The Horrible Grey Rhino King Is Hell's Messenger

This is shaping up to be one of those days that I have.

The Goonybird came into the kitchen this a.m. while I was wandering around the Web and began to pace back and forth, taking very deliberate, measured steps. He paused, then he resumed walking, only this time taking tiny little shuffling steps like a Parkinsons' patient. Suddenly he stopped, looked over at me, shook his head sadly, and sighed a long, dramatic sigh. Then he walked out.
Then he ran back in chasing a fly. "Wheddo go! Go! Go, bee! Tove no! Fooo! (blowing vigorously, flapping) Foo! Oo! Go car!"
Translation: "Where did you go? Aha, there you are; go! Go, bee! Oh, so you think you can baffle me with your foul imitation of a stove? I blow at you! I blow at you a second time! Oo, I heard a car go past."

I followed him and the fly into the front room, where he completely lost interest in it, walked over to the windowsill where my plants are, scooped up a handfull of potting soil and swallowed it.
"Hey! No no!" I said.
"No no!" he agreed, nodding, and walked away.

Now he is talking to the coffee table. I have no idea about what...I doubt the coffee table knows either. But it seems serious.

Usually it's the stove that gets this treatment. He and the stove seem to have a lot of ups and downs in their relationship. Sometimes he'll walk past and give it a friendly little kiss...and then other times that stove has just messed up like a big dog and gets read the riot act. "NO!" He'll yell, standing with his face thrust out belligerently at the oven door. 'Tove! You tove! Go car! go shoe car!"
Translation: "NO! You stove! You utter and complete stove! Just get in the car and go! Well; what I mean is, get your shoes first, then get in the car and go!"

And speaking of things that make you wished you'd remembered to wear your tinfoil hat....

When I was younger and everything was made of chipboard , I used to have birthdays. Now for a number of years there, starting in 73 and all the way up to about 81, every goddamn birthday someone, or two, or more, would give me a David Bowie record. Not too unusual a gift given the times, right? but odd in that I wasn't a David Bowie fan. At all. Nothing against the man, I just wasn't a Ziggy Stardust kinda person. I was not glam. I was daaaaaaaaaaaaaaark. You know...one of those world weary types who liked wearing black and leather and black leather and drinking beer and sitting around on the floor smoking dope. The music you would hear in my place (from about a block away) was either elderly black men singing about killing their wives, or Englishmen who sounded like elderly black men singing killing their wives.
Yeah, I was a riot.

And yet here I was with this all this fucking Bowie. I'd only opened one album over the years. The rest was pristine linoleum still in the cellophane. I think I ended up giving it all away to a club.

The last time this happened, it was husband#1 and my best friend who both gave me the Bowie bombshell. I just sat there looking from one to the other and thinking 'do these people know me?'
'Well, thank you....but, why on earth did you get me these?' I finally asked.
They looked at each other in exasperation. Apparently the answer to this question was being pulled across the sky behind Snoopy on his Sopwith Camel.
'Because you're WEIRD', husband #1 explained.
'You're WEIRD' agreed best friend.
"And Bowie's weird, too" added husband #1 helpfully.
"And weird people like weird things,' said best friend.
"Anyway, all you have to do is look at your record collection to tell who your favorite singer is" finished husband #1.

Mystery solved.

Wikipedia refuses to post this. I am bummed.

At times I stop to reflect on how ugly, yet how pervasive cultural stereotypes are. Hate is truly a learned behavior.

And so, in the interests of furthering social weakness, ignorance and arbitrary divisions among people, I humbly submit my

FIELD GUIDE TO LOW-INCOME WHITEY
profusely illustrated

1. Cracker.
Similar to the U.K. 'chav' (I know because I Wiki'd it.) Television, clothes, booze and drugs sum up the raison d'etre of the cracker.
Here in the northwestern U.S, cracker culture has a strong mystical (some say surgical) connection to the unreconstructed South and the polyester glam of the 70's. Prized lifestyle trophies include state of the art home electronics, feathered hair, badly pitted skin, tribal tattoos, Chevrolet Camaros with Night Ranger and Kenny Rogers cassette tapes scattered on the floorboards, and a satellite dish the size of Montana overturned in the front yard.







The children of the cracker tend toward the wigga. Behold the future of our nation, muthafuckah.















2. Skank Beasts (Woods-Dwelling)
Gary Ridgeway and Diane Downs: the pentultimate skank beast tag team.




Now, some crackers can be righteous people. Righteous, with really really bad taste. But with the Woods Dwelling Skank Beast you open a whole 'nother box of cornflakes.

The Skank Beast is a shy creature, emerging from its two-bedroom rental only to work an obscure job, commit a few random murders, visit the quickie mart and then return to its perpetually curtained pied a' terre. Even in suburbia their dwellings are surrounded by rank and untended landscaping and frequently sit at the very rear of the property at the end of a lengthy drive.

Despite their pallor, poor hygiene and antisocial habits they are keenly driven to share their intimate secretions. They frequent b- and c-list swingers clubs and spend a goodly portion of their meagre pay on porn site fees.

Like their cousins the crackers, Skank Beasts own killer home electronic systems capeable of diverting international air traffic when in operation. I have no idea why this is, but it is.

Newly re-zoned logging areas are a magnet to the Skank Beast with a jingle in his jeans and a few family secrets to hide. Entire Skank Beast families are typically found pioneering these raw tracts, living in foul, algae-covered construction portables or 're-conditioned' mobile homes, huddled around the television in the darkness of their living rooms watching Pat Robertson while dad furtively fondles the kiddies and mom pretends not to notice.

3. Holler Monsters
Which twin has the Toni?
It is a mystery, but what what is certain is that Spitstains on the right there obviously lost the placental battle. He is almost a Pinto (see below)

The Holler Monster is the feral offspring of the Woods-Dwelling Skank Beast. Raised on incest, neglect, instant mashed potatoes, and endless hours of television, the young Holler Monster roams the hills and 'hollers' ( hollows, or valleys) freely and has since birth. Holler Monsters typically spend their early youth sans lower garments and can be seen standing on a lawnmower peering through your bedroom window or crouching on the side of the road next to a mailbox, a runnel of snot decorating their cleft lips, watching the cars go by and letting the liquids and semi-solids fall where they may.

A Holler Monster is a simple being. He is random, a creature of sudden whims and appetites, most of them having to do with road kill, shoplifting and being really itchy. He is frequently found weeping in the rear seat of a squad car, adorned with zipties and vomit, or crouched next to a newly dug grave, trowel in hand, picture of Momma in the other. The perennialy popular Ed Gein represents the pinnacle of Holler Monster celebrity.

Meet Chris Kemp...one of our own. A genuine Washin'ton Holler Monster. As this photo illustrates, the ability to avoid injury (as in, ' I wonder what would happen if I jumped face first into a big fuckin' patch of sticker bushes?' ) is as alien to the nature of the Holler Monster as is being allowed to use the restroom down at the gas station.











