Paisley Baboon Very Making Leveraged Buyout!

One of my favorite things to do on the Internet is to look up por

One of my favorite things do do on the Internet is to play 'where will this lead?' The rules are simple...start someplace that interests you and read along. When you come to a question or a reference that seems interesting, go there next.

Yes, now that I have the interwebs I can take this game as far afield as I like. Gone are the days when I had to approach sensitive subjects from oblique angles in order to find an answer in a footnote or an obscure textbook. Now, by God, if I run across a reference to, say, 'looners' why I can just type that sapsucker in and get an answer that I really, really could have gone the rest of my life without knowing. Oh my yes.

So it was today, when I threw in my Rob Zombie compilation, cranked the gain to 11 and typed in the search phrase 'bunny man'. I ended up at the most interesting site just full of information about ancient Central and South American glyphs.*

Along the way I found St. Brigids Beer Prayer:

I would like the angels of Heaven to be among us. I would like an abundance of peace. I would like full vessels of charity. I would like rich treasures of mercy. I would like cheerfulness to preside over all. I would like Jesus to be present. I would like the three Marys of illustrious renown to be with us. I would like the friends of Heaven to be gathered around us from all parts. I would like myself to be a rent payer to the Lord; that I should suffer distress, that he would bestow a good blessing upon me. I would like a great lake of beer for the King of Kings. I would like to be watching Heaven's family drinking it through all eternity.

Which you have to agree is a lovely sentiment.

Also this picture, which the clicking that maketh bigness will make bigger:

And this picture of a hybrid carrot-man in formal attire:


...You see what kind of interesting shit there is on the internet if you just take the time to look? Who would have ever thought that the Victorians had this kind of biotechnology? I sure didn't. You could buy seeds and grow your own hybrid carrot man! How many hybrid carrot-people might there have been planted that, even as we speak, lie waiting for the day that their Vegetable Master calls them all forth from their dormant state to take over the earth? I say bring'em on. Wouldn't you rather be ruled by a race of sentient man-carrot hybrids? I know I would. And you got to admit this is one spiffy damn carrot. He's even got a monocle. Do you have a monocle? No you do not.

Anyway, this interesting site I found about the Mayans:
http://www.mayalords.org/mayafldr/index.html
There is is.
Apparently this guy has a real hard-on for proving that the Mayans recorded catastrophic astronomical events all the fuck over their buildings and pottery and everything.
In one of these events, there was this hugeass giant comet that circled the earth three times and burnt everything up. People jumped into the water to get away from it. Meanwhile the frogs and the fish were all jumping OUT of the water to get away from it. Basically everyone in Mesoamerica was either jumping into or out of the water. You would too.

Then, several hundred years later or so, another giant comet comes along, breaks up into four pieces and bombards the shit out of Yucatan and South Carolina. This somehow leads to the invention of an ancient form of handball that you play with your ass. If you won you got a sore ass. If you lost a guy with an obsidian knife hacked open your chest, grabbed your heart, ripped it out by the roots, took a damn bite out of it and then chunked it off the top of a pyramid.

Some years later there was a disasterous meteor shower, in response to which the Mayans decided it would be a good idea to start stabbing stingray spines through their dicks.

Personally, what I think this all is, is pretty fucking indicative of why the Mayan civilization failed.

________________________
Don't try this at home, kiddies. Well, not the above either. Anyway remember: I've had brain damage a lot longer than you have.

CONGRATULATIONS!!!!

My daughter is getting married an a couple of days!

not terribly cheerful, but not too depressing.

I belong to several online groups based around dealing with the health issues of elderly people. I know exactly how much worse things could be on that front. We have been spared dementia, Altzheimers, diabetes and cancer. What is killing my father in law, the Playboy of the Western World, is the long, slow decline of arterioclerosis that DaVinci described as a 'sweet death'..no pain, just a lingering and deepening need to rest. Which he refuses to do. Gaah.

Still, the slow trudge towards the inevitable is wearing me down. Now that I have anything particularly onerous to do...mostly it involves a lot of driving. It's simply knowing that it's all ultimately futile and that I'm falling short of the demand. Like right now, here I am writing, and something is telling me that what I'm really doing is avoiding the man. I should be there with him. Doing what I have no idea.

Nobody teaches a course on how to do endings. I'd like to do this right for my father in law, instead of feeling resentful, guilty, confused and overwhelmed. The part where I deal with my own feelings, I can do. I'm doing it here. I can manage that part. I just don't know how to help someone die pleasantly.

Well, really...what do you do? What I wish you could do is simply ask 'So listen, you're old, it's time, you're dying. What would make this process more pleasant for you?' Of course nobody comes back from that place and writes any books...'Dying Doesn't Have To Suck' or 'More Class 'A' Narcotics Next Time' or whatever. And it's not exactly coming naturally to me. I want to fight, and that isn't appropriate at this point.

What I think I may do is go to the AIDS hospice and pick the brains of one of the people who work there. Do you know how bad this sucks, now that I stop and think of it? I'm going there because they deal with dying gay people. If there's so little out there for dying straight people, how much worse it must be for people who most folks think shouldn't even exist in the first place???
Anyway, that's the plan. To see it written down it looks kind of ignorant, but I'm not a gay man and I want to be able to advocate responsibly and in a sensitive manner on behalf of a gay man and help him through this, so that's where I'm going. You can make who you are a blessing and I'm going to try and do that; make my actions be a blessing instead of a burden.

This is the one and only thing I've ever take away from Native culture...if shit aint going to change, you better. It works, too.

Kids, don't feel all sorry for me here. I'm doing fine. This really is turning out to be a great holiday season for me! Really! Honestly! It's just that this is what's been going through my mind to work out lately so this is what I'm writing about.

Celebrating Festive! Green Alpaca Wagers All!

And now here, for your edification, is the TRUE and ACCURATE story on the 'Pot Brownies' myth!

Alice B. Toklas was a woman who enjoyed a good meal and loved her saturated fats. So legendary became her table that Ms. Toklas was prevailed upon to write up a collection of recipes: The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book.

In this collection are many delicious things. One of the delicious things is a narcotic party nibble she presents to us with the title

'HASCHICH FUDGE (which anyone could whip up on a rainy day)'

NOT BROWNIES. NOT HASH BROWNIES. NOT POT BROWNIES. NO BROWNIES. THERE ARE NO BROWNIES IN THE ALICE B. TOKLAS COOKBOOK. OF ANY KIND. NO NO NO.

And in fact her 'haschich' fudge is not chocolate and has no hash in it, but instead dried fruit and crumbled cannibis sativa (she also suggests indica in areas where obtaining sativa 'may present certain difficulties'.)

Her introduction to the method is priceless:

This is the food of Paradise- of Baudelaire's Artificial Paradises: it might provide an entertaining refreshment for a Ladies' Bridge Club or a chapter meeting of the DAR. In Morrocco it is thought to be good for warding off the common cold in damp winter weather and is, indeed, more effective if taken with large quantities of hot mint tea. Euphoria and brilliant storms of laughter; ecstatic reveries and extensions of one's personality on several simultaneous planes are to be complacently expected. Almost anything Saint Theresa did, you can do better if you can bear to be ravished by 'un evanouissement reveille'.

By fudge she means 'a gooey sweet thing'. I have no doubt that grated chocolate could be added to wonderful effect, particularly if the chocolate were one of the new high-percentage, low-sugar darks. Nevertheless, I present to you the recipe as she puts it down, with my paraphrase.

