few stay with me. Let a month or two pass and I
often can't remember if I've seen a particular movie, and have to
consult with Toney to figure it out. But these three made an impression.
-- First was a documentary called Overnight,
about a grand wizard doucheteer who was handed the keys to Hollywood,
and screwed it all up via assholery. The dude was a bartender in Los
Angeles who wrote screenplays in his spare time, just like a million
other guys. But this one somehow captured the imagination of Miramax
big-shot Harvey Weinstein, who offered him $300,000 for his script, a
chance to direct the movie (The Boondock Saints), and half
ownership of the bar where he was working.
The bartender was instantly the toast of the town, and featured in every
entertainment magazine, and all over television. It was a rags-to-riches
tale, and the public ate it up.
Then the good part starts. The guy, over the next couple of years,
manages to fuck everything up by being an arrogant prick. He screams and
yells, insults people and reminds them that he is the new golden boy,
blah blah blah.
And this complete crash and burn is
captured on film by the documentary crew who'd been hired to document
the rise of Hollywood's new power player. It's all highly entertaining,
and satisfying as well. Sometimes people really do get what they
deserve.
-- On Saturday night Toney and I watched Saturday
Night Fever. Go figure. It was from the DVR, recorded off HBO,
not a Netflix movie. But I'd never seen it before, and Toney said it had
been 25 years for her. So we fired it up.
Hilarious! The opening shots where he's sashaying around Brooklyn in his
disco clothes and carrying a gallon of paint is funny as hell. And the
continuous argument with his Dad is classic as well. But it was the
dancing scenes that were the best....
At one point Travolta is dancing with a chick at the club, and insulting
her unmercifully. He tells her he hopes she fucks better than she
dances, or something along those lines. A bit harsh, I thought. Then the
song changes, and our hero cocks his head like a dog who senses a UPS
truck is near. He abandons the girl with a shouted, "Forget
this!" and makes his way to the main dance floor with a look of
intense purpose on his face (I was screaming with laughter by now), and
proceeds to get down.
All the other dancers had apparently seen him catch the fever before,
and immediately made room for him. They formed a circle around Travolta
and he started whipping his hands 'round and 'round, like #19 here,
then launched into that pointing up/pointing down thing. By the end he
was scooting along the floor on his ass, like a horny dog. And I was
gasping for air and wiping away the tears in Scranton.
God, was that shit funny. I saw where Toney's brother (FBI -- Full
Blooded Italian) picked up his habit of folding his pizza in half,
too.
The whole thing was simply two hours
well-spent. It's gotta be a cult classic. Is it? As you may be
aware, the subscription to the hipster newsletter stops at the age of
forty, so I don't know for sure. But I have a feeling... Am I right?
-- And the third movie is one of my all-time favorites: Dawn
of the Dead. I've seen it five or six times by now, and it never
gets old. Many of the flicks that I thought were genius as a youngling
seem kinda lame today (like Close Encounters: two hours of people
looking up), but not this one. I had just as much fun watching it this
past weekend as I did in 1979, or whatever. A real classic.
You know the story: zombies are roaming the Earth and killing people who
instantly turn into even more zombies. The USA looks almost
post-apocalyptic because of all this, and the four main characters take
refuge in a shopping mall filled with the lumbering undead -- who look a
lot like normal shoppers on any given day.
The movie is chockfull of over-the-top gore, to the point where it
becomes a comedy of fucked-upness by the second half-hour. While some of
the most horrifying scenes play out, like intestines-eating and whatnot,
jaunty mall Muzak is playing in the background, and I just think it's a
true masterpiece.... At least as good as anything Shakespeare ever
managed.
Check out this website
that chronicles the history of the mall where the movie was shot. It's
still open for business! Man, I need to go.
Years ago I took a girlfriend to see Dawn of the Dead at a
midnight movie. She'd never seen it, and I was eager to get her
reaction.
Yeah, it didn't really work out the way
I'd hoped.... Within an hour she was sobbing uncontrollably and we had
to leave. She cried all the way home and I felt utterly shitty. The next
day she wasn't much better, and told me she didn't want to go to
hell(!?).
And for the next three months or so she went to church day-in and
day-out, and the best I could hope for was a friendly handshake at the
end of the night.
I'd made a tactical error of the highest order, and I still cringe when
I think about it. For many reasons.