4. Pintos
Pintos are the rarest of the rare, so rare that I had no luck in finding an illustration. However fabled, they do in fact exist.
Oh ok. You remember that movie where Jeff Goldblum was in this machine and a fly got in by accident and when he came out he was all gross and turning into a fly because of his molecules and he started eating garbage and there was disgusting mucus and these wierd hairs coming out all over him and Gena Davis was all freaked out and she wouldn't shut up?
Take that machine, coax these two on the left inside it with a ten gallon can of shortening, plug it in, and what you end up with is a pinto.

Sometimes in nature, two wild creatures meet and the result is a tiny new life. And then sometimes, while roaming near the edge of the dump with a plastic bucket and a pointy stick, two or more holler monsters bearing wobbly parts in the correct combination meet in a perspiring tangle of Copenhagen plug and holey underpants. The result of these unions is a pinto.
It takes generations of concentrated incest to produce this, a being whose skin alternates with translucent patches of bluish tissue through which the underlying goop is visible as it oogs around.* A tiny round baseball head wobbles above abnormally narrow shoulders, tapering to a steatopygic base, the whole effect resembling a pile of undercooked porkchops wearing Adidas.
Small-eared, web-fingered and frail, the pinto is sometimes spotted standing in the middle of the supermarket staring vacantly as a puddle of pee slowly spreads around their feet, although their usual habitats are padlocked bedrooms with tinfoil over the windows, or secret rooms under the garage. Or working at Wall-Mart.





*Not vitiligo, but a true condition caused by prolonged human inbreeding. You see what you can learn here at Rancho FirstNations? And it's FREE!!

Indian Lore, or, Fuckin' with your stereotypes, part un

I am a native american so don't go getting yourself in a bunch over the following. I can do this stuff. I have permission. And you know how I'm always talking about white folks, and calling the catholics a pile of twats? I'm part white and I was raised catholic. See how this works? And using the same logic, you will never find me referring to the spoos, the zippyheads, the kites or the eelshoes in a pejorative fashion, mainly because I made those up.

THE HISTORY OF THE FLATBUTT TRIBE-SAVAGE INVESTORS OF THE OLD WEST

Back , back, my children, back in the dim mists of time, the Flatbutt tribe lived their charming, primitive lives undisturbed by the passing parade, amid the peaceful ponderosas high in the hills.

Yes, it was a time of innocence. The mighty Flatbutts stalked game (mainly Twister) in the primeval forests. They raised bonsai Republicans, which they later sold as chum to the fishing tribes living along the coast, or sometimes traded for Altoids. They made highly sophisticated pottery and are known from the archeological record as the inventors of the booby mug. They were particularly known for their greeting cards, which they imbued with powerful magic charms and a strong, greasy aroma.

The children of the Flatbutts were reared with a keen appreciation of something. Nobody knows what exactly. They spent much of their youth high in the elms, waiting for salmon to pass beneath, attempting to hit them with water balloons. Life for the young Flattbutt was idyllic, and most of all, unhygenic. When a Flatbutt lad or lassie came of age they were initiated into adulthood by members of the secret tribal Amish Death Metal Society...felled from their lofty aeries by setting light to kilos of Matanooska Thunderfuck beneath their dung-whitened roosts, and then flung headlong into the mighty Lager river, which ran, strong, foaming and yeasty, through the center of their ancient tribal lands. For days afterwards those living downstream tasted, and knew.

Using pool cues, the newly-made adults were then rescued from the malty torrent and greeted by the tribe. A huge bonfire using wildcrafted sofas was set ablaze. The next three days were passed in feasting, catered by Port O' Subs, attempting to light off damp fireworks with gasoline, peeing for distance, fart tag and Twister. During this time, and for some afterward the buffalo were wary.

The adult male Flatbutt was of average height, not counting the additional inches added by the ceremonial pirate hat and cuban-heeled boots. Adult males wore a penis sheath, a ribbed length of dryer vent decorated with feathers and crackerjack prizes, held fast to the body with duct tape, and many inches longer than was entirely necessary. This article of clothing, it was believed, aided the hunter in attracting the police. Sometimes in bad weather the males would burrow deep into the forest duff in search of Playboy magazines cached earlier in the year.

Women were revered as givers of life, and they alone carried Israeli manufactured automatic weapons with taped clips. Women customarily went topless (inspiring the tradional indian war cry WOO WOO) wore raffia platform shoes with cherry toe clusters and midlength tulip skirts adorned with poodles, eiffel towers, and Frenchmen riding bicycles. No ensemble was considered complete without the traditional Hermes bag where the scalps and genetalia of their enemies were carried. During the winter the females would often drive in to Portland and take in some shows, maybe do a little shopping, and later hunt elk with stone-tipped spears through the center of town, dodging busses and gorging on the thrill of potential bloodshed.

Then came the pioneers... Europeans banished from their own lands by a populace sick to death of their constant whining about being too cold and too wet and too muddy and oo, can't I have another blanket and oh dear the thatch is leaking again and could somebody bring me something hot to drink? and maybe a magazine? and could you turn the channel before you leave?

They crossed the plains leaving trails of used tissues, and the rumor of their passage was told in the sudden increase of postnasal drip among the tribal peoples with whom they traded for Vicks and aspirin along the way.

The first doomed meeting between the Flatbutt tribe and the ofay happened on Friday. Everyone was settling in for a nice picnic lunch and maybe later a swim in the river if it wasn't too chilly (making certain they waited the traditional one sacred hour after eating to appease Douglas, the giant monster lager lizard who was rumored to live on the bottom of the channel eating the adidas of the unwary.) Without warning, from over the rolling hills in the distance appeared the Pintos and Gremlins, the Chevrolet Caprices and Pontiac Sunbirds of the settlers, drawn by tired oxen with large crayons.

Without so much as a howdy do they headed toward the river, heedless of the noshing natives, and then into the very river itself, where they drank their fill, promptly passed out and floated away downstream.

The Flatbutts rallied. Gathering up their blue tarps and styrofoam coolers they waded in, chunking rocks and bottles, sandwiches and eight-track players, and finally, desparately, pelting them with the used diapers of their own children. But a sense of destiny hung over the whole scene, a portent of doom, a scent of failure, and several other things.

And so history was played out on the sage-strewn stage of the painted praries.

Intermarriage alloyed the pride and strength of the Flatbutts. Competition for cigarettes drove the price up. Korean and Japanese investors swept in and bought up the primeval forestlands for a pint of pee and a box of Kotex and built mini malls where once proud Flatbutts had hunted in proud and flatbutted nudity. Although that was supposed to be a little Flatbutt secret.

But a ray of hope gleams through the crack in the bathroom stall of history, blocked though it may be by the wadded up toilet paper of Caucasian revisionism. Today, using laptop computers whch they cleverly assemble from sticks, rocks, pinecones, and some of those carboard tubes that paper towels come on*, the Flatbutts are slowly regaining their former status as the savage investors they were of yore.

Given time, a clearly written pattern-preferably Bernina- and the right yarn, they will rise again.

WHITE MAN, PRAY TO JESUS THEY HAVE YOUR CORRECT SIZE.




*a perfect example of Flatbutt injun-uity.

i hate my lungs (warning: contains dickensian childhood scene)

Is this a 'pity me" post? Why yes, I think it is.

I have had asthma for 39 years, starting abruptly in 1966...in fact around October-November of that year. One month into first grade.