1 teaspoon black peppercorns,
1 whole nutmeg,
4 cinnamon sticks,
1 tsp. coriander
1/4 oz good bud, well cleaned and very dry
Pulverize all to a fine powder (a coffee grinder would work excellently here.)

One handful each, chopped fine:
stoned dates
dried figs,
shelled almonds,
shelled peanuts

Add all the above together and toss to combine.

Melt 1/3 c butter, and dissolve into this
1 cup sugar
NOTE: do not cook this mixture...simply stir the sugar into the just-melted butter and take off the fire.

Remove from heat. Cool until mixture can be handled, empty into bowl with other ingredients and stir together.
Turn out onto a cool smooth surface and knead to combine thoroughly.
Roll into a log, from which lumps may be cut and rolled into balls about the size of a walnut and dusted with powdered sugar. Try and do your best to let these sit at least overnight so that the flavors blossom. They will firm up but never quite solidify.

Ms. Toklas advises us that two of these are more than sufficient. Those of more robust or practiced liver may find that the suggested serving size must be adjusted upwards.


Hey, you know. I'm just sayin'. It's certainly not like I'd be making anything like this for Christmas eve or anything.
That would be wrong.

ranting feminist!

One of the myriad reasons I started this blog was that I live in a very, very, very, ultra-mega conservative area of an otherwise reasonably 'Blue' state. Here, I am considered a dangerous rebel merely because I don't even fit the 'rebel' stereotypes the way I'm supposed to; FORGET the political views or any of the other weirdness. What it means is that every single day I find myself biting my tongue in the name of co-existence during the course of even the most casual social interaction. Living here has made me a lot more tolerant, but one thing that will ALWAYS ice the shit out of me are the women I run into every day, women in a free society agreeing to be slaves and raising their daughters as slaves, and calling it Christian.

We live in America and I am an American and I believe in that 'freedom of religious expression' stuff even if you don't; so that come Christmastime, if you want to plaster up 'Jesus is the Reason for the Season' all over your yard and car then go to it; you're right, after all.
As far as that goes.
You're right all the way up until you REQUIRE me to believe that the shit some of you think of as 'Christian' has anything at all to do with Jesus Christ.

Men who make their wives, mothers, sisters and daughters wear ankle-length dresses and walk behind them make me laugh. That has exactly WHAT to do with Jesus? Not letting them learn how to drive or work outside the home has exactly what to do with the Lord? NOTHING WHATSOEVER.
What it means is that your male identity and sense of self is so withered and tiny that you can't allow something with tits to imagine a life without a master. It means that what you want is a self-cleaning house slave with a vagina you can stick your dick into and pump kids out of. Any man raising a daughter who makes her submit to this kind of an upbringing should be put in jail for child abuse. How fucking dare you do this to another human being.
This is slavery training and you do it in the name of the Lord.

An adult woman in a free society who goes along with this shit deserves no respect whatsoever.

An adult woman who raises her children to believe in this shit deserves to be shot in the back of the head.

You have a choice in this country and look what you chose. Yeah, I know why most of you babes are foaming conservatives. Wouldn't life be better if everyone HAD to be conservative? And devout? Preferably your brand of devout? That way you would be totally relieved of that bad ol' responsibility for your own lives!

And then you could blame everything on men. Then you could pretend that everything was somebody else's fault.

Women like you make me ashamed. And sick.

The thing that really puts the cap on all that is the fact that you don't even know how to do your own religion right you ignorant chunks of fuck.

Jesus forgave a prostitute. Not just a woman, not just an unmarried woman who sinned, but A PROSTITUTE.
So what?
Remember what he said? Who among you is without sin then cast the first stone?
You all kind of forget that, don't you.

Do you know what it meant to be a prostitute back then? Just how far outside society you had to be in order to make a living fucking without getting killed?

A prostitute went uncovered-no veil. No chador. Nothing over her head. No hiding. That she was even acknowledged so far as to have this restriction put on her should be making even a retard suspicious at this point. If it was so bad, then why......even allow it?
But no! No, y'all don't even turn an eyelash.

A prostitute lived in a perpetual state of ritual uncleanliness. For her orthodox customers this meant the sacrifice of a few animals and the payment of a fine. For her it mean that Gods face and everyone elses' was turned away from her and that every waking moment of her life was lived under immanent threat of death.

In a society that offered the option of a temporary marriage (and still does) a woman desparate enough to resort to prostitution had to have a lot going against her. It meant that she was ugly, or destitute, maybe deformed in some way, or a victim of rape or incest who had been put out of her family, or a widow nobody wanted. Or maybe, worst of all possible scenarios, she had a riproaring sex drive for whatever reason...don't imagine that clinical nymphomania, hypersexuality or just plain liking lots of sex with strangers are modern inventions. In any case, a prostitute was a throwaway human being, nominated as such by the tacit consent of EVERYONE who allowed her to continue unmarried and alive.
That's right.
THAT'S FUCKING RIGHT.

Here's a group of hypocritical people ready to stone another human being to death merely because that persons 'sin' was obvious, when they all shared the same stain to whatever
extent.

Jesus came along and called them on this bullshit.

In one sweeping moment, one of the greatest moments in the New Testament, he cast all that into the sewer where it belonged. But he didn't simply stand at the sidelines and deplore it. He physically stepped into the middle of a circle of armed people who had the 'law' on their side, PREVENTED THE MURDER AND LET HER GO.
Your God did this. In a human, killable form. Because it was the right thing to do.

And you? Throw you daughters out onto the street for not being virgins.
Another sweet trick you like to pull is known as the 'abusive home birth'. My daughters midwife clued me in about this one. Your unmarried teenage girl gets pregnant? Then she has it. At home. On the floor. Without medication.
You utter bitches.

Now if you believe Catholic tradition (which most of you do but would rather cut your own throats than admit to- or are too ignorant of religious history to even know that you believe it in the first place), Jesus allowed this same woman, Mary Magdalene, to wash his feet and dry them with her hair.

Do you really understand the significance of that act?

Would you let pig lick your feet? Would you consider that an honor? No you wouldn't and you probably aren't even Jewish or Middle Eastern.*
A prostitute was lower than a pig in those days, and a pig was an absolute abomination and horror.
Now here comes a Middle Eastern man who is an orthodox Jew. And, arguably, God in human flesh.
As a human male in that time and place, he knew the score. He knew what prostitutes did. And of course as God he was perfectly aware of it; this was his creation, these supposedly his rules.
The point is, he knew what he 'risked' by coming into contact with her or even entering her home.

AND REFUTED IT UTTERLY.

As a middle eastern, single man he entered the home of an unmarried woman who had no male family members around to 'supervise'.
Furthermore, she was a prostitute.
As God in human flesh,
He accepted her.
He accepted her honor.
He accepted that she COULD honor him.
He acccepted her hospitality.
He accepted her on the exact same level with the exact same graciousness that he accepted everyone else...the lepers he cured, the men he called friends and brothers, his mother, the dying, children, ANYONE.

And when he did this he ended up having to tell his followers off and set them straight, because his followers were absolutely horrified and acted like a bunch of morons.

They still do.



_________________________
*Or a pig farmer (shhh, malc.)

quaint vignettes from my charming rural idyll

THANK YOU ALL! You saved the day!!!

