Velociworld

HOW MANY MUNCHINS

can dance on the head of a pin? I have no idea. I CAN tell you how many munchins can show up at my door on Halloween. Six. That's it. Six. I live in a nice, kid friendly, everybody pretty much knows everybody neighborhood, and six kids show up.

Why? I was ready, with bowls full of sugary goodness. A tastefully scary front porch, with no real spiders in evidence, just a coupla fuzzy ones. Why? These are my fucking NEIGHBORS!

Not that I've ever let that stop me from castigating THEM. But AHEM. That has nothing to do with this.

Here's the drill: Mommies today are anal retentive fuckheads who will drive their kids from one door to the next, and only let their little munchkins ring the doorbells of people they know, and who've been personally vetted by that guy down the street who swears he's ex-CIA and will cover their kids' ass. When they DO let their precious cargo approach your door they're RIGHT BEHIND THEM! SOMETIMES IN FRONT OF THEM! And suspicious of you. For no reason, other than the fact they've already been rifling your mailbox, and know you get National Review. I've NEVER seen this kind of paranoia, ever. Freaks.

I'm so disappointed. Soccer moms killing their kids' good times. When I was six I was allowed to roam my neighborhood at will, and chase my older brother, and vomit my spaghetti if I ran too fast, and get the literal crap scared out of me by homeowners dressed as gorillas. That type of behavior on the part of a homeowner will get you a lawsuit or a macing now.

It has to suck to be a kid today. Halloweenie.

APROPROS OF NOTHING...

I think bone china gets a raw deal compared to "fine" china. They're both porcelain, but bone china, the original type, is made from bone ash. "Fine" china is made from refined white clay (think Georgia kaolin). But my Uncle Don taught me there ain't no better way to drink coffee than from bone china. It transmits the heat more quickly than "fine" china, making the lip of the cup cooler, and the sip more savory. I only have a couple of pieces of bone china. The lass who picks up after my filthy children cleans my house is Czech, and goes to Prague annually to visit family, and brings The Bride back a cup of bone china every year, and I covet it for coffee. The only better way to use bone china than sitting on my lanai is to be up in the mountains with the Georgia Bloggers today, watching the sun set in the Appalachians, with a hearty mug o' joe. I'm brewing a cup of Jamaican Blue Mountain in their honor as we speak.

WHEREIN

I do some cross-marketing. I can't help it. It's in my blood.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN, YOU FILTHY ANIMALS

Ever been to The Vomitorium? No? How come?

Don't tell me I never share things with you.

LIFE IS GOOD

Halloween night, Georgia-Florida tickets safely in my grubby paws, wearing my Don King wig and passing out candy to little children. I'm in such a good mood I've demanded no quid pro quo from the little darlings.

Oh, and guest blogging over at Acidman's, where I get to indulge in the pasttime of pissing off his Loyal Fans. I should do like that guy in the XFL and get a jersey that says THEY HATE ME. Fuck 'em.

I do wish I could have made the mountain trip, though. Next time, YOU PEOPLE explain to The Bride how much fun it would be for her to sit around and watch me get hammered with a bunch of bloggers. I'm sure she'd believe you.

TOYS FOR OCD KIDS

I've bitched about Wheel-O in the deep dark past, but somehow it still occasionally burbles to the top of my consciousness, the psychological equivalent of a spoilt burrito.



I HAD to have a Wheel-O as a kid. When I got one, it dawned on me it was a five minute toy. The wheel goes up, the wheel goes down. The wheel goes up, the wheel goes down. What the fuck, over?

TAKEN. Just like I was taken by Spielberg with that butt-awful miniseries, I was taken by Wham-O, or whoever was popping these puppies out at the time.

It pissed me off when I was seven, it pisses me off to this day.

I just can't let go.

HOT DIGGITY DAMN

That 3rd Quarter GDP report today bumped my company's stock a buck and a nickel. Four dollars and 51 cents more and I can exercise some options, and pay some bills spend it like a wino with a pee boner. That won't happen, though. My stock is like an aged consumptive; I expect a relapse, sooner as opposed to later. My old boss used to sign my checks; now he signs my currency. Nothing else has changed.

LIFE, SLICED

Here's a great story of youth from Donnie. I like reading about other bloggers' childhoods. It fleshes out the writer, and gives one a much better sense of where they're coming from. Unfortunately, I've done a little too much of this. And in Donnie's case, he was obviously a juvenile delinquent.

SAINT LOUIS

I'm not much of a collector, by nature, for the simple reason that if there is a finite set of something, say the 1969 Topps baseball set, or the autographed first editions of Faulkner, once you've completed the set you're happy for a while, then you're fucked. You can't add to it. It's done. Orgasm, quietude. On the other hand, an open-ended collection is maddening. You can't finish it! It can't be closed out! There's always something else to add. No closure. There lies madness, to me.

So I decided a while back to start collecting something that is both finite, and ever-expanding. That would be fine crystal. Because as soon as you have the 8 or 12 piece set, and you are content, your kids will break one of the fuckers toasting Barbie's first cycle, or something, and now you can go buy something to re-complete the set. Perfect, man.

So when I got into crystal a while back, two things came to mind: 1) it must be stemware. If I can't slake my omnipresent thirst from it, it's no good. Keep your crystal umee-corns and ballerinas. Those are dust magnets. Form copulating function is my gig. Always. 2) There is no two. My bad.

What's my point? I do have a point. I always have a point. Witness, then:

I have friends who would be kindly categorized as uber-yuppies. Massive incomes, usually no kids, money is no object, blah, blah, blah. Nice people, they just have materialism issues. They don't keep up with the Joneses. They rub the Joneses' collective noses in the fucking dirt, and dry-hump their dog. Why do I have friends like this? It doesn't matter. Suffice it to say they respect the fact I don't buy into their bullshit, and deep down they dig being mocked by me. It expiates their guilt, I suppose, and certainly entertains me. Call it an interpersonal symbiosis.

Cut to the chase, please: Ah, yes. So while these people have been adorning their dry-sinks and cabinets with Baccarat, I've been collecting Saint Louis. I've never told them what I have because I'm waiting for the point of critical mass, when they could never Catch Up, or to do so would entail having to repudiate their Baccarat collection to make exhibition space.

See, Baccarat is nice. I prefer plastic cups for my vino, but Baccarat is nice. Founded in 1764. Boo-rah. But Saint Louis, man, that's the oldest Cristallerie in France. 1586. That's bloodlines. Personally, I like the stuff, but I could do without it. Again, plastic cups work fine for me. But there is something perversely profane about spending ninety dollars on a glass, and filling it with Two Buck Chuck. And I kill three birds here. First, I get to collect something beautiful that I enjoy. Second, if I complete a set it's only temporary because I have more breakage in my house than a Daytona Beach biker bar. Third, one day, one day, when the time is ripe, I'm going to Explain It All to the yupsters, and send them into a fucking funk-assed panic.

Life can be good, after all.

SIDE ACTION

I've been thinking about finishing law school, dying my hair blonde, and getting a nice rack job. Then I could be on Fox News at least once a week as a "legal analyst" or "neocon pundit". Hey, it's easier than getting combat experience, flag grade, and a nice gummint pension, if getting paid to fuck with stroke O'Reilly were one's bag.

FORM FOLLOWS FUNK

or something like that. An inocuous reference in one blog will inevitably lead me in an entirely different direction, I've found. The Fontainebleau reference triggered what will be my New Project. A book. Not a novel. No one would pay their unearned civil service euros to read the self-serving tripe I'd put in a novel. No, a coffee table book. A big freaking pictorial with background on the great post-war development of resort cities. Specifically, the luxury hotels that fueled the phenomenon of the middle class luxury vacation, after daddy beat the evil Huns and Nips.

I stayed in the Fontainbleau a few years ago, and I have to tell you: it's still cool, with its curving sweep, with all rooms facing the ocean, the lush jungle underneath, the pool, the room service. It's not South Beach, it's Miami Beach. And I can wear a Waikiki shirt and sandals there and get in touch with a completely different vibe than South Beach, where I'm so exhausted from sucking in my gut and pretending to be an overweight Paraguayan that I can't really enjoy the scene.

I've always been fascinated by the development (some would say despoiling) of the resort cities after World War II: Miami, of course, and Honolulu; Rio de Janiero and Acupulco. To a lesser degree Papeete, Nassau, and Bridgetown. These were great resorts before the war for many years, of course, but Conrad Hilton and his ilk started the trend of the attainable vacation, I believe, and from 1946 to 1958 or so the classic post-war leisure artifices were erected for our enjoyment. And any schmoe could scrimp and save and pack up the family for a dream vacation in Eden. The Ugly American? You betcha. In spades. But I truly believe the flow of United States greenbacks into these cities did a hell of a lot more good than bad, and does to this day.

I'm still fleshing this out. There's so much I don't know. Hell, I'm not THAT old.

What I DO know is some gullible Conde Nast or Sky Magazine git just might fund my research. I'll spring for the photography myself. I consider that quite a deal.

MUST HAVE BEEN AFTER MY TIME

Rocket Jones links us to this site on the Worst Halloween Costumes Ever. I like it.