Many specialists say that childhood asthma is stress induced. Let's examine 1966, shall we?

I was in a first grade class that contained 41 children in a single room, with one teacher. (Mind you, this was a private Catholic school that charged an obscene sum for enrollment.)
Surprisingly, despite the asbestos wrapped pipes and the shredded textbooks, this wasn't too horrible in itself. It was in the classroom next door that the real concentration camp conditions were.

Unbeknownst to everyone at the time, the nun who taught that class was suffering from a brain tumor the size of a golf ball. When she became irritated at one of her six-year-olds, she would draw a circle on the blackboard, have them touch their nose to it, and then smack them in the back of the head with a hardcover math book. This we knew because our nun described exactly what was taking place over there, and threatened to have that teacher come and take care of us similarly if we acted up.

She lit into those children so hard that the chalk would bounce out of the trays on our side. The kids seated closest to that wall would get so scared they'd start to cry...and in true 'Catholic school horror story fashion', our nun, Sister Mary Petronella, would go crimson with rage and start slamming books on her desk and shouting at us to mind our own business... while in the background you could hear the kid in the other room screaming and crying and getting his skull cracked off the slate board while the nun bellowed gibberish at the top of her lungs.

I mentioned this at home, and my mom only laughed and showed me the scars on the underside of her wrists from the whippings she got in Catholic school. 'Hurts more there' she explained.

Finally one of the little kids from the other room ended up hospitalized with a concussion and a broken nose, and his parents had money, so of course then the shit hit the fan. But up until then, why, you could always tell the kids from Sister Clementines class...they were the ones with the bloody noses and two black eyes.

So yes, some stress.

Then of course there were the less-than-ideal conditions in the patient-run mental ward I was growing up in. I've treated that elsewhere, so 'nuff said on that point.
The punchline? Because childhood asthma was written off in those days as a 'psychological ailment', I was perceived as 'faking it' ( i.e waking up from a dead sleep unable to breathe, coming out in hives, coughing up things I refuse to describe, turning blue from lack of oxygen, sneezing so many times in a row that my throat bled and capillaries burst in my face) I received only token treatment for my asthma. At the time I was told that too many doctor visits cost too much money.

But see, my father was a career man in the navy. We had 100% medical coverage.


In spite of taking all the required precautions, asthma is a 'the more you get it, the more you get it' scenario so I'm only one or two jumps ahead of the game at any given time. I've always had respiratory problems-bronchitis, pneumonia of every stripe, bacteria busily evolving primitive societal structures in my sinuses, it's been pretty bad. In fact its been downright nightmarish. I've lost quite a few jobs because my resistance is so low I start racking up the sickdays as soon as I come into regular contact with the public.

And now I've got bronchitis again. Dammit to HELL! Every! Fucking! Spring!

Of course the days of 100% medical coverage are a thing of the distant past, so like most Americans in my income bracket, what I'm reduced to doing now is calling around to my friends and asking do any of them have any partial prescriptions of antibiotic laying around could I buy. Yeah, like trying to score weed. Not that I couldn't go to the doctor, but weigh half a day out of my life and the cost of the gas, and the cost of the visit, and the cost of the perscription without any co-pay, and well, fuck it.

So I sit here, full up to the tits with contraband Cephalexin. And, my darlings, I can only pity the holy, bleeding FUCK outta the next goddamn person who crosses my shit.
Have a nice day! :)

one declines

Does anyone remember when the band 'KISS' was cool?
Me either.
But according to all the retrospectives, they were just the next best darn ol' thing to electricity and Jesus.
This is such horseshit.
What the fuck, Gene, you don't have enough money? For Gods sake, man, take your hat and go. You were never cool. Your band was never cool. Your entire fan base was the kids too young to know the difference and deluded people in the Midwest who thought they were really doin' some rebelling now, boy, that KISS, boy, they are just really satanic as all get out! 'Knights In Service (to) Satan'! Boy howdy! Won't Pastor Eddie just shit a brick?!?
Their music defined subaverage. That they still managed to have a couple of hits, putting them up there with such musical milestones as 'Jimmy, Don't Be A Hero' and 'MacArthur Park'and 'Down In The Meadow In The Iddy Biddy Poo' simply means they had a lot of cocaine to pass around.
The reason this is yanking my chain is because I just got sent an application for a special credit card. A KISS credit card. A credit card with the rockin image of the rockin badass KISS band on the front complete with Gene Simmons' rockin badass tongue hanging out.
Right.
Like I am going to pay for a box of tampons by slappin down a KISS credit card.
Like I am going to try and rent a car using a KISS credit card.
Like I am going to go out in public and attempt to take part in the money economy using a KISS credit card.
'Declare your status as a proud member of the KISSNATION!!' reads the application. "Show the world that YOU are a rock and roll soldier in the KISS ARMY!!' Yeah, do all that AND keep your lobotomy scar hidden. It's not easy.
Mother of Christ. I think I'm insulted. I really do. It's not so much the inanity as the implication that I was that big a dork and that I"m still that big a dork.
Now, I live in a part of the country where many women my age find it perfectly acceptable, even unremarkable, to charge things using a 'Winnie the Pooh' charge plate and have angel teddy bears printed on their checks. By now it should probably go without saying that I would rather farm toads in my pants than carry something like that round, but still. Teddies and stuffed toys tell the world you're a lightweight, but they don't scream every time you use them 'Woo Hoo! I can't be trusted with simple tasks! I'm a moron! I draw faces on my stomach with lipstick and take polaroids of it! Crack? Why yes, please! And could I have some for my cousin-er, wife here too?
So yes, I'm going to pass on the KISS credit card.

Genetically altered blog post

Back awhile ago the Koreans succeeded in raising a strain of pig genetically engineered to glow in the dark. This caused quite a sensation here at Rancho FirstNations. 'What if they made a GLOW-IN-THE-DARK wrinkle dog??' I mused. I had fantasies of owning an entire litter of them and letting them loose on the property after dark, and running around amongst them screaming 'No! Call them off! Call them off FOR THE LOVE OF GOD..

I still cherish that dream.

Then I found this series of pictures (scroll for the full horror):
http://www.damnfunnypictures.com/html/Worlds-Ugliest-Bald-Cat.html
And thats got me thinkin' about cat ownership once again. But not just any cat. A bioengineered cat.
A GENETICALLY ENGINEERED LUMINOUS STICKY WRINKLE CAT.

Say farewell to yesterdays boring cat.
Say hello to todays' new Adhesive Lumacat!
Press telephone messages onto the Lumacats forehead and save $ on old fashioned Postit notes!
Grease it with shortening and play 'squit the cat for distance' at your next party!
Imagine the utter pantswetting horror your tiny trick-or-treating visitors will experience next Hallowe'en when they reach in the candy bowl and find a mewling litter o' Lumacats coated in red jello! AND RAW CHICKEN LIVERS!!!
WE COULD DO IT!
WE HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY!!!!!!!!!

_________________
Speaking of cows, the first time I ever saw a Shar Pei wrinkledog it scared the living crap out me. I was walking down the sidewalk and I'm approaching what I thought was a very elderly, bald headed man sitting behind the wheel of a Cadillac.
As I passed, the elderly bald man went utterly batshit and started barking at me, snarling, honking the horn, and bashing his slobbery face against the glass in rage. I almost shit a length of bowel.

