Before we get started today… remember that November 1 deadline I set for myself, to have my “book” finished? Well, today is October 13, and the clock is ticking. So, I’m returning to the yurt colony on Wednesday, where I will attempt to write myself into a state of full dementia.
(All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.)
And that means this will most likely be the final update of the week. I apologize, but we’re nearing the end of all this. Unless I’m sucked into a street sweeper during the next few weeks, or fall victim to spontaneous combustion, or some other unlikely tragedy, I will have written a book soon. A friggin’ book.
Notice how I didn’t even put it in quotes that time? Man, I’m starting to get downright cocky…
I’m excited, in all seriousness. I’ve been carrying around the premise for years, and still believe in it. The writing has been hard, but I think it’s turning out OK. I doubt Ernest Hemingway is feeling threatened on the other side, but I’m confident it’ll be a fun read. …Reasonably confident.
I appreciate you guys sticking with me through this. If all goes well, I can move on to some other crackpot obsession soon. Maybe I’ll get into those tiny Japanese trees you have to prune with tweezers for, like 60 years? Or possibly extreme clogging? Who knows? My options are unlimited.
Please stay tuned.
Our dog Andy (Mr. McDingles) was acting weird on Sunday. He was lurking around, staying close to the ground, and yelping whenever someone would make a sudden move. Nobody was near him, mind you, he’d be all the way across the room, and cower and yelp if someone scratched their arm or reached for the remote.
He did this once before, and we rushed him to the vet. His temperature was slightly elevated that day, but it was the only thing they could find wrong with him. And he was fine the next morning, completely normal. So we’d paid two hundred bucks for a man in a lab coat to twist a lubricated thermometer into our dog’s ass… Simply fantastic.
And, just like last time, everything was back to normal on Monday. What the hell, man?
Our instincts told us to save our money, and just let it go. But I can’t do it. This is Andy we’re talking about! One of the best people I’ve ever met. So, we (Toney) will be taking him to the vet again on Thursday. It’s been almost a year since he’s been there, so it’s time, anyway.
And – get this – they want us to bring along a stool sample, AND a urine sample. How do you get a urine sample from a dog?! I’ve never even heard of such a thing.
Toney asked this very question to the woman on the phone, and she suggested we sneak up behind the hound with a soup ladle. I busted out laughing when I heard this. I can just see me chasing him around the front yard with a big spoon: “Piss on this, goddammit! Piss on this ladle!! …Hey, where are you going??”
It would probably end up on YouTube, at the HalfShirt channel.
Have you ever had to provide a veterinarian a urine sample from a dog? How did you collect it? I’d like to know, I really would. The whole thing seems… unlikely to me.
Over the weekend I added three new Smoking Fish photos to the big swollen gallery. And you can see them here, at the top of the page. Very cool! Thanks, folks. Keep ’em coming… Our logo, man, he gets around.
Here’s a “joke” I wrote while driving to work yesterday: I’m thinking about opening a store that caters to flamboyant gay men who love sports. Our first product will be a replica jersey from the New York Jetth.
What do you think? Too 1970s Shecky Greene Catskills supper club? Yeah, I sorta agree.
And a couple of quick things before we get to the Question…
I guess there’s something wrong with the RSS feed, on the email side. The folks who signed up to receive the updates via email are no longer receiving them. I haven’t had a chance to dig into it too deeply, but something is certainly askew. The feed will not validate properly, which makes me unhappy and mildly anxious. I’ll get to the bottom of it, ASAP. Sorry for the hassle.
And the t-shirts… I get sick to my stomach whenever I think about them. Not the shirts, exactly, but my half-assery as it pertains to them. They’re still boxed-up in the family room, and haven’t been mailed. I apologize, sincerely. I’ve let it go too long, and promise to pull an all-nighter after the yurt, to get everything caught-up.