...Captain Pork Products emerges from the underbrush

I am impressed. I had no idea there were so many snack-like things in the world. I'm not going to say who's ideas made the cut and who's did not because then certain people (who know who they are) would be all like "Woo woo! I'm all hot! You're not snot! Loser, loser, loser-pants! Couldn't get in to the King of France! Underpants! Underpants!" and that's really immature.
We don't do immaturity around here.
*******************


Once again its time for the annual 'Oh My God We ALL Gonna DIE Festival of Morons" here in Western Washington as the rain rains and the wind winds.

Click for the making of bigness:


JESUS CHRIST ON A RED BICYCLE PEOPLE GET A GRIP.
This happened last year. And you all had the same exact cow last year. What the fuck.

Most of you haven't even scrubbed the high-water marks from last year off your living room walls yet and you're acting like this shit never happened before. You live in a flood zone. It flooded the first winter you moved in. It's flooded every year thereafter.
It just flooded again.
And every year we end up rescuing the same stupid group of you off your roofs and out of your cars. Oh yes. Because when there's water over the roadway and it's 2 feet deep, and there's a current, with whitecaps, and migrating salmon, AND THE POLICE ARE GOING PAST IN ZODIAC BOATS WITH BULLHORNS TELLING YOU TO STAY IN YOUR HOUSES THE FIRST THING YOU SHOULD DO IS GO HOP IN THE CAR AND TAKE A FUCKING DRIVE!! OH HELL YES! LETS ALL PILE INTO THE GREMLIN AND HEAD DOWN TO WAL-MART!!! WE'LL STOCK UP ON BRATZ DOLLS!!!

Meanwhile here in the Zone of Mystery things are damp; we have rain, there are puddles...a few downed trees...it's a balmy 52 degrees out and my rose bush has broken blossom.

Recall, though; this is not the Zone of Mystery because it isn't zonal or mysterious. I've done posts on the weird shit we call weather here...upside-down canopies of rain, small local tornadoes, no flooding when the rest of the state is under water...

Seattle-King County weather -rain
sumas- SNOW
Seattle-King County weather -sunny, fair
sumas- HIGH WINDS, MICROWAVE OVENS
Seattle-King County weather - gale force winds, freezing rain
sumas- CHICKEN LIVERS


Come the heavy snows down south we'll see the same thing. OO look, a blizzard! Let's all pile into the Yugo and head out down I-5 with nothing registering on the fuel gauge and no windshield wipers, get in a wreck, sit in the car and drink piss for three days and then bitch about how the highway department doesn't keep the roads clear.

Then there's always:

" We were cold so we decided to seal up all the doors and windows with duct tape and fire up the barbecue in the baby's room and now we just can't figure out why we're ALL DEAD"

"The power went out so we plugged in every electrical appliance we own and turned them all on so that we'd know when the electricity came back and now we can't figure out WHY OUR HOUSE BURNED DOWN AND WE'RE ALL DEAD"

"We bought this really shitty 40 year old single-wide mobile home right at the bottom of this freshly-clearcut hillside and then the rain came and there was a mudslide and now my home is a 'not-wide' and so am I OH WHY IS GOD SO CRUEL"

" Well yes I've been sitting in front of the television eating Fritos for six years and I have a heart condition and yes as a matter of fact I don't drive but I had to go outside in the blizzard and shovel the snow off the driveway because I didn't spend all that money on plastic flamingoes just to let the rest of the place go to hell AND NOW MY STUPID ASS IS DEAD AND IT SNOWED ON ME AND NOBODY WILL NOTICE UNTIL IT THAWS AND THE NEIGHBORS' DOGS START EATING MY FACE"

"So we live in a 3 million dollar hillside home perched on two-by-fours bolted into a sandstone formation facing south overlooking Puget Sound and once the winds and the rains picked up there was this loud cracking sound and now we can't figure out why everything is upside down or WHY THERE ARE SQUID COMING IN UNDER THE FRONT DOOR OR WHY WE ALL DROWNED"

"I don't understand why I can't hike 2 miles down to the mailbox in a northeaster wearing nothing but a robe and barefoot in the middle of winter if I want to by God this is America and it's a free country EXCEPT OF COURSE NOW I'M TOO DAMN DEAD TO APPRECIATE THAT FACT"
******************
...Oh say, lets not forget the upcoming holiday season!

Nothing says "I care about my loved ones" more than dying on the side of a glacier as a result of your own selfishness and lack of forethought just in time for Christmas!

Imagine their festive glee as they celebrate a Christmas forever overshadowed by the anniversary of your stupidass demise!

Yes, throw out those tire chains, leave that gps locational device at home! The alpine summits beckon and the sun is going down...there's a blizzard predicted so lets bring the kids!!
Dress lightly! Adidas are fine! Oh, lets take the Volkswagen! NO, silly, the vintage bug; the one with no heater, bald tires and the tiny engine powered by burning scraps of paper! Now I'll forget to take a map and you put your cell phone right here in the washing machine. Did you tell anyone we had plans? No? Good! Spontaneity!
Now LETS GO DIE SLOWLY AND HORRIBLY!

ALL CALL

Ok. I'm putting out an all call here, kids.

Every year I do the same damn hors d'oeuvres spread and I'm getting tired of it. Does anyone have a favorite new or interesting snack-nibble recipe they'd like to offer? I'm looking for savories, NOT COOKIES OR SWEETS...dips, spreads, canapes, cold tray items, things like that.

...THESE THINGS WOULD BE GREAT!

Please, kids...this is for my future son-in-law here. Tapas, hot dips, tiny sandwiches, any cuisine any tradition, any holiday. Complicated? fine! Ingredients? Not a problem!

Snack nibble recipes please!!!

Ok, enough of that.

You are all wonderful people. The imput really gave me something to think about. A lot of somethings, truth be told.

Now here is a picture of a bald cat eating furniture.

...Because nothing says 'Happy Holidays 'like a picture of a naked cat eating some furniture.

No wait. Ok.
Nothing says 'Happy Holidays' like a pensive clown taking a dump.

It's a fact: Nothing says 'Happy Holidays' like Cthulhu awakening from his death-sleep in seaweed garlanded R'lyeh. Really.

... Except maybe a bedside lamp shaped like a weiner dog.

...one of these things. You plug it in.

Or a Mi-Go brain cylinder.
Happy Holidays! It's a Mi-Go brain cylinder!

Obviously nothing says 'Happy Holidays like the first four gospels translated into Juggalo, of course...

........Oh, yes. It's REAL.

Who can deny that anything says 'Happy Holidays' quite as sincerely as checking your outlets to make sure that electricity isn't leaking out?

Nobody, that's who.

Admit it. Nothing says 'Happy Holidays" like a dead jesuit in a fez.

...particularly one being attacked by offstage ninjas throwing flaming shiriken.

Nothing says 'Happy Holidays' like a picture of a cute baby who is nice.

...just as long as you don't piss it off

...because then it morphs into NINJA MAN BABY!

"HOOOOOOOWHAAA! EEEEEEEEYEEEOOOOWAAH! Die Jesuit die!"

...which you have to admit is better than if it morphed into, like, a pterodactyl


...except that it would be cool if it flew around and got in fights with other pterodactyls, and they were like 'HWAH! SMASH! HROAAAAAAAR!' and they crashed into a natural gas plant and it exploded and flames were shooting up everywhere and robots had to come put it out.

So, yeah. Nothing says 'Happy Holidays' like any of that stuff.

Happy Holidays.

Not a fun one.

I'm venting here. I have support and everythings ok...I just need to get this shit off my chest.