To me, one of the greatest accomplishments of the 21st century so far is the invention of the glow-in-the-dark pig. Trust dear old FirstNations-someday soon you will see this same technology applied to house pets-and I'll bet you any money the Japanese will be the first ones to market it. Until then, you can eat a ham sandwich in the dark and dream about that day.

Eukanuba would make a million dollars off this flavor

Because my beloved grandson, the Goonybird, is made of finer stuff than the common run, just the whisper of an irritant or a single whole wheat cracker will cause his ass to rot off.

In order to spare him his grandmothers fate (FIRSTNATIONS: assless queen of the Flatbutt tribe. Venus Williams I am not) he must be let to roam free, free, free, in order to let the breezes circulate. As he is a boy baby and *ahem* unedited, this means we all spend a great deal of time marvelling at the amazing elasticity of the human foreskin.

Was such a day as this I sing. This morning, actually. He had performed all his sceduled bodily functions so I figured we'd just let him air out for awhile. And promptly forgot.

For a long time.

Well, memory came racing back to me and I went racing out to the front room where the Goonybird was romping on the sofa. All was calm. All was bright. Round yon baby had no visible substances besmearing him...fine...
Then I remembered the dogs.

I looked, and there they were, poised, like buzzards on a bargeload of medical waste, licking and trembling. Gazes fixed, noses almost touching.

Between them, on the rug, lay a turd.
Blessedly intact. Miraculously solid. Incredibly uneaten.

It instantly got a job as first mate on the porcelain yacht. Mr. Goonybird instantly got a diaper.

Now, I haven't stopped until just this moment to ask myself, 'Self? do you think there might have been any more little brown cars on that choo-choo?' And I prefer that to remain unasked; a mystery, like the interdimensional time-space portal in Beaver, Oklahoma, and much of the Catholic religion.

And in case you were wondering, yes; I do own a carpet cleaner. I've damn near wore it out.

Try and remember to pick up some toilet paper on the way home from work.

DATES TO REMEMBER IN MARCH:
March 2: International Take Your Dog Dowsing Day. Because you never know.

March 4: Apterygi Day, New Zealand. Festival celebrating the kiwi, a flightless, hair covered baseball. The kiwi plays a vital role in the economy of this island nation, where it is cloned in large vats and exported for use as a nutritious spreadable butter in third world countries.

March 1: Ass Wednesday. Feast of the Burning Donkeys in the island nation of Norway. On Wednesday.

March 13: Dio del Ristomunte, Brazil. Day of the Resteraunteurs. On this day the citizens of this island nation celebrate the return of the Royal Mounted Restauranteurs.

March 17: St. Patricks Day. Comemorating the mass circumcision of the Irish Patricks. On an island.

March 21: Natilacio de Benito Juarez, Iceland. Celebrating Natalie and Ben 'Little Benny" Juarez, this island nations' famed Mafia ballroom dancing team.

March 26: Mothering Sunday, UK. Synchronized childbirth is the order of the day on Mothering Sunday, when women of all lands gather to compete in this ancient, time honored event.

March 20: The Vernal Equinox. Free well drinks for ladies during happy hour!

This is not an airport

The goonybird has invented a new dance we call 'The Propeller Dance.' It' a variation of the Stompy dance and it involves many of the same moves and positions as the Stompy dance (which is a dance danced by stomping around in a circle using one foot as a pivot.) However, the Propeller Dance is only performed when the artist is unencumbered by a diaper.

Yes, friends, he's discovered how to get his dinger zipping around in a circle on purpose.

So impressed with himself was he that he woke grandpa out of a sound sleep to witness its debut performance. By all accounts, it was quite a show. We thought grandpa was going to tear himself a new hernia.

Childrens Programming, or 'Spandex is Awesome"

My brain is dissolving.
I need to get out of this house.
I have the Goonybird over to babysit. He is darling, but he would rather argue with the stove than discuss Jean Arp. Whats more, I find that I have so many hours of childrens' television logged that I am beginning to form a strange attachment to it.

Example: a French-Canadian childrens' show called Lazytown.

The two adult protagonists in this show are male...the good guy is called 'Sporticus' (brother of Agador Hercules, one assumes; and a very sportif young man he is), and the bad guy is called 'Robbie Rotton' (who is very, very rotton indeed and in dire need of a sound paddling.)

Now both these individuals are damned fit specimens of prime young manhood...which only makes good casting sense since they're called upon to leap around the set like tree frogs. In order to facilitate all that joie de vivre, both young men are costumed in sleek, full-body spandex costumes.
Smoooooooooth.
I mean bounce-a-dime-off-that-honey-tight. Almost....hentai. YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH.

Unfortunately both men have been fiendishly dancers' belted within an inch of their *ahem* lives (one more successfully than the other is ya kin dig it)...after all, this is a childrens show.

Aha, but the producers overlooked one thing, you see.....as a consequence of being so darned fit, both men have been gifted by God with WORLD CLASS BUTTS. And those butts are wearin' spadex, baby.
No really, it's distracting as hell. The whole cast will be in the middle of some rambling debate on who stole the candy from Pixels' backpack or some shit, Sporticus turns away from the camera, and I'm lickin' the screen.

And be still my heart, but that Robbie Rotton can climb a treehouse ladder like nobodies business. You ever seen those old Blue Boy spreads where they're like, in the navy, and it's olden times, and there's a cute cabinboy, and the mean officer makes him scramble up the rigging....? Oh HELL yeah.

The other show that bothers me is called The DoodleBopps.. The Doodlebopps very own blue boy is known as, appropriately enough, Rooney Doodle*.
Now despite the somewhat more elaborate costume young Mr. Doodlebopp is required to wear, I feel certain he too shares the same hinder assal endowment Mr. Rotton and Mr. Sporticus enjoy, as young Rooney is called upon to execute the same frenetic motor activities. Tell ya what, he's obviously willing to do damned near anything in order to pay his rent. In any event, and despite the fact that he seems to have plums stapled all over his head, he looks a rather comely lad.

I like to imagine him getting a phonecall from his agent. I imagine him looking at his bills, and his overextended credit cards, and his ridiculous bar tabs, and sighing just a little bit.

I imagine Messrs. Rotton and Sporticus receiving similar calls, and looking at each other over that weeks' scripts, and grinning wide, like Snidely Whiplash.

Yep, yep, yep.

I really need to get out of this house.

* post of 1 - 20 - 2006...'Babies Are Good' in the archives

further proof of just how much spare time I have these days.....
THE DOODLEBOPS: ROONEY
yes, our Rooney is a limber lad...
http://umusicimages.ca/thedoodlebops/microsite/info_rooney.jpg
...and he certainly knows how to party! toss him a quarter, won't you?
http://www.cinar.com/download/Doodlebops/Rooneyplaying.jpg

LAZYTOWN: SPORTICUS, ROBBIE, AND SOME KID WITH PINK HAIR
http://www.samsproductions.com/minivanmom74/Blog%20Images/kidshows/photo044.jpg ensemble shot. even an industrial strength dancers belt cannot contain the glory that is Sporticus.
http://www.lazytown.com/media/about/robbierotten.jpg Robbies sweet, sweet ass
http://www.nyrrc.org/race/2005/images/nickelodeon.jpg Sporticus...a dear little bottom, true, but no Robbie.

like the night of the iguana, if the iguana was in a coffee can in my freezer.