I must take issue with this guy's comment, however, that Shirley was the lamer half of Laverne and Shirley. Good God, man. Snap out of it. Let me help you: You're in a penthouse suite at the Fontainebleau, circa 1976. The breeze on the balcony is warm, the ocean waves are pounding the surf. You have an eight-ball of pure Peruvian flake, and a bottle of Cuervo Especial. The doorbell rings. Ouside are Cindy Williams and Penny Marshall. Penny hasn't shaved her legs in two weeks, and smells oddly of albacore. You can let one in.

Make your choice, son.

I'M WEAK

I was only going to put up the Simone pic for an hour last night, as kind of a treat for the viewers Anna sent my way. To tell you the truth, though, I kind of like it. I'll put it back up for a little while...

GAY BASHERS AT INDYMEDIA

Baldilocks pointed out an Indymedia post that libels Charles Johnson as a homosexual pederast. Just in good fun, you know.

I believe the gist of their defense is that everyone knows Indymedia is a loose coagulation of smegma that is obviously infested with fools, liars, and microencephaletics, therefore everyone should know this was a joke. That, and since they don't KNOW for a FACT Charles ISN'T a homosexual pederast then there is no malice involved. Or something like that.

Why did they make Charles out to be gay in addition to being a child predator? Seems to me they must consider the former a CRIME, or something. Repugnant, at the very least. Oh, the tolerance of these fuckers.

ALRIGHT ALREADY

I've nearly twisted my own arm out of the joint. A brief deconstruction of Gator Bait:

SYNOPSIS:

When a clan of lusting backwoodsmen kill Desiree's sister and kidnap her brother, she turns pretty deadly herself in this action-packed adventure. Desiree is played by Claudia Jennings, a well-known Hollywood stuntwoman and former "Playmate of the Year."

This genre of movie has been called "Hixploitation", wherein 99% of the southerners are degenerates, reprobates, ass-rapers, and bigots. A documentary, in other words. GB is a stylized revenge flick; Desiree of course exacts vengeance on a host of hillbillies for the attempted rape and subsequent murder of her sister, one of the more rivetheaded scenes. Lots of jonboat chases through the swamps, an evil sheriff with a fucktard son, a castration!... and some gratuitous T&A. Sorry. I'm no Leonard Maltin. Perhaps I should have called this a decomposition.

Check out the poster, though, while you're here.

And tell me with a straight face this movie doesn't make you want to rent Walking Tall and lock yourself in for a weekend, drinking 'shine and role-playing Deputy Grady.

Added bonus: there are NO REVIEWS on Amazon for Gator Bait. Jesus. No wonder our kids score so poorly on standardized tests. Time for a quick rental to refresh the brain cells, and another Amazon masterpiece from Velociman.

SIMONE GRIFFETH

I haven't blogged about Simone in a long, long time, mostly because it's too painful. She's the first girl I ever fell in love with, and to this day she has no idea who the fuck I am. Life's funny like that.

Simone was born in Savannah, too, 3 days shy of being two years older than me. When I was a kid my parents had a river cottage on the May River in Bluffton, South Carolina, and we'd spend the summers there. Simone's family lived just down the road, on Myrtle Island, on the same river, but in a great huge brick 1920's southern mansion, with enormous live oaks that blocked the sun, dripping Spanish moss and somnolent decorum. They had a long gravel driveway that circled around a fountain in front of the house, the Sure Sign of Old Money to me. This was obviously their primary residence.

I first heard of Simone the summer of '71, when our next door neighbor told us who she was and where she lived. Simone was enjoying great notoriety for a sixteen year old, because she'd just starred in a low-budget flick called Swamp Girl, about a girl raised in the Okeefenokee Swamp with no contact with the outside world.

They call it stalking now; I called it innocent curiosity, and spent the better part of that summer pedaling around her house and Myrtle Island, desperately trying to catch a glimpse of Simone, even as the hired help chased my pimply fourteen-year-old ass out of their driveway for attempting to cut doughnuts in the gravel with a Kolkhoff ten-speed. The fourteen-year-old boy's equivalent of scratching the grass with his hind legs.

I'd often see Simone as she water-ski'd by our dock, blond hair slicked back, bikini aquiver (you know what I mean). There were usually one or two GQ-looking boys in the boat with her, all studly and such, but at least she had the decency to wave back to the skinny geek with big ears and big wood in his banlon nut hugger bathing suit.

Unrequited love. Man. Actually, unrequited acknowledgement of existence. But we stalkers never recognize that fact until it's too late.

Simone did a lot of B movies and TV work after that, but I don't think she did anything after the mid-eighties.

You want to know when she broke my heart? In 1975, when I was in college, and I saw her do a nude scene in Death Race 2000 with David Carradine. Because I felt betrayed? Hell, no. Because she'd seduced Grasshopper. Some things a man just can't forgive.

GATOR BAIT

No, not the classic 1976 Claudia Jennings movie. That's for another day. This bait was an acquaintance of mine, who went five rounds with a nine-footer last Saturday, and got his ass beaten severely.

Seems D____, who lives on the Valley Course at Sawgrass, was in his backyard when he noticed a small dog barking furiously at an alligator down by the water's edge. Ever the hero, D____ walked down to the pond to scare off the gator. Unfortunately he slipped on the wet grass of the slope, and slid directly into the gator.

What ensued he described as a minute of sheer terror. The witnesses said it actually took them about five minutes to run around the pond to help him. This belies the myth that seconds seem like hours in these situations, I suppose. At any rate, the gator thought he was being attacked and went on the offensive. D_____ basically went into a bearhug on the beast, and used one arm to fend off the jaws. Between the flailing claws and whipping tail, D_____ was one huge purple bruise when all was said and done. The neighbors beat off fended off the brute, and D____ got some first aid. The trackers caught the gator that night: nine feet, 375 pounds. Not a monster for these parts, but a damned formidable adversary.

My advice to D____? When you see a small dog that does not belong to you and a big gator square off, you're about to witness a Wild Kingdom moment. Crack a beer, pull up a chair, and watch the spectacle of Mother Nature unfold from a safe distance. Then tell your kids all about it.

YA THINK?

Mad Ogre claims I'm Odd Stuff. Go figure.

HELL, YES!

Everyone knows I like a good shit blog. This one by Dong Resin is the best I've ever read. And I know my shit.

BETTER THAN GODZILLA

Way fucking cooler than Mothra. Lileks brings us Chernobog, the Slavic god of destruction from Fantasia. Now, is it just me, or does Chernobog sound like the great mutant nuclear beast, spawn of Gaia's fusion-deformed left ovary, hideously whelped in the bowels of the planet following the Chernobyl disaster? Chernobog, careening wildly through the Ukrainian forests, looking for hapless humans to rip to shreds with his fetid fangs for fouling Mama Earth?

Guess it's just me.

DAD SAID I WOULD MEET GUYS LIKE THIS

He just never said what to do about men who want to engage in incestuous daisy chains. For now I'm operating in the Grin and Bear It mode. I reckon Acidman isn't the only one pickin' banjo about now...

I CAN RESIST ANYTHING BUT TEMPTATION

said Oscar Wilde. Acidman is up in North Georgia playing Banjoy Boy, and left me the keys to the Crackerbox. I may have to wander over and piss off the Infidels True Believers. They do so hate my guest blogging...

Whaddaya say, Old Man?

SPILLS! CHILLS! THRILLS!

Freaks! Geeks! Whiz! Dongs! Ass! Feces! Bionic Dicks! Gothic Twisted Assholes! Come One, Come All to the New Improved Cul-de-Sac!*

* For mature audiences. If you're not THIS big you're too little to ride this ride.

LET'S RESURRECT THE WHIG PARTY

I read a lot of people disgruntled with the two party system as it's currently contrived. I share that frustration. I will readily admit I vote Republican most of the time, but that's because they are the less odious of the two parties. I have no hard-on for the GOP. Hell, they invaded and burned my state to the ground. Since I am constrained to live in the here-and-now, however, I generally hold my nose and pull the R.

I cannot vote for a Democrat because that party as I knew it is dead. Always an uneasy cobbling of special interests, the Dems have become so venal in the last ten years they are simply fucking shameless. They will whore any position, assume any posture, corrupt any ideal, promulgate any lie for a vote. For the reins. Prostitutes on a spectacular scale. Actually, johns, with your money in their wallets. They lined up like lemmings behind Clinton and vowed Saddam Hussein was Satan Incarnate, ready to lob biological weapons and chemical bombs at the nearest target. In 1998 the Democratic Party was steadfast in their mantra that SADDAM MUST GO. A few impeachment votes later, all was forgotten. And they will look you in the eye today and swear they never said it.

I DO respect the GOP for their commitment to the war on terror, and their understanding that this war must be fought now. Having said that, I believe the Saudis have Bush's pecker in their pocket, and until they are dealt with this war will not be won. I also resent Bush's cave-in on the domestic front. From steel tariffs to the Kennedy education bill to the absolute refusal to deal with the illegal immigration/border security issue, W has demonstrated an avuncular grasp of the pandering required to seal the deal. He's never used his veto, and signed every profligate bill the Republican Congress, drunk with power, has lobbed at him.