-- And that's the question I'll leave you with today. Have you ever
known somebody to go completely off the deep end after seeing a movie or
reading a book or whatever? Maybe it was some crackpot self-help
scamulation, or a flick that made someone decide to turn over their life
to surfing or something?
I'm not sure how this one is going to go, but give me a break here; I'm
bubbling over with illness....
Have a great day, and I'll see ya tomorrow. permalink
June 13, 2006
-- Toney and I went to a few more
open-houses on Sunday.
The first was pretty old, built in the early 1930s, and too small for
our needs. But it was well-maintained and nice. It also had a big old
fashioned sittin' porch on the front, and stained glass in one of the
living room windows. A charming place, but my inner-barometer said it
was priced fifty thousand dollars too high.
The second was in a high-dollar fancy-pants neighborhood, and was built
in 1990. It was NOT well-maintained, and my instincts told me it was
priced a hundred grand too high. Well, maybe seventy-five, taking
into account the neighborhood it was in.... But the carpets would have
to be ripped out, they were all horribly stained(?!), and the kitchen
was all screwed up; you'd have to gut the bastard and start from
scratch.
Also, it looked like they'd recently painted the trim on the outside,
and slung paint everywhere. It was all over the driveway, the shrubs in
front of the house, and on the sidewalks. It appeared that they'd hired
Muhammad Ali and Janet Reno to paint their house. Wotta sight.
The best feature was the huge deck on the back, but they'd slopped that
up as well. Dark wood stain was splattered a half-foot up the wall.
Somebody needs to go to painting school, and quick.
And get this: there was no central air. It's a rich folks house in a
rich folks neighborhood, not very old, and there were window units all
over the place. Sometimes I just don't get these people up here....
Where I come from being miserable all summer is not a badge of honor. I
mean, what in the honeybaked hell??
The third property was one of the strangest experiences of our
considerable open-house careers. It's located on a high-traffic road,
and has a big circular driveway in front. And when we arrived there were
probably ten cars parked on the thing. Damn, we muttered, this one is
busy.
We wedged the Blazer into a parking
space that probably wasn't supposed to be a parking space, and made our
way to the big sprawling ranch-style home with an asking price that
seemed, at first glance, far too low. I mean, the shit looked like an
estate. I wondered what we'd find inside. Oh, this was going to be
interesting.
We had to wait for a family to exit before we could enter (it was a
madhouse), and when we finally got in we saw an old lady sitting on the
stairs, behind a folding card table with a cash register on it. The
crap?
We squeezed past some more people, into the living room, and it was set
up like an antique/junk store. There were big display cabinets, and
clothes racks, and random items scattered about.
I was totally confused, but tried to act cool. I wandered around,
scratching my chin and pretending to be in the throes of deep
consideration. Two gay men stood nearby and were holding up an old
rusted-out lantern, and one said, "This is a really nithe piethe."
Then the animal sounds kicked-in.
From somewhere deep inside the house there was a loud shriek, and it
sounded like the flying monkeys on The Wizard of Oz. Good God,
what was that?! I asked Toney. Her eyes were wide with concern. And we
heard a woman laugh hysterically, from the bowels of the house, a
full-throated cigarettes 'n' bourbon cackle. Then the "monkey"
went off again.
And that's when we decided to leave. But when we reached the living room
door, which led to the foyer and the exit, there was now a velvet
theater rope pulled across the doorway.
What is this place?? Is it the Addams Family?
I opened the rope, replaced the hook to its former resting place, and we
high-tailed it out of there. And as we were making our escape, a man we
hadn't seen before, dressed in full western wear (wtf??), emerged from
behind a curtain and said, "Thanks for coming!"
Yeah. I think I slung gravel halfway up the side of the house, trying to
drive away from that place. Holy shit! I still don't understand any of
it.
-- Have you read about the new cell phone ringtone that only kids can
hear?
By the time a person turns twenty their hearing has already started to
deteriorate, supposedly, and an inventor in England has figured out a
way to exploit the fact. He's come up with a ringtone that adults can't
hear, which includes teachers, of course, and allows kids to text each
other in class without detection.
Here's
an article about it. And here's
a sample of the ringtone itself.
I can't hear a damn thing. Nothing. But, of course, I've seen Dinosaur
Jr. in concert a couple of times, so I guess it's not that surprising.