We have a 2-year-old goonybird in the house today!
YEAH!
WOO HOOO!
I have a two year old grandson!
You know what else we have in the house thats two years old?
His placenta.
In the kitchen freezer.
......Now come on, at least it's not out on the counter floating around in a jar. Or just, you know, laying in a drawer or something. Because that would be sick.

Meanwhile.....
...the placenta waits...
patiently...
quietly...
for its day.
THE DAY OF THE PLACENTA.

Seriously colder than a dead cold thing that is dead

My morning:

6:am....awaken to howling northeast winds, windchill of 10f. (thats really, really, really fucking cold, for those of you who are foreign and smell.) glorious sunrise, diamond clear. chat with sexy and adorable husband who smells really good. drink coffee. watch news.
7:am.....husband leaves for work
7:30.....daughter calls. peculiar fuzzy, pleading tone in voice immediately arouses suspicion. still somewhat askew from husbandly pheronomes, FN agrees to daughterly plaint.
8:am...drive up mountain to retrieve grandson from lazy daughter
8:15....stopped by police officer for 'going a little too fast'
8:17....charm my way out of speeding ticket by being goodnatured and appropriately rueful about 'going a little too fast'
719....get a ticket ANYFUCKINGWAY for 196$ for driving with expired tabs.
EXPIRED SINCE LAST OCTOBER.
8:22.....pick up goonybird from lazy daughter. bald child is hatless in 70mph winds with a windchilll of 10f. inform lazy daughter of ticket. spot zitty moron in background cleverly camoflaged as pile of laundry. daughterly laziness explained. grandmotherly bloodpressure climbing.
9:00....arrive at local licensing and registration office. buy tabs. restrain goonybird from a.writing on walls of office with pen b. leaping from the counter and falling on his head c. leaping into a nearby bin full of bouncy balls for sale d. writing on checkbook with pen e. swallowing pen f. writing on counter with pen.
pen taken.
goonybird commences sirenlike shreiking and pounds feet against stomachal regions of grandmother.

after purchasing knit cap for bald goonybird, grandmother carries goonybird out of store slung backwards over shoulder. Time - 9:20
9:45....after a brief drive to calm screaming goonybird during which the abc song is sung several hundred thousand times, grandmother arrives at local grocery store.
9:48....extracts goonybird from babyseat in 70mph winds, windchill 10f. car door blowing backwards pops rear body panel on car, must be kicked shut. goonybird removes hat.
9:49.....grandmother pulls hat completely over childs' head and holds it there with fabric knotted around her fist, races into store with goonybird slung over shoulder as goonybird cannot be trusted to walk across a parking lot without getting squashed, and will not hold hands in a public place, deeming it childish.
goonybird has put on considerable weight.
9:50....deposit child into shoppingbasket baby seat. goonybird commences flapping and exclaiming 'car! rrrrmmm! rrm!'
the basket will not do. he wants to sit in the fancy basket with the kiddie car attached to the front.
9:55...no kiddiecar available. grandmother redeposits child in shoppingbasket and runs toward produce section.
9:55.02.....child is offered an apple. child accepts. child is mollified.
9:56.04....child grabs apple for other hand out of center of apple zigurat. using ninja-like reflexes developed during childhood of goonybirds' mommy, grandmother adroitly replaces apple before avalanche gets under way.
9:57....child howls. grandmother parks basket next to hubbard squash. child is soothed by proximity of giant buttocks-like vegetable.
10:48...shopping finished, child replaced in car during 70mph winds w/ windchill factor of 10f.
11:00......stop at fast food outlet. not knowing if child has eaten anything this a.m. beside apple, grandmother throws child box of fries and half a chocolate milkshake.


So. How was your day?

Clinical depression: the difference between you and me.

Normal people have normal lives. When something abnormal happens to them - having had the benefit of a normal life - they have the perspective to be able to say 'Whoa...something abnormal just happened."
That's you.
People with abnormal lives tend to experience the reverse. The normal events which occur are viewed with a great deal of suspicion, yet at the same time, indifference. Suspicion, because normal isn't their mean, and indifference because in the long run, it's going to pass.

Now, take that second person there and bomb them with clinical depression. That's me.

A person with clinical depression has for their only constant the expectation of overwhelming, crushing depair... which can hit with absolutely no warning, for no reason and without provocation of any sort, and hit like a tsunami. It can last for a few moments, it can last for a few MONTHS. And I don't mean everyday, garden variety despair; I mean the bleakest form, complete with immobility and actual pain...the type you feel when you have lost everything, and there is no hope left.
Yeah. Like that.
For no reason whatsoever.
Welcome to my world c.1964 - 1990.

I include the five years I spent going to therapy twice a week. Ew, therapy? How weak and pukey and unfit to live of you. Was it hard?
Yes.
But nothing at all compared to how hard it is trying to make it through an ordinary day when all you want to do is lie down and go to sleep forever.

Before I got treatment the ONLY two emotions I could count on were anger and sadness. Anger was the only thing that kept me upright, so I spent lots of time trying to piss myself off just so I could function, and then hiding the fact I was pissed off so I could get along. Honest to God. It worked, too...imperfectly.

Sadness filled in the blanks when my guard was down. Other emotions like happiness or satisfaction could only be relied upon to occur as a result of extremes, if then.

It averaged out to about 90% shit. The only reason I didn't commit suicide was lingering Catholic guilt. That, and wanting to live long enough to either outlast everyone I hated, or at least get even.

When all that finally changed the result was curious as hell....I started going through all the developmental stages that I missed because of the masking effect of depression. The profession didn't fully realize at that time that this happened. I wonder if it's understood yet.

So there I was, in my thirties, mother, wife, independent businesswoman...tossing fireworks at passing cars. Saving up old spraycans and stale ammunition and dud fireworks so I could have a big bonfire and toss it in. Flipping people off in traffic...as I hung out the window of the car...with one hand on the horn...screaming 'Learn to drive you IGNORANT FUCKING BAG OF SHIT!' at the top of my lungs. Because that's classy.
I even shoplifted once (a christmas ornament, which was enough to give me the screaming guilties and prevent that ever happening again). I made prank phone calls. I carried a magic marker with me and wrote graffitti in public bathrooms. I made water balloons and dropped them on bums out my apartment window. In college I'd sit in class and access porn sites while I sat in the front row with the monitor turned facing the instructor.
In other words, at thrity, I was the worlds brattiest teenager.
OOoooooooooooo, I had a great time!

Now luckily enough, my present husband was like this naturally so no problem there; we got along like a house afire. I'm sure my daughter was scarred, though. Meh; fuck it, we're even. She went through puberty on my watch.

I cannot stress this enough, though: There are answers there, as long as you're motivated enough to find them, and ornery enough to crush anyone beneath your feet who tries to stand in your way. (And there will be those people.) I was very fortunate in my choice of therapist as well. Furthermore, I pledge my eternal gratitude to the people involved in the discovery of Prozac. No, it aint for everyone but it sure in the fuck was the magic ingredient I needed.