So let's resurrect the Whig Party. Not the Afghan Whigs, although they rock, and would be a great "house band" for the movement, should they regroup for the cause.

Let's face it: the Libertarians, like Perot's Reform Party, have some good ideas, but are awash in screwheads and loose cannons and isolationist bigotry. The Whigs, now, had some good ideas. You'd have to bring it into the 21st Century, for sure. I don't think a Free Soil platform would carry much weight now, nor do I think the Compromise of 1850 is going to stir the masses. But think:

1) Federalism and States' Rights. Not those states' rights. Not code words for boiling the Mandingo. The real deal: 10th Amendment Empowerment. A commitment to rolling back the grasp of the federal bureaucracy. Really, this time.

2) National Economic Platform: The Whigs pioneered using the collective economic might of the combined states to forge progress and change. I'm down with that, because it funds:

3) Strong National Defense. And the cajones to project that might where applicable. Regime change, destroying terror masters, and all that entails.

4) A little leavening of small "l" libertarianism. The kind that doesn't play ostrich, and coddle the anti-globalists. Stick to politics and let the social agenda work itself out. The GOP gets hijacked off the agenda all the time by the religious right. I, personally, think the religious right has far less influence on the national GOP than is popularly believed, but they do have a way of derailing the agenda, and providing fodder to the media. Robertson and Falwell are shrieking insane baboons. And while they don't have the blood on their hands Al Sharpton does, they're nonetheless gadflys one could do without.

The Whigs. Conservative, libertarian, and secular. I'm signing up.

BOOYAH FOR THE MARLINS

They played a mighty Series. I wonder if they'll get pink slips with their bonus checks, like last time?

SOMETHING FOWL IS AFOOT IN COCK COUNTRY

Everyone gets so worked up over state flags with Confederate emblems on them. Personally, I think they should be raising hell over the South Carolina flag:



This looks like the flag of a jihadi cult nation. Throw in a star or a camel, we've got real issues.

I think I'll register my indignation in person the next time I'm in Dar-es-Columbia.

MICHAEL "I WANT" MOORE

Tim Graham highlights a letter to the editor of the Rocky Mountain News by a mother of one of the Columbine victims. Seems my favorite aspirating turd invited the families of the victims to an early screening of Bowling For Columbine, and was going to charge them admission. What a fucking greedhead that morbidly obese dung beetle is.

WASHINGTON WAS A MOONSHINER

Yet another reason to like the Big Guy. Link via Andrew Stuttaford.

TAWSE I LOVE YOU, BABY

Years ago my brother-in-law found an old magazine at the chemical plant where he worked. I don't remember the name of it, but it was a British publication devoted to spanking. Very poor quality, all the pics in black and white. Most of these were of girls getting whipped by some guy dressed up like an Oxford don. Kind of a Goodbye, Mr. Whips motif.

I DO remember two of the articles. Two for Tanning was about a father who had whipped his son and daughter for mutual erotic pleasure all of their lives. Now they were grown, but still stopped by dear old dad's occasionally for a good hiding.

The other story was called Doreen Gets The Tawse, wherein our heroine enjoys the satisfaction only to be found in a good ass-whupping.

What's a tawse, you ask? Why, it's a rubber or leather whip that's splayed at the end for extra punishment. This was pre-Internet, and I never saw such a thing mentioned anywhere else, ever.

I recalled that magazine today, for some reason, and just had to go a-Googlin'. Look what I found:



A genuine tawse. 45 pounds at Top-To-Bottom Leather. I guess it's still a British thing.

I'd get one, but that's a pretty steep price for a novelty. Christmas is just around the corner, though. And tell me: does any other blogger bring you this kind of exotica?

THE MARK OF A GENTLEMAN

In my blogging frenzy I overlooked the Peoria Pundit. Shame on me. And yet he linked me anyway. That's cool.

By the way: I'm going to the Jacksonville Sea & Sky Spectacular Sunday, to see the Blue Angels, and if I see Neal Boortz I'm going to tell him his buddy Hannity is a pussy.

And, Bill, don't let this reflect on you, man. Probably should have been a separate blog.

WOMEN OVER 60 I WOULD DO

Hey. I know it's a short list, but I think it's important that men acknowledge the fact that mature women can be sexy. I'm all over the Older Woman-Younger Guy Paradigm, okay? So let us begin:

Shirley Jones.

Okay, so it's a really short list. Let's try again:

Barbara Walters. Yeah, she chaps my ass too, but I'm thinking a little wine, a little duct tape, we have a score here.

How old is Mary Tyler Moore? Over 60, for sure. On the list.

Rhoda Morganstern Valerie Harper? On the list.

Sophia Loren? Hell, she might be on the over seventy list, I'm not sure. Pencil her in.

Brigitte Bardot? Off the list. She spent the last thirty years baking in the sun and castrating donkeys. A Burnt Case. Off the list. And that pains me.

Raquel Welch. On The List. Excuse me while I punt. There. I'm better now.

Barbara Bush. Kiss my ass. Everyone has a deep dark secret. That's mine. Can we Move On?

Joan Collins. Done. And done again.

You realize at this point I was thinking counting on one hand. Now I'm counting on my toes. I can't believe there are that many sexy women over sixty. But that's because I'm an idiot. Let's move on:

Barbara Stanwyck. Okay, so she's been dead for 13 years. It's a FANTASY, people. Did you ever see the Big Valley episode where the Other Woman wanted Babs' ranch, and kidnapped her and held her in a cave and bullwhipped her? No? You sad fuck. Let's move on.

Julie Andrews. Oh. My. God.

I posit the theory that Julie flashing her beautiful breasts in 1981's S.O.B. was far more risque than anything Tarantino has ever done. THAT was a 46 year-old Julie, and a huge stretch for her husband Blake Edwards, who directed the film.

Julie is On The List.

This is getting old, actually. Tell me YOUR fantasies of the over sixty crowd. Ladies?

SCALES, LIFTED

Oh, Jesus. While I was playing linky lover The Bride was giving Caroline the Dirty Lowdown on Santa. And Rudolph. And the Tooth Fairy. And Tingles, the Elf, a fiction we'd created twelve years ago for Emily. Tingles was the elf who always kept an eye on you, year 'round, to make sure you were a Good Chirren.

It was time. Skeeter will be 11 in December, and starting middle school next year. She was getting Bad Vibes from the older kids at dance, and she had to know.

It still sucks. She's upset, and crying. The last childhood bubble burst. We're All Adults Now. Ah, man. I can't believe it lasted this long. My older brother popped my Santa bubble when I was, like, six. I was rifling my old man's wallet by the next season to create my own Christmas fund. Oh, the pain.

BARFLY BLOG

Remember how in Barfly whenever Mickey Rourke would get a little coin in his pocket instead of trying to better his life he'd go back to the bar and buy rounds, yelling "TO ALL MY FRIENDS!"? Well, this is kinda like that... and I'm going to start at the bottom of my alphabetic roll, because as the V-man I know you people are usually too tired to link me in your lovefests. That IS why, right?

Kevin reminds us of the next Bonfire. My problem is, all my posts suck so bad I can't find a weakest link...

I want a costume of that Mercury dude at Tony's, for those times when The Bride won't let me be Carl from Slingblade in our sexual role-playing.

Tiger has a nice slice-of-life on Seth, the man I hope to be in precisely 50 years.

Just for the record, I think I exhibited enormous restraint in not commenting on Sugarmama's sexblog. But I was thinking it, by God.

Someone please take Kelley out tonight and show her a good time. Stein? Ben Stein?

The Straight White Guy is off to Gatlinburg, and he didn't invite us. That's just wrong. Let's trash his comments while he's gone.

Oceanguy has a nice recap of Natan Sharansky's visits to American college campuses. It would be sad if it didn't boil my blood. I feel like I'm living in the Fourth Reich sometimes.

Our favorite Social-Reject has had issues with her local tag office. Never been there! She's also in Demolition Man mode, so back off.

David recounts a nitrous trip I wish I'D taken. Although I must say after the Valium drip for my wisdom teeth I got spoiled. Gas was never the same...

Single Southern Guy touches on a topic I find near and dear to me perfectly abhorrent.

Serenity explains it all. All I wanted to know, anyway.

Sama has great advice for surviving solar doom. Walter Pidgeon could have used this advice.

Rocket Jones brings us Betty Bowers. She's the kind of uptight parodic Christo-freak that turns me on.

Zombyboy is feeling the pain for his Broncos. Living in Jaguarland I'd love to commiserate, but bite me, dude! Your team will rebound. Mine is on life support. And we had Beuerlein, too, back when dirt was new!

Anna is waxing nostalgic on February-December romances... Daddy, of course, like.

Parkway Rest Stop brings us a story of, well, disgusting implications.

Jay Solo's Carnival Of the Capitalists is quickly moving him into Big Dog Territory. Good on 'im. I'd submit an entry, but I AM $32 million below plan this year. It just wouldn't seem right...

Pamibe takes the Cougar boy to the woodshed for a fisking. Well done.

Laura confesses to a taste for yeast confections. Oh, the humanity!

Fritz brings us the Monster Match. Way frigging cool, I say.