I suck, God knows it’s true, but I think everyone will be happy with the finished product (eventually). They look great, both the retro and miscommunication models. I’m on it, I promise. Sweet sainted mother of Mister Creosote…
And speaking of upset stomachs, I’ll leave you with a Question we ponder once a year or so. It usually leads to some great, disgusting stories, and I’m confident this time will be no different.
In the comments section please tell us about the last time you, you know, vomited. What were the circumstances? How long ago did it happen? I think it was late 2000 for me (I’m an infrequent vomiter), a horrible night when it came exploding out of every hole — give or take a few.
Also, we’d like to read your all-time favorite upchuck story. So, that’s yer question. Pretty classy, huh? I’ll probably jump in and ask a new one on Thursday, so that it’s not just wall-to-wall puke around here until Monday. Heh.
Have a great week, my friends.
I’ll see you soon.
Fake Dad:
I had a real Dad. I wish he would have taken an antidepressant. I’m sure it would have benefited him greatly. Nothing I ever did seemed to please him. And I really wasn’t that bad. Honor roll, cheerleader, homecoming queen, blah, blah, blah. But he made me feel like I was deficient. When I was in the middle of the suckiest marriage known to mankind, he encouraged me to remain there. So I did. Then when the shit hit the fan (husband of 23 years doesn’t “love me anymore” = girlfriend) he was there for me. My Dad was a bundle of contradictions. Now that’s he’s dead, I still feel resentment, but I miss him too. It’s crazy.
Lost Opportunies:
Never mind. I’m done. I can’t go there.
Turn of Events:
Ditto.
Painful Turd:
Ditto.
101 .. I will never be a 404
http://www.plinko.net/404/area404.asp
I puked about 3 weeks ago. Had to go to ER for lower abdomen pain – they gave me duladin and pain killers/antibiotics. The next morning I took my first dose of pills and promptly threw them up.
My favorite puking stories: Playing quarters with Dave in Sammamish during college days. He lost (again) and had to drink a lot of beer shots in a short amount of time. He puked over the balcony, almost onto my roommate’s head.
Lee Harvey Ramone-
Yes. Sitting here patiently awaiting some redneck farmer coming in and asking ME for more water for his crops, like I have the final say so.
Captain Lou died. Friends and family were shocked. I was too. I thought he died years ago.
On IPOD right now- “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin”- Sly and the Family Stone
AWG-
I have a “fake Dad” too. He kinda tried to be OK with me early on but the fact that I was someone else’s offspring pissed him off, I suspect. We fought like hell through my teens, then I ignored him and the rest of my family through my 20s. Within the past few years I’ve just said fuck it and started talking with him again, since he no longer thinks I’m a financial drain and we can talk with some semblance of civility. He couldn’t stand it when my Mom spent ANY money on me, but now that they have a kid (and I have a brother) his thinking on what you should provide for your kids has taken a drastic turn. At least he learned something from it. Maybe I did too.
Lost Opportunities: I wanted to go to vocational-tech school in high school, where you can pick a trade and train for it. With the rest of the drunks and drug abusers. My mom would not sign the consent form so I had to take the college prep route. I have a college degree now that is bullshit and a low paying job. If I had gone to vo-tech, I probably would have a pretty good paying job that can’t be outsourced. But, that leads to…
Turns of events: if I hadn’t gone to college, I wouldn’t have fallen in love with my (very recent) ex-girlfriend/fiancée. We were together for longer than most people are married these days — almost 2 decades. I guess I should just think I’m lucky to have been with someone that long and try to remember the good memories, but at this stage I’m just fucking hurt. Hence the alcohol and chemicals.
Fucking hell, that’s a depressing way to start the day. Not going to add a turd story to liven it up either.