Now I have to get used to being - not normal, that ain't never gonna happen - but more like everyone else. I'll never be normal. For one thing, I have to remind myself of this every day- that I can think positively about something and make myself feel better. And it will work. Normal people generally don't have this as part of their daily routine.

Meanwhile, I love my husband, I garden, I drink beer and I birdwatch - both goony and regular. And I tell you thats better than I thought I'd ever get.

As near as I can figure it

I am sitting in the kitchen typing away, and Goonybird grandkid rushes in.
"Oh no! Oh no! Oh no!" gestures of great amazement.
"What, honey?"
" Oh no! Oh no! Dog dog!" pointing into the livingroom with great emphasis.
"What about doggie?"
"Dog dog nose! Ow! Nose! Ow!" smacking self with an open hand on the nose.

Translation: Grandmother! I've discovered the most amazing thing! The dog and I share a common feature! We BOTH have a nose! Its inconceivable! Furthermore it hurts every single time I do this!
___________________

I am folding laundry, sitting crosslegged on the floor. The Goonybird is racing around me in circles.
"One two! One two! One two! One two! One two! Oh no! Got go! Got go!" pointing at me.
"Go where, honey?"
"Go! Go go! rrrrrm! buk! One two!" pointing with great intention at the front door.

Translation: I am marching! Quite determinedly! On your stacks! Of clean clothes! We need to leave immediately ! Go start the car, woman, I need a book from the library! In the meantime It's vitally important that I continue to march on the laundry!
___________________

Goonybird comes racing up to me as I carry clothes into the bedroom.
"Wheddo go? Whaddoo gots? Go! Buck a buck a buck a buck!" gesture of confusion.
"I'm going into the other room, kiddo."
"Oh! Shit! Geddoo go! buckabuck! Rmmmm!" both arms raised over head.

Translation: where are you going and what in Gods' name do you think you're doing with my grandfathers clothing? Very well, move along. In the meanwhile I will imitate a chicken. Oh shit! Where are you going, did you say? Ah yes; fine. Carry on. Here's my chicken imitation again. Now heres' a car.

a triumph of the embalmers art: The Rolling Stones live at halftime

I remember it as though it were only yesterday. It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. It was some other shit. It was THE DAY THE ROLLING STONES PLAYED THE HALFTIME SHOW AT THE SUPERBOWL.

Yes, and what a show it was. The Rolling Stones! Can you hear them back at the NFL boardroom? Oh, dude, we grab the boomer demographic and make everyone forget about that whole Janet Jacksons' tit thing!

The problem? The Rolling Stones are deceased.

They need to retire. Retire, retire, retire. Please, please, please. I sat through the whole thing hoping for I don't know what. I just did.
Man, it was like watching a breakdown in the air conditioning at the House Of Wax. They don't play their own instruments anymore so much as they just randomly flap away at them while three other 'mystery guys' tucked away at the back fill in the blank spots. (exception: Ol' Charlie Watts was keeping his end up.) It was blatant, and it was sad and ludicrous.

I cringed watching old Mick breathlessly trudging around the stage chasing chickens off the porch, yelling lyric fragments when the whim took him. Keith Richards staggering about picking up cigarette butts off the floor and looking for his Vicodin.
There were four of us watching. We sat here, former rockers every one and three of them Stones fans, and do you know what we said as we watched this debacle?
Not 'Gosh, you just gotta admire those Stones, they just keep on going!'
Not 'Wow, they're still SO GOOD!'
No, what we were all saying was 'Mick, keep your shirt on. PLEASE keep your shirt on. God, keep your shirt ON, Mick.'

The only equivalent on the 'painful to watch' scale was the pathetic last years of Frank Sinatra, another man tried in the court of Not Knowing When to Take His Hat and Go and found guilty. Maybe it's a generational thing, but watching the Stones creak through the same farce was somehow more pathetic. A lot of it had to do with Mick. It was just gross. He's still out there flogging the sulky youth -gamin- rough trade thing. With a more attractive man, it would have been a caricature. But as played by an underfed 63 year old frog wearing hiphuggers and a demi-tee........fuck, the indignity.
Old age does not have to be that ugly. Jesus God Almighty.

So no, I was less than impressed with the halftime entertainment.

BUT I LIKE IT and you have to too.

So I'm driving down the road, the rain and wind rocking my little beater car, and I'm listening to the radio, when what to my wondering ears did appear, but jolly Led Zeppelin playing Whole Lotta Love, and eight tiny reindeer.
Forget everything ever written about how lame and sad it is to listen to the music you liked your senior year- I was 17 again.

And I was ROCKIN THE FUCK OUT.

I pulled up into the parking lot of the store and parked, and I'm still showing John Bonham how its done, man, I'm singing, I'm playing air guitar, and I look up and another car has parked next to me, and the passenger is looking at me with the white showing all the way around her eyes.

'Aw, you poor thing', I thought, 'You probably feel bad because you want to listen to the nice music too.'
So I turned it up.

I have a good stereo. If you'd walked by my little car you'd have seen it was probably whoomping in and out like a paper bag on a hysterics' face. But hey-it was Zep. You understand.

And that is the point, after all-it was Zep. Some things transcend time and fashion. Led Zeppelin is one of those things. Another one is Jimmi Hendrix. In particular, the recording titled 'Hendrix Live'.

I've pillaged and burned my way through TWO MOTHERFUCKING vinyl copies of 'Hendrix Live' and one cd so far. Everyone knows Hendrix is best enjoyed at the 'Ears bleed; small animals die' setting, right? RIGHT.

Nothings changed now that I live out in the country. When the neigbors' cows start giving paisley milk, thats when Hendrix is being played at the right volume. And seriously, it is my job, nay, my responsibility, being a former resident of civilization, to bring culture to these poor toiling rural proles. And what better way, I ask you?


When I lived in Portland Oregon I had a third story apt. at the top of Hall Street (1984 was the address; is that not cool?) I'd get up early Saturday morning, crack a beer, fire up a joint, face my speakers out the window and blast Hendrix' 'StarSpangled Banner' straight down 5th Avenue into downtown, baby. Damn, you could hear those notes rising and bouncing off the buildings and echoing down the streets all the way past Burnside and trailiing off into the distance, and man, it was BEAUTIFUL! All over town, you could hear people doing concert screams. Bums would wave up at me. College kids would start rocking out on the sidewalk. Man, it was fucking glorious.

So if you lived in Portland during the 70's, that was me, and you're welcome.

That was also me on 9th and Pine.
And Republican and Queen Anne in Seattle.


And driving through Wenatchee a couple of years ago.

Not a fun one. Might want to skip it.

Bit of a preamble:
Everything in this blog is true. This is where I get to have my full, unedited say for a change. The following is true. It's kind of disgusting, but it's true.
______________

My mom, once she had her hooks in something never let it out of her grasp again. She was a hoarder, of the variety known as 'Diogenes Syndrome'.