But what about the Secrets? I figured it would sound like a buzzer on The
Price Is Right to them, and decided to find out.
Yesterday evening I huddled the whole family around my computer and
played the file. And it was just complete silence to me and Toney, but
the boys both said they heard a really high-pitched whine. Andy
bolted from the room, but I'm not sure if it was related to the ringtone,
or if he heard Poppa Half-Shirt's yapping pussy-dog again.
So anyway, can you hear anything? I'm a little suspicious, if you want
to know the truth. I think this could be an elaborate hoax, a high-tech
snipe hunt, designed to mock the over-twenty crowd. What do you think?
Can you hear it? Is there even anything to hear? What the hell, man?
And once again I've been long-winded, and didn't cover all the things
I'd planned. But that's what they make tomorrows for, right?
Have a great day, boys and girls. permalink
June 12, 2006
-- The new season of Deadwood
kicked off last night, and the
numbers were posted within fifteen minutes of the end of the
show. A little slower than normal, but I was out of practice.... In the
coming weeks I'll do better, once I find my fuck-counting groove.
Last night's episode served up a fairly typical ration of our favorite
word, along with its sister-obscenity, cocksucker. But the surprising
development, as far as I can tell, is that Trixie just might give
Swearengin and Calamity Jane a run for their money this season. She's
not quite as colorful as those other characters, but the girl has a
world-class gutter mouth that cannot be ignored.
Anyway, the new season has started, and the first show was excellent as
always. And we're here counting the fucks, which will lead to a thousand
links on a thousand blogs, accompanied by the sentence, "Some
people have way too much time on their hands."
Just the way nature intended.
-- On Sunday we dragged the camper, our rolling box of beds, out of the
garage for the first time this season, and set it up on the driveway. We
wanted to prepare it for another summer, put new batteries in all the
flashlights, and load in the miscellaneous supplies we'd picked-up over
the winter. Plus, I needed to make sure that a family of raccoons or
hedgehogs or whatever hadn't taken refuge inside, an annual fear.
So we opened it up in front of our house, much to the chagrin of our uptown
neighbors, and monkeyed around with it all day. It's exciting to start
making plans, and to smell the campfire smoke-saturated interior. I
think that it's nearly impossible to be in a bad mood while smelling
campfire smoke.
The Secrets, of course, were bouncing off the ceiling the whole time,
and wrestling on the beds, and all that stuff. I noticed that the thing
was moving around a lot more than normal. The heck? For a few seconds I
couldn't figure it out, but then I remembered: I'd failed to lower the
four corner braces, the stabilizers. Oh well, I thought, we were almost
done. Screw it.
And as we were folding it back up, I
had trouble with one of the beds. The aluminum bar that holds up the
canvas above the boys' bunk wouldn't come down, so I crawled up there to
work it loose from the inside. It was wedged in pretty good, and I had
to put forth some effort to get it done.
Then the whole deal tipped over. The big bed on the front end went way
up in the air, and the smaller one that I was lying on tilted all the
way the ground. The thing was like a giant teeter-totter, and I didn't
know what was going on. Was the shit collapsing?? I heard Toney gasp and
I jumped to the floor, which caused the camper to crash back down
to earth with a sickening, bone-jarring racket.
Holy crap.
I was sure I'd damaged something vital, but I think we got away with it.
We opened it back up, did a thorough inspection, and everything seemed
normal. And as soon as we realized we were in the clear, we both started
laughing hysterically, and couldn't stop for a while.
I am the real-life Homer Simpson.
-- On Saturday I returned to our neighborhood dive bar for the first
time in several months. Again they were serving up frosty pints of
Yuengling lager for two bucks each, every other one free. How do
they even turn a profit?? I feel almost guilty drinking there.
When I arrived there were three or four people sitting at one end of the
bar, all huddled around a big brood mare who looked like she was wearing
a neck brace. She clearly fancies herself the Queen of the Bar and is
apparently always in attendance. Every single time I've gone she's been
seated in the same place, holding court with her cigs and
boisterousness.
I planted myself on a stool all the way at the other end of the bar, by
myself, and told the bartender to open up the Yuengling pipeline. As I
nursed my vessel of golden elixir, I checked the place out again, and
noticed that the bubble gum machine that looked like it had spent
considerable time on the bottom of a lake was now gone. What the hell,
man?? I'm pretty sure that nothing much has changed in that dump since
the Nixon administration. Yet they'd removed my favorite feature in less
than six months. Wotta rip-off.