I am off today to participate in what is being euphemistically termed a 'caregiving assessment'. This means that all the people involved in The Playboy of the Western Worlds medical crapola are going to sit him down and tell him to quit fucking around: he needs full-time assisted care.

This is a good thing and needs to happen. There's no doubt about that. It needed to happen a year ago. It won't be a difficult thing or even a particularly negative thing, since what this means in the real world is that he moves down the hall from where he lives now and gets servants, essentially.

Once he gets over himself he'll undoubtedly start doing better since he will at the very least be getting his medications regularly and won't have to spend half the day putting on his socks and shaving because he can't breather and his legs hurt.

Meanwhile this little muk is going through some changes.

I've never watched someone die before. I want it to be over, dammit. I want to stop worrying, I want to stop dreading the inevitable. I want him to get it over with already. Unfair, cold and true. He isn't going to get better, there isn't going to be a miracle so just die already.

I want him to get better. He won't.

He wants to be better. He can't.

This doesn't stop him from pretending he is better or lying about his condition. This makes him do foolish things and make foolish decisions that make him get worse. He tries to maintain his life at a level he hasn't been capable of in years and fucks himself up and then we have to come to the rescue and pretend we think he is such a brave old cuss when all I want to do is shake him and yell at him for intruding on my life and making me scared. He has a staff-a good staff, a trained staff- on call 24-7 to change his pissy sheets and empty his urinals and shear him when he needs a haircut, and yet I get called in for a 60 mile round trip to do these things. He's deaf as a post and yet he is is proud to tell everyone he's 'too vain' to get a hearing aid. This means he misunderstands his medical instructions. He shrugs it off.

This isn't cute any more. It hasn't been cute in a long, long time. This isn't spunky or feisty. This is flat out fucking stupid. He doesn't want to be a burden.
He has been one for several years.
I wouldn't be this mad if dementia were an issue. It isn't.
It isn't.
This is plain spoiled brat.
Spoiled, German, man brat.


He was only back in his apartment for a week when he ended up back in interim care this last time. Between the last time I posted about him and now, what happened was, he was in interim care he picked up a cold, which he lied to the staff about. So of course; once you're home, go walking around outside in the wind and the rain all week long and go out to dinner and party and have a bunch of close encounters with germy people. Sure, that'll work. Come Friday he passed out twice in his apartment walking from one room to the next (and that's only what he's admitting to.) Of course he didn't use the call pendant; of course he didn't use the call button on the wall above his bed to alert the staff, of course he didn't put on his oxygen. What did he do? He got on the horn and started calling his buddies and asking them if he should go to the hospital or not. Well, lets see....you're in your seventies, you have six inoperable arterial occlusions and narrowing nerve channels. You have chronic low blood pressure, COPD, and every now and then for the last seven years all your vital signs just quit for a couple of seconds and YOU MOMENTARILY DIE...and you say you've just passed out? Well, I dunno....going to the emergency room....huh.

He had pneumonia.

He ended up in the hospital for 2 weeks. He's still in interim care and there's no end in sight on that front.

I couldn't do a damn thing for him because I had bronchitis. I could'nt get near the guy. On the one hand I'm scared and I want to protect him, and on the other hand I woke up one night and thought "maybe it would be a mercy" and "at least there might be some money left to pay off his bills if...".

I am angry at a god I don't really believe in. I need someone to blame I guess. This kind of a death is like a horrifically sophisticated form of torture...take a little, take a little more, take a little more, strip away the dignity by layers, gradually reduce the world to the size of a single building, and then to a single room. Leave the intellect intact....so they can appreciate the magnitude and inevitability of whats happening. It seems so planned. Something about it just seems well-thought out.

Screw it.

it's 6:25 pm

it's dark outside
and the first snow of the year just began falling




my grandson is here. i took him to the back door and showed him the snow and taught him you can hear it fall.

i'm rich, people. bill gates has nothing i want.

if it aint broke

Two of my favorite movies of all time are being remade. I hate it. And yes, that makes me sound like one of those people who walked three miles to school in the snow and didn't know they were poor because everyone else was too, but you know what? I don't give a fuck either. Some things were done right the first time.

The Sci Fi channel decided to try and get all arty and 're-imagine' the Wizard of Oz. Yes, it's true.
It is also unutterably BAD.
How can I possibly describe how bad it is?
I ask you to imagine a genetic experiment involving televisions' worst writers gone horribly awry..beakers spilled, ham sandwiches dropped into the chronosynclastic protein accelerator...the misbegotten nightmare spawn of Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtman, Steven Long Mitchel and Craig Van Sickle staggers forth, wearing an Emily the Strange t-shirt from Hot Topic, only to be flogged through a steeplechase by Rob Tapert wielding a rolled-up copy of Moebius II.
It isn't pretty, folks.

The second is a deed that for sheer hubris takes my breath away. Some clueless shitweasel has decided that the best science fiction film of all time, notable not only for its brilliant writing and casting but for its gorgeous noir technique, needs an update.

SOMEONE IS REMAKING THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL.

The only thing I can figure is that it must be an investment loss scam.

First of all the film as it stands simply cannot be lifted from its cultural matrix. Remember what happened when some lackwit tried the same thing with The Manchurian Candidate a couple of years ago? No you don't, because it DIED.

'The Day The Earth Stood Still' was a parable based on the hopes and fears of a particular society in a particular frame of time...a technologically naive society pretending that they weren't facing a dark future that completely outstripped their ability to imagine.

Secondly, where in fuck are you going to find actors who can rival what Patricia O'Neil and Michael Rennie brought to the film? Without those two performances, the whole movie would have been just another forgettable pulp screamer.

The magical cinematography is another element that no remake will ever be able to capture. Black and white film making is a lost art, and this kind of black and white film making was an even more special use of the medium. Leo Tover, given the Lowey-esque mache and chicken wire creations of Lyle Weaver and Addison Hehr, turned them into something that loured with menace or glowed with benevolence by turns. Shadows as sharp as scissors or creeping like snowfall, a simple elevator turned into a suspended cell in one jarring instant, a man who moves from kindhearted stranger to malevolence merely by standing slowly, the light from a bedside lamp drawing the darkness blacker beneath the planes of his face and making his eyes glitter...no, this technique is so much a part of this film's impact that it becomes impossible to imagine the movie without it.

There's a reason I'm not giving links; and its because I don't want to inflate their hit stats. For heavens sake, do yourself a favor and watch the originals...the Wizard of Oz, and The Day the Earth Stood Still. Better yet, buy them. But give the remakes a pass.

Malachite Waxwing Have One Thousand Of Debt!

I looked out the back window this morning and noticed the dead cornstalks thrashing about. "Aw hell, please don't tell me I've got a skunk," I prayed to the varmint god as I ran for the binocs.

When I raised them I saw a flicker awkwardly hopping around in my garden. This lady was nearly the size of a banty pullet; soft dove buff on the sides, with her gorget of shiny black. I've never seen a flicker this size before. The flicker one usually sees is a slender, thrush-sized bird, and usually stuck on the side of a softwood tree ring-barking it in search of sap and bugs. I checked out my plantings. Everything seemed good on that front so I settled in to watch the bird instead.

A Flicker has two toes front and two toes back like a ptsittacid, designed more for clinging to the sides of trees, so it wasn't making very good headway as it bumbled along. What it lacked in traction, though, it made up for in brute force, wearing a little circle of mud on its face where it had driven its bill further into the dirt than it had planned on doing. While I watched it went along pulling disgusting huge grubs up out of the soil. They might have been harmless; they might not have been harmless. I don't care...they were disgusting; now they're dead. Godspeed, birdie.