Back then it was called 'being a saver' and lots of people who survived the Depression Era did it. I'm certain thats what lie behind why she did it. At least, I'm certain thats one of the reasons. The other is that the woman was simply greedy and gloating. There was nothing deep or pathological about what she did. It all boiled down to a simple schoolyard bully singsong... 'I have it and YOU DON'T.'

The biggest and sickest manifestation of her disorder had to do food. You could buy it, but you couldn't eat it unless she cooked it....and mom was NOT A COOK, so we ate out a lot. This is probably why I survived my first 18 years without any major diet-related illness beside severe anaemia (which cleared up after living on my own for three months- and never came back.)


We had moved to a brand new house in 1964. Of course the contents of the pantry came with us. It stayed with us, too. In fact it's still there, last time I looked (1985).

Over time, she gradually filled up every available kitchen space- and I mean packed the cupboards until the doors wouldn't shut correctly-with food. She then packed a wardrobe-sized pantry the same way. Then asked dad to build her another pantry space in the basement. In a matter of months that too was stuffed to the ceiling with food. Things she had canned and never opened. Institutional containers of vegetables. Jars of capers! Capers, for the love of Christ! We never ate capers! I didn't even know what a caper was until a few years ago!

The contents of the refrigerator were guarded like the Hope Diamond. When things finally went bad...furry, slimy, semiliquid unuseably bad, they were smuggled out of the house under cover of darkness into the outside garbage.

The woman who never baked bought flour by the 20lb sack and let it get grey with shed weevil parts until she would consent to let my dad take it out, screaming in rage the whole while. Sugar turned into a yellow solid mass in the bag. Things went unused for so long inside closed cupboards that when you went to move something it had to be pried free, and left a sticky ring of grime behind it.

She saved bacon grease in a container stuck to the back of the stove until it became so rank you could smell it in the front doorway. Then it too was snuck out of the house in rolls of newspaper.

Obviously, the woman was no housekeeper.

Besides food she also hoarded paper. Things like pamphlets and books and clippings. But although she had stacks and rooms full of that shit, you never found it hidden behind the towels...what you did find was old antique Halloween candy she'd stolen out of my bag. Paper was her avocation, but food was where she veered off into 'Batshit crazy' territory.

Every room of the house had stacks of crap. The dining table was buried under newspapers and junk mail. The living room was a reeking den of stale cigarette smoke, old upholstery, scorched dust, and books. Their two bedrooms? Don't even ask. We had a full daylight basement. Oh yes, it was full, all right. Absolutely full. Not of daylight either.

And nobody saw a thing.

Now my father would reach a certain stage about halfway down the bottle and start bitching about the state of the house... and boy, then the fireworks would start. With a certain justification...his areas, the garage, the outbuildings, the yard, the things only he had anything to do with-those things were beautifully, even compulsively kempt. Outwardly we had the nicest house in the area by far.

But yeah; he'd get his dutch courage up and then it was nothing but ranting and screaming and ranting and screaming.... until I was drug in and ranted and screamed at by both of them for not keeping the house clean.

Which, had I been older than six (when it started in earnest, and from then on until I moved out) would have been somewhat reasonable....
...that is, had I been allowed to clean. Oh, yes. Oh yes!


The sickest manifestation of my mothers' hatred for everything living happened after I moved out in early 1979.

My room was taken over instantly by my mother as what she termed 'a study'. It happened a couple of years after having met the Lord (the way a semi meets a bug) and her pious horseshit had moved from the 'Jesus loves you happy rapture' stage to the 'deep purple, bible thumpin', satan is everywhere' stage.

I had come to visit.
My mom was grinning when she threw open the door to my former room.
My room was filled to the ceiling. 'Well', I thought, 'I expected that.'
But once I took a better look I realized that my former room was now filled to overflowing with religious things.

Posters and holy cards were pinned to every wall.
Bibles-not singular, plural.
Devotional statues, to the point it resembled a Santeria chapel.
Boxes and boxes and boxes of tracts stacked along the walls and out into the room.
Just imagine the most insane, over the top collection of God-related anything all thrown together in one stale little room with a lock on the door and the curtains clothespinned shut.

And topping it off was the Crucifix of Doom.

This was a full on, bleeding Jesus Catholic crucifix, really a rather beautifully executed thing, and that easily enough judged for its being FOUR FEET TALL.
Where does a layperson even find a thing like that?

The corpus was like an illustration out of Greys Anatomy. If you've ever seen a lifesize Mexican waxwork statue of the Agony of Christ, or ever been in the Church of St. Michael the Archangel in Tijuana, then you know exactly the type of over-the-top, S and M, eerily lifelike - special effects realism I mean.
And there it was in my room. Bleeding. A lot.

I have never.
NEVER.
...been so taken aback in my life. I mean I literally did take a step back in horror when that door came open.

And she laughed at me.
_______________________

When I finally broke off from these people for good in 1985 , one particularly irritating and self- righteous cousin kept after me for years about how I should shut up and play nice, finally saying 'At least do it for the money! They've got to be loaded!' (Yes, he's a class act. They all are.)

Surprise!

There's none left.

My mother was a fanatic, remember. She'd spent every single cent my father made on T.V. preachers.
She looted my bank accounts, so money that was supposed to come to me in trust never did.
She emptied their savings. Not even the house or the property remained in the family. It's all been left to Jesus.

If anyone happens to run into Jesus, would you ask him what he did with it?

middle aged and sick of bitches

I was casually playing internet roullette yesterday when I came upon a picture of a young Japanese lady in a shower standing on her head -I mean, completely out of the blue, now-that I can only describe as a Recirculating Japanese Mustard Fountain.

I really wish I hadn't.

But I admit I took a good, long look. And in looking I realized that, even though this woman was exposed in the most explicitly proctological manner imaginable, the one molecule of girlyness she had left had lead her to cover her eyes so she couldn't be recognized.
It flat out cracked me up.
No pun intended.

I mean, my grandmother remembers being terribly offended by the guys who would wait by the streetcar stop to cop a glimpse of feminine ankle as the ladies stepped onto the trolley. You'd almost be tempted to say ' Gosh! We really HAVE come a long way since then, haven't we?'

Nah. Bitches be the same, yo.

I was at a product party not terribly long ago. If you're foreign you have no idea what I'm talking about. Think of the term '[product party' as meaning 'an excuse to gather all my friends and co-workers into one room and guilt them into buying shit they don't really need rather than just crassly asking them for a loan because that would be tacky'.

Now the kitchenware parties? Hell, bring them on. In fact, just show me the catalogue, I'll get my checkbook. But I don't know who thought it would be a good idea to invite me to a Yankee Candle show, or why they thought I might need a candle, but I played nice and showed up so the sponsor would get her party gift.

I sat through the sales pitch. I handed round the selections... 'Ooo, look, a gel candle! It looks just like phlegm with a wick in it! Damn thats fucked up! Pass it to the right, yes, please, quickly!....'

About forty-five minutes into the thing my eyes were watering, between sitting tit deep in scented candles and all the fortysomething partygoers bathed in Avon 'roaches die instantly' perfume... fuck, the vinyl flooring was starting to curl. So I retreated to the kitchen.

While I'm helping tray snacks, the hostess introduces me around, and tosses in the phrase, 'She's the hippie Martha Stewart, you know. '

Why no, I didn't.