Mr. Helpful has a new episode of Bionic Dick up. No pun intended.

Margi understands what I've been thinking for a long time. There are real fonts and cute fonts. I've always considered comic sans to be what I call a bastard font. I use it in all e-mails. It drives people batshit.

Lomojunkie shares my aversion to flu shots. I haven't had one in almost 30 years, and won't, and I've NEVER had the flu in my life. I DID have the Screaming Meemie Trots this week, though. Still with me, actually. I'll never mock Depends again.

Paul Jackson introduces us to the toughest hombre I've ever heard of. The Iceman. When my blog makes me famous and I need a bodyguard, Sigurdur Petursson is my man.

You don't pick a post to link from this Whoredog. You just go read it all.

The Grouchy One is in bitchslap mode. I always enjoy his work, even if he didn't invite me to go scuba diving in Bonaire with him, the wretch.

Robert Goodwin expounds on a subject that's been bothering me, too. Katie Couric and company whoring Elizabeth Smart. All I've seen, and ever will see, was the trailer. I was disgusted to see Katie trying to match wardrobes with a 15 year old girl. Give it up, Katie. We've seen your polypy old colon.

My buddy Janis is going to a visitation, as I did last week. It's called being an adult, and doing the right thing. Make the best of your trip, girl. And glad I could help with the blinds.

Eschew has one of his patented blogfodders up. It even has a link to a Blackbird manual! He da man.

The Electric One 'splains her coffee druthers. Of course it's Kona. But I have a quarter pound of Jamaican Blue Mountain I want to send her way. Variety is the spice, they say, of life.

Geoffrey is doing the deed for Little Hearts, a noble cause indeed. Do The Right Thing and stop by and reach deep. I beseech you.

Dizzy-girl bought some Mary-Kate and Ashley lipstick. Looks great, too. Maybe I should rethink things and return the Bette Davis And Olivia DeHavilland Lipstick I bought The Bride...

Jeff at 15 October has a great post up with his future supermodel. What a stunner. All I'm gonna say, Jeff, is keep her away from Solo!

De Doc, who knows these things, punctures the Canadian medical miracle myth. Read it.

My Homie Dax has Karaoke Night tonight. Please feel his pain. And remember, Dax, we ALL have Karaoke night every day. There's always some fucktard pretending to speak real words while the Man Behind The Curtain pulls his strings. Or something like that. Pardon me. I've been at this for a while, and I'm getting punch-drunk.

I could have linked to this girl's Acidman responses, because they were actually well thought out, but this is a better post, to me. I liked it.

Phillip Coons has let his Freudian Slip show. I, for one, applaud his decision.


LeeAnn wants to know what Rocky Horror character you are. Negative. I will not take these quizzes. I know I'll end up being a cornholed Barry Bostwick. I don't need the pressure.

Stevie alternately slaps my funny bone and breaks my heart. She's the Real Deal. I like her tremendously.

Bogie's been keeping such a low profile lately, I had no idea she was a womanimal. I have an opening, girl.

McGeehee explores the Nunn of the above viewpoint. Geez, I was never a Sam Nunn fan, but has it only been ten years since the Democrats had a bona fide defense champion in the Senate? So sad...

Baldilocks, true to form, reminds us to remember our sacred 241. Just cool.

Do you people know Attaboy? Well, you should. 'Nuff said.

Say hello to Annessa. She's a local who makes me proud. Well, anyone who shares my dirty laundry problem makes me proud. Nonetheless!

Dawn has an excellent idea. Go visit Space.com. I know I do. Hey, that's my ancestors up there. It's YOU people who claim to be descended from apes. I'm the Godlike offspring of despicable genetic experimentation between aliens and baboons. And proud of it.

Allah has to be hating life. The Gotham Jews versus the Miami Jews in the World Series. Crimson Jihad is cooling their heels in the Bekkaa Valley, waiting for pitchers and catchers.

Donnie doesn't seem to grasp the fact his tax dollars are better spent on Congressional payraises than on his beer budget. He should be ashamed. Angry white male, indeed. It's for The Children, dude.

And, finally...

The Accidental Jedi. Immerse yourself. Think Calgon...

I know there are typos. I don't give a shit. I'll fix it later. Right now, I deserve a cocktail.

I HOPE HE GETS RAPED

A jury gave local psychofuck William Joe Jarvis life in prison for the package-bomb murder of his ex-wife. Jarvis' bomb was filled with BB's and gasoline-filled condoms. That's right. He didn't just want to pump her full of metal. He wanted her to burn, too.

Good Goddamighty. What does it take to get the death penalty in this state? Oh. Killing an abortionist.

Jarvis' sentence WAS handed down by a jury of his peers, which leads me to believe she must have been a real bitch.

HUZZAH! 3

Get yer Ann Coulter doll here! I still think I have some of that duct tape left over from the Killer Barbie room at the Haunted House, too.

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE PLACE?

I mentioned The Tobacco Company in Shockoe Slip is one of my favorite restaurants. I eat there every time I go to Richmond. The food is great artery-clogging steak, the ambiance is old tobacco warehouse, you can smoke cigars. I don't think there is a non-smoking section. If you don't like smoke in the air, hit the road. Did I mention all the girls wear elegant sleeveless black cocktail dresses? Very nice.

My favorite place, though? If I could hang out for the night anywhere? I have my issues with Memphis, many of them documented here, but in all fairness I WILL say the best place in the world to chill is the Lobby Bar of the Peabody Hotel. This is the ultimate venue for voyeurs.

It is a great, wide bar expanding off the Peabody's lobby areas, full of mahogany and overstuffed furniture. Sitting here at two AM of a Saturday night, nursing a Ketel One on the rocks, is Nirvana. Over here you have a couple in tuxedo and cocktail dress, having a drink after a charity auction. Over there are a couple of rockers who just played a gig at the Pyramid. There is a young couple on a first date. Next to you might be some neckbones come to the Big City from Paragould, Arkansas or Tupelo, Mississippi. The Lobby Bar is the quintessential crossroads of humanity.

The Peabody Ducks are pretty cool, too, especially if you like eccentric tradition. The ducks of course live in a room on the penthouse level, and have a doorman take them down the elevator to the lobby every morning at eleven, where they walk across a red carpet to the lobby fountain to the strains of John Philip Sousa's "King Cotton March". After swimming in the fountain all day the red carpet comes back out at five, and they retire to their penthouse. 365 days a year, for 76 years.

The nonsensical nature of this pageantry appeals to me.

So what about you? What's your favorite place? A particular Irish pub in Boston? A barbecue joint in Soperton? A special cafe in Fisherman's Wharf? A tattoo parlor in Daytona Beach? The smoking dungeon lounge at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport?

Tell me where you like to hang. I'm always looking for new places to get tossed from.

ANTI-BLOCKAGE

So there I was, in one of my favorite restaurants in the world, The Tobacco Company in Richmond, enjoying a 13-ounce slab of medium prime rib with a party of 7, when the stomach virus that had ravaged my chirren over the weekend announced itself in most approbrious fashion. I nearly created a sub-genre in this brotherhood. In fact, if I hadn't knocked that old lady over at the end of my mad dash I would have lost. Although for some reason I was not wearing my digital stopwatch I have the gap between catastrophe and mere degradation pegged at .62 seconds.

Remind me to expound on this story tomorrow. The horror is still too fresh to cast an objective eye upon it. Two Key Phrases: Oyster-colored slacks and Boxer Shorts.

BLOCKAGE

No, not that kind. That's a blog for a different day. It's coming, though. No, I refer to Internet blockage, which no amount of roughage will cure.

Every day, it seems, more and more sites and bloggers get blocked at work. Personally, I resent a red hand held up warning me I Can't Go There. A Stalin Red Heil Hitler hand it is, with suspiciously clean fingernails.

It started with the usual, of course. Sugarmama and Da Goddess, for instance. Months ago. Um hum. I can almost see that. Some trigger words there. But now it's devolved to such deviant flesh peddlers as Lileks and Instantman. Jesus. I can access Acidman, but not his comments. I believe they have this paradigm backwards.

Yet my Outlook account is a wide open free-for-all, with spam for cock stretchers, chubby pills, shaved Asian sluts, wide open gaping anus beggars, not-even-barely-legal-but-unabashedly-prepubescent children awaiting my Special Sauce, whizz-gulpers, and razorcock-brandishing refi mortgage lenders all queuing up in my Inbox. 200 a day is mild.

Better not read that Bleat, though, you Cursed Freak.

I need to have a serious talk with my IT handlers. Perhaps if I explain I don't need the spam, or want the spam, that I am the Control Group for Johnson Enhancement, and every Viagra has a little bit of my DNA embedded in it, I can at least get a crack at some nanotechnology blogging, or the latest Gnat At The Fair pic.

Is that asking so much?

ANOTHER BLOGGER EXPAT

Straight White Guy has Made The Move. I know the feeling. That first post is like the first time you romp after the Big V. Or the first time you romp after claiming you had the Big V. Same thing.

Now about that blogroll, man...