Alcohol and chemicals, chemicals and alcohol. It’s a wonderful life!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bK-Dqj4fHmM
My real Dad has been in and out of jail his whole life, I don’t really know him. My brother and I got a FAKE DAD when we were very young. Fake Dad and my mother had my half sister. He was a real son of a bitch. Even when we were little boys he’d “spank” us with a 2×4 that he kept atop the fridge. He once saw my little brother walking around with a box of matches that he’d found on the arm of the couch. He taught him a lesson about “playing with matches” by holding his hand over a gas burner on the stove. He had to go to the hospital because of it and still has burn scars on his palm. He was all of 3 years old. He did lots of shit like that. Punched the wind out of us, punched our noses, shit like that. He drove a truck for Coors for a while but soon quit. My mother worked shift work to support us and she had to beg him not to use more than one slice of bologna on his sandwiches because that’s all we had to last us the week.
They eventually divorced and we haven’t seen him since. He’s been moving around the contry working cash jobs, or whatever, to avoid paying any child support for my sister. She’s now 28. He has seen her in at least 20 years. I promised myself that once I got older I’d kill him if I ever saw him again. I still feel the same way.
If I hadn’t gotten fired in Texas I never would have moved to Alabama to start a masonry business with my cousin. If we hadn’t gone bankrupt I wouldn’t have gotten my real estate license. If I hadn’t agreed to go to a certain church one time with my Aunt I wouldn’t have met my wife.
Now I sell real estate and we have 2 kids and 1 on the way. It’s weird how I eneded up here. Living with these strangers in a place far away from where I grew up. Being in real estate isn’t always a bowl of cherries, by the way. I had two deals that were supposed to close today (15th) and I found out the day before yesterday that one of them wasn’t going to work, and I found out today that the remaining one isn’t going to work. $15,000 went poof. You think that doesn’t hit you in the gut when you have a family and your wife doesn’t work? Now we’re broke for at least another month.
Ahhh, I feel somewhat better now.
“I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they’ve always worked for me.”
Hunter S. Thompson
Wow, Jason, good stuff there! Funny how the church thing worked for finding your wife. Anyone I ever got hooked up with in a “church situation” could not accept my (then) drug and alcohol dependancy, or my disdain for organized religion. My current wife was the exception to make me quit that stuff, otherwise, don’t know where I would be now. Probably dead.
I guess the difference between the above “fake dad” stories and mine is that this guy was being passed off to be real dad throughout my childhood. I always knew he could not fucking ever be my real dad, but I always thought Jerry West, basketball superstar, was the real one. That’s right, Mom fucked him too. Anyway it’s funny how things work out.
I know this was a sensitive and somewhat morbid subject to tackle, but those that let it all hang out, I think the world of you for putting it out there for your invisible friends to read.
On IPOD right now- “Whole Lotta Rosie”- ACDC
Jason I’d kill the motherfucker too. Hope you find him someday. Hurting kids is the line in the sand for death for me.
AWG: Fake dad thing: I never really knew my dad. He blew into town when I was 7-8 years old and that was the first time I met him. He was in the military when I was born and after a tumultuous year of marriage, he and my mom split up. I was shipped back to live with my grandparents while my mom lived the hippy life in Haight Ashbury and my dad went AWOL.
He did a couple stints in asylums, got married a few more times and gave me a couple of half-sisters..(whom I met in my 30’s)
My mom did an outstanding job of replacing my dad with fake dads. There were four legal ones whom she married and a whole slew of others who just didn’t have what it takes to marry my mother. Poor bastards.
They were all fake dads with the majority of them being mostly bad fake dads.
I actually consider my grandparents to be more like my parents. Same with my half-brother (courtesy of fake dad #1.)
Fake dads #1 and #2 both served in Viet Nam during their marriages to my mom. Let’s just say that absence doesn’t make the heart grow fonder…
#3 fake dad was a hippy growing his own dope in a log cabin with no electricity. He was a special one, let me tell you.
#4 fake dad is still around although I’m still not sure how the hell that happened. I’m thinking about writing a book, just to try to figure it all out in my head. It’s pretty complicated and diverse.
I’ll give some thought on the other two topics but that’s all I got for you today.