This autumn has brought the starlings out in their hundreds of thousands, so many that in flight they stop cars and darken half the sky. This time of the year their crops are full of rotted pears, apple mush and spoiled pumpkin. This effectively silences their wirebrush -on-steel flock voice, although one pays for the silence with the paint on any vehicle that isn't parked in a garage.

They flood in low from the field across the street and land on my lawn to pick and roam about, making all the browned stems in my neglected plantings jiggle about. (I know, I should have pulled this stuff out a month ago but I was too lazy; and it was raining. Probably.)
This late in the year they still aren't any smarter than they started out in the spring, I note: plenty of feathery little road pizzas out there have yellow feet, particularly when the pavement runs past an orchard or a hawthorne tree.

My hawthorne is down to bare twigs, too late for the starlings. A month or so past the robins beat them to the berries, and within two hours' time had stripped the tree bare of not only fruit, but leaves as well.
An American robin is a pretty sensible little guy, and not a destructive bird at all. When I noted this happening I clambered up on back of the couch to look outside, and after I watched the robins for a few minutes it dawned on me what the problem was.
These robins were bombed.

They flung themselves around at random through the branches, picking at whatever they spied...buds, fruit, each other, leaves...falling off their perches, missing them completely and crashing into the tam juniper, falling asleep in the grass while their friends walked over them. I think what had happened was, what few scarlet berries had fallen from the hawthorne by themselves had frozen, thawed and then fermented over the past few days. The robins were having a kegger.

Now a young sharp-shinned falcon destined for great things had taken note of this impromptu gathering of feathered hors d'oeuvres and had settled in to my 'Jackie Kennedy' rosebush nearby to spy out the situation. This bird was ingenious. As I watched he started up suddenly, frightening the robins into all directions like buckshot. It was fascinating to see. Both times he came out of the canes in a burst of motion and color, all eyes and talons and feathers-everything falcon, deadly and sudden completely on display and just that quickly folded back into something rapid and hungry. The robins responded to this in blind panic. They bounced off the siding and left feathers in the overhanging shingles as they fled. Both times the falcon sailed past my window, around the hawthorne and back into the rose canes in an effortless gliding figure eight. Out, past and done.

Both times the robins flew as far as the neighbors willow tree and clung there swinging from the whips like awkward parrots, talking themselves into going back to the party. Both times they did. One minute the hawthorne tree was bare and the next it was full once again, robins hanging upside down, robins losing their footing and tripping, robins having arguments, trying to order drinks with complicated names, using the wrong bathrooms and hitting on the wrong women, robins attempting to pick up the same berry seven times in succession and dropping it each time.

The final time the falcon came rampaging out of the roses one robin smacked right into the glass only inches from my face. Immediately behind it sailed the little falcon, glide, whip, flare and land, right on a branch just outside the window. It paused, yellow and streaked as a little flame, looking down into the plantings at the meeping robin standing in the grass. Then it opened its wings slightly, drifted down and bit the robin just behind the dome of it's skull.
It happened quickly and neatly in as much time as it takes to read about. I drew back from the window and just sat there in awe.

Today the same young man came dancing past in his full adult plumage being harassed by the raven couple that live next door in the alder tree. Nothing much daunted he flipped his tail and sailed into a nearby cherry tree. Once they felt that this undersized menace was taken care of, Mr. and Ms Raven parted and circled and regrouped and parted again, and played in the air all the way back to their raggedy pile of sticks high up in the limbs of the alder.

I get a kick out of watching the two of them. Back when they first met they were all young love and sweet nuzzles. They would sit on the roof of my shed and watch me weed the garden while they tenderly fed one another tidbits of baby bird. They whistled musically, or said 'Mao? Rom? Mop' while the fat broad toiled below, one nestling down like a comfortable chicken on the tin roof while the other one strode around picking in the corrugations for hidden treats. When I was inside my shed I could hear them up there on the metal just over my head like two romantic bags of nails as they shuffled around.

The two of them are like an ace barnstorming team. When the walnuts ripen down the street they play catch midair over the fields. One flies high with a green walnut and drops it; the one flying low flips over onto its back in midair, at the last possible moment before the walnut would bonk it on the head and catches it with its beak and feet. High dips low, close to the ground, while low flies high. Once the walnut is dropped, it is caught; but this time it is flicked up into the air by low. High snags it, flapping its wings hard, and shoots straight up into the air to drop the walnut once again. Over and over they loop, switching places and altitude randomly, and yet seldom does either of them ever miss a catch.

When the house sparrows built a nest in the clematis just outside my kitchen door this summer I lined up a row of clattery milk jugs on the porch rail to make the ravens think twice about robbing their nest.
Once the noisy little family was fledged and the nest abandoned, I took the milk jugs down and left a cob of corn there to lure the ravens back.
When I checked that evening, the corn cob was gone; and in its place was a small, small egg...palest blue with dark maroon speckles...a sparrow egg left behind in the little nest just beneath.
I still have it.

NSFW: Clara Peller, to the lost and found....Clara Peller...

For your delectation:

1. Vin Diesel. As long as he isn't trying to, say, act, or speak, or do much of anything except stand around and look hot.

Oh HELL yeah.

Yes I know he owns mean dogs. This isn't about dog ownership. This is about OBJECTIFYING MALE SEXUALITY. Like this:














Yes indeedy. Now this, my friends, is how dirty boys get clean.













2. Time has not dimmed his glory, nor age his lickability...I give you the long tall daddy of nerd heat: JOHN CLEESE. Because when you have a Johnson the size of Maine you can wear whatever the hell you want to. Oh yes.






I mean just look at the thing... He had to train it to walk alongside him so he can go out in public for chrissakes.









3. Michael Jordan. So much hotter now that he doesn't have to play sports and can just roam around in his underwear looking GOOD. Nobody looks as good as Michael Jordan does when he looks good. In fact, lets do that again:












Yeah, honey. Smoke that cigar.














4. Ben Cohen. Beeeeeeeeeeeeeen Coooooooooooooooooohen.






















5. Lenny Kravitz. Back then in them dear dred days.












Now look at that face. Or try to anyway. Same cute smile, same features, right?

OK, This isn't Lenny, but for the purposes of this post we are all going to pretend that it is Lenny. Right? It's Lenny, right? Looks like Lenny to me. Sure it does.

Yeah, crap.












....Were you wondering where Mr. Depp was?
Well, see, to my way of figuring, Mr. Depp really doesn't belong on this list. Sure, stick some eyeliner on the guy and he's ok...












...still, THIS is what you wake up next to.

Whats up with his ass? What? What? What happened to Johnny Depps butt? Does he know that thing's been following him around? Come on here. That is not a butt.

















...THIS, ladies and gentlemen, is a butt.

And the rest of this post is over at UJ.

heavily medicated for your protection: UPDATED

update: hey horndogs, there's a new one up at UJ. bear hunters take note!


I've been taking a hefty dose of Prozac for around 13 or so years now, and I'm glad to say that it still works like a charm. The side effects were mild and fleeting in my case. In any event the positive effects so far outweighed anything threatened that I would have gladly put up with duodenal bleeding, rashes, fainting spells or an accordion growing out of my butt. Clinical depression is no goddamn picnic, my darlings.