FHCPD*

I lost a screw in my cheaters this morning. You know what cheaters are, right? The reading glasses we mature folk over, ah, 25 must resort to so as to look like the lesser of ADA victims (decrepit as opposed to blind).

Of course the ONLY 150's the airport newsstand had were half moons in a tropical rainbow motif. Plunked down twelve bucks for the shits, because if I can't smoke on a plane I'm going to read.

I looked like the bastard offspring of Charles Nelson Reilly and Sally Jesse Raphael in these fuckers. And I'm certain the tres hot Melanesian flight attendant did not believe me when I told her I HAD TO BUY THESE so I could read the SPORTS SECTION and immerse myself in MANLY PURSUITS.

She threw me the pack of peanuts, but never brought my Diet Coke.

I paid twelve bucks for those hideous magnifiers that screamed regularly fisted choreographer, then threw them in the trash at JIA.

I just can't win.

*My cri de coeur: FartHellCockPissDamn!

QUESTIONS FOR THE BLOGGERATI

Acidman has some interview questions. He wanted answers in his comments section or an e-mail, but I'm too lazy to jump back and forth to the questions, so I'll answer them here:

1) Does anybody really see a correlation between the size of a man's feet or his nose and the size of his penis?

Stangely enough, I have big feet, a big nose, and big ears to boot, but only an average penis. Eight inches would be average, right? I've never measured another man's willie.

2) If you are a woman, would you ever get a tit-job? If so, why?

Yes! Why? Pleasure and vanity. In fact, I've often considered giving myself huge tits just so I could play with them all the time.

3) If you are a man, would you buy a bionic Roscoe if your dick quit working? If so, why?

I'd buy a fucking trionic Roscoe, if they made them. Why? To give my left hand something to play with while my right hand was playing with the big tits I gave myself in Question 2.

4) Did you ever sleep with someone and wake up in the morning unable to remember their name? If not, WHY NOT?

Oh, yes. Myself. Several times. Unfortunately, there was usually someone around to remind me who, in fact, I was.

5) Which would you rather have for a pet? A DOG or a CAT? If you answer "cat," you've got some serious explaining to do.

I've always preferred dogs to cats, but I'm so lazy now if you can't shit in your designated receptacle, and be left abandoned for three days, you're not living with me.

6) Do you eat grits for breakfast?

Why, yes, just this morning. In a greasy spoon in Portsmouth, Virginia. Mixed up my scrambled eggs in them, too, and tossed a little Tejas Pedro on top. It looked like a Planned Parenthood dumpster, but tasted great.

7) What is the most dumb-ass thing you ever did in your life? Was it fun or has it haunted you for years?

This was going to be my Embarrassing Question for Friday, actually, but since I will NEVER reveal that story I'll pass here. I will say it did not include bestiality, homosexuality, or florasexuality. Well, better scratch that last one.

8) Do you exceed the speed limit regularly when you drive, or just do it occasionally? Don't tell me that you NEVER SPEED you lying shit! Tell the truth!

I always exceed the speed limit. Those laws aren't meant for me. They're for the regular folk. I look at speed limits as recommendations. It is true certain law enforcement entities disagree with this position.

9) Describe the happiest day you can remember living.

Split decision. Emily's birth, and Caroline's birth. Or the day I closed out Super Mario Brothers. I said it was a split decision, didn't I?

10) Do you believe that some things are worth dying for? If so, name one thing worth dying for and tell me why you feel so strongly about it.

There are PLENTY of things worth dying for: freedom, liberty, the Colonel's Secret Recipe, the right to lick nine-volt batteries, plunging over Niagrara Falls, spelunking the Courtney Love Canal, having ones foreskin reattached. Oh, you mean me dying for? Well. Belay that nine-volt battery thing.

I'M LIKE MIKE

For some reason this week has put me in touch with one of my favorite topics, Mike The Headless Chicken:



You know Mike's story. Beheaded for dinner by Lloyd Olsen in Fruita, Colorado, in 1945, Mike lived for another 18 months. He had just enough brain stem left to swallow and shit and walk. Ted Kennedy operates under a similar physiological model.

In the months he lived before choking to death Mike grew from 2 and a half to 8 pounds. A terse "no comment" from Teddy on that fact.

I wish people had paid a case quarter to see me this week, though.

ALLAH...

is apparently in the Hosting Matters house again.

ACK!

Off to Norfolk and Richmond tomorrow. And because I care about my company I'll be flying the Southwest Cattle Call:



I'll also leave my Hilton Honors, Marriott Rewards, and Starwood Sheraton cards in my pocket and execute a points transaction with my Holiday Inn Priority Club card:



I WILL conjure the Feasts of Zeus, however. Some things you can't scrimp on. My belly is one of them; fresh seafood in Virginia Beach, Delmonico steaks in Shockoe Slip. I'll manage, somehow. Back Thursday.

JUST A WORD...

One thing I like about my man Den Beste:
He's so terse....

ALL THAT CANNOT BE DIVIDED

becomes part of us. I'm watching Stevie Winwood on Austin City Limits and I'm asking myself HOW DID THIS COME TO BE?

It doesn't matter, really. Because it's cool.

It does remind me of something, though:

My lil bro is awash in cash, and buys some strange and good stuff. WITNESS: He has a laserdisc of Alice Cooper in concert in 1973, I reckon by my stopwatch, and Alice is in Rare Form. He's wearing a plasticine jumpsuit that is cut Just Far Enough below his navel that we are all invited to see the Disgusting Scar that traces itself from his navel to his crotch. Appendicitis? No, man. Gnarlier than that. This thing is indescribable. It's like he had this costume MADE to accentuate this scar tissue.

Well, actually, he did. He Had to have done this. The suit V's down to his cock and scar, and the Camera keys on it. It's so disgusting I must find a way to share it with you. Alice Cooper. Fuckin' A. What a guy.

UPDATE: Watching Stevie work that (apparently pre-64) Seafoam Green Stratocaster is nice. Makes you forget Stevie is a a keyboard man.

There's a guitar store in Memphis that will sell you these axes that have fallen upon hard times. I've been in there, and talked some smack with the owners, but didn't know my ass from my sphincter, to be honest with you. Acidman is a guitar man. He'd know better than me.

READ

this story and tell me the Blogosphere isn't the coolest place on the face of the Earth.

A MEMO TO AMERICAN EXPRESS:

You people are totally fucked. I've spent 8 hours today trying to check out my THREE accounts with you cocksuckers, and all you can give me is this:

Our System is Not Responding

You may experience intermittent delays. We apologize for this inconvenience.

While we are working to correct the problem, you can:

Try again by hitting the Back, Refresh or Reload buttons on your web browser
Try your request again later today

If you are trying to make a payment, you can pay via telephone by calling 1-800-472-9297

Thank you

Uh, fuck you, AMEX. I wasn't trying to make a payment. I was trying to figure out what you did with my last one. Why don't you THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX and GIVE ME A FUCKING TELEPHONE NUMBER for THAT particular problem?

You assholes used to be Customer Service Personified. Now you've apparently outsourced this Critical Function to a backroom of Yanomami tribesmen who are so excited about seeing an actual photo of their penises they can't concentrate on the Blinking Plastic Box next to them. The worst part? These cocksuckers are probably outearning ME!!

You can still redeem yourselves, AMEX Fucks. 5 days at the Sandals Paradise Island will quell my rage. IF you fix my earlier problem.

A hint: I think I can talk The Bride into a three-way, IF the girl is young and fresh.

Or Andy Garcia.

The Bride insisted on hedging that bet. I can hardly blame her. She IS signed up for this, after all.

WANNA SEE SOMETHING COOL?

Check this puppy out. A gold embossed, ruby-studded, dragon-themed cloisonne ceremonial plate. Given to me by the Minister of Railways of the Peoples Republic of China about three years ago. The ChiComs had come over to see how railroads run in the West. (Hint: Bamboo makes bad crossties.)

Gift-giving is part of the protocol. I gave him a Waterford clock.

Funny part? He asked how many people worked for me. I said 3. I asked him how many people worked for him. He said 3 million. Got that? 3 MILLION. That's a lot of performance reviews.

Sad part? This guy was a Politburo member, from what I gathered, and yet he had a political handler stuck to him like a fly on shit. A 30-something punk who never said a word, had no clue what was going on. Just there to throw this guy under the bus with the Peiping warlords if he stepped out of line. Or blow his brains out with a handy pistol wafted into the country in a diplomatic pouch should the potential defection become too imminent.

Sad, indeed, but that's his problem. I gots my own.

I brought this down off my plant ledge, were it resides with the Turkish hookah pipe my brother brought me from Instanbul in 1975, and the bamboo-shaft putter my dad used in the fifties. It was not only time for a cleaning: the kitten has learned how to scale and patrol the kitchen plant ledges, and this baby was due for a knock-over and shattering. I couldn't let THAT happen.

TRIVIA QUESTION

Q: Who does the hand-clapping in I Wanna Hold Your Hand?

A: I have no frigging idea. Nor do I care, really.

Nonetheless:

Trivia questions seem like a good Saturday night diversion. Try to stump me. I swear I will never, ever use Google. Nothing too esoteric, now.