Wow so many stories.
Missed opportunities……I did not figure out that I am smart until I was already knocked up and stuck in a factory at 19 where I still work today but thru a series of events I am now in a much better position with the company than on the assembly line.
Had i not been late for school Dec 4th 1986 I would not have become friends with WHITE TRASH BARBIE. Had we not become friends I woudl not have told her about the WVSR and we woudl not all be better educated about flu vaccines and other important things. See my life has helped us all out.
painful turds- Both times I was pregnant I would poop softballs. It was awful but in hindsight it was probably why I was able to deliver both children with relative ease. Now that I am in the advanced stages of alcoholism I have quite the opposite problem. TMI blame AWG he can take it.
I blame others for all of my problems. I blame AWG specifically. Had he not asked the question about dads, I wouldn’t be obsessing again over shooting some loser in the brain. As it is I’m going to fly to Arizona very soon in search of my prey. Who knows what can come of it? Will I meet someone that helps me find a new job? Will I eat some bad ham and lose a lot of weight? Will I become a Morman and pick up a few more wives? The possibilities are endless and exciting. Thanks, AWG. Maybe good, maybe bad.
@Qweezy Mark
“One day everyone will know someone dead whose favorite movie was ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’…and then nobody will be able to watch the fucking thing anymore” — Styrenes, “All the Wrong People Are Dying”
But yeah…alcohol and chemicals!
@DTO — Long live HST!
The best I got to do to fake dad was to knock him down a flight of stairs with my mom’s ironing board. Swung it like Ted Williams. Then I hit the door with the clothes on my back and never looked back.
You might want to take a lot of sunscreen.
On IPOD right now- “Poor Tom”- Led Zep
My dad is the real deal.
He’s old school Lee Marvin, Spent time in the army and merchant navy (looks like Ernest Borgnine meets Danna Andrews) and is nails.
I remember with fondness, after falling off my bike aged 10, him telling me in his gentle way ‘ If your looking for sympathy you’ll find it in the dictionary. It’s between ‘shit’ and ‘syphallis’.
He’s got a wicked sense of humour and I’m proud to be his son.
I once missed an opportunity in my early twenties when I was working in a bar in Spain, to travel to Amsterdam with a Dutch goddess I’d been ‘seeing’. She was going to let me stay with her and get me job picking hash. I cleverly got my foot trapped in the elevator into the pubs cellar on my last night, ( the only time I’ve heard myself scream!) she had to leave on her own,and I never saw her again.
The five seconds that changed my life was when
I got my throat cut when I was managing a bar in Scotland. I swear an angel pulled me out of the way. (I’ve never moved so quickly before, and I didn’t even see the knife). 36 stitches. I am very lucky to be here.
The crazy fellow got 7 years for attempted murder.
( it was over the fact that I wouldn’t serve him a pint! -seems fair!)
I drifted into office work, and here I am.
I really feel I need to do something grand to compensate for this being my life defining moment.
I know I’ve got two great kids and a black belt in karate and all that but I could do with pulling a kid out of a river or something that would give me in instant ‘hit’
Ya know?
I’ll keep my eyes open when I’m walking near watercourses!
Tammie, maybe you need to go to your yurt to figure things out.
I guess there is nothing new to distract us from the vomiting stories today. Here’s a new question for the overnighters.
Who was the nastiest male or female you ever did it with? Mine was a 240 pound young woman named Karen who I knew from the Bob Evans days. She was nice and all, but had a lot of disgusting habits, like outeating me and farming out (if you don’t know about this, it is the act of covering one nostril and blowing snot out the other one onto the ground.) She DID know how to twist it, though. (I think most of you dudes will get that).
On TV right now- “Antz”- that’s right, the five year old controls the TV at this hour. I did get to watch Around The Horn and Pardon the Interruption, though. Good enough for me.
TV…Phils @ Dodgers, 8pm EST, TBS..I’m headed to the trhid floor.