One of the side effects of Prozac is supposed to be exceptionally vivid and unusual dreams. And it's true as far as that goes; if you take it late in the day, you're going to have dreams that you'll REALLY REMEMBER the next morning. It's as though the sound, brightness and focus get cranked on full bore. But as far as unusual content goes?
I would not know.
No, I would most definitely would not.

I remember dreams I had back when I was barely able to walk. They were about things like hydrangea shrubs that could talk, covered in broken Christmas lights. A moon so big it filled up half the sky. Knowing the secret language of all trees. Huge water towers that walked around at night but turned out to be friendly. Owning shoes that made flaming footprints.

So yes, all the other little kids used to struggle with their creative writing assignments; meanwhile I was kicked back in my seat with a smoking piece of paper already in the teachers 'in' basket, blowing the flames off my pencil. Honey, give me a challenge.
Art class? They wanted an incense burner made out of clay? I gave them an unnecessarily detailed obese pig with cleverly designed outlet ports; so that when a smouldering cone of incense was introduced into its back passage the smoke curled out of its ears, its mouth, nose and the corners of it's eyes.
Would you like us to draw a picture based on our studies of the ancient Aztecs, Mr. Sherholtz?
No, you wouldn't. No really Mr. Sherholtz you wouldn't. OK fine Mr. Sherholtz then I need to get a pass to go down to the library and consult their copy of Grey's Anatomy because it's the one with the color transparencies. How do you expect me to draw a convincing portrayal of a human chest cavity that's been hewn open with an obsidian knife unless you give me a pass to go to the library Mr. Sherholtz? *
__________

Yesterday I made the mistake of skipping my meds.

And yet this is what I dreamed last night:

A lovely British family has invited me to visit their home on the river Test and to stay as their guest. (One of you, as a matter of fact.)

They live in a wonderful old brick Victorian era building; a ferry terminal standing right at the very edge of the water, filled with lovely things and beautifully decorated. In fact, it is still in use as a ferry terminal. Every hour the family suspend all their activities and retreat to an iron balcony while large steam ferries draw up alongside and the passengers disembark through the living room. Meanwhile, out on the Amazonian-sized river Test sailing ships under full sheets move past the windows.

Their grandfather is John Cleese, who sleeps a lot. He is immensely fat and balding, covered in liver spots. He is attended by a very nice little boy of about 10 years, chubby and red haired, who sings like an angel. He supports the family by delivering singing telegrams.

These very nice people decide to take me to visit their aunt, and to show me the sights. We all embark on this trip in ultralight aircraft and sail above the chimneys and cathedral spires of medieval Paris (Which is what modern London apparently looks like from above; stay with me here) admiring the view and chatting about the buildings we see.

As we approach the aunts house it becomes apparent that she lives inside a bombed-out catholic church that was abandoned during the Second World War, the church of the Blessed Virgin.
We sail around the cornices admiring the old painted advertising signs (Hudson, Signal Gasoline, Bull Durham Tobacco) flaking away on the sides of the building and the various medallions and details depicting scenes from the Virgin Mary's life. As we spiral downward we pass a strange vignette that I don't recall from catechism; The Virgin Mary crouched inside a small room peering out through a pair of high-powered binoculars. "Hm, " I think. "That's odd."

Yes for the first time.

The nave and transepts and part of the sacristy have been patched with brick and steel brace and remade as a private residence; meanwhile pigeons sail through the openings high above where stained glass windows used to be and piles of pews lay in stacks against the walls.

The aunt bustles about and greets us, trailed by a large elderly Labrador retriever. We sit on the sofa next to the communion rail and admire the altarpiece which is still in place behind a gated surround.

This Tiajuanan vignette depicts the Virgin Mary in a heroic stance, a pair of military issue field binoculars raised halfway to her face as she gazes off into the distance with an alert and noble expression. Nearby is an azimuth table, or whatever you call those range finder table thingies used in field operations and fire towers. The whole area is full of old rat droppings and broken wood and stone; everything covered in plaster dust , pigeon crap and old, old dirt.

Marylin Manson is one of the guests. I sit on his lap and we chat. He turns out to be a very nice guy. Rather on the slight side too. Long black cat claws extend from his fingertips. Because I am seated on his lap I am able to note that his eyes really are like that. So is his skin, because he really is dead, although he seems to be in a friendly mood despite that.

Eventually I get up to go see if the lady of the house needs any help. I want to make a nice impression as a guest in this country, after all.

Back in the sacristy is a kitchen and a small dining area with an early 60's Magnavox stereo credenza off to one side. The large Labrador retriever comes wagging out to greet me and I scratch it's head. Another animal waddles out to meet me too. At first I assume this is a massively warty white standard poodle. Its back and face are covered with strange irregular masses that hang in wattles or form wobbly mountain ranges on it's back and sides, all of it covered by a thin coat of white curly....something. It doesn't feel exactly like fur.

As I scratch its head it opens its mouth to bark, but instead a strange yawping sound emerges. Something is wrong with this animals face, I note. The mouth and the head are really short and round and there aren't any teeth.
"What kind of dog is this?" I ask.
"Oh, that's a turkey," says the aunt.

This doesn't bother me nearly as much as it should.

I continue scratching its head and it makes the yawping sound a couple more times. Long yellowed masses of warty flesh hang down on either side of its face like uneven beagle ears, or flat sweet potatoes, covered with what I now realize are downy, curly pinfeathers. "Huh. I would have never thought it was a turkey," I say.
"Well, that's what they look like when they get really old", says the woman. "I've probably kept it too long, but I'm so used to it now, you know."



And then I wake up.



Have a nice day.



____________________________________________________

*He gave in finally. Mrs. Merrin called him on the intercom when she saw what I was drawing.

quaint vignettes from my charming rural idyll

Y'all are outstanding. I've been to other places; I know you have too-where an issue like gun ownership would have had people raging and frothing... attacking one another in the comments lounge, knocking over the furniture, spilling the crab, setting the Egon Scheile collection on fire.

As it stands, we only had one glass broken and someone left the water running in the bar sink. There's a stain on the carpet over by the Mapplethorpe but that happens a lot in that corner for some reason.

In reading back I wish I hadn't used the comment equating a broad, broad term like pacifism with non-ownership of guns, because that leads to the opposite 'self-defense=ownership of guns', which is 1. spectacularly inaccurate and 2. shitty logic on my part. I'm supposed to know how to develop an argument better than that.

Here's what I got out of it.

I think there's something to be learned from the Brits. There's got to be something fundamentally different-and saner- about they way they approach living in a group. We don't feel safe. A significant percentage of the British population DO. I find that extremely interesting and you should too.

Any of y'all Brits who might want to do a post on this, let me know. I'll give you three days up on my blog, either your link or your actual post.

_______________________________


We had a windstorm yesterday that knocked out the power for at least 16 hours. This was as bad a go as I've ever seen here; tropical storm level winds, pieces of other peoples' barns cartwheeling past, small trees lying almost parallel to the ground and large trees broken off halfway. I sat in the front window and watched thousands of bright yellow alder leaves bounding and tumbling across the field across the street, rushing straight toward me. The grass lay flat and glittered. The only birds out were seagulls, who know how to enjoy a good storm, and small ducks, which do not.

At the best of times a small duck is not a real aerodynamic little guy, so why, in the middle of a near-hurricane force blow, they should suddenly decide to take to the air is beyond me. Still, there they were, flapping their little wings to beat sixty, all steadfastly aimed in the same direction and yet blowing sideways and and around in circles like chips in a current of water.

...of course, you eat a baby this size you won't be flying anywhere.