And no, Catherine The Great did NOT die underneath a turgid stallion. Too bad, too, because I've painted that picture several times, and apparently NONE of those efforts will ever hang in the Winter Palace.

GEORGIA

looked like hammered dogshit against Vandy today. Well, actually, they SOUNDED like hammered dogshit, because it wasn't televised here. That's okay. I like listening to Larry Munson anyway. I always turn on the radio and turn the sound down on the TV when the Dogs are on, because Munson is so great. But he's better when you just listen and let him paint the picture for you. Munson is a Golden God. And internet radio is a wonderful thing.

Having said that, the Dogs offense better be glad they have a huge D. 27-8 against Vandy is pathetic. Even if they were uninspired. My niece graduated from Vandy in May, by the way, and her brother is at Georgia. Good blood feud there. Hopefully money changed hands with them today.

I FINALLY TOOK OFF

the training wheels and set up an RSS aggregator, which Kate told me to do in June when she set up my feed. #&@&$# sweet! Of course I still have to check out Splatters and non-feeders manually. It took about fifteen minutes for that process to seem archaic. But that's the kind of person I am. Late Adopter, Early Sneerer.

I'm using Bloglines. It seems okay.

JUSTIN OWES ME MONEY IS A LUCKY LAD

Dress: $90
Shoes: $40
Necklace: $20
Bracelets: $10
Manicure: $38
Perfume: $36
Body glitter: $8

Seeing your daughter off to her first homecoming dance?
Priceless $242.

ARTHUR BREMER

Remember Artie? He shot a Democratic frontrunner, too, just like Sirhan. Go try to find a picture of the guy. Or a bio. You'll find the usual pap. Dysfunctional family, daddy was an alkie, wah wah wah.

We all like to laugh about the McGovern shellacking in 1972, and how out of touch the Democratic Party was with the electorate, but back up. Wallace was winning big at the time he was shot. Not as an Independent, like 1968, but as a bona fide Democrat. He'd cold-smoked the competition in Michigan, and was a serious contender when he was shot. I think Wallace could have taken Nixon in '72. Republicans HATED Nixon. Wallace was the choice between a somewhat normal REALPOLITIK guy and the skyhooking freak McGovern, and he was touching some very sore racial buttons. Believe me. Racial tensions were at such a point in '72 Wallace had a real chance.

Now I'm no conspiracy theorist, but who exactly had Wallace shot? Bremer ain't talking. Never has. The Big Media has never shown any interest. Who cares who shot a racist mutherfucker?

It goes deeper than that, though. Again, I'm no conspiracy theorist, but why can't I even Google a pic of Bremer? I mean the one in the shades we used to see back then?

My take? Nixon. Wallace was not only a threat, he was the last great gasp of the Good Old Boy side of the Democratic Party, so beautifully exemplified by Robert Byrd. (How can the Dems accept that old Klansman into their circle, anyway? For a fucking vote? Spare me.)

UNCLE JOHNS

Go meet someone I wish I'd met. I have uncles like this, although they didn't raise me. A shame, in a way. Not that I didn't appreciate my parents, and love them, but it's nice to be that close to other family members. I would have loved to spend some time with John, and pick his brain. I HAVE an Uncle John, as a matter of fact. I don't see him enough. He's about eighty now. WWII, Korea, Vietnam. An enlisted man, he was a huge beast of a man who became one of the first Special Forces selectees in The Great War, and was a Green Beret trainer in Vietnam. He's still a physical fitness freak, unlike me, and living large. And although he's a big bad man he's actually a pussycat, and one of the gentlest people I've ever met. I love him tremendously. These two Uncle Johns could have traded some tales.

THE ULTIMATE GEORGIA-FLORIDA FLASK

In classic Red and Silver:



A Yuri Gagarin Soviet Commemorative Flask. Ergonomically designed to get past the Florida State Troopers. Buy It Now on Ebay for $16.99. Daddy like.

KILL BILL

I don't know if I'm going to spring to see this in the theater. Probably so. My expectations are pretty low. I like my splatter gore a little more Herschel Gordon Lewis, if you know what I mean.

My biggest bitch with Tarantino is his insistence on casting Uma Thurman in lead roles. As somebody once said, I'd like to buy her for what she's worth and sell her for what she thinks she's worth. She damned near ruined Pulp Fiction. She is the equivalent of Eastwood putting Sondra Locke in his movies, or Lennon putting Yoko on stage with him. I've never forgiven JL for Don't Worry Kyoko.

Caveat: I am not equating these women on a Screw Scale. I'm equating them on a Talent Scale.

You know what else pisses me off? Uma's known in this movie as The Bride. Where's my fucking royalties??? Little brother, QT would likely pay $600k or so just to make me go away. Paperwork, please.

JEFFREY DAHMER'S FRIDAY FIVE

1. Name five things in your refrigerator.

A nice 3-spleen salad.
A vial of adrenochrome distilled from the adrenal gland of a Jehovah's Witness.
A Zip-Lok baggie of pineal glands, harvested from a Cub Scout outing.
Toes (assorted).
Left-brain soup, with leeks.

2. Name five things in your freezer.

Billy's liver.
Pot-belly roast.
Braised buttock of Laotian boy.
Black barber cock gumbo.
Ted Williams' head in an orzo stock.

3. Name five things under your kitchen sink.

Surgical gloves.
Bone saw.
Rapala fillet knife.
Antibacterial cleanser.
Chitterling scrubber.

4. Name five things in your crawl space.

Jason, that silly shit.
Wall chains.
Toilet Bucket.
Rubber mask with gag-ball.
Bones. Lots of bones.

5. Name five things in your medicine cabinet.

Bismuth.
Dental floss.
X-acto knives.
Empty lithium bottle.
Unfilled prescriptions.

CATS, FIENDS?

Alphecca has a good post on pets that I found at Sketches of Strain. It reminded me of a cat story from way back, for some reason.

New Year's Eve, 1988: The Bride and I used to party on amateur night back then, but this party was at least nearby at Fat Jack's (yes, I used to hang with people named Fat Jack). When we got home I built a fire, then sprawled on the floor in front of the fire and passed into the Dead Zone. I must have cracked the window by the fireplace to leaven the temperature from the blaze, because I woke up about three and there, right next to my head, was a freakish sight.

We had a mean-assed feral cat named Shelley that shot out litters on a regular basis. She was too mean to capture and get fixed. We just kept hoping she'd run away.

She'd recently had her second litter, and while I slept she'd apparently gone a huntin' for the brood. When I awoke I saw, in the flickering shadows from the fire, a dead baby rabbit deposited about a foot from my head. The three kittens were in a frenzy, sproinging into the air in a macabre dance of death around the carcass. They were pumped. Shelley sat a few feet away, pleased. I tossed the thing out the window before they could begin the Feast of Felix, but I learned something that night.

Cats will do weird shit behind your back they would never let you see. And while I like my cats, I have no doubt in my mind if I died alone they would feed off my flesh until it was too putrid to eat. No sense of moral obligation at all.

RED ALERT

Acidman, I thinks she's teasing you.

IT'S ABOUT TIME...

I'm finally seeing commercials for Master and Commander, the Russell Crowe take on Patrick O'Brian's novels. I'm a huge fan of the novels, having read 13 of the 20 (Patrick died in 2000, so I'm saving the last 7). Crowe will be serviceable in the lead as Lucky Jack Aubrey, although I would have 1) followed the novels instead of corrupting several plots into one movie, because that's a freaking 20 movie franchise, potentially, and 2) gone with someone younger. I'm also unsure of Paul Bettany as Maturin, who is the real thread of the narratives. Bettany is a fine actor, but Maturin should be played by a young F. Murray Abraham type.

My big bitch is it's been in the can since December, and was supposed to premiere in July, but Pirates of the Caribbean scared them off, so they delayed it until mid-November. Trailer's great, though.

A SIMPLE QUESTION

Stevie brings up a good point in a comment. I often transpose letters typing. Does that mean I'm lysdexic, or just a typing spaz? And are there any dyslexics and spazs I have not offended?

VERY SCARY

I went to my daughter's haunted house at the high school tonight, and it was great! Since I'd helped build it I was hoping it would be good, and it was. Both of my daughters were in the Killer Barbie room, with Emily being Killer Barbie, and little Caroline being Slasher Skipper. I'd hung all their Barbie dolls from the ceiling, slathered in blood in various stages of bondage, with their arms and legs tied, and duct tape across their mouths. Hey, it wasn't my idea, but I'm waiting for the lawsuit.

See, kids don't learn violence from watching violent movies, they inherit it. From people like me.

DOWN TIME?

Hosting Matters is down, I reckon. I figured that out, so I can quit calling Comcast and cursing some somnambulistic puke who put my name on a Homeland Security watch list.

Personally, I think Allah did it, for these sites did not praise Crimson Jihad, who are currently handing the Gotham Kufr their asses.

HUZZAH!

A Schlitzie resin figure:



Now you can play Freaks, too.

Thanks, Gina!

THIS GUY

has major issues. Many of which I share. I, too, was a bottle baby.

Hat tip to Jack Straw for the link.