While I worked on my second pint, I overheard a member of the Queen's
court tell a disturbing story. He was an old guy, probably in his
seventies, and wearing a fishing hat.
He said that years ago he'd been infatuated with a woman who had
"incredible breasts." He'd see her at his favorite bar all the
time, and lust after her in silence. Finally, on a night when he was
extra drunk, he made his move. And to his surprise it worked out well
for him. He ended up back at her apartment, making out with her on the
couch.
Shocked at his good fortune, he frantically helped her out of her blouse
and bra, and was prepared to see her "legendary tits" for the
first time. The only problem was, he was so drunk he saw four of them.
And it rattled him so much, he couldn't perform.
I experienced a full-body shiver, but the court thought it was
hilarious. I looked over and the Queen had her head thrown back, and
great puffs of smoke were coming out of her mouth as she laughed. Sweet
Jesus.
A few minutes later a gravelly-voiced woman came in, with wet
just-out-of-the-shower hair, and took a seat near me. She ordered a beer
and a shot of something, and announced to everyone, "I need to
pee," before heading off to the can.
And that's when I got the hell out of there. Ol' Wet Hair felt like a
talker to me, and I didn't need any of that action. So I hit the
highway.
Always an interesting experience, though.
-- And I had two more items that I wanted to mention today, but they'll
have to wait. I'll leave you now with the
cover of Friday's New York Post, which made me laugh.
Thanks to Brad for forwarding it to me, and also for suggesting woxy.com,
a really great internet radio station. You'll notice a small ad for them
at the top of this page, and you should check 'em out if you're so
inclined. Both the main broadcast and their vintage channel are unusually
good.
See ya tomorrow. permalink
June 9, 2006
-- I was flipping through my Big Book
of Comedy Ideas last night, trying to decide on a subject for today's
update, and felt a twinge of panic. I got nothing here, almost literally
nothing.... I don't even understand most of the remaining
"ideas." One just says carpet. The crap?
But way back near the front of the book I came across a scribbled
two-word notation that saved the day. It said school assemblies,
and I think I can do something with that. I decided on it early enough
for there to be a full gestation period, and I believe I'm ready to go.
So let's get to it, shall we?
-- During my twelve-year public school career I sat through lots of
far-from-memorable assemblies. Many were so-called pep rallies for
upcoming basketball or football games, where the cheerleaders would
cheer and the band would band together, or whatever. Zzzzzzz.
A few were supposed to be "whimsical" performances by some
school-sanctioned club or other, and almost inevitably featured boys
dressed as girls, with outsize balloon breasts and much sashaying, etc.
High comedy. It seemed mildly homoerotic then, and still does today....
But a few were actually memorable, and I've jotted down the five or six
that jump immediately to mind....
-- I remember a freaky old man coming to our school to talk to us about
the health benefits of eating herbs and roots and whatnot. He called
himself Catfish or Sea Bass or something, and supposedly lived in a
hole. Seriously... that's what he said, a hole.
The dude ate nothing but berries and lawn clippings and such, and
fancied himself an expert on all things natural. He even appeared on Letterman,
back during the NBC days. He told Dave that unless your urine is crystal
clear, "you're dying." And Dave looked at the camera, made a
face, and tugged at his collar in mock concern. Do any of you remember
this man? He scared the living shit out of me.
-- During high school the entire
student body was assembled together in the "little theater"
for reasons unknown, and suddenly there was a rock band onstage. The
hell?? They played "Sweet Home Alabama" and a few other songs,
and were pretty darn good. But why were they there? None of it made any
sense. This was school, after all, and there's no fun allowed in school;
it's well-known.
After they played several classic rock tunes, and had everyone whipped
into a frenzy, the lead singer invited us to a full concert that
night at 7:30. Still confused, we filed out and went back to class.
And that night a bunch of us returned to the little theater to see the
show -- and it was all Jesus talk, beginning to end. They were traveling
rock n roll evangelists or some such thing, and whetted our appetites
with Skynyrd and Foghat, before dropping the bomb. Wotta rip-off.
Can you imagine such a thing in 2006? They'd probably be thrown into
prison.