The gulls dipped and dove and tumbled and sailed all around them. Probably giving them a bad time. "OO hey, be careful, you guys! Hey! Where ya headed, guys? Hey! You guys need a map?" That sort of thing.

This morning the power is back on and the sun is out. Yesterday afternoon many of the main roads were blocked by fallen trees; today I'd be surprised if there were more than three that remained impassable. Most everyone who lives out here has learned to carry a chainsaw in the car all fall and winter. Practically as soon as a tree hits the pavement there's three guys stopped in the road, sawing it into chunks and winching them over to the side of the street.



Public works was on the ball. They don't get nearly the attention they deserve for what they do for us out here in the stickerbushes. They had crews out all day in the middle of the worst.

...we know how to roll up in the PNW.

Imagine being up in a boom truck, 25 feet over the pavement, during 60 mph winds in sideways rain, trying to dodge half of a Douglas fir swinging around, all tangled up in live power lines. That, my friends, would be fucked up.

Would I do it? I would not. Well I might, if they'd let me take the boom truck home at night.

Guns UPDATED

I found myself getting all worked up over the issue of ownership* the other day but for the life of me I can't remember what
-and she avoids the obvious pun and says instead

- naah...triggered it off.
Sorry; it's a sickness.
I just remembered what is was anyway. The stereotype that nice women do not like and are not interested in firearms; that they think they are scary and loud and shooty. Most of all, unnecessary.

While I can by no means be described as a nice woman I am a relatively average one. Like everyone I know, I grew up around guns. They're a part of my culture. Although I think it's creepy now, I had toy guns when I was a kid. (Remember, though; that was back in 1964-65. Kids could buy candy cigarettes and bubblegum cigars and ride around in the family car standing up on the front seat dancing like a go-go girl to 'She Loves Me had Yeah Yeah Yeah'. At least I did.)

I live in an average neighborhood in the Northwest and it's fairly common knowledge that we own guns. Everydamnone owns guns. It's no big fucking deal. Everyone owned guns when I was a kid, too. Again; no big deal. The ownership of guns does not automatically cause one to wake up one morning and walk down the street picking off schoolchildren. What it meant back then (and does now, in the Northwest at least) was that you could go out and shoot your own meat if you got laid off work or went on strike. A lot of people did. A a lot of people had to. That kept our shit going one winter in the early 70's.

It also meant, as it does now, that if some shitheel kicked in your door and you're at home you had a chance of defending your family and your property.

That aspect of gun ownership brings the anti- gun fice trotting out of their porti-sans. "Oh, but what if they take it away from you and use it on you?" To which I say "I've never, never once heard of that happening to someone I've known, lived near or done business with. What I have heard of is, someone ends up with a dead shitheel in the middle of their front room and has to replace the carpet."
And that is a fact. Over the course of my life I've known, and known of, a lot of average people who fired a gun in order to protect themselves on their own property. And it worked.

If it isn't on anyones' horizon of reality, the reason is that the police don't want to encourage that kind of thing. They're here to keep the peace, remember; not create vigilante heroes that would attract 'gunslingers'. They make no bones about it. Another reason is that an average, socially-adjusted sane person isn't going to go around bragging about how they killed someone; taking a life is horrifying and sickening, even if it is a 'them or me and mine' situation.

Another comment that arises is "Oh, like you'd really be able to kill someone if it came down to it. You'd choke and then you'd really be in trouble."

I'm a wife and a mother. Try and come at my family. Try and fuck with what my husband's worked for.
It's like that.

This is an issue that I've had to deal with in real life. One thing I KNOW about myself is that I not only could, I would. And that I would freak out and end up with bad PTSD. I mean, everyone started out as a little kid. It's fucked up world.

Back when it was just me and my baby daughter I had to look that issue in the face. The facts were these: I was a single woman with a baby, I was poor and I had no backup. None. Don't even say 'the police'. Just DON'T. That's another post.

I was not living in the land of the Care Bears. I lived in the middle of Seattle. People used to sell drugs out of the windows of my building. Whores tricked in the stairwells. Guys used to screw in the alley under my kitchen window. Here's how I lived then (and this is po' folks all the way, too.) I had a baseball bat next to the door and a hunting knife jammed into the frame up above the chain latch. Someone knocked. You picked up the baseball bat. Keeping your head away from the edge of the door, you stood sideways, opened the door with your hip braced against it and the side of your foot used as a stop. If they gave it a kick you could stop it with your weight and the help of the chain. If they made a grab, you slammed the door on their arm, broke it with the bat and then 'pinned' them there until the police came. The knife part was my idea. If someone fucked with me they were going to know they messed with a bitch.

As soon as I had the money I purchased a 45. Then I went to the sheriffs office, registered my weapon and got a carry permit. I qualified for concealed carry (which is good) and I took that right quick. I was packed 24/7. Every single time I left the house for three solid years, too.

I underwent a full background check which I consented to gladly. The outcome of that check, my fingerprints and my photograph are now on file at the FBI. And goddammit, I AM PROUD of this. It is verifiable proof that I own and intend to use IN A SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE MANNER. I have nothing to hide. (Interestingly enough it makes you just that much more employable, too. )

The world is full of people who don't play nice...predators, the criminally insane, the sociopathic, the dangerously schizophrenic. Whether or not people want to believe it or know it, these folks live all around us, they're related to us, we work with them...it's a simple fact of life. Just because you think ahead to rational outcomes doesn't mean anyone around you does the same.

The fact that you have a vagina does not change this. Neither does it serve as a magical 'danger and not-niceness-averting' talisman of some sort.
Quite the opposite.
Still, if you're single and have no dependents, go ahead and be a pacifist.
But if you have children, shame on you. Fucking shame on you.

_________________________________
* I put this out with the phrase 'gun control' here and that's a completely different kettle of fish. Whoops. I mean private ownership of guns, 'K?

Yellow Bandicoot Revenge!

I wish there were such a thing as a handbook of do's and don'ts that they'd hand out to teenage boys in health class. It would make life so much simpler for everyone involved. Boys wouldn't have to 'learn' their moves from music videos and girls would never, never again have to hear the words "Is this it? is this it?"


In fact, lets tackle that one first.
But I don't wanna look at it; it's weird.
You have to look at it. It's not bad. It's like, a, one of those funny-shaped things.
What funny shaped things?
One of those vagina things. Now get down there and look. See? Nothings waving. You're going to be sticking you dick in there but you're afraid to look; geeze, what a pup. Are you sure you're old enough to be doing thisAHARAGHRAGH!
...No, no no, I'm sorry, I apologize, that was me. It's a hand puppet, see? The teeth are made of felt. Look. See?



OK. I'll draw a picture:

0-x (note: blogger will not print 'greater' and 'lesser' carats. you see what you can learn here?)

Aim for the dash.




Chapter One: Take the mirror test!

No, put your clothes back on, son. Nobody wants to see that until there's hair on it.

Take a good look at yourself in the mirror. What do you see?

If you see a white boy, take a permanent marker and write this down on the back of your favorite hand right now:

WHITE, BUT NOT BARRY WHITE

You are not nor will you ever, ever be Barry White. *
Never, never attempt to imitate Barry White while you are having sex. Not his voice, not his intonation, not his signature lines. Never never never. Even if you grew up in the middle of Compton. Even if you have an unusually melodious voice. In fact avoid Barry White impersonations for two days prior to and during sexual activity (with another person.)

A grown man doing Barry White impersonations with his mouth full of pubic hair is sad.