CANAVERAL, WE GOTS ISSUES

I can't pull up anybody tonight. The few I could get earlier I can't get now. For what I pay Comcast for this broadband I'm getting boned. Deeply and with no tenderness whatsoever.

FROM BALSAMIC TO BALSA

All you never wanted to know about balsa wood. Although I did leave a comment espousing my theory that Guillow is trying to corner the balsa market. So if I can corner the world rubber band market, they'll have to come to ME to get their little machines to fly!

CHINAMEN IN SPACE!

My old man would not have understood. He'd probably claim they were dropping fluoride in our water from up there. Then, just to show he admired their initiative, he'd have praised the taikonaut for getting that white space suit so clean.

Personally, I hope they go to the moon, and get us off our collective butts.

UPDATE: The ChiComs deployed a spy satellite during this flight. No word on whether it contained fluoride.

TERRY SCHIAVO

I haven't weighed in on this situation, or the removal of her feeding tube, because I'm honestly of mixed emotions here. Part of me suspects her husband is a sack of shit who's ready to move on with his new (now ten years along) squeeze. Part of me also says this woman needs peace.

I don't know the truth here, and neither does anyone else. The only person who knows is Terry, and she can't respond. For all I know she is perfectly lucid but incapable of any response, terrified of what's happening to her. Or she could be laying there saying Do It! Please! I've been a miserable wretch for 13 years, and my life sucks! I just don't know.

What I DO know is, if her husband and this judge have decided it's her time, then don't starve and dehydrate her to death to wash any guilt away, and assume a posture of benign neglect. Stick a needle in her and be done with it. And if you don't have the guts to do that, then maybe you're doing the wrong thing.

I wouldn't starve a dog to death. Fuck no, and if I did I'd go to jail. What makes it okay to subject this woman to a week or 10 or 12 days of death by dehydration? If, IF she's coherent that's as mean-assed a piece of torture work as I've run across lately.

The point is nobody knows. So give her to her parents. They'll take care of her. There's money involved here, rehabilitation money that's apparently never been used, so there are peripheral issues I'm not very familiar with, but cast a suspicious pall on this whole scene. I tell you, though, after 13 years in this state her hopes of rousing are slim and none, and if she did awaken her body would be totally whacked.

So that's my take. Be a man and take her down painlessly, or let her parents nurture her and cling to their last pitiful vestige of hope. But don't starve her like a fucking animal.

If I'm Jeb Bush, I'm posting 3 National Guardsmen (oops, can't do that. They're all in Iraq) 3 State Troopers outside her door, putting that feeding tube back in, and demanding to know from that judge why any human being should die of thirst in my state. Make this fucker quit hiding behind his robes, and put up.

SALAD DAYS

I never write about salad dressing because, well, that's stupid shit. And yet, as I cast about for more obscure ways to convince my kids they live in the Glorious Future we only dreamed about as kids, what's more natural than to point to a half-length of grocery shelf with 800 bottles of dressing, and say See?

When I was a little chirren there were only 3 choices of salad dressing, at least at Byrd Brothers'. Bleu Cheese, French, and Italian. Period. Which meant there really was no choice at all. No kid in his right mind is going to eat Roquefort. All you had to do was smell it. It's texture and visuals as pus-like discharge only confirmed the fact that it was not be touched. No, Bleu Cheese was for sclerotic old men with bulbous noses, whose taste buds had been horribly malformed by years of scotch drinking to the point dogshit tasted like Apple Jacks. Naturally they'd like Bleu Cheese.

Italian dressing was likewise a non-starter. Why? It was clear. Kids don't eat clear food. There's no fun in that. Kids want color in their foods. Ever see clear breakfast cereal? I rest my case.

Which left French. It had color, for sure. It smelled benign. Sign me up. French dressing is awful. It's too tart. How tart? Well, as tart as a Marseilles street walker tart. But it was the last refuge of undeveloped buds.

Around the mid-sixties the marketing geeks at Seven Seas and Wishbone got intrepid, and brought out Russian and Thousand Islands. I liked those okay, just because they weren't French. Most Russian dressings are too sweet, but I'd talk my mom into buying it anyway. Made my dad think I was turning into a Trotskyite, never a bad thing.

Thousand Islands was mayo and ketchup cleverly disguised by pickle shavings. And the color was that of babyshit. Cool. One grows out of Thousand Islands pretty quickly, though, which makes the sale of Big Macs an eternal mystery to me.

The geeks weren't finished yet. Ere the sixties expired they had brought Golden Goddess to our tables, a particularly foul pastiche of cucumbers and Ipana toothpaste. You had to try it, of course. Look at the color! But only once. Now, if they'd called it by its full name, Cullings of the Green Goddess's Yeast Infection, we'd have never tried it. It's shit like this that causes little kids to distrust Madison Avenue types at an early age. That and making that G.I. Joe look like he was really flying. The lying bastards. How Ironic that I make my living in sales and marketing, eh?

My point? Kids have a ton of choices now. Especially Ranch. My kids blanche in pity when I tell them we didn't have Ranch dressing growing up. Now it is the ubiquitous dressing of choice. When did it sneak in there? Late 70's? Early 80's? I wasn't paying attention. Now there are bacon derivatives, raspberry vinaigrettes, Asian sesame, and teriyaki. Thick creamy Italian and ginger spice. I'm pretty sure I saw licorice and 44 cheeses varieties the last time I looked.

What do I eat? I usually whip up a vinaigrette with some balsamic vinegar and extra virgin olive oil. Sometimes I'll throw in some red onion, just so it has some color, you know?

SWEATIN' TO THE OLDIES

I attended Big John's visitation today. I'd wanted to hook up with Acidman for a brew afterwards, but my punk boss called a 9:00 meeting for Thursday morning, so I had to drive back to Jax from Savannah tonight.

Good seeing old friends, even in sorrowful times, but damn my palms sweat around that many judges in so tight a space. Even though I've known some for many years, it's still a lookin' in my mirror and seeing a po-lice car vibe. I was half-expecting old Judge Head to pass sentence on me for Aggravated Battery of The English Language, and Willful Abuse of A Minor Metaphor.

I'M UPSET, BUT HOPEFUL

I've been working like a fiend, for YOU, my loyal friends, for pics of the rest of the cast of FREAKS, and I'm turning up dummies, dammit.

I want a pic of Ko Ko the Bird Girl, and Schlitzie, the man-girl.

What I DO have is two pics:




I give you Elizabeth, your worst sexual nightmare, XXXXX. You owe me 23 dollars. That was hard stuff, indeed.

TRIPLE NIPPLES

I've never seen this anomaly, but the myth of the three-nippled girl ran strong when I was a high-schooler.

Nope, the only triple nipples I've ever seen were on a man. Precisely: Christopher Lee in The Man With The Golden Gun. That was the hit man Scaramanga's identifiable mark. Got that? The villain had three tits. Good God. If 1974 was a Great Year in Cinema (think Godfather, Part II and The Conversation) this movie was the nadir of the Bond franchise.

How did Lee get talked into this shit? More importantly, how did Roger Moore get talked into wearing a FAKE third tit to pass as Scaramanga? I don't think I watched a Bond flick after that until Timothy Dalton took over. Who wrote this shit? Well, I never read the Fleming book, but I don't think Ian was sitting on the veranda at Goldeneye in Jamaica thinking triple nipple. Richard Maibaum wrote the screenplay. He wrote ALL the Bond screenplays. Actually, he wrote from 1936 to 1991, the year he died. Ransom was based on his story.

Three titted hitmen, indeed. I could do better than THAT.

A GOODBYE TO A GREAT MAN

I got the call from my brother that a Great Man had passed away. John Calhoun was the seminal Savannah trial attorney, possibly the greatest the city has ever seen.

I'm partial to Big John's legacy, because I knew him virtually my whole life. John was an insurance man in Macon, then went to law school at Mercer, and after a few years of practice joined my father as Dad's partner in 1958.

Those two guys tore up the legal world in Savannah. As my father was also an out-of-towner, originally from Atlanta, they weren't part of the Old Boy Network in Savannah. In fact, my father cut his political teeth in the mid-fifties exposing and ridiculing those bluebloods, and winning State Senate seats in the process. Big John was the perfect foil when Dad went back into private practice.

They were gadflys and jokers, to an extent, because they loved to hammer the judges, but most importantly they Won Their Cases. Against a stacked deck of nepotism and downright jury-fixing. They weren't clowns. These men were not ambulance-chasers by any stretch of the imagination. They were Southern Gentlemen, and Brilliant Lawyers, and adhered to the Rights and Rituals of a Savannah Attorney. They argued cases in front of the United States Courts of Appeal, when required. They just were always going to get blackballed when the Oglethorpe Club opened the rolls every five years or so. Precisely because they were the best fucking lawyers in Savannah.

So when the Chatham Club opened in '67 they were invited in, and both said piss on it. In fact, when they tore down the old DeSoto Hotel in 1966 my father hauled off the beams from the Great Room, and put them in the Great Room of his farm house. They built the DeSoto Hilton on the site, and the Chatham Club occupied the top floor, but they didn't have those timbers. No fucking way.