Ian is that you? I’m sorry i had a sex change and cut your throat! Nothing personal but when a newly minted man needs a pint! He needs a pint!!!!!!
THIRD…crap. Maybe next time I should just do…3rd.
I mean…dyslexic…ok… but trhid needs a whole new category. I guess I doubled down.
Well AWG here goes. I had a real mom and dad – real screwed up. I feel bad saying that because my mother was a sweet and good person, a really loving and affectionate parent. My dad was funny, an intelligent and patient explainer of things. However, I didn’t see him a lot when I was younger because he was in the air force and was often stationed in other parts of the world. During those times my mom would rent a little house close to her family. When he was stationed in the states, we’d move with him in a house close to the base.
When he was away, times were mostly good. But being alone with two “young’ns” was hard for her, and she would sometimes drink to escape. When she was drunk, her personality and appearance would change completely. She would become ugly, uncaring and abusive. She had a lot of baggage and would bring it out during those times, venting to me, a little kid, about her first marriage which had turned really bad.
But things were a lot worse when they lived together. During my first grade year, my dad came back from France and was stationed at Charleston SC. Things were good at first – I started school and despite my initial fears things were OK there. Then my parents started drinking heavily in the evenings, every night. I didn’t like it, but I was occupied with Humpty Dumpty magazine and comics and stuff and things were still not terrible.
Then for some reason they started having horrendous arguments that would quickly escalate into violence. They would be sitting on the couch, talking, when something would set them off, and they were off the couch and standing up, fighting like giant monsters, my dad clenching my mother’s hair and throwing her to the floor.
One night my mother was in the bedroom with me, in my little brother’s bed (he was in the main bedroom asleep) and they bickered for what seemed like hours. My dad was in the living room, drinking as usual, and they argued through the door. Suddenly something set him off, and he ran into the room, grabbing a broom on the way, and he repeatedly beat my mother with the handle, slamming it down on her chest and stomach. Pure horror.
That vision is burned into my memory, but there’s a gap after that, and the next thing I can remember is the trip in the ambulance. I wasn’t hurt, but my brother and I were riding with our mother as she was taken to the hospital. Amazingly, she had two or three broken ribs and was otherwise unhurt. Also amazingly, they stayed together, and the whole cycle would repeat again and again. After one fight my mom had to get dentures.
After that year, he was stationed outside of the states again,for a year or so, and there was a time of relative calm, after we had moved, once again.
I won’t go any further with this stuff, but there were more bad times to come. I still have a lot of anger that I haven’t dealt with properly. For years after when I remembered those fights that had occured during my first grade year, I would become so enraged at my dad I would involuntarily strike out with my right fist, like I could reach back into the past and stop him from beating my mother.
They have both been gone for several years now, but I can’t seem to forgive him, even though doing that would be in my best interest.
I’ll have to leave my turning points and turd stories for another day.
Sometimes, those who are raised by the worst of parents, end up being the very best of parents as a result. I didn’t have any fakes, but I wish I could share my parents with those who did.
wellp on a lighter note…i dont know if it was my last puke but it’s the last i can remember…had a little holiday get together/gift exchange with some friends a few years ago. Me being the alcoholic I am(was) received a nice glass with my name engraved on it.
Skip ahead a few hours and midway through a jaeger toast my stomach wasnt having the spicy sweetness and i proceeded to lose my dinner IN the glass cup i received as a gift. nothing says christmas like some red puke in a glass.
Trish – nicely said.
We have fresh YURT pictures
(for those of you not on twitter)
Jeff recently posted these:
http://thewvsr.com/yurt15.htm
@ the dutch goddess, whoever you are,
I’m trying hard to think of a witty comeback but all I’m getting is,
‘fuck the fuck off, twat’
so that’ll just have to do.
P.s. the idiot that cut my throat couldn’t have written this anyway as he has since died from an overdose, you twat, again.
@ Trish – Nicely said.