A 15 year old boy with three cat hairs on his upper lip doing Barry White impersonations while frantically dabbing his dick all over Hells' half acre wondering where the goddamn hole is, is sad AND hysterically funny.
Laughter isn't the kind of response you're going for here.

Yes, it's true...you will remain that pinky-beige color for the rest of your life. Make friends with this fact. Own it. There are probably lots of women out there who'll find nothing whatsoever off-putting about it.

Mirror test 2: Who Am I?
Come on asshole; you don't know this?

Mirror test 2.a: WHAT IS THE TRUE NATURE OF MY INNER SELF?
See, now, that testiness; that's hormones.

When you see yourself in the mirror, you see an average young person with a more or less normal life. Now of course not everyone has a normal life. Movie stars, for example, don't have normal lives by any stretch of the imagination. Now ask yourself: Are you a movie star?

Yes, it's a silly question and you might laugh. And you should because you don't have a ghost of a chance of becoming one either.
As we all should know by now, life isn't very fair. You have to make up every single thing you say on the spur of the moment; movie stars have people who do that for them...and that means that you're at a distinct disadvantage when you're confronted with something that leaves you completely at a loss for words. Like boobies.

Let's say that you and a group of male buddies are sitting together when the freshman girls' gym class run past.
Any phrase that springs to your mind at this moment IS EXACTLY THE PHRASE YOU SHOULD NEVER USE DURING AN INTIMATE MOMENT. "Time for a milkin', baby, What's up with your nipples, Shake them fuckin' jugs, Don't give yourself a black eye, Looks like a couple of cub scouts wrestling in a pup tent, Oh my God that's the funniest thing I've ever seen I think I'm gonna die, Jesus look at them jiggle, Put on a bra, Wowzer whadda pack a' boobs", and other such phrases ARE NOT THE KIND OF THING ONE SAYS IN AN INTIMATE MOMENT. Not even to that blow up doll you think nobody saw you take out of the New Years Eve party box in the closet.

3. There's no such thing as truth in advertising in the wacky game of romance!

When it all comes down to brass tacks, neither of you rate first prize at this stage in your young lives. Yes, I mean you with the huge zits all over your back, bucko.
Be kind. Tell a white lie. Make a good memory if you can't make a great one. Remember: you have those giant seeping zits all over your back. If she's less than what you'd been lead to believe, don't mention it. IF YOU VALUE YOUR LIFE YOUNG MAN DON'T MENTION IT.

In fact, you may be surprised to find that the very same rule applies for everything about a young womans' body. There's only one simple rule to remember: If you find yourself less than overwhelmed by the quality on view, NEVER NEVER MENTION IT UNLESS YOU WANT TO DIE REAL BAD.

Do you know why? Take this multiple choice quiz:
1. Women are nuts
2. It's not polite to criticize
3. I'm too young to know what the fuck I'm talking about anyway
4. The only naked ladies I've ever seen were represented in two dimensions
5. I'm lucky she got naked at all; I should get down, kiss her feet and thank GOD instead of going waa waa waa like a fuckin' little punkass puke.

Answer:________________________________________________**

3. Take the Sniff test!
Everyone perspires-it's a fact! During this special time in a young mans life you might find that the amount and odor of your perspiration has increased. Many young people find this embarrassing, but relax; a normal part of growing is smelling like the jock strap stuck to the floor in a hard fungus-coated clump that Frankenstein took off and threw behind the laundry hamper.
Vigorous activity produces sweat, and your newly-active apocrine glands provide the odor, something which bacteria and other factors, like being addicted to beef jerky, can add to.
Many young people make the mistake of thinking they can hide these problems with various deodorant and anti-perspirant preparations on the market today. Mot of these young people have to wear helmets and cannot be trusted around pets or swimming pools.

Yes indeed...riding a bike, sports, helping your dad mow the lawn can cause sweat and odor.
SO DOES SEXUAL ACTIVITY.
It's not exempt. Magical cupids do not sprinkle rose petals down softly upon you and your darling as you tenderly encounter one another amid the fragrant pink clouds and baby bunnies. You will sweat. Like a hog. A big hog.
After everything is said and done, though, just get the fuck over yourself; you're a teenage boy. You usually smell like the ass of a bear.
TAKE A SHOWER BEFORE HAVING SEX.


4. Take the Giggle Test!
Sounds like fun, doesn't it? But this might very well be the most important test of all!
When your favorite music video comes on, romantic lighting, clever makeup techniques and vats filled with silicone make up a large part of the magic you're seeing. True, everything looks dreamy when Ussher throws a liplock on the ho in the back seat of his limo, but what's missing from that moment is the long whistling fart that ho just cut against the vinyl seat.

Remember our old friend sweat from #3? Don't play stupid you little gink I know you do. Sweat has a funny way of making even the most romantic moment into something as hilarious and heartbreaking as George Bush attempting to explain....well, just about anything, pretty much.

Lost in the throes of boyhood passion, slapping away desperately at the ass of your beloved like one of those birds that drink out of a water glass that you win at the fair except imagine the bird is real and the glass is full of crack, the rivers of sweat you produce can make you slip and miss your mark. This might be a level of intimate contact that you and your young partner are not ready to experience yet. Of course it might be, and in that case it's called 'Greeking'.
Still, it's best if you do NOT guffaw "Wow, I betcha THAT wuz a surprise, huh!"

As you lie atop your sweetheart thrusting your turgid manhood into what pretty much feels like the right place, flumping and wallowing like an elephant seal battling a life raft and not supporting any of your own weight whatsoever, the excessive sweat you're producing is puddling in her belly button. This can actually cause the two of you to stick together...and come apart suddenly with a romantic blubberous farting sound.
-Don't crack up laughing and fall off the bed.
-DO NOT look down at her and say "Jesus; excuse yourself!" and crack up laughing and fall off the bed.
-And most certainly NEVER, NEVER say "Huh! I don't remember eating that!" and crack up laughing and fall off the bed. Because the floor is where you'll be likely to remain.



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*Insert the name of any well-known black gentleman with a distinctive voice here. I use Barry because Barry and I have a history. Is this an Oregon thing? Is there a universe in which it is anything other than sad and lame for a white guy to suddenly go all Galveston and start moaning"uuuuOOOOAAAAAAOOOOYEAH, BAAAAAAAAYBY....AAAAAAAH FEEL THE POWER when he's all whappity-slappin away down yonder?

** Oh please don't tell me you actually had to look here for the answer. Jesus; shoot yourself NOW.

Quaint vignette from my charming rural idyll

We got the Playboy of the Western World moved back in. He hit the street running, which he can't do but does anyway, and immediately overdid it, roaming all over hells' half acre schmoozing it up until he couldn't walk and needed oxygen.

We had 'Lifeline' installed for him. I'm pretty impressed with the system, actually. It costs 35.00 a month, which is pretty damn reasonable, and 50.00 to install. This highly technical process involves plugging an extremely sensitive conference node into the wall, and plugging the phone into that.
Done.
The rest of the 'installation' is spent in orientation and practice with the system. I was there for this. They were really patient and it was really very simple. He wears a call button, about the size of your average groovy peace medallion, around his neck on a lanyard 24/7. When he presses that he can speak and be heard from any room of his apartment. And that's it.
Fuck, I want one now. This relieved a huge burden of worry from all of us and I wish we'd gotten it sooner.
Now I have to go and do some shopping for him because all the stuff in his refrigerator is stanky.