Let me tell you my recollections of some famous cases by these men:

My father's most famous case was representing a 400 pound black bookie/gangster in Savannah named Sloppy Joe Bellinger. Sloppy Joe was so fat he'd fall asleep at a moment's notice, and my father, in the mid-sixties, got narcolepsy admitted as a legitimate legal defense for a continuance due to incapacity (The Pickwickian Syndrome! he'd cry. Read Your Dickens!).

My favorite Big John case? James Brown came to town in the sixties, in his prime. He owed some money from a previous gig, however, concerning limos and cars, and such. So John, representing the aggrieved party, had his vehicles impounded on the current tour. My father and John were having lunch at Anton's, as was their wont, when James Brown walked in and tried to negotiate to get his wheels back. "You gots me WALKING, MR. Calhoun! You gots me WALKING!" Big John just laughed. James paid up.

A bit of lineage: there was a great, flamboyant lawyer in Atlanta in the fifties and sixties (and seventies and eighties) named Bobby Lee Cook. Matlock was based on Bobby Lee, and the old coot's still kicking. I have pictures of my father and Bobby Lee in the State House in Atlanta in the fifties. They were kindred souls. John was part of that Brotherhood.

My father's health failed him in the early 70's, and he retired early. Big John kept plugging. Ran for mayor in '73, and got licked, but he didn't care. Fully developed the brand of total client advocacy he and my Dad had envisioned years before. Kept going. Worked his ass off. Built an empire. Raised some fine boys. My brother went to work for him about ten years ago, and spent a few years under the Master's wing. It was a great symbiotic thing. My brother wasn't a neophyte at the time. He'd worked for Steve Maples in Atlanta for some years after graduating law school, and had done another stint in the fambly practice. Little brother was in his stride when he hooked up with John, and they showed Savannah again how trial law is practiced.

My brother has run his own practice for close to ten years now, but I'll warrant he'd put his time with Big John up against any year he ever practiced, if fun and exhilaration are the yardsticks. He never got to practice with Dad, but he got to work with Big John. That is, as they say, priceless.

An attorney like John will work until they drop, unfortunately. It's a truism, but you apparently can't leave the game behind.

I'm going to miss him. The vacations as a kid, his fucking with me by always scratching his head and saying "What's up, Tim?"

A Great Man. God Bless him, and his family.

A Final Note: I noticed today that my Dad was mentioned in John's obituary. That's a nice touch, and I thank John's wife Diane for that, because I see her touch there. Thanks, Diane, and I'm thinking about you, and yours.

SPEAKING OF EYE CANDY

Coons has some fresh up. And why don't I know who Victoria Silvstedt is?

A LITTLE DIVERSITY, PLEASE

This town needs some white hookers. If they exist, they're failing Marketing 101: Make Your Presence Known In The Marketplace.

Not that I'm IN the market, mind you, but when I take Phillips Highway home because some asshat's jack-knifed his rig on Southbound 95 I want a little multi-culti in my eye candy. Some Asians would be nice, too.

UPDATE: Um... is there any part of "Not that I'm IN the market" that needs further explanation? The point is, if I have to look at this shit going home, then I want it to, well, look like the vast canvas that is America. You know, like the Clinton Adminstration.

THE FAIR STARTS TODAY

And while it's not the Coastal Empire Fair of my youth, it's sufficiently full of the quirky and bizarre to hold my attention. Of course, that's just the patrons. You don't get to see freaks at the circus anymore, which means these poor misbegotten misfires of nature have to stay at home and suckle on the government teat instead of earning an honest living letting the rest of us gawk at them for a dollah.

Sure, real freaks were on the way out in the early sixties, and I got burned a few times by charlatans passing off hippos and such as Incredible One Ton Women, but there were a few real geeks left back then. No Elephant Man, but some serious abnormalities sure to give you nightmares for weeks.

My dream trip to the fair? That's easy. Seeing Zip and Pip:

TOO MANY ISSUES

running around here. I might try the fragment thing if that old fraud Lawrence Ferlinghetti quits using the Dread Word Meme, and quits trading off his more talented buddies' works, lives, and deaths.

I prefer membrane. Now there's a word you can DO something with.

SHE'S GOT SAC!

I can't believe I wrote that. Anyway, get over to Suburban Blight for this week's roundup. That's a freaking pound of work for our pleasure. And thanks for the link, Kel.

PAGING GREGOR MENDEL

My Key Lime tree had produced one navel orange. How the hell does that happen? I don't understand citrus trees. My valencia orange tree reverted to wild lemon. I had to cut it down from 13 feet to one foot and nurse back the one valencia shoot while pruning the wild lemon shoots that keep popping up.

I thought this orange, which was on the ground at the base of the lime tree, had somehow been carted over there from an orange tree, but it's a navel orange, and I only have mandarins and valencias. Weird stuff, genetics.

JOEY BISHOP

I feel bad... somewhere Joey came up in a conversation but I lost the thead... so here's what I had to say about Joey once upon a time. This opinion prevails, by the way.

And, yes, Fuck Joey Bishop.

Oh, yeah. It was Kelley's Which Rat Pack Member Are You? I don't have to take that test. Everybody knows I'm Dino.

TITTIE BARS

I'm busy right now, so here's my old Blogspot take on adult entertainment...

PARDON ME

while I get parochial. But I really really wanted LSU to win today. So they'd win the SEC West. So Georgia could maybe win out, and LSU win out, and meet in Atlanta. Georgia wins THAT game and they can claim their only loss was in week 3 to a team they just beat. A lot of losses by other teams involved here, but there IS a scenario where the Dawgs get a shot. All I'm saying.

I WANT A MULLIGAN

When I had my sweet baby girls baptised into the Anglican Communion by our Appropriately Grave Bishop I thought I was doing the Right Thing. Had someone told me I could have had them Immortally Blessed By The Big Dawg I would have leapt at the opportunity. Of course, these things aren't always mutually exclusive. Thanks for the pic, Rob.

HALFTIME

Philip Fulmer is a moron. A greedy moron. Tennessee could have kicked a chip shot field goal and gone into half time down 3 points to a higher ranked team, and had the crowd on their side. When Tennessee lined up to Go For It I told The Bride "This is a stupid move. Anything can happen." When Tennessee fumbled it I just hoped Georgia would cover the ball. Instead they ran it back for a TD, and now instead of a 3 point game Tennessee is looking at a 13 point game.

Fulmer is so greedy. I'll bet he's just as greedy at the food line at the Golden Corrall. Do you think he blamed himself at the halftime speech? Doubt it.

P.S. I'm so glad we have Heather Cox on ESPN2 on the field instead of the rancid half-man Jill Arrington. I also apologize for subsuming my universal appeal to the masses to the vagaries of parochial SEC football.

BILL CURRY

Curry is color boy on the Georgia-Tennessee game, and it reminds me of his stint as the Alabama coach. In a game in 1990, I think, a Very Important Game, possibly a Bowl Game (I really can't remember, maybe the 33-25 loss to Miami in the Sugar Bowl that year?) some player, a black kid, had Fucked Up Bad. On the sidelines Bill was in this kid's face. An inch away, and screaming at the top of his lungs. Twice the poor kid's head would drift off to the side to soften the blow, and twice Curry grabbed this kid's facemask and SNAPPED his head back to attention. It was awful. I don't think Curry ever coached for 'Bama again after that game.

Was it Woody Hayes at the Gator Bowl? No. And I have no problem with jacking a kid when he screws the pooch. But this was abusive shit, and The Bear never would have done such a thing. It was Curry's frustration taken out on this boy.

Every time I watched that asshole Spurrier abuse a boy it always reminded me of Curry's tirade.

Fuck Bill Curry.

JUST CURIOUS

I have a question for Venomous Kate. When did Hawaii grow an apostrophe? Here's the Great Seal Of "Hawai'i":



I don't see no apostrophe there. Nor does their website have one. Is this a well-known effort to return to a truer spelling of the name, after it was bastardized and Anglicized years ago, and I'm out of the loop, as usual? I know the Polynesian language makes liberal use of apostrophes, or at least the original conversion into English did.

English interpretations of Chinese Mandarin went through this a while back. Mao Tse-Tung became Mao Zedong. Peking became Beijing (although I perversely still use Peiping, which had some traction for a few years in the seventies).

Again, I'm just curious. I don't want to look like a hillbill'y.

Oh, and a useless bit of information: The Great Seal was designed by Viggo "Aragorn" Jacobsen in 1895, when the island was a Republic. I believe Viggo envisioned the beach battle that resulted in James Cook getting his head stove in as the Battle of Helm's Deep. Just a theory.

WON'T YOU NOT BE MY NEIGHBOR?

Every few months I go to the website of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and peruse the Sexual Predator/Offender files, to see what's living around me. Let me tell, you, folks: I don't care how bucolic or serene or yuppiefied your neck of the woods seems. I don't care if you live in Mayberry, R Fucking D, there are sinister forces hovering in the shadows. To wit:



This sumbitch lives within a mile and a half of me. Sexual battery of a child under 12.



This sumbitch lives within four miles of me. Sexual battery of a child under 12.

There are 8 sex offenders in my Zip Code. Only two are listed as Predators. You just saw them.

I try to remember this when I leave my door unlocked, and neglect to use my a