-- One time a couple of government officials (of unknown origin) came to
our high school to talk to us about the evils of vandalism. They were
wearing black suits, carried brief cases, and seemed rather severe. And
while they were inside the gym talking to us, somebody vandalized
their car. Is that not excellent?
-- Also during high school we were subjected to a young new gym teacher
that was obsessed with wrestling. He showed us all the moves, and made
us wrestle in class, and the whole nine yards. He'd pair us up,
supposedly by weight, and I always had to wrestle a really tall black
guy named Ziggy. And I use the term "wrestle" loosely, because
I'd basically just lie down on the mat and let him pin me. I mean,
seriously... Jeff Kay doesn't rassle.
But this new gym teacher also tried to get us all fired up about the
wrestling team, and made arrangements for one of their meets to take
place during school hours. It was some sort of much-anticipated grudge
match with another local school, Poca High. He probably thought that the
student body would really get into it, and he'd single-handedly turn
wrestling into a spectator sport in West Virginia.
The big event of the day was the face-off between the two big beefy
mofos, the heavyweights or whatever they're called. Our guy, Ed K., was
really big and good. But their guy was a monster. He was a massive
immovable object, a towering wall of flab, known as The Poca Dot. He'd
never been beaten, but he'd also never come up against anyone as good as
Ed K. There was electricity in the air. Or something along those lines.
To make a long story short, Ed took down that curtain of beef and pinned
his ass within a minute's time. And when the ref raised our guy's arm in
the air, dozens and dozens of wieners came flying out of the stands and
landed near the gasping Dot. The wrestling-promoting gym coach started
running around waving his arms, trying to make it stop. But the hotdogs
kept raining down.
The best part: the guys who orchestrated this display of school spirit
had gone above and beyond the call of duty. They'd carved heads
in the hotdogs, so they'd look more like penises. Some had even been run
through the home ec microwave, to make them plump-up. Good stuff.
-- And believe it or not, I'm all out of time here, with four more to
go. So I started with nothing, and ended with too much.... Go figure.
I'm going to hand over the reigns to lakrfool
now, and drag my sorry ass to work.
If you have any school assembly memories to share, use the comments link
below.
And I'll see you folks on Monday. permalink
June 8, 2006
-- For the past couple of months I've been seeing a KFC commercial
(that's Kentucky Fried Chicken for those of you who aren't hip to the
cool new street lingo, and for you folks in West Virginia, it's The
Colonel), that gets on my last nerve. It shows a woman walk proudly into
a room, place a bucket of chicken in the middle of a table, then proceed
to act as if she's the reincarnation of June Cleaver herself.
The kids and the Dad (semi-retarded, of course) come running, and
commence to ripping and tearing poultry meat off the bone, like a pack
of wild mountain dogs, and the mother says, with a loving glint in her
eye, "That's music to my ears."
Yeah, great accomplishment, sister. You went through a drive-through.
That action certainly earns you the right to pat yourself on the back,
and toot your own horn. Where's the freaking trophy? Why you're the
mother of the year!
But you know what would've been even sweeter? If you'd sprung for a few
lousy sides. Like maybe a tub of those smashed taters with the salt
gravy? Or a little corn, at least. A greasy bucket of meat, bones, and
ligaments is great. But can't you help a brother out with some side
items? Goddamn.
Whatever. I hate it. The expression of pride on the woman's face makes
me say things that the Secrets probably shouldn't hear.
-- And speaking of The Colonel, have you seen their latest menu item?
It's a plastic bowl filled with mashed potatoes, corn, chicken nuggets,
salt gravy, and cheese -- all mixed together in some sort of
questionable bitches brew. I ain't shittin' ya; it's real. It reminds me
of the stuff I used to eat during my poor-ass Greensboro years, like a
plate of spaghetti with Campbell's Bean With Bacon soup as the
"sauce."
Have any of you tried this KFC bastardization bowl yet? If so, we need a
review. And if not, I'll get one this weekend, and do it myself. And
while I'm at it, I might swing by Taco Bell and pick up one of their new
berets of beef, or whatever they call them.
Is it just me, or is fast food starting to get a bit bizarre?
-- And since we're talking about commercials.... How do you think I
could go about securing a part in an infomercial? I'm especially
interested in the black & white segments that illustrate "the
old way" of doing something -- before this wonderful new invention
ca |
The State of My
Fat Ass
June
2006