'I mean, she's just out in the yard just growing flowers and vegetables and taking care of her house and doing embroidery, she just does everything! She even hangs clothes out on a line! I mean, she just makes me sick!' continues my hostess, all grinning and singsong.

This is what's known as a 'for fucks' sake' moment.

You know what; I just let her fall flat. I just couldn't be bothered to put on a show. She pissed on the floor, now she had to stand in it. I let her stand in it a good, long time.

I smiled and made small talk, oh yes, I really do hang my wash out on a line, have a cookie, and made myself a nice big sandwich, paused, casually reached past her, grabbed a couple of beers out of her fridge, stuck them both in my coat pocket and...left.

You see? Age does bring wisdom. Years before I would have fronted her up or keyed her car or done something really uptown like taken a big ol' dog dump in her bathroom and not flushed or something.
This way.....? Ah, this way, I showed class. AND I HAD BEER.

This sort of thing, the female underhanded smiling dis....this my husband simply does not get at all. He can be sitting in the same room and hear the same thing I do and not even realize that a very bitter exchange of insults has been taking place. If you point it out to him he just takes the infuriating attitude 'Oh gosh you must be mistaken you delusional oversensitive little violet, this is one of those women things my father who hated women warned me about' making me want to hurt him violently with a violently violent fucking shovel, violently.

His mother pulls this. Every time I visit.
The man is utterly oblivious.

Our dear friends' aging bitch of a mother pulls this shit repeatedly on the guy's wife, making sure she has a nice, big audience, an audience my husband usually happens to be sitting in.
Just plumb eludes him.
Zoop.
Over his head.

But most maddeningly of all? You explain what happened. You translate. You re-enact it even, carefully, word for word. You lay it all out...
... and he airily dismisses it.
So what? Doesn't matter.

Well it does matter.
But what matters most?
Winning.
And getting BEER.




*Damn, I just went from The Wall, past Aretha Franklin and landed on Ozymandias in one swell foop. Not too fuckin shabby.

Make a note of it

Dates to remember in FEBRUARY:

Monday, February 20...........Dia de las Presidentes, Puerto Rico.
On this day all Puerto Ricans gather together to comemorate the Presidentes' return to their roosts in the picturesque, ruined chapel of Capistrano.
Lets all sing:
o festival é feliz para meu fígado, Mariao softener da tela,
meu fritar é doloroso, simcante, o meu pancreas hostilpara
baixo no prado, no poo bitty ittymina,
a frase erectile do yorena
costa atlantic selvagemdo
thee eu canto

Translation:
The festival is happy for my liver, Maria softener of the screen,
mine to fry is painful, yes, sings my pancreas
hostile in the Prado,
in poo bitty mine,
the phrase erectile, phrase erectile, the wild coast atlantic,
of thee I sing.



February 2- Groundhog Day. Nobody knows what this holiday means.

February 28-Mardi Gras. Go to New Orleans, get dog-raping drunk, show your tits, puke, get arrested, go home. Yes, we know how to party here in America.

February 12- Lincolns Birthday. Inventor of the famous childrens building toy. He freed the logs.

February 22-Washingtons Birthday. I live in Washington. Nobody told me about this.
Lets all sing:

Sie sind glücklich, glücklich veil das Vieh,
wenn die Sonne einstellt,
Verzweiflung

Translation:
They are lucky, lucky to veil the cattle, if the sun adjusts,
mocking Patti LaBelle,
forgotten never our Patrimony
those violent socks of despair.

February 24- Dia de la Bandera. Day of The Band. In Mexico, they really, really like Bob Dylan.

February27- Dia del Cevismo. Day of Beer in Brazil.

Conversational Brasilish:

Ach, du Leiber? tentamos alguns de este deliciouso braino. Fiz -me do the corpse.
Have a cevismo? It is quite delicious.
Tente chumpam meu dick se ousa.
Don't mind if I do, Mr. Brazil person. Thank you kindly.
I el-misso a roupa interior por vezes.
No, not at all America person, we encourage drunkenness.
Dar todos os seus dinheiro, sair.
Mr. Brazil person, you are truly a civilized man.
O cheiro como o meu gato., gosto de estrangeiro.


February 14-Washingtons birthday. No wait, St. Valentines day. St Valentine is the patron saint of pawnbrokers. His motto: If you can't sell it, then you just sit on it, 'cause you sure aint' givin' it away.
Words I live by.

February 22- Washingtons Birthday. What did these women do back then, just lie around and breed presidents? Jesus!

February 5- Aniversario de la Constitutio, Mexico. Anniversary of Walking, also known as National Constitution day. How is your constitution doing lately? I know mine is a little under the weather.
That was a political joke! Ha!

February 6 -Waitangi day, New Zealand.
Lets all sing:
Waitangi, waitangi, a laissé le désespoir de blokes de ghoulish!
Les oiseaux de la lumière ont-ils collé rapidement
dans le gril de votre automobile?
notre greatness de foretathers brille sur le newt dans le dell,
ainsi chantez chantent chantent mes enfants,
vont, Biloxi, vont!

Waitangi, waitangi, oh, the desperation of blokes of ghoulish!
The birds of the light have stuck quickly in the grill of the automobile.
Ours, the greatness of forefathers shining on the newt in the dell,
So it sings sing sing my children,
Some other stuff, yeah!

Call me 'puskahosu', will you?

I got kind of curious after writing the entry about my grandads funeral, so I went a-roaming on the World Wide Web. And check out what I found...grandad was IOOF!!

International Order of Odd Fellows, that is. Sort of a Catholics and workingmans' budget version of the Masonic Lodge. Their main thing was disaster relief funds for their members and burial insurance; kind of like the Grange* does. Of course, the Grange is also a quasi-Masonic thingie; a rural one. Those darned old quasi-Masonic thingies, them.
Anywho, thats how grandad rated the funeral from Verdi!

Grandad was a guy who never learned English-or so he'd have you believe- a drunk, a wife beater and a pig, who worked in the woods for months at a time. Rather than suffer the disgrace of putting his son out to neibors, because that would be asking for charity, left him instead in an orphanage. Although to hear it told it sounded more like one of those lockers in the bus station. He'd drop off my father and then come back around when the mood lead him and 'redeem' him.
And did this repeatedly.
And sometimes forgot him there for years at a time.
Reflect: this was not the orphanage out of 'Annie'. This was something out of Dickens, if Dickens had been into child porn.

My memories of my grandfather consist of him being old, drinking coffee out of a saucer, drinking Old Crow hot with spoon of sugar, dropping his upper plate to freak me out (and you'd freak too... old man spit googling around in a toothlss pink maw is not pretty), and either smacking me or tripping me with his cane whenever I came into reach.


I would like to express here my sincere gratitude to the International Order of Odd Fellows for giving me such a vivid and lasting memory of this vicious mans' demise.
And for encasing him in not one, not two, but three separate containers-a steel casket, a steel vault and a cement enrobement.

That oughta hold him.



*I was actually SCOUTED by the Grange. I seriously was. They wanted me to join but I balked at the whole 'beer stein full of piss' thing. Thats' not clean.