Some of you guys sound like you have had some really bad experiences with your parents. I hope that the good times you’ve had since then have made up for them a little, and I sincerely hope that there will be plenty more of them for you in the future.
Tilly, my lovely, you make me laugh. Yes, it is true. I am an insufferable know-it-all. Oh, and BTW, that was 1985 not 1986.
Trish- good observation there. It’s too bad that it doesn’t ALWAYS work that way, as some douchebag parents create future douchebags, but some, like Ed survive to be a better person. I find myself to be in that category, as I am an awesome parent, spending every spare moment I have, when not working, with my kids.
Ed- I too saw the rage my fake dad spewed upon my mom, and swore to get even with him when I was older and strong enough. Knocking him down the stairs was a great feeling, but I wished I could have broken his neck. I have let the grudge go now, as he is just a mellow old man now. Now that yours are gone, forgiveness might be moot, but it seems like you are on the road to peace with yourself about it. Thanks for letting us in. You rock!
The nastiest sex stories are still up for grabs, if we don’t hear from JK today. Those might be a little lighter topic.
On IPOD right now- “Psalm 69”- Ministry
AWG- I couldn’t agree more. Some people just shouldn’t be allowed to breed. If you have to take a test to join the services or get a license, then maybe you should have to take a test to be a parent too.
Sweet! I love Ministry!
Trish- saw them with Thrill Kill Cult a few years ago at an outdoor courtyard that can only hold about 1500 people called Jannus Landing in St. Pete. Has to be in the top 5 of the 300 or so concerts I have seen. Saw them a couple of times before that, but the sound was distorted at both venues, even by their standards. Outside is the way to see them.
Thanks AWG!
@AngryWhiteGuy
Fake dad: didn’t have one. Had a real one, who thought appropriate reaction to a smartass comment from a 10 year old was to pick me up under my arms, and throw me about 10 feet, backwards, in to a sticker patch. He had always been quick with the belt, but things weren’t ever the same after that. Had the parents not divorced not long after that incident, I probably would have killed him. As it stands, I did end up pulling a gun on him, when he & mom were having a particularly nasty fight in the kitchen. He had her in a bear hug, and was hitting the cabinets with her head, but that’s what he considers “defending himself.” I told him he could get the fuck out, or die where he stood. Mom & sis will both attest to that.
Given my childhood, and the punishments therein, I have never laid a hand on my children, save once, when my 6 year old earned a single, open hand swat on the bottom, for throwing a fork at her mother.
Missed opportunities: Hmm…. there were probably many, but I have managed to forget them.
Right place, right time: 18 years old, in a band, on the way to the studio to record some drum tracks. I had a bottle of Beam, and needed some cokes to mix. Stopped at a convenience store, where I ran in to my middle school girlfriend. We chatted for a bit, and I invited her to the studio. She came along, I got my tracks done, along with several drinks each, and we went back to her place. I’m turning 39 in 9 days. She and I have been married for 17 years, now. And here’s the kicker…… She was at the convenience store, visiting her fiancee at work…… heh.
JeffInDenver- just revisited the older updates, since Wednesday’s is late. Great stories.
Too bad about the Rockies. I was really pulling for them. Is snow in October the norm there, or was that rare? Im hoping it snows like a bitch in Philly and NY during the series to convince Selig to shorten the season or something.
October’s an interesting month, every year. Some years, we get fall, and slowly ease in to winter. I remember on year, literally playing golf, in shorts, the day after Christmas. Then, like this year, September 30 is sunny, and 76 degrees. October 1 is overcast, snowing, and 32 degrees. October is a very bipolar month here.
Yeah, I was a little disappointed in the Rockies, especially after we took one in Philly. I thought they’d beat Philadelphia, then lose to the Dodgers in 6. LA has had our number for the last several seasons.And, Selig loves the allmighty dollar FAR too much to shorten the season. If anything, he’ll mandate domed stadiums, and extend the